How Texas recruitment of Arch Manning depended on quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee

After Texas won the Arch Manning sweepstakes in June, Nelson Stewart, Manning’s coach at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, joked that throughout the recruiting process, he talked to Longhorns quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee more than his own wife.

Stewart, whom the Manning family designated to run point on Arch’s recruitment, wasn’t exaggerating by much.

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“We talked every day,” Stewart told The Athletic this week. “He typically still calls in the evening when he’s driving home to see his kids. He’ll call me en route.”

It is that type of persistence that proved integral in Texas’ recruitment of Manning, the top recruit in the 2023 class with the famous last name. Milwee showed up at Newman at 7 a.m. and stayed until 7 p.m. on days he was allowed to recruit on campus. He brought his own video camera to film the quarterback’s on-field work. He built a strong relationship with Manning, the grandson of Archie, son of Cooper and nephew of Peyton and Eli, and gained the family’s trust.

Committed to the University of Texas. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/jHYbjBaF5K

— Arch Manning (@ArchManning) June 23, 2022

Over the past 19 months, Stewart and the Manning clan have come to know Milwee, 36, as a personable, even-keeled coach with a relentless work ethic. That echoes the sentiments of those he has played and worked for and coached. Once one of the youngest offensive coordinators in the FBS, Milwee is emerging as an invaluable part of Steve Sarkisian’s staff in Austin as a coach and recruiter. And as the Longhorns mull a decision on naming Quinn Ewers or Hudson Card their starter, it’s Milwee who is working closest with them daily.

“If you’re going to be given the responsibility to be the quarterbacks coach at Texas, you better have authority over that position,” said Louisiana-Monroe coach Terry Bowden, who hired Milwee to his first coaching job. “He clearly has the authority and knowledge.”

Milwee’s quarterback expertise comes from personal experience.

His father, Jeff, was a longtime high school coach and AJ “was raised on the sideline,” Bowden said. Drew Noles, who coached AJ in his final two years at Boaz High in Alabama, said he was a “phenomenal” multi-sport athlete.

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“He was a great basketball player; his team made the final four,” Noles said. “He was on two state champion golf teams. He could’ve played college baseball. He could’ve run track for us.

“He was truly one-of-a-kind.”

Milwee shined brightest as a quarterback. He led Boaz to the quarterfinals of the Class 4A playoffs in his junior and senior seasons. Noles remembers a long game-winning touchdown run in the second round of the 2003 postseason versus Shelby County in which Milwee reversed field “and probably ran 200 yards” dodging tackles all the way to the end zone.

“He made Flutie-type plays,” Noles said. “He wasn’t a prototypical sit-in-the-pocket guy. He was hard to tackle then, my goodness.”

Though some scholarship offers came, Division I schools weren’t too interested in the 5-foot-10 Milwee. So he walked on at Alabama for a year before transferring to North Alabama, then a Division II program.

Milwee set multiple passing records under then-coach Mark Hudspeth. Milwee still holds the school’s career marks for passing yards (8,436), completions (677), attempts (1,030) and touchdown passes (73). He was a two-time finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy, Division II’s equivalent to the Heisman. He led the Lions to the D-II playoffs three straight years, including a semifinal appearance in 2008.

After graduating with a finance degree, Milwee remained at UNA as a graduate assistant for two years under Bowden, who succeeded Hudspeth following 2008. Milwee spent a year on staff at East Mississippi Community College, winning a national junior college title, before reuniting with Bowden at Akron as his quarterbacks coach in 2012.

A year into his time with the Zips, Bowden promoted Milwee, then 26, to offensive coordinator, the second-youngest in the FBS to hold that title at the time. Bowden was the same age when he landed his first head coaching job at Salem College in 1983, so Milwee’s youth didn’t rattle him.

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“He had good coaching skills from the very beginning,” said Bowden, whose ULM team opens the season at Texas on Sept. 3.

At Akron, Milwee was a quick study. He was demanding without being demeaning.

“He’s hard on the guys that he trusts. … His expectations for you are very high,” said Thomas Woodson, the Zips starting quarterback from 2015-17. “He’s tough on his guys at quarterback more than any other guys on offense.”

Said Bowden: “It wasn’t screaming and hollering and all those things that you might get from someone else. When he runs a meeting, he’s very smart, he’s very organized, he knows what he’s doing.”

Over time, Bowden — who has called plays most of his career — began delegating that duty to Milwee. “I’ve met a lot of young coaches that I wouldn’t turn it over to,” Bowden said. But he said he felt Milwee had star potential, so gradually, he’d have Milwee provide more input.

“AJ would send plays in through me, and sometimes I might say, ‘No, let’s do this,’ but I very seldom ever had to do that,” Bowden said. “He understands why if you run it one way that you better have a counter play the next play, when’s the time to catch the defense off guard.”

Woodson said Milwee emphasized a fast pace to make opposing defenses uncomfortable. The Zips won their first bowl and achieved their first eight-win season as an FBS program in 2015 and made another bowl two seasons later. But after a 4-8 campaign in 2018, Bowden was fired. Milwee joined Alabama’s staff as an analyst in 2019, where he met Sarkisian, then Alabama’s offensive coordinator.

When Milwee and Sarkisian united in Tuscaloosa, they quickly developed a rapport.

“We spoke the same language, thought the same way,” Sarkisian said. “Came from different systems but came together where I completely entrusted him with everything that I felt like needed to get done. And … I could always count on AJ to get it done.”

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After Alabama went 24-2 in two seasons and set offensive records en route to winning the 2020 national championship, Sarkisian brought Milwee with him to the Forty Acres. One of the top priorities was connecting with Manning. With the pandemic-induced recruiting dead period still ongoing, the initial Manning contact in January 2021 came via videoconference.

When secondary coach Terry Joseph sent Stewart the Zoom link, Stewart clicked on it, and the first face he saw was Milwee’s. Both Sarkisian and Milwee had regular Zoom calls in the first half of 2021 with Manning, and Stewart said he could sense that the star quarterback  “really connected” with Milwee.

“He’s a really authentic guy in developing his relationships,” Sarkisian said. “He’s diligent in his craft.”

Said Bowden: “He’s not a salesman. He’s gonna tell you the things you need to hear.”

The Mannings visited Texas last year and witnessed Milwee running a quarterbacks meeting.

“He has great attention to detail,” Stewart said. “He can look at a clip of Arch and see things within 10 seconds that would take me forever.”

Though the Manning recruitment went to plan, 2021 didn’t. Texas had a turbulent year, particularly at quarterback, with Card winning the job in preseason camp only to be benched after two games. Casey Thompson started the last 10 and excelled initially after taking over, but injuries, inconsistency and poor offensive line play contributed to the team’s struggles in the season’s second half, which included a six-game losing streak.

Thompson transferred after the season, and Ewers, the top recruit in the 2021 class who Sarkisian and Milwee also recruited from the time they arrived at Texas, transferred in from Ohio State. Even while mired in those struggles, Stewart said Milwee consistently exuded positivity.

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Milwee, who wasn’t made available for comment for this story because Sarkisian limits access to assistant coaches, enters his fourth season working with Sarkisian. Milwee essentially functions as a carbon copy; Stewart calls him an “extension” of Sarkisian.

“I know if I can’t be at a drill or at a certain period and coach Milwee is coaching the quarterbacks, he’s saying exactly what I would be thinking and … saying,” Sarkisian said. “Sometimes I don’t want him to always think like me and I want his own opinion. … I give him full trust and autonomy to go do it.”

Milwee must take that responsibility and thrive with it. When it comes to talent, he is in as enviable a situation as a quarterbacks coach can find himself, with a former No. 1 overall recruit and two former four-stars (Card and Maalik Murphy) on the roster and the top 2023 recruit arriving in December.

He won’t be alone in handling them all, as Sarkisian — a former BYU quarterback — remains heavily involved with the position and still calls the plays. His own lengthy resume runs from coaching Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC to Tua Tagovailoa and Mac Jones at Alabama.

Together, they must guide Ewers and Card to better, more consistent results than last year’s while setting the stage for Manning’s winter arrival. Milwee’s ability to manage his gifted passers will play a key role in Texas’ fate.

(Photo courtesy of UT Athletics Photography)

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