SEC Extra Points: Phillip Fulmer on Peyton Manning's Tennessee Legacy
While the world waits to hear whether Denver Broncos quarterback and Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning will hang up the cleats or play in 2016, his legacy in college football is etched in stone.
Legend.
The ultimate "Vol for life," Manning signed on the dotted line with former head coach Phillip Fulmer and joined the Tennessee program in 1994 instead of Ole Miss, where his father, Archie, starred. That decision, coupled with some horrible injury luck to the quarterbacks around him during his first year, set the groundwork for what turned out to be one of the golden ages of the Tennessee football program.
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"He came to Tennessee because he wasn't going to have to start as a freshman," Fulmer told Bleacher Report. "We had a senior quarterback in Jerry Colquitt, and I was very confident that he would do a fantastic job."
The plan for Manning was to sit behind Colquitt and Todd Helton, possibly redshirt, and learn the ropes before Colquitt moved on and Helton focused more on baseball as he matured.
"Colquitt got hurt in the first ballgame—the seventh play of the UCLA game," Fulmer said. "Todd Helton comes in and does a nice job and brings us back, but we end up losing the game 25-23. We beat Georgia but got shut out by Florida and had five turnovers versus Mississippi State. At that point, Todd got nicked and one of the freshmen has to be the quarterback.
"It had to be Peyton. It was so obvious that this kid wasn't getting better by the game—he was getting better by the meeting and the practice. He learned and retained really fast. He had a unique ability to take it from the chalk board to the practice field to the game field and make it work."
Manning went 7-1 as a starter and a true freshman, and he made Tennessee a major factor in the SEC East—a division that had been dominated by Florida since the divisional split.
Manning never beat Florida during his four-year career, but he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting behind Michigan's Charles Woodson in 1997, led the Vols to Top 10 rankings in the final polls in each of his final three seasons on Rocky Top and established a culture of winning that ultimately helped Fulmer and Tee Martin—Manning's successor at quarterback—to the 1998 national title.
"It was a big deal for him to come," Fulmer said. "We didn't win a national championship with Peyton, but he was a big reason we won it in 1998. The people had come here to play with him and said to themselves 'Hey, if it's good for Peyton Manning, it's good for me, too.'
"We had a culture at Tennessee where we coached our best players the hardest. The great ones, they want to be coached hard. We made sure that we didn't coddle them around here."
The legacy of Manning lingers on Rocky Top, where you can't go five minutes without seeing, reading or hearing a reminder that Manning once helped build the football program into a national power.
"We used it all the time," Fulmer said. "The fact that he was having so much success at the NFL level and was the first quarterback talent in his class, that was part of our pitch."
Manning will undoubtedly find his way to Canton, Ohio, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame whenever he decides to retire. At Tennessee, though, he's been a Hall of famer for almost two decades.
Been There, Done That
There's no truth to the rumor that Alabama head coach Nick Saban pulled his Mercedes up to the White House, gave a friendly wave to the guard and parked in his reserved space next to President Obama's car in the garage.
Well, I don't think there's any truth to it.
It isn't a certainty, though.
Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide have visited the White house four times since Obama moved in to the most famous house in America in January 2009, and the leader of the free world made sure that fact was known to the world during their visit on Wednesday.
"My first question is, coach, what took you so long?" Obama joked, according to Michael Casagrande of AL.com. "It's been three whole years since I last saw you."
He wasn't finished, though. Not by a long shot.
Obama rattled off one-liner after one-liner, including a not-so-subtle swing at Auburn.
"I know the people of Alabama are extraordinarily proud of this team," he said. "Maybe the Auburn fans don't want to admit it, but everyone recognizes excellence when they see it and nobody's had more sustained excellence as a program at the collegiate level than the Alabama Crimson Tide."
That's not trolling, that's simply reality.
Four titles in seven years in the day and age of scholarship limits and big-money programs spending at extraordinary levels, it likely won't be topped any time soon.
Enough Of Harbaugh-Palooza
Last week on Extra Points, we briefly discussed the benefits of Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh consistently finding a way into the 24/7 news cycle after he called out "the Georgia coach" Kirby Smart on Twitter when Smart objected to Michigan's spring break practice trip to IMG Academy in Florida.
Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn wants nothing to do with the "Offseason of Harbaugh."
When asked what he thinks of Harbaugh's trip to Bradenton, Florida, during his first press conference of the spring, the fourth-year head coach of the Tigers answered in true Malzahn form—hurry-up, no-huddle.
"Yeah, whatever," Malzahn said according to quotes emailed by Auburn. "I don’t really have an opinion one way or another. I don’t want to get in that deal."
Well that's one way to quickly put an end to any controversy that Harbaugh wants to create.
Is this a new Malzahn?
Last year at SEC media days, he famously stood strong when asked how much of a threat satellite camps were to the SEC's recruiting dominance.
"The chances of a team up north coming into our state and a player that us or Alabama wants are slim to none," he said.
The last thing Malzahn needs in a season in which he's entrenched squarely on the hot seat is to get into an offseason war of words with another high-profile coach anywhere—much less somebody as polarizing as Harbaugh.
He just better hope that his team has the same kind of quickness Malzahn showed while side-stepping that question.
Return Of The Shaq?
A former high school Mr. Football in the state of South Carolina could be coming home.
Shaq Roland, the 2011 winner when he starred at Lexington High School, left the program following the 2014 season but never played football in 2015. Since he never played, he can return to the program if he graduates from college somewhere and then re-enrolls at South Carolina as a graduate transfer.
According to JC Shurburtt of 247Sports, that exact scenario appears to be at least one possibility for Roland.
If it comes to fruition, it would be a huge boost to South Carolina's first season under head coach Will Muschamp.
Pharoh Cooper jumped early to the NFL, and the leading returning receiver for the Gamecocks—sophomore Deebo Samuel—had just 12 catches for 161 yards and one touchdown a year ago. In a season that includes massive inexperience at wide receiver, uncertainty at quarterback and a transition to the new system under coordinator Kurt Roper, Roland's experience would be a massive benefit.
No, he's not a superstar.
Roland was well on his way to being a recruiting bust after catching 56 passes for 891 yards and 10 touchdowns during his first three seasons in Columbia and never living up to his "WR 1" hype. But he would be Roper's best option heading into the season and would help a potential superstar in early enrollee Bryan Edwards learn the ropes.
Mageo in the Middle
With DeMarquis Gates and Terry Caldwell as the only two linebackers with significant game experience at Ole Miss, head coach Hugh Freeze hit an emerging market to build some depth and give himself options.
The graduate transfer market.
Former Oregon State middle linebacker Rommel Mageo signed with Ole Miss this week and will enroll at the school upon graduation from Oregon State this spring, according to Daniel Paulling of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
Gates led the Rebels in tackles last year with 76 and took over on a full-time basis at outside linebacker for Denzel Nkemdiche. That job is set.
But Mageo, who led the Beavers with 87 tackles, is a strong candidate to take the spot formerly occupied by C.J. Johnson in the Rebels' 4-2-5 defense. Even if he doesn't win the job, his presence on Ole Miss' roster will provide depth and give Freeze and defensive coordinator Dave Wommack a solid fallback option if the injury bug bites the defense for the second straight season.
Quick Outs
- Penn State running back Saquon Barkley power-cleaned 390 pounds, and his teammates went nuts. Georgia running back Nick Chubb did it in high school, according to Rusty Mansell of 247Sports.
- The dust on the Will Grier transfer sweepstakes appears to be getting kicked up. The former Florida quarterback will visit West Virginia this weekend, according to Mike Casazza of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Grier plus Dana Holgorsen would be extra spicy.
- Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema joked on Twitter (via Cleveland.com) with Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio about grabbing lunch prior to catching Michigan's open practice at IMG Academy. Turns out, they can't watch practice thanks to NCAA rules. So Bielema apparently is going to Jamaica instead. Tough life.
Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Statistics are courtesy of cfbstats.com, and recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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