Can’t (Ole) Miss

John Vaught’s ranch-style home overlooks 160 acres off Highway 6, not far from the big yellow house built by University of Mississippi law school graduate John Grisham with his literary proceeds.

Vaught, 92, peers out his window at land made famous by authors of hardcovers sold and signed at renowned Square Books, never having thought he’d live long enough to see the day Ole Miss football would again be worth putting pen to pad.

It’s 30 years since Vaught coached Archie Manning, arguably the greatest player in school history, and now another Manning is ready to slide up under center.

Eli Manning, Archie’s youngest son and Peyton’s kid brother, takes over as Ole Miss quarterback this fall. His first game as a starter will be here Saturday against Murray State.

Expectations are higher than the summer corn.

There have been sons of famous players, and brothers of famous players, but Eli Manning is the rarest of athletic concoctions: the son and brother of Southern icons.

“He looks to me like the greatest college prospect I’ve seen in quite some time,” Vaught says of Eli.

There apparently is no sandbagging this secret.

Third-year Mississippi Coach David Cutcliffe recruited and coached Peyton while serving as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator.

If Eli completes his eligibility, Cutcliffe will have tutored a Manning in nine consecutive seasons.

“I’m not trying to put an onus on Eli Manning, but you can mark my words, he’s going to be a big-time guy,” Cutcliffe says. “And when he comes out, he’ll be the best one coming out. You’re liable to see a situation where you got a daddy, and a brother, and a brother all be top picks in the NFL.”

This is tall talk for a 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore who has yet to make his first collegiate start.

There’s a picture of Peyton hanging on Cutcliffe’s office wall. It is signed: To coach Cut, all my best--Peyton Manning #18 (Eli’s brother) .

Asked about the photo, Cutcliffe chuckles.

“That’s what we’re going to make him,” he says, “Eli’s brother.”

There is much to ponder.

Peyton, King of the Colts, is already one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and on a fast track to the Hall of Fame.

And Eli might be better?

No wonder season tickets are selling faster than cornbread.

The official Eli tizzy-cutting ceremony took place at the 2000 Music City Bowl, in the fourth quarter, with Mississippi trailing West Virginia, 49-16.

Cutcliffe sent Eli in to mop up for starter Romaro Miller, but Manning had other notions, leading three drives totaling 22 points to cut the final deficit to 49-38.

Reaction from Ole Miss fans?

“I don’t think many of them cared what the score of the game was,” Cutcliffe said.

There were, understandably, postgame mutterings as to why Manning had attempted only 33 passes all season.

The man to blame, believe it or not, was Archie.

While countless fathers of touted prospects consider it a dad’s duty to bend the head coach’s ear about playing time, Archie told Cutcliffe to keep Eli on the bench.

Miller was not only a returning senior, but also a successful black quarterback at a college that did not welcome athletes of color until Coolidge Ball joined the basketball team in 1971.

Archie knew the prospect of a Manning pressing the issue at Ole Miss was not in anyone’s best interests.

“It would have been terrible,” Archie says. “Plus, Eli wasn’t ready for that conference last year. He needed to get two years under his belt.”

Archie didn’t need any more backlash.

There remains a faction of alums that still holds him accountable for Peyton’s defection to Tennessee, a rival school in the Southeastern Conference.

“I was supposed to deliver him to Ole Miss,” Archie says. “I had people tell me that. I really tried not to be mad at the people saying ugly things, and writing ugly things. I wrote it off as strong allegiance to the school.”

Turns out Peyton made an independent and intelligent choice. At the time he was considering Mississippi, the school was about to go on probation.

Even Vaught says Peyton did the right thing.

“Under the conditions, no one recommended he come,” Vaught says.

That didn’t prevent the angry onslaught of hate mail and taunts.

“People were mad at him, mad at my dad for not making Peyton come here,” Eli says. “I don’t think that’s right.”

Circumstances changed.

Eli grew up on Ole Miss. He picnicked before games in “The Grove.” His parents, Archie and Olivia, had been fairy tale college sweethearts--the star quarterback and homecoming queen.

As a lad, Eli remembers wearing his dad’s uniform top to games.

“The jersey was down to my toes, I could hardly walk,” Eli says.

Still, Eli was leaning toward attending Virginia or Texas when Ole Miss hired Cutcliffe to succeed Tommy Tuberville, who left suddenly for Auburn.

Cutcliffe’s hire may not have been a quid pro quo for landing Eli, but you could say it was a deal closer.

“When David came, that’s what convinced me that’s where Eli wanted to go to school all along,” Archie says. “He just needed something to seal it.”

Cutcliffe coached Peyton to enormous heights and Eli knew he would be running the same offense.

Eli’s arrival was a chance for Ole Miss to get over the hurt.

Heck, even Peyton is welcomed now in Oxford.

Says Cutcliffe: “I guess it’s like being shunned by one girl and what you hope is a prettier one later on comes along and tells you she loves you.”

Passing Lanes

The speed limit on campus is 18 mph.

They’ll tell you here it’s coincidence, but 18 was Archie Manning’s number.

In a state devoid of major professional sports, Manning’s legend can not be underestimated. Archie is the last link to football greatness.

Yep, Ole Miss used to be great.

Vaught presided over the best of times, going 190-61-12 from 1947 to 1973.

In the 1950s, only Oklahoma won more college football games.

In a remarkable span, from 1959 to 1962, Ole Miss went 39-3-1, claimed pieces of three national titles, crowned consecutive Miss Americas and, in 1962, celebrated Oxford resident William Faulkner’s second Pulitzer Prize in literature for “The Reivers.”

The saying around campus was, “We don’t redshirt All-Americas, we redshirt Miss Americas.”

For years, beautiful words have flowed from Oxford keyboards. What school in America has been immortalized in prose by the likes of Grisham and Willie Morris, the “My Dog Skip” author who, in the essay “Heroes in the Rain,” evocatively captures attending his first Ole Miss football game as a 7-year-old boy in 1941.

Then, a turn for the worse.

Faulkner died in 1962, the same year it took tear gas and the National Guard to get James Meredith enrolled as the school’s first black student.

President John Kennedy called Vaught, obviously the most powerful man on campus, and asked if the coach could quell “his people.”

Vaught says he told Kennedy, “Those aren’t my people.”

The next year, 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered.

It was also the last year Mississippi won an SEC football title.

Manning arrived in the late 1960s--one last gasp of football breath. He was a local hero, from Drew, Miss., and breathtakingly skilled.

Vaught says Manning had at his disposal six plays with three options, but the first option was always to run.

In a 1969 victory over Alabama, Manning totaled a still-school record 504 yards--104 rushing, 436 passing.

He played the 1971 Gator bowl with a plastic sleeve to protect a broken left arm. He finished with 95 yards rushing and 180 passing.

“Not only could he run fast, he could move, he could dodge and he could cut,” Vaught says.

In 1970, Manning finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting behind Jim Plunkett and Joe Theismann.

In 1997, Peyton finished second in balloting to Charles Woodson.

Three . . . two . . .

Mississippi hopes Eli completes the Manning family countdown.

Why Here?

You wonder why a kid with choices would walk into these hallowed halls.

The oval room chosen for Eli’s interview is entirely dedicated to Archie’s legend.

Eli is seated in the room’s center, surrounded by a cathedral of Archie artifacts.

“A lot of these things I had never seen before I got here,” Eli says. “It’s fun looking at some of his old games. There’s a scrapbook here and I’ve looked through it.”

Was he not overwhelmed?

Peyton and Eli have different perspectives.

Peyton is five years older than Eli. He remembers his father the football star.

To Eli, dad is a scrapbook memory.

“I never really got to see my father play like my other two brothers did,” Eli says of Peyton and Cooper, the eldest Manning sibling. “They saw him play in the NFL a few years. When he retired, I was 3, 4 years old.”

Archie thinks Eli is much better suited to handling the pressure of being a Manning at Ole Miss.

“Peyton could have told you what I did at Ole Miss, who my teammates were, all the big games,” Archie says. “Eli doesn’t know and doesn’t care. I’m so glad.”

Peyton is intense and talkative; Eli is laid back.

“Eli’s probably not as deeply intense as Peyton is, and that’s probably a good thing,” Cutcliffe says, “because I think some of this could eat him up if he was.”

The brothers weren’t particularly close as kids because of the age gap, but now they share a tight bond and a common language.

“It’s easy to talk to him because he’s running the same offense,” Eli says.

As quarterbacks, though, the similarities are eerie.

Cutcliffe is no expert on synapses, but he says Eli and Peyton have the same brain types.

“It’s fast-twitch mental fiber,” Cutcliffe says, “and they both have it. During the bowl game, when Eli was playing, I sensed it all over again. I hadn’t felt this since Peyton.”

Time to Kill

So, what’s it going to be first, a national championship or the Heisman?

Would you believe last place in the SEC’s Western Division?

Street & Smith’s has the Rebels finishing in the sewer.

Sporting News concurs.

Athlon thinks Ole Miss could finish fifth in the six-team division.

Reason?

People aren’t ready to bet the grove on a quarterback who hasn’t taken a snap as a starter, lost an All-American in running back Deuce McAllister and boasts a defensive line thinner than crepes almandine.

“As a father, I’m proud and excited for Eli,” Archie says, “but I’m a little concerned people are expecting too much. You worry about your child.”

Mississippi is talented but young, with 54 of its 85 scholarship players sophomores or younger. There are only 12 scholarship seniors on the roster.

The offense will have to outscore opponents until the defense grows up.

Yet, Cutcliffe is thinking big.

“I want the expectations and I want Eli to want them,” Cutcliffe says.

Also, the SEC West is not to be confused with the AFC West. The SEC’s dominant teams, Florida and Tennessee, reside in the East Division. In the West, there’s really not that much separating No.1 from No. 6.

Eli is ready to accept the challenge.

‘I understand the impact my father had here,” he says. “I’m hoping I can do some of the things he did at Ole Miss. I’m not trying to do everything he did. I’m going out there trying to get wins, and do the best I can do and the best I can do for Ole Miss.”

John Vaught can’t wait to see the Manning story come full circle.

Vaught and Archie Manning went out together after 1970. Vaught retired for health reasons--he returned for a brief interim stint in 1973--while Manning left Ole Miss a saint.

Mississippi fans are not treating Eli’s arrival lightly. They take football more seriously than it has recently been played.

Vaught monitors program progress. He has seen one Manning come, one defect, and now, the youngest return home.

“Archie told me that at 16 and 17 that Eli was a better athlete than Peyton,” Vaught says.

Is it September yet?

“Looks like we’ve got some good football coming up,” Vaught says.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Air Apparent

Ole Miss sophomore quarterback Eli Manning has some mighty big tracks to follow,as both father Archie and brother Peyton have experienced stardom on the collegiate level, as well as in the NFL.

ARCHIE MANNING

An All-American quarterback at Ole Miss who finished third in the 1970 Heisman Trophy voting, Archie Manning was the second player selected in the 1971 draft and had a successful 14-year NFL career despite compiling a 47-139-3 record while playing for the Saints, Oilers and Vikings. As the New Orleans field general, Manning was named league MVP in 1978 and was twice selected to the Pro Bowl:

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Career Statistics

Att. Comp. Comp% Yards TD INT Mississippi 761 395 51.9% 4,753 31 NA NFL 3,642 2,011 55.2% 23,911 125 171

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PEYTON MANNING

All-American Peyton Manning led the University of Tennessee to the SEC championship in 1997 and accumulated 42 NCAA, SEC and Tennessee records in his four seasons with the Volunteers. Among the honors he received were the Sullivan Award as the nation’s outstanding amateur athlete, the Maxwell Award as college football’s most outstanding player and player-of-the-year honors by the Associated Press. Manning was selected by the Indianapolis Colts as the first overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft and went on to lead the Colts to a 13-3 record and the AFC East title in 1999. That season Manning led the AFC in passing, was the AFC player of the year and a unanimous choice to start the Pro Bowl:

Career Statistics

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Att. Comp. Comp% Yards TD INT Tennessee 1,354 851 62.9 11,201 90 33 Indianapolis 1,680 1,015 60.4 12,294 85 58

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Compiled by Roy Jurgens