‘That’s a no brainer’ – Peyton Manning drops strong words on who he’ll be rooting for when Arch Manning and Texas play Tennessee
Arch Manning and the Texas Longhorns will face off against the Tennessee Vols in Neyland Stadium in 2026. Arch is the nephew of Vols legend Peyton Manning.
One of the most anticipated games of the 2026 college football season will take place on September 26 when the Texas Longhorns play the Tennessee Vols in Knoxville.
The game is being billed as “The Battle for the Real UT,” but the bigger storyline is that Vols legend Peyton Manning’s nephew Arch Manning will be the starting quarterback for the Longhorns.
It’ll be a strange sight to see a Manning wearing No. 16 on his jersey playing in Neyland as an opponent.
And it’ll be even stranger for Peyton to watch his nephew play against his alma mater.
Peyton was asked at the Manning Passing Academy on Friday who he’ll be pulling for when Texas visits Knoxville in September and he made it clear that family comes first.
“One of the kids was asking me earlier who I was going to go for,” said Peyton. “And I said, ‘Well, who do you think?’ And he said that he would go for his school over his relative. And I went, ‘Well, you and I are different. You and I are wired differently.’ Nothing’s more important than your family.
“But obviously, it’s going to be a huge SEC game. My dad dealt with it when I was in college — when Tennessee played Ole Miss. Look, I love my university, my alma mater, and I pull for them unconditionally. But nothing’s more important to me than my family. And when you have a nephew playing — I pull very hard for him every single Saturday. So that’s pretty much a no-brainer that you’re pulling for your nephew to play well. But, like I said, everybody knows pretty strongly where my loyalties lie on all other Saturdays — with the University of Tennessee.”
I can’t imagine that anyone expected any other answer from Peyton. I mean, of course family comes first.
Ultimately, I’m expecting Peyton to try to stay in the background as much as possible that weekend — much like his dad Archie, an Ole Miss legend, did when Peyton played the Rebels in the 1990s.