Country music superstar Kenny Chesney, a big Vols fan, has been close friends with Tennessee football legend Peyton Manning for three decades.

Peyton, in fact, used to join Chesney on tour for a weekend from time to time when he was a young player in the NFL.

Chesney recounted one of his favorite Peyton stories on Thursday during an appearance on Big Day with Peter Schrager.

The singer explained that once while on tour, he wanted to find a football field so he could run some routes for Peyton.

But Peyton declined for a hilarious reason.

“When Peyton first got in the league, before he started training camp, just as a way to clear his mind and get his brain ready, he would actually go out on the road with us for a weekend,” said Chesney. “He would be standing on stage and he had this big hat on and he had a guitar strapped on his shoulder, but he couldn’t play it. He never changed chords.

“We were somewhere and we were on the bus, just hanging out. There’s three or four hours before the show and you get really bored. I said, ‘I’m sure we can find some high school field’ — and this was right before training camp — I said, ‘Let’s go out there, I need to get some cardio, and I’ll run a bunch of routes, and we’ll just throw the ball back and forth.’ He goes, ‘I can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He goes, ‘When I get to training camp, I’ll be throwing at Marvin Harrison’s knees because you’re so short.’ He was joking, but he was serious.”

Peyton is certainly the jokester, but he always took his preparation as serious as anyone.