Arch Manning recruiting predictions: These 7 schools hold an early lead

Arch Manning and Peyton Manning could sing Rocky Top together forever.

When you have a cool uncle, it’s like the best thing ever. It doesn’t matter if he’s blood or not if he’s cool, he’s cool. Arch has two uncles and both are cool. However, one of them is in every commercial under the sun because he’s the coolest.

By the time Manning picks a school, Tennessee football may be on its way back since Lane Kiffin blew it up after one year. Uncle Peyton’s former coach Phillip Fulmer is the university’s athletic director. Tennessee seems to have the right head coach this time in Jeremy Pruitt.

Tennessee tends to recruit more nationally than most SEC blue-bloods because there isn’t enough in-state talent to sustain it like a Florida or a Georgia. If Fulmer could go into New Orleans and come out with Peyton in the mid-1990s when Archie is nothing short of an Ole Miss god, who’s to say Pruitt can’t echo that same sentiment again decades later?

While Ole Miss has to be the unquestioned early favorite for Manning’s commitment, Tennessee will end up being one of those programs that will have a hat on the table come national signing day. Let’s just hope for Uncle Peyton’s sake it’s not a dad hat unless Arch is into dad hats like his Uncle Peyton, so in that case, please let there be orangest of orange dad hats on the folding table.