Tennessee football: Could Vols have the next Manning to Harrison combo?

Tennessee football has offered the son of Marvin Harrison, and Peyton Manning’s nephew is raising eyebrows. Could the two be Volunteers in 2025?

Peyton Manning to Marvin Harrison lives in NFL lore as one of the most elite quarterback receiver combos in history. Tennessee football fans who followed their fandom of Manning to the Indianapolis Colts are very familiar with it.

Now, though, the Vols could be in the process of repeating that combination. Harrison’s son and Manning’s nephew both hit the news over the weekend in different ways, and both could be relevant to the future of Rocky Top.

For starters, news broke before the weekend began that Tennessee football had offered a scholarship to Harrison’s son, Marvin Harrison Jr. A member of the 2021 recruiting class, he announced the offer on Twitter.

Harrison is not yet rated on Rivals, but he’s a four-star on 247Sports. Hailing from St. Joseph’s High School in Philadelphia, he also stands at an incredible 6’4″ already, significantly surpassing his father’s height. So if he has the hands, route-running ability and speed of his father, his potential is through the roof.

Along with the offer to Harrison, the son of Cooper Manning, Arch Manning, made headlines over the weekend with some of his throws. He’s only in the eighth grade, but video leaked of him dropping dimes and already showing a beautiful three-step drop in an Isidore Newman High School spring game. His future looks promising.

Since he’s the son of Cooper, Arch Manning is by nature more mobile than Peyton or Eli. He has that wide receiver speed that made his grandfather such a good quarterback. But if you look at his dropback, he’s already very polished as well. Add in the fact that he’s only 5’11” at his age, and he will get some height when he hits high school at Isidore Newman.

Now, here’s the real kicker: what if Tennessee football gets both of them? Should Harrison commit in 2021, he could stay all the way up until 2025 if he takes a redshirt. Meanwhile, the Vols could look to be in play for Arch Manning given their obvious connection to the Manning family, and if he looks beyond the Ole Miss Rebels, they could have him on Rocky Top as a commitment in 2023.

At the very least, if they got both commitments, both players would have to stay on the team in 2023, as neither would yet be eligible for the NFL. But they could end up having one to three years together, depending on when Harrison would leave.

A likely scenario could be 2024. Tennessee football could be starting sophomore Arch Manning at quarterback that year, and he could be throwing to a senior receiver in Marvin Harrison Jr. You have another Manning to Harrison combo that could last for a year.

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Would Jeremy Pruitt be able to pull this off? Hey, he’s got quite a few connections throughout the SEC. And if he succeeds on Rock Top, it isn’t crazy to think about the Vols being in the running for both of these guys.

Now, to be fair, there’s some stiff competition. Harrison is drawing numerous offers from other schools, and early suggestions on Rivals is that the Ohio State Buckeyes are the favorites to land him. Meanwhile, Ole Miss is clearly more connected to the Manning family than the Vols, and as Cooper’s son instead of Peyton, it could be even harder for them to land Arch Manning.

Add in the fact that the LSU Tigers are much more relevant now than they were when any of the Mannings were coming out of college in the 1990s, and it’ll be very hard to land that kid. But hey, it’s fun to dream. You can bet they’ll aggressively pursue Arch Manning f he lives up to his promising high school future.

Tennessee football has already offered Harrison’s son. So a Manning to Harrison combination is plausible at some point on Rocky Top. That’s a selling point to both recruits if you show the highlights of the connections their elders had in the pros. The step after that, though, is obviously to keep tabs on Peyton’s 8-year-old son, Marshall Manning.