Tennessee football: Peyton Manning is GameDay picker; Two skids might end

The celebrity guest picker of the year will be on hand for Saturday’s matchup between Tennessee football and the Alabama Crimson Tide. ESPN finally shot for the moon, and the whole galaxy delivered, as the Vols will have the best person possible to pick the game.

UT legend Peyton Manning was announced as the guest picker Thursday night for College GameDay’s trip to Knoxville Saturday. This comes three weeks after Bianca Belair was the guest picker for the Vols’ matchup with the Florida Gators.

Arguably Tennessee football’s greatest player, Manning went 3-1 as a starter against Alabama in the 1990s. He launched the Vols’ longest winning streak against the program in 1995 with a 41-14 win in Birmingham. GameDay revealed the picker on Twitter.

Of course, there are reservations about this. Manning has infamously been a curse for for the Vols when in attendance for many of their notable games. Bringing him on as the guest picker for College GameDay seems like a way to magnify that curse.

For instance, the Vols were upset by the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2005 when Manning’s number was retired. They then were shutout by the Georgia Bulldogs in 2017 when he was in attendance, their first home shutout since 1994 against Florida, ironically the first game at Neyland Stadium Manning played.

Heck, this curse goes beyond Tennessee football. He was in attendance to watch the No. 1 overall seed Tennessee baseball team get upset this past summer before it could even reach the College World Series. That’s how deep it seems to go.

However, this is also the perfect reason to bring Manning on. Look, Manning may be a curse, but Tennessee football is curse with Alabama. That’s a curse Manning himself broke when he played for the Vols. Nobody owned Alabama quite like he did.

When you take that into account, maybe doing these two things together is exactly what the Vols need to break the curse. It’s bound to break at some point, right? Why not do it when the Vols are an underdog to a team Manning made a habit of dominating?

Beyond breaking the curse, though, everybody will also get great analysis. We know based on the ManningCast that Peyton Manning is still religiously involved in the sport, and he’s probably already studying up on every game he may have to pick.

Simply put, Tennessee football fans should be thrilled with Manning as the guest picker. Forget the curse. Most of the losses are due to the Vols just being down as a program the past 15 years anyway. Maybe Manning is who they need to return to power.