Peyton Manning choosing family over Tennessee vs. Texas and no one can blame him

Take away his alumni card and say goodbye to your Vols benefits, Peyton Manning! We kid. With No. 14 Tennessee hosting No. 1 Texas this weekend, there's a bit of a house-divided situation for Manning, as his nephew Arch is ready to break Tennessee hearts at Neyland Stadium. Surely Manning is rocking with his alma mater, right?

That's not the case. As you'll be able to see in the video below, while Manning said that he's always going to love the Vols unconditionally, he can't root against Arch in this heavyweight battle. That might annoy some Tennessee supporters, but no one can blame Manning for this. We're going to give him a pass, as this is an awkward situation he's caught in the middle of, but his sticking with his own blood is nothing for people to bash him about.

"Obviously it's going to be a huge SEC game," Manning said. "My dad dealt with it when I was in college, when Tennessee played Ole Miss. I love my university, I love my alma mater, and I pull for them unconditionally, but nothing's more important to me than my family. When you have a nephew playing, I pull very hard for him every Saturday. 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."

Peyton Manning most certainly won't be the guest College GameDay picker for Tennessee-Texas

Again, no one can blame Manning for this. He's always talked about how much family means to him, and while it would have been great to see him pull for the Vols to take down the No. 1 team in the country, he's not going to turn his back on Arch, which is fair.

With that said, Tennessee has a great shot at doing the unthinkable here, as both teams are 3-0 this year and ranked in the Top 15. With College GameDay headed to Knoxville too, the energy around campus is going to be through the roof all week.

Speaking of GameDay, with Manning pulling for Arch and Texas to come out on top, it's pretty safe to assume that he won't be the guest picker. Maybe Morgan Wallen or Candace Parker will be doing the honors? That's something that's still up in the air, but yeah, you can go ahead and cross Manning off your list.

As long as Pat McAfee doesn't go over the top with his old act on stage, we'll be fine with whichever Tennessee legend gets picked. And hopefully they fire up the crowd ahead of what's going to be a special Saturday in SEC country.

The Vols opened as 5.5-point underdogs, but the locker room isn't going to care one bit about that. Faizon Brandon, Arion Carter, Braylon Staley, David Sanders Jr., and the other leaders of this group are going to be fired up to shock the world once kickoff arrives. Peyton may not like it if an upset gets posted, but something tells us deep down he'll be able to get over things pretty quickly.

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