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Peyton Manning Had Fired-Up Message After Tennessee’s College World Series Title

Kristen Wong

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

Tennessee defeated Texas A&M, 6-5, in Game 3 of the Men’s College World Series finals on Monday, and no Vols fan was happier than former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. 

After the No. 1-seeded Vols clinched the program’s first-ever national championship, Manning stuck around for an on-field interview in which he lavished praise on Tennessee athletics.

“Keeping the guys that were here, enabling them, empowering them, and obviously hiring some great guys—to sit up there with Rick Barnes and Josh Heupel tonight and watch this, I'm telling you, this is not the last,” Manning said. “Tennessee is coming in all sports. It's a special night, but this is the first of several to come. I really believe that.”

Manning, who played four years for the Vols, has remained a vocal supporter of his alma mater decades after he led Tennessee to an SEC championship in 1997. The two-time Super Bowl champion holds the school record for career passing yards (11,201) and touchdown passes (89).

Compared to Manning’s dominance at the collegiate level, the Vols’ World Series win in Omaha under coach Tony Vitello was only the program’s first all-time. Elsewhere in the Tennessee athletics program, Vols football coach Josh Heupel and basketball coach Rick Barnes, who were also in attendance Monday, have also been making headway in their respective sports.

Since Heupel arrived in Tennessee in 2021, the Vols rank No. 3 nationally in scoring and eighth in total QBR with prized quarterback talent Nico Iamaleava entering his second year in the SEC this upcoming season. 

Barnes just led the men’s basketball team to one of its best seasons (27-9) in his ninth year at the helm and came up tantalizingly short of reaching the Final Four, falling 72-66 to Purdue in the Midwest Regional Final.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

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