(KRT)
BILOXI, Miss. — Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning ran into Florida’s Rex Grossman for the first time in late July, during the gabfest known as SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala.
The Southeastern Conference’s leading men exchanged handshakes, best wishes and an understanding only a handful of college students could possibly comprehend:
There aren’t enough microscopes on either campus to compare to the scrutiny Manning and Grossman deal with on a daily basis.
They handle the hype, but only because it allows them to play the game.
On Saturday, they’ll finally face one another, when Grossman’s sixth-ranked Gators travel to Oxford to face Manning and the Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“I’ve gotten to see Grossman play quite a few times,” Manning said. “He’s an exciting player. He’s probably one of my favorite players to watch in college football right now. He competes. They throw the ball a lot and he’s had some great success at Florida. He’s put up good numbers.
“He’s a fun player to watch.”
For Eli Manning, that’s almost a bold statement, and this is a young man who knows how to avoid them, much like his elder brother, former Tennessee All-American Peyton Manning.
Ask Eli who has cast a greater shadow, his brother or his dad, the most decorated athlete in Ole Miss history, and he’ll tell you that it’s Peyton. Before you can finish the question. Sure, he knows all about Archie Manning’s exploits from 1968-70, when folks across the country seemed to forget about James Meredith and the National Guard, and spent more time talking about the charismatic quarterback from Drew, Miss., and the Ole Miss Rebels.
But Peyton Manning could identify all of his dad’s teammates from those days, where they were from, maybe even where they are now.
Eli would be more inclined to shrug his shoulders, grab a football and retreat to the back yard.
Just like the Peyton comparisons. Eli knows they are coming. He has a handful of canned responses. He doesn’t seem to understand all the fuss, all the fascination.
“I’ve just accepted it,” Manning said. “I’ve understood we’re brothers, and people are automatically going to make comparisons between us. I just let it roll off, don’t worry about it and don’t think about it too much. I just answer the questions and go on.”
Grossman, without a doubt, can relate. He played for a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Steve Spurrier, and came along a few years after Danny Wuerffel guided Florida to the only national championship in school history.
Wuerffel won the Heisman, too, in 1996; Grossman finished second in the balloting last year, and many believe the only thing that kept him from winning it was that he was a sophomore, and the winner,
Nebraska’s Eric Crouch, was a senior.
Grossman and Manning have something in common, though, besides a gift for the position they play.
Mention the Heisman Trophy, and they’d rather talk about girls, classes, or, at least in Manning’s case, “Seinfeld.”
“I didn’t care about (the Heisman) last week, and so I’m not going to care about it this week,” Grossman said after the Gators zapped then-No. 4 Tennessee 30-13 on Sept. 21 in Knoxville.

Peyton’s place

in the rivalry
Several Florida writers have brought up Peyton Manning’s futility against the Gators in his four otherwise wildly successful years at Tennessee. Peyton would have been the No. 1 pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, as a UT junior, but he chose to return to the Vols because, in his words, he was having too much fun in college.
He sure didn’t have much fun when he took the field against
the Gators.
In 1994, Peyton Manning was thrown into the fray as a true freshman. The Vols’ first two quarterbacks, Jerry Colquitt and Todd Helton, now the Colorado Rockies’ slugger, were injured in their opener with UCLA. Florida whipped the Gators that year 31-0.
The next year, Manning had some seasoning under his belt, and the buildup for the Sept. 16 game with the Gators in Gainesville was ridiculous. So was the game itself. Florida won 62-37.
In 1996, the Gators’ national championship season, Florida built a big lead and coasted to a 35-29 victory. In 1997, Doug Johnson had succeeded Wuerffel as the Gators’ quarterback, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Florida won 33-20, but the Vols did recover to win the SEC championship that season.
David Cutcliffe, the Rebels’ fourth-year coach, was the Tennessee offensive coordinator during Peyton Manning’s career with the Vols. Cutcliffe was asked if Peyton’s problems with the Gators could motivate Eli Manning in preparation for Saturday’s game.
“I doubt that’s crossed Eli’s mind,” Cutcliffe said. “If you knew Eli, he might not know that piece of trivia.”
Trivia? Eyes all over the Sunshine State may have rolled at that response, but Eli Manning said nothing to refute his coach.
“It’s really not (a factor). I don’t think Peyton’s career at Tennessee has anything to do with my career at Ole Miss,” he said. “It’s two different teams. Players are different. Coaches are different. Really, I’m just trying to go out there and win this game for Ole Miss.”
Grossman’s take sounds like something we’d hear from the ol’ ball coach for the Washington team himself.
“I’m not sure what Archie did,” Grossman said, “but obviously Peyton never won here, so we’ll see what Eli can do.”
For the record, Archie Manning never faced the Florida Gators in his three years as the Ole Miss quarterback. The SEC only played six conference games in those days, and there were 10 teams in the league.
We’re also talking about a decade before Eli Manning or Rex Grossman were born.

A duel for the ages?
Folks around Oxford, Tuscaloosa, shoot, maybe even Starkville, still talk about the memorable game between the Archie Manning-led Rebels and Scott Hunter and Alabama on Oct. 4, 1969, at Legion Field in Birmingham. Archie passed for 436 yards in that game, still an Ole Miss record, while rushing for another 104 yards in a 33-32 loss to Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide.
It might have been Archie’s most spectacular moment, even in defeat.
Then again, that would serve him well during his 12 seasons with the New Orleans Saints, not to mention his later NFL stops in Houston and Minnesota.
Archie never made it to the NFL playoffs, but it was sure fun watching him try. Saints fans throughout the Gulf South screamed in disbelief when Bum Phillips shipped Archie Manning, the greatest player in franchise history, to the Houston Oilers for a washed-up offensive tackle named Leon Gray.
Peyton Manning has reached the NFL playoffs in his splendid four-plus seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, but he has never won in the postseason.
Fair or not, Eli Manning will be judged in some circles by how he performs in the Rebels’ big games.
The only problem, at least this time, is that the 2002 Ole Miss defense has been porous in the Rebels’ last two games, a 42-28 loss to Texas Tech and a 45-38 victory over Vanderbilt, the SEC’s traditional doormat.
Florida and Ole Miss are both offensive-minded teams, but the Gators would seem to have a clear advantage on defense, with wily coordinator John Thompson and tested veterans such as two-time All-SEC safety Todd Johnson, dominating lineman Ian Scott and swift outside linebacker Mike Nattiel.
The Rebels, on the other hand, have changed defensive coordinators four times since the 2000 season.
“If we lose this game,” Johnson said, “it’s no better than if we would have lost against Tennessee. We look at this game just the same. All these SEC games are big for us. We treat them all the same.”
Sometimes, you suspect Eli Manning and Rex Grossman wish they could be treated the same way.
No differently than the quiet
left guard, the menacing middle linebacker or the scout-team
wide receiver.
“This is a big game,” Manning said. ”
Since I’ve been here, it’s probably the best team I’ve faced so far. It’s going to be a big game for us, but we get to play them in Oxford, so hopefully we can get up for it and play smart football.”

They play, they lead, they win
Grossman and Manning have far more similarities than differences; they’re both serious about playing football, they both have their
eye cast toward the pros, and they’ll both soon face plenty of questions about leaving college early to make themselves eligible for the NFL Draft.