ESPN Credited Peyton Manning For A National Championship That Never Happened
We all know that Peyton Manning is great... but do we really have to embellish some of his football accomplishments?
On Friday, ESPN made a blunder during their television broadcast of the Orange Bowl that paired Tennessee versus Clemson.
When showing Manning on the sidelines for his alma mater, the chyron words on the screen mentioned that Manning had won a National Championship with the Volunteers in 1998.
Unfortunately for Manning, that never happened.
In fact, Peyton never won a National Championship while at Tennessee from 1994-1997. The team won the year after he left in 1998, with quarterback Tee Martin at the helm.
During his time at Tennessee, Manning's record was 8-4, 11-1, 10-2 and 11-2. The Florida Gators absolutely owned Manning - defeating him four consecutive years. However, despite not winning a National Championship title, Manning has done just fine with his football career. He's a 2x Super Bowl Champion and an NFL Hall of Famer and will forever be known as one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game.
We'll see if Peyton and his brother Eli bring up ESPN's graphic blunder and have some laughs with it when they host their next Manningcast in a few week when they are back on ESPN2 to cover the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
(The Manningcast rules by the way and is one of my favorite broadcasts to watch. I explained why here.)
Meanwhile Tennessee didn't need Peyton Manning last night on the field during the Orange Bowl. Tennessee (6) easily defeated Clemson (11) 31-14.