ATLANTA — The football coach who may know the Manning family better than any other - David Cutcliffe - told Horns247 Monday, "I don't know of any young quarterback that's ever had more pressure on him" than Arch Manning.
Cutcliffe coached both of Arch's Super Bowl-winning uncles - Peyton and Eli Manning - when they were in college. Cutcliffe was Peyton's offensive coordinator at Tennessee from 1994 to 1997 and was Eli's head coach and offensive play caller at Ole Miss from 2000 to 2003. Cutcliffe retired after spending 14 years as the head coach at Duke (2008-21) and now serves as a special assistant to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on football relations.
"I sent Arch scholarship papers the day he was born," Cutcliffe said. "I was the head coach at Ole Miss when he was born, so I had a courier take the scholarship papers to his father, Cooper, at the hospital."
Cooper Manning confirmed that story to Horns247 on Monday.
"He sure did," Cooper Manning said. "David has been a great friend to me. I have so much respect for him as a coach, as a teacher and as a man."
When Cutcliffe is asked about "reasonable expectations" for Arch in his first year as the starting quarterback at Texas this fall, Cutcliffe said:
"I don't know if there's anything close to reasonable about it, because it became unreasonable as soon as he became a public figure in about the eighth grade."