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Best player ever from SEC had it in the genes

It seemed like a fairly easy question.

We were going into the 7:45 a.m. break on “The Show With No Name” when Tommy Smith asked: Who is the best football player to come out of the SEC?

My mind was made up immediately, although the clue I gave them was inaccurate.

I wasn’t going to go back to Kentucky quarterback Babe Parilli, or Joe Namath or any of the other great players from Alabama. The limit was my 41 years as a sportswriter.

Yes, even before Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992, yours truly kept up with college football nationwide.

It is understandable that many people likely would choose Herschel Walker as the greatest to play in the SEC. He still holds the conference rushing record with 5,259 yards.

He won the Heisman Trophy, but the question was to come out of the SEC, so what a guy did in football after college counts, too.

Many players have had great college and NFL careers, but one guy stood out in my mind. If I were starting a team, he would be the first player I picked.

As for that erroneous clue, it was just partly wrong.

Tommy, David Bazzel and Roger Scott — the always interesting hosts of “The Show With No Name” — were told he was the best player to never win the Heisman.

Baz immediately guessed Darren McFadden. Which I disagreed with, but Baz was right and so was yours truly.

The two best players to play college football and not win the Heisman are both from the SEC.

To start a team, I’d take McFadden at running back first. Walker was great, but McFadden was greater because he could beat you with his feet and hands.

Walker had 994 rushes as a Georgia Bulldog and averaged 5.3 yards per carry, and McFadden had 785 and averaged 5.8 ypc for the Arkansas Razorbacks. He didn’t get as many carries because he shared time in the backfield with Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis.

So my choice for running back is McFadden.

As for the greatest player of all time, the second clue was that he played at the same college as Reggie White. Almost before the words were out of my mouth, Roger guessed it.

Peyton Manning.

I once saw Manning beat Arkansas on one leg. He limped the last three quarters.

It looked bad enough that his dad, Archie, stormed into the dressing room after the game and wanted to know whose idea it was for Peyton to play. Peyton said it was his.

If asked to do a top 50 list of all-time SEC players, Archie and Eli Manning both would join Peyton on it.

Ironically, both sons had better NFL careers than Archie, who was immensely talented but was drafted by the New Orleans Saints.

The Saints couldn’t block, tackle or cover a receiver. They carried the “Aints” nickname, and fans wore paper bags on their heads. Archie had to run for his life on almost every snap.

Back to Peyton — who finished second in the Heisman race his senior season — he was 40-6 as a starter, passed for 11,201 yards and threw 89 touchdowns.

He was the first player taken in the 1998 draft and spent 13 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, where he won a Super Bowl and was named NFL MVP four times.

After a neck injury cost him a full season and his job with the Colts, he played four more seasons for the Denver Broncos, where he won another Super Bowl and MVP.

There have been countless great football players come out of the SEC, but in the modern era none was better as a player and leader in college and the NFL than Peyton Manning.