Eli Manning was almost a Kentucky Wildcat thanks to Mike Leach's legendary yapping

During the 1997 and 1998 seasons, the late and legendary Mike Leach was the offensive coordinator at Kentucky under head coach Hal Mumme as the two ran their innovative air raid offense in Lexington.

Of course, the air raid is one of the more appealing offensive play styles for quarterbacks since the entire operation revolves around them. In 1998, there was this highly-talented, highly-sought-after high school quarterback that every program in the country wanted to get their hands on.

The recruit’s name? Eli Manning. You’ve probably heard of him. Kentucky actually faces his nephew, Arch Manning, this weekend when the Cats play No. 21 Texas on Saturday, in case you needed a reminder.

Leach did his best to get the future two-time Super Bowl champ to Lexington — in the most Mike Leach way possible by talking poor Manning’s head off.

“Coach Leach and Coach Mumme recruited me out of high school,” Manning said in an ESPN Original. “He called me, and he would talk for 90 minutes straight.”

@espnoriginals

Mike Leach was like no other #coach ❤️ Watch new episodes of Eli’s Places every Wednesday on ESPN+ #cfb #football #texastech #inspiration

♬ original sound – espnoriginals

“I think it was his strategy,” he added. “Back then, you would have the call waiting — you would hear the beeping — and I knew there were some other coaches calling, but he was like, ‘No, if I can keep him on the phone the entire time, no one else can recruit him’.”

It actually got so bad that the Manning’s had to spend some coin to try to get away from Leach and his talkative antics.

“I’m like — I put it on speaker, I’m just doing homework. I’m doing my math homework — we had to get another line so I could so I could talk to other coaches and talk to my girlfriend because he was clogging up the line the whole time.”

Instead of retaliating or trying to shut Leach down, he would just let it happen.

“I didn’t say anything,” Manning mentioned. “I would click over and come back, 10 minutes later he would just be going.”

As fate would have it, Manning would find his way to Ole Miss where he would finish his collegiate career with a 2-0 record against Kentucky. Just imagine if we could’ve saw a Manning in blue and white…

Well, we kind of did with Peyton on the Indianapolis Colts, but you know what I mean. He may have been unstoppable under Leach’s air raid offense. Hopefully, Kentucky can get revenge by beating Arch and the Longhorns on Saturday.