NFL
The Surprising Reason Peyton Manning’s Nephew Has No Scholarship Offers
John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sportscasting in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.
Get to know John Moriello betterPublished08 Jun 2020
LSU has extended its first scholarship offer to an in-state high school quarterback from the Class of 2023, but the offer did not go out to the highly regarded nephew of NFL greats Eli and Peyton Manning.
LSU makes offer to high school QB who hasn’t started a game yet
RELATED: Cooper Manning Wasn’t an NFL Star like Peyton and Eli, but He’s Still Worth $15 Million
Defending national champion LSU continues to plot its future, this time offering a scholarship to Eli Holstein, a rising sophomore at Zachary High in Louisiana. Holstein, who has yet to start a high school game, revealed the development on Twitter.
The offer was the first for Holstein, but 247 Sports reports he has been hearing from multiple schools, including Alabama, Baylor, and Mississippi State. Holstein’s parents are LSU graduates – his father Scott was a punter and team captain – and his brother Caleb signed with Louisiana Tech earlier this year.
Although Holstein is the first in-state rising sophomore QB to be offered by LSU, the coaching staff has extended scholarship offers to Class of 2023 signal-callers from California, Georgia, and Maryland.
Eli and Peyton Manning have a nephew with star potential
Although Eli Holstein is the first sophomore quarterback out of the gate in Louisiana to receive a scholarship offer from LSU, he’s not the state’s best-known QB who’ll be entering 10th grade in the fall.
That honor belongs to Arch Manning, whose uncles Peyton and Eli Manning had long and successful NFL careers as quarterbacks. His father is the third Manning brother, Cooper, and his grandfather is former New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning.
The family connections have turned Arch Manning into the football version of Bronny James, whose every move on the basketball court is followed by fans of his father, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. The scrutiny is intensified by the fact that Arch Manning is enrolled at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, where his father and uncles played football.
The reason Arch Manning hasn’t received any offers yet
Jeff Duncan of The Athletic was in contact with Cooper and Archie Manning and tweeted on Monday that promising Class of 2023 quarterback Arch Manning has grown to nearly 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds ahead of his sophomore season. That sounds similar to the frames that carried uncles Eli and Peyton Manning to successful college and NFL careers.
The development should certainly be enough to keep college coaches interested, especially since he has a reel of quality freshman film under his belt. He finished with 2,407 yards and 34 passing touchdowns last fall and was named MaxPreps’ freshman quarterback of the year.
For now, Arch Manning has 34 fewer scholarship offers than touchdown passes. That’s completely by design.
Sports Illustrated reported earlier this year that Arch Manning’s parents have set some specific rules for the recruitment of their son. Isidore Newman coach Nelson Stewart, who played high school ball with Peyton and Cooper Manning, is helping run the game plan. And part of that game plan is that college coaches have been politely told to keep their distance for now.
“We just say, ‘There’s no offer to give because there’s no offer to receive,’” Stewart said.
