Arch Manning won’t be only football royalty on field Saturday night. Meet General Booty! (original) (raw)

Arch Manning has the most famous last name in football.

The starting quarterback on the opposite sideline when Texas hosts Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday night might have the most memorable name in the sport — General Booty.

The redshirt junior, a transfer from Texas’ hated rival Oklahoma, has led the Warhawks to a 2-0 start and has a deep connection to Manning even though the two quarterbacks have never met.

Three decades ago, their uncles, both Louisiana natives, were the two biggest quarterback recruits in the country in the Class of 1993. Arch’s uncle Peyton was the Gatorade National Player of the Year and General’s uncle Josh was the USA Today Offensive Player of the Year and the Parade National Player of the Year.

Those prolific quarterbacks also had younger brothers who had impressive college careers. Eli Manning starred at Ole Miss and then won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants. John David Booty played for Arch’s current coach, Steve Sarkisian, at USC and led the Trojans to multiple Rose Bowl wins before playing a couple of seasons with the Minnesota Vikings.

Their grandfathers were SEC quarterbacks — Archie Manning at Ole Miss, where the school’s campus speed limit (18 mph) is a tribute to his uniform number, and Johnny Booty at Mississippi State.

The oddest twist: Even though both come from such quarterback-rich families, their dads were the outliers. Both were wide receivers. Cooper Manning signed to play wideout at Ole Miss, but his college career was derailed after he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis. Abram Booty was a standout receiver at LSU who had a brief stint with the Cleveland Browns.

“It’s funny how it’s kinda come full circle,” Josh Booty said, referring to this week’s matchup that figures to be one of the most-watched games of the weekend with Arch Manning expected to make his first college start.

Josh Booty, General’s uncle, played two years at LSU after spending five years in pro baseball. (Scott Halleran / Getty Images)

Manning, a five-star recruit, put on a dazzling performance last week against UTSA after starter Quinn Ewers left the game in the second quarter with an abdominal injury. On Manning’s first play, he threw a 19-yard touchdown pass. Two offensive plays later, he dashed 67 yards for a touchdown, showcasing wheels we never saw from his legendary uncles. The 19-year-old hit a top speed of 20.7 mph on the run as he sprinted away from the defense. Before the night was over, Manning amassed five touchdowns, including four through the air, in a 56-7 win.

The younger Manning has seamlessly fit in at Texas despite a staggering amount of hype surrounding his arrival on campus. Texas coaches rave about his work ethic, athleticism and demeanor all in the glow of the brightest spotlight any young quarterback has faced coming into college in years.

The QB for the team he’s playing Saturday night, General Booty, has become something of a cult hero. He’s the latest in a long line of quarterbacks in a family that is football royalty in northwest Louisiana, where his grandfather helped lead the upstart program at Evangel Christian Academy to 14 state football titles and one national championship.

But General has endured the most circuitous path of his family, including playing for four different high schools — two in California (freshman in Newport Beach, junior in San Juan Capistrano) and two in Texas (sophomore in San Antonio and senior, after COVID-19 hit, in Allen).

His college career began at Tyler Junior College in Texas, where he led the nation in passing with 3,410 yards in 2021. He signed with Oklahoma after one year at Tyler and backed up Dillon Gabriel — who became one of his best friends — for two seasons. With five-star Jackson Arnold in line to take over at OU, Booty entered the portal in May and signed with ULM, not far from his family’s roots in Shreveport, where his grandparents still live.

His unique name has always drawn triple-takes and giggles, especially when he’s outside of Louisiana.

“At first, people didn’t believe that was really my name,” he said. “They’d be like, ‘What’s your real name? Let me see your license.’ They wanted to make fun. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think it’s pretty cool.”

General’s dad, Abram, loved to read about military strategy and history when he was growing up.

“I was just a big Army nut,” Abram said. “I told my wife, if we ever have a boy, can we name him General? She said OK. I think at the time she thought it was just something that was gonna pass. But it’s ended up fitting him well. He’s a great leader. It’s obviously a very unique name, especially with our last name, so it’s opened a lot of doors for him.”

Booty is taking advantage of his unique name with his own line of T-shirts available at GeneralBootyShop.com. And sales are going quite well, according to his dad. There are slogans such as “Booty Call” and “General Booty Reporting for Duty.”

“It started in Oklahoma, and he gave a portion of the proceeds to the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City,” Abram said. “We’ve had orders from Louisiana, Texas, Finland, Germany. It’s been incredible. I don’t know how people have been finding out about him. He’s been able to give a lot of money to the hospital. The first two years, he’s sold over 60K in T-shirts and he gave 20 percent to the children’s hospital.”

“I was able to stick out just because of my name,” General said. “Having good character and giving back to the community, and people aren’t gonna forget my name, it was catchy. The fans at OU were awesome.”

Two years ago, when the Sooners were playing in the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando, Fla., Gabriel — who began his career at UCF — showed Booty around his old city and introduced him to one of his friends who was part of Rock ’Em Socks, a prominent sock company founded in Florida. They loved the potential for doing something with Booty.

“We want to come out with an underwear line,” they told him. “What do you think of making a big splash here this summer? We’ll do a photo shoot. We’ll put ‘Booty’ on the back.”

Booty jumped at the opportunity.

“I loved what they were doing,” he said. “It was fun to do. We’re trying to get some Warhawk stuff going now. We’ll have another line coming out pretty soon.”

The Warhawks already have matched their win total from last year, when they went 2-10. New coach Bryant Vincent has pumped new life into a Sun Belt program that hasn’t finished with a winning record since 2012. ULM beat Jackson State in the opener and then, despite being an 11.5-point underdog, hammered UAB 32-6. Booty’s had modest numbers so far, completing 63 percent of his passes for 191 yards and one touchdown with 24 yards rushing.

“He’s way faster than me and (John David) and he’s smart,” Josh Booty said. “I just hope he can play OK against Texas.”

Despite playing in the same state at the same time, Josh Booty and Peyton Manning never faced each other.

“We were always in different classifications in high school,” Josh said. “J.D. never played Eli and I never played Peyton. We were 1A and Peyton was 2A. J.D. was 5A and Eli was 2A.”

Josh, who threw for over 11,000 yards in high school and was a four-time all-state shortstop, and Peyton were getting recruited by the same schools.

“It was Texas, Florida, Tennessee, A&M, LSU, Ole Miss,” Josh said. “I remember going to a recruiting trip to LSU. Of course, Archie was great, but I don’t think they knew Peyton was going to be as good as he was. I had the baseball stuff with (Tigers coach Skip) Bertman. LSU just bought into that whole thing with me. When I was walking on the sideline, the student section was cheering ‘Let’s Go Booty!’ We were on the same visit. I can’t remember if it was a big game. I went to three or four of those things. That was the first time I got to meet him.

“Man, was he good! He was just way smarter than everybody else. He just knew everything about everything. He was so detailed. Never missed a beat on anything. His awareness was unbelievable.”

Archie Manning helped the Booty family navigate the recruiting process.

“He had a lot of great insight for my dad,” Josh said. “My dad really leaned on him. Archie is awesome.”

Though Manning signed with Tennessee and eventually became one of the sport’s most iconic figures, Booty chose a different path. He was the fifth pick in the 1994 MLB Draft by the Florida Marlins and signed for a then-record $1.6 million bonus. But after playing in just 26 games over three seasons in the major leagues, Booty returned to football and enrolled at LSU in 1999. He played two seasons with the Tigers and later spent parts of three seasons with the Browns.

Josh, the oldest Booty brother — the one who made the family name so well known throughout Louisiana for his record-smashing high school career at Evangel Christian — has spent hundreds of hours coaching his nephew.

“We have spent a ton of time on his motion, his release and footwork,” Josh said.

General Booty said they’re all excited for Saturday night in Austin.

“With Arch getting his first start, and now Texas moving up to No. 1 this week, we know there’s gonna be a lot of people watching,” he said. “We’re all excited to play on that stage. No one’s really expecting us to win or even to put up much of a fight. Obviously, Texas is a great test to see how far we’ve come. We’re gonna let it all loose. We’ve got nothing to lose. Everyone’s really fired up for that environment. We just want to go out there to go compete and show people what we’ve got.”

(Photos of Arch Manning, General Booty: Scott Wachter / USA Today, Lauren Witte / Clarion Ledger / USA Today Network)

Bruce Feldman is the National College Football Insider for The Athletic. One of the sport’s leading voices, he also is a sideline reporter for FOX College Football. Bruce has covered college football nationally for more than 20 years and is the author of numerous books on the topic, including "Swing Your Sword: Leading The Charge in Football and Life" with Mike Leach and most recently "The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks." Follow Bruce on Twitter @BruceFeldmanCFB