Not sure who needs to hear this, but since the start of the 2006 college football season, the year Tim Tebow entered the scene as a specialty wing-T battering ram backup to Florida starter Chris Leak, 15 different quarterbacks have won a Heisman Trophy. None of them was named Manning.

Come to think of it, none of the quarterbacks that took home the stiff-arm statue before 2006 was named Manning, either, but that’s not the point.

This is the point.

Since 2006, of the 15 quarterbacks who won the Heisman as the best player in college football, only three also led their teams to a national championship in the same season.

Cam Newton did it at Auburn in 2010. Jameis Winston did it at Florida State in 2013. Joe Burrow did it at LSU in 2019. Each set records. Each made everyone around him better. Each was spectacular in his own way as an individual playmaker and as a team leader.

If you were going to offer an honest professional opinion on which college football player has been the best quarterback we’ve seen since Tebow arrived in 2006, you could go in a number of different directions, on or off the Heisman honor roll, but Newton, Winston and Burrow would make a damn strong short list.

My opinion hasn’t changed in the last 15 years. Newton still gets my vote as the GOAT because he did the most with the least, he won games with his arm, his legs and his will and he produced the most memorable victory against the most formidable opponent under the most hostile conditions imaginable in the 2010 Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa.

Newton refused to let that nightmare scenario end that dream season. The Tigers haven’t come close to winning in Bryant-Denny Stadium since.

If you were interested in a good-faith debate on the best quarterback in college football since Tebow, the one player you wouldn’t introduce into the conversation would be a talented Texas junior who’s spent two years as a backup, who’s started only twice and only because QB1 got hurt, who saw spot duty in two conference championship games and two College Football Playoff games without attempting a single pass or scoring a single touchdown.

In other words, you wouldn’t do what ESPN’s Paul Finebaum did when he said this on “Get Up” this week: “Arch Manning is the best college football quarterback we have seen since Tim Tebow entered the scene in 2006.”

Not “may be.” Not “could be.” Not “possibly or probably will be.” “Is.” No discussion. No debate.

Calling Paul. Please make sense of it all.

Over the past two decades, we have seen more from every single full-time Alabama starting quarterback – from John Parker Wilson to Blake Sims to Jalen Milroe – than we’ve seen from the young Manning to date. Where it counts. The only place it counts. On a college football field in big games in the SEC and beyond.

The grandson of Archie and nephew of Peyton and Eli is 2-0 as a starter. The two opponents were Louisiana-Monroe and Mississippi State. He may or may not have a higher ceiling than Greg McElroy, AJ McCarron, Jake Coker, Jalen Hurts and Mac Jones, but they have something more tangible than potential.

Each of them has a national championship ring as a starting quarterback. McCarron has two. Hurts has a Super Bowl ring as well.

The mere mention of Manning in the same sentence as Tebow is factually incorrect, terribly unfair to the Texas heir apparent and unintentionally insulting to the Florida legend. As a freshman, Manning came off the bench in two games and didn’t throw or run for a touchdown as Texas won the Big 12 and reached the playoff semifinals. In his debut season, Tebow played in every game and accounted for 13 touchdowns as Florida won the national title.

As a sophomore, on a Texas team that again reached the playoff semifinals, Manning played in 10 games, starting two, and accounted for 13 touchdowns but only one after September. In his second season at Florida, Tebow won the Heisman.

Maybe Manning will lift that trophy in December. Maybe he’ll lead the Longhorns to a bigger prize in January. Maybe he’ll do both and join an elite club alongside Newton, Winston and Burrow.

Unless and until he does, it would be wise to ease off the gas and tap the brakes on ranking the latest Manning alongside one legend and above a number of others. What if he’s good but not great? What if he’s great but not all-time great? What if he’s a Heisman finalist but not a Heisman winner, a Heisman winner but not a national champion, a national champion but not a Heisman winner?

Say this for the young man. He seems wise beyond his years and a lot of others’, too. Everyone from Finebaum to Steve Spurrier is talking about him. So far, he’s learned to say less.