Todd Helton, Peyton Manning and a 1994 autumn in the Tennessee QB room that changed everything for two Hall of Famers

Clouds hardly ever dare enter the Rose Bowl’s airspace, but a gloomy afternoon was closing in fast Sept. 3, 1994, when Todd Helton decided he needed to find a headset.

The perpetual Pasadena sunshine blazed, but the University of Tennessee football team had big problems, little offense to speak of and an uncertain autumn outlook after starting quarterback Jerry Colquitt tore his left ACL on the Vols’ season-opening drive.

Such misfortune — Colquitt finally landed the starting job in his fifth season, only to have it end after nine snaps — meant opportunity for Helton, a junior two-sport athlete from Knoxville Central.

Not that he expected it.

Helton spent the summer tearing up baseball’s Cape Cod League before rejoining the UT football team for a couple of weeks of camp. He figured he’d spend the fall watching Colquitt capitalize on his chance to be the man.

“When he got hurt, the first thing I had to do was get the Snickers out of my pants and the M&Ms,” Helton told The Denver Post. “That’s about how prepared I was for that. It was a beautiful day and I was really looking forward to watching Jerry play because he finally got to play and I was excited for him.”

By the end of the afternoon, Helton had led a furious rally that fell just short. A pair of fresh-faced true freshmen got some run, too: Branndon Stewart and Peyton Manning.

Helton and Manning, of course, eventually became Colorado sports icons.

All-time greats.

Hall of Famers.

Those months they spent together in offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe’s quarterbacks room at UT marked an inflection point for both: Helton’s final football days and the launching point of Manning’s career.

Of course, nobody knew that then. ABC commentators Keith Jackson and Bob Griese speculated about which sport Helton would choose and whether Manning or Stewart was the third option.

Cutcliffe had an inkling the group was special but couldn’t have foreseen the twists and turns ahead, let alone the eventual greatness.

Such thoughts were far from his mind that afternoon. In fact, he was about to get an earful.

Beginnings and endings

Cutcliffe was confident he had the guy to replace 1993 Heisman Trophy runner-up Heath Shuler at quarterback.

After all, he had been on Tennessee’s staff since 1982, meaning he’d watched Colquitt and Helton grow up as star athletes at Oak Ridge and Knoxville Central, respectively.

Then UT signed Manning and Stewart in a rare two-headed monster of a recruiting class.

The plan was simple: Colquitt would take the reins from Shuler. And Helton would provide veteran insurance — though the priority, as Colquitt recalls it, also included making sure Helton stayed healthy.

“We had a franchise guy,” Colquitt said. “He might have been a baseball franchise guy, but he was still a franchise guy.”

Manning and Stewart would watch and learn before battling for the job in 1995.

Except the plan got scrambled. While Helton strapped up his helmet and took the field, Manning and Stewart found out on the sideline that they would not be redshirting.

“They looked at Peyton and me and they were like, ‘OK, you guys are going to get to play,’” Stewart told The Post. “And I’m thinking it was like asking an 8-year-old to drive a car.”

As Helton tried in vain to get UT’s lagging offense jump-started, Cutcliffe couldn’t shake the devastation he felt for Colquitt, about whom he still raves: “The best thing that can ever be said to you is for somebody who was on your teams to come up and say, ‘Hey man, you were the best teammate I ever had.’ I promise you that’s been said to Jerry Colquitt.”

Finally, Helton, the normally laid-back slugger, decided he had to take action.

“He asked for the headset of one of our assistants and said, ‘I need to talk to Coach Cut,’” Cutcliffe said. “I’m up in the press box. He gets on there and he says, ‘Coach Cut, you’re a baseball guy. You know that when you’ve got a bad pitcher on the mound — he was referring to himself — that you’ve got to call a good game. Get off your ass and let’s go!’ …

“I was in shock, honestly, over Jerry. And Todd knew how to pull me out of it. I’d known him forever. We had this phenomenal relationship and I chuckled out loud. The other coaches up in the box were wondering, ‘What’s he laughing about?’ But it got me off my butt, as he said it, and I called a better game for him.”

Helton led three second-half touchdown drives. He ran for first downs, threw the ball around. Even lowered his throwing shoulder into a decleating block late in the game.

Tennessee fell, 25-23, but felt like maybe it had found its answer at quarterback.

“Although he didn’t win that UCLA game when I got hurt, I was just so proud of him going out there and showing who he was as a competitor on a gigantic stage,” Colquitt said. “That’s the Todd Helton I know right there. This guy was out there, just gutsy, leading the team. No fear at all.”

Then the franchise player got hurt playing for the wrong franchise.

The ballplayer

Helton, the others say, brought a baseball player’s mentality to Tennessee’s quarterback room.

He didn’t get too riled up. Wasn’t too concerned about the harsh glare of the UT limelight, which Stewart, a Texas native and high school All-American, found akin “to playing for the Dallas Cowboys” since the state had no professional teams at the time.

Helton helped alleviate all of that.

“I was definitely relaxed,” Helton said with a chuckle. “But 99% of the reason I was relaxed was because I knew I wasn’t going to play that Saturday. I had a great time in those meeting rooms and a good time with those guys.

“We made those meetings fun, enjoyable.”

Cutcliffe, though, is clear even 30 years later.

“His vision as a quarterback was special,” he said. “I’m still convinced that Todd sees in slow motion.”

Of course, if slo-mo vision helped make Helton a good college quarterback, it’s also part of what made him a terrific baseball player.

He signed with Tennessee after turning down a second-round draft selection by San Diego in 1992. In college, he’d finish football practice and then hit in a cage in the same indoor facility. When he split time, it wasn’t only his absence from the football field that his teammates noticed.

“Literally, we would be at football practice and we could hear the baseball field,” Stewart said. “It was right across the street and right below us. And you would know when Todd was up to bat for batting practice.

“It was a totally different sound.”

The two-sport reckoning finally came Sept. 24 against Mississippi State. Helton had propelled UT to a win at Georgia in Week 2 but then got shut out by No. 1 Florida. During a Week 4 road loss to MSU, Helton hurt his knee, too.

“Word came from the baseball team like, ‘Hey, that’s a wrap,'” Colquitt said.

Actually, Helton remembers it slightly differently.

“Not the baseball program,” he corrected. “Todd said that’s the end of that.”

Good call, it turns out.

“I got a free pass out of football without getting too hurt, without having to have surgery or anything like that,” Helton said. “I sprained my MCL. Perfect. Three weeks and I was in the cage hitting and getting ready for baseball.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me at that point in my life.”

It worked out OK for UT football, too.

Precocious Peyton

Life as a college freshman quarterback in 1994 was different than it is today.

As Manning debuted against UCLA, ABC’s Lynn Swann interviewed Archie and Olivia Manning in the stands and Archie said this about Peyton: “He’s been out there three weeks, but he’s worked hard. I was around him today at the hotel and he was studying plays. … I think he’s as prepared as you can be in a three-week period.”

When Stewart got in, he’d run to the sideline after each play to get the call verbally from the sideline because, the broadcast noted, he probably didn’t yet know the signals.

They both arrived in Knoxville highly touted, Manning an accomplished prep star in Louisiana and the son of a two-time Pro Bowler and Stewart a high school All-American from Texas.

By the time Helton got hurt, Manning had pulled ahead in the race. They both played most weeks, but Manning started the final eight games and guided UT to a 7-1 finishing kick.

“Branndon was good,” Colquitt said. “He was phenomenal when he came in and he had a lot of tools. But Peyton didn’t blink. He just kept on grinding, kept working.”

Cutcliffe didn’t want to heap too much responsibility on his young guys, but Manning wanted nothing more than to drink from the firehose.

“I can remember several times where Todd would be pulling his hair out because Peyton, he just loved football and he was super competitive and super intense and he knew exactly what preparation looks like because his dad literally did it,” Stewart said with a laugh. “So he’s making all these notes, he knows everything you could possibly want to know about the playbook, the defense, everything, right? And Todd was just like, ‘Dude, can you just shut up?’ We’re just trying to watch film with Coach Cutcliffe,’ and Peyton’s like, ‘Da da da, I looked at this film and back in 1982 this defensive coordinator did this and this’ and it’s like dude, are you kidding me? Like, chill out.

“But that’s what made Peyton so good.”

Colquitt was denied a sixth year of eligibility because he played nine plays. Helton didn’t play another snap of football and was picked No. 8 overall by the Rockies in 1995. Stewart transferred to Texas A&M, went 23-11 as a starter and was the MVP of the Aggies’ first Big 12 championship game win.

Even with the attrition, Cutcliffe had all he needed heading into 1995 and beyond.

“I’ll never forget the ‘wow’ I had in terms of where Peyton started and where he ended up with that (1994) season,” he said. “It did force-feed him. And if you’re going to force-feed somebody, Peyton Manning is the guy you want to do that with because he can take it. … His ability to make practice like a game was so critically important.

“By the time he’s a sophomore in the spring, oh my goodness. Every day I was smiling.”

Call from the Hall … again

The stories are well-chronicled from there.

Manning set or approached all kinds of collegiate records, got drafted No. 1 overall by Indianapolis and laid waste to the NFL for the Colts and eventually the Broncos. He racked up five MVPs, two Super Bowl trophies and a no-doubt, first-ballot Hall of Fame nod in 2021.

Helton played 17 years, all for the Rockies, and hit .316 for his career. He hammered 369 homers, appeared in five straight All-Star games from 2000 to ’04 and cemented himself as a franchise luminary.

Along the way, he carried with him the teachings of his old football coach, calling Cutcliffe and manager Clint Hurdle his foremost mentors.

“(Cutcliffe) got me at a point in my life where I really needed what he was offering,” Helton said. “That’s a wise, smart guy that what he tells you and coaches you and preaches to you doesn’t just apply to football. It applies in life and it definitely applied in baseball to me.”

Cutcliffe tested his quarterbacks each week and at the end of each test would be bonus material. Life stuff rather than football. He and Helton each call out the same phrase separately even today.

“Don’t be a dirt kicker.”

Frustration’s going to come. Failure’s a part of sports and life. But controlling your response is the key.

“I got frustrated, don’t get me wrong,” Helton said. “And I threw some crap, but it was always down under where nobody could see me. I did that for two reasons: I didn’t want the other team to see that I was upset and I didn’t want kids to see that.”

Cutcliffe saw everything he needed to about Helton the first time he visited Denver after Helton made the big leagues. The football lifer, who eventually became the head coach at Duke and now is a special assistant to Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey, grew up a baseball nut.

“So you know I’m loving going to work with him,” Cutcliffe said. “I’m getting to ride in, going to the players’ parking lot, taking that walk into the stadium. But what made me most proud: Todd Helton knew the first name of every person we ran into, no matter what their job was. The parking attendant. Every person was important to him.

“As a coach, that’s the ultimate goal.”

One more pinnacle arrived last month when Helton was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. When the news arrived, Cutcliffe was among the first to know.

“After not sleeping the night before,” Cutcliffe said. “When his wife, Christy, texted me, ‘He got the call,’ I knew what it meant and I started crying. … Knowing what baseball meant to Todd and his family, oh my goodness. I was so happy that the baseball writers got it done. God bless ’em.

“It was a beautiful, beautiful thing.”

Thirty years and two Hall of Fame careers later, the proud coach still recalls the fall of 1994 with a sense of wonder.

“I don’t know that it’ll ever repeat itself. There’s no way,” he said. “I mean, what are the chances of a baseball Hall of Famer and a football Hall of Famer being in the same room?

“Maybe zero, really.”

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