Blake Shapen on Manning name in Mississippi: 'Everybody knows who the Mannings are'

Blake Shapen got the full Manning family experience at the Manning Passing Academy and felt the weight of the name throughout Mississippi.

Well, Mississippi and Louisiana. Shapen met the famous trio of Peyton, Eli and father Archie. Heck, Peyton and Eli’s nephew Arch is also in the SEC, playing for Texas.

No matter how short of a meeting, Shapen took it all in.

“Everybody knows who the Mannings are and like I said, to be able to meet those guys, meet Peyton, Eli and Archie, it was a blessing for me,” Shapen said at SEC Media Days. “You get to learn a lot of different things from them. Number of Super Bowls in that room combined through three of them. So it was a lot of good experience I could take in.”

Shapen will see a Manning, potentially multiple Manning’s later this season when Mississippi State travels to take on Texas September 28th. Quinn Ewers will start but Arch Manning could very well see some game action at some point.

We’ll see if Shapen can show out in front of the Manning family when he operates the Bulldogs’ offense.

Blake Shapen ‘the right guy’ for Mississippi State

The Bulldogs welcomed the senior transfer in to command the offense and head coach Jeff Lebby said they got the right guy. For a first-year head coach, it’s a big sigh of relief to have the QB position figured out.

He explained what Shapen brought to the table during SEC Media Days.

“Yeah, I think when you look at it, the biggest piece is for us to get off the ground the right way,” Lebby said on SEC Network. “We needed to go get a quarterback that can get it done. I’ve talked about that nonstop today. We got the right guy. That’s a guy that’s going to have the opportunity to engineer an offense that’s going to be to the standard that we want it to be at. And without that piece, I think things look a little bit differently.”

Shapen spent the last three years of his college career at Baylor, playing all 13 games in 2022. Over the course of his career, Shapen has 5,574 yards, 36 touchdowns, 13 interceptions and a 63.7% completion percentage. He also has six rushing touchdowns.

As a member of the Class of 2020, Shapen was a three-star recruit out of Shreveport (La.) Evangel Christian Academy, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 27 overall prospect in the state, the No. 46 quarterback in the class and the No. 654 overall prospect in the class.