Joe Milton III's farthest throw? All he'll say is it starts with a nine

Peyton Manning was so confident it was going to happen, he was already issuing the warning before the annual Manning Passing Academy held at Norfolk State last month. Giving Joe Milton III 70 yards worth of field wouldn’t be enough. 

“We might need to back him up on our own 10 and give him 100 yards to work with,” Manning said before the camp.

Manning wasn’t wrong. He put Milton on the 30-yard line and watched as Tennessee’s new starting quarterback took a deep drop and launched the football nearly 80 yards to the back corner of the far end zone.

“We’ve had some great ones here,” Manning said at the time. “But I’m not sure there’s been more anticipation for this Friday night throwing tonight. We usually start the throwing on, I don’t know, maybe the 30-yard line, going toward the other end zone.

“You figure that you’ve got 80 yards that’s safe, that you’re not going to run a kid into the goalpost. I’m not sure the 30’s are safe with Joe.”

Joe Milton’s infamous arm strength has gone viral on social media

There was another video in May, published on social media and showing Milton throwing a ball 80 yards at the Steve Clarkson QB Retreat in California. He followed it up with a standing backflip, usually seen on the field while Tennessee warms up before a game.

He went viral back in December, too, when he threw an orange 100-plus yards on Tennessee’s practice field, obliterating it on the side of a wall, ahead of facing Clemson in the Orange Bowl in Miami.

But in Nashville on Thursday, as the Vols made their way through SEC Media Days, Milton was asked about his infamous arm. And it might have been the toughest line of questioning he faced the entire day. 

It came from Cole Cubelic and Greg McElroy, the SEC Network analysts and hosts of McElroy and Cube in the Morning. 

Exactly how far is the farthest Milton has ever thrown a football?

“A yes or no,” Cubelic said, asking Milton specifically about rumors that he had once thrown a football 90 yards. “That can’t be a maybe. A 9-0? I’ve got to have a definitive answer from you right now. Has that happened?”

“A flick of the wrist,” McElroy said with a laugh.

“It wasn’t a flick of the wrist,” Milton added.

“It can even be wind-aided,” Cubelic continued. “I don’t care. If that has happened, we need to know about that.”

Finally, Milton fessed up.

“It has happened,” he said with a big smile after dropping his head. “But would I say the exact number? Absolutely not.”

“But did it start with a nine?” Cubelic asked. 

“Yes, it did,” Milton answered. 

“That’s all we need to know,” McElroy added. “Because it’s basically the length of a football field.”

Peyton Manning: ‘I watch Joe practice, I know how much he studies’

Last season Milton passed for 971 yards and 10 touchdowns, completing 65 percent of his passes over nine games. But his opportunities were mainly limited to mop-up duty behind Hendon Hooker, before Hooker was lost to a torn ACL in November. 

He started in Tennessee’s 56-0 win in the regular-season finale at Vanderbilt a week after Hooker’s season-ending injury, throwing for 147 yards and a touchdown while the Vols rushed for 362 yards and six touchdowns as a team.

He would go on to lead Tennessee to a 31-14 win over Clemson in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium a little over a week later. He was named the game’s MVP after throwing for 251 yards and three touchdowns.

“Big arms is great,” Manning said in June, “but I watch Joe practice, I know how much he studies. He’s an accurate quarterback and he’s a great kid as well.”