Eli Manning became a part of Penn State football history two autumns ago.
To be more elaborate, it was a character played by Manning named Chad Powers.
“Powers” showed up at Penn State’s walk-on tryouts on the summer of 2022 for an ESPN+ documentary series called “Eli’s Places,” which centered around the future-Hall-of-Famer’s visits to college campuses.
His Penn State visit was quite eventful. Among the highlights were Manning— as himself— informing Penn State punter Barney Amor that he had earned a scholarship. But the “Chad Powers” shit is what Penn State fans will remember most. Manning, disguised as, well, somebody else, worked out under the alias before Penn State coach James Franklin and many others.
Now, Powers will live on in the form of a scripted television series.
The series is being prepared by Hulu and will be based on Powers, who will be played by Glen Powell, not Manning, per Variety, which broke the story.
Per variety, the series When bad behavior nukes hotshot QB Russ Holliday’s college career, he disguises himself and walks onto a struggling Southern football team as the talented, affable Chad Powers.”
Powell and co-producer Michael Waldron released a statement.
“When we saw Eli as Chad Powers, we knew that was the way into a big, fun story about this world,” they said.
Franklin is a Chad Powers fan, too, and explained the story in 2022.
“Really, they were able to do 99 percent of it kind of without messing up our normal routine. I think I had to give them 10 minutes of my time, which took time away from either lunch or my walk, which was good,” Franklin said in 2022. “So once I was comfortable with the fact we were going to be able to do that, and it not impact our normal routine or become a distraction, then we were all about it.”
