As long as Archie Manning doesn’t force his youngest son to quit the team and move halfway around the country, Daniel Jones’ first career start for the Giants should go smoother than the last time he was in this situation.

Jones is no stranger to an early-season quarterback change like the one the Giants made this week by naming him the starter and sending two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning to the bench. As a sophomore at Charlotte Latin High School in 2012, Jones lost a neck-and-neck preseason quarterback battle to a transfer who was one year older.

“Daniel was 5-foot-11, 148 pounds at the start of camp, and we had a young guy move in from out in the Midwest,” coach Larry McNulty recalled Thursday for NJ Advance Media. “He was supposed to be some hot-shot quarterback and he really looked the part — a good-looking strapping young guy. When we got to the first game of the season, I let the older boy start.”

It turned out to be a miscalculation.

“He was not effective at all in the first half,” McNulty said. "So I brought Daniel in, we won the game, and he threw a touchdown pass. I noticed his teammates really rallied behind him.

“The next Monday I said to the other guy, ‘Daniel — even though he’s only a sophomore — had the upper hand in the game so I’m going to let him start. See how he does. If things aren’t going well, I’ll bring you back in. We’re still battling back and forth.’"

Two days later, McNulty’s phone rang.

Seven years later — and two-plus years into his retirement after 32 years coaching — some of the details are foggy in McNulty’s mind. He can’t remember the other quarterback’s name or what state he came from.

But he remembers how the competition ended.

“The head of the upper school called me and said, ‘Hey, your quarterback’s dad was just here and they just pulled him out of school. He’s moving back (home),'” McNulty said. “So, he’s gone, and I’m stuck with a 148-pound sophomore."

Well, that once-scrawny 15-year-old kid developed into the No. 6 pick in the 2019 NFL Draft and now is the 6-foot-5, 221-pound future of the Giants. He will make his first start Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In advance of his NFL debut, NJ Advance Media wanted to learn more about his real first start, back in high school.

Charlotte Latin was an 11-time state champion under McNulty, but the 2012 team was “very mediocre” and only had one other quarterback to back up Jones, according to the coach.

Jones won his first start, 39-6, against Airborne for Christ — a “home-schooled team” made up of talented athletes not on another high school roster for one reason or another — but Charlotte Latin finished the season with a 4-6 record, according to MaxPreps.

“Through the course of that season, that poor 148-pound sophomore got knocked on his fanny I can’t tell you how many times,” McNulty said. "He got pulverized. Sacked and thrown to the ground, and he’d get right back up into the huddle.

“We, as a coaching staff, liked Daniel all the way back as an eighth-grader. But he was always really skinny, and he was a very good basketball player. It wasn’t until after that sophomore year that he decided he really wanted to be a quarterback and started lifting weights and going to camps.”

Jones blossomed into a three-year high school starter and one of McNulty’s all-time favorite players to coach, but he still had to walk on and earn a scholarship at Duke. After a redshirt year, he accounted for three touchdowns in his first college start — a 49-6 win against North Carolina Central in 2016 — and became a three-year starter again.

The Giants are hoping for a decade or more out of Jones. Manning started 232 of the last 233 Giants games.

“I made all my quarterbacks come down and meet with me every day,” McNulty said. “I said, ‘I can’t install this college-style offense we run unless you understand conceptually what we’re doing.’ In three years, he never missed a meeting. If he had a test or something going on, he would come down before school and meet with me at 7 a.m."

McNulty won’t be in Tampa Bay on Sunday, but he hopes to be on hand when the Dallas Cowboys visit the Giants on Nov. 11.

“An assistant coach of mine then said, ‘I’ve seen a lot of good ones, and if this kid gets bigger he’s got a chance of playing after high school and — who knows? — maybe in the pros someday,” McNulty recalled. “I’m like, ‘Get out of here. He’s 6-foot tall, 155 pounds.’ Lo and behold, on Sunday, he’s going to be out there.”

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.