If you thought Peyton Manning was harboring a grudge toward Greg Schiano, Kirk Herbstreit says he has first-hand information that you are wrong.

Manning -- who is Tennessee royalty -- was on board and excited with Tennessee's plan to hire Schiano before the fan base transformed into a social media mob that caused the school to scrap its plans, according to one of the leading insiders in college football.

Herbstreit is a former quarterback at Ohio State, where Schiano is the defensive coordinator. Manning starred for Tennessee before his Hall of Fame career.

Here are Herbstreit's comments on ESPN radio about his conversation with Manning:

"I was excited and he was excited. We kind of basically, talking over the phone, high-fived and said, 'Hey, congratulations, you've got a great coach.' He's like, 'Yeah, I talked to Urban Meyer, talked to Bill Belichick. We're really excited about this. We vetted him. Everything is clean, good.'

I said, 'Awesome man. Congrats. He's going to do a great job. He'll put a good staff together. That was before everything went down. Then everything went down. I was in the air and was texting him, 'What in the world is happening here?'"

The vetting and the recommendations from top coaches didn't stop Tennessee fans from revolting.

Most of the outcry stemmed from an unproven allegation that Schiano knew about Jerry Sandusky's child sex abuse during his time as an assistant at Penn State from 1990-95, but there was a feeling that was used as an excuse to disprove of a coach with a 68-67 career record at Rutgers.

There was a feeling floated that Manning wouldn't support a Schiano hire because of past ill will.

When Schiano was the coach of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his players blitzed victory formation kneel-downs against the Manning brothers: Peyton when he was with the Denver Broncos and Eli with the Giants.

"Peyton cussed him out," then-Tampa Bay star Michael Bennett told NFL.com's Mike Silver in 2013. "And I ain't never heard Peyton cuss."

Tennessee reportedly has been rebuffed by Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy, Duke's David Cutcliffe, Purdue's Jeff Brohm and North Carolina State's Dave Doeren. Iowa State's Matt Campbell and Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter also were tied to it.

Next up is Kevin Sumlin, who was just fired by conference rival Texas A & M.

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.