The Jets apparently might have been able to pique Peyton Manning's interest in turning pro -- but they would have had to stretch the league rules.

''I think Peyton kept waiting for something to hit him,'' Olivia Manning, the Tennessee quarterback's mother, said yesterday, ''and when it didn't happen, he wanted to return to school.''

She said that no one from the Jets made direct or indirect overtures.

''Peyton wanted to get it all done by April 4, when college practice started,'' she said when asked whether the Jets might have been able to get him if they had tried. ''He kept waiting.''

But pro teams were not allowed to approach Manning, an undergraduate who did not declare for the draft. The Jets carefully avoided any reference to Manning in public, or even in off-the-record conversations with members of the news media. The Jets, who own the overall No. 1 pick in the National Football League draft on Saturday, may thus have lost out on either acquiring the most highly regarded undergraduate quarterback or being able to trade his selection for a passel of draft picks.