Peyton Manning's ex-UT teammate backs up his training room story

Nobody known to be in the University of Tennessee training room for the now infamous incident between Peyton Manning and trainer Jamie Naughright has said much lately, but someone who says he was in the room came forward.

And a former Tennessee football player told backed up Manning's version of what happened when he talked to The MMQB's Robert Klemko.

Greg Johnson, a senior linebacker on the 1996 Vols, told Klemko that Manning quickly mooned teammate Malcolm Saxon, which is consistent with Manning's story (and with what Naughright said in a 1996 affidavit).

“Saxon walks in, and Peyton was the kind of guy who had to be friendly with everyone; he wanted to include everyone, from his teammates to the cross country guy," Johnson told Klemko. "He says hey to Saxon and pulls down the back of his shorts, and I saw one butt cheek, and then he pulled his pants up. And Jamie said something like, ‘Aw, you’re an ass.’ Then I left. Thought nothing of it.”

Why wasn't Johnson deposed or even mentioned in the court records? The MMQB reported that Johnson was unavailable because he was in the Marine Corps, part of an overseas tour of duty in Iraq after 9/11. Specifically addressing Naughright's claims that Manning placed his naked butt and genitals on her face, Johnson said: "It just didn’t happen."

The MMQB tried to track down anyone who might have seen the incident (including Saxon, who didn't want to speak about it), or was at Tennessee at that time and very few spoke to Klemko. Through the story, however, Naughright is not painted in a good light. The MMQB reported that before Super Bowl 50 there was a voicemail left at the house of Manning's parents, Archie and Olivia, from someone claiming to be Naughright claiming she would "release all these documents” and used offensive language in the voicemail. The MMQB also said that the sports desk at the Knoxville News Sentinel has received similar calls through the years with accusations about Manning, former UT coach Philip Fulmer and claims that the News Sentinel didn't adequately cover the training room incident.

The 20-year-old Manning-Naughright incident has been examined for a month, and there are conflicting stories about what happened. It's unlikely we'll ever get definitive proof about what happened, even if more people who know what happened decide to start discussing it.