GROVE CITY — Eli Manning and Kurt Warner are embroiled in another quarterback competition.

This one, though, isn't for playing time. It's for the affection of Aubri McCoy.

The 12-year-old Grove City girl and Punt Pass and Kick veteran has been a fan of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning since he broke into the league.

"I like him because everyone said he was bringing the Giants down," McCoy said. "I felt bad for him. Everyone called him Peyton's little brother and I thought he was better than that."

McCoy was right. Manning crawled out of his brother's shadow, beating out Warner for the Giants QB job during his rookie year and has won a Super Bowl.

McCoy still lists Eli as her No. 1 QB, but Warner, who left New York for Arizona, is moving up fast on her most favorite list.

"He's second now," McCoy said.

That's because Warner went out of his way in the days leading up to the NFC Divisional playoff game Jan. 10 at Carolina to give McCoy and her fellow PPK-ers some advice.

"He was really nice," McCoy said. "He wished me good luck."

McCoy was in Charlotte, N.C., for the National Punt, Pass and Kick competition.

Just getting there was a surprise to her because she was competing against girls who were more than a year older.

McCoy, who made the national competition last year inIndianapolis, finished third in 2009 on a damp and chilly night.

But the best part of the trip, McCoy said, was meeting Warner and some of the other Cardinals players.

"They were all super nice," said Nancy McCoy, Aubri's mother. "The NFL people weren't happy about the fact the Cardinals were staying in the same hotel as the Punt, Pass and Kick kids. They were worried the kids would bother them."

Instead, it was the Cardinals who went out of their way to meet the youngsters.

Warner posed for a picture with Aubri McCoy and signed the back of her birth certificate.

"It was the only piece of paper we had," Nancy McCoy said.

When Arizona beat Philadelphia and Pittsburgh beat Baltimore in the conference championship games last weekend, Aubri McCoy found herself in a situation more tenuous than throwing, punting and kicking a football in front of thousands of spectators.

She has found herself rooting for the Cardinals to win the Super Bowl in Steelers Country.

Aubri scoured stores and the internet to find a Warner jersey for the game and enlisted one of her friends to root for Arizona with her.

Don't get Aubri wrong; she likes the Steelers. They just aren't her favorites.

On the Aubri scale, the Giants come first, followed by the rapidly rising Cardinals, the Indianapolis Colts (she can't leave Eli's big brother off her list) and then the Steelers.

Aubri is a Hines Ward fan, after all.

"I'll be a little bit disappointed if (the Cardinals) don't win," Aubri said. "But it's OK if the Steelers win."

Ward will be happy to hear that.