In Saturday’s Texas A&M spring football game before a record crowd of 45,212, guess who everybody was talking about when it was over?
That’s right, sophomore quarterback and defending Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Who else would it have been?
Manziel threw for 303 yards and three touchdowns and completed 24 of 30 passes. Manziel only played one series in the second half as his Maroon team beat the White team 43-23. He also ran three times for 18 yards.
But it was more than his offensive production that had offensive coordinator Clarence McKinney talking. It was a block by the quarterback on a touchdown run by Brandon Williams on safety Sam Moeller that caught McKinney’s eye.
“I told Johnny, ‘Don’t ever do that again,’” McKinney said. “His instincts came into effect. He wanted to go and block for the guy. But we’re in the spring game; we don’t need to lose him on a busted play. We don’t want to see that.”
Manziel knew he was going to catch some grief as soon as he threw the block.
“They were just more worried about me being safe and being more careful than anything,” Manziel said. “I went up and apologized to Sam after it. The way that I am and the way that my motor drives me, it was just an instinct play. As soon as I did it I immediately regretted it.”
“Thing are just slowing down for me with Coach [Defensive coordinator Mark] Snyder and what they do. They really throw the whole kitchen sink at us. They disguise things, role coverages and blitzes.
“He continued to improve,” Aggies’ coach Kevin Sumlin said. “What you saw today — it was improvement in the pocket. He wasn’t very sloppy when he took off and ran. He got out of the pocket and wasn’t careless with the ball. That’s what we’re working on.”
For those who are expecting Manziel to suffer a sophomore or Heisman jinx, the quarterback from Kerrville, Texas, gave notice that neither is likely to happen.
“I’m not worried about that,” Manziel said.
“There’s still areas I can shore up in my mechanics,” Manziel said, “Seeing things, sometimes when a blitz comes I take my eyes off downfield and focus on evading adding the pressure. I don’t want to take away what comes natural for me on the football field but shore up my mechanics help the ball really shoot out instead of having to push it. That can always help.
Manziel plans to work again this summer with freelance quarterback coach George Whitfield in San Diego. It was Whitfield who gave the quarterback the catch phrase last season that became a point of inspiration that led to A&M’s upset of No. 1 Alabama.
“Be a dragon slayer,” Manziel said, rephrasing what Whitfield said to him. “Now there’s a big dragon out there for us with all the people who are doubting A&M, all the people who are doubting me that last year was a fluke. So that’s a chip on my shoulder and that’s a dragon I need to slay this year.”
“It’s more serious this time around,” he said of his time with Whitfield. “It’s almost personal with all the stuff that’s kind of being tossed around about my arm strength and this and that. It’s getting kind of personal to me and so we’re going to get after it.”
Manziel threw for more than 3,706 yards and 26 touchdowns and added 1,410 yards and 21 touchdowns on the ground last year in leading the Aggies to an 11-2 record. He then topped it off by becoming the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. Those magic moments pretty much turned Manziel’s life upside down.
When ESPN’s Spring Bus Tour recently visited College Station, Manziel sat down with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit at Kyle Field and talked about how he’s handled the acclaim.
“I’ve had such a good support system around me with Coach Sumlin and my family and my friends that helped me out and really adjusted to how things have been because it was crazy,” Manziel said.
When asked what he could do to follow up on last season, Manziel was quick to answer.
“A national championship — that’s the goal at the beginning of every year for us. A lot of people didn’t expect us to do what we did last year and now there’s a little more talk about us, hype if you want to call it; but we’re just making sure we stick to who we are as a team, stick to who were are as an offense, do what we do as a defense and come out here and produce results.”
With Rice and Sam Houston State to open the 2013 schedule, things get a little stickier on September 14 when defending national champion Alabama comes to College Station looking for revenge.
“I know those first two games are equally as important,” Manziel told ESPN, “but I know that [Alabama] game has all the hype. Of course, they will be coming and this place will be rocking. We need to get to a point where we did last year where we’re such a close-knit group on offense and we had an idea.
“We’ve got Coach Sumlin, Coach [co-Offensive coordinator Jake] Spavital, Coach McKinney and let’s stick to their plan. Trust that, look where it got us last year