Mike
Well-known member
You may not get the chance to see him again. I'll bet the Big 12 is glad they never saw him against them.
When a football player comes along who's both captivating and unique, it's admittedly clichéd to say that we'll never see another one quite like him.
In the case of Johnny Manziel, it's not a cliché. It's gospel.
As he completes his quasi-farewell tour in two big games on the road against No. 22 LSU and No. 8 Missouri, my advice is to sit back and enjoy him.
He's truly one of a kind.
"You really can't compare him to a lot of guys," said LSU senior linebacker Lamin Barrow, who was part of the last defense to hold Manziel without a touchdown (rushing or passing), last season in the Tigers' 24-19 win over the Aggies.
"He just makes plays -- a lot of times with his feet -- that you can't prepare for. You think you've got him for a loss, and he spins out and throws the ball 40 yards down the field. It's not just one time, but he does it over and over again.
But when you start talking about somebody who athletically and individually can just step out there and beat you, Manziel's right up there in the top three, in my opinion, along with [Cam] Newton and [Michael] Vick.
"
-- Auburn defensive coordinator
Ellis Johnson
"You watch him sometimes, and it's like he's back playing in the park and just out there by himself."
Perhaps the ultimate compliment paid to Manziel came earlier this season from the man who's written the book, at least in this era of college football, on devising plans to bewilder an offense.
But it's Alabama coach Nick Saban who remains bewildered at Manziel's unconventional brilliance.
"You can't prepare for him because he makes so many plays when you've got him on the run and everything else breaks down," Saban said. "And then you think, 'OK, we're going to make him throw the ball from the pocket,' and he has a lot stronger arm and is a lot more accurate than anybody gives him credit for. He made some damn good throws against us the last two years.
"His instincts, though, are what make him so difficult to defend. It's like he has eyes in the back of his head."
Manziel and the Aggies have two losses, to No. 1 Alabama and No. 6 Auburn, by a total of 11 points. In those games, Manziel totaled 1,064 yards of offense and 10 touchdowns. He has thrown 17 touchdowns in his last four games and enters Saturday's game at LSU with 31 touchdown passes on the season. He had 26 a year ago during his Heisman Trophy campaign.
He also has 11 interceptions, one of the things his critics point to as maybe the biggest reason why he shouldn't join Archie Griffin as the only two-time winners of the Heisman Trophy.
The knock on Manziel is that he'll throw it to you if you give him a chance.
But he's also one of those rare players who's always going to give his team a chance no matter how poorly his defense is playing or how far behind his team falls in a game.
Listen, this isn't meant as a dig at Texas A&M's defense, which has been shredded this season, but what would this team's record be right now without Manziel?
At least two coaches in this league have told me they think the Aggies would be a borderline bowl team without No. 2 pulling the trigger.
With him, the Aggies still have a chance to get to a BCS bowl.
Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson has been coaching for 38 years and has done so at four different SEC schools, not counting a brief stopover at Arkansas. The only two quarterbacks he's coached against that he would put in the same class as Manziel would be Cam Newton and Michael Vick.
"I've coached against a lot of great ones -- Brett Favre, Tom Brady, both Mannings, Donovan McNabb, Russell Wilson, Tajh Boyd, Aaron Murray, AJ McCarron and I hope I didn't leave anybody out," Johnson said. "But when you start talking about somebody who athletically and individually can just step out there and beat you, Manziel's right up there in the top three, in my opinion, along with Newton and Vick.
"Now, those three are all different style quarterbacks than Favre, Manning and some of those other guys. But they're three you just don't have a lot of answers for because they can do so many things."
For the record, if Johnson had to choose one of the three he would least like to go against, it would be Newton.
"I can say that now because I know Manziel ain't coming back," Johnson said laughing. "Cam was everything Manziel was at about 250 pounds. There was no stopping Cam on third down. It just didn't happen."
Pound for pound, though, Johnson said Manziel might be as tough a quarterback as he's coached against after seeing the way Manziel gutted it out last month in Auburn's 45-41 win at Texas A&M.
"We separated his shoulder, and he could have canned it," Johnson said. "But he went in, got shot, came back out there and threw a back-shoulder fade to get them down there for another score. We beat that boy to death physically, but he wasn't about to stay down.
"He's something. He really is, and he's also a lot smarter than people think he is."
Sometimes, coaches are the ones who have the hardest time enjoying their own players -- even those players as entertaining as Manziel -- because they're so wrapped up in coaching their team.
Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin didn't necessarily realize what he had in Manziel until six or seven games into the season a year ago. Keep in mind, too, that Manziel wasn't even named the starter until preseason camp.
"We enjoy it a little bit better now that we understand what we have," Sumlin conceded.
Manziel burst onto the scene so quickly last year that it almost seems surreal to be talking about what will certainly be the final few games of his college football career.
It's been one hell of a ride with a quarterback who lives as hard as he plays, and the refreshing thing about Manziel is that he doesn't have an on-off switch.
When he's on that field, he's always on.