Our Louisiana Hall of Fame coach, Shannon Suarez, would tell us every day,  “It ain’t far from the penthouse to the outhouse.” As a countrified sports  truism, it stands alone. It makes itself visible all the time, doesn’t it,  Tiger?

 Well, now here’s Johnny! His horse just got spooked out from underneath him,  and in the minds of millions today, he’s either flat on his backside or dangling  from some live oak tree. The athletic director just saw the dark side of the  Moon and one can be sure it’s never seen a Tide.

 [TWEET TWEET: Johnny Manziel 'can't wait to leave College Station']

 Sure, it may have been self-inflicted, but Johnny is certainly not the first  to wage war on a defenseless city without warning. As far back as when the  Vietnam War was ending, hundreds of us Aggie footballers did exactly the same  thing in this small Texas town of College Station. Fortunately for us, it was  only our parents who were on the other end of the wall phone listening to our descriptions of massive discomfort.

 Nowadays, the wall phone and long-distance toll calls have transformed into clicks on a little smart phone; harmless little peckings as texts go — but real  giant killers as tweets go. One must know the difference. Text or tweet. Tweet  or text. One means letting off a little steam to those who are closest to you,  while the other is the F-Bomb dropped right in the middle of Town Square.

 The Rule of Thumb here is to text only your girl or best bud in times of angst. That’s not
reckless. But, you see, Johnny lives like he plays—on the edge. That’s just the way it is with athletes. But if you do tweet criticism of the town in which you  currently live, you may find out where the love truly lies. Maybe less followers  and more haters is a good thing. And based on the exit polls I’ve been trolling,  it appears that maybe 10% are justifying his statement(s), as best they can.

 And as great of an athlete as this young college student is, it just doesn’t  seem to matter in the eyes of the voters. Many of these haters seem ready to  nail him to the cross, put his wrapped body in a canoe, and send him down the  Brazos River somewhere.

 But the truth is, as I heard on sports radio this morning, nobody cares much  about anything but winning. They seem to be saying, “If you’d just oblige us by  keeping your mouth shut and playing football from now on, you’re free to go at  any time. Oh, but one more thing–be sure and bring us the big BCS trophy before  you point your Beemer or Mercedes to the high country.”

 It is this that makes me uncomfortable. It’s not his tweet. Normally the only athletes who stay in College Station are those who grew up in College  Station. I can count on two fingers the number of former football players who  still live here who aren’t working in some capacity for the university. It’s  common knowledge. You could say the same thing about the entire student body.  For most Aggies, it’s in and out with visitation rights. 

Johnny just voiced what everyone knows, and the  people screaming on the Aggie forums will themselves be gone within a couple of  years, or already are. The town is centrally located between some pretty good  cities, which is its draw. It’s small enough that you can stay out of trouble,  as the recruiters like to say. Back in the day we sometimes traveled 30 miles to  Sam Houston State in Huntsville for a night out.

 Frustration is a human trait and everyone  handles theirs differently. He has a right to his opinion and a right to voice  it, and with it, the right to turn everything off and avoid those who are  calling for his head. With everything else going on, who knows how short his  future here may be? It’s the archaic NCAA rules that are partly to blame,  disallowing the players to profit on any endorsements that may be available to them as Olympians can. 

To me, it’s important to remember that Johnny has not broken the Aggie Code of
Honor in any way, shape, or form. This outpouring of negativity from  his own classmates and “former students” certainly can’t be inspiring the young  man to “fight for Maroon and White.”

 As a guy who has been labeled both “messiah”  and “pariah” in his years as the A&M quarterback, I promise the  transformation is a difficult one to get a handle on. Johnny’s tweet could be  the early echoes of a super-hero desperately wanting to change into his awaiting dynamic attire being held by a smiling general manager.  

In the meantime, Johnny will probably allow  only his closest friends to be near him, and he will continue to work to have  the greatest season of any college quarterback in history. 

It’s Johnny against the world now. He has you  right where he wants you. In the eyes of a supreme gladiator, this is exactly  the mindset Johnny needs. We all just got cut off, gang. I’d be surprised to see  him grant a single interview until the end of next season. He has laid out his  game plan, and it doesn’t include any know-it-all, loud-mouthed onlookers. You  can’t win with negative people in your way – or by your side.


In the end, Johnny’s coach, personnel,  offensive system and, oh, the quickest reflexes this side of a rattlesnake,   will allow him to accomplish heroic things. With these tools he can become the  greatest there ever was, and then say, “See ya.”

 Good for you, Johnny. The NFL can’t wait to  have you as part of its family.

My 90 year-old Aggies landlord, Henry Hilton, stopped by the other day after  returning from a vacation in Italy. Sometimes he likes to come by and chew the
fat, though he’s not getting around as well as he did five years ago when we  first met here in College Station. Back then, my youngest girl had just  transferred to A&M from Belmont University in Nashville where she’d attended  several semesters to study music. As Texas’ 5A Soprano One First Chair (or State  Champ, as I call her), she felt Belmont was her best choice to continue her  music studies after considering Berklee in Boston and NYU. We’d vacationed in  Nashville earlier in hers’ and her sister’s childhoods and the college seemed  familiar and down-home to her Mom and me.

 She had never visited A&M, with the exception of spending a week at a  basketball camp one summer during her junior high years. The thing was, in all  those years of raising her and her sister and working most weekends myself, I’d  never had the opportunity to bring our family to an A&M football game.

 My girls were basketball players and involved in church and other social  activities, and not surprisingly, weren’t football fans. My coaching days were  long over and other than attending an occasional high school game, I was pretty  much on my own in the Man Cave. They even called it “The Cave” back then. How funny; I’m thinking a lady came up with the term.

I decided one weekend to fly her in from Nashville and we drove into College  Station for a game. When I was arranging for tickets, I was told over the phone  the seats were located three rows from the top in the end zone, so I asked for seats at the very top, which I received. I mean, if you’re that close already,  why not go all the way? Well, little did I know, she fell in love with Texas  A&M — its yell leaders and student section, the hand signals they’d give to  alert the crowd of the next yell, the band and the spirit. She even started  studying the program to decipher what all was coming up next. I sort of beamed.

 The game was great too. We fell behind Oklahoma State but came back and beat  the Cowboys for what may turn out to be the last time in our school’s history.  My daughter transferred into Aggieland and received a double degree in  Psychology and Sociology, and for now has her singing career on hold. Named  after Carly Simon, I figure she’ll be a star once she’s ready to roll. After my  Longhorn lady and I split up after our 25-year contract expired, I decided I’d move back to College Station and catch up on some games, some Aggie camaraderie  and be around if my new Aggie needed anything.

 While driving through a neighborhood that sits pretty close to the campus, I  saw a “For Rent” sign and a truck sitting in the gravel driveway. Stopping and  getting out, I peered into a window where a gentleman was busy with some  repairs. I yelled, “You’re working too hard in there!” He looked up and smiled, and I said, “Can I come in?”

 We introduced ourselves and he asked me if I was David Walker, the  quarterback, to which I responded, “Yes, sir.” He told me his wife had bought  their two sons both mine and kicker Tony Franklin’s jerseys back when they were  just kids. This was pretty cool. I asked him what the ‘going rate’ was on the  little 2-bedroom house and he told me. I’d driven by this same house a thousand  times when I was in college, so it already felt a little like home to me.  I’d  even been in a bad wreck in front of it when a guy U-turned on me from the right  lane just after sunset one evening.

 Little did I know I’d be in another accident a couple of years later that  would break my neck. It would be in this house I would type my memoirs  two-fingered (it’s how I roll), unknowingly suffering from a cervical fracture  and two complete dislocations.

I said, “Deal,” and Mr. Hilton gave me his agent’s business card and said  she’d get me ready to roll. While apartments were requiring proof of employment,  this gentleman never asked for any; it was an Aggie deal. There once was a time  when a handshake in Aggieland was all one needed and jobs were easy to find.

 My landlord is a former Marine who was a civil engineer for the Military for  many years, most of them spent overseas or in South America. I asked him what he thought of Johnny Manziel and the season we’d just had. He first told me about a  game in 1940 when Texas A&M was about to repeat as national champions,  having won it all in 1939. The last game of the season in ’40 was in Austin  against our former bitter rival, the University of Texas. Tickets, he said, were  $1.10 and many of the boys couldn’t get inside the stadium because they didn’t  have the money. Security had a pretty good eye on all the gates and fences, but  a delivery truck pulled up and when the gate opened, a few of them were able to  dash in and scatter.

 Hey, you had to make do in those days.

 Apparently it was a heartbreaking loss, and he hitch-hiked back to a little  town called Hearne with a couple of well-to-do, very happy Texas grads after the  game. Hearne was still about 30 miles out, so he hitch-hiked the rest of the way  with some fellow Ags who were coming back from the game.

 Seventy-two years later, he still has trouble talking about that night.

 He quickly brightened though, changed his tone and looked me in the eyes and  said, “Dave, this season was the best I can remember since 1939.” How could  anyone have enjoyed it more than a 90 year-old Aggie, and our quarterback?  There’s surely others who came close but after observing this gentleman’s  demeanor, I’m satisfied none surpassed him.

 He was wearing a company jacket that I noticed had the name of Ennis, Texas  on it. He told me the story about how he’d received it from one of the city  contractors once when he was on a job there. I mentioned that our quarterback  had just gotten himself a speeding ticket in Ennis and the judge, a Baylor grad (don’t mess with Texas football!) was claiming they’d caught the Joker, or  somebody just as notorious, for excessive use of acceleration in their quaint  little speed-trap town.  The judge added that college defenses couldn’t catch  Johnny but their police department sure had … wait, make that, “allegedly.”

 Mr. Hilton (yes, I call him Mister Hilton) just laughed. All  the stories the media guys and gals have passed judgment on and the little  “meeting” our athletic director from A&M had with Johnny’s parents are all  laughable matters in real-time. Even Johnny said a week later that neither his  parents nor the A.D. had informed him of the details of any such discussion. He  only knew what the A.D. had quoted to the papers. This tells me that Johnny’s  parents know which apple carts to topple, and which not to. Apparently this  little sit-down didn’t amount to the big ol’ blip on the radar screen the A.D.  had hoped for.

 After all, since my playing days began during the modern era of football at  A&M (the Vietnam War ended my Freshman year, coeds were on campus, freshmen  were playing real football and the black athletes were coming on board), I’ve  got to agree with my landlord. When has any A&M quarterback (Heisman winner  or not) been able to enjoy a season AND a season finale like we had this  year?
 
  At Texas A&M, great seasons have uncannily been spoiled by losing the  ensuing bowl game or being ineligible in the first place. This is why 1976 (10-2  record, ranked 7th nationally with a season-ending 7-game winning streak) and 2012 (11-2, ranked fifth nationally with a season-ending 6-game winning streak)  are about as close to reasons for genuine revelry this school has had heading  into the off-season.

 Jackie Sherrill’s Cotton Bowl-winning season of 1985 certainly ranks in the  top 3 for us in the modern era as a ‘body of work with a finish’.

 Kevin Murray was exceptional during this 10-2 season and also in beating  Auburn and Heisman winner, Bo Jackson.

 1987 was also strong but the team was declared ineligible the following spring for the upcoming ’88 season, which certainly erased some luster.  Otherwise we have to go back to 1956 to run down another No. 5 team.

 Losing season finales is no way to start an off-season. Rarely does a team  lose its last game and come back to win the national championship the following  season. (Reason for Revelry No. 28). It’s time to celebrate a little and act  like we’ve been here before.


 Here’s another reason to celebrate. A recent study says Johnny’s Heisman has  brought in an estimated 37 million dollars in free exposure. Johnny’s share is  zero, or at best, deferred. Self-promotion is the number one key to successful  ventures later in life — that time period when the NCAA doesn’t have its  stranglehold on you. (Right or Wrong, only TMZ knows for sure.)

 The more Johnny hits the spotlight the greater his opportunities will be for  endorsements once his college career is done. Responsibilities aside, Johnny has  to get out there, preferably with Miss Savage on one arm. Hey, Johnny is no  Tebow, and nobody expects or truly wants him to be. I support Johnny in every  public endeavor because, as much as everyone seems to believe he’s a kid who  doesn’t know any better yet, I would advise you against challenging him in a  game of Chess, pool , Monopoly or especially poker. You just might get your butt  beat while he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

 I was the Conference Freshman of the Year and played the entire season at 17  years of age, and was born in December like Johnny. I’ve still never seen New  York City, although I have been to Dallas (to watch Texas play the U and take a  girlfriend to try out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders) and I’ve even made it  to a few NBA basketball games in my lifetime. What’s up with Jack Nicholson,  anyway? No Lakers seats? Of course, they’re not having a particularly stellar season.

Regardless, when Old School meets New School, there’s no contest.

 Enjoy Johnny Heisman while you can. Obviously he is a dreamer with a huge  imagination. His visualization skills are right on par with his peripheral ones.  He’ll try to get it right but if it’s not there, he will  improvise. That’s what makes him unpredictable; that’s what makes him Johnny.  And he’s pretty good at the laser shot, balcony shot, long ball and longer ball,  too. (See Dude Perfect)

[Check it out >>  Johnny Football pulls off  some unreal trick shots with Dude Perfect]

 I’ve been saying this since I knighted him the No. 1 quarterback in A&M’s  history following just the second game of his career in a throwback ’70s Aggie  uniform. I had to go back and study the replay as a coach would several times  before I wrote that week’s article.

 Here’s the deal: with the success this Spread offense is having in the NFL,  as soon as Johnny gets proficient with the “Zone Read” (referred to in the NFL  as the “Zone Option,” probably for elitist reasons) suitors will  come calling. You’ve got RG3 in Washington (are you kidding me?? Shanahan’s  running it???), that 5-foot-11 Russell Wilson kid in Seattle (USC’s former coach  runs that outfit, who, by the way, lost a national championship to Vince Young’s  spread offense at Texas) and Jim Harbaugh, just a couple of years removed from  Stanford where he ran a standard Pro set, is now in the Super Bowl with Zone  Read Extraordinaire, Colin Kaepernick, after a mid-season promotion and a  distinct change in offensive direction.

 The next news out of the NFL was that the Oregon Ducks’ coach, his team a  shoe-in for preseason Top 3 honors, decided to change funky uniforms yet again  and became an Eagle — as in, Philadelphia. Guess what offense he  runs.

 Johnny Manziel has tweeted previously while watching Drew Brees hit throw after throw that Drew is proof-positive that 72 inches of height can easily get the job done in the NFL. Unfortunately for me, not many folks believed this in  the late ’70s, especially about guys in the 71-inch category running Wishbones.  They do now.

 And while Kaepernick is not short of stature, he has a much smaller man’s  wheels. Just ask the Falcons.

The clincher is, just like Drew Brees, Johnny only had a few colleges contact  him about coming to play football for them.  Drew came back from a tough knee  injury his junior year in high school to lead Austin’s Westlake High to the 5A  championship, and still, not a peep was heard from the gods of Texas football.  He even had an uncle who was a tremendous option quarterback at Texas named  Marty Akins. Drew wasn’t even recruited as a maybe-defensive back there. He  eventually went to Purdue and shattered every passing record and won a ton of  games. By gosh, he’s also won the Super Bowl.

Johnny, while under the same recruiting duress as non-college prospect Drew was — sans the knee surgery — verbally committed to go play for powerhouse  Oregon, with the same coach who now heads up the Eagles organization. This was  the only guy in America, besides Sherman at A&M and Coach Sumlin who was  still at Houston, who believed in Johnny enough after his junior year to offer  him a scholarship.

Do you think Johnny might be on Philly’s radar, especially with Michael Vick  on yet another downswing? I do.

 I’d say Johnny is the ultimate juker and certainly won’t be anybody’s Joker, at least not for long. He’s already heard an A&M rep telling ESPN that the  Texas A&M brand is bigger than Johnny Manziel. His parents have been called  into the principal’s office with what seems to be a reprimand/warning, and the  NCAA has its eyes on his every move via Twitter, Facebook, TMZ, Vegas and the  normal scumbags out there with smart phones. Meanwhile, Johnny is back attending  to his studies, doing some light-hearted singing occasionally with that Clint  Black smile of his, giving interviews at the halftimes of basketball games and  signing anything put in front of him. Just stay grounded, Johnny. 37 million,  huh?

He may be a very wealthy young man in just a little over a year from now. It  almost makes you wish Mike Sherman would’ve had reason to see if Johnny could  have saved his job as a true freshman, just to have seen him play another year.  Our best bet may be to continue to shun the Zone Read (Option) in our offensive  attack.

 At any rate, Johnny Manziel will be to Philly — or anyone else moving up in  the draft order — what Joe Willie Namath was to New York and the Jets: their  Savior. Hey, how have Tebow and Sanchez been doing lately?

 I just hope the Senior Bowl players were right when they voted the Aggies  next season’s National Champions. Mr. Hilton would enjoy that.

This hand, guys, the Juker is wild.

The official list of freshman quarterbacks who have started football games  for Texas A&M in the modern era now numbers 12 — obviously an appropriate  number for rabid Texas A&M followers — with Heisman Trophy winner Johnny  Manziel topping it off in the most dynamic of fashions. Once again my long-time  personal motto, The 12th Shall  Be First, has prominently come into play in Aggieland. There’s  no question that Johnny Manziel is 112%  Pure Aggie, and that’s no brag.

 After the bowls were picked and the individual awards were announced, I  became interested in discovering how many of our “Early Risers” had completed  their freshman seasons with starting nods in a bowl game. Whether they had  started the full season or only a game was irrelevant, as I was only interested in the end game. It’s how I roll.

 While I am the first and youngest of the true
freshmen in this group of former Aggie QBs, I also included those who’d had a previous season of practice squad duty, a full academic school year  and an official spring  training under their belts before stepping into their starting offensive huddles  in their second seasons on campus – yes, the individuals we now call “Redshirt”  freshmen.

 Because of Johnny Manziel there is no longer an asterisk beside the  classification. Either type of “freshman” designation bears the same weight when  awards are being handed out, and while not technically identical, we gladly push  technicalities aside in accordance with the selections of the nationwide voters.  Go freshmen, whichever you are!

 As I’ve stated before — and Bucky Richardson and I have both experienced this  — you don’t realize what “redshirting” means until everyone in your class is  suddenly gone and you’re the only one still playing football. You lose major  friends and teammates in this transition. It can be difficult. This I refer to  as a player’s second senior season, because it’s exactly how it feels. You’re  now the grizzled old veteran on the squad. With it comes one more shot and a  truly great opportunity, provided you don’t skip out with your sidekicks and go Pro.

 Entering our forty-first season after freshmen had become eligible for  varsity sports in 1972, only three freshman quarterbacks had started for the  Aggies in bowl games. That’s right; three. I was eliminated quickly from  inclusion on this “list for the ages” as my ’73 team fell a game short of bowl  eligibility. In our next-to-last game while holding five victories versus four  defeats, we lost at Rice as time expired with our offense inside their five yard  line. We then lost to Number 1 Texas on Kyle Field in our finale. This was the
only loss I had as an Aggie starter at home until my final season in 1977.

 Another game which we should have won up in Fayetteville would have also done  the trick, but we had no two-minute offense. We were probably the only team in  college football history that didn’t have a two minute offense — but don’t get  me started.

After the ’77 regular season ended, I watched Mike Mosley become the very  first freshman quarterback to ever start a bowl game for the Texas Aggies.  Perhaps if you dig deeper, Mike may be the first freshman from any  school to start at quarterback in a bowl game.  It was quite exciting and the  place was packed. Mike was a true freshman who had collected a previous start  earlier in the season and beaten TCU at Amon Carter Stadium. Amon Carter,  coincidentally, was the very same stadium where I had received my first start as  a freshman four seasons earlier at age 17. I might add, Mike is the only
starting quarterback A&M has ever had who had Johnny Manziel type speed.

The Monday prior to the TCU game my senior year I requested a week-long  breather to heal up several body parts to prepare for a do-or-die battle the  following weekend against Earl Campbell and the Number 1 Longhorns. My wish was  granted because TCU was no threat this particular season, and I stood and  cheered and high-fived Mike throughout the game. It seemed poetic at the time  that Mike had gotten his first start in the same arena I had. The only  difference was we were a struggling football team back in ’73, while Mike was  handed the keys to a Ferrari and a triple option scheme like none other.  Fullback George Woodard still holds the A&M record for most points scored in  a bowl game with the 20 he scored against Florida in the Sun Bowl the previous  season. George, Mike and the guys romped to a 52-23 victory and set an all-time  Aggie single-game rushing record of 606 yards.

 Mike did wonderfully in the Bluebonnet Bowl, too. Southern California was  ranked 20th and the Aggies were No. 17 coming  in, having fallen from No. 4 earlier in the season after a bitter loss in Ann  Arbor, Michigan.

I personally decided to sit out the Bluebonnet Bowl, explaining to offensive  coordinator Tom Wilson beforehand that I’d played my last game for head coach  Emory Bellard and was only going for the party. I was later voted team captain,  with the announcement made the day before we left for Houston. It was the second such honor of my A&M career.

 Looking back at this 2012 season, I think it’s a shame the A&M team  captains were chosen prior to the season. I feel very confident Johnny’s name  would now be engraved on the new plaque about to be hung in the Bright Athletic  Complex along with ours. He is the Captain and I say, “Keep the hardware  coming.

Back to the game, Mike had us on top 14-0 in the old Astrodome before the  roof caved in (no, not literally). USC stormed back for a 47-28 win, but Mike  came within two yards of the all-time single game rushing record held by an  A&M quarterback. In fact, Mike’s 180 yards rushing now rank third in A&M  history behind Johnny Manziel’s 181 and my 182. Yeah, it was that close. Twitter  was blowing up about Johnny’s big rushing night against La. Tech in a wild game,  but this ol’ Aggie QB still holds that 35 year-old record and has a news  clipping to prove it. A record-saving kneel down at the end of the game saved my  bacon.
 
Soon after taking a picture with me at the reception for the team when they  got home after beating Alabama, a young man named David Harris predicted, “Not  for long, Hoss.” This would be correct. That single-game rushing record could go  down in Arlington, for all I know. Mike had the jets; I had some necessary  Wishbone operator’s quickness; but, Johnny has it all, plus eyes in the back of  his head.

 The second freshman quarterback to start a bowl game was Baton Rouge’s Bucky  Richardson ten years later. Like me, Bucky got his first start in the sixth game  of his first season on the A&M campus, and led the Aggies to the 1988 Cotton  Bowl. Bucky took over in ’87 for fellow freshman Lance Pavlas after entering in  relief against Southern Miss and the magical Brett Favre.

 In the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1988, the Aggies blitzed Heisman winner Tim Brown and Notre Dame 35-10 in the first meeting ever between the two schools. Bucky was named the game’s outstanding offensive player after rushing for 96  yards and two scores, and went on to a fabled career for the Aggies. Only three  freshmen have ever received player of the game honors in the history of the  Cotton Bowl, and Bucky remains the only Aggie recipient.

 The only other freshman quarterback to start in a bowl game eventually  surpassed me, Kevin Murray and Bucky Richardson to become the winningest  quarterback in A&M history. Corey Pullig, a youngster from Deer Park, Texas,  took over for A&M’s other lefthander, Jeff Granger (concussion), late in the  1992 season and never looked back, winning the final four games of the regular  season.

 Once again the Aggies faced Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl but didn’t fare  nearly as well as Bucky’s bunch had, dropping the contest to the fifth-ranked  Irish, 28-3. The Aggies gained only 165 yards of total offense and managed just  11 first downs, while Notre Dame compiled 439 yards and 28 first downs. Corey  completed 7 of his 18 passes for 87 yards, respectively. This game spoiled what  could have been a perfect 13-0 season for the third-ranked Aggies, who finished  the year in the final polls at Number 7.

 All told, twenty
years have now rolled by since an Aggie freshman QB has taken the  first snap in a bowl game. In forty-plus years of football, Bucky Richardson  still owns the only freshman-led bowl victory. Corey Pullig, A&M’s all-time  leader with 33 career wins, precedes the man presumably destined to eclipse his  record in the form of Johnny Manziel. If the world doesn’t end on my older  sister’s birthday, both will have begun their bowl careers in the Cotton Bowl,  albeit at different locations, and for the third straight time an Aggie freshman  quarterback’s first bowl appearance will be in the Cotton Bowl.

 This time around though, the game isn’t our ‘reward’ for winning the  Southwest Conference championship, and we’ve got the Sooners instead of the  Irish. I think we’d have preferred to have Notre Dame in the BCS title game on  January 7, and with just a little luck against LSU, perhaps we would have.

This is the eleventh season a freshman quarterback has started at least one  game and only the fourth time in those years that we’ve earned a bowl bid.  Obviously we beat almost all the odds this season and have come far,  Pilgrims.

 (Also, please be on the lookout for my new “Kliff Who?” t-shirts. They’ll  soon be all the rage.)

 Will Johnny become only the second freshman QB to win a bowl game for A&M?  That’s his number, so I expect him to do so. As I headlined earlier in  the season, it’s now Cool to be Number 2.

 Now, let’s get those Sooners! We have a great chance of heading into next  season with the longest winning streak in the country. After losing 9 of our  last 10 season finales, 14 out of 17, 16 of 20 and 19 of our last 25, we  desperately need to take the high road in this one. We need to finish with a  flurry and send all the demons in the opposite direction, once and for all. We  cannot let this wonderful thing called momentum slip away, particularly against  one of the smuggest college football coaches around.

 Beating TCU for the 24th straight time in  the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl in 2001 seems like a long time ago, but believe it  or not, it’s the last time A&M has finished a season on a winning note since  last year’s win in Houston over Northwestern. In my five seasons with what was  called A&M’s “Great Resurgence” under Bellard, we lost our final game four  of those five seasons. None were even close. This is the dreaded setback that  leaves a bad taste in your mouth for months. Even Sherman thought he’d finally  turned the tanks around before LSU pulled the plug on the 2010 season in our  last Cotton Bowl. We all remember the recurring theme in 2011 that LSU  initiated, and it wasn’t pretty.

 We’re far from done though, with a whole lot of proving still left to do.  Texas A&M has run the table only once in its history after losing is first  two conference games, and that was our 10-2 Sun Bowl team in ’76.
 
 Meanwhile, as Old School meets New School, my personal congratulations go out  to Stun Gun QB, Johnny Manziel, the young man I knighted as “the best there’s ever been” following the SMU game. Thanks for proving me correct, young fellow.  Gig ‘em, and like the rest of us Aggielanders, I thoroughly enjoyed your guest  appearance on Jay Leno’s show. The Top Ten was pretty good, too. Best of luck to you in your career.

What kind of gum do you chew, by the way?

 For the record, these are your freshman Aggie QBs since 1972, as listed by  someone on the Internet: David Walker, 1973; Mike Mosley, 1977; Gary Kubiak,  1979; Kevin Murray, 1983; Craig Stump, 1984; Lance Pavlas and Bucky Richardson,  1987; Jeff Granger, 1991; Corey Pullig, 1992; Reggie McNeal, 2002; Stephen  McGee, 2005; Johnny Manziel, 2012.

 The four winningest quarterbacks in A&M history are all from this list:  Corey Pullig – 33; David Walker and Kevin Murray – 25; Bucky Richardson – 24;  and Johnny Heisman Manziel – 53?

 Wait, that’s five…it can happen.

 Kliff Who?