The 12th Man QB's 'Instant Replay' of a Heisman Season: Part 1 of 4 (17,097 reads)

First Quarter  Action

 I believe bias is bias, whether it’s regarding age, classification, race,  university or conference affiliation, or anything else that enters into it. Any  individual who publicly or secretly reveals such bias should be stripped of his  or her authority immediately as a voter for the Heisman trophy.

 To even promote the notion of such should be considered heresy and an actual  threat to the integrity of the game. Every player has just completed playing the  2012 regular season, and is, therefore, eligible to win the Heisman as a  by-product of his participation. Rightly so, and the 2012 season is the  onlyseason to be assessed.

 There is no future and there is no past in these matters.

 Individuals are voters only because they have earned the  right to represent all of America’s football fans with their choices, with ALL  past precedents and current biases pushed aside for the good of the game.

 Soon A&M will own not only the youngest quarterback to ever play college  football in myself, but also the only “freshman” quarterback to win the Heisman  Trophy in Johnny Manziel. I put quotation marks around the word “freshman”  because technically Johnny is not a “freshman,” but a sophomore who will be  allowed an additional senior season to play. Having personally redshirted in  college, I simply felt when I was playing my final season not with with my  class, but that underneath mine, I’d been extended an extra senior season. This  is the difference and the separation of the two schools of thought. Johnny is a  sophomore academically and will soon become a junior.

 In an interview with David Harris of the Bryan/College Station Eagle prior to
the season, I gave this advice to the first-year starter, based on my experience
as a 17-year old starting quarterback as a true freshman: “Be on top of your
game,” I said. “Do not be intimidated by anything. Know you’re the best
quarterback at this university and that everybody has confidence in you. Be
quick and be smart. You’ll have some bad plays but remember to keep your head
up.” It’s what I’ve told all my quarterbacks as a high school football coach —
and I know this university. George Bush chose this university to house his
library because of its integrity.

 So let’s talk about how all these Xs and Os come together so easily for this
A&M team offensively. The West Coast offense was built on timing routes in
which the quarterback took a five-step drop and released the football. Boom, it
had to be gone right now! Plant and throw! I always felt the quarterback on a
five-step drop was too close to the onrushing linemen to successfully make the
necessary underneath throws in this ‘nickel and dime’ offense. Throwing lanes
are difficult to find with such close proximity.

 The shotgun formation automatically negates this problem completely, which is
why I went to it in 1989 with the Memorial High School football team I was
coaching in Houston. While “hot routes” are best thrown on a three-step drop
from under center, because they’re quicker-breaking routes, the shotgun resolves
the problem of having smaller quarterbacks operating the quick passing game
without the effort involved in physically making the sprint seven yards deep and
cutting it loose. On most five-step drops your receivers are on nine-step
routes, at least in college and high school, and a five-step drop into the
pocket will get the quarterback approximately seven yards deep.

 This was the drop-back passing game we had in my days at A&M, but my high
school coach had me going nine steps back in our high school offense. That is 12
to 13 yards deep. Yes!

 I once questioned the five-step drop that the Houston Texans were using in
their early years of operation and had myself quoted in the Houston Chronicle.
That night the Texans lost miserably in a preseason game, and the five-step drop
did them in with several interceptions thrown under pressure.

 The radio talk shows were ablaze with why the Texans were using this system
that obviously was allowing too much pressure on their quarterback, David Carr.
Several weeks later the team’soffensive coordinator was let go, partly because
of the public outrage and the obvious problems the five-step drop caused this
particular quarterback. I was accustomed to watching that nine-step drop of
Namath’s and it seemed to work extremely well.

 You may remember the Cowboys and Roger Staubach in the ’70’s using the
shotgun formation extensively because it freed up the quarterback in so many
ways. I’m sure many thought a little less of Dallas coach Tom Landry for going
with this “gimmicky” offense, even as he was taking his teams to Super
Bowls.

 But, so what if “real man” football now looks more like a two-below game
going on ‘helter-skelter’ in the back yard? ‘Look what they’ve done to my game,
Ma,’ cries Alabama’s Nick Sabin. This system is smarter and much more efficient
and demands top-flight conditioning from the big boys up front. It’s fast and
has no regard for the noise level of a hostile crowd. It’s streamlined to the
point of not even needing an official playbook, just as Bear Bryant streamlined
the Wishbone by deleting the triple option and thus never using a playbook
either.

 And now we’ve been introduced to the true master  of the ‘Sumlin Stun Gun’ offense run from the shotgun formation now being implemented so successfully by the Aggies. Johnny Football doesn’t mess with the  Zone Read play, which had always been the core of any spread offense. He does  what he does in other ways, some predetermined, and many others — not so much.
 
  But there is something else this young man is doing. He is redefining the
qualities and abilities coaches will be looking for in a quarterback from here
on. Some quarterbacks stereotype themselves into being in the same mold as the
professional guys; those kinds of guys who don’t run much, stand in the pocket
and throw a football. Ho hum. The days of ‘quarterback sneaks’ leading the way
with the likes of Bart Starr and Johnny Unitus are long gone. You’d better
become an ATHLETE if you wanna play. Don’t be lazy and don’t be a dummy, young
guy.

 Now-a-days, these aspiring quarterbacks had better be thinking about speed
and quickness and becoming a cottontail rabbit out on that football field.
Speed, quickness and endurance need to be part of your repertoire. If you assume
your arm alone is going to get you a job, there may be a little Johnny Football
who shows up who gums up the works for you.

 Personally, as I described in my book, I worked extremely hard in high school
increasing my speed and quickness. It was imperative I become an all-around
threat, which obviously was the key in taking over a Wishbone triple option
offense in college at 17 years of age and becoming A&M’s first Freshman of
the Year.

 Now, let’s replay this season game-by-game as Johnny became Johnny Football
and then finally became, we hope and expect, Johnny Heisman. These are verbatim
observations of the young outstanding quarterback as seen through the eyes of
the youngest quarterback to ever play, and I’m proud to say the Maroon and White
lineage we share is both exciting and rewarding. I hope you’ll enjoy. Gig’
Em!

Pre-Game Read for the Florida Gators

 Our starting quarterback now is a young man from Kerrville, Texas who the
Aggie Press Machine is raging about as the first “freshman” to start a season
opener for A&M since 1944. But here’s a couple of things they don’t tell
you. Johnny Manziel spent all of last year going to classes, practices, team
meetings, doing film study, going through spring drills, playing understudy to
the No. 8-overall NFL draft pick and has been through two sets of two-a-days.
Freshman? Hardly. He’s a guy who gets to play two senior seasons, the way I look
at it. I know because I also red-shirted; only it was my third year — and I got
to play two senior seasons as well. That’s how it works.


What I’m saying is, you can throw out the redshirt tag. Johnny is a
second-year player with a wealth of knowledge that is readily accessible and
stored up ready-to-go on the college game. He is equipped with a whole lot of
valuable mental experience and great talent. If he turns this game into a
“practice” mentally and gets into the zone that he needs to be in, he has the
tools to be a real class act. So let’s just call him a sophomore with no actual
playing experience, sort of like what we called all players between the years of
1946 to 1972, the time period that freshmen were not allowed to play varsity
football after World War II. I know– how old-school! Remember when girls could
only play half-court in basketball? Very similar thinking.

 But just for grins, let’s allow the Ags’ publicists to call it the way they
spin it. After all, it’s their program they have to sell even though this game
doesn’t need selling. Just don’t be expecting a timid kid with no background or
clue showing up all wide-eyed and scared at the prospects of leading his team in
front of a sold-out crowd and national TV audience. Bradshaw, Bert Jones, Joe
Ferguson, Joe Namath, Spurrier, Stabler; they were all quite good after not
“playing” in their first year of college.

  Post Game Read for the Florida Gators

 As I stated last week when I reintroduced myself to the Gator Nation via
Florida Gators Gamedayr, I now am the only A&M quarterback who has ever
beaten the University of Florida. Of course, with A&M’s 1-2 overall record
against UF, this isn’t saying a whole lot but I stand by it, as far as bragging
rights are concerned. The most recent A&M QB to have this opportunity,
Johnny Manziel, looked to me like the fastest quarterback this school has seen
since the Texas high school high-hurdle champion who succeeded me in the late
’70s, Mike Mosley. Unfortunately, none of us average-Joe onlookers will get the
opportunity to know Johnny Manziel until next spring because Coach Sumlin has
standing orders that freshmen are off-limits to the media. I guess this also
includes ‘Redshirt’ freshmen, since this is what Manziel actually is – a
sophomore academically but a “rookie” to be seen but not heard, otherwise.

 The obvious question is how does this band of coaches go from having the
highest scoring team in the land one year to not being able to pick up a handful
of first downs the next? Not a single second half play was run in Florida
territory. Very disturbing stuff, one might say. Unless the QB was making a ton
of misreads which I personally didn’t see, then finding the proper play calls to
win a three-point game escaped the offensive staff, pure and simple. This past
Saturday night’s realization was a rather somber enlightenment with which to
open a brand new season, especially for this newly-inspired and highly
boisterous crowd that rolled in, a crowd faced with many dissenters around the
state and even within its new conference, wishing it nothing but failure. Step
one, accomplished with amazing predictability.

 Post Game  Read for Southern Methodist

 Fortunately what we also saw here, unlike during the second half of the
opener against the Florida Gators, was a team that was making some necessary
offensive adjustments while the defense was impressively holding the Mustangs in
check. This “warm-up” period allowed the offense, with redshirt freshman
quarterback Johnny Manziel settling in firmly at the controls, to begin ripping
apart these eight-game winners from 2011 with a wonderful combination of quick
jabs, left hooks and fancy footwork that took SMU totally out of the game on
both sides of the ball from the second quarter on.

 SMU’s defense had a nice game going by keeping Manziel and the A&M
offense somewhat off balance for almost a quarter and a half before becoming a
little too predictable. The five-man front had kept sufficient pressure on both
A&M passing and running games and allowed only the occasional completion to
redshirt freshman wide receiver Mike Evans, normally aligned opposite the
three-receiver side of the A&M shotgun spread formation. Because of the
rush, quarterback Manziel was forced to scramble on several occasions and the
normal running game was providing little support. With less than nine minutes to
go in the second quarter, Manziel looked up to find veteran slot receiver Ryan
Swope “uncovered” to his right side by anyone underneath. For most offenses,
this is a pre-snap “hot read” which turned into exactly that on this play.

 On this second-and-eight situation, the SMU defense brought both linebackers,
its left defensive end, nose tackle and a defensive five-technique (tackle) from
the right side. A&M was set up in a balanced one-back formation with two
receivers split to each side, catching the defense in a cover 2, a popular
coverage with two deep safeties and each cornerback aligned tightly on his
respective wide receivers. The backside defensive end dropped into coverage
while the play-side defensive tackle, with his side’s defensive end blitzing,
rose out of his four–point stance to try to retreat back into coverage,
hopefully into the passing lane between Manziel and the slot receiver,
Swope.

 This “coverage swap” approach employed by the SMU staff, commonly referred to
as a zone blitz, had worked earlier for the Mustangs resulting in some
behind-the-line tackles and confusion in the Aggies’ blocking assignments. This
time, however, the defensive tackle saw only the football zipping by his head as
Swope ran a quick post pattern and caught the perfect throw, then targeted a
spot that would split both safeties as he went into the end zone standing up.
Junior offensive tackle Jake Matthews did an outstanding job of recognizing the
swap and swiftly picked up the defensive end before being outflanked instead of
the tackle he’d originally been assigned.

 Offenses, such as A&M’s, love gifts and when they are offered on silver
platters via pre-snap misalignments such as this one, they gobble them up
without even a “thank you.” The lesson to be learned here is that Ryan Swope
cannot be covered by defensive tackles or headed off at the pass by unassuming
defensive safeties who get caught flat-footed. Any defensive player must be
cognizant of one indisputable fact: if a player lines up on a D-1 football
field, he can beat you.

 Leading 7-0 after an SMU three-and-out on first down from the SMU 48, Johnny
Manziel tucked the ball away in his left arm (as he always does) on a scramble
through the left side, scooting past a defensive lineman who’d been hurled to
the ground by offensive tackle Luke Joeckel. Manziel then sped by pursuing
linebackers, juked another defender and went untouched into the end zone. When I
played at A&M and was running the Wishbone, you never saw me carrying the
ball in my right arm either. Regardless of what the coaches said about having it
in the arm away from the defender, I believed it much more important to always
have the ball in my strongest arm. Perhaps Johnny has this same belief, although
he throws the football right-handed.  Whatever the case, he was only getting
warmed up.

Next, he completed a 78-yard drive after an A&M interception by hitting
Uzoma  Nwachukwu with a 36-yarder after rolling out of the pocket to his right
and throwing down the middle of the field to his veteran receiver. This was a
perfectly executed “scramble drill” which requires a great amount of practice
time. The appearance of improvisation doesn’t make it a reality. The Aggies had
just scored two touchdowns within two and a half minutes and suddenly held a
20-0 lead at the half. Strike up the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band!

 Johnny Manziel reminds me of another college quarterback who was a little
smaller of stature and wore two number 2’s on his jersey, a guy named Doug
Flutie. Manziel only got better in the third quarter, acrobatically whirling
around and pin-pointing a touchdown pass that no one else on the planet would
have even attempted, primarily because they’d probably have taken the sack or
said, “The hell with it,” and thrown it away. Johnny delivered. He set a Texas
A&M single-game freshman record by passing for 294 yards (breaking Kevin
Murray’s 29 year-old record of 280 set against Rice) and accounted for six
touchdowns — four through the air and two on the ground. That’s right, and he
also ran for 124 yards. Just like in the song, the boy said, “My
name’s Johnny and it might be a sin, but I’ll take your bet, you’re gonna
regret, cuz I’m the best there’s ever been.” Could be.

 [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2jtwS3SsI&w=420&h=315]

 Only time will tell, and there will be a lot of armchair quarterbacking going
on trying to get into his head. I say, “Let  him be and don’t screw him up.” Ol’ Johnny might be the phenom  A&M has been waiting for, and all the wondrous things that phenoms bring  with them could soon be within the Aggies’ grasp.

 Next up for the Aggies isn’t South Carolina, but South Carolina State, a team
that lost to Arizona last week, 56-0. Arizona had 43 first downs while South
Carolina State had 8. Arizona had 689 yards of offense, while South Carolina
State had 154. Arizona punted only once. And as they say, the rest was
history.

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