Johnny Manziel was at it again on Saturday.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound redshirt freshman at Texas A&M continued to climb up the Heisman Trophy consideration list after accounting for 440 yards and two touchdowns in a 38-13 win at 17th-ranked Mississippi State on Saturday.
Johnny Manziel, senior year at Tivy
High School in Kerrville, Texas.
File photo by Jim Redman
Manziel completed 30-of-36 passes for 311 yards and rushed for 129 more as the 16th-ranked Aggies improved to 7-2 overall and 4-2 in SEC play.
"He has a green light to make plays, some improvised, some called," Texas A&M first-year coach Kevin Sumlin told reporters on Saturday.
As good as Manziel was Saturday, he's improvised even better this season. He accounted for an SEC record 557 total yards (453 passing, 104 rushing) and four touchdowns in a 58-10 win over Arkansas on Sept. 29. Just two weeks later, he broke that mark with 576 total yards (395 passing, 181 rushing) and six touchdowns in a 59-57 win over Louisiana Tech.
For the season, he's completed 173 of 269 passes for 2,216 yards and 16 touchdowns and he's rushed for 922 yards and 15 scores.
That's a total of 3,138 yards and 31 touchdowns or an average of 348.6 yards and 3.4 touchdowns per game. He redshirted in 2011 because Texas A&M had a quarterback named Ryan Tannehill, now the starter for the Miami Dolphins.
These were the same sort of numbers Manziel put up at
Tivy (Kerrville, Texas) High School – and more important – how he earned the nickname "Johnny Football."
See
feature on him his senior season by MaxPreps senior writer Dave Krider.
Manziel was the Texas AP Sports Editor Player of the Year his senior season by throwing for 3,609 yards and 45 touchdowns (just five interceptions) and rushing 170 times for 1,674 yards and 30 scores. As a junior he was 218-of-357 for 2,903 yards and 19 TDs and 242 carries for 1,544 yards and 34 scores. As a sophomore, he rushed for 717 yards and 12 scores, passes for 922 and 10 TDs and had 19 catches for 357 yards and one score.
For his prep career he passed for 7,434 yards and 74 touchdowns and rushed for 3,935 yards and 76 touchdowns.
His high school coach Mark Smith said during his senior year: "People drove out here an hour from San Antonio to watch him play. People called from Houston and 18 came in a couple vehicles just to see Johnny."
Said Madison (San Antonio) coach Jim Streety told MaxPreps, "He is a spectacular high school football player. He's the best playmaking quarterback I've seen in my years (44) of coaching."
They're saying the exact same thing about him at the college ranks. And he has three more years of eligibility – if he wants them – to go.
