Heisman goes to Manziel

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, pulling 323 more votes than Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o. Manziel was the winner in five of the six regions, losing only the Midwest to Te’o.
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, pulling 323 more votes than Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o. Manziel was the winner in five of the six regions, losing only the Midwest to Te’o.

— It’s official. Johnny Manziel is in a class by himself.

The Texas A&M quarterback became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy, taking college football’s top individual prize Saturday night after a record-breaking debut.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o finished a distant second and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein was third in the voting. In a Heisman race with two nontraditional candidates, Manziel broke through the class barrier and kept Te’o from becoming the first purely defensive player to win the award.

Manziel drew 474 first place votes and 2,029 points from the panel of media members and former winners.

“I have been dreaming about this since I was a kid, running around the back yard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Marys to my dad,” he said after hugging his parents and younger sister.

Manziel seemed incredibly calm after his name was announced, hardly resembling the guy who dashes around the football field on Saturdays. He simply bowed his head and later gave the trophy a quick kiss.

“I wish my whole team could be up here with me,” he said with a wide smile.

Te’o received 321 first place votes and 1,706 points, and Klein received 60 firsts and 894 points.

Just a few days after turning 20, Manziel proved times have changed in college football and that experience can be overrated.

For years, seniors dominated the award named after John Heisman, the pioneering Georgia Tech coach from the early 1900s. In the 1980s, juniors started becoming common winners. Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win it in 2007, and two more won it in the next two seasons.

Adrian Peterson had come closest as a freshman, finishing second to Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart in 2004, but it took 78 years for a newbie to take home the big bronze statue.

Peterson was a true freshman for Oklahoma. Manziel attended school and practiced with the team last year as a redshirt freshman but did not play in any games.

He’s the second player from Texas A&M to win the Heisman, joining John David Crow from 1957, and did so without the slightest hint of preseason hype. Manziel didn’t even win the starting job until two weeks before the season.

With daring dashes and elusive improvisation, Manziel broke 2010 Heisman winner Cam Netwon’s SEC record with 4,600 total yards, led the Aggies to a 10-2 record in their first season in the SEC and orchestrated an upset at then-No. 1 Alabama in November that stamped him as legit.

He has thrown for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and run for 1,181 yards and 19 scores to become the first freshman, first SEC player and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.

Manziel has one more game this season, when the Aggies, ranked ninth in the BCS standings, play 11th ranked Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4.

The resume alone fails to capture the Manziel phenomena. Manziel, 6-1, 200, is a master of the unexpected, darting here and there and turning plays seemingly doomed to failure into touchdowns.

Take, for example, what he did in the first quarter against the Crimson Tide. Manziel took a shotgun snap, stepped up in the pocket as if he were about to take off on another made scramble and ran into the back a lineman. On impact, Manziel bobbled the ball, caught it with his back to the line of scrimmage, turned, rolled the opposite direction and fired a touchdown pass - throwing across his body - to a wide-open receiver.

He might as well have been back in Kerrville, Texas, where he became a hill country star in high school.

Manziel thought he was going to be the next Derek Jeter, which is why he wears No. 2. Instead he became the biggest football star in College Station since Crow won the Heisman.

His road to stardom was anything but a clear path.

Manziel competed with two other quarterbacks to replace Ryan Tannehill as the starter this season, the Aggies’ first in the SEC and first under Coach Kevin Sumlin. He came out of spring practice as the backup and went to work with a private quarterback coach in the summer to better his chances of winning the job in the preseason.

It worked, but still nobody was hailing Manziel is the next big thing.

Then he started playing, and the numbers started piling up. He had 557 total yards against Arkansas, 576 against Louisiana Tech and 440 against Mississippi State.

He also had some struggles against Florida in the season opener and in a home loss to LSU. The question was whether he could do his thing against a top-notch opponent.

The answer came in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Nov. 10. Going into the match up against the Crimson Tide, Manziel said he and his teammates heard a lot of doubters.

“You can’t do this and you can’t do that,” he recalled Saturday at the podium.

Manziel passed for 253 yards, ran for 92, and the Aggies beat the Tide 29-24.

Klein had been the frontrunner for most of the season, but Manziel surged after beating Alabama.

Heisman regional voting

NEW YORK (AP) - Regional points breakdown of the top three finalists in balloting for the 2012 Heisman Trophy:

NORTHEAST

  1. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 319.
  2. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 311.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 131.

MID-ATLANTIC

  1. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 326.
  2. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 272.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 141.

SOUTH

  1. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 399,
  2. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 253.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 149.

SOUTHWEST

  1. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 348.
  2. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 274.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 220.

MIDWEST

  1. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 315.
  2. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 312.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 126.

FAR WEST

  1. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 325.
  2. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame, 281.
  3. Collin Klein, Kansas St., 127.

Sports, Pages 21 on 12/09/2012

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