COTTON BOWL

Manziel sets record, Aggies roll

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel runs into the end zone for a touchdown during the Aggies’ 41-13 victory over Oklahoma in Friday night’s Cotton Bowl.
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel runs into the end zone for a touchdown during the Aggies’ 41-13 victory over Oklahoma in Friday night’s Cotton Bowl.

— Johnny Manziel tiptoed the sideline for a 23-yard touchdown run on Texas A&M’s first drive of the game.

The Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and the ninth-ranked Aggies were just getting warmed up in the Cotton Bowl. There were plenty more highlights.

In his first game since becoming the first freshman to win the Heisman, Manziel set a Cotton Bowl-record with 516 total yards and accounted for four touchdowns as the Aggies capped their first SEC season with a 41-13 victory over 11th ranked Oklahoma on Friday night.

“There is too much talk about how you perform after the Heisman and about the layoff and all of that,” Manziel said. “There wasn’t anything holding us back. No rust, there was no nothing. We played as a unit. ... To go out and win 11 games and do what we’ve done is impressive.”

With first-year Coach Kevin Sumlin and their young star quarterback, the Aggies (11-2) fit right in with the SEC after leaving the Big 12. They broke the SEC record with their 7,261 total yards this season (the first over 7,000 after 633 Friday in Cowboys Stadium). They also averaged more than 40 points a game.

And they capped their debut season with an overwhelming victory in the only postseason game matching teams from those power conferences. It is the Aggies’ first 11-victory season since 1998, when they won their only Big 12 title.

The chants of “S-E-C!, S-EC!” began after Manziel’s 33-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Swope with four minutes left in the third quarter for a 34-13 lead. They got louder and longer after that.

“To come in and go against a Big 12 rival and do everything we wanted as a team, and send these seniors out with a win, we couldn’t feel any better,” Manziel said.

Texas A&M led by only a point at halftime, but scored on its first three drives of the second half - on drives of 91 and 89 yards before Swope’s score on a fourth-and-5 play.

Oklahoma (10-3), which like the Aggies entered the game with a five-game winning streak, went three-and out on its first three drives after halftime.

The Aggies never trailed in their last six games. That included their victory at SEC champion Alabama, which plays for the BCS national title Monday night.

SEC teams have won the past five Cotton Bowls, all against Big 12 teams, and nine out of 10. That included Texas A&M’s loss to LSU only two years ago.

Manziel set an FBS bowl record with his 229 yards rushing on 17 carries, and completed 22 of 34 passes for 287 yards.

Oklahoma, led by quarterback Landry Jones in his 50th career start, had 401 total yards.

Jones completed 35 of 48 passes for 278 yards and threw a touchdown pass and an interception. He won 39 games and three bowls for the Sooners in a career that started on the same field in the 2009 season opener when he replaced injured Heisman winner Sam Bradford in the first college game played at Cowboys Stadium.

Oklahoma was in the Cotton Bowl for only the second time. It was the first bowl matchup between the former Big 12 rivals, but the 17th consecutive season they have played each other.

The Sooners had won 11 of 13 since Bob Stoops became their coach. That included a 77-0 Oklahoma victory in 2003 that was the most-lopsided loss in Texas A&M history.

Sports, Pages 24 on 01/05/2013

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