20 college football moments that deserve to be made into movies
By John Buhler
9. Johnny Football
History tends to repeat itself in some capacity in college football. While he didn’t have the overbearing father denying him Big Macs and Oreos and the like, Johnny Manziel was somewhat of a combination of Todd Marinovich and Tim Tebow on the gridiron. He was a talented dual-threat signal caller for the Texas A&M Aggies, but off the field issues derailed his pro football career.
Manziel would start as a redshirt freshman in the gun during Texas A&M’s first season in the SEC back in 2012. After a stunning win in Tuscaloosa against the Alabama Crimson Tide, Manziel would turn his bobbled touchdown pass into a Heisman Trophy in a very weak class. He beat out Manti Te’o and Collin Klein that year. Manziel’s life would forever change after winning the Heisman.
He didn’t take the national notoriety in stride and began to live a life of excess. Manziel would just toy with defenses during his redshirt sophomore season at Texas A&M in 2013. He would leave College Station probably not on the best of terms to enter the 2014 NFL Draft. Manziel would go in the first round to the hopeless Cleveland Browns.
No, that did not go well, as Manziel would be out of the league by 2016. It wasn’t that he wasn’t talented enough to stick in the NFL. His problems had more to do with being too much of an ad-lib quarterback to build a consistent offense around, as well as the non-stop partying off the field.
Maybe one day Manziel will get back into the NFL, but he’s firmly off teams’ radars for the distractions that come with Johnny Football. It all changed when he won the Heisman Trophy as a 20-year-old. You could see it in his eyes, if you were paying close enough attention during the ceremony.