Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel made history by becoming the first freshman to win the Heisman trophy and he's still not done yet this season with winning awards.
The record-setting quarterback brought home another award on Tuesday, winning the Associated Press Player of the Year. Like with the Heisman trophy and the Davey O'Brien Award, Manziel is also the first freshman to win the AP honors.
The Texas A&M quarterback received 31 votes, which were twice as many as the second place finisher, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o, who also finished second to Manziel in the Heisman voting. According to the Associated Press, Manziel "is the third straight Heisman-winning quarterback to receive the honor, following Robert Griffin III and Cam Newton."
Manziel busted out onto the scene out of nowhere this year and was by far the most explosive player in college football. He threw for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns to go along with 1,181 yards rushing and 19 touchdowns. He set a new SEC record for total yards and led the Aggies to a 10-win season for the first time in over a decade.
"I knew I could run the ball, I did it a lot in high school," Manziel said in an interview with the AP. "It is just something that you don't get a chance to see in the spring. Quarterbacks aren't live in the spring. You don't get to tackle. You don't get to evade some of the sacks that you would in normal game situations. So I feel like when I was able to avoid getting tackled, it opened some people's eyes a little bit more."
The man Manziel replaced, quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who now plays for the Miami Dolphins, saw the talent in the young star from the beginning.
"It's pretty wild. I always thought he had that playmaking ability, that something special where if somebody came free, he can make something exciting happen," Tannehill said. "I wasn't really sure if, I don't think anyone was sure if he was going to be able to carry that throughout an SEC season, and he's shocked the world and he did it."
Manziel began his Texas A&M career as a redshirt, but took over the starting job for the first game of the season, a 20-17 loss to then-No. 24 ranked Florida.
The Aggies then went on to win five straight games, including a 70-14 win over South Carolina State. The team scored at least 48 points in four of those games and Manziel had over 500 yards of total offense on his own in a 58-10 win over Arkansas.
"The first half really showed that I was a little bit more mobile than we had seen throughout the spring," Manziel said. "Me and (then-offensive coordinator) Kliff Kingsbury sat down and really said: 'Hey we can do some things with my feet as well as throwing the ball.' And it added a little bit of a new dimension."
While playing in high school, Manziel was a dual-threat quarterback and rushed for 30 touchdowns. There was an adjustment period for the quarterback when he started his first game against one of the best opponents in the SEC.
"The whole first drive I was just seeing how fast they really flew to the ball and I felt like they just moved a whole lot faster," he said of the Florida game. "It was different than what I was used to, different than what I was used to in high school. So it was just having to learn quick and adjust on the fly."
The Aggies hit a stumbling block against LSU, who snapped their five game winning streak with a 24-19 victory on Oct. 20. Manziel had his worst game of the season, throwing three interceptions and zero touchdowns while rushing for just 27 yards. Following the loss he worked with Kingsbury to help feel more comfortable in the offense.
"He just told me to have a plan every time, before every snap," Manziel said. "Make sure you have a plan on what you want to do and where you want to go with the ball. I feel like as the year went on, I just learned the offense more and knew exactly where I wanted to go, instead of maybe evading the blitz and just taking off running for the first down instead of hitting a hot route or throwing it underneath to an open guy and doing things a lot simpler and cleaner."
Manziel has his "Heisman moment" a few weeks later following wins over Auburn and Mississippi State. Texas A&M defeated then-unbeaten Alabama 29-24 behind Manziel's 253 yards passing and two touchdowns. He also rushed for 92 yards, including a 32-yard scamper that left the Crimson Tide defense breathless.
"You keep growing and growing every week," he said. "By the time I played Alabama I had a much better grasp of the game than I did in the first one."
The Aggies finished the season on a hot streak, winning five straight games, including the victory over Alabama and a 59-29 thrashing of Missouri in the regular-season finale. Manziel had five total touchdowns in the game and passed for 372 yards to cap off his record breaking year.
According to the Associated Press, Manziel broke the previous SEC record for total yards that was held by Cam Newton, who gained 4,327 yards in 14 games. Manziel gained his record amount of yardage in only 12 games and also became the "first freshman, first player in the SEC and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season."
Manziel worked very well with Kingsbury, but he will now have to find comfort with a new coordinator after he took the head coaching job at Texas Tech, where he once starred as a record-setting quarterback.
"I'm the happiest guy on the face of the earth for him," Manziel said, speaking from California where he appeared on the "Tonight Show" Monday evening. "I think he deserves it with how hard he's worked this year to get us where we were. It's bittersweet though, because I'd like him to be here for the entire time that I'm here."
Manziel threw for at least one touchdown in every game apart from two and threw for eight touchdowns and two interceptions of the final three games of the year. He rushed for 100-plus yards six times and scored at least two rushing touchdowns in six games.
Texas A&M is currently preparing to play against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4. The Sooners have a solid defense that is allowing just 24 points per game, but Manziel and the Aggies' offense will challenge that with a squad that scored 44 points per game. Texas A&M averaged over 500 yards of total offense per game, including over 230 yards on the ground.
"Even though Kliff Kingsbury's not here anymore, we just need to continue to get better and do what we do," Manziel said. "Push tempo, go fast and be the high-flying offense that we have been all year."
Texas A&M is ranked ninth in the nation and finished 6-2 in their first year in the SEC.
