Manziel becomes first rookie Heisman winner
'Johnny Football' the first rookie to win the college game's most prestigious individual award
Johnny Football just got himself a way cooler nickname: Johnny Heisman.
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 non-traditional 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 backyard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Marys to my dad," he said.
Manziel seemed incredibly calm after his name was announced, hardly resembling the guy who dashes around the football field on Saturday. 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.
Just a few days after turning 20, Manziel proved times have truly changed in college football, and that experience can be really 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 was the first sophomore to win it in 2007, and two more won it 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.
He's the second player from Texas A&M to win the Heisman, joining John David Crow from 1957, and did so without a hint of pre-season hype. Manziel didn't even win the starting job until two weeks before the season.
With daring runs and elusive improvisation, Manziel broke 2010 Heisman winner Cam Netwon's Southeastern Conference record with 4,600 total yards, led the Aggies to a 10-2 in their first season in the SEC and orchestrated an upset at then-No 1 Alabama that stamped him as legit.
He has thrown for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and run for 1,181 yards and 19 more 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.
After the season, Texas A&M took the reins off Manziel and made him available for interviews, allowing Johnny Football to tell his own story.
Though in the end, his play said it all.
