Johnny Manziel Part 1

Club Shay Shay welcomes Johnny Manziel for a candid conversation with Shannon Sharpe. In this episode, the Texas legend boldly declares Kyler Murray as the best high school quarterback to ever come out of the state, even placing him above Patrick Mahomes and himself. He shares insights that his decision to not commit to Oregon had nothing to do with Marcus Mariota's presence, and then reminisces about beating Alabama as a true freshman at Texas A&M. The conversation takes a surprising turn as Manziel reflects on the Manti Te’o catfishing scandal and the historic Heisman race they were apart of, which Johnny Football inevitably won.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There are people saying Johnny Manziel will be bigger than
Lebron James in Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I think that person is skip balss.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
All my life, grinding all my life, sacrifights, hustle, pet price,
won slice, doctor Brodswatt all my life. I be grinding
all my life, all my life, grinding all my life, sacrifights, hustle,
pet price, one slice, doctor brodec Geist swatch all my life.
I be grinding all my life.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Shay Shay. I
am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the propriud of
Club sha Shay, and the guy that'stopping by for conversation
today is one of the most polarizing college athletes ever,
one of the best college football players ever. Member of
the Texas A and M Hall of Fame. He's the
first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy. A rockstar quarterback,
a larger than life persona a phenomenon. He was must

(00:57):
see TV every Saturday. Former NFL quarterback, Texas legend, and
the stadium in which you played in in college has
been called the House that Johnny built.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Johnny Manziel, baby brother, how you doing? Thank you for
having long time coming.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thank you, roll.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I don't want to toast I know you don't drink anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
You don't drink your more right no, right, right now.
I'm in a way don't want to toast the water.
But nevertheless, Ny appreciate you. I appreciate you offer. I
appreciate you stopping by.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Long time, long time coming, long time coming.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
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Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm trying to figure out what's in the Texas water.
You get Patrick maholl, Drew Brees, Matthew Stafford, Andrew Look,
Kyler Murry, Men Young, Nick Foles, RG three, Ryan Tanniel
Baker Mayfield, Jalen Hurts. What the hell are a theendom?
What are they drinking in Texas to produce these type quarterbacks?

Speaker 2 (02:56):
It's a way of life from the time you're I
can and you can go back even further than just
the guys that you name that's our current, you know,
NFL recent guys that you see, but you can take
it back. You know, there were guys that you see
in the NFL. Let's let's give you a great example,
Andy Dalton, right right, what that guy did at TCU,

(03:16):
what he did for the state of Texas. And if
you're a Dallas Fort Worth kid, you love the Frogs
during that time, right, you know. So there have been
great quarterbacks come through the state of Texas for a
long long time. And I think it comes down to
this that Texas high school football is a way of life.
You know, from the time you're five six years old,
you're to Pop Warner the flag, football, all that stuff

(03:38):
that's going on is a way of life. And I
played baseball my whole life growing up, so football was
never it for me until I got to be about
fourteen or fifteen years old. Right, So just looking around
and knowing the landscape now it's only gotten bigger, right,
and it's only growing. But there is something in the water.
There's a bunch of dogs, not just at the quarterback position,

(03:58):
but all the way throughout. I mean, you look at
Miles Garrett, our defensive player of the year. We were
talking about like there's some real, real cats that come
from Houston, they come from Dallas, they come from San Antonio,
and they come from Austin and it's just a great
state for football. I mean, in my opinion, if you
look at it country wide, you got Cali, you got Texas,

(04:19):
and you have Florida where the dogs come from. In
my opinion, do.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You remember watching those guys playing high school football when
you were growing up? And did any of those guys
you try to emulate?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah? I think RG three did an amazing job for
me and, like you know, setting a great example of
what a dual threat quarterback should be. I mean, I
won the Heights Been in twenty twelve. He won it
in twenty eleven, so I got to watch that crazy
year of a high flying, throw it around the yard
kind of offense and a guy that could run that

(04:51):
track speed everything that he had complete package for what
you know, in my opinion, a college dual threat quarterback
should be.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Did you ever see any of those guys high school
football or just watched them when the highlights came on?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Tell? I would say I watched Kyler's career probably the closest.
I had a huge hand in getting him to Texas
A and M twenty twelve and thirteen. Whenever I was
at A and M, I saw this kid and i'd
known his dad obviously a legendary quarterback at Texas A
and M and his own right, But Kyler, you know,
I saw this kid who was ingrained and molded to

(05:26):
be exactly where he's at today in his life. And
I think that's what his dad did for him to,
you know, get him to a place of high level success.
And if you know anything about Texas high school football,
I would say his resume and what he did makes
him hands down the best Texas high school football player
to ever play quarterback player ever in the state of Texas.

(05:48):
I think he lost. I don't know if he lost
the game game maybe one, and I would have to
be checked. But like one, and what this kid did
made circles from not just Dallas, not just Houston, not
just Austin, from the top of the tip to the
bottom and from east to west. Right, Well, what happened?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Why was it Texas A and M able to keep him?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
You know, I have my opinion on this and one
that I think is very correct in the fact that
that same time we signed two five star quarterbacks, so
we had Kyler Murray and Kyle Allen in that same class.
After I left the direction of the program. I felt
lost a lot of its stability. You know, we had
really good coaches in our organization, but we didn't hone

(06:38):
in in detail and work and focus on one guy
who is going to be our guy.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
They played this game of back and forth and not
like Kyler Murray what we're talking about, lost one game
his whole career. You're not going to go give this
guy the keys. I don't care what he's doing. College
is the time as a freshman you mold men. You
mold these guys into what you want them to be.
When I went to college, my dad shook Mike Sherman,

(07:04):
shook his hand and looked him in the eye and said,
this is where you take over and molding my son
into being the grown up that he needs to be
one day. And I think with that coach, someone lost
a little bit of what he was originally there to do.
You get a new contract, you go to the SEC,
you win twelve games, you get a Heisman winner, you're
talking about new stadium, you're talking about a new deal.

(07:26):
Your focus shifts from what the main thing is to
a whole bunch of bullshit, in my opinion, And they
didn't just hone in and they didn't give him the keys.
And I think a lot of that, to be said,
has to deal with Kyle Allen as well. I think
he made it very difficult behind the scenes for what
people didn't know to just give Kywer the keys. And

(07:46):
you know, in my opinion of where our program is
now as a football program, that is the one step
and one thing and mistake that we made that is
keeping us from being where we want to be. And
especially during that time, we didn't have success.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Because Kyler was supposed to be that was supposed to
be you. He was supposed to be that transition because
of what you started at SEC and we'll talk about
that Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa is what you actually did
down there. So that was supposed to be the next step. Okay,
Johnny built this, he has it going. Guess what we
have somebody still right in and keep it going boom
right there in front of your face.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
I worked my ass off behind the scenes and get
Kyler Murray to Texas saying them, loved him, love what
he stood for, loved who he was as a kid,
loved that he looked up to me. At that point
in time, No how times have changed since then. But
at that point in time, the look I got in
his eyes when I hosted him around and took care
of him was that he looked up to me as
something he wanted to be like me. And I can

(08:42):
see that in his eyes as a kid. I have
a very mixed emotions and strong feelings about that with
what happened through it. Like I said, it comes back
to I think Kyle did a really good job of
playing good football. He was a very capable quarterback. You know,
he's still you know, behind Josh Allen a little bit
right now and working with him, has been right next
to him for a long time. So had said something

(09:03):
about his character, who he was as a football player,
albeit not all the accolades and everything you would expect,
but a very solid, fundamental football player.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
But when you watch Kyler transfer and then you see
what he did for the University of Oklahoma taking him,
I think he took him to the college football Player
off both years he went to the Heisman Trophy and ouch,
and you're saying, hold on, we let that guy walk
out the door. We hold on, and then I think

(09:32):
he'd have been successful in an the offense obviously with
the head coach they had at Oklahoma. I think, yeah,
USC now Lincoln Lincoln Raley, and I think Cliff with it.
You Lincoln Lincoln Rally and you see it like, well,
I don't really care what system it is. You see
how Kyler what he can do. He can throw the ball,
he can run, He's a due He's a true definition
of a dual threat quarterback. No my, how small he is.

(09:55):
I think a lot of people like kind of discounted him,
maybe Texas saying them didn't realize what they had because
they're okay, you walk out the door, you only five
whatever it is, you're not gonna be.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
And he catch fire? Did they not just learn it
with me? Did they now watch the five eleven guy
come and rock the world and put it on fire? Right?
They believed in me, and that came from Cliff Kingsbury.
That's where I got mine from. That's where I got
my confidence. That's where I got my guy who believed
in me. Jake Spabitall was our offensive coordinator when Kyler

(10:26):
was there, and as I was in Cleveland, I was
talking to him quite a bit biggering out what the
vibe was. You know, I went back to games. You know,
I went and wanted to see Kyler and the mesh
in the field, just like, wasn't there for cohesiveness? And
you know, I remember talking to Jake about it and
him just kind of being like, I remember him saying
this that it's like kind of out of my hands.

(10:46):
That was like above the offensive coordinators right pay grade,
which only leaves one person left, head coach. That's all
it leaves, right. So whether it was, you know, speculating,
but at the end of the day, that's what I
was told of. What it was.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
What was your relationship like with Kevin something.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
My relationship with Kevin someone was great. You know, he
was my dog. You know, he rode for me hard,
He went to bat for me, he went to war
for me, and a multitude of different scenarios. You know,
I think where our relationship fell out a little bit is,
you know, how do you have a guy who's a

(11:24):
grown man who I look back on this now reflective
in this. You know, how do you have a guy
who's a grown man, you know, telling me what I
should do? Obviously my coach, my guy I'm looking up to,
my head football coach. It's telling me to live a
certain way and put all this party in this behind you.
But if you know anything about Kevin Summons, what he's
doing behind the scenes, so from behind, from my eyes

(11:48):
critical what we're forty forty club in New York. Yeah,
we in the back room playing pool ways spades with chilling.
Coach is there. This is what he does. So now
looking back at it, it's hypocritical to me. And our
relationship is great and will forever be great. And now

(12:08):
I do not sit here today is a judge of
a man, a judge of a person who helped get
me to the point of where I wanted to be
in life. By no means whatsoever. I'm calling a spade
a spade, and I'm just going to be and give
the gods honest truth as what I know it to be.
That ruffles some feather, so be it. It's the way
the world goes.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Are you surprised that he hasn't got a head coaching job. No,
you're not surprised.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Why. I think what made coach someone so great is
no longer really with him right now where his focus is.
You know, I think life has gotten the better of
him a little bit. And I'm a prime example of
and I want to sit up here and be a preacher.
You know, I don't want to sit up here and

(12:56):
tell anybody they're living wrong or anything like that, because
that's what I used to feel. Like me back in
the day, people were doing that to me. So I
don't see the same spark. You know, I don't have
much of a relationship anymore with him anymore. We'll reach
out and talk like here and there, maybe once a year,
but not like I have the relationship with my other coaches.
And you know, my gut instinct and feel is and

(13:19):
I know this because of instances that happened when I left.
All Right, I'm leaving to go to the draft, and
I'll paint a picture for you. It's two thousand, the
spring of twenty fourteen, December twenty thirteen, right in there
about December January. I'm getting ready to make this decision
on if I'm going to the NFL Draft or I'm

(13:39):
going to stay. And I found this out five years
later for my dad. But my dad went and had
a meeting with Kevin Somethe and pretty much went to
a man de man and was like, we'll take three
million bucks and we'll stay for the next two years.
And my dad says, this is true. Is today as
he did when he told me he left. He did

(14:00):
the same thing that he did when Cliff Kingsbury asked
him to be the highest paid offensive coordinator of the
year before. And Cliff would have stayed with me another
year and we would have ran it back. We're gone
for another one, right, But he comes to someone he
asked him for X amount. Someone he had this ego
about him that what we built we was all him, right,

(14:22):
and then you start that next year. Okay, I leave,
decided to go to the NFL. This deal doesn't work, Kevin.
Someone kind of blows us off. We can do this
without you type of vibe. Okay. So the fall comes
around twenty fourteen A and M football season. Kenny Hill
has named our starting quarterback. We went our first five
games of the year. We're five and oh or top

(14:43):
ten in the country. I ain't getting no love in
the program.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, cause I'm thinking I remember hearing it and they
talked about Johnny who who because he.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Had I think North Carolina five touchdowns first came in
the season.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Okay, okay, so you remember hearing it also, so hold on.
I want to make sure I got a back to
back it up. You said your dad went to Kevin Somebley. Yep,
it says for three million dollars, we're staying for two
Now you do realize this is prior to nil.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
This sold. This is a backroom deal went on for
thirty forty years before. It was the same way that was
happening when you was getting recruited back in the day.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
And you guys that you know you'll texting and them
got money for I mean text, ain't nobody got no
money like Textan and Eil y'all got the big dogs,
Ring Baby y'all got the big dogs.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
And so three million dollars.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
If he had gone to any of the boosters and say,
you know what, Johnny, dad said, he'll stay for an
additional two years if we just break him off three mail.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Just keep it cash, throw it somewhere. We'll get it later.
We don't need it right now. But from my security,
if something happens for two years down the road and
my dad did this without me knowing, I ain't mad
at them about it for nothing. It's the way the
business worked back then. There was a bag man, there
was a bagman at LSU, there was a bagman at Obama.
There was a bag man at every school around the country.

(16:02):
If you were competing for a national title. It's what
it was, and it was always that way until we're
into the nil portion of everything now the way it
should be.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
In fact, if I ask you, said, Johnny, who's your
Mount Rushmore high school quarterbacks in the state of Texas?

Speaker 4 (16:20):
What four heads you put it on?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Kyler Murray is for sure? Andrew Luck was really really,
really good. Who else? Man? Who else? RG three is
up there? For sure? You can't leave RG three off
that list. And oh man, tough, you got this young tough,

(16:45):
you can't. You can't label to four. I played against Baker,
so I didn't get to see him start at quarterback,
but we played Lake Travis his high school. I mean,
this is an impossible list. It probably takes five. The
best that I got to like be around. Andrew Luck
was a little bit before me, so from what I saw,

(17:05):
and I remember Kyler top notch. You know, I didn't
get the breeze days Stafford for the legacy he left
at Highland Park and what you would hear about and
nobody had an arm in the state of Texas like him. Ever,
so Kyler Stafford, for sure, I think you have to
throw RG three in there and winning the Heisman. I
think you have to throw Baker in there for winning
the Heisman. So you got what three Heisman Trophy winners

(17:29):
yep and Stafford yep. Pretty good. And you go to
Kyler to me, to me, and he's younger than me. Wow,
that's so.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Let me ask you this, Johnny, your upbringing, what was
your upbringing like? And what type of kid with Johnny Manzil.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Johnny Manziel was a really good kid, you know, up
into the time I probably got my driver's license fourteen fifteen.
You know. I grew up in Tyler, Texas, small East
Texas town about an hour and a half outside of Dallas.
My family came over from Lebanon and went straight to
East Texas. So I was like the fourth generation of

(18:07):
people that have been here in the States. I was
a baseball player. I wanted to be Derek Jeter. I
wore number two because of Jeter. I loved the Yankees
at that point in time in my life, and my
life was you know, until I was thirteen, fourteen years old.
It was baseball tonight every night Sports Center with the
Ogs back in the day, and I sat and I

(18:28):
watched every day every baseball. I loved it. And from
the time I was like eight years old on until
the time I was like fourteen fifteen, I traveled and
played baseball. I got in the car with my mom
My dad worked at a car dealership, so six days
a week, he was grinding, trying to, you know, make
life easy on us. And I felt very blessed that

(18:51):
I did have the ability to have an easy life.
You know. I think I put out this persona at
the time later that we were well off in this
and I think that was just at the time something
to say maybe what I even truly believe at that
point in time. But get back to what I was saying.
I was a baseball player and travel me and my

(19:12):
mom my sister, hopping the car and we're going to Louisiana.
We're driving all over Texas. We're going everywhere to go play,
travel and select baseball. As a kid, I was playing
a year up from my age group. So I'm like,
I'm in the deep end and I'm holding my own
And I always thought, even to this day that Baseball
was my best sport that I was always meant and

(19:33):
destined to be a baseball player. And I think because
I started so early, by the time I got to
high school, I was just burned out of it. Football
started to come in my life. Really, what I vividly
remember is the two thousand and five Rose Bowl. And
for Christmas Day, I wake up and my dad has
this number ten, Vince Young Texas Jersey. I was a

(19:55):
Texas longhorn freak. And I'm gonna sit here and get
a lot of hell from my aggies, but like it
is what it is, and I remember this Christmas Day,
might go to the tree see this bench Young jersey
with the Rose Bowl patch on it. And after that
it was really just like all football from that game,
that last drive, that cross into the end zone by Vince.

(20:17):
The confetti was the background on my computer for four
years with Vince. Rose Bowl was the biggest to me.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
When you say you were a good kid, good kid.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
By of America or good kid just for Johnny Mansaiah.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Good kid by one hundred percent of America. I was
raised the proper way. I was raised in a strong,
sturdy household. Both mom and dad there and younger sister
three years younger than me. You know, we were we
were religious. You know, we were a Christian family. We
went to church on Sundays. Sundays were our day for

(20:53):
you know, our family golf outings where my dad and
my sister would play, me and my mom and we
would go play a scramble every Sunday. We were very
family oriented. You know, my time I spent with my grandparents,
my aunts, my uncles. We were a cohesive unit, especially
back then. And I think, you know, it's hard because

(21:15):
you look back at what you know me now and
you wouldn't expect that, which is why you asked the
question that you did. Because I didn't prove to the
world when I got on a world stage what my
morals and values and how I raised truly was. And
I think a lot of that shift started to happen
as I was fifteen, sixteen years old and I was

(21:38):
living and originally grew up in Tyler, Okay Earl Cambell
to Tyler, two Heisman Trophy winners in the same the
Tyler Rose Baby. And when I was about thirteen, I
mean in between my sixth grade semesters, so it's like
January of my sixth grade year. My dad comes in.
He's like, we're moving, does it? Word just packs everything

(22:02):
up and we drive five and a half hours away
to Curveville, Texas. And Curveville, Texas is forty miles west
of San Antonio, out in the middle of the hill country. Beautiful,
but it's very country, you know. It's very little, backwoods
kind of placed twenty thousand people and it's duly trucks

(22:25):
and farms and ranches and everything you would expect the
Texas town to be. And when I went there, life shifted.
It was like the old Johnny Manziel was there before
that move and then there was a completely new person
born after that. And I think that comes from like
when I got there and I first got to class

(22:46):
at this new school, I was nervous and I didn't
have any of my friends, I didn't know anything. It
was the most first time in my life. I think
I was really really uncomfortable in the situation that I
was in, and I created and took over a little
bit of a different persona in the sense of like

(23:07):
kind of where I get a little bit more of
my attitude, a little bit more of this country place
where I felt like I had to. You know, I
stick up for myself, not even flax, I stick up
for myself. You know, I'm a new kid on the
block here. I ain't getting bullied around by nobody out here.
My dad taught me the right way that somebody wrongs
you in a sense, right, you can either try and

(23:27):
handle it the right way as a man, or if
somebody takes it too far down the line, I give
you full permission to do what you need to do
to protect yourself. And I felt like I was getting
bullied around and punked around a little bit, and I
started to stand on my ground, and with that became
a new like growth. There's a fifteen year old, fourteen
year old kid in life, and I remember that shift

(23:47):
like it was yesterday.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
You said, your dad all of a sudden packed the
family up and limp. How unexpected was it? Were there
any talk do you remember him, he and your mom
having a conversation about, you know, this is not working.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
I think we might need to move. I think there's
a better opportunity to over here.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Was there ever any conversation that your family there are
the possibility that your family might leave?

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Tyler and head to where you ended up going.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
None. None came in one day and just that was it.
We got in the car, we went and that was it.
Never heard of conversation, never heard of talk, never really
got a reason, nothing. We were just doing it. And
as I know now, you know, my dad took a
better job in a different industry to be able to
go do that and do something that gave him more

(24:32):
time to be a father. Okay, you know, the card
business for him was a six day a week, six
in the morning until eight pm, grind. Like I got
to see my dad at dinner at night, and then
on those Sundays that we spoke about, so you know,
I get two hours with him at night during the
week and then we get that Sunday family time that
we get and hopefully baseball doesn't overlap. So it was

(24:55):
very much a family decision to be able to spend
more time together and get a fresh start. You know,
my family and Tyler had a reputation about him, you know,
as being wild and being this party family and kind
of you know, the rumor I guess around East Texas
was the you know, it was a little bit of

(25:16):
my fioso kind of vibe to it a little bit.
This is what I hear and what I was hearing
as a kid, Right, That's what I would hear when
I was in elementary school. Oh, you're a Manzell Like
it was always that kind of like we're judging you
before we even know who you are. So I think
a lot of that had to do with my dad
tired of hearing all the chirp about our last name.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
When did you, or if ever, when you were growing
up have an appreciation for what your dad was doing.
You mentioned that he worked six days a week, that
he left at six a six am in the morning,
he came home at eight pm, and you guys had dinner,
so you basically got the dinner time. That was it,
and then you got Sunday golf outing. What did you
ever become resemful that you weren't spending the quality time

(25:57):
with your dad and that he wasn't driving you around
to all these baseball games.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I wouldn't say it was resentment. I would say there
was full blown anger at that point in time, back
in the day, like to the max, Like I'm watching
other kids have their parents be there and stuff, and
it's a natural inclination to be able to be like, yo,
what's wrong with me? Why is my mom is a rock? Right?
Like my mom was? She never blinked, she never solid,

(26:23):
solid woman. And now that I look back at I
realized what my dad was doing. It takes a lot
of time and a lot of effort and a lot
of energy to be able to provide for a family,
especially when you get away from the nest egg and
the grandparents and everything and you go do it on
your own, so, you know, for a long time, and
this is where me and my dad around this time

(26:43):
just started button heads. And then this is where the
this is where the sneak, you know, this is where
the sneaking and the drinking, and this is where it
all kind of like starts to unravel a little bit.
And this is kind of at this point in time,
fifteen sixteen years old, where I start to go down
a path that you later see on a national scale.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Do you believe had your father been around more frequently
that the Johnny Manziel that started happening around fifteen sixteen
and would later cost you a lot of what you
had worked so hard for. Had he been around, do
you believe this would have.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Happened no, I believe that life goes exactly the way
that it's supposed to go. So if he was around,
it's a big if, right, and that it's a hypothetical
type of situation. Hard for me to answer, But I
know now all of the bad parts of me make
me exactly who I am, right. All the failure that

(27:39):
I've had in life, failure, what I really fail on.
I lived my dream by the time I was twenty
two years old. That dream that I had when I'm
sitting in that classroom in Curveville, Texas, I accomplished at
twenty two. Now, my dreams never were to go be
in the position that you were in with a Hall
of Fame jacket and to be the best NFL player ever.

(28:00):
Very much felt like when I got drafted and that
I got a chance to start in an NFL game,
like my dreams were completely accomplished, almost well, And that's
just the way I truly feel, you know. So my life,
the good, the bad, and everything in between, it went
exactly the way that it was supposed to go. To
be sitting here with you today, and I learned more

(28:21):
through the failures than I ever did through the rise.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Ever You're growing up, you say, because you had played
baseball at started baseball at such an early age. By
the time you got to about fourteen fifteen, you had
completely burnt out on the game of baseball, So now
you transitioned to football. Was your size ever a problem
that did? A coach ever?

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Takes that?

Speaker 4 (28:45):
Johnny, You're just too small?

Speaker 2 (28:48):
So uh, of course, of course. I think that's a
big reason why I didn't go to the University of Texas.
They wouldn't pull the trigger on me and my size
at any position. They wanted me to play safety, like
safety safety me. The ain't got a lot of white
safeties out there. Shit, no, no, no, they don't. They don't.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
So but I'm think I'm thinking, like, hold on, if he'
too small to play, if he's five or eleven, how
much you wait coming out of high school one.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Hundred and seventy three pounds seventy five.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
But they didn't think you could play quarterback because of
that size. But they felt you'd be perfect for safety.
They saw athletic ability. Okay, they saw a special.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Athletic talent, and they didn't know what it was. And
to be honest, until I met George Whitfield, and went
and started training with him. I didn't believe in myself
that I was a quarterback. Okay, you were an athlete.
I just wanted to play football. I would play receiver,
I played running back in high school. I played anything
that I could play to get on the field and

(29:48):
be with my dogs.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
I'm looking at you. In your high school career, you
passed over seventy six hundred yards. You had seventy six
total touchdowns in high school parade All America, Mister Texas football,
if you're if you're the mister football in the state
of There are certain states. Now, yeah, and this is
not a knock, but if you missed the football in
North Dakota, they don't hold the same weight as mister

(30:10):
football in Florida, Georgia, Texas, California.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
If you're from North Dakota, maybe, if you're from North Dakota,
you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
But being missed football in the state of Texas, that
means no matter what your size is, Johnny, everybody should
have been beaten down your door and not looking at
you saying, well, he's only five, level one seventy three.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
The world was perfect, maybe it would have went that way,
but we both know that it's not. And then people
oversee greatness all the time. We do you, I mean
not necessarily you, but in immediate type. People overlook great
inness all the time. People are still knocking down brock
Perty's door right now and all the heaters are coming through.
For what, mister irrelevant to a Super Bowl. I mean,

(30:51):
it's about identifying greatness in somebody, in their soul and
in their heart. It's more than just what you can
do with your hands and with your arms and with
your legs.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Right at the school's Oregon, Rice Stanford, Iowa State, Baylor,
CSU of Colorado, State, Louisiana Tech, Tousta, Wyoma in Texas,
A and m and it says I read that you
said that you de committed from Oregon because they had
Marcus Mariota and you didn't feel confident enough in yourself
that you could beat him out or you get an
opportunity to play.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
I didn't go to Oregon, not anything that had to
do with Marcus. It's really nice, Unies, Hey, that was
the reason I wanted to go. Two thousand and eleven,
I think was twenty ten cam Newton Auburn year they
played Michael James and the Ducks and Fiesta Bowl for
the National Championship. There's jerseys coming out. I'm committed. Whoa crazy?

(31:50):
And when I went there, they made my family. So
when I get into contact with Oregon and Trip Kelly,
they didn't give us, you know, the roll out, the
red carpet treatment to go visit. They're like, you want
to come up here on your dime and come to
this camp. We'll let you come in and we'll evaluate you.

(32:11):
And as I get there, meeting with Chip Kelly and
doing the whole deal that you do on a recruiting trip,
I get to the you know, we get to the
football portion of it, where we're going out on the
field and I jog out to where I'm supposed to
go and there's this kid sitting there, six ' four
Hawaiian kid and he's in line. I go, yo, what's up, bro,
You're playing receiver today? And he looks at me and

(32:32):
he goes, I'm playing quarterback. And I remember in my
head at that time, I'm like, I'm so fucked. I'm
toast this kid. So there was that initial reaction and
then as we go through the drills, it's just like boom,
boom boom, boom, boom boom. Two Heisman Trophy winners before
it ever happens. Just so good that when we got

(32:56):
off the field that day, we both got offered at
the same time at the same day, and I committed
on the spot. There wasn't no doubt that that's what
I wanted to do. It had nothing to do. They
could have had five six quarterbacks in that class, and
they told us they were going to take three because
they needed death. So I knew that going into it,
and I committed anyway. Oh so, now.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
What about you said you wanted to go to Texas
but they didn't feel you was big enough to play
the position. So was it? U, T, A, and M.
Were those the only text of school that you like?
Considering Frogs.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
I took a visit there and had a buddy from
high school that was going to school there, and I
went there. I was like, damn, there's a lot of
girls up.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
Here and they parted if they parted almost every year.
Number one party schooled it Frogs.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
I mean, man, it's crazy. When I was in high school,
I was like, this place is heaven on earth. Nice,
it's clean girls. The football program there and damn.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Jotty, you don't mentioned nice and clean and talk about girls,
and you ain't got.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
The football yet.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
At that point in time, I wasn't thinking about football,
shaying it. I'm trying to go have a good time
in college. I wanted to be like this mix of
like Entourage on HBO and like Blue Mountain State and
all these things I was watching at the time, And
what I was ingrained in was just like I'm a
party boy. I just happened to be good at football

(34:28):
a little bit at that time. You know, my grind
and focus and determination of the game didn't come in
until I got into trouble before my Heisman year at
A and M June of twenty twelve. It all kind
of came to a halt when I got arrested and
I got arrested for going out to Northgate and College

(34:48):
Station and drinking too much and blacking out and waking
up in handcuffs. And when that instance happened, it was
this meeting with coach someone and my mom and my dad,
and it was like you either figure this out to
day or over the next couple weeks, or your ass
is out of here. You're gone. And then everything you

(35:11):
work for your scholarship everything, you figure it out. Now,
as my family sits there in the room and someone's
looking at him just like we're looking at each other
right now, he's like, you guys, figure it out. And
when that happened, my family moved to College Station and
they moved in my backyard and I pretty much moved
back in with my mom and my dad. And that
was the moment that was like, all right, do you

(35:34):
hear what's going on. You're smart enough to comprehend this.
You may be fucking around with your boys and doing
what you think you want to do, but the opportunity
that's in front of you you are spoiling and you
need to get it together. And that's when George Webdfield
came into my life and I went. My mom sent
me to San Diego with all the money they probably
had saved up for their little saving stuff and sent

(35:57):
me out there to work with this guy, and they
trusted him. And when I came back, I left before
that trip and getting arrested fourth on the depth chart
below the freshman who came in below the two other
guys that were above me in the class. In eleven
days when I got back and we started training camp.
I was named the starter and handed the keys to

(36:17):
the Texas A and M University football team. That's how
much of a difference my focus and my passion and
my energy being put into something turned out to be.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
If that situation you drinking to the point of blacking out,
do you remember anything about that night other than going
to the bar with Jahomies.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
I was taking Xanax back then, and it was a
very like weird time in my life when I was
dealing with anxiety and all these things and emotions that
were going on that I didn't have any business being
able to handle on my own. But from that country kid,
proud and tough and all these things that I prided myself.

(37:00):
I wasn't asking for help, Shannon. I didn't ask for
help when I was sitting in Cleveland, So why am
I gonna do it when I'm in college. So I
was a lost kid trying to figure out, Like you know,
after my first year at A and M, when I
red shirted at the end of that year, I said,
fuck this, I'm done playing football. I was finding out

(37:21):
how to transfer to TCU to play baseball. That's how
bad it was. After my red shirt year six and
six we're in the Big Twelve. I'm going to Ames,
Iowa and all these like I ain't the stadium that
I wanted to be playing in. And there's no disrespect
to them whatsoever. The Big Twelve is not the SEC.

(37:42):
And you see it now, only two of them schools
in the Big twelve got into the SEC. Four If
you had Missouri and an m only four that whole
thing really got in. So there's a difference in program,
there's a difference in stature of dudes. Any team can
beat a team on given day, consistency of a program

(38:03):
and legacy, you know, there's only a couple of teams
that got into the SEC for a reason like that.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Let's just say Johnny Manzield is a high school senior
now and Coach Prime is at SeeU and Coach Prime
comes sit, come down and talk to you, and Johnny said, look,
Johnny man with you, I see big things for you
and the program, and we need you to take us
to the heights of where See You football can be.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
Would you be interested in playing for Coach.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Prime without a doubt? Me and him being Texas guys,
you know he's up and prosper. We've had a great
relationship for years, and I think looking back on our
relationship now, he knew something special in me to the
point of where he, you know, would interjected my life

(38:53):
at times or send me a message or like really
show love that he didn't have to do. And if
I was a college kid looking now, I would say
Texas A and M is the best school in the country. Right,
that's a given. Number Two. I would play for a man,
for a guy who's a leader, a man, for a
guy who carries himself the way that the Prime does.

(39:16):
And without a doubt, I would sign my life. And
if sit looking at it from a different perspective, if
I was a father and my son was looking to
go to play for a coach, I would absolutely, without
a doubt, unequivocally send him to coach Prime.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
You said you played baseball from a very young age
until you're about fourteen to fifteen. How good of a
baseball player was Johnny Manziel really good?

Speaker 2 (39:40):
What was it you to play play shortstop? Okay? I
played middle m field and I loved it like it was.
It was it for me. I was a good OPO hitter,
like I felt like I fielded the ball all right,
you know I had a couple offers out there, and
I remember exactly what they were at the time because
football was so you know, overshadowing everything in my life.

(40:04):
But if you ask anybody that was around me from
the time I was twelve to sixteen, they would say
baseball was like they can play. You played.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
You played a shortstop because you said Gita was your
favorite player. You wore the number two. So is that
kind of how you tried to model your game? You
do realize that like Gita was like Christine.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
What's your game? Were talking about the one off the
field with the baskets and the love notes and everything
you had? Are we talking about that? We're talking about
el Capy did.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
He did a great job of like you knew what
he was doing, but you didn't really know what he
was doing.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
But always if you know, you know, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
So you modeled your get You modeled your game after Jeter,
so you you're like, Okay, I'm gonna be a shortstop.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
I'm gonna be beloved because they gave me the pen
stripes man that was on the pinstripes on a Yankee stadium.
The whole thing.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
So how good would you call it? Your high school
baseball team?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
School baseball team was pretty good. We had a kid
that was two years older than me by the name
of Logan Vic and he ended up committing to Baylor.
He was a all state kind of guy. Left the
crazy power when I played and got to varsity freshman
and sophomore year. He played shortstop, so they kind of

(41:22):
just plugged and played me wherever, and if he pitched,
I took his position. But we kind of played off
each other and kind of when I was in high school,
when I saw him how good he was. He was
better than me, and he did things on a baseball
field that I saw on He did that every day,

(41:43):
and he hit some bombs that took out light poles
and did the whole thing. He was that guy, And
when I saw him and where I was, I always
thought I ain't gonna be that. I really truly was
like he and I'm good, but I'm good, but I
ain't that. And I was here today and give you
the honest truth or what it is. So that was
kind of like, all right, you gotta go do all

(42:05):
of this just to get a fifty sixty percent of
your scholarship, pay for it, get me on a grid iron?
Right you were?

Speaker 1 (42:14):
I read you were selected by the Padres in the
twenty eighth round, the eight hundredth and thirty seventh pick
of twenty fourteen. So why didn't you just you know,
you have to go, but you could have like, hey,
I signed. I mean, I've been pretty good on the resume, like, hey,
Padres took.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
Your boy after you know, but I ain't feel like
doing I played football.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Sounded like my dad. My dad stuff to this day
is like, are you gonna go back and maybe go
to Padres and play baseball or something. I'm like, Pops,
come on, man, pump those bags.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
But see you look at Kyler. Kyler was what the
eighth pick in the draft? Why do you think guys
a lot of guys choose football over baseball? Considering the
money that baseball players make? Show hate just got some
houndy Aaron Judge makes forty. We see what Mike Trout

(43:06):
what and it is guaranteed? Why do you think guys
choose guys that are really good and can play both
choose football over baseball.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Because it's ain't all that runs the world. I can
do the same with seven hundred as I can do
with fifty. That ain't it for me. I'm not motivated
by the money like that. So for me, it's about
the rush. For me, it's about the thrill, same thrill
I got walking into a nightclub or partying or this
or that. I've been a guy of thrills. And when
you meet me in that a gap, or you meet

(43:36):
me in a hole somewhere on a draw play and
I mix you up so bad you're in a pretzel.
Like that rush to me, people trying to come after
me and knock my head off, and being able to
get away and be slippery and do what I did
best in college. That's what made me feel alive. That's
what made me feel whole.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
You graduated early in high school in rood in Texas City,
and why did you feel you needed Did you feel
you needed to do that or you were just trying
to get away from your hometown, Like man, I got
to get over.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
As far as enrolling early, saw the greats doing it.
I saw the good quarterbacks in every class were getting
on campus early to figure it out. So I would
say it's fifty to fifty on if I just wanted
to get away from the fam and get my own
car and be in my own apartment. And I was
in a hurry to grow up, which is what a
lot of people do in life. And sitting back now,
I realized that you should enjoy your time from twelve

(44:28):
to your sixteen seventeen years old. And it's only getting
worse with nil and what's going on in the world.
People are treating thirteen fourteen year old kids like brands
and businesses. And you know, you see all these kids
or social media and they're trying to make money, like
the love of the game is not about that. And
now we're at the point where in college you're getting
exposure to millions and millions of dollars and it's taken

(44:51):
away the passion and the love for what it truly is.
If you would have handed me a million dollars in
my freshman year when I got to A and M,
you'd have seen some shit.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
You might not have made your sound more year, Johnny.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
I might not. I definitely wouldn't be sitting in New
York with that trophy. I would have seen some shit
for sure.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
When you when you had your visit to Texas saying
them and you walking around on campus and they normally
have they pull out their best, you know, the best
ladies to show you a ride. They call them postes,
and to show you a ride, and you walking around
on campus and you look at it ride You're like, yeah,
I'm coming early.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's never about the girls for me back then, really
to the max, I've always been a guy that like
rides for my dogs, and I enjoy the time with
my bros and just drinking, you know, smoking or doing
whatever like that was always what it was for me.
So when I went on my visit Texts A and M,
they stuck me with two of the biggest party boys
on the whole team, and they showed me the time
of my life, to the point of where I'm in

(45:49):
the back of the uber and I'm I'm sick, like
I had too many shots. I am lit off my ass,
and I remember being in this uber and being like, man,
I gotta throw up. Cannot let these guys see any
sign of weakness. So I just remember being like, all right,
I'm gonna see you boys later. I'll see you in
the morning. And I don't even make it to my room.

(46:11):
I don't even make it back to the room. You know,
my family were in these joined rooms at this hotel
and college station to Hilton. And they wake up the
next day and I'm just outside the door, just and
that to me. I woke up the next day. They're
kind of pushing me. I'm like success, I'm alive, I
am good. And I'm sitting going to meet Coach Sherman

(46:32):
at this taco place Fuego and I roll in by
ten minutes late and he looks at me and I'm
just white as a ghost. And Coach Sherman had been
with Brett Farv in Green Bay. He knew what he knew,
what was he knew what was up, and he was
so good that he was just like he knew he
knew when he put me with them, two dudes from

(46:53):
San Antonio who I looked up to, it was on
and he had me, I'm in the boat. I'm in
the boat.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
When you go back and you mentioned your freshman year,
where did you think you red shirted?

Speaker 2 (47:12):
What was it about that?

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Was it not being able to play as much as
you thought you would? What transpired in Johnny's mind that
kind of lt him down the path of where he
was Withhted.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
I just remember the first day, going out to that
first practice in the morning and you get like one rep.
Is that like young kid? He's there early. This is
spring practice, so you know, all the guys are getting
done with the season. Then you're in the spring and
I get that one rep and he's like come back,
and I'm like seven step drop and I let this
ball go, Channon, and it might have hit the top

(47:44):
of the endoor this thing. And I remember coach Sherman
had his place sheet and he threw it down and
he goes, the fuck was that. I'm nervous these ball Tannehill,
like these balls aired up like rock hard. I need
that Brady Look cushion for the fuses. And that my confidence. Man.

(48:10):
I went from mister mister football at Texas to getting
in here and being like, I don't throw it like
Jamille Showers does. The guy who is behind Tannehill, I
don't throw it like him. That ball don't come out
and they don't come out like that with me. So
then you start to see and you're comparing yourself to
other people. And as that year went on, you know,

(48:30):
being the bottom of the barrel guy, you know, being
the guy that is getting ragged on by the seniors
and this, and I'm traveling like I'm quiet. I don't
talk much. I kind of stay in my lane. I
don't ask questions. I ain't trying to better myself at
that point, I'm just losing confidence week by week and
just kind of like getting to the point where I'm

(48:51):
like lost. Is football what I really like? That question
was in my life from that point on.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Wow, So from that point on, you always question whether
it the importance of football or ability. I was about
to take is Johnny does he possess the ability to
be what many believe he could be?

Speaker 2 (49:17):
So you had self doubt. I had self doubt for sure.
I had self doubt and I didn't get self assurance
of myself and what I was as a football player
until Cliff Kingsbury walked in my life. And a funny
story about Cliff Kingsbury that I tell to everybody. We've
been locked in like this since the first day I
ever met him. Kurveville, Texas is forty miles an hour,

(49:38):
you know, away from San Antonio, So Cliff Kingsbury's at
the University of Houston. Would coach someone has case Keenum
there obviously another real Texas high school football legend, and
seven o'clock our practice starts in Kerville. We ran a

(49:59):
very military drill style of football program values, and a
lot of what we talk about at Texas A and
M was how my high school football program was. So
Kingsbury comes out in the field that first morning and
I'm getting ready to warm up and he comes up
to me and he dabs me up and he goes,
what's up, bro, I just want to keep it a
buck with you. I don't have any scholarships to give you,

(50:22):
but every single coach that I walk into a building
in San Antonio, Texas said you need to get your
ass in the car and come down here and watch
this kid practice. So he goes, That's exactly what I'm doing.
And I just want to let you know I'm here
to watch you ball out for a practice and one
day our past will cross again, and I'm nervous. This
is if Kingsbury played at Texas Tech. This is another

(50:43):
legend in mine. Yeah, I have a lot of real guy.
He wouldn't know whatever you want to say, but he
was him at one point in time, and I didn't
know the significance of what that talk is a high
school kid was going to lead to being on a
stage in New York four years later, three years later.
But he kept it real with me like that. I

(51:04):
was like, yo, I can't take you. I'm here to
watch you ball. Wow. And after that meet and after
the day of the workout, he's just sitting over there
on the side and he just gives me one of
these like you crush that.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
If you would have set out your entire season of
the freshman, do you think you would have learned your lesson?

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Ooh No. I think it took me having the biggest
fear of my entire life. Failure come to fruition, and
failure wouldn't have happened for me if I didn't get
to the success that I got. Does that make sense? Yes?

Speaker 4 (51:40):
Do you think they would have disciplined you? I think
they could have.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I think what I was doing in the off season
and what I was doing in my workouts and who
I was as a team leader coming back with the
Heisman trophy, they should have been me. They should have
suspended me. I was doing, Hey, you can't smoke weed, big,
give me the fan of, Give me the fan of

(52:05):
what you got to talk about It's about a box
of white out white graves, swinging and slowing down. Nothing
over here. This is what we're doing and like from that, Okay,
so you win the Heisman. Yeah, we come back, we
play Oklahoma and the Cotton Bowl smashing smack. Okay, after that,
that night after the game is the infamous Sparklers in

(52:27):
the mouth with the dom and the Burberry scars. Right
after this is where like it starts, and it's like
we just smacked our old rival in the Big twelve
and Jerry World in front of one hundred and five
on New Year's Day. This is where the ego, this
is where the you know, this is where you shift
from you know, Johnny Manziel and the Johnny football, the

(52:48):
little transition, and then from there it's mister, it's Johnny Football. Yeah.
And now there's no more self doubt. Now there's no
more self doubt because I know what I'm doing in practice.
I know what I'm doing when I see cover two
and I'm the whole shot. I'm toying with them in practice,
they're mad. They I mean, the only thing they have
on me in practice and the setting that I'm seeing

(53:09):
the live rep bullets fire is. They can't tell when
a sack happens in practice because we ain't sacking people right.
And you know in a game, you know practice, I'm
running and give somebody a little move and I'm just
looking at him like I ain't no way You're making
that tackle on the field, buddy. You can hop and
hoop around and do your whole defensive thing all you want.

(53:29):
And you know out there under them lights, no, Ja,
that ain't gonna happen. Brother, it ain't. It's not gonna happen, right,
And that's not me speaking out of my ass. I
got the film, right, I got stuff to show you that,
like I was more than what you thought I was,
especially as a running quarterback. Joc fourteen hundred yards rushing

(53:51):
in my freshman years documented.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
The first fireshman in NCA history to pass for three
thousand yards and carry and rush four thousand yards, and
the same season the first player to pass for three
hundred yards of rush four hundred yards in the same
game three times. Broke Archie Manning's forty three old record
for five hundred and toty yards excepn of a total
offense with five seventy six owns all these freshman's record
eleven and two ranked number five best since nineteen fifty six,

(54:16):
beat Oklahoma forty one thirteen in the Cotton Bowl, produced
five hundred and sixteen yards of offense four touchdowns, with
the record two hundred and twenty nine yards rushing.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
When you look, when you do, you understand at the
time what you're actually doing.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
When the ESPN Heisman list came out about a week
eight nine, that's when I started to kind of see,
like whoa, because this is, you know, my life growing
up my boys was NCAA football, the video game, the
road to glory, the road to the Heisman, creating a
player and being able to go do these things, pick

(54:56):
your school, go to the you know, to all of that.
And now I'm living in right, so the focus doesn't
shift to like getting the Heisman and just focuses on
like taking this team the heights that we haven't been before,
and when you walk into Tuscaloosa, Alabama and do what
happened that day, something that leaves a legacy twenty twelve.
It's twenty twelve years later where I walk down the

(55:18):
street every day in my life and somebody comes up
and dips me up and goes fifteen and a half
when underdogs Alabama. Will never forget that day for the
rest of my life. That's what kind of impact that
day had on college football. And I hear it every day,
see it every day.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
You see Alabama on the schedule and you're on the
his on watch list. You mentioned your fifteen point underdogs,
and you understand what Alabama is. That's coach saban. You
know the dogs that he has on that roster. You
know the dogs that he sends to the NFL every
year multiple what's going through your mind? Do you ever think, man,

(55:51):
if I can go to Alabama, if I can go
to Tuscaloosa and beat Bama.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
Ooh, they got to to take notice.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Can't think like that. Can't think like that and be
successful because you're putting pressure on yourself that's unneeded. Okay,
I got ninety five percent of the country the saying
Alabama's gonna beat us. What do we have to lose? Right?
I remember being on the bus on the way of
the game and putting on the movie three hundred. This
part comes on where it's give to them nothing but

(56:18):
take from them every single thing, everything, And that was
my mindset going into the game that like everybody in
the stadium expects you to lose. Everybody in the state
is rooting against you. We got maybe twenty thirty thousand
loyal Aggies scattered through about in the stands. We already
lost two games that year, Right, what's the third gonna do?
You know? We're out of the SEC title, We're out

(56:40):
of you know, the national championship conversation. Let's just try
and go ball. And Cliff Kingsbury put together an unbelievable
game plan for us offensively that highlighted our strengths, that
kept us from being too vulnerable in a defense like that.
And for the first half of that game, they don't
know what the fuck is going on. We're running option

(57:00):
with go routes and all we are just unleashing the
Cliff Kingsbury like creativeness of a football playbook for an
air raid. You know, this wasn't old Mike Leech air raid.
This wasn't anything that Lincoln was doing wherever. This was
just its own subtle thing or own you know, a
particular thing. Right that was Taylor to me being able

(57:23):
to run the ball the way that I could, as
well as having an unbelievable like offensive line to be
able to handle what they were throwing to us. Luke Jokl,
Jake Matthews, Cedric a boy. These are all first round
picks in the NFL and some really really solid players, right.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Wow, I forgot you guys had that kind of offensive line. Yeah,
so that's why they were able to hold up. Jokal
was the number two pick in the draft. I think
Jake Matthews with a top ten pick in the draft.
You guys were loaded. Mike Evans Swoops was very underrated.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Mike Evans and that's somebody that man, What a brother
to me. Man, It makes me even emotionally even think
about it. We got to come in at the same
time in red shirt and that red Shirt year, we
were tearing their ass up on the set so much
that I went to my locker one day later in
the year and they took my red jersey so they

(58:15):
couldn't hit me, and they put a black jersey on
me to be able to smack me in practice. Because
me and Mike were doing our thing we were doing.
We were starting that recipe of that pot. We were
starting to cook. And then as that year goes on,
that red shirt freshman year that we played together. You
start to see a kid who's like a man amongst

(58:35):
boys out there and like really six ' five with
that frame, like he was always what he was, but
that confidence that started to grow in him. Me and
him had this telepathy same way you probably had with
a quarterback back in the day, where it's just like
that was a route right quick, easy. He knew everything,

(58:57):
and me and him had that relationship that was like
actual special and it will never be taken from us. You know,
I can sit here and talk to him and still
do the same signals. It's twelve years later. I can
throw a peace sign. He's gonna go to the crib
is what that means every time. So you know, to
have a special bomb with somebody like that, that kid,
that guy, that man means means the fucking world to me.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
When Alabama started to come back, you looked at reporter,
you said, f Alabama el saving and that you were
going to score. Why were you so confident? Why because
the crowd, the crowd had gotten back in it. They're going, hey,
wire defense, just a freshmen. Why were you so confident
that you were going to get this football? And you

(59:41):
were going to go down and field the score.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah, well the first you know half of that game,
you know, first quarter, were up twenty to nothing. So
that stadium you can hear a pin drop. And Tuscaloosa
doesn't get like that very much, if ever. I mean
you can count on both your hands how many times
they've lost since twenty ten for the most part. Yes,
so confidence in what we were doing. You know, we

(01:00:04):
lost our first game of the year to Florida, cool,
first game of the year. Whatever. Then we get up
on LSU and we end up blowing that game where
I feel like we really should have won. That was
our turning point in the season. After that, we started
to get together and come together that we didn't want
to be, you know, the weak link of this team.
We needed that offense and who we had to be

(01:00:25):
the catalyst to be the center point of that team.
And we needed our defense just to kind of hold on.
So as much as the Tuscaloosa in the Alabama game
is about me and the offense, it's not the way
I look at it. Our defense got multiple stops, got
to pick late on like the last drive is there

(01:00:45):
on the eight yard line to go in and take
the lead. That changes things. We get a pick, we
get the ball out, and then there's fifty seconds left
in the game. We are on like third and seven.
Saban has a time out, we run a run play,
we get like four. We're backed up on our own twenty.
So it's punt time. Now we're gonna punt it to

(01:01:07):
who I mean, could have been I could have been
Amari Cooper, whoever they have back. There was a menace
and we had put this play in a whole week
of a special teams punt scenario where we go on
the hard count. It's third and four, we go hard count,
they jump, we touch them, first down, light drop. So

(01:01:28):
you have your offense. What we did in the first half,
we scored twenty in the first quarter. We only scored
nine the rest of the game. We're hanging on for
dear life. You know the plays that we made on
that one score drive. The six points we scored the
second half was off a turnover, wheel route down the sideline,
dime corner route, next play, dime two plays touchdown, like

(01:01:51):
very opportunistic and going with the flow of the game.
And then you seal the game with the special teams play.
So you got offense, defense, special teams. We walk in
another locker room in Tuscaloosa and we burned that thing down.
Total team win, total completely, without a doubt, total team win.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
If they have the college Football Playoff in twenty eleven,
you got have to and A and M gets it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
Do you believe y'all win the national championship?

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
We gotta play Bama again? Probably, So that's another like
knock it out. I think we have a very good chance.
I think we got better. And even from the Tuscaloosa game,
the Alabama game up until the Cotton Bowl. The Cotton
Bowl is our best showing of the entire year.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
Yeah, oh yeah, y'all put it together, man, and we.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Did, and that's just where are like. That was the
pinnacle of what our team was that year, and we
showed it at the last game on the biggest stage.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
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price guaranteed. Obviously you wasn't the Hoysman, but you go
to New York for the Heisman ceremony and you're up
against Manta Teo and did and you know what transpired
with all that situation being catfish?

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Did you guys, did you guys talk to anything about that? So?

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
How was he during that time? Amazing? And his parents
and family the way they were with my family. You know,
you'll see my dad and my mom and the videos
of the hysmand ceremony and he would laser around their neck.
So it was a very you know, we were close
throughout that week. Right, I thought his family was amazing.
I thought Manti was amazing. You know, I didn't know

(01:04:11):
anything about whatever anything else was until later from the dock.
And you know, during those times we even played against
each other when I was in Cleveland and he was
in San Diego. I think, so we always had a
good relationship. You know, I always respected him for you know,
what he stood for and who he was as a
person and who his family was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Right, I'm going back and up looking at guys that
have won the Heisman from the SEC. You look at
Joe Burrow, Cam Newton, Tim Tebow, Kyler, Murray Baker Mayfield.
You were the first freshman to ever win it, and
you accumulated the SEC record, then forty six yards are
total lock, piz, Where would you put yourself if we're
having If we're having a college and I'm not go
to the NFL because obviously the guys with the prototypical size,

(01:04:52):
But where would you think Johnny manziel See Heisman Trophy
season would rank among those guys behind Burroughs, behind Burrow,
but in front of camp, no what about.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
I would say for me, in my opinion, Joe Burrow's
is probably the best Heisman season to ever happened. And
that's just like, look at the numbers if it's not
even a comparison, and the swagger and what he did
it with, and I think it's I think it's a
no brainer. I think, yeah, I agree him and Barry
somewhere up there at the top stand alone type of thing.

(01:05:29):
Cam for me is of cultural importance, and you know,
coming in from Blynn Junior College and going to Auburn,
I remember that, and then they played the team organ
that I was committed to at the time. So it
leaves an impact and the memory on me. And I
love Cam Newton to the max, love what he stands for,
love what he what he's about, Love him to death

(01:05:52):
and always have. He knows that, And so I think,
you go, Joe Burrow, I think you know Cam, and
then I'm right below that, and I respect Baker's and
Kyler's and you can nitpick all this all you want,
because at the end of the day, it's all about
getting to that stage in New York and getting that trophy,
right now you're splitting hairs on who's greater than who,
and all collectively as a whole, we're fucking badass, right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two
is also posted and you can access it to whichever
podcast platform you just listen to part one on. Just
simply go back to club Shashay profile and I'll see
you there.