Texas A&M Johnny Manziel Kevin Sumlin Mike Evans Damontre Moore – 247Sports
Record 11-2, 6-2, second place SEC West
Pre Season Ranking None
Year End Ranking 5th
Highest Ranking 5th
Bowl Cotton Bowl (beat 12th ranked Oklahoma 41-13)
Head Coach Kevin Sumlin
Offensive tackle Luke Joeckel anchored an offensive line that eventually saw all five members either be drafted or wind up on NFL rosters
Post Season Honors
All SEC
QB Johnny Manziel (Heisman Trophy winner)
OL Luke Joeckel (second pick in the 2013 NFL draft)
OL Jake Matthews (top ten pick in the 2014 NFL draft)
DE Damontre Moore (12.5 sacks, 21 tackles for loss)
All Americans
QB Johnny Manziel
OL Luke Joeckel
Highlights
Began their first year of SEC play by finish fifth in the country after picked fifth in the SEC West in the pre season.
Beat Arkansas 58-10 to end a three game losing streak against the Hogs.
Beat Ole Miss 30-27 as the Aggies overcame six turnovers and scored twice late in the game to topple the Rebels on the road.
Defensive end Damontre Moore led the SEC in sacks
Beat Auburn 62-14 on the road two years after the Tigers won the national championship.
Beat Mississippi State 38-13 on the road as the Aggies held the Bulldogs under 100 yards rushing and totaled 693 yards of total offense.
Beat eventual national champion Alabama 29-24 in Tuscaloosa as they jumped out to a 20-0 lead, forced three turnovers, and Manziel’s performance in front of a national television audience won the Heisman Trophy.
Defeated Oklahoma 41-14 in the Cotton Bowl as Manziel piled up 516 yards rushing and receiving and four touchdowns as part of an offensive performance that resulted in 633 yards of total offense. The Aggies held the Sooners to 123 yards rushing overall and no points in the second half.
Manziel became A&M’s first Heisman Trophy winner since the late John David Crow in 1957 and the first freshman ever to win the award.
Offensive tackle Luke Joeckel won the Outland Trophy, was a unanimous All American selection, and became the second pick in the 2014 NFL Draft of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Offense
In the spring of 2012, Johnny Manziel was a turnover prone redshirt freshman who was headed off to see quarterback guru George Whitfield Jr. in order to try to win the starting job.
By January 2013, Manziel was college football’s best player and the best player in A&M history.
Manziel’s vision, ability to change direction, coordination, and ability to throw accurately from any position transformed an A&M offense that was transitioning from the West Coast offense of Mike Sherman to the spread offense that Sumlin brought with him from Houston. By spreading the field, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury played to Manziel’s gifts and his coaching helped cut back on the damaging turnovers that plague most young quarterbacks.
But Manziel wasn’t just a one man show in 2012. Prior to the season, A&M’s offense was supposed to be built around a stable of quality backs that included eventual NFL draftee Christine Michael and a talented offensive line that returned four starters. However, Manziel and receivers Mike Evans and Ryan Swope transformed the passing game as well. Swope was a fast slot who actually became the primary downfield threat for the Aggies; rather than just moving the chains he ran seam and corner routes to catch eight touchdown passes. He came up big in big games, catching the game winning pass against Ole Miss with under a minute to go and registering 11 receptions for 141 yards versus the Tide. Evans was recruited by Sherman as a basketball player turned wideout who used his size and basketball skills to outjump and outmuscle opposing receivers for balls; he also had great ability after the catch to turn short gains into long ones. Swope and Evans combined for over 150 receptions and 2,000 yards in the air.
The offensive line struggled at times early in the season to run the ball but by the end of it they were the best unit in the country. Joeckel’s junior season ended a three year run in which he was the best offensive lineman in school history. He had exceptional balance and coordination and took people where he wanted them to go. Matthews had great feet and technique, Cedric Ogbuehi and Jarvis Harrison added height and size, and at 318 pounds Patrick Lewis could take on nosetackles single handedly.
It was a unit with five first round NFL draft picks, eight eventual NFL draft picks, two coaches on that side of the ball who went on to become college head coaches, and the three best players at their positions in A&M history (Manziel, Evans, and Joeckel). It’s up there with the 1975 defense as the greatest unit in A&M history.
Defense
Prior to the 2012 season, no one knew what to expect much out of the Aggies’ defense. They returned a quality linebacking corps with veterans Jonathan Stewart, Sean Porter, and Steven Jenkins and a proven pass rusher in Damontre Moore. However, the secondary and the rest of the defensive line was comprised primarily of people that didn’t have a lot of experience and the line itself wasn’t the same size as most of those in the SEC. In fact, the line got both younger AND smaller in fall camp when veteran Spencer Nealy was moved inside to tackle and freshman Julien Obioha was elevated to defensive end.
However, the defense exceeded expectations from the start. They held a top 10 Florida team to 3.0 yards per carry in the opener and garnered eight sacks; in fact, they kept the Aggies in the game until wearing down late in the contest. From that point forward, they didn’t just benefit from the offensive output…they did not allow a first quarter touchdown in their last nine games. While the offense was ramping it up, they were getting better at stopping opponents’ running games and then teeing off on opposing passers.
Not only that, they made big plays in crucial situations all on their own. They let Arkansas throw for over 500 yards but held them to ten points. Porter and Stewart combined for a crucial fourth down stop late in the Ole Miss game to get the ball back for a game winning pass from Manziel to Swope and then Toney Hurd sealed the win with an interception. Deshazor Everett picked off a Alabama pass inside the five yard line with less than three minutes remaining which killed off Bama’s last and best chance to win that game. Up only 14-13 at halftime of the Cotton Bowl, the defense went press man on the Sooners’ receivers in the second half and shut down one of the country’s best offenses.
My Perspective
For years, people had waited for a transcendent player to elevate not just A&M’s football program but the university as well and he came along in an undersized package who was best player in college football on the field and a trend setter off of it. Overnight, Manziel single handedly transformed A&M into a cool place to be not just among recruits but even celebrities who he connected with. Fans wanted to be him; recruits wanted to play with him.
His numbers that season were jaw dropping. He complied over 5,000 yards in total offense and averaged nearly 400 yards of total offense a game which would have put him in the top half of the SEC among all teams [i/] all by himself[/i]. He accounted for 47 touchdowns rushing and receiving. Manziel even led the SEC in rushing yardage while hitting 68% of his passes.
But Manziel was more than numbers….he left an imprint with individual plays like where he ran for a touchdown against Arkansas in which he reversed directions twice. There was the touchdown pass against Alabama where he banged into an offensive lineman, fumbled the ball, regained it, rolled to his left, and fired a strike to Swope in the end zone. Finally, prior to the Cotton Bowl, Oklahoma media members were doubting his credentials in the press box. Manziel had a touchdown run on the opening drive where he tight roped down the sideline and left A&M media laughing and the Oklahoma media in disbelief.
In addition, Texas A&M had discarded decades of tradition in breaking with other Texas schools to leave the Big 12 and go to the SEC. Most fans thought that it wouldn’t be up to the task because A&M hadn’t been a contender in the Big 12 and the SEC was widely considered to be the premier conference in the country. They were bringing the Air Raid with them from the Big 12 which was a polar opposite of the power, West Coast attacks that everyone in the SEC used. The schedule was daunting…an SEC opener against a top ten Florida team and a November slate that included three straight road games against Auburn, Mississippi State, and Alabama.
A&M’s modus operandi that season became very simple: Manziel and a talented offense overwhelmed people early on while the defense was slowing them down and then everyone was forced to play catch up. Here’s some numbers for you from the Louisiana Tech game to the Missouri game: 28-0, 12-0, 28-0, 31-0, 20-0, 47-0, and 42-0. That’s the starts that the Aggies got off to in those seven games. In the Cotton Bowl, A&M only led the Sooners 14-13 at the half but closed the game out with a 27-0 run.
A&M was led by Sumlin whose cocky, energetic demeanor on the sidelines fueled A&M’s effort in overcoming six turnovers and a double digit deficit against Ole Miss on the road and gave them the confidence to stroll into Tuscaloosa and beat the Tide at their own game by being more physical. He put together a staff that featured three assistants who eventually went on to be head coaches and whose game plans ran people out of the stadium right out of the gate.
The 1985 team broke the ceiling in terms of A&M winning championships and set the stage for a ten year run of excellence. The 2012 team was even more important because it validated what has become known as the hundred year decision and helped change the dynamics of college football not just in the state of Texas but across the country forever.
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