I admit that I had my reservations concerning the decision to award Quarterback Johnny Manziel the Heisman Trophy. Until last December this trophy, which was primarily awarded to seniors since it was first established in 1935, had never been presented to a freshman. Officially, the Heisman Trophy recognizes "the most outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity."* Since the Heisman was given primarily to upperclassmen, the award, it seemed to me, recognized a player's accomplishments for not just one year. Rather, winning the Heisman represented the capstone of an exceptional college career. However, in light of Johnny Manziel's incredible performance in last night's Cotton Bowl Classic, I may have to re-evaluate my views about the place of the Heisman Trophy in modern college football.
Manziel's accomplishments in the Cotton Bowl revealed that he more than deserved the Heisman Trophy along with the other awards he received over the course of the 2012 FBS season. In leading the #9 Aggies in their rout of #11 Oklahoma yesterday, Manziel set a new record for rushing at 229 yards and he came within 13 yards of becoming only the second FBS player to pass 300 yards and rush 200 yards in a single game. He did, however, set a new post-season bowl record with 516 total yards and he became just the fourth player in FBS history with 20 passing and 20 rushing touchdowns in a season. As Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops put it after the game: "Johnny Manziel is everything he was billed to be, expected him to be."**
First-year head coach Kevin Sumlin led Texas A&M to an 11-2 record, the first time the Aggies have won eleven games in a season since 1998. Oklahoma finished with a 10-3 record, including a share of the Big XII championship.
I will conclude this post with the scores of all four BCS bowl games:
Sugar: #21 Louisville upsets #3 Florida, 33-23
Orange: #12 Florida State pounds #15 Northern Illinois, 31-10
Rose: #6 Stanford narrowly beats Wisconsin, 20-14
Fiesta: #4 Oregon overwhelms #5 Kansas State, 35-17.
The National Championship game between #1 Notre Dame and #2 Alabama will be played on Monday, January 7th, at 8pm Eastern, on ESPN.
* - Quote from Heisman Trust website: http://www.heisman.com/trust/mission_statement.php
** - Bob Stoops quote found here: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=330040201
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