Johnny Manziel watched Texas A&M’s walk-off win over Alabama Saturday night from a special spot on the sideline.
And the former Aggie quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner showed his 1.7 million followers his view as A&M kicker Seth Small notched the 28-yard field goal on the game’s final play. It gave the Aggies the 41-38 win. It was a miracle in College Station. The last quarterback to pull off the Bama feat, was, you guessed it — Johnny Football.
Then Johnny Manziel went crazy and stormed the field with the rest of the fans under the age of 30 who watched the game at Kyle Field. And there were thousands of them — the total crowd Saturday night was more than 106,000.
Manziel shared the video on his Instagram Stories. Bleacher Report then tweeted the hilarious video. BR captioned it: “Johnny Manziel’s reaction after Texas A&M knocked off Bama.”
And then Johnny Manziel became Johnny Football. After the crowd at Kyle Field settled down, he tweeted: “Beers on me @ Northgate.” For those who aren’t familiar with Northgate, it’s where the students go to party in College Station. Manziel spent many an evening there when he was attending A&M.
The celebration wasn’t too excessive. Beating Bama doesn’t happen much in this part of Texas. Saturday’s 41-38 victory was only the second win over the Tide since the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012. When was the first? That would be 2012, when Manziel was then a redshirt freshman. Johnny Football made himself a college football legend that Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa. The next month, he became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy.
Now, let’s bring it back to current times. Zach Calzada, who quarterbacked the Aggies to their improbable win Saturday night, won’t be following in Johnny Manziel’s Heisman footsteps this season. Calzada started the season as the second-stringer and became QB1 only because starter Haynes King injured his leg.
And Calzada struggled mightily leading up to the Alabama win. Consider that his team lost its last two games. The Saturday before Bama, Mississippi State sacked Calzada in the end zone for a safety to ice the win for the Bulldogs. He hung his head as he trudged off the field. A week later, that same end zone was part of the scene for a massive maroon party, maybe the biggest in Kyle Field history.
Calzada completed his first 10 passes. For the night, he was 21 of 31 for 285 yards and three touchdowns.
A&M coach Jimbo Fisher lauded Calzada after the game after the current Aggie QB put his name beside Johnny Manziel in A&M lore.
“To be put in situations he’s put in,” Fisher said of Calzada. “Things that are happening, and not with a full team around him, with three receivers missing, two linemen missing, backs, timing, people hurt everywhere., It’s hard to go in there.
“We had some unfortunate injuries. People don’t care, and I don’t care. That ain’t an excuse, but at the same time, that’s reality. And you have to understand there’s a difference of what your results are and what the reality of why those results are there.”
