In case anybody was still wondering whether being the starting quarterback at Texas A&M, the second-youngest Heisman Trophy winner in the award’s history and the scion of a well-to-do family would be a pretty neat way to go through life, well:
Birdied 18 to shoot 79 at Pebble Beach and only lost to pops by 3 #progress #FamilyDay http://t.co/Womm4vykEI—
Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) May 12, 2013
How was your weekend? We planted a Meyer lemon tree in our backyard.
An announcement on major renovations to Kyle Field could come as early as Wednesday. (Bob Levey/Getty Images)
By Zac Ellis
Texas A&M’s Kyle Field might soon be among the largest venues in college football. The A&M System Board of Regents is slated to discuss potentially major renovations to Kyle Field at its meeting, and a decision could come as early as Wednesday, according to KBTX in College Station. The school has tentatively scheduled a press conference for 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
Reports put the stadium’s capacity at approximately 103,000 under the proposed renovations, which would make Kyle Field the SEC’s largest stadium, surpassing Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium (102,455). The Aggies’ home would rank as the third-largest stadium in the country, behind only Penn State’s Beaver Stadium (106,572) and Michigan’s Michigan Stadium (109,901).
Charlie Strong and Louisville tried to schedule a nonconference game with Texas A&M. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
By Zac Ellis
Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater were two of the nation’s top quarterbacks last year, and the two nearly squared off to start the 2013 season. Louisville coach Charlie Strong told ESPN’s Brett McMurphy that the Cardinals and Aggies were close to scheduling a season-opening clash at Houston’s Reliant Stadium, but the possibility fell through.
Louisville wanted to boost its soft nonconference slate with a matchup against Texas A&M, and the Cardinals also came close to locking in a meeting with defending national champion Alabama in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta. However, Virginia Tech opted to keep its matchup with the Tide after briefly considering dropping the game if quarterback Logan Thomas declared for the NFL. Thomas opted to return to the Hokies in January.
Louisville is entering its final season in the Big East before moving to the ACC in 2014. It’s scheduled to face Ohio, Eastern Kentucky, FIU and Kentucky in nonconference games this fall. Meanwhile, Texas A&M is kicking off its second season in the SEC. It has nonconference matchups scheduled against Rice, Sam Houston State, SMU and UTEP.
Johnny Manziel pointing to his cheering section full of A-list celebrities, presumably. (Scott Halleran/Getty Images)
By Zac Ellis
Another week of spring practice is in the books, and there was no shortage of recent storylines. Here are some news and notes from last week’s biggest developments:
• Texas A&M: If any doubts existed about the possibility of a sophomore slump for Johnny Manziel, last season’s Heisman winner put them to rest in Texas A&M’s spring game. Manziel passed for 303 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday to help his maroon team toppled the white squad, 43-23. Though he rushed only three times for 18 yards, he still managed to complete 24-of-30 passing attempts — an encouraging sign for Aggies fans fretting over the loss of offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury to Texas Tech. A stellar spring game doesn’t always translate to successful season, but at least Manziel was picking apart an SEC defense, right?
ANDERSON: Power rankings: Assorted spring football weekend newsbits
• South Carolina: Last week’s news about Jadeveon Clowney’s strained neck all but cemented Clowney’s decision to miss the Gamecocks’ spring game on Saturday. But the defensive end still managed to find his way onto the field. Clowney came off the sidelines without a helmet or pads and caught a pass from quarterback Connor Mitch before tumbling to the ground and, eventually, into the end zone for a 54-yard touchdown. Steve Spurrier isn’t likely to move Clowney to wide receiver anytime soon, but the crowd of 35,218 in Columbia liked what they saw from their star. The black team rolled the garnet squad, 44-30.
Long before Art Briles and Kevin Sumlin walked the Houston sidelines, Jack Pardee was the mastermind behind memorable Cougars’ offenses. (AP)
Former Texas A&M standout, enthusiastic NFL opponent-hitter and journeyman football coach Jack Pardee died Monday in Denver from gallbladder cancer, at the age of 76. If you’ve been reading us for any length of time you know how we love prolific offenses, so you can probably guess how we feel about Jack Pardee.
Much has been written and will be written about Pardee’s time with Bear Bryant, and his memorable offenses with the Houston Cougars, but let’s take a moment to appreciate the variety of football spectacles his teams produced as he rambled from league to league. From Jeff Pearlman at SI, in 2010:
With the Bears, he had no quarterback, no receivers, a so-so offensive line … and Walter Payton. “So we ran and ran and ran and ran,” he says. “When you have Walter Payton, it’s not a hard choice.” Less than a decade later, however, Pardee’s former Bear players were shocked to see their coach guiding the high-flying, run ‘n’ gun Gamblers, who lit up the USFL behind quarterback Jim Kelly and a gaggle of water bug wideouts. “It was very surprising,” says Bob Avellini, a former Bears quarterback. “I never thought Jack Pardee had that in him.”
He did because that’s what the personnel dictated. His teams at the University of Houston were equally dynamic and high-flying, mainly because the quarterback was an unparalleled gunner named Andre Ware. “Boy, that was fun,” Pardee says.
Boy, wasn’t it. Farewell, pointsplosion progenitor.
Come back soon, Johnny Football, and tell the haters where they can go. (AP)
Mango deck was tight today…ready to see how squid roe is tonight #turnup—
Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) March 12, 2013
Johnny Manziel told Mark Schlabach he’s quitting Twitter, leaving that shot of him with 2 Chainz as his last significant social media radar blip. It’s no secret to readers here that Johnny Football is our favorite Heisman personality of all time, and in the lean, football-free months all we get of him are Twitter posts and practice reports. Internet, we are the reason we can’t have nice things.
Your weekend roundup of college football players hanging out with rap stars: First, we got Georgia’s Watts Dantzler dressing up Waka Flocka Flame on Friday night:
Waka rocking my shirt haha #GoDawgs http://t.co/5hQcnGtZLq—
Watts Dantzler (@wattsdantzler) March 23, 2013
Then, Saturday night brought tidings of Johnny Football and 2 Chainz.
And we thought we saw one of the Indigo Girls at the grocery store on Sunday, so.
Marcus Mariota may not have a Heisman Trophy just yet, but would you look at those cheekbones?
Mark Helfrich, spittin’ fire in the general direction of College Station:
Johnny Football is spectacular, but know this: Physically, he’s no Mariota.
“We had Johnny and Marcus both committed,” Helfrich says, “and we ended up with the taller, faster, better-looking guy.”
Careful, coach. Don’t want to throw gasoline on the storied Ducks-Aggies rivalry. (Read the rest of Steve Greenberg’s piece for more from Mariota himself.)
‘Tis the season for stadium news, and while we’re on the topic, Steven Godfrey has a point to consider:
I don't like the new Kyle Field renderings. It just loses that homey air of "post apocalyptic gang fight container."—
Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) February 20, 2013
That's what I love about Kyle Field now – it looks like 60 percent of a former stadium, just the parts that survived a nuclear bomb.—
Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) February 20, 2013
"Scariness" is an ignored aesthetic in stadium design. LSU looks like a patchwork concrete Voltron from hell, and we all love that place.—
Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) February 20, 2013
He’s not wrong. We have never felt more welcomed at a sporting event than when we pulled out a chair at Legion Field to discover a four-inch bolt, origins unknown, already occupying our seat. The spice of possible structural doom can liven up even the most pedestrian of games.
The uninitiated may think of Daniel Moore as an ultra-masculine Lisa Frank for the college football set. (AP)
Daniel Moore, for those of you unfamiliar with Tuscaloosa’s Thomas Kinkade, has earned some measure of fame in SEC country for his oil-paint depictions of glorious moments in Crimson Tide football lore. This offseason, however, he’ll take a rare detour from Rammer Jammerian subject matter to focus on a surprising new project: A portrait of Johnny Football besting Alabama in the Tide’s only loss of 2012. (As the A&M loss didn’t cost ‘Bama a trip to the title game, we suppose he can afford to be gracious.)
Moore’s paintings typically carry simple, sturdy titles, such as “Crimson Dynasty,” “Maximum Block” or “The Winning Connection,” and because it is Tuesday and we literally have nothing better to do, we set out to collect suggestions from our readership for possible titles to adorn this new work. Cast your vote for one of six submissions after the jump:
Powered by WordPress.com VIP
