Johnny Manziel talks through last week’s college football action in his intangibles segment on the BBOC podcast on the Action Network.
Key Highlights:
- Ashton Jeanty MVP of the week
- Looking forward to watching Ole Miss
- Similarities between Dylan Raiola and Patrick Mahomes
- On Sanders' comments on his offensive line: "I’d be absolutely pissed"
Currently, the Georgia Bulldogs are the favorite in the College Football betting odds to win the 'chip this season.
Q: We'll start with Johnny's MVP of the week. Johnny, who are you going with?
Manziel:I have Ashton Jeanty from Boise State, the running back.
25 carries, 192 yards, and three touchdowns.
I think the one thing that really stood out this week for him is how much he got hit at the line of scrimmage or even at one yard, and then went into some of these runs and ended up getting six, seven, eight yards.
Through two weeks of the season, he's averaging about 225 yards a game so far.
Their strength to schedule over these next three or four weeks really gets pretty easy for them as far as rushing the ball goes.
Ashton Jeanty, this week, really put up a performance that kept Boise State in that game, a really, really close game. Even on a 70-yard touchdown run that he had a little bit later in the game, he's absolutely pulling away from the Oregon secondary in a lot of cases. I was thoroughly impressed with the way he ran the ball, his physicality, and bringing it to a team who is top 10 in the nation.
To see that from a Boise State school, it was really interesting to see for sure.
Q: If you look at the top 10, the top 25 polls, they're dominated by the SEC, especially at the top of the polls. You have Georgia at the very top. Texas was super impressive. What do you see as the gap between these two teams? How close is Texas right at this very moment?
Manziel:We're gonna get a chance to see this game coming up soon, but, you know, Texas is playing really good football right now.
They went in and manhandled the Michigan football team that everybody looks at as having a really solid defense. A lot of players on that team (and they had absolutely no problems throughout the day) put up 30 points pretty early and just coasted towards the end of that game.
From an offensive standpoint, Quinn Ewers and his receivers are on the same page. It's been week in, week out what we've seen so far: the first two weeks of the season where Stark has these guys in a really good position. Good play calls, really breaking through a lot of zone coverage, and they know when to break it and cross some safety spaces. I think they're a fine-tuned unit from quarterback to receiver right now.
Q: Is this progression for Quinn Ewers? Was it just great protection? Does this actually show you that Quinn Ewers is taking the next step?
Manziel:I think this does show his next step and progression of what he's doing. This is a very NFL-type of caliber throw that you have to work on. Me and Mike Evans would work on this.
It takes a lot of time because the ball has to be out of your hand on this play before the guy is really out of his break.
You have to trust that this is either gonna be one that's thrown at the pylon really early. Or you're gonna end up getting a holding penalty or something here with your receiver coming out of the break.
But for Quinn, rolling left to your harder side to have to throw to, it's a lot easier rolling right than it is left. So you really have to get your shoulders here and cut the ball off loose when your receiver's back of his helmet and numbers are still looking at you.
Really you wanna get it out in your 3rd or 4th step. I think he does a good job of making sure his shoulders return and just pulling in one right to the corner of the pylon for what looks to be an easy touchdown.
Q: Who do you think could not only get into the college football playoff, but could make noise?
Manziel:I think a lot of these SEC teams, as we get through this conference schedule a little bit, are gonna beat each other up.
I think the teams that really stand out from the SEC right now: Georgia, obviously, and Texas. You look at Ole Miss. I think they're the No. 1 team in the country right now offensively.
That's something to really hang your hat on. I think Jaxson Dart is a guy that's gonna continue to get better every week. You know, Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee — they had an unbelievable game against North Carolina State. The jury's still out a little bit on what Missouri is gonna be.
There's some obviously really good teams here. The team that I'm most focused on and looking forward to seeing how this season plays out with them is definitely Ole Miss. I think Tennessee has a good enough defense right now, where their team all the way around is actually pretty good.
Q: We'll start with Dylan Raiola, Johnny. How impressed were you with him last Saturday?
Manziel:I thought he looked great.
I think he's commanding their offense really well for them in Nebraska. There were a couple times he took some shots downfield that ended up working out against the Colorado secondary.
He's able to get away with some of those right now. He's really cutting it loose and letting it fly. I don't know how that'll last up against some of these teams who play later in the season, like, in Ohio State or somebody like that.
But he’s playing with the utmost amount of confidence, the guy’s really slinging it, and he's not really turned the ball over.
He's not putting them in bad positions, throwing the ball away, making good sound moves. I think that's what you have to do early on whenever you're playing. Not every single play, every single home run shot that's called, you're gonna hit on. You're gonna have to be able to get rid of the ball, throw it away sometimes, and just live the play for another down.
I think that's what he's done a good job of so far. I think Nebraska's defense has done a good job, as well, of helping them. They're a solid team from offensive defense [that] I've seen so far, this Nebraska football team. But Dylan Raiola has been an absolute stud so far, and I expect them to be, you know, even more of a household name as the season continues on.
Q: Are the Mahomes comparisons legit?
Manziel:The way he throws the ball, the way he delivers it, you know, the way he looks, you see a lot of it [similarity].
If you go back and look at Mahomes' Texas Tech tape, I see a lot of similarities — from footwork to arm angle to a lot of things like that. I don't know if he's that kind of player yet, but definitely, the way he throws the ball and the way he moves in the pocket absolutely resembles Mahomes.
Q: Should we be worried about Shedeur Sanders' comments on his offensive-line?
Manziel:I really just don't see how you do this.
I don't see how you come out and throw your own guys under the bus that you're working with, grinding with every single week, week in, week out. You can say there's some room for improvement that needs to be made, but you definitely don't go into a direct comparison.
If I'm looking at that game, I know early on in the game, I know one thing you don't do from a quarterback perspective is throw a hitch route, late and on the inside for a pick-six.
There's a lot of blame there in that throw that Shedeur made, that turned into a pick-six early in the game. That really got things started for Nebraska.
This is something you don't do. Your guys are your guys. You know, you're supposed to rock with them through thick and thin.
Obviously, frustrations and things arise, but for me, in my instance and my time in the past, your o-line or your guys who ride with you, who rock with you. Anytime your quarterback gets hit late, the first person that you see there [are] your o-line, and this is something that may make some of those guys really hesitant to pick you up after a couple people bang you around on the defensive side.
So definitely something that's alarming. You don't see this very much. And if I was a lineman at Colorado, I'd be absolutely pissed.
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