'Worked My A** Off!' Johnny Manziel Rips Kevin Sumlin For Mishandling of Kyler Murray
Texas A&M Aggies alum and former star quarterback Johnny Manziel had arguably more influence on the program than any other player in history.
One of the biggest areas of impact from Manziel was in recruiting, with the legend of 'Johnny Football' drawing more interest from prospects than at any time in recent memory.
One of those players was former five-star QB Kyler Murray, who is considered arguably the best high school player in the history of the state of Texas. Murray committed and signed with Texas A&M over Texas and Oklahoma in what is strongly thought of as the biggest recruiting win in school history.
Unfortunately for the Aggies, after an inconsistent true freshman campaign, Murray was benched and eventually transferred to Oklahoma - something that bothers Manziel to this day.
“I played a huge hand in bringing Kyler Murray to Texas A&M,” Manziel said in an interview with Shannon Sharpe. “That mistake is keeping us from being where we want to be now. They should’ve given him the keys. I worked my (expletive) off to get him to A&M, he wanted to be like me. I have extremely strong and mixed emotions about that.”
So what went wrong with Murray?
Well in truth, it's hard to say. But it seems like he never really got a chance.
Murray - who took over as the starter in October of his true freshman season - was benched after just three games in favor of the original starter, Kyle Allen, after struggling with interceptions and consistency.
That said, even in his brief time under center, Murray was able to do some amazing things, becoming the first SEC QB since Cam Newton to rush and pass for over 100 yards and score a rushing touchdown and passing touchdown in the same game.
But for some reason, instead of letting Murray learn and develop as the obvious future of the program - and with the Aggies already out of contention in the SEC West - Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin elected to go back to Allen - a decision that Manziel will never understand.
"They played this game of back-and-forth," Manziel said. "It's Kyler Murray. What are we talking about? You're not going to go give this guy the keys? I don't care what he's doing... You mold men. You mold these guys into what you want them to be."
"When I went to college, my dad shook Mike Sherman's hand and looked him in the eye and said, 'This is where you take over in molding my son into being the grown-up that he needs to be one day.' I think with that, Coach Sumlin lost a little bit of what he was originally there to do."
To make things even worse, after two years of waiting at Oklahoma, Murray would be named the starter and proceed to dominate college football. In his lone season at the helm, Murray completed 69 percent of his passes for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns with just seven interceptions and rushed for 1,001 yards and 12 more scores.
The Sooners would also go on to win the Big 12, and make it to the College Football Playoff.
Meanwhile, without Murray, the Aggies were stuck on the treadmill of mediocrity, going 14-11 under the last two years of Sumlin before making a coaching change, and moving on from Sumlin to Jimbo Fisher.
That mediocrity then continued under Fisher, resulting in his eventual firing as well.
And Manziel believes it all comes back to Sumlin's decision to not give
"You get a new contract, you go to the SEC, you win 12 games, you get a Heisman-winner, you're talking about a new stadium, you're talking about a new deal, your focus shifts from what the main thing is to a whole bunch of (expletive)," Manziel said. "In my opinion, where our program is now as a football program, that is the one step, one mistake we made that is keeping us from being where we want to be. And especially during that time, why we didn't have success."
