Johnny Manziel: Not playing Texas every year is “upsetting”

By Kevin Kelley -

At the SEC Media Days today, Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel said that not playing Texas every year is “upsetting.”

“It’s different not playing Texas every year. Not playing that game is upsetting. I loved watching that game. Lot of history there,” Manziel said.

Since Manziel was born in Tyler, Texas in 1992, the Aggies and Longhorns have played 19 times. Overall, the two schools have met 118 times dating back to 1894, with Texas leading the overall series 76-37-5.

But the two schools haven’t played since 2011 and currently have no future games scheduled against each other. And it doesn’t appear that the status of the series will change anytime soon.

And barring a postseason bowl match-up between Texas A&M and Texas, “Johnny Football” will likely never take the field against the Longhorns, as he will probably enter the 2014 NFL Draft.

In his redshirt season, Manziel did watch from the sidelines as Texas A&M fell to Texas 27-25 in College Station. That game on Nov. 24, 2011 was the last meeting between the bitter in-state rivals.

Earlier this year, Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds said that the Longhorns “get to decide” when they play Texas A&M again.

“They left (the Big 12),” Dodds said. “They’re the ones that decided not to play us. We get to decide when we play again. I think that’s fair. If you did a survey of our fans about playing A&M, they don’t want to. It’s overwhelming. I know. I hear it. Our fans are important to us. I think there’s got to be a period where things get different. I think there’s too many hard feelings.

“I think we’ll play sometime. I don’t know when it will happen or how it will happen, but I’m sure it will happen.”

Hoping to jump start discussions between the two schools, Ryan Guillen, a Democratic representative from House District 31 in Texas, introduced a house bill in January to require an annual football game between Texas and Texas A&M. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Higher Education on Feb. 18, 2013.

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Comments (42)

Dodds is an arrogant jerk. They get to decide when they play A&M cause A&M left the conference? At the time UT was holding the conference hostage over the UT network as well as unbalanced revenue sharing that gave most of the conference money to UT. When some schools balked, UT threatened to leave the Big 12 and would have joined the Pac-12, except the Pac wouldn’t hand over UT all of their money and had issues with the UT network. A&M left for stability as UT created instability with their greed and arrogance.

Dodds is a pain. But you don’t have information totally correct nthe gs took part in unbalanced revenue sharing with Texas, ou and Nebraska. Also, when Nebraska and Colorado left the big 12, Texas and ou shared exit money with league, while ags didn’t. Just getting facts correct

All your information is false about Texas. It is talking points made up by ag fans over the last couple of years.

What Tlh said. Big XII revenue was split to reward conference members who drew bigger TV numbers. Nebraska, A&M, OU and Texas used their clout to divide it that way. With the way A&M was playing under Slocum and Nebraska under Osborne, they were all too happy to rake in the dollars while Texas and OU suffered through mediocrity in the 90’s. When the shoe was on the other foot in the 2000’s, that’s when both of them started crying and screaming about what a greedy bully Texas is. Hypocrites.

UT caused the teams that left the Big XII to want to leave. TSips can say it’s not true all they want. It’s obvious to anyone who knows the facts that those teams had seen enough.

If A&M would’ve stayed they would’ve played Alabama in The NC game, not very smart ! They would’ve went undefeated in the Big 12, and would’ve got more money !

Jason, good luck with your rehab, drugs are bad. Cry somewhere else please, let the men use this forum for non idiot remarks.

A&M ran away because they knew they could not create a network comparable to the Longhorn Network. The Big 12 is as solid as it gets right now.

My point is that they had to leave the conference and all of their instate rivals to do that. They don’t carry the weight that texas does to sponsor their own network in the Big 12.

T-sips are afraid to play us now. That iis why most of their fans don’t want to play us now!

Dude… you’re an idiot. I’m a Big 12 fan, but the LHN is nothing but poison for the conference. It needs to either go away, or take steps to becoming a Big XII network.

Texas says, “you can deal with it or leave,” and really could not care less which one you choose. The only teams they care about now are Tech and Oklahoma.

????? – ran off Colorado, Nebraska and then Texas A&M. Was fortunate to get a TCU and West Virginia to join. Now you want to hang your hat on tech? Good luck future Mountain West. Baylor is the best thing that the BigXII has going.

Great, the weaker the conference the better. It doesn’t matter who you beat, just that you put up a pretty number in the win column, ask NIU or Boise State.

Dude…. So texas is trying to be like NIU or Boise State? Texas’ program is really moving in the right direction. NIU and BS have a lot of NC’s to model after. Texas weak schedule is going to hurt them come playoffs. They will be begging schools for better non-conf games. I for one disagree with JFF. Could careless seeing ATM play texas again. The whole texas admins needs to be gone before ATM considers playing again. Dodds is delusional if he really thinks texas holds all the cards.

For the record I am not a Texas fan, just a third party observer. Texas is nothing like NIU or Boise and never will be. Texas has:
1) A network that make their makes their athletic budgets one of the biggest in the nation.
2) A conference that has an AQ birth (for one year, but still regarded as power 5) and all but one of their instate rivals.

Texas just needs wins. It is for the same reason that every SEC team plays a FCS team every year. Voters look at win totals, not blaming anyone just saying. As long as Texas has more fans that A&M they have all the cards, and that doesn’t look to be changing…ever.

Look, both schools made decisions that were for the benefit of their own schools and both schools are to blame. All of these other schools can whine and cry about the LHN but every single one of them would have taken ESPN’s money just like Texas. The Aggies are a better fit with the SEC because their fan base was always more hardcore than UT’s fans could ever hope to be. Texas definitely has a fair-weather fan base, and this is coming from a Texas fan. Mack Brown has fought against this for years and they still show up late and are just not as crazy and loud as SEC fans. But both of these schools need to get over their hurt feelings and make this game happen, because the money would be there if they would, it would be a bigger payday than New Mexico or Louisianna Tech. I just hope that the Texas senate does pass the law to speed up the process and force them to come to their senses.

LHN shows how greedy UT is, they’d rather lock out their fan base with pay-per-view type programming. I don’t blame A&M for bolting. Looks like they get the last laugh= better recruiting, national exposure, higher rankings and a better shot at a national championship. Meanwhile the Big? XII keeps losing great programs. If OU bolts, the XII will have to compete with other weak conferences and UT will be forced to join another conference or go Independent. Who would want them? No-one unless they junk the LHN!

Thankfully, we are no longer in that joke of a conference. And Dodd’s is an arrogant fool to believe he holds all the power over a future matchup.

76-37. Need I say more? Get ready for a beating this year. Good luck filling up your new addition when you had a hard time filling up the old piece of crap and all the aggots suing each other over parking and etc. Stupid farmers! Whoop!

Did the Aggie fan base forget that UT wanted to make a joint deal on a network and the Aggies laughed at the idea? As soon as UT showed the profit was there, Aggies said “Hey that’s not fair”. A&M your a good school but your fan base is delusional. Win a title and then you can have some talking points. Until then, recognize that Texas and OU never owed you squat and never demanded anything from you when you had success in the 90’s. The conference was not meant to be a Labor Union taking care of the weak. This is America, where those who make the money should gain from it.

Wow – Dodds comment, in 3 little words, explains everything that is wrong with tu – total unjustified arrogance. Hey DeLoser, this may come as a surprise to you, but we don’t care if we ever play tu again. We have much bigger fish to fry. tu is meaningless to us. Enjoy your life in the conference of obscurity and insignificance.

Sorry but let’s be honest it is not the job of the government to make a law to make two schools play each other. I am a die-hard UT fan, and many of my relatives are either a UT or A&M fan, and personally I don’t want UT to play A&M ever again. They left, they bailed after all the years of being handed money that was earned by UT, for years A&M cried about being the little brother, cried they were living in our shadow, the whole time they had their hand out taking a portion of winning earned by UT. UT used their fan base and their reputation to go out and earn the ENTIRE conference an outrageous amount of money and once again A&M calls foul because they got a share of the money based on their contribution to the conference, so they pack their bags and whined about LHN. Get real A&M fans – look at the 118 games they have played, Texas has won 76 OF THEM! Who is the better team on a more consistent basis, wow you have MR. NCAA VIOLATOR, your were good last year and maybe this year, but you Johnny is leaving at end of season – then what do you have?? Are you going to cry that Alabama is abusing you too??? Well fact is UT fans don’t want to hear it, you made your bed, we don’t care to play you, lets play some better teams that deserve our attention. I must say that it also fun watching A&M fans stutter when you remind them they lost the last game and they can’t ever change that, we lead the series and have the last win…HAHAHAHAH! Who has the last laugh NOW!

Let me see A&M knew they couldn’t win in the Big 12 and now what makes you think they can win in the SEC. A&M is a second rate school with a classless football team. That’s all you have to say.

Maybe you don’t watch much college football but A&M obliterated OU the best the big 12 had to offer last year in the cotton bowl last year they can contend in the big 12 conference and will continue to contend in the sec (conference of champions). As for the Lone Star State Showdown I personally hope for UT and A&M to play again the only reason Dodds says its up to them to decide when the rematch will happen is because they are trying to wait out for the NFL 2014 draft when Manziel leaves it makes UT look weak and they just need to get I we themselves after that embarrassmentof a season last year

Dodds is a jerk. The Aggies said they would play Texas any time and any place, but UT was the one that said they would no longer play the Aggies. I grew up watching the Aggies play UT and went to every bonfire the Aggies had while growing up. I loved the rivalry, but let’s get it straight as to who killed it! It was arrogant Dobbs and the UT network!

Manziel knows he violated NCAA rules so he better leave ATM before they get sanctions..
It is just a matter of time.

I don’t care what anyone says. Texas A&M and Texas need to play each other every year and you know it!

The teams that left they left because Texas and Oklahoma kept kicking there asses every year ! And they didn’t see that changing anytime soon so like a little spoiled kid they took there lil football and ran away from the big bullies that beat them up every year you big pussys, as usual aggies can talk the talk but still can’t walk the walk..what happened to that national championship that you aggies ran you mouths about all year, oh yeah you have two losses and two more ass whippings coming in aggies last two games of this season. LSU-MO

Even with maybe the best college football player on atm they still cant win anything! And JM leaving so atm will be back to winning an avg of 5 games a yr like they averaged there last 15 yrs in the big 12…looking at the incredibly weak schedules coming up maybe 6 wins because.every yr.it looks like 6 patsys are scheduled just like this year. Can you gig it!