Love it or hate it, former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel will be the first player college football fans think of when the Aggies are mentioned for year and years to come.
And at just 26 years old, the man they call “Johnny Football” is hoping to reclaim a once promising football career from the depth of what many would consider a dumpster fire.
Manziel, who is a former first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns, has had a tumultuous year in his return to football when his departure from the Canadian Football League was for The Alliance of American Football was quickly followed by the shuttering of that league in its debut season.
He has expressed some interest in playing for the XFL’s Houston franchise when WWE owner Vince McMahon’s second attempt to launch that league goes live in early 2020.
But with the NFL clearly in the rear-view mirror for the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner, what is there after the playing opportunities dry up for good?
Dan Patrick asked that very question during an interview with Manziel on Monday. The answer may surprise some Aggies fans.
“I’ve started working on a couple of things that I think may interest me, and one of those things is being back around Texas A&M in whatever capacity that is,” Manziel told Patrick.
“I have a good relationship with (Texas A&M head coach) Jimbo Fisher and I have a good relationship with the school. That’s a place that I want to tie myself to for the long-term moving forward after my football career would be over.”
Patrick followed up with a question on whether Manziel had already had discussion with Fisher about the possibility of being a quarterbacks coach or joining the Aggie staff.
“No, we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” Manziel conceded. “But I do get to go back to College Station and I make sure that I do a couple of things. One, that I go and say hello to Jimbo and, two, I just kind of go in there and watch film to be around the program and be around the guys.
Manziel went on in detail about his friendship with current Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond.
“I have a good relationship with Kellen Mond,” Manziel said. “He’s a guy who I think is going to have a breakout year and has a ton of potential.
“I’m just trying to help some of the guys in the QB room learn from some of the things that I went through– some of the things that I struggled with in college that I wish that I had the chance to go back and do differently.”
Though “Johnny Football” has not suited up for the Aggies since the 2013 season, the former Heisman Trophy winner has a way of lingering in the memories of those who watched him through his highs at College Station and the lows that followed.
It appears he has no intentions of fading to the background at Texas A&M anytime soon.
You can watch the clip from the Dan Patrick Show via The Audience Network here:
Cover photo of Johnny Manziel is via The Alliance of American Football’s Twitter account.
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