Here's what we learned this week about Johnny Football: He's bright, smart, funny, articulate and set to turn 20 on Dec. 6.
"It's nice to be able to talk to y'all," Manziel said to reporters on a conference call after his release from Audio Attica.
Manziel has let his numbers do all the screaming: He has 4,600 total yards in 12 games, and in a league, the SEC, that was expected to dismember first-year member Texas A&M.
Manziel, who is a modest 6 feet 1 and 200 pounds, said he always made himself bigger when creating his profile for NCAA video games.
"Typically, I would have made him look like someone like Cam Newton," he said of the 2010 Heisman winner.
Manziel called his season, "incredibly, incredibly surreal. It's beyond my wildest imagination."
MAC attack
The Pac-12 Conference title game can't catch a Friday night break: Last year's inaugural game was marred by the fact that South "champion" UCLA didn't deserve to be in it. The Bruins proved it by losing to Oregon and finishing 6-8 after their bowl loss.
This year's UCLA-Stanford matchup is substantially better, aesthetically, but is being challenged by a Mid-American Conference title game featuring Kent State (11-1) and Northern Illinois (11-1). Because of the Big East's implosion, Kent State can suddenly earn an automatic BCS bid if it finishes in the top 16 in the final BCS standings.
The Golden Flashes are No. 17, one spot behind UCLA. Kent State needs to win the MAC, and its followers are also cheering for Stanford to win the Pac-12. Kent State is seeking to become the first MAC team to earn a BCS bid in a season in which it lost to Kentucky by 33 points.
chris.dufresne@latimes.com