Johnny Manziel evades a tackle in Texas A&M's game against Sam Houston State on Saturday, (AP photo)

Johnny Manziel evades a tackle in Texas A&M’s game against Sam Houston State on Saturday, (AP photo)

By Brett Hudson

Mark Ingram for 24 yards and a first down. Ingram again, again out of the Wildcat, for four yards; again for 22 yards and another first down, this time first and goal.

Alabama’s only Heisman Trophy winner is not immune from the Heisman Moment: the moment where the nation takes notice of a player and his connection with the award begins. His was a do-it-all drive in the 2009 South Carolina game; for Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, it was this fumble-and-throw play on the road against Alabama on the way to a 29-24 upset win.

“When he fumbled the ball, got it back and started scrambling to throw it, I was like, ‘Wow. We’ve got to find something to do with this guy,'” safety HaHa Clinton-Dix said.

In the rematch coming on Saturday, Alabama’s defensive unit will have to do what nearly every college football fan in American has been unable to do: keep their eyes off Manziel.

“I told our players, there’s a lot of NFL games on Sundays. You want to watch the quarterback, go watch those games,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said. “But if you start watching this guy in our game, you’re going to get busted.

“It happened in our game last year. We’ve got people covered pretty well, you look back at the quarterback and their receivers do a good job of extending the play and getting away from it. He finds them and makes big plays.”

Big Evans on campus

Purely statistically speaking, Texas A&M has just lost its best wide receiver ever: its career leader in receptions and receiving yards Ryan Swope is now in the NFL.

But the Aggies have retained its leading receiver from last season and one of its biggest matchup problems: 6-foot-5, 225-pound Mike Evans.

“No. 13 is very big, he can catch well and all of them are very quick,” Clinton-Dix said. “You just have to get your hands on them, be aggressive with them. That’s pretty much all you can do with a big guy like that.”

Evans leads a wide receiving corps that loses Swope, Thomas Johnson and Uzoma Nwachukwu, plus Christine Michael out of the backfield, and still garners respect nationally.

“They’ve got good receivers, now,” Saban said. “They’re very productive in what they do. It’s a little bit limiting, the way they spread you out, as to how you effectively can cover their receivers.

“He’s going to throw the ball and execute the offense relative to what you give them on offense. They’ve been very effective at doing that and they’ve been very capable and, I think, very deep at that position.”

Officiating the hurry-up

Whether it is a safety concern like Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema says, or a cheap cop-out like Arkansas head coach Gus Malzahn says, the no-huddle hurry-up offense Alabama will have to defend on Saturday is one thing, for sure: “…a competitive disadvantage,” according to Saban.

When the opposing offense is running plays at the pace the Aggies do, the defense does not have time to substitute and get the package they want on the field; unless the opposing offense substitutes, and by rule the referees must allow the defense to substitute.

Now the weight is on the referee to see the offense substitute and provide the same opportunity for the defense.

“Well, you know, we’ve never had an issue with that,” Saban said. “We’ve never had an issue with that at all with our SEC guys. Have they missed it on occasion where the other team subs and they miss it? I mean, they have, but it’s an exception. It seldom happens.”

Saban continued on to identify the real problem.

“So when they substitute, that’s not the issue, being able to substitute. It’s when you substitute, can you ever get the guys out if they don’t substitute again?” Saban said. “So you really can’t play any specialty defense. You have to kind of play with the guys that you have to play with. They have to be able to play against everything.”

Calm, cool and collected

Mobility, evasiveness and confidence have all been credited for Manziel’s ability to handle nearly everything thrown at him last season. Whatever the cause may be, the end result is a nuisance for the Tide: it’s tough to get to Manziel.

“I’ve not really seen him, you know, get rattled, in a game,” Saban said. “I think maybe when you watched early in the season last year, I wouldn’t say “rattled” is the right word, I think maybe there some situations that came up that, maybe from not having quite enough experience, he maybe didn’t respond to like he grew into responding to as the season went on and became an extremely effective player.

“But I have not seen him get rattled in a game. I really haven’t.”