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Longhorn defensive coordinator Vance Bedford had a fun weekend, stirring up the Aggie W.A.S.P's nest by pointing out that their former QB - who hates College Station even more than Vance Bedford does - is a huge NFL risk.
Apparently, this is a newsflash to many Aggie faithful. I wrote about this subject a month ago and Manziel's stock has since plummeted on NFL draft boards. There are Mel Kiper January projections and then there's actual scouting once the film gets picked apart. The former readjusts itself to the latter. Not vice versa.
Unless you'd like to review Kiper's Adam Ulatoski 1st round projections from 2009 with me?
It all began so obviously innocently:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Problem players in college become rich problems in the NFL</p>— Vance Bedford (@CoachBedfordUT) <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachBedfordUT/statuses/462939091726630912">May 4, 2014</a></blockquote>
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You can hear the Maroon gerbil wheel turning in their brains.
"Is he...is he....talking about OUR JOHNNY? This t-sip must pay for speaking out of school (technically, one can't speak out of school about Manziel since he took all of his classes via Skype, but I digress). He's besmirching our Manziel-led two year run of dominance where we went 10-6 in SEC play and capped off his epic career with a narrow victory over Duke in the Chick-Fil-A-Bowl."
Missouri, a fellow Big 12 school that went over to the SEC at the same time went 9-7 in SEC play over the same span and actually played in the SEC title game, but we have a narrative to uphold, people.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Manziel is a top 10 pick by the scouts. I wish him the best. He played backyard ball for 3 years. Now he will have to learn how to be a Qb</p>— Vance Bedford (@CoachBedfordUT) <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachBedfordUT/statuses/463111711122137088">May 5, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Just as we suspected, he was talking about Johnny Manziel! This is no Ty Detmer assault!
Let's unleash former Aggie great roster participant Brandon Leone on him...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/CoachBedfordUT">@CoachBedfordUT</a> Manziel would have put 60 points on any defense you would have fielded.</p>— Brandon Leone (@BrandonLeone) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonLeone/statuses/463122684901986305">May 5, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Oooooooo! Burn. A voice of experience. Brandon played during A&M's Friends and Fran-ily halcyon days and certainly knows what it's like to watch a team put 60 on him.
Sidenote: Vance Bedford coached DBs for the Chicago Bears for five years. And coached DBs for the '97 Michigan national championship team that featured Charles Woodson and Dhani Jones and finished #1 in the country in defense. Louisville wasn't so shabby last year either.
I'm of the belief that the Chicago Bears may have been able to hold Texas A&M under 60. Possibly even 50. I'm not saying they're LSU, Missouri or Florida good, obviously. When Brian Urlacher meets Ben Malena in the hole, it's a coin flip.
Even Manziel's agent got in on the act:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/CoachBedfordUT">@CoachBedfordUT</a> has been in "All-American Conference" the last 4 yrs. I wish him luck. Better learn how to coach in a real conference.</p>— Erik Burkhardt (@ErikBurkhardt) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErikBurkhardt/statuses/463307391316946944">May 5, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Well, not exactly. That conference has existed for one year. And it's not called that. Before that, it was the Big East. Which is also a garbage conference. So maybe Erik has a point. Wait - did he just call the Big 12 a real conference? That's not on script. I'm not even sure I agree with it.
More importantly, how does one land Manziel as a client? What Amway pitch did Erik make to Uncle Nate to get on Team Manziel? I think he may have just plagiarized the first paragraph in a Nigerian money scam e-mail and then wrote "Manziel = Balla = Money = Drake bootlicking = Profit" on a white board. Nods all around. Yeah. This guy is sharp. Get him on board.
Coach Bedford, you carry on. Aggies, you too. We can all get through this offseason together. Because after the NBA playoffs, it's just a bunch of fat guys who can't run a mile with 20/10 vision launching balls off of walls until real sports start again.