Gus Malzahn, former Auburn offensive coordinator and head coach of Arkansas State, was announced as the new Auburn football head coach today.

Auburn athletics held a press conference Dec. 4 at 8 p.m. that featured Malzahn along with other Auburn notables such as Jay Jacobs, Jay Gouge, Bo Jackson and Pat Sullivan.

The new head coach and the others made it perfectly clear that Malzahn was hired for one reason: to bring integrity, success on and off the field, and championships to Auburn.

“It’s an honor that they chose me,” Malzahn said. “I don’t take that lightly. I will do everything in my power for the Auburn Tigers to be successful. Our players are going to be great examples for this university, on and off the field. They’re going to be men of character. That’s the first thing that I expect of them, and winning will take care of itself.”

Malzahn said he knows that winning will not just take care of itself, but pointed out that getting the players’ heads in the right place is the first step to the ultimate goal of winning.

This season, Auburn fans watched in misery as their team seemed inept on both sides of the football, so Malzahn spoke on what changes he intends to bring to the style of play.

“We will have a fast-paced offense. I believe in this day and time it’s a great advantage,” Malzahn said. “We will run the football, and that will be our staple. We are a run, play action team. We will have a defense that is attacking. These days, (with) these spread offenses and the things they do, you’ve got to have a multiple defense, and we will be attacking in all areas.”

Malzahn was selected by a committee consisting of Bo Jackson, Pat Sullivan, Jay Jacobs and Mac Crawford. Jacobs said that Malzahn was Auburn’s first choice and that the committee voted unanimously to hire the former offensive coordinator as the new head coach.

Consequently, Jacobs had nothing but the highest of praise for the new coach.

“We laid out three criteria,” Jacobs said. “One is who can win? He’s consistently done that everywhere he’s been. He won the national championship here as offensive coordinator. The other is we were looking for a person who can continue the high excellence of not only athletic but academic success of our football team … Thirdly, he’s a great ambassador for Auburn. He represents character, integrity, the same things that wrap the (Auburn) Creed up. That’s why he was a unanimous decision.”

Malzahn said he knows there is a lot of work to do, but that he is looking forward to doing it and ready to get Auburn back on track and winning football games.

“It will be fun for our fans, and we will get this thing turned around,” Malzahn said. “My goal for this is to … play championship football like Auburn expects.”

Steve Addazio will be the next head coach of the Boston College football team, athletic director Brad Bates announced today. Addazio will leave his job as head coach at Temple U. to take over for Frank Spaziani, who was fired just nine days ago.

“I’ve only been here six weeks,” Bates said. “I’m looking for a partner who I can be joined at the hip with and really strive for excellence in Boston College athletics. [Addazio] is a key leader in this department.”

Bates interviewed Addazio on two separate occasions before making the hire official today. Addazio will be signed to a six-year contract, though the money was not disclosed.

“The process, as I’ve said all along – I wasn’t really strictly adhering to a timeline,” Bates told The Heights, just after he met with the team to announce the hire. “We had to make sure we got a perfect fit. The process was meticulous and deliberate enough that there’s no question in my mind we were able to accomplish that.”

Bates met with the media on Tuesday night to further discuss the hiring.

“I really believe that Steve Addazio is a great coach who is a great fit for Boston College right now,” Bates said.

Since he met with the players nine days ago and talked about what they wanted in a new head coach, Bates knew that he needed to hire a coach the players could build a strong relationship with.

“Everything in Steve’s background demonstrates that he’s going to create a family culture in the program that’s a team,” Bates said.

Secondly, the team wanted a coach who brought great passion to the locker room and the field, and Bates said he found exactly that in Addazio.

“You’ll see [Addazio] has incredible passion and energy,” Bates said. “He is one of the most energized, passionate people I’ve ever been around. His enthusiasm is contagious. Just sitting around him, you’re going to feel more inspired. So imagine that playing out in a coaching methodology.”

The third factor the team wanted in a coach was someone who was going to win, and Bates said that Addazio “certainly has a background in competitive success and winning.”

During the search process, Bates talked to NFL owners, NFL coaches, commissioners, college head coaches and assistant coaches, executive directors, and more. He reached out to those people he trusted in order to figure out if certain candidates would be a good fit at BC.

At the end of the 2012 season, multiple BC football players came out and said there was a lack of accountability on the team. While the players said the responsibility falls on them to change that, Bates believes that Addazio can help improve that attitude as well.

“He’s got a plan, he’ll be a disciplinarian,” Bates said. “He will be incredibly demanding on and off the field, but at the end of the day, the students are going to know he genuinely and sincerely cares about them.”

Bates told the players in a team meeting at 5 p.m. today, and wanted them to hear the announcement from him first.

“We wanted to make sure the players heard it from us,” Bates said. “We try to do everything we can to make sure they’re not hearing it secondhand. We tried to be as stealth as possible so that they’d hear it from us.”

Though he didn’t want to put words in their mouth, Bates said the players’ reactions “seemed to be a general level of excitement and enthusiasm.”

While the coaching carousel in college football is ongoing and unpredictable, Bates made it seem like he didn’t think Addazio would use BC as a stepping stone in his career.

“This is a guy who grew up in the Northeast and has dreamed of being at Boston College,” Bates said. “He is thrilled to be here and he’s already hitting the ground running. We bounced over a lot of things today in terms of what needs to be prepared and what he’s already getting into.

“Who can predict the future? Is any place a destination anymore? The landscape of college athletics is evolving so quickly, and there’s so many different variables that are involved in how people choose jobs and their longevity. I can’t predict the future completely. But here’s a guy who’s incredibly enthusiastic to be at Boston College.”

Bates also said that he was looking for a coach who would provide some stability in a program that has had a lot of attrition in recent history.

“Continuity is an incredible cohesive force in building a team,” Bates said. “And so having attrition is disruptive. This team has had a lot of disruption in terms of that continuity.”

Bates said that Addazio has been on his list of potential coaching candidates “for a number of years.”

Addazio compiled a record of 13-11 at Temple in his two years there—9-4 in 2011 (as a member of the MAC) and 4-7 in 2012 (as a member of the Big East). Prior to that, Addazio was the offensive coordinator at Florida in 2009 and 2010, and an assistant at various spots from 2005-2008. While at Florida, Addazio was part of a staff that won the BCS national championship in 2006 and 2008. He served as a mentor for the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow during that time.

Bates first got to know Addazio when he was at Florida, and has been watching and studying him since then. He also got to see Addazio firsthand when Temple faced Miami in a game during the 2011 season.

“I saw him firsthand two years ago because I was at Miami University and Temple was still in the MAC,” Bates said. “I had actually gotten to know him a few years ago when he was at Florida, and I have been really watching him since his work at Florida and [I have] been studying him. So that’s why he was on my shortlist to begin with.”

Former BC assistant coach Ryan Day worked under Addazio at Temple this year, and Bates said that while he didn’t talk to Day directly, he did get Day’s take secondhand.

“I talked to a lot of people, but not directly,” he said. “I didn’t want to do things … there are two ways of approaching it. You can have trusted colleagues make calls so there’s no direct communication, but people that you know and trust, you can call directly. I don’t know Ryan personally, so there was communication that was taking place, but it was secondhand.”

Regarding the current BC coaching staff, Bates said it is something that has yet to be decided in terms of who will stay and who will go.

“All of that’s undecided,” he said. “We’ve certainly had conversations, but nothing that would be definitive at this point. We’ve talked in general terms. He clearly has some ideas of what he wants to do, but he’s going to research the context. He’s going to visit with the team, he’s going to visit with the staff.

“This is a well-connected guy in the football community. He’s going to have an amazing collection of coaches that he can assemble. The key is going to be making sure that he gets a group that has diverse skill sets and experiences so that they complement one another.”

Speculation had surfaced this morning from outlets including ESPN that the three finalists were Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, Ball State head coach Pete Lambo, and the New Orleans Saints’ offensive line coach Aaron Kromer. Addazio’s name had not come up as a candidate throughout the process, and in response to the supposed list of finalists, Bates said it was “interesting.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what the speculation was,” Bates said. “Steve was actually someone on my short list from the beginning. He’s got a tremendous reputation: people speak very highly of him. People that I respect in the industry have enormous regard for his talents and what he’s done in his coaching background.”

Addazio, 53, will be introduced in an official press conference at 3 p.m. tomorrow in the Yawkey Center at BC.

Boston’s Innovation District, the New Urban Mechanics office and density of university knowledge are a few reasons why the city lands as the smartest city in North America, one ranking system finds.

The ranking, conducted by Boyd Cohen of SmartCitiesHub.com, ranked cities based on the development and implementation of smart city strategies in the economy, environment, governance, living, mobility and people, Cohen explained in an article on the website Co.EXIST.

Cohen said he developed a “smart cities wheel” as a universal model of smart cities and sought quality data to represent each of the six components of cities.

“I have developed a set of indicators and a range of actions that cities may choose to implement to achieve those drivers and to continue their smart cities journey,” Cohen said in an email. “I am now working with a major metropolitan city to develop a baseline for their city and then to develop targets and a range of short- and long-term smart city goals.”

Boston was the only city that was rated in the top five for each of the six components, he said.

“Boston achieved first place on my Smart Economy and Smart People,” he said. “Boston’s university system may be the most robust in the world. Furthermore, Boston’s innovation ecosystem is really impressive.”

Boston has an impressive entrepreneurial ecosystem supported through the mayor’s Innovation District and a world-class innovation system demonstrated by the New Urban Mechanics office, Cohen explained in his post on Co.EXIST, which cited San Francisco and Seattle as the second and third smartest cities.

But such rankings are dependent on the perspectives of the person creating the system, said Nigel Jacob, co-chair of the mayor’s office of New Urban Mechanics.

“These rankings are interesting and they are certainly something to shoot for, but at the end of the day, I don’t know how helpful they are,” he said.

Nicole Fichera, Innovation District manager of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said innovation is a major part of Boston’s identity.

“Boston is historically an innovation city,” Fichera said. “We always have smart people here working on innovations.”

The Innovation District is Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s initiative to transform more than 1,000 acres of undeveloped land in Boston into a place where innovators live and work, according to Boston’s Innovation District website.

Fichera said although the city never provided information for this report, officials are content with the result.

“This is an independent report and the city didn’t provide information for it, but we are happy that Boston came out on top,” she said. “What is important for us is that we are doing everything we can to support innovation in Boston.”

Jacob said New Urban Mechanics focuses on creating partnerships with different sectors to solve real problems in the city.

New Urban Mechanics is an approach to innovation that is focused on supplying services to Boston residents supported by Menino, according to the New Urban Mechanics website.

“Any city needs to be smart,” Jacob said. “It is really an approach or a way of thinking to be reflective and [seeing] how we are operating and adapting to these services for the population.”

All season long, No. 1 Notre Dame’s offense has gone up against the top-ranked scoring defense in the country, its own, in practice. On the precipice of a national title, the offensive unit will need to overcome the second-ranked scoring defense of No. 2 Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game.

Despite only allowing 10.7 points per game this season, the Tide defense is widely regarded to have dropped off from the play of its unit in 2011. Alabama shut out LSU 21-0 in the 2012 BCS National Championship Game, but lost highly-touted safety Mark Barron, cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick and linebackers Donta’ Hightower and Courtney Upshaw to the NFL. Alabama beat writer Chase Goodbread said the 2012 defense has not been quite as dominant as its predecessor.

“I don’t they’re as good a defense as they were a year ago. They’re not as good as last year,” said Goodbread, who covers the Tide for the Tuscaloosa News. “I think the strength is stopping the run, they were No. 1 in the country at stopping the run, but the passing defense isn’t what it was a year ago.”

Just as Notre Dame’s unit features a top-notch defensive coordinator in Bob Diaco, the Tide march to the beat of defensive coordinator Kirby Smart. Smart, who took home the 2009 Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach, is considered a leading candidate for many head coaching vacancies. This season Smart filled holes left by the departure of more than half of his 2011 starters and preserved the Tide’s defensive identity.

“Kirby Smart does a great job, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it he’s going to be a head coach pretty soon,” Goodbread said. “It might be this winter depending on what kind of offers he gets. He’s done a good job year-to-year pretty much, no matter what he’s had to work with.”

The defensive unit also works under the tutelage of Alabama coach Nick Saban, who comes from a defensive background. Saban played defensive back for Kent State in the early 1970s and served as Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1994. Goodbread said Saban’s focus on the defensive backfield has helped first-team All-SEC junior cornerback Dee Milliner.

“[Saban works with the defense] every day,” Goodbread said. “Every practice, he’s there in the individual drills especially. He works exclusively with the secondary, you know he’s a former defensive back himself when he was a player and he spends a lot of time with the corners and safeties. He’s probably had more of an impact on [Milliner] and all the corners than just about anywhere else.”

Milliner, who played much of 2011 as a corner in nickel and dime packages, has emerged as a star on a defense that lost many stars coming into 2012. Goodbread said Milliner and junior linebacker C.J. Mosley will need to step up to stop Notre Dame in the national championship.

“Milliner has to have a good game for sure. He’s the best defensive back they’ve got,” Goodbread said. “[Junior linebacker] C.J. Mosley just got voted the MVP of the team by his teammates at the team banquet on Sunday night. He’s probably Alabama’s best overall defensive player, a good linebacker, was up for the Butkus Award.”

Against the nation’s top run defense, the Irish running back corps will face its biggest test of the season. Senior running back Theo Riddick, who led Notre Dame in rushing in 2012, said the Irish faced many tough defenses this year.

“I think we played a lot of good defenses. A lot of teams do a lot of different things so it’s kind of hard to pinpoint which defense is better than others,” Riddick said. “It all depends on the matchup. There’s too many teams.

“Stanford was really good. Pitt was really good. USC was really good. There were a lot of good defenses we faced this year.”

Riddick said the key to putting points on the board against the stellar Tide defense is protecting the football.

“[We have to] not turn the ball over,” he said. “With that great of team or any team actually, if you turn the ball over you lessen your chances to win.”

The Irish and Tide will clash with the national championship at stake on Jan. 7 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

The Halo series has always been one of the most revered franchises in video games. Its story and multiplayer features have been enjoyed by millions, and series protagonist Master Chief has become one of the major icons of the Xbox platform. So when news spread that the Halo franchise would be given to a new developer, 343 Industries rather than Bungie, many fans worried that it would be the end of an era. Don’t worry though, Halo 4 combines fan service and a few changes to create a worthy successor to the acclaimed trilogy.

Campaign

Halo 4 finds Master Chief still in a cryogenic state aboard the ship “Forward Unto Dawn.” He is awakened by his artificial intelligence companion Cortana once the ship reaches a planet known as Requiem. There, the rogue Covenant, one of the main enemy forces in the series, boards the ship, causing it to crash-land on the planet below.

Halo 4’s story focuses on the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. Cortana is reaching the end of the natural life cycle for AIs, which is about seven years. Master Chief, while fighting the main antagonist,  forerunner the Didact, must also try to fix Cortana; this story probably provides the most emotion for Master Chief that players have seen in a Halo game. You get to see how Cortana deteriorates over time, and also how it affects Master Chief, both emotionally and in action.

The campaign takes about six hours to complete, which is about average for a first-person shooter but seems to end relatively quickly. The campaign also adds a little more variety in the missions, throwing in quick-time events and vehicle missions, all of which work well within the story. The main antagonist, however, only makes an appearance a couple times during the story, and never seems to be as developed as well as he could have been. But despite this slight issue, this is a campaign well worth completing, and it will provide some great fan service to long-time players.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer — or War Games, as it’s referred to in Halo 4 — is the standard by which all first-person shooters are measured nowadays, and Halo 4 doesn’t at all disappoint in this department. This version provides a much more customizable experience than before, while still maintaining the classic Halo gameplay fans have always loved. The classic Halo game modes are here, including Team Slayer, Slayer, Capture the Flag, Oddball and King of the Hill. Fan-favorite game mode Grifball is now its own playlist, along with Flood (previously known as Infection). The maps are well designed, allowing for all different styles of play, whether slow and tactical or run-and-gun, to be viable in the multiplayer environment.

The game’s biggest change to the multiplayer experience is in the player customization. Players can now create their own custom loadouts, allowing them to pick their own primary weapon, pistol, grenade, tactical package and support upgrade. Though this feature was briefly explored in Halo: Reach, Halo 4 allows you to cater your loadout to your playing style. Similar to Call of Duty, there are even challenges that unlock experience for earning a certain amount of kills or medals, and the commendations from Halo: Reach return, updating every day, week or month.

Armor customization is just as big a part of this game as in previous games, allowing for thousands of possible armor combinations. And though the emblem customization hasn’t changed too much, it still provides enough of an opportunity to express yourself with a unique team player logo. But, you have to reach a certain level in order to unlock certain emblems, which is an unusual decision on 343 Industries’ part.

Spartan ops

Spartan Ops, Halo 4’s new game mode, is a story-driven series of multiplayer missions that 343 Industries adds to every week. Each mission, which takes about 15 minutes to complete, starts off with a cut-scene that gives you the mission objectives. All the missions culminate into one storyline, which is divided into seasons, allowing fans to receive new episodes every week, similar to a TV series.

Though the idea is innovative, and provides a longer story arc than the one in the campaign, it takes the place of Firefight, a horde-style game mode that was featured in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. Considering it was a popular choice for many fans, it seems a bit unusual that this game mode was excluded from this game. Fans hoping for a revamped Firefight experience will be sorely disappointed, although Spartan Ops does what it intends to do very well.

Final Verdict

If you’re afraid to continue the Halo series because of a new developer, don’t be. 343 Industries does an excellent job continuing the storied franchise, making sure to keep the campaign and multiplayer up to Halo standards while adding its own unique elements to the franchise. Though Spartan Ops isn’t as successful, and doesn’t quite fill the void left behind by Firefight, Halo 4 still serves up a compelling experience that will keep old and new fans alike glued to their controllers.

Facing the possibility of a soldier withdrawal, John Lee, whose father is currently serving his second tour in Afghanistan, said he would be relieved when his father finally comes home.

After 10 years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in support of an amendment that would accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The bill received strong bipartisan support, with 13 Republicans joining Senate Democrats for a final vote of 62-33.

“Soldiers aren’t machines,” Lee said. “We have accomplished the majority of our objectives in Afghanistan and I just think it’s time for it to end.”

Lee said his father did his first tour in Afghanistan serving from Sept. 2011 to June 2012.

“We need to bring our guys home,” he said. “People aren’t meant to kill other people.”

The amendment to accelerate the withdrawal was non-binding, which means changes can be made to the amendment or it can be removed from the final version of the defense bill it is a part of. However, it does give President Barack Obama a concise message that not only does the Senate support his timetable to leave in Afghanistan in 2014, but that leaving earlier is preferred.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he thinks al-Qaida is stronger in other parts of the world and that nation-building in Afghanistan has gone off track.

It’s time to end this war, end the longest war in American history, Merkley said during the Senate debate.

James Binney, Penn State U. political science professor, said he’s pretty happy about the troops leaving Afghanistan.

“I’d like to see our young men and women out of there,” Binney said. “If we leave early, there are also some downsides.”

Afghanistan could fall into civil war and even become a safe house for terrorists, he said. All the lives lost and money spent would have been for nothing, Binney added.

However, Binney said the amendment would need the same bipartisan support to pass in the House of Representatives, in which there is a Republican majority.

The war in Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, 2001 in response to the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center buildings on 9/11 that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

As of Tuesday, at least 2,031 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan. There are currently 66,000 troops in Afghanistan.

On Saturday morning, Kansas City Chiefs’ linebacker Jovan Belcher, 25, fatally shot his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, 22, in front of his mother before driving to Arrowhead Stadium to take his own life. As the murder-suicide gained national media attention, the inevitable push toward gun control rhetoric emerged, as is true for any gun-related crime.

As the specifics of gun laws will likely always be in contention, the more important aspect — the emotional and psychological state of the person who commits gun crimes — should garner a lot more attention both before and after these of tragedies occur.

During his halftime segment on Sunday Night Football, NBC broadcaster Bob Costas quoted a piece from Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, who wrote, “‘In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here,’ wrote Whitlock, ‘is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.’”

Costas received criticism for his report on social media from Second Amendment supporters who thought his comments were misinformed and that he should not have used the broadcast medium to express his opinions. But the point that both Whitlock and Costas tried to make should not be the main concern regarding this or other crimes like it.

The statements only serve to polarize the climate in the aftermath of tragedy and detract from the legitimacy of the arguments.

The problem in solving the gun violence dilemma is that both sides of the argument have inherently valid points. Guns are just objects, paper weights if you will, that only result in devastation when the user has the psychological determination to aim and pull the trigger.

However, guns serve only one purpose: to shoot a projectile with a potentially dangerous force. Whether individuals use this power to cause harm or prevent it is based solely on the emotional and psychological stability of the user.

Whenever tragedies like the one in Kansas City occur, it is far too easy to shift the blame to the availability of guns, getting us so caught up in that debate that we forget about the underlining cause. We did the same thing when news broke regarding the Aurora, Colorado shooter James Holmes and even more so after the Columbine High shooting in 1999. In both instances the gunman’s emotional stability was questioned but the continual rhetoric afterwards concerned how to stop gun violence rather than how we, as a culture, could alleviate the emotional volatility of the perpetrator.
It will never be easy to delve into the mind of someone who could take another human beings life. It is almost easier to forego the uneasiness and push the blame onto something else. But before we rush to blame a piece of machinery we need to fully understand the most powerful weapon that humans can wield — the mind.

Not much in the modern realm of college football can be labeled as “outstanding” anymore. Outstanding implies quality beyond greatness. The term insinuates power and depth, molding itself from the very qualities that legends are made of.

For decades, this word — outstanding — has stood as the lone qualification of the sport’s most prestigious individual award, the Heisman Memorial Trophy. The cast of men who can, deservedly so, claim the recognition as their own are remembered and known as some of the most influential athletes to ever grace the sport.

For any current player, adding their name to the vaunted ranks of the Heisman Trophy winners stands as the ultimate goal — a way to cement oneself as a college football legend.

The award’s three finalists for the 2012 season were announced Monday evening, with Johnny Manziel leading the way, holding his own against the likes of Kansas State’s Collin Klein and Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o.

After leading the Aggies to an unprecedented 10-2 season in the program’s inaugural year with the Southeastern Conference, Johnny Football has emerged as the vanguard candidate for the Heisman. Despite his youth, the young quarterback has proven his worth through a slew of broken records and a pile-up of “video game” statistics.

Following two tough, early season home losses to top-ranked squads Florida and LSU, Manziel was able to engineer the year’s most notable upset when he led the Aggies over unbeaten Alabama, 29-24. In four excruciatingly long quarters, under the hostile lights of Bryant-Denny Stadium, Johnny Football dominated the future conference champions in what may be, arguably, A&M’s most momentous victory to date.

Statistically, the redshirt freshman finished the regular season with 4,600 yards of total offense through just 12 games, surpassing the SEC record set by Heisman winner and former Auburn quarterback Cam Newton who generated 4,327 yards through 14 games in his 2010 national title campaign.

Manziel continued to add to his legacy as he secured 43 total touchdowns in the year with just eight interceptions.

On the setting-records front, Johnny Football stands as the first freshman and only the fifth player in FBS history to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for another 1,000 in the same season. He also holds the SEC record for total offense in single-game with 576 yards, breaking the mark initially against Arkansas before resetting it in the shootout victory over Louisiana Tech.

When it comes down to the numbers, however, Manziel’s head coach, Kevin Sumlin, was able to say it best.

“You can put those numbers up against anybody that’s not only played this year, [but] who’s ever played the game,” Sumlin said. “For a single season, they speak for themselves.”

For the first time in years, however, a true Heisman front-runner has not revealed himself outright. Both Te’o, a linebacker from Notre Dame, and Klein, Kansas State’s quarterback sensation, have consistently found ways to remain in the conversation.

With both standing as seniors and considering a freshman has never won the Heisman, Manziel’s youth continues to be a negative factor with multiple “traditional” voters.

The redshirt freshman’s age, however, hasn’t been the only fallout on his resume.

With Klein steering the Wildcats to a Big 12 Championship and a berth in the Fiesta Bowl, and Te’o heading up the undefeated Fighting Irish en route to Miami for the national title game, both Manziel’s opponents have shown leadership and certain “intangibles” notable in many Heisman winners.

Despite both Klein and Te’o holding a strong gridiron presence, their statistics have failed to measure up to their hype, especially when compared to Manziel.

When matched up statistically head-to-head with Klein, Johnny Football dominated in almost every category, compiling 1,220 more total yards and six more scores with only one additional interception.

Te’o, on the other hand, only has his top-ranked defense to back him up. In almost every defensive statistic, he ranks substandard.

All factors considered, Manziel has shown himself to be outstanding, particularly in the eyes of the Heisman voters. The young quarterback has even been able to secure some backing from the likes of a former opponent, star LSU defensive end Sam Montgomery.

“Johnny Football is nothing to play with,” Montgomery said following Alabama’s loss to A&M. “My hat’s off to Johnny Football. Heisman — just give it to him.”

Johnny Football will enter the Heisman ceremony in New York City on Saturday, as only a simple athlete from Kerrville, Texas, hoping to make history.

He should emerge a new man — one we all should know as Johnny Heisman.

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, alongside Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein and Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, was named one of three finalists Monday for the Heisman Memorial Trophy, an award granted to the most outstanding individual player in college football.

Manziel concluded the season passing for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns, while rushing for 1,181 yards and 19 touchdowns, leading Texas A&M to its first 10-win season since 1998. He will look to become A&M’s second Heisman award winner since 1957 winner John David Crow under then-head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

In a release from the Texas A&M athletic department, Manziel said he’s proud to represent A&M in the Heisman Award ceremony.

“I’m overwhelmed by this tremendous honor of representing Texas A&M, the 12th Man and all my teammates in New York,” Manziel said. “This is a dream come true for me and I know it’s a credit to all my coaches and teammates. I definitely wouldn’t be a Heisman finalist without my teammates and coaches.”

Manziel’s 4,600 total yards smashes the SEC record for yardage in a season — previously held by 2010 Heisman winner Cam Newton — a feat the A&M signal caller achieved in two fewer games. His 576 total yards against Louisiana Tech was an SEC record for yardage in a game and he is the only freshman to reach 3,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing in a season.

Through his accomplishments, Manziel earned Associated Press SEC Offensive Player and Freshman of the Year honors. In addition to his Heisman Trophy candidacy, Manziel is also a Maxwell and Davey O’Brien Award finalist. The Maxwell and Davey O’Brien honors are awarded to the college player of the year and best quarterback of the year, respectively.

Several polls already have Manziel clinching the most prestigious individual hardware in the sport, including Heisman Pundit, USA Today and the Scripps Howard Heisman poll.
Olin Buchanan, a Heisman Trophy voter and writer for TexAgs.com, said while Manziel was projected to win the trophy, he could meet some resistance.

“I do think that, going forward, all of the polls have Manziel winning it,” Buchanan said. “Some have said that he’ll win by a really slim margin and other polls have him winning by a larger margin. I think he’ll win it but I think anytime there’s a Notre Dame player, you can speculate he’s going to win. But you can’t take it for granted because Notre Dame always gets so much attention.”

A win by any of the three candidates would make history. Klein would be the first Kansas State player to win the trophy while Te’o would be the first linebacker to achieve the award. If Manziel wins, he will be the first freshman to win the award and the lowest classification to win since Tim Tebow in 2007.

In an opening statement before a Manziel teleconference, A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin said his youthful gunslinger was an integral piece to A&M’s success in its inaugural SEC season.

“As we’ve gone through this process, he’s been a catalyst for this football team in the first season in the SEC,” Sumlin said. “[Manziel is] a tremendous competitor, a tremendous leader and something that you really don’t see in a player as a redshirt freshman. All his leadership on and off the field has made this season a real successful one.”