2012 Heisman Trophy: Johnny Manziel is Johnny Heisman

The Top 10 List continues to be the least tremendous of the many things David Letterman does, but this item is worth archiving for the host asking Johnny Manziel whether Barry Switzer still coaches at Oklahoma and making the case for the young man dropping out of school immediately.

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The Johnny Pizza, available from Hungry Howie’s in College Station. Notre Dame fans may order bitterly and flip onto their roof like so many angry Walter Whites. On another note: if there is a Man-Chai Tea-o at a local South Bend coffee shop, you cannot complain, ever, Notre Dame fan.

Te’o, who is the unquestioned leader of a Fighting Irish defense that ranks first nationally in scoring defense, defended teammates who expressed their displeasure with the results on Twitter.

Te’o joins a distinguished list of Heisman Trophy runners up that includes John Elway, Peyton Manning and Vince Young, who was the last player to finish second in the Heisman vote and win the BCS National Championship. Te’o and his Notre Dame teammates will have that same opportunity on Jan. 7, 2013, when they face Alabama for the title.

Not bad at all, especially considering Manziel’s only spoken in public as an Aggie, what, twice now? A&M kept wraps on their freshman quarterback until the very end of the year, when he gave a very well-attended teleconference.

It’ll likely not be the last time he gives a speech after accepting an award, either.

Johnny Manziel is your 2012 Heisman Trophy winner, finishing narrowly ahead of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o and well ahead of Kansas St. quarterback Collin Klein

To the voting breakdown!

Manziel finished second in the country in total yards per game despite playing Florida, LSU and Alabama; broke and rebroke the SEC single-game yardage record; played a major part in the Aggies’ Tuscaloosa takedown of the No. 1 Tide; helped establish the rookie Aggies as a legitimate SEC West threat and so much more -- see below for a fancy graphic comparing Manziel to his predecessors and competition.

Coming into Saturday, the top four freshman Heisman finalists on Stewart Mandel’s list were Virginia Tech’s Michael Vick, Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson, Georgia’s Herschel Walker and Georgia Tech’s Clint Castleberry. Six of his top 10 played in the last 25 years, with two since 2004. Looking back, many will argue Peterson and Walker were robbed (by USC’s Matt Leinart and South Carolina’s George Rogers, respectively), while the Ron Dayne-Joe Hamilton-Vick-Drew Brees debate continues as well. The point is that freshmen have been inching closer to the trophy for a while now, and one of them has finally done it.

Te’o won the Maxwell Award on Thursday which is given to college football’s best player, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s now the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. Since 2000, only two players who won the Maxwell Award went on to win the Heisman Trophy. Instead, Manziel remains the heavy favorite to capture the 2012 Heisman.

Manziel has been in the Heisman lead since he led Texas A&M to an upset of then No. 1 Alabama on Nov. 10. Going strictly on stats, it’s easy to make a case for Manziel who accounted for a SEC-record 4,600 total yards. Many analysts expect Manziel to become the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy with at least one predicting him to win by one of the widest margins in recent history.

Before the season started, USC’s Matt Barkley looked liked a heavy favorite for the award before he and the Trojans stumbled again and again. Then it looked like West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith held front-runner status for a few weeks early in the season. The award then looked like it was Klein’s to lose, which he did when the Wildcats stumbled against Baylor.

Te’o could become the first defensive player since Charles Woodson to win the award. The senior finished with 103 tackles and seven interceptions for the undefeated Fighting Irish.

By now, you know the names and the story lines -- the defensive player, the freshman and the senior quarterback — of the three Heisman Trophy finalists.

And with bowl season still well into the distance, the Heisman Trophy presentation on Saturday night will have the full attention of the college football nation. But before the trophy is handed out, media members and former Heisman recipients must vote their top three candidates for the trophy. Eight regions each have 145 first-through-third place votes each, and 57 Heisman winners vote with no affiliation to region.

The straw poll designed by Chis Huston of Heisman Pundit and CBSSports.com produced a comfortable win for Manziel. The folks at StiffArmTrophy.com, who work to collect votes that have been informally revealed or published, are also calling it for Manziel, who’s dominating the early returns. And then there are the odds makers who have Manziel as a 1/12 favorite (with Te’o at 3/1).

Manziel burst onto the scene in the Aggies’ inaugural season in the SEC, finishing with 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns through the air and 1,181 yards and 19 touchdowns on the ground. The diminutive “Johnny Football” was a perfect match for Kevin Sumlin’s offense, and the redshirt freshman broke the SEC total offense record on the way to a 10-2 season. Sumlin does not permit freshman to talk to the media, so off-the-field, Manziel was quiet and in the background throughout the fall. Of course on the field, he tore through SEC defenses, including a captivating performance in the upset win over Alabama that pushed his national profile to the next level and began the Heisman campaign in earnest. With the season over, Sumlin relaxed that rule and Manziel has done some interviews in the build-up to what looks to be a history-making Saturday night in New York.

Te’o walked away from college football’s awards night with a record six honors, including the Maxwell Award, given annually to college football’s best player as voted on by the Maxwell Award voters. Could the Heisman, which awards the “most outstanding” college football player in the nation, also be headed to South Bend?

Well, as many have surmised from the announcement of the Heisman finalists, ballots were due days ago, meaning any groundswell of support for Te’o, or Klein for that matter, will be too little too late.

On one of college football’s most glamorous nights, the stars of the 2012 college football season were out in full force as the nation’s best players were honored with a whole host of awards and recognitions on Thursday night.

Manziel walked away on Thursday with the Davey O’Brien trophy, awarded annually to the nation’s top quarterback. Like he hopes to accomplish with the Heisman, Manziel is the first-ever freshman to receive the honor.

We did learn two things with this approach, however. First of all, September performances really don’t count for much. It’s how you do when the real games start that seems to matter. Second, in the real Heisman race, you can be penalized. In the Horse Race, you cannot. The primary example for each of these lessons: Geno Smith.

Entering October, Geno Smith had built more of a Heisman case than anybody had ever done in just a month of action. Smith put up absolutely silly statistics against mostly bad defenses, and West Virginia reached 5-0 and fifth in the AP poll without any semblance of a defense whatsoever. But then October happened. Smith was rendered inefficient by actually decent defenses, and, more importantly, West Virginia lost five games in a row. Smith was completely eliminated from the actual Heisman race, but because of his gaudy early point totals, he remained atop the Horse Race standings into November.

Well, lots of people are headed to New York. It’s a huge city with many boroughs (not looking up how many -- four to five), whatever boroughs are. Fancy way of saying islands. Anyway, New York has a lot of airports too, and they’re all pretty busy.

Lots of people are going to New York.