Johnny Football says he’s out on the Heisman Trophy ceremony.
The 2012 trophy-winner, while he played for Texas A&M, says he won’t be back at the ceremony until former Southern Cal star Reggie Bush is rightfully restored to his Heisman Trophy status.
Or something like that (Johnny Manziel backs Reggie Bush, will skip Heisman honors – ESPN).
“After careful thought and consideration I will be humbly removing myself from the Heisman trophy ceremony until @ReggieBush gets his trophy back,” Manziel posted on X. “Doesn’t sit right with my morals and values that he can’t be on that stage with us every year. Reggie IS the Heisman trophy. Do the RIGHT thing @NCAA the ball is in your court.”
This looks to be an attempt by Manziel to start a movement among Heisman winners to get behind Bush until Heisman officials give Bush back his trophy, which was removed from him after it was discovered he was at the center of NCAA violations that involved improper benefits.
In spite of the new rules with name, image and license, when Bush played at Southern Cal back in the early 2000s, those were the rules.
Since that time and since NIL rules were introduced, the Heisman Trust – as ESPN points out in the article linked above – that it would “look forward to welcoming Bush back into the Heisman family” if the NCAA would reinstate the former Trojan. So far, that hasn’t happened.
There has been a lawsuit by Bush in an attempt to reverse the NCAA’s stance. He filed the suit in August last year and the NCAA filed a motion for dismissal three months later.
“I’ve got dreams of coming back in this stadium and running out of that tunnel with the football team,” Bush said. “I’ve got dreams of walking back in here and seeing my jersey, my banner, right down there next to the rest of the Heisman Trophy winners. But I can’t rightfully do that without my Heisman Trophy.”
Manziel talked about the Bush situation on former the podcast of former NFL great Shannon Sharpe’s podcast, “Club Shay Shay.”
“There’s chatter, there’s chirp going around that nobody in this crew, in this Heisman fraternity, it [doesn’t sit] right with us that Reggie ain’t up there with us every year,” Manziel said. “It makes every one of us sitting there — Troy Smith, all these guys that I sit next to — he deserves to be on that stage with us every year. Unequivocally, without a doubt, without a question, one of the best college football players to ever lace ’em up and a very, very good argument, to be the best ever in college football.”
