Former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, who joined the Heisman fraternity as a redshirt freshman in 2012 when he won the award in stellar fashion, believes that former USC running back Reggie Bush should have his vacated Heisman returned and recognized.
“There is nothing I want to see more than for Reggie to get his Heisman back,” Manziel posted on social media on Friday. “I think what the NCAA did in that situation is complete bulls---. He is one of the best college football players in history and deserves to be on that stage with us every year. The only difference between my story and Reggie’s is that my ‘illegal activities’ did not start until after my Heisman season.”
The “illegal activities” that got Bush’s Heisman vacated were allegations of the running back receiving impermissible benefits from a marketing agency during his playing days with the Trojans. This, of course, was in a pre-NIL era where players getting paid for marketing themselves was “illegal” per the NCAA and jeopardized athletes’ amateur status if they were to get caught.
