This was bound to happen at some point. Darren Rovell went on Bill King’s ON CAMPUS radio show this morning with more details about what he has learned after digging more into the situation:
There’s much more than two signings. Again, there’s no money transfer between these brokers and Manziel. Manziel never touched the money. It depends on whether you believe that the amount of circumstantial evidence is enough – is enough for Texas A&M to say “you violated our strict honor code” or is enough for the NCAA to say “did you do these specific things?”
Maybe no one comes forward, and we (the NCAA) don’t have subpoena power, we can’t bring you under oath, but we can talk to Johnny and and say “you know, these are very very specific allegations, did you do these things?” And is it enough for Texas A&M to say “we can’t play him”? Because if so many of these sources are saying the same thing, it becomes the school’s responsibility if they play him.
…I spoke to a Texas A&M booster yesterday, and he claimed “you know, we’re not Alabama, we’re not some of these big programs, we are different people” – who knows what he really means. But what he’s saying is “we have a special honor code, I think we’re different, and this has caused problems for us and we don’t want Johnny to represent us”.
So there is a faction, at least, at Texas A&M that appears to not be willing to ‘do anything’ to keep Johnny. And I think that’s maybe what Paul Manziel was referring to in the Wright Thompson article.
We all know at this point unless one of these rat autograph brokers has a receipt from Money Manziel taking cash or a video, it will be hard for the NCAA to prove this. However, I am not surprised that A&M boosters who enjoyed him on the field last year are starting to turn on him. It really is just a matter of time before we get reports of his teammates doing the same.
