Column: Where's Johnny Manziel in the Heisman race?

Josh Moon | USA TODAY Sports

At some point late Saturday night, as Alabama was running away from LSU, CBS analyst Gary Danielson offered his opinion on the 2013 Heisman Trophy race.

Danielson said it's a "two-man race" between Alabama's AJ McCarron and Florida State's Jameis Winston at this point.

McCarron's inclusion in the race is probably to be expected. The guy's lost two games in three years as a college starter and has a legit shot to be the first QB to ever win three straight national titles. That means you're pretty good, and McCarron is.

He takes a spot in the Heisman race previously filled by Oregon's Marcus Mariota, whose campaign apparently came to an end last Thursday when he played poorly while injured against top-five opponent Stanford.

Those are the breaks for a west coast player, I guess. If no one ever sees you play and then you're not Cam Newton when they do, you're easily dismissed, regardless of injury or opponent or both.

Anyway, with Mariota's drop, here's how the Heisman race stands, according to the experts: Winston is the front-runner, McCarron is second, Baylor QB Bryce Petty is third and Mariota has dropped from first to fourth.

Those are all fine choices and good QBs and all that. But I've got one question.

Where's Johnny?

You remember Johnny Manziel, right?

He's that kid wearing No. 2, playing at Texas A&M. He won the Heisman last year. He's the guy who pulls in TV viewers like a live execution. And he might just be the most talented offensive player I've seen this side of Cam Newton.

And he's fifth, maybe fourth, on your current Heisman ballots?

Well, I'm sure there's a good reason.

Maybe it's because he's not playing as well this season, and his team is suffering because of it. After all, A&M has dropped a couple of games, against Alabama and Auburn. While those two teams are just a combined a 18-1, and A&M dropped both games by a combined 11 points, maybe Manziel played lousy in those games?

Let's see, against Alabama, Johnny Football was 28-of-39 for 464 and five TDs and ran 14 times for another 98 yards. And against Auburn, 28-of-38 for 454 and four TDs and rushed for 48 yards and another TD.

So, against teams ranked Nos. 1 and 7 in the current BCS standings, Manziel racked up over 1,000 total yards and 10 TDs. TEN!

But hey, two games certainly don't make a season. I'm sure the rest of Manziel's game must be slipping compared to the phenomenal season he put together last year.

Nope. Compared to this time last year, Manziel has more TDs, more passing yards, a much better efficiency rating and a better overall QBR rating. He's leading the SEC in passing yards, passing efficiency, total offense and ranks 14th in rushing.

I know, I know. It's the competition, right? With Winston and McCarron and Petty and Mariota lighting things up, maybe Manziel's numbers, even though they're better, just aren't as awe inspiring as they were last year.

Nope. Manziel has more passing yards and TDs than Petty, Winston, Mariota and McCarron. He has a higher completion percentage than all four. He's rushed for more yards than all four.

You want to know how silly this is? Manziel is averaging more than 100 yards per game more passing yards than McCarron. Yet, somehow, the guy who analyzes games on CBS believes McCarron is clearly in front of Manziel.

Want more absurdity? Manziel's 392 yards per game of total offense is more than five SEC teams' average.

And let's also not forget that A&M's defense is lousy. It's the 2010 Auburn defense without Nick Fairley.

Every week, Manziel takes the field knowing he has to play lights out for the Aggies to have a shot. Against anyone. For goodness sakes, A&M had only a TD lead on Rice at halftime without Manziel.

And every week, with all of us watching and with many hoping for his failure, Manziel puts on one of the greatest college football shows we've ever seen.

And yet, fourth in the Heisman race.

Look, I know why. It's the offseason, with the ridiculous, fabricated drama of the Manning passing camp and the autographs. All of a sudden, in a sport where a head coach was fired for using drugs and dozens of other coaches have been forgiven for DUIs, a 19-year-old kid was shredded for tweets and partying.

Because some people have nothing better to do, I guess.

And so, here we are, three weeks until the end of the college football regular season and clearly the best player in the game isn't leading for the award that honors the best player in the game.

So, fill out your ballots, Heisman voters, and leave Manziel off. Out of some sense of misplaced morality or whatever. But know this: should anyone ever look back at this season and start comparing numbers, they'll have the same question I have now.

Where's Johnny?

Josh Moon also writes for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser.