re: For the previous decade, what year would you say the SEC peaked the highest?

Manziel was so good at scrambling and that made for a lot of fluky stuff. Bama wasn't running some kind of throwback offense at the time (see McCarron's numbers), nor was most of the SEC, it was just LSU that was rolling out a Delta-88 straight from 1970s Michigan

Let me show you how devoid of facts your entire post is.

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They left Manzel in for like 5 TDs against shitty teams like Rice.

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FAIL 1: A&M played Rice in 2013. Manziel was suspended the entire first half due to the autograph incident and didn't take his first snap until the 3rd quarter.

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They played 0 tough OOC games because they were new to the conference.

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FAIL 2: A&M had to drastically change their nonconference schedule because they went from 3 nonconference games to 4 and because Arkansas was previously a nonconference game.

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And that was were the majority of Manziels yards/TDs came from.

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FAIL 3: Here were Manziel's stats in the regular season.

NONCONFERENCE Passing: 73-116-2 for 1,130 yards and 13 TD
CONFERENCE Passing: 200-284-6 for 2,289 yards and 11 TD

NONCONFERENCE Rushing: 56 carries for 483 yards and 9 TD
CONFERENCE Rushing: 128 carries for 698 yards and 10 TD

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Against LSU and Florida, they got killed.

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FAIL 4:

-Florida 20, A&M 17. Taylor Bertolet missed a field goal

-LSU 24, A&M 19. Taylor Bertolet missed two field goals and an extra point

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Then Manziel got lucky as hell, fumbled the ball and then had it bounce back in his arms against Alabama, make a few good scrambles and throwing up some luck balls to grab a quick lead before getting shut down the majority of the remaining game.

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FAIL 5: Manziel's completion percentage against Alabama was 77.4% (24 for 31). After taking a 20-0 lead in the first quarter, Alabama outscored A&M 24-9. (Failed 2 point conversion happened because, guess what, Bertolet missed ANOTHER PAT)

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But with his pumped up cupcake stats and the highlights/win against Alabama, everything needed for the narrative was there.

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FAIL 6: See FAIL 1 and FAIL 5. Manziel was the first quarterback to both score 20 rushing and 20 passing touchdowns AND throw for 3,000 and run for 1,000 in the same season. Compared to Manti Teo (who never scored a single career point) and Colin Klein, who had ok stats, he was the obvious choice.