Kevin Sumlin Responds to Johnny Manziel Shoving an Assistant Coach

At a spring practice last Saturday for the Texas A&M Aggies there was a rather unpleasant scene on the sideline when a graduate assistant coach got in the face of quarterback Johnny Manziel who shoved him in return.

Nothing further happened since the two were separated, but there was an issue now that needed to be responded to. Yes, you had an assistant that was inappropriate in the way he berated a player and got in his face, but you also had a player that got aggressive and put his hands on a coach.

On Monday when he was asked about it head coach Kevin Sumlin has this to say:

“To be honest with you I didn’t see it — I heard about it,” Sumlin said. “People make a big deal out of stuff like that. But things happen all the time in football. I don’t think it’s that big of a story."

The general perception is that the graduate assistant was wrong in his actions so what Manziel did was okay since he was provoked. After all, how many of us would not have reacted in a similar way?

While there is a certain logic to just writing it off doing so would be the worst thing that Sumlin can do.

The grad assistant was wrong; he needs to be disciplined, but so does the superstar. A lot of players will not care about the whole mess, but there will be a handful that are going to look at it and think "if that was me I'd be suspended or at least running till I puke. How come Johnny Football isn't?"

Sumlin is a smart, capable coach. Trying to paint the incident as no big deal is the right thing to do. Disciplining a player or coach in the media would be a mistake. Not disciplining them would be an even bigger mistake though.

This is a team matter that should be handled internally. Let's just hope it is and that something like this (or worse) never happens again.