Ticats refuse to say if Manziel will play

If Johnny Manziel is going to play for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Saturday night, he insists he doesn’t know about it.

Starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli apparently isn’t sure, either.

“I’m not the coach, man, you’re asking the wrong person,” Masoli said when he was asked whether he expected to play the entire game. “I’m just doing my job.”

Unfortunately, there was no chance to ask the coach, as Ticats head coach June Jones opted out of speaking with the media when the team arrived in Calgary late Friday afternoon ahead of their game with the Stampeders on Saturday night.

So if Manziel’s going to take some snaps, fans aren’t going to know about it until he takes the field at McMahon Stadium.

A report from TSN’s Dave Naylor on Friday suggested there’s a decent chance the former Heisman Trophy winner does make an appearance against the Stampeders.

Considering he completed 12 of 20 passes for 88 yards and a touchdown in the Ticats’ second game of the CFL pre-season last weekend against the Montreal Alouettes, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise.

Like Masoli, though, Manziel didn’t reveal anything.

“Not sure, we’ll see how things go,” Manziel said. “I think at any time, any backup or anybody on our depth chart is one play, two plays away from getting in the game.

“That’s something I’ve learned over the course of the years and take very seriously.”

While the media circus that has surrounded Manziel’s arrival in Hamilton has obviously been disproportionate to what backup QBs in the CFL normally get, he did show flashes of the talent that made him such a superstar when he was with Texas A&M when he played against the Alouettes.

Flashes is the imperative word there, as nobody is pretending he’s anywhere near ready to lead the Ticats to the playoffs.

While he remains a work in progress in the Canadian game, he insisted Friday there has been progress.

“Very much so, I was very happy with the reps I got in the pre-season,” Manziel said. “I felt every rep I did get was an improvement for me in the learning process, so at the end of the day I feel like those reps I got in pre-season were invaluable.”

To his credit, Manziel was saying all the right things on Friday.

He admitted the speed of the Canadian game has been an adjustment, but said he spent Thursday night studying Edmonton Eskimos QB Mike Reilly — the reigning CFL most outstanding player — as he led his team to a late-night victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

“I was watching the game last night (Thursday) and the way Mike Reilly went about it, because for the first couple days here it was a blur for the most part,” Manziel said. “As you get more comfortable and as you feel like it’s second nature to you and you really have a good grip on everything and can run the offence in your sleep, everything else like that will come and everything will slow down.

“That’s kind of how I’m treating it and accepting it.”