After the Missouri football team scrimmaged on Saturday, Angie Azzanni texted Martez Manuel. Azzanni, the co-founder of Cor, a non-profit that provides academic and social support to male high-school athletes in Columbia, has been close with the Tiger safety since his days at Rock Bridge high school. She asked if he wanted to grab lunch. She figured he’d be hungry — it was well past noon, and Manuel had been at the Missouri football complex all morning, warming up, then scrimmaging, then posing for pictures on the field afterward with a few friends and family who got to attend.
To Azzanni’s surprise, Manuel turned her down. He thanked her for the offer but felt like he needed to use the afternoon to watch film.
Azzanni shared the story a few days later as an illustration of why she believes Manuel has emerged as a leader for Missouri’s defense, both on and off the field. A season after he started all 10 games and recorded 64 tackles, including seven for loss, Manuel is back at strong safety for the Tigers. Sunday, the team announced that he had been elected by his peers as one of three captains.
Azzanni believes Manuel earned that honor because he doesn’t just talk about improving his game on the field or becoming a better leader off it, he demonstrates his commitment with his actions.
“He’s always been the guy that’s going the extra step because he knows that someone else is going the extra step somewhere else,” Azzanni explained. “So he’s not going to be out-worked, out-done, out-committed, and that’s just natural for him. That’s just who he is. No one has to tell him to do that, he just has that inner drive, and I think it’s contagious and people want to be around guys like that.”
When Manuel got the news that he had been voted a captain, he initially thought he was in trouble. He had been summoned to head coach Eli Drinkwitz’s office in the South end zone of Faurot Field. When he arrived, he saw offensive lineman Case Cook, the lone returning captain from 2020. Manuel racked his brain to try to figure out what he’d done to warrant a lecture from both Cook and the head coach. It wasn’t until quarterback Connor Bazelak also entered the office that Manuel “started putting two and two together.”
“(Drinkwitz) was like, oh, I actually want to congratulate you, and he told me the news,” Manuel said. “I was just really honored that my teammates thought that much of me, and I just don’t want to let them down in any way.”
Manuel earned his captain title, in large part, because of his play on the field last season. Making the second start of his college career when Missouri hosted Alabama to open the season, Manuel wasn’t intimidated by the moment. He recorded seven tackles, including a game-high 3.5 for loss. He went on to record at least five tackles in all but two of the Tigers’ games last season. He finished the year third on the team in tackles and second in tackles for loss.
Yet Manuel still believes he has quite a bit more to show. He noted that he struggled in coverage at times last season, such as when Georgia running back James Cook beat him out of the backfield for a 37-yard touchdown catch on third down. Manuel acknowledged that he played more like a linebacker than a safety last season, and in the months since he’s dedicated himself to diversifying his skillset.
“I feel like last year I was kind of more of an outside linebacker than a safety, just sacks and tackles and stuff like that,” Manuel said. “So I really emphasized my coverage this season. Working on getting my hands on interceptions was a big one for me, as well. And just playing more fast.”
Playing fast typically hasn’t been an issue for Manuel; he’s been a downhill defender since high school. But he believes having a full year of starting experience and a relatively normal offseason to prepare will help the game slow down for him in 2021.
Azzanni said he approaches challenges off the field the same way he plays defense: When he identifies a need, he tackles it at full speed.
“He doesn’t hesitate,” Azzanni said. “I think that’s the best way to describe Martez, he doesn’t hesitate when he sees that something needs to be fulfilled. He grabs ahold of the opportunity and where he sees a need, and he just steps in.”
Those close to Manuel have seen him embrace a couple challenges with that fervor in recent months. The first has been filling the leadership void left behind by Tyree Gillespie, Joshuah Bledsoe and, especially, Nick Bolton.
Manuel is no stranger to leadership. During the summer of 2020, he helped organize the Missouri football team’s march through Columbia to protest the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. He’s also never been afraid to make his voice heard. Defensive tackle Kobie Whiteside complimented Manuel’s energy, and if you watch him during a game, it’s impossible not to notice his boisterous celebrations after just about every positive defensive play.
But Manuel acknowledged during spring practices that someone would need to emerge as a more vocal leader to replace the three departed draft picks. He wanted to become that guy. Last week, he said that doing so has taken him outside of his comfort zone at times — “sometimes you’ve got to be that a-hole,” he said — but his leadership has made an impression on his teammates.
“He’s the leader over there,” wide receiver Keke Chism said of Manuel. “And with that, I see a guy who is always eager to learn. I mean, the most impressive thing about ‘Tez, he wants to know everything. I constantly hear about him asking questions, trying to get more details on how to constantly improve. And when you have a leader like that who always wants to improve, that sparks everyone else to kind of take hold of what he is doing.”
Manuel isn’t satisfied with just leading inside the Missouri locker room. Since arriving at college, the Columbia native has talked about using his platform to be a positive force in the community. Characteristically, he’s made good on that promise. Azzanni said Manuel typically swings by Cor once or twice a week to talk with current high school athletes. He’s also made time to volunteer as a big brother for Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
“Football players, their time is really stretched, and it’s really admirable, I think,” Azzanni said. “He had talked about it for a while and then just decided, you know, this is something that’s really important to me, to give back.”
And like he’s hungry to keep improving his skillset on the football field, Manuel doesn’t want his community involvement to end there. He’s talked openly about using the NCAA’s newly-implemented policy allowing athletes to monetize their names, images and likenesses to host camps for local athletes. He and Azzanni have talked about some other ways he can give back in the future, as well.
Azzanni knows that, coming from Manuel, those words will be put into action.
“A lot of guys talk about that, but when it actually comes down to it, they don’t live it out,” Azzanni said. “Or their actions are only on the football field. … He’s actually wanting to live it out.”
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