I love Johnny Football … and no, I don’t mean St. John’s.

Johnny Manziel, the Heisman trophy-winning sophomore quarterback from Texas A&M, is at the center of the football universe right now. For the past year, I’ve enjoyed living vicariously through Manziel’s, nicknamed Johnny Football, golden on-and-off field antics.

But in all seriousness, this kid can play. Despite an Aggie loss, Manziel shredded the No. 1-ranked Alabama defense Saturday, Sept. 14, both on the ground and in the air. His shifty feet and laser arm have made millions of dollars already, but none of them are going to Manziel himself.

The NCAA draws an iron curtain between athletes and profit during their college careers, and Manziel recently found himself trapped beneath it.

Johnny Football was stuck with a half-game suspension after being photographed signing pictures for an autograph broker. After taking a look on Ebay, I found Manziel-autographed helmets going for as much as $999. Not bad for having three years of college left.

As college athletes begin to take center stage in the media, I think the NCAA needs to re-evaluate how student-athletes can and can’t make money.

Universities paying players is not the answer. Monetary incentives and salaries coming from schools will immediately shift the main focus away from learning, which is what these students are “supposedly” there to do first. However, loosening up on some of the rules can end up helping the NCAA and its athletes in the long run.

By allowing students to accept money for autographs, advertising, and personal contracts with their school’s athletic brand sponsor, athletes could use the opportunity to learn about money management. We’ve all heard of professional athletes that end up broke because of improper saving methods. This could be the NCAA’s opportunity to nip the issue in the bud. Requiring any student-athlete making money this way to take a class on managing their income seems logical to me.

However, not all college athletes are superstars or going on to play professional sports. For the vast majority, nobody is going to pay for their signatures, and Nike would never sign a shoe contract with them. But to me, that doesn’t justify universities exploiting its top-name athletes for millions of dollars without throwing them a bone every once and awhile.

If Manziel wants to make a few bucks signing autographs, fine. If Davanni’s wants to give St. Thomas quarterback Matt O’Connell $20 and a free pizza so he can appear on their billboard, I may ask for a slice, but more power to him. The point is, these athletes have name recognition, and they should be able to do what they want (to an extent) with that.

If the NCAA took a good, hard look at this issue, and came up with a way to compromise with student-athletes, I think we would see better behavior across the board. The bowl trip-ending suspensions like those at Ohio State would cease, and the NCAA wouldn’t have to play “mean mom” to a bunch of athletes, doling out punishments to players after a weekend of post-game drinking. If players have contracts with companies, they’ll be more reluctant to get hammered at the nearest frat party and post on social media for the world to see. Wouldn’t want to lose that contract, now would we? The less time the NCAA spends policing student-athletes, the more time it can spend on enhancing academics and enriching communities.

Give college athletes a little wiggle room with money. It might just prepare them for the real world, which the NCAA “claims” to be all about.

Alex Goering can be reached at goer8777@stthomas.ed