What? You're not feeling it? I'm going to have to get your juices flowing? Oh ok.
That was one of the top 5 favorite Aggie baseball games. It was the Friday night game of my freshman season and I ended up in the RF bleachers to watch it. Justin Moore went 10 innings but it was Chris Russ who scored the game tying (as a PRer) and game winning (as the pitcher who was subbed for the DH) runs before picking up the win on the mound.
This year everything is kind of backwards. Barring a couple of exceptions the last several seasons it has been texas ranked in the Top 10 looking for a Regional & Super Regional host bid. This year it is the Ags who can wrap up the Big 12 Championship and with it an almost certain Super Regional bid.
The horns have had a disappointing season by their standards sitting currently with a 31-19 overall record and a 12-12 record in conference play.
At the time Augie raised some eyebrows in regards to workloads with Kenn Kasperek and Chase Ruffin but after looking at it I'm not as shocked about it as I was when it happened. I'll explain....On Tuesday April 29th Kenn Kasperek threw a gem against Texas State throwing 113 pitched and then came back on Sunday and threw another 126 pitches against Baylor. Sandwiched between those starts, freshman Chance Ruffin got the treatment as well going 150 pitches against Bears on Friday night. Since then neither pitcher has thrown thanks to finals so they both went out with a bang before getting a nice chunk of rest for 15 days.
Their pitching staff is kind of a mess. Of pitchers with 10+ innings pitched they have one pitcher with an ERA under 3.60 (Ruffin), only seven that are sub-5.00 and six that are super-6.00 (I googled "the opposite of sub-" and learned something new).
In their last 14 games texas has started six different pitchers and have had 33 bullpen appearances with 14 lasting less than a full inning.
Kasperek has been great in his last three starts (Baylor, TxSt, & Baylor) while Ruffin has been outstanding in his last three starts (OkSt, KSt, & Baylor). Other than those two it's been pretty lean (no horn puns intended).
Using the last 14 games as an indication of Augie's recent tendencies it seems that his top go-to guys out of the bullpen are Workman, Thomas, Belt and McCrory with mixed results.
Their top guys are fairly good but after that it gets paper thin.
Offensively this team is middle of the pack. They got back the 2007 Big 12 Player of the Year Thief, Kyle Russell, but he, like 2007 Big 12 POY Victim (Blake Stouffer), isn't putting up number like last year (.291/.447/.608 with 13 HRs). They also have 2006 Preseason All-American as a Freshman, Jordan Danks, who is having a solid season (.319/.449/.545 with 6 HRs) but isn't God's Gift to Baseball like all the pundits made us believe....kind of like Drew Stubbs...good but won't sniff the Golden Spikes Trophy once let alone annually.
I say all of this knowing that we're in a bit of a struggle right now ourselves. After the two heart breakers in Lincoln on Sunday we went up to UT-Arlington and didn't do so hot. There are concerns in my mind. From what I've read, we have lost Hank Robertson to an injury which shortens our already short bullpen. The good news from Tuesday night was the return of Jordan Chambless who threw a perfect inning and a third, striking out 3 of the four hitters he faced. Hopefully Superman is fully healthy for the final stretch and can be the missing link we've been looking for.
We need to also get our big sticks started up again.
The pitching match ups are as follow:
Friday (in Austin) 6pm
Brooks Raley v. Chance Ruffin
Saturday (at Olsen) 6:35pm
Barret Loux v. Austin Wood
Sunday (at Olsen) 1pm
Clayton Ehlert v. Kenn Kasperek
Friday night is a match up of two of the nations top starting freshman pitchers.
The Saturday game is the one we have to capitalize on.
Game 1 is tonight at 6pm and will be broadcast on Fox College Sports, which is a digital cable channel. I know that my service gets it but it's a premium channel that I personally don't get....which means I'm going to have to check and see if my folks get it, otherwise it's good ol' Dave on the radio. Saturday will be shown online at Aggie All-Access while the Sunday game was picked up by FSN Houston and will be broadcast regionally, although I plan on being at Olsen for that one.
Like I said on Monday, here is what has to happen for us to win the Big 12 title....if we win two games against texas then we win. If we only win one then Nebraska (who plays Mizzou next weekend) must sweep. If we get swept by texas then Nebraska has to win two against Mizzou.
Nebraska will face one of the nation's best in Aaron Crow on Friday night so GO MIZZOU!
They talk about the highs and lows of a baseball season and over a 48 hour time period we went from the highest high of the season to the lowest low. The last 10 innings of baseball on Sunday were the worst 10 innings I think we've played since Northern Colorado.
In the 9th inning of game 2 we had an 8-4 lead. Thebeau came in out of the bullpen in the 5th inning and was spectacular not allowing a hit until the 9th.
In that 9th Nebraska led off with a single and then Thebeau got the second batter to hit into a textbook definition of "routine double play" but we didn't field the ground ball. There should have been 2 outs at this point with no body on. We walked the next hitter then we butchered another ground ball that allowed a run to score. The inning and game should be over at this point. A single scored two more. The next batter hit a chopper to Duran at shortstop who recorded the force out at second, but the tying run scored. That should be 4 outs now, but instead it's only one. Thebeau strikes out the next hitter. 5 outs. We walk another guy and then Nebraska wins it with a game winning single.
Game three was pretty much a replay of that 9th inning over and over again.
We made 6 errors, walked 6 hitters, and hit 3 more. That is 15 free base runners. 8 of those free base runners scored and that doesn't take into account runs that scored as a result of those base runners reaching base. That is your ballgame right there.
If we lost because Nebraska beat us I wouldn't have such a problem but Nebraska didn't beat us. We beat us and gave them both of the games gift wrapped with a nice big red bow.
Somehow we scored 18 runs, but I'm still fairly concerned about the offense.
In the series we struck out FORTY ONE times. Colligan, Stouffer, Carter, & Anders combined for a .197 batting average in 61 at-bats. Thank God Jose Duran showed up.
Dane Carter's average has dipped to .397 after hitting a mortal .288 over our last 17 games compared to .453 over our first 35 games. That's a big difference (it's a 56 point drop).
Combine that with the 8 errors on Sunday and you can see why there is some slight concern among Aggie faithful. I think my concern is more in regards to post-season play than it is for Big 12 play. We're still in the driver's seat for the Big 12 Championship but things are much dicier now. If we win two games against texas then we win. If we only win one then Nebraska (who plays Mizzou next weekend) must sweep. If we get swept by texas then Nebraska has to win two against Mizzou.
We've got a game at UT-Arlington on Tuesday night which we need to come out focused for and then we have the horns who would love nothing more than to put a smile on their sagging season by ending our Big 12 title hopes.
Saturday afternoon's game was pushed back to 5pm due to inclimate weather in Lincoln. When I logged onto my computer at 5pm to listen to the game I discovered that it was postponed again until Sunday.
So now we have a double header starting at noon with 30 minutes between the two 9 inning games. Game 2 (the first game) will now be televised live on CBS College Sports and the second game should be available to watch on Huskers.com.
This makes things a little more interesting.
Even though school is out and we have chartered our own plane, does the Big 12's 72-hour rule apply? The purpose of the rule is to get the players back home for school but school is out now. I think that the fair thing to do would be to enforce the rule because all the other schools all season have had to deal with it. That said, I wouldn't be upset if they did away with it.
The next question is if the curfew rule is in play, where no inning can start after 6:30pm. Can we get in 18 innings of baseball between noon and 6:30?
Now, who does this benefit? I think it gives both teams a chance to throw some of their bullpen that they used on Friday night in either game 2 or game 3, as opposed to just game 3. I think that we're more dependant on Thebeau, particularly after T-Star threw 108 pitches on Friday, than Nebraska is on their two guys, Herr & Jennings, who would most likely get to see action again.
I got home from work at 6:15pm and figured out how to watch the game on Nebraska's website just in time for the first pitch at 6:35pm. I left my desk chair twice over the next 5:20 hours, once to use the facilities and once to scrounge through the fridge for some questionable pizza leftovers.
Two Top 10 teams with personnel ties just battling it out blow for blow with the conference championship and a Super Regional host bid on the line.
That was one of the most unbelievable games and there were so many ups and downs. Considering the importance, which climbed exponentially as the innings went on and the bullpens chalked up pitch counts, it might have been the best game ever....at worst it's #2 to the '04 Rice Regional.
There were so many huge plays and big moments, good and bad, that I'm afraid that I won't remember them all to recap.
The pitching was dynamite for both teams. Brooks Raley racked up 39 pitches in the first two innings but then became really efficient and lasted 4 more innings finishing with 108 pitches. He gave up only 1 run on 4 hits and got himself (but mostly the defense) out of several big time jams. The biggest was in the 5th inning with runners on second and third base and no outs. The announcers kept talking about how they were getting the feeling that he was ripe for the picking. Brooks got the next hitter to hit a bullet back at him and he threw the runner the third base out as he tried to get back to the bag. It eliminated the lead runner and set up a potential double play. The next batter hit a soft looping line drive to Dane Carter at third base for the second out before Brooks coaxed a fly out to Brodie Greene in LF. It was huge as we maintained a 2-1 lead.
Nebraska's starter, Johnny Dorn, was a freshman All-American after Coach Childress recruited him to Lincoln. He was every bit as good as Raley going 8 innings allowing only 2 ER on 5 hits. He had some big rally killing strikeouts.
Kyle Thebeau came in to start the 7th inning for us and, like Raley, wasn't helped by the defense. The first batter hit a dying line drive single into LF that our RFer dove for and it turned into a triple as it rolled to the fence. Thebeau struck out the next batter and then Coach Childress brought the infield in and it worked as we got a ground ball to SS that held the runner at third. We couldn't get out of the inning unscathed as a wild pitch scored the runner and tied up the ballgame.
Ruggianio, who was the RFer, made up for his mistake in the top of the 8th with a huge RBI single, his second of the game, to put us up again.
Thebeau came out for the 9th and got into trouble so Coach brought in closer, Travis Starling, who got shelled for the first time Tuesday night at Sam Houston (6 h, 6 er, in 1 inning).
All I can say is TRAVIS STARLING!
It was the most amazing relief appearance I've ever seen as T-Star finished the game with 8 innings of shutout baseball. He threw a career high 105 pitches and has to be done for the weekend. After the 12 inning I was thinking that he would be fried for games 2 and 3 already so him being able to go the distance saved the rest of our bullpen for the weekend. He was unreal allowing only 4 hits. He had the game of the season.
The Huskers loaded the bases in the 15th after a 1 out error, a single, a pop up, and a single....but Travis got the last batter to ground out to Duran at SS to get out of the jam.
In the top of the 16th inning we loaded the bases on back-to-back-to-back singles that didn't get out of the infield. The biggest one, in my opinion, was a Ben Feltner bunt that moved Brodie Greene to second and Ben just outran the throw. Stouffer popped out before Dane Carter came to the plate with 2 outs (and 5 Ks on the evening). At this point Nebraska's closer Dan Jennings had been in the game for 2+ innings. He got Dane to pop up to the catcher, but the catcher dropped the ball. Two pitches later the league's top hitter doubled into the right-center gap clearing the bases and giving the Ags a 6-3 lead that T-Star would not relinquish in the bottom of the inning.
It was the longest game in Big 12 history.
At this point I think that the biggest concern for the series is going to be how the bullpens stack up. I can't imagine seeing Raley or Starling again but I wouldn't be surprised to see Thebeau get another inning or two on Sunday. He threw 48 pitches, which is a number that isn't out of the ordinary for him. From Nebraska I would say that Dorn is done for the weekend and probably Dan Jennings, their closer. The rest of the guys they threw are probably ok for another appearance.
Game 2 has been pushed back to 5pm due to bad weather in Lincoln. This kind of screws up my evening but it's probably best for the team to get some extra rest.
Dallas Baptist was able to do what no Big 12 team has done to the Ags in a month and a half....win a game. They came into Olsen Field on Thursday night and laid the lumber to us.
Our pitching that night wasn't very good, but Childress was giving lots of the guys who haven't been pitching regularly on the weekend some prime time action (Kirkland Rivers, Carson Middleton, Evan Gerald, Kevin Cravey, & Shane Minks). That group has combined for 6.2 innings of work in our last 11 weekend games.
Once the Big 12 tournament and the NCAA Regionals and Super Regionals come around, we will have to dip into this group of arms much more frequently and hopefully Thursday night was a little tune up.
Saturday we won fairly easily with a huge evening from Brian Ruggiano, who hit 2 HRs. He's only 2 HRs shy of his brother's single season high but he's hitting 25 points higher than Justin ever did.
It was also nice that Dane Carter got back on track after slumping a bit. Going into the series Dane's average had dropped 46 points over a 10 game span (hitting .237). He was still hitting .408 and it's almost impossible to keep up a .454 batting average, but it was still enough for me to notice.
Sunday was a wild one. I went up to College Station to watch the game and help my Dad and brother add a back door to the house up there. Let's just say that it took a little longer than we thought and we didn't catch the game (although I could hear the faint sound of the PA from the backyard).
We were down 4-1 before we put up a 4 spot in the 6th inning. Clayton Ehlert and Travis Starling threw 4 shutout innings to close the door on our 40th win of the season. According to Boyd's World we moved up in the RPI to #6, just ahead of Oklahoma State and just behind Rice.
The Big 12 standings are as follow (these do not include today's games)
Nebraska, Oklahoma State and us all played non-conference series this weekend, which worked out nicely.
We've got a tough game stretch coming up with a 6 game road trip playing Tuesday night in Huntsville against Mark Johnson's Bobcats, traveling up to Lincoln for the series of all series, then playing at UT-A the following Tuesday, and starting the Lonestar Showdown in Austin that Friday night before coming home for the Saturday/Sunday games. After that we have the Big 12 tournament up in Oklahoma City so all in all we'll play at least 8 of our next 10 games on road before an almost certain Regional hosting in College Station.
Bottom line is that we've enjoyed an overloaded home schedule this season but you've gotta be able to win on the road too.
Crimson & Cream Machine emailed out a list of roundtable questions so I decided to get out of baseball mode for 30 minutes, put on my football helmet, and answer the questions. You should see me in that helmet....I look ridiculous. Seriously.
Q1. Who are some of the new faces that emerged in the spring who could be serious play makers for your team this fall?
A1. I think the name that we all heard the most this spring was Bradley Stephens, the redshirt freshman RB. With Jorvorskie Lane now playing fullback I imagine that Stephens will get 10 or so carries per game with Mike Goodson getting the bulk of the action.
I also think that Jamie McCoy will be a big part of our offense. McCoy has moved from QB to WR to finally to TE this spring. With Sherman's offense I expect to see him getting lots of touches. I see him in the TE mold that can line up as a WR and go vertically down the field.
Q2. What is your biggest concern following the spring?
A2. My concern ending last season was the lack of experience we have at offensive line. Four months later I'm still highly concerned about that unit. We have one player returning with more than 4 career starts.
Q3. Any major changes (philosophy, coaching or personnel) that you are concerned about?
A3. We had all sorts of major changes in philosophy, coaching, and personnel. To be honest, I'm not worried about the coaching change....at worst it can't be worse than what we've had. Our key personnel hasn't really changed all that much. The only concern will be how quickly we can make the change in scheme.
Q4. Looking over the 2008 schedule which home and away game are you most concerned about?
A4. Our road schedule is not very intimidating. The biggest game will be in Austin against the horns. Our home schedule is a little hairier with Miami, tech, and OU. We always play OU well at home and Miami will be fun but we always struggle with tech so that would be my pick.
Q5. Time for your way too early predictions (Yes, you can change them in August). Rank how you see your division finishing up this coming season.
A5. Big 12 South will be 1) OU, 2) texas, 3) TAMU, 4) tech, 5) OkSt, 6) Baylor
The men's baseball team continues to amaze. Tuesday night at TCU they beat the Horned Frogs 3-2 infront of a record crowd. I really wonder how many record crowds we've drawn while on the road. I know we have UT-A, Rice, and TCU.
We start a three game series with Dallas Baptist tonight as we play Thursday, Friday, & Saturday to allow for finals.
In order to keep regular rest for our normal starters, Kirkland Rivers will start tonight and we'll get Brooks Raley and Barret Loux on their regular Friday and Saturday spots.
With the sweep of Mizzou we have now moved into everyone's Top 10, including the reluctant Baseball America who moved us from #18 to #10. The most important thing is that we were ranked #12 in the RPI prior to the TCU game (Boyd's World has us at #8 after the TCU game). All of our remaining opponents are in the Top 40 (DBU is #39, texas is #34, and Nebraska is #7).
The Aggie baseball team is flat out unreal. We have now swept a Big 12 record FIVE consecutive series winning a Big 12 record 15 consecutive conference games. We're 20-1 over our last 21 games.
Team Meeting Colligan at Home on Sunday (photo by Wildmen03)
Last weekend it was Baylor and this weekend was the biggest of the five as #4 Missouri came into Olsen Field and left 3 games further back in the standings.
Friday night was incredible. We were facing the top pitcher in the nation, in Aaron Crow. I listened to the first inning and a half on the radio on the way home from work but didn't get to catch the rest of it. Ben Feltner robbed a grand slam to end the second inning and get us out of a huge jam.
We ended up getting down 8-1 but starting in the bottom of the 6th we fought our way back and won it with a little Olsen Magic in the 9th inning. Bases were juiced with no outs and Mizzou balked home the winning run. It was kind of a crappy way to win a game but really I think that we would have pulled it out either way. How many times have we been held scoreless with the bases loaded and no outs?
Saturday was an old fashioned romp. We won 15-0 behind an excellent start from freshman Barret Loux.
Sunday was one that will live on in Aggie lore.
Before I get into the game I should probably bring up a dispute Ags are having with Baseball America's current poll. I know that baseball polls aren't worth the paper they're printed on but we're ranked no lower than 8th in the other three polls and BA has us at #18. They've got Mizzou at #4 despite the fact that they were trailing us by 6 games in the conference standings AND were 17 slots below us in the RPI rankings.
The Sunday game was on FSN so I was able to watch it at home. Clayton Ehlert threw a gem for us on the mound and after he came out in the 7th inning we had a 2-0 lead. In the 9th inning Travis Starling gave up the game tying hit and we had to bat in the bottom of the 9th. Starling didn't have his "A" game at all but he battled with what he had and gave us three innings of work.
We were unable to scratch anything across in the 9th inning against Mizzou's starter Rick Zagone, who was throwing a masterpiece. He was at 142 pitches and I didn't think there was any way we'd see him in the bottom of the 10th. We did and Kyle Colligan hit Zagone's 143rd pitch into Aggie Alley for the game winner. It was awesome.
To top it all off, Baylor beat Nebraska and we were able to pick up another game on the Huskers in the standings.
We play at TCU on Tuesday and then host Dallas Baptist for a non-conference weekend series. All 4 of those games are going to be big for us, even though they're not Big 12 games because both of those teams have solid RPIs (going into this weekend TCU was #27 and DBU was #29....we were #23). After those four games we have a Tuesday game at Sam Houston against Mark Johnson's club and then we have the HUGEST series of the season in Lincoln against the Huskers. We follow that up with a three game set with the horns. Talk about a back loaded schedule.
As we sit right now our Magic number is 4 games in conference play.
On April 12th of 2003 I spent my morning standing at the north west entrance of Kyle Field passing out roster cards for the athletic department. With the rosters came a puzzle that when put together the puzzle was a picture of Coach Fran super-imposed in front of Kyle Field commemorating the day.
A couple of weeks later I was given a print of the puzzle signed by Coach Fran as a thank you for working that day.
I remember how much excitement there was in the air. It was going to be Aggieland's first peek at our new head coach in action. It was look into the crystal ball at the future of the football program.
Tomorrow will be another glimpse into the future as Coach Sherman will lead the squad out onto Kyle Field for the first time (unofficially). For some reason I don't feel the same buzz around the game as I did in '03. That could be partially because I'm no longer on campus but I think part of it is also because we're taking the new hire a little more cautiously. We're like the little kid who just burnt his hand on the stove.
I won't be able to make it to the game but I'm going to be in town for some of the events earlier in the day. I really enjoyed the State of the Department discussion with Bill Byrne last year so I'm looking forward to doing that again. It is a great forum and Byrne did a really good job explaining how the Athletic department works and how all the money is divided up and prioritized.
Here's a link to the day's scheduled activities and a wonderful little pep talk from the new coach.
As for the game itself, I am disappointed that I'm going to miss it but at the same time I'm always really excited for the game and then when I get there and re-remember that it is just a glorified scrimmage and that I don't recognize half of the players. Even so, I'll probably end up watching it on Aggie All Access on Sunday while I'm doing payroll for work.
We all know that the Fran era was one that we would like to seen go differently but that Maroon & White game sure was exciting to be at. I don't remember a single play from the game and it's unlikely that many will remember any plays from tomorrow evening's game but it's exciting to be excited about the state of the program again.
When we swept Kansas we broke a lull that dated back to 2003. Since we swept Kansas we've swept our next series, including Oklahoma this past weekend....vaulting us into 1st place in the Big 12 standings.
Aggie baseball is performing at a very high level right now, but before I claim this squad bound for the Midwest in mid-June, we need to keep a level of reality. Here are the 5 teams right behind us:
In other words we've lost the only series we've played against teams #2 through #6. The future schedule holds all the answers to our questions and it's our title to lose.
We had a great week last week beating Houston 13-6 at Cougar Field. I made it out to the game and had a great time. Over the weekend we swept Oklahoma with a 9th inning Olsen Magic win on Friday night and then trounced them the rest of the weekend, 10-3 and 12-2 (run-rule).
The Saturday night game will be remembered for a long time to come. Luke Anders was hit 3 times and had another pitch thrown behind him....this after hitting two HRs on Friday night. After the second HBP there were some words exchanged between the coaching staffs and we had three members of the staff tossed.
Rob Childress was about 1/8th of a second from skinning Bobo Galloway. For the hundredthtime....I love the hiring of Rob Childress.
I think the best part of the entire thing was that we came out and run ruled the bastards on Sunday, sending them home after 7 innings.
Our offense has been spectacular over our 13 game winning streak. In the last 12 games we are averaging 10.2 runs per game.
Tomorrow night we put our 23 game weekday winning streak on the line as we host the Rice Owls. I have no doubt that our men want to avenge last season's Super Regional defeat (G1, G2), which still irks me.
I'll be making the drive up, although these 6:30 first pitches make it difficult for me to be there for the first inning or so.
I haven't forgotten about our baseball team. They've actually excelled during the last couple of weeks so I'm a little afraid to say something and screw up all that karma.
We are now through four series in Big 12 play and at 9-3 are off to our best start since the conference was formed. We swept back-to-back series against Kansas last weekend and Kansas State this weekend....after not having a conference sweep since 2003. Those wins are part of a 9 game winning streak that we're going through.
The current shape of the Big 12 looks like this:
Big 12 Overall
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Nebraska 10-1-1 24-4-1
TEXAS A&M 9-3-0 26-6-0
texas 7-5-0 21-10-0
Missouri 5-4-0 22-8-0
Ok St 6-6-0 20-9-0
Baylor 6-6-0 19-11-0
Oklahoma 3-5-1 22-10-1
texas tech 4-8-0 16-15-0
Kansas State 2-7-0 15-15-0
Kansas 1-8-0 19-16-0
Our schedule only gets tougher from here on out as we host OU, H-A-A with Baylor, host Mizzou, and then finish up conference play with three at Nebraska, and an A-H-H with texas. Those last two weekends (both in May) are going to be HUGE.
We've been hitting the living tar out of the ball of late. Darby Brown has been red-hot as has Luke Anders. Darby was robbed of the Big 12 POW award last week.
One of the keys to setting up for a nice post-season bid is winning your weeknight games, which we have continued to do this year (10-0). Those wins add up. Our weeknight winning streak goes back 23 games into the 2006 season. The last loss was to Houston on Tuesday April 18th in College Station. We have those same Cougs on Tuesday at Cougar Field in Houston.
My intent was to take an in depth look at our pitching at the mid-point of the season....but I missed that mark so here it is through 31 of our regular season 55 scheduled games.
Below you'll find what I've dubbed "The Childress Numbers". Coach Childress focuses on three numbers from his pitching staff. A strikeout-to-walk ratio over 3, a hit-per-inning pitched ratio lower than 1, and he wants to lead the conference in walks per 9 innings. The next two columns are numbers that I like to see, in addition to Childress's numbers. The first is freebases-per-9 innings, which is the same as BB/9 but it includes HBP as well. I think HBP are just as bad as walks. Groundball:Flyball ratio is next, which shows what batters do with the ball when they make contact. The final number is the average number of pitches each guy is throwing to each batter they've faced.
We've only had a few guys go both ways, but what I've noticed is that Childress has more defined and definitive roles for our pitchers. Barrett Loux is the only starter who hasn't thrown a single relief outing and all of the other guys who aren't listed haven't made a start. Other than Thebeau, who only started in his first appearance of the season, and Raley, who has solidified himself in the early weekend rotation, all the rest of those guys are faces we should expect to see start during the weeknight games or on Sunday, and throw in long relief on the weekend.
That's all for now. I'll be at the ballgame on Tuesday night for "The Game in the Ghetto". Grab some Mickey D's across the street from the ballpark and keep one hand on your concealed handgun.
For the last three years the end of basketball season ushers in another delightful season....spring football is here! The Maroon & White game is on Saturday September 19th at 6:30pm.
We've gone through 3 practices now and we're hearing all the same things we hear every year....young quasi-heralded player looks like the next Barry Sanders (BEWARE incumbent All-Conference starter)....back-up QB looks really good -- position battle in our future?....position changes....all of the OLmen are putting on a show....DB looks like he might be able to play at the next level (but for some reason he rarely saw the field last season)....so-and-so has really worked hard this off-season and is in the best shape of his career -- never to be heard of again....
Everyone eats it up, and I'm no different. I joke about the media clippings but I've read every one of them from top to bottom scouring for a tidbit of information that I might have missed. I'm even pouring over photos taken at practice as if I can discern the right technique for hitting the sled.
One nice change by the new staff is that all of the practices are open to current and former students. I wasn't able to make the drive on Saturday up to B/CS but many did which provides a little more discussion on all the message boards because we're not relying on the 4 or 5 beat writers to give us the information.
I haven't posted much recently but I've been working on some various projects for the site. I'm putting together a Ticket Museum (sneak peak)as well as a compilation of individual and team stats from old media guides. I'm also taking year reviews from the media guides and turning them into PDFs. My goal is to provide a virtual library for Aggie football fans because Aggieathletics does a fairly good job with the recent stuff but the years pre-dating the internet are very difficult to find any information on. I'm a long, long, long way from achieving that goal but as they say, "You gotta start somewhere".
Anyways I was going back through the site and I realized that I never made a recap for the Alamo Bowl. At this point I'm not sure that it would be read by anyone nor am I sure that I remember enough about it to write it without having to go back and re-watch it. I also realized that I never posted about the new coaching staff. I wrote it all a couple of months ago and just forgot about it.
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I thought this would be a good time to address the next wave of hires in the football coaching staff. Before I jump into it I shot off an email to a TAMABINPO friend, Warren St. John, author of one of my favorite books, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, and asked him his opinion of our new defensive coordinator. As a rabid 'Bama fan I think getting some of his insight would be informative.
Hi Ryan Just saw this -- sorry for the slow response. Joe Kines is one bad dude. His Ds at Bama are the only thing that saved us from destruction under Shula. He's also one of the funniest and most charismatic, old-school types coaches around. You should google some of his best quotes -- very funny. And I'm sure you've seen the "stop the inside trap" video on YouTube. That's classic Kines. Our D under him was about using the LBs to make the stops. Fortunately we had Demeco Ryans, who could cover a WR as well as he could plug a hole. In terms of personal credibility, he's sort of the anti-Fran.
Enjoy him!
best Warren
I've read all these good things about Kines on Alabama message boards but I take this one with a little more credibility.
When we hired Sherman there was much made about him taking less money so we had more to spend on our assistants. The Dallas Morning News put together a salary chart of the new hires. It was all done before the big Reggie Herring fiasco but you'd have to imagine that Kines got similar money.
For comparison purposes, Koenning made $255K last year and Darnell made $285K. The other difference was that they were 3-year deals as opposed to the annual rollover contracts that Fran's assistants had.
Koenning's replacement as offensive coordinator will be Nolan Cromwell. This will actually be the first time he has coached at the collegiate level after serving for the Seattle Seahawks from '99-'07 as their WR coach and at Green Bay from '92-'97 as the special teams coach and '98 as the WR coach. From what I've gathered we will be running a more pro-style offense which goes against the recent trend of spreading it out and using an athletic QB. Should be interesting. I wish I had some sort of data to show you but I don't know what I'd use to give any sort of perspective.
Another hire that I'm excited about is defensive line coach, Buddy Wyatt. Wyatt is returning to Aggieland after serving on R.C.'s staff from '00'-'02. He went to Alabama for 3 years before packing up and heading to Lincoln to coach at Nebraska for 2 years. I have a feeling he played at least a small part with Kines coming to re-join forces. He is a big time recruiter, which is something that is really important to me. Bring in the talent.
Our strength and conditioning coach is going to be Dave Kennedy. Kennedy was in his second stint at Nebraska from '04-'07. Before that he was at Pitt for 2 years and before that he was at Ohio State for 12 seasons (dating back to '89). He was an assistant under Boyd Epley in the mid-80s at Nebraska.
For defensive backs we have retained the services of Van Malone (the glue that held our signing class together) and have added Charles McMillian (a Bryan native). McMillian was at TCU from '04-'07 following stints at Indiana ('02-'03), Cincinnati ('01), the Naval Academy ('00), and Boise State ('98-'99).
Jim Turner was our hire as the OL coach. He is a former Marine Officer whose last two stops were at Boston College and Delaware. Combined with Sherman's expertise as an OL coach, I am pleased with where we are going in that regards. At OL we're going to need help in the short term and at the same time need to build a solid program long term. The old cliché, "the game is won in the trenches", isn't just a cliché. It is fact, regardless of how unheralded and unexciting OLmen are.
Sherman's final hire was the Special Teams & TE coach, Kirk Doll, another familiar face. He was a LBer coach here from '88-'93 during the height of the Wrecking Crew days. He went on to coach at Notre Dame ('94-'01) under both Lou Holtz & Bob Davie as a LBer coach and special teams coach, and was also assistant HC in his final four years there. After Notre Dame Doll went to LSU and as the assistant HC & LB coach helped the Tigers win the national championship. Then it was off to the NFL to work for the Denver Broncos as a special teams coach ('04) and LB coach ('05-'06). He is a very solid hire.
Finally, we have two new graduate assistants that I thought I'd mention....Zac Taylor, the former Nebraska QB/current Sherman future son-in-law....and....Archie McDaniel, the Aggie LBer from '02-'05.
I think Sherman did an excellent job mixing youth and experience, collegiate experience and NFL experience, and familiar faces and new faces.
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A couple of quick notes from our three early practices that seem to be unanimous from all major sources of information:
Stephen McGee had surgery on his non-throwing shoulder and was not expected to participate in anything this spring more physical than tossing the ball in the front yard. He has worked incredibly hard, not a surprise with this guy, and he has been 100% cleared medically
Mike Goodson was injured on Saturday although it isn't as bad as everyone thought. Probably just a pinched nerve in his neck.
Bradley Stephens and Jeff Fuller are going to be studs
Anthony Lewis, Von Miller and Garrick Williams are apparently the answer at LBer
......
AggieSports (the Eagle sports page) provided this comment:
"Quick with their feet: Defensive ends Cyril Obiozor and Amos Gbunblee got to the quarterback with regularity in one-on-one blocking drills, often having success with their inside moves."
That worries me. I mean, I'm thrilled for Cyril and Amos, but the two of them have a total of 4 sacks between them in 73 career games. Either they're going to blow my socks off in the fall or, more likely, my expectations for the OL shouldn't be too high.
......
Position changes:
J.Lane RB --> FB
Pugh S --> CB
Peterson CB --> S
Chavis S --> TE --> LB
V.Miller DE --> LB
G.Williams S --> LB
J.McCoy S --> TE
B.Bass DE --> TE
M.Ebbitt DE --> TE
I really like Miller moving to LB....J-Train is going to be used for blocking and pass catching and if he isn't used in short-yardage situations then Sherman should get fired simply for not learning from Fran's mistakes.
......
In other news, the Grid Iron Bash has been cancelled. It was a big concert in conjunction with a dozen or so spring games across the country. We were getting Z.Z. Top while other schools were getting groups like Maroon 5, Alan Jackson, Fergie, Fall Out Boys, etc. Whichever school sold the most tickets to the concert was going to win a cool million dollars.
The guys putting on the GIB claim that the NCAA has put a halt to it but the NCAA has come out and said the only thing they halted was the use of current athletes as part of the advertising. Sounds like someone was about to go in the red and needed a bail out. We had sold 10,000 tickets for Z.Z. Top....and I'd guess that most of those tickets went to Ags with mid-80s years stamped on their ring. I'm really not all that heartbroken about it. I listened to samples of all the songs off of their Greatest Hits CD and I only recognized 3 of the 18 songs, but couldn't name a one of them. I guess I'm too New Army.
Some time this off-season I'm going to take a look at the talent that Sherman and the rest of his staff will be inheriting so we can end the "Cupboard was full/empty" discussions before they start. But before then I'll talk a little Aggie baseball.
We brought our A-game to Anaheim but it just wasn't enough. We built up a 10 point lead in the second half but UCLA took the lead with 1:31 remaining.
In the first half we dominated the Bruins inside but in the second half Kevin Love pretty much stopped every shot we took. The refs really let the players hammer each other inside which benefited Love tremendously. He finished with 7 blocks, 19 points, and 11 rebounds.
Love was their enigma in the second half but Darren Collison was hot in the first. He hit his first 4 threes.
Donald Sloan had a great night scoring 12 points, many on tough shots in the lane. He took the ball down the court on that last possession that started with 9.5 seconds but his shot was blocked and UCLA returned it the other way finishing with a jam (which, for some reason, counted even though the dunk was after the buzzer). When I re-watched the play it was fairly obvious that Sloan's arm was completely hacked which in Anaheim is considered a blocked shot. After the game the still photos emerged.
It's really hard to shoot when someone has a kung-foo grip on your shooting wrist and another guy is slapping your shooting elbow at the same time.
I had told Jennifer before we in-bounded that 9 times out of 10 we don't get a shot off in that situation....whether it be sloppy passing, losing the handle on the ball, or whatever. Argh....I forgot to say missed foul calls.
There was another question that I had as the game was going on. With the game tied, there was a loose ball where Joe Jones was tripped up and a foul was called. Jones went to the line to shoot free throws but the officials called it an offensive foul on UCLA, therefore no free throws. I don't claim to understand all the rules and calls, but how on earth was that not a loose ball foul?
Really, Love hit the two big shots. The first was a fade away jumper that bounced a couple of times before falling through, tying the game at 54 with 3:00. The next was an undefendable fade-away on the baseline that gave them the lead at 47-45. Those were big time shots and you have to tip your cap to UCLA for making the plays.
UCLA will now face the winner of tomorrow’s improbable 12-seed Villanova v. 13-seed Sienna in the Sweet Sixteen.
Our Ags played a pretty good overall game against the Cougars. Josh Carter, however, was incredible. When he hit his 4th 3-pointer and the announcers said it was his season high, Pat (who came over to watch the game) and I looked at each other in disbelief. I knew he had a sub-Carter season but I didn't realize he hadn't hit more than 3 tres in a game. Carter finished with 26 points, tying his career high, with 6 of 10 coming from beyond the arc.
Joe Jones had a double double (10 pts, 12 boards) while Bryan Davis continued to shine picking up 11 points and 7 boards.
With 1-seed UCLA winning it forces us into a very tough draw. Can we win...yeah. Is it realistic....no. Am I rooting for it...heck yeah.
It's going to take everything we have to slow down the dominate Bruins. They have one of the freshmen of the year and overall All-American at center in Kevin Love as well as one of the best guards in the game, Darren Collison (14.9 ppg and 51% from beyond the arc). We struggle against top level guards and Collison scares the tar out of me. It will be the third season in a row that we face UCLA so we should be fairly familiar with what they can do.
My bracket was strong on Thursday but I fell like the Berlin Wall on Friday. At the end of round one I have 24 of the 32 teams remaining....but I still have 14 of my Sweet 16 teams and all of my Elite 8 teams.
It begins tomorrow and we're playing as a 9-seed, which suprised me. We're facing 8-seed BYU, which is a team that I know nothing about. If we win we'll get 1-seed UCLA on Saturday sometime between 8pm & 9pm (it starts "approximately 25 minutes after Game 5", which starts at 5:45pm.
Here's my bracket. My final four are KU, UCLA, Tennessee, & Pitt. I've got KU & UCLA in the finals with KU winning it all.
I'm not trying to neglect the baseball team. I went to the game on Saturday against tech and have watched or listened to just about every other game but I just haven't had time to write about the boys on the diamond. We finished up our 20 game homestand with a 16-4 record (2-1 in Big 12). Our second Big 12 series will start this weekend as we travel to Stillwater to play oSu Friday night, and Saturday & Sunday afternoons.
Going into the Big 12 Tournament we were sitting squarely on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament.
We all found out on Thursday that DeAndre Jordan was suffering from an illness which limited him to a total of 9 minutes for the tournament.
We also found out that Donald Sloan lost his mother Thursday morning. Thankfully, he was able to get up to see her on Wednesday. Our thoughts and prayers are with Donald and his family.
We beat ISU Thursday night pulling away in the final 5 minutes to finish with a 60-47 victory. Sloan had a great game falling one assist and one rebound away from a triple double. Dominique Kirk tied Sloan for the scoring lead with 12 points and we saw a resurgent Bryan Davis who had 10 points and 4 blocks.
Friday night we faced the 3-seed, Kansas State, who throttled us earlier in the season. We played really well and led at the break by 5 points. Dominque Kirk went off for 19 points on 5-of-6 from beyond the 3 point line. Bryan Davis continued his resurgence with a second double digit scoring night.
We held Kansas State offensively except for Michael Beasley who had 25 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Beasley got all of our healthy big men into foul trouble with Davis, Jones, & Elonu each finishing the night with 4 fouls.
Elonu played quite a bit this weekend in Jordan's absence and I was impressed with what he was able to provide in terms of rebounding, hustling, and blocking. He had 16 rebounds and 4 blocked shots in our three games.
Another bench player I continue to be impressed with is Beau Muhlbach. He averaged just under 20 minutes per game with 7.3 ppg and all the attributes a scrappy, hustle guy brings to the court. The other thing that I like is that he can drive to the hoop and create a shot inside the paint, which is something we've sorely missed for the majority of the season.
We finished off KSU with a 3 point victory and faced #5 Kansas on Saturday afternoon. I had to DVR the game because I was at Olsen Field walking around with my hands over my ears so I wouldn't hear the score.
It was another great ballgame with a 2 point differential with under a minute left in the game. We just didn't have quite the horsepower.
Bryan Davis had another nice game with 16 points and 7 boards while Joe Jones & Kirk stepped in adding double digits as well.
This afternoon they are announcing the NCAA tournament. After our solid showing we are essentially a lock to get in and should be a 6 or 7 seed.
Here's to a nice soft bracket that will put us in Houston.
Kansas is freaky good. It's the only non-A&M team I've ever known the names of the guys coming off the bench.
My brother had already come home for spring break so he joined our old man and me on our trek to College Station for the game.
We made entirely too many mistakes to hang with Kansas. They had about 40 steals and we threw some really bad passes that couldn't be handled.
I thought that the defense played well overall but we couldn't capitalize on some of the big breaks that we got. There were plenty of opportunities but we couldn't put the ball in the hoop. Lots of missed open shots, missed layups, and a continued lack of offensive rebounding.
The loss, coupled with OU & Baylor wins, put us in a spot where we're going to have to play in the first round of the Big 12 tournament on Thursday as the 6-seed (v. either Colorado or Iowa State). It also put us squarely back on the bubble of the NCAA tournament. I think we're going to get in as it is but winning our game in the first round of the Big 12 tourney will be a really big help.
We went up to Waco and beat the Bears running away in the last two minutes with a very competitive and very high energy ballgame.
There were 16 blocks in the ballgame, 6 by Mamadou Diene who was matched by DeAndre Jordan's 6.
We had 4 players in double digits (including Beau Muhlbach with 12) with Josh Carter and Donald Sloan leading the way with 17. Carter had his sweet stroke back, which we can only pray stays around for the next 6 weeks, and all 17 of Sloan's points came in the second half.
Muhlbach brings a nice bit of hustle to the lineup, as well as a sort of calming presence when things start to get out of control. He hit a big shot on a pull up jumper to squash a late Baylor surge.
Bryan Davis didn't bring a nice bit of hustle; he brought a whole lot of it. He's been quiet the last few games but was huge for us getting into jump ball situations, and saving a couple of possessions with diving efforts.
The game got really crazy towards the end. Right at the 2 minute mark Joseph Jones provided a screen that rivaled Bryan Davis's earlier this season against D.J. Augustin.
Completely clean. We scored on the play and then while the medical staff was attending to Tweety Carter who was down on the floor for a long time, a little mouthing went on between the two team's benches. Both Diene and an Aggie assistant were T-ed up. It was, in my mind, the turning point in the ballgame. The score was 55-47, still very reasonable with 2 minutes remaining, but it was Diene's 5th foul which was much to our advantage.
Drew Scott continued to foul, down by 10, 11, 12 points with less than 30 seconds left (something he did last year as well with even less time on the clock). This year we didn't call back-to-back timeouts with 2.7 seconds left. Donald Sloan did the talking up around the rim with an ally-oop to himself off the backboard as the clock wound down.
It was sweet.
The fans in Waco didn't think so and they started throwing cups and things down on the court. Over on BaylorFans.com they're saying it was Aggies that were throwing things, but frankly there wasn't enough Maroon in the crowd to provide the downpour....but there were enough for me to clearly hear a "TEXAS-AGGIES" chant as the lead grew in the final minute or so.
We're currently in a 3-way tie for fourth place in the Big 12 (with OU & Baylor). The team that comes out ahead gets a bye in the first round of the Big 12 tournament. That means our game on Saturday against #5 Kansas is HUGE....not only for our NCAA Tournament run but for a nice breather in the Big 12 Tournament.
We just finished up the Domino's Pizza Classic with a big trophy as the winners. We went undefeated knocking off each of our opponents (Ohio State, Arkansas, & La-Tech).
Earlier in the week we swept a two game series against McNeese State, which means we're now 7-2 on the season and riding a 6 game win streak.
Click to Enlarge
I made it out to the game yesterday afternoon for my first live baseball of 2008. I really wanted to get up to the Arkansas game on Saturday night but after the drubbing the basketball team took and the unexpected warm air (from this nice warm weather we have been gifted) I fell asleep for about 4 hours after the bball game.
The pitching has continued to be strong and Kyle Colligan and Luke Anders have come around at the plate, but we're still waiting for Blake Stouffer and Darby Brown to snap out of their cool hands. Stouffer has been hitting the ball hard, just right at people.
Brian Ruggiano (.387/.441/.710), Brodie Greene (.350/.364/.800), & Keith McInnerney (.400/.455/.500) have all been hot, but can't quite compare to what Dane Carter (.382/.436/.853 with 4 triples and 2 HRs) & Jose Duran (.412/.487/.647) have been able to do.
Kyle Thebeau came out of the bullpen on Friday night and was outstanding throwing 6 innings of shutout baseball. Travis Starling has been lights out at the end of games, he has 6 appearances, 3 saves, 6.0 IP, 0 ER, 3 hits, and a 7:0 SO:BB ratio. Opponents are hitting .143 against him.
We have a two game series Tuesday night & Wednesday afternoon against Nicholls State before hosting a 3 games series this weekend against Rutgers. We're already halfway through our 20 game season opening home stand. Big 12 play starts in 12 days.
It would appear that there has been a miscommunication in the athletic department. I don't think anyone told the men's basketball team that they had a game yesterday.
That was the worst game we've played all season. 10 points in the first half was a Big 12 record low. That means we didn't even have a first half that bad back when we were horrible. We went 16:12 without making a basket.
I don't know what is going on. We have 3 big men that most teams can't match up against and we aren't getting them the ball (Joe Jones, DeAndre Jordan, & Bryan Davis combined for 12 shot attempts.
We continue to shoot 3 pointers (we were 2 of 16 from beyond the arc) and then wiff on the offensive rebounds. We got out-rebounded on our end of the court 29 to 11.
Longar Longar played with a broken tibia & still pulled down 8 boards, more than any of our players. He had a freakin' broken leg. His leg was in two unconnected pieces. Broken. And he still out-rebounded everyone on our team.
We're at Waco on Wednesday before hosting Kansas next Saturday.
Sweet Holy Moses, where has that been? We just beat the S.T.D.'s right out the raiders.
Beau Muhlbach scored 9 points. Enough said.
Seriously though, Turge pulled out all the stops and played some guys that we don't normally see -- anything to get out of the slump we've been in -- and it worked.
Kirk & Joe led us in scoring with 16 & 13 while DeAndre played a solid game on the boards with 10 rebounds. Four players scored in double digits with 3 others one basket shy.
It was the most dominating game we've played all year with only the t.u. game at Reed comparing.
44 point victory. Yowzers.
We go on the road for our next two games playing at Oklahoma (who shared our fate against Nebraska losing to the Huskers last night) before the short trip to Baylor next week. Then it's Kansas at home.
After last night's game the 4 way tie for 4th place in the conference split up (tech & OU lost to fall to 6-7 while Baylor matched our win and record at 7-6). Every remaining game is huge because whoever finishes with that 4th place spot gets a bye in the first round of the Big 12 Tourney.
Men's basketball has sunk to a season low with another 3 game losing streak, this time with two losses AT HOME to teams in the bottom half of the conference. Nebraska upset us on Saturday in fairly convincing fashion. We didn't lead until the 4:30 mark in the second half and then we piddled it away. Lots of stupid mistakes....throwing the ball around, no help defense on easy Husker baskets, etc. Then the big concerns that continues to hurt us....when we get the ball inside to our big guys, which is supposedly our game, the defense collapses on them and when they kick the ball out we can't hit a 3 pointer to save our life....then we lose out on the offensive rebound.
Our 3PT %age in Big 12 Play
CU t.t. KSU BU oSu t.u. OU ISU MU oSu t.u. Neb TOT
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56% 28% 40% 17% 39% 54% 25% 40% 27% 29% 7% 35% 33% 62/190
Last season we shot 43% in conference play (98/228). If we shot 43% this season we would have made 20 more 3PTs or 1.67 more per game. That's an additional 5 point per game.
That's enough hard-court talk.
On the diamond the men won our season opener 9-5, overcoming a 5-2 deficit. We went on to drop both games on Saturday by scores of 3-1 and 4-2 before recovering Sunday afternoon with a 5-2 victory.
The pitching was fairly impressive. Brooks Raley saw two appearances and Travis Starling saw three appearances out of the bullpen and looked excellent combining for only 1 hit over 4 innings of work. Shane Minks (2.0 IP), Kevin Cravey (2.1) and Hank Robertson (2.0) were also stellar out of the pen combining for only 2 hits, 9 SOs and only 2 BB.
The bullpen as a whole was outstanding giving up only 2 runs in 12.1 innings over the 4 games.
We got our first look at freshman Barret Loux and his numbers indicate what we were hoping for. He struck out 9 in 5 innings of work allowing only two runs, both solo HRs.
We struggled with the first batter of an inning. They scored 14 runs on the weekend, of which 8 were scored by the batter that lead-off that inning. Three of those were solo HRs but the others bother me more as they were what I would consider "free bases" as three were HBP, one was a walk and the fifth was a catcher's interference. Their leadoff batter reached base 14 times and 57% of the time he scored.
Nine errors didn't help either.
The offense was a mixed bag. If you told me on Friday morning that Kyle Colligan, Luke Anders, Darby Brown, & Blake Stouffer would combine for an opening weekend batting average of .107 (5-for-47) I would just laughed at you. Colligan had 3 of the 5 hits. It's tough to get your offense in stride when your 4 big bopper don't bop....or even bloop.
Brian Ruggiano, Dane Carter, and Brooks Raley al impressed me at the plate. The combined for 9 of our runs and 8 RBIs. Ruggiano and Carter each had three extra base hits (including a HR from each of them).
My concern for the baseball team is no where near my concern for men’s basketball. Our pitching was strong, particularly our bullpen, which is one of the rarest commodities in college baseball. If Colligan, Anders, Brown, & Stouffer hit .100 for the rest of the home-stand, then I’ll be worried.
We've got a quick turnaround as we host UTPA Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, thanks to the new scheduled start date. 20 games in 26 days are going to be rough on me, particularly since I will only be able to get up to a game or two.
The baseball season kicks off tomorrow at Olsen Field and expectations have returned to high levels after last season's incredible run to the Super Regionals.
In the four traditional polls and one new one that is picking up steam (Rivals.com) we are ranked as follows: Baseball America #21; NCBWA #20; USA Today/Coaches #21; Collegiate Baseball #22; Rivals.com #24. I typically give Baseball America's rankings the most credibility.
There has been a lot of turnover from last season and to be completely honest I don't know all that much about the new faces. We have lots of red-shirts, some transfers, and some true freshmen that are going to step onto Olsen Field for the first time and will contribute.
But really, that's not all too different from every other season.
Dadgum we're a streaky team. Drop 3, Win 5, Drop 2.
We looked bad against Okie State on Saturday. The fans showed up to honor Acie Law, but the team did anything but honor him on the court. It ended oSu's 19 game road losing streak.
Then we go to Austin last night and get waxed. Nothing was working, and still (as was the problem in our 3 game skid earlier), if you have a guard that can drive the lane he's going to have a career night against us.
As the season starts to wind down we need to pick things up and go into March on a roll. We have Nebraska on Saturday at Reed, tech at Reed next Wednesday, before back-to-back road games at OU and Baylor finishing up with friggin' Kansas at home. We need to snap out of this funk on Saturday and figure out how to play consistantly because those final 4 games are not only going to make or break us, but they're all toughones, either due to matchups or simply because they're good teams.
Thankfully, baseball starts up on Friday afternoon. WHOOP!
Earlier this week the athletic department announced that they are going to honor Acie Law at this afternoon's game by raising his jersey to the rafters at Reed Arena.
This is kind of a big deal because no other A&M athlete has been honored in such a way. Of course, I don't believe we've ever had someone like Acie to come through Aggieland.
There have been great athletes, great people, All-Americans, big award winners, etc. but I don't think that any one player has meant as much to any of our sports programs as Acie Law.
It started in January of '05 when he led us to our first victory over a Top 10 opponent in 21 years (v. #9 texas), the in '06 he put us on the college basketball map with "The Shot" and our first NCAA Tournament run since I was writing on a Big Chief. He capped it off his senior season putting us on his back as he carried us to the Sweet 16.
I'm excited to have Acie back in town today. Although basketball is my third favorite Aggie sport, Acie is my favorite Aggie athlete.
Oh yeah, and we play Okie State today. Coach Sean Sutton has struggled mightily since being gifted the job when his dad, Grumpy, resigned last February. The Cowboys are 3-7 in conference play but even more shockingly, they have yet to win a true road game since Son Sutton has taken the reigns amassing a 0-14 record away from Gallagher-Iba Arena. Let's keep that goose-egg where it is.
I’ll be honest. When I was googling for a picture and that one came up I said to myself, "That guy is our defensive coordinator? He looks like my 8th grade math teacher."
When I read that we were targeting Kines my initial reaction was not all that excited, however, I do my best to stay away from rash gut-feelings and decided to take a look at what he has done in his career before casting stones at the hire.
Here is Kines recent resume, and for a 64 year old I felt going back 16 years would constitute recent.
Kines’s Recent Resume
---------------------------------------
1991-1994 Arkansas DC (was HC in ‘92)
1995-1999 Georgia DC
2000-2002 Florida State LB Coach
2003-2006 Alabama DC
2007 n/a
He was not retained by Nick Saban, which has apparently been an unpopular decision in the eyes of 'Bama fans. During his year off the field he was kept on by the athletic department working for Tide Power to fundraise for scholarship money, band money, etc. This was a great roll for Kines who is known as a sound-byte-a-minute kind of guy. He has some great lines with great southern analogies.
Enough with all that, let's look at the numbers. I'll start with his time at Arkansas. I was unable to find all of his national rankings during his years with the Hogs but I did come up with his raw numbers and put his national rankings in ( ).
Arkansas
Rush D Pass D Total D Score D
========== ========== ========== =========
1991 166.6 197.7 364.4 16.3
1992 173.1 156.4 (33) 329.5 (34) 19.0 (37)
1993 168.5 (59) 188.4 (34) 356.8 (45) 18.9 (25)
1994 148.5 175.4 323.9 (28) 19.4 (27)
From Arkansas Kines stayed in the SEC heading to Athens to take the same role for the Bulldogs. I wasn't able to get any of Georgia's national rankings but I got all of their raw numbers.
Georgia
Rush D Pass D Tot D ScrD
====== ====== ===== ====
1995 136.2 212.2 348.4 23.4
1996 149.8 113.0 262.8 17.7
1997 114.8 231.2 346.0 16.3
1998 137.1 215.7 352.8 22.0
1999 104.5 278.1 382.6 25.8
Now I'll show the national rankings from his time at Alabama, which are most relevant because they're most recent. Like I did with Herring, I'm showing the two years prior to his arrival, his time at Alabama, and what they did after he left.
Alabama
BEFORE DURING AFTER
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
========== ====================== ====
R 16 4 36 37 9 46 28
P 95 17 72 1 5 19 48
T 48 3 46 7 1 31 31
S 24 5 61 2 2 23 27
It looks like there was a pretty well established defense just before Kines got to Alabama and that it took a little time to adjust. In 2006 Kines had to replace 7 defensive starters, including NFL ROY DeMeco Ryans....that explains the jump in the numbers.
The scary part is that their 2002 defense was led by none other than Carl Torbush. WOW. So are we getting another Torbush? I don't think so....but....nah, it can't get that bad again. I think that one of the big differences between Torbush and Kines is that Torbush's defense was really complicated and the kids had trouble getting it. Kines is supposed to run a very simple, yet very disciplined defense. I don't think we'll be seeing a return of the Blitz Brothers.
Kines runs a 3-3-5 most of the time but also runs a little 4-3. In that 3-3-5 he has been able to defend the pass well while being a little more susceptible to the run. You can see that his pass defenses at 'Bama were great.
Another question I would like to have an answer for is how will Kines defend against the spread offense. Just about everyone in the Big 12 runs some version of it while I'm not sure that he saw a whole lot of it in the SEC.
Everyone has pointed to how well 'Bama did against tech in the '05 Cotton Bowl, holding them to 13 points. I'm certainly glad to see they didn't get torched by the raiders, however, I'm leery of pointing to success in one game as a mark of what to expect over the long haul. See Gary Darnell's 2005 texas game.
We do have a quote from Kines on the spread, so at least we know he's thought about it: "It spreads you thin and forces you to take on somebody in space. It's like trying to hem up a pig. Air is the biggest enemy you've got on defense."
Like I said, he's going to be a great quote for the paper guys. Here's a clip that has circulated quite a bit the last few days.
I BET HE TYPES IN ALL CAPS.
Bob Davie was actually offered the position over the weekend but turned it down so he could keep his cush job at ESPN working about 1/10th as much for some nice coin. Ironically, back in the spring of '06 Davie did an ESPN-Football 101 on Alabama's defense, led by none other than Joe Kines.
The place to go this spring to talk defense is the University of Alabama. In 2005, the Crimson Tide finished No. 1 in both the SEC and NCAA in scoring defense, giving up only 10.7 points per game under defensive coordinator Joe Kines.
A quick glance at the statistics from the last three years shows just how successful Alabama's defense is. It also reveals how much improvement the Tide defense has made under Kines. The rankings below show the final stats in both SEC and NCAA defensive categories.
Points of emphasis
Coaches visiting Alabama quickly find out there are several points of emphasis in the Crimson Tide's defensive philosophy.
1. Speed on the field
According to Kines, if a player doesn't run to the football, it is because "he can't or he won't." Either of those options will get a team beat. Alabama emphasizes speed, effort and running to the football.
2. Tackling
The first thing Alabama's defense does every day in practice is tackle. This sets the priority.
3. Demand perfect alignment and assignment
Alabama does not do a lot on defense with its scheme. Instead, the Tide take the approach of "doing a few things and doing them well." That is why the Bama players know exactly what they are doing and play fast with a lot of confidence.
4. Scheme
Alabama uses two base schemes on defense. The first is a 4-3 scheme with regular personnel, using four defensive linemen, three linebackers and four defensive backs. The Tide's other base scheme is a 30 package, which they use almost 50 percent of the time. This package features three defensive linemen, three linebackers and five defensive backs.
5. Disguise
Alabama does a great job of making every defense look the same to the opposing quarterback. About 98 percent of the time, the Tide will start in a Cover 2 shell, which means there are two safeties deep. On the snap, one of the safeties either will drop down and the coverage will change or he will stay in two-deep.
Breaking down the Tide defense
The thing that makes Alabama different is its commitment to the 30 package. The animations below break down the Tide's base 30 defense with a three-deep coverage and the 30 blitz package, which is also called the Yellow dog, man-free blitz.
(I went ahead and turned the animations into a GIF for your enjoyment.)
At the end of the day, I'm more comfortable with Joe Kines (age and all) than I was with Reggie Herring....both of which I feel better about than Gary Darnell or Carl Torbush.
The Fightin' Texas Aggie basketball team has an off night and doesn't have a mid-week game. It is well deserved as our boys have answered their 3 game skid early in conference play and have a 5 game winning streak going.
I haven't said anything about our last three games but that doesn't mean I'm not watching....nor does it mean that we're not dominating. I was at the OU game where we were down by 6 at the half and came out in the second half and opened it up inside. Bryan Davis and Joe Jones stepped up big time with 13 & 18 points. Donald Sloan also made strides, particularly at the FT line going 4-for-4.
We ended up winning by 8....and did anyone else catch the officials giving Taylor Griffin one Blake Griffin's fouls? Both of'em ended up fouling out but they gave it to the wrong brother at the time of the whistle.
After OU we started a 2 game road trip to Aimes and Columbus. Neither are scare-you-to-death teams but we had yet to prove ourselves on the road at any capacity.
Have no fear, Bryan Davis is here. The big man again came out of the half swinging for the fences and had 6 points before the first 80 seconds rolled off the clock. We built the lead up to 20+ before the final 69-51 score. Sloan was 2-for-2 at the line (with 11 points) and Josh Carter put in 12 of his own with 4 tres.
After Iowa State we went to Mizzou last Saturday and had a similar experience. We gave away a 7 point first half lead and were down by 5 at the half. We came out in the second half and put up 52 points, starting with a 19-2 run. Donald Sloan was the man of the afternoon putting up 21 points and shooting 9-of-10 from the charity stripe. Bryan Davis and Josh Carter were strong offensively as well.
One thing I'm noticing is that our substitution rotation has become tighter and we're seeing the starters log more minutes. The other thing we're doing is using more 3 guard lineups with Roland, Kirk, and Sloan which is helping us more against the smallish Big 12.
Bryan Davis has turned himself into a wrecking ball. He is averaging 12.3 ppg with over 6 rebounds per game.
Donald Sloan has shaken off the funk he was in. He started off conference play 9-for-27 from the FT line but has turned it around in our last 3 games hitting 15-of-16. His
Don't tell anyone but it is Dominique Kirk, not Josh Carter, that is lighting up the sky from beyond the arc, shooting over 47% on the season.
It would appear that Reggie Herring, the defensive coordinator that was hired on January 4th, has left to fill the Dallas Cowboys linebacker coach position.
His 35 day tenure will be completely forgotten as we look back in time at the move. I wasn't knocked over with excitement when we hired Herring but that was back when there was a nice selection of defensive coordinators to pick from. I'm not sure who is still left out there. I know that Notre Dame locked up Jon Tenuta last week but every other "name" DC has been hired. I hope that we go back to Johnny Holland and make the offer to him or even Bob Davie.
The next question would be, since Herring had a hand in bringing in the rest of the defensive staff, will a new DC want to bring in his own guys or will the guys we have want to work for a different DC?
That's even worse than a recruit pulling a Sedrick Johnson on signing day and signing elsewhere. I guess it's good riddance. What a crappy way to end a week that started with a great recruiting haul.
So there I sat. It was after 10 o'clock on a Sunday night and I was frantically clicking refresh on my internet browser. What on earth could have me so worked up and so nervous that I would risk serious cramping to my right index finger?
I was refreshing an internet message board thread that was giving a play-by-play of Cyrus Gray's recruiting announcement from a local Dallas news station.
As they cut away to a commercial (much to my finger's delight), I thought to myself, how silly is this? Here I am, an almost grown-up and this 18 year old kid has me all worked up in a panic. The thing was, that it wasn't just me. There were hundreds of fans doing the exact same thing on their computer at 10:10pm on a Sunday night. That thread was refreshed over 2,300 times in a half an hour time span.
That, my friends, is where the world of college football recruiting has taken us.
Today is National Signing Day, which is almost as revered as the National Championship....because the winners today will have a better shot at that crystal football in the next few years.
The great blog, Sunday Morning QB, put together some research and discovered that national team rankings, while are no certain science, do give good indication of future results. From 2002-2007 five of the top seven winningest programs were in Rivals.com's top seven recruiting averages and all of the top ten recruiting averages were in the top twenty in winning percentage.
So today is important.
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Before I get too far into this I wanted to point you to a page I've been working on for the last several seasons that I've named my Signing Class Contributions page. I've taken each recruiting class we've had for the last 10 seasons and broken them down. It shows each player's contributions based on playing time and All-Conference honors and it explains, with as much detail as I was able to dig up, what the causes were for guys who didn't pan out (transfers, MLB draft, academics, off-field problems, injuries, etc.). I think it's a really interesting compilation. It is amazing how many players we lost to attrition.
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I won't get into too many specifics on the individual recruits from our class this year because: (a) there are a bevy of sources for you to get that information -- written, hopefully, by those who might have actually seen these kids play a snap and aren't just going by their bench press and how cool their picture on the recruiting site looks; and (b) I would just be re-reporting what I've read from Billy Lucci.
According to the recruiting services we have a good group of kids coming in (Rivals.com has our class ranked at 15th while Scout.com has us at 4th). The new coaching staff has really focused on bringing in more team speed, particularly in the front seven on the defensive side of the ball.
Coach Sherman was handed a nice package of players and did an exceptional job keeping the class from dissolving and even adding to it with our two highest ranked recruits, Jeff Fuller and Cyrus Gray.
Recruiting has become such an arms race between the schools....who has the cooler scoreboard, the fanciest locker-room, & the nicest facilities (in any other context that would be some nice toilets but in college football it means weight rooms, indoor practice fields, training rooms, study halls, computer centers, tutor help, player's lounge, & trophy case).
Really, it just comes down to winning....which comes down to recruiting....which comes down to winning....you get where I'm going. It's a vicious circle that has to be broken if you're on the outside of that circle looking in.
Think about this....
When we won our last conference championship (in 1998) the kids signing their letters of intent today were in the second grade. Their parents and teachers were still able to use stickers and lollypops as a reward for good behavior.
We've only participated in 3 bowl games since they first put on pads as little middle school sixth graders
Two of those bowl games were the worst two bowl losses in school history
The only bowl game victory we've had since they were able to to pee in a real flush-able toilet was against TCU in the GalleryFurniture.com Bowl.
We have the "facilities" and a fancy-pants scoreboard. We need to win. Both R.J. Washington and Stephen Good (two of the top recruits in the state) really loved A&M but committed to Oklahoma because of the annual on-field success the Sooners have had over the last 7 years.
Still, even with that against us (and three of the top programs in the country surrounding us to the West, East & North), our coaches have done a great job bringing in this highly regarded class.
Welcome to Aggieland gentlemen. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
