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Friday September 8th, 2006
8:20pmAg Football Preview: U. Louisiana-Lafayette
We've got ULaLa coming into to Kyle Field tomorrow evening. I'm way more excited about the fact that A&M is playing as opposed to who we're playing.
The last time we faced ULaLa was at Kyle Field in R.C.'s last year at the helm (2002). The score was actually 3-0 at the half but we came out and put up 28 in the second half to win 31-7.
One of my favorite Kyle Field moments also occurred during the game. Pat and I had pulled tickets in section 239 way up in row 34 (so we were in the furthest southern section of the student side nearly at the top of the second deck). It was a scorching early evening in late August and we just happened to catch their mascot, a giant hot pepper (named Cayenne), running behind our JumboTron. We then exploded with laughter when we saw Cayenne pull of his head and then vomit. It was just too bad it was in 2002 and no one had a camera phone. I think he was dehydrated because they kept bringing him water as he just laid back there. I don't think we would have been able to see it if we had been a section any closer in. To borrow a phrase from Barney, it was legendary.
Some quick facts on this year's squad.
- Defending Sunbelt Conference champs
- #15 Jerry Babb (Sr) is in the top 4 or 5 in most of ULaLa's passing records....2006 Sunbelt Pre-season Offensive POY
- Slaughtered at LSU last weekend 45-3
- RB #32 Tyrell Fenroy ran for over 1000 yards (5.9 ypc) and 12 TDs as a true freshman last season
- Blocked 7 kicks last season (2 PATs, 2 punts, & 3 FGs)
- Their defense brings 10 upperclassmen in the starting lineup
Here's a quick look at their leaders from their game last weekend in Death Valley. I'm not sure how representative any of it actually is.
Last week @ #8 LSU Leading Passer Leading Rushers ============================== ========================= Att Cmp Pct TD/INT Yds Att Net YPC TD J.Babb 17 7 41.2 0/2 63 T.Fenroy 12 52 4.3 0 D.Wallace 7 24 3.4 0 Leading Receivers Leading Tacklers ======================= ========================== No Yds TD Lng Tot TFL Sack INT BrUp FF D.Smith 2 23 0 14 M.Adams 7 0.5 0 0 0 0 5 Tied with 1 reception L.Morgan 7 0 0 0 0 0 .... A.Zanders 4 1 1 0 0 0 Punting =============================== No. Yds Avg TB I20 Blk B.Framel 6 246 41 0 1 0That's about all I've got. If you want more you can read their game notes. I'm going to try and get another "Back in Old Army" segment typed up before I leave for College Station tomorrow.
B.T.H.O. ULaLa! WHOOP!
Thursday September 7th, 2006
11:01amCollege Football Carnival
Clearly I'm not as hip as I once was because I'm falling behind in all the new fancy stuff that continues to form on the internet. I was waaaay late into the whole facebook thing and I might be the only enrolled student at A&M w/o a MySpace page.
Part of the new wave of blogging seems to be Carnivals. I'm still not sure what that means exactly but I was invited (by Badger Sports) to join the College Football Carnival so I figured, what the heck.
Here is the first edition of the College Football Carnival. My submission was an old post but looking back at my traffic from that time I can assure you that very few of you were reading my site way back then so unless you're an original TAMABINPOian (I just made that up.....but I kinda like it) it'll be new to you.
I also wanted to announce that I have started what is at the moment a fairly rudimentary Aggie Football History page. In time I hope to get it to the point where it can be a nice little database for you to dig up information on the past. I would also like to open it up to Aggies who want a place to share great stories of past games, road trips, random unknown information, stories of meeting players, etc. I think it could be a really interesting, and informative, reference place for everyone interested in Aggie football. I just thought of putting a "Where were you...." section so you can give your story of where you were during great Aggie football events. It can really be as great depending on the participation I get. Let's have some fun with it over the next couple of weeks as I build it up.
Wednesday September 6th, 2006
12:01amYeah, I'm in the Football Media Guide
Click to EnlargeSome of you might remember last season following the Oklahoma State game when I posted a few pictures from that afternoon. Well, the photographer didn't lie to us and we did in fact make it into this year's Media Guide (we're on page 12 for those who have a copy).
That's me on the far right with the Reggie-esqe ankles sporting the Tooooooooombs jersey. Having ankles like that means I'm fast.
That's so cool. WHOOOOP!
I don't remember if I ever mentioned here or not but I was also on the back cover of this past season's baseball media guide as well. Apparantly if you stay in school for long enough you'll get into one of those things.
Tuesday September 5th, 2006
12:01amTAMABINPO's Week 2 Rankings & BlogPoll Roundtable #2
TAMABINPO's Week 2 Rankings Rk. TEAM (LW; Record) LW Results ============================ ================ 1. Ohio State (1; 1-0) W 35-12 N.Ill 2. Southern Cal (2; 1-0) W 50-14 @Ark 3. Auburn (3; 1-0) W 40-14 WSU 4. LSU (4; 1-0) W 45-3 ULaLa 5. Notre Dame (5; 1-0) W 14-10 @GT 6. West Virginia (8; 1-0) W 42-10 Mar 7. texas (7; 1-0) W 56-7 UNT 8. Florida State (17; 0-0) W 13-10 @Miami 9. Florida (9; 1-0) W 34-7 SMiss 10. Iowa (11; 1-0) W 41-7 Mont 11. Virginia Tech (13; 1-0) W 38-0 NEstrn 12. Tennessee (23; 1-0) W 35-18 Cal 13. Miami (Fla) (12; 0-0) L 13-10 FSU 14. Penn State (15; 1-0) W 34-16 Akron 15. Georgia (16; 1-0) W 48-12 WKent 16. Oklahoma (6; 1-0) W 24-17 UAB 17. Nebraska (18; 1-0) W 49-10 LaTech 18. Oregon (19; 1-0) W 48-10 Stanf 19. Michigan (20; 1-0) W 27-7 Vandy 20. Louisville (14; 1-0) W 59-28 Kty 21. Cal (10; 0-1) L 35-18 @Tenn 22. Clemson (21; 1-0) W 54-6 UFA 23. TCU (22; 1-0) W 17-7 @Bay 24. Boston College (24; 1-0) W 31-24 @CMich 25. UCLA (25; 1-0) W 31-10 Utah OUT: NoneGames I watched: A&M/Citadel (all), Michigan/Vandy (1st Q), TCU/Baylor (all), Ole Miss/Louisville (all), Miami/FSU (2nd half)
Frankly it's too early to make many moves but obviously I have reasons for the moves I did make.
I now believe in West Virginia. I thought they were kind of a fluke team, and they may still be, but Steve Slaton is really good. Oklahoma looked worse than I thought they would, especially against UAB at home, but man AD is good enough to keep them in the top 20. FSU moved up because beat Miami, no surprise. Miami doesn't drop off the face of the map because they played a tight game against a big time opponent. Tennessee beat the tar outta Cal so that's why they both moved. Louisville dropped because, regardless of the final score, I wasn't overly impressed with them against Kentucky....and they lost their Heisman Hopeful, Michael Bush, for the year. I would have dropped TCU out by the way they played against Baylor but I can't penalize them for a road victory when they didn't have their starting QB, their #1 WR, or their top two RBs.
This week's BlogPoll Roundtable is brought to us by Wisconsin following Ciskie Blog.
BlogPoll Roundtable V2.2Q1. 1. What team best met your overall expectations of them in their opener?
A1. I suppose since virtually everyone won I'll say USC. They lost a ton of talent and started off the season on the road in SEC country....and still blew out Arkansas. Obviously, Arkansas isn't a great opponent but I think it was a test that in the back of my mind I thought they could lose. They passed with flying colors.
Q2. 2. What team jumped off the map and surprised you the most? (Bonus points to anyone who can make an argument for someone besides Tennessee.)
A2. Tennessee leapt up and smacked me in the face but since I'm all about extra credit I'm going to go with Florida State. I was starting to buy into the "Miami is going to be great again" hype but FSU held them to twelve yards in the second half. FSU's schedule makes certainly helps put them in a good situation for big bowl aspirations.
Q3. 3. What team best moved themselves into a position to surprisingly contend for a national title?
A3. I don't know if it's because I just finished watching them play but Florida State made a statement and could surprisingly get into the NC game.
Monday September 4th, 2006
2:24pmCroc Hunter Dead at 44
I am sad to report that Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, was killed this morning after being stung by a stingray barb that pierced his chest.
I have to admit that I watched the guy all the time in high school. He was a bit looney but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who enjoyed their job more than he did.
Part of me is surprised he made it as long as he did but then part of me is surprised that something actually got him. I guess I could say a big Crikey is in order.
Steve recently appeared in a SportsCenter commercial where he was waiting for an elevator and low-and-behold the Florida Gator came out. It was one of the better "This is SportsCenter" clips I've seen in a while.
12:09pmhorns in Trouble Again
I'm not posting this with intentions of gloating, it's just that I find it interesting.
Early this morning (just before 5am) longhorn CB Tarrell Brown was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana (2 ounces or less) and unlawful carrying weapon. The first charge is a Class B misdemeanor but the second is a Class A misdemeanor.
Former longhorn LBer, Aaron Harris, was also arrested and charged with possession of marijuana.
You can see the official bookings yourself here (type in their names).
It'll be interesting to see what Ol' Yella Teeth can do for them. He couldn't get Ramonce Taylor off the hook, but that wasn't in Travis County. It should get them off on the right foot in the Fulmer Cup Standings.
Sunday September 3rd, 2006
9:20pmAg Football Recap: Ags Win 36-3
Jennifer and I had a great time on Friday night (along with Sean, my brother) at First Yell and then Midnight Yell. Wayne Brady is a funny fella. If you didn't know, his entire show is improv so we were quite impressed. He has to be a really smart guy to be able to have the vocabulary and broad knowledge to be able to be as good at it as he is.
Aggieland MariachiI also wanted to mention one of the opening acts, Aggieland Mariachi. They were a lot of fun and we really enjoyed them.
We drove home after Yell and then came back up Saturday afternoon for the game. We met up with Jennifer's parents and hung out over in the quad for awhile. Jennifer's dad had a great story for me when I saw him. They had eaten at Road House for lunch and he ran into Coach Gillispie who was eating by himself. Coach took the time to shoot the breeze, which I thought was really cool. Gillispie is just such a great fit here in Aggieland.
As for the game....it was clearly the first game of the season. There were some exciting plays and there were some frustrating plays. I didn't come away from the game with a stronger indication of how we would fare overall this season.
I was surprised to see the announced attendance at only 70,104. That was the third lowest attendance of the Fran era and fifth lowest attendance since I started school in '00.
Lowest Attendances Since '00 ============================ '04 Wyoming..... 65,600 '03 Kansas...... 68,487 '00 Wyoming..... 69,273 '00 UTEP........ 69,184 '06 Citadel..... 70,104 '01 McNeese St.. 70,656Offensively, we started the game focused on running the ball and we were quite successful and in the second quarter we went to the passing game. McGee started slowly through the air but settled down. He finished with a quiet 200 yards on 16-of-24 passing with one TD. He also had a couple of mature moments where he threw balls away to avoid sacks but also avoid a flag for grounding. Chad Schroeder was his main target leading the team with 6 catches and 101 yards and a TD. Chad also dropped a couple of passes, which was almost more shocking than anything else that transpired on Saturday. Tellus finished second with 3 receptions for 43 yards.
We really kept the offense as vanilla as we could. We didn't throw the deep ball at all, nor did we really use the option very much. I was quite disappointed that Howard Morrow didn't get a throw his way. I was also somewhat disappointed that Jorvorskie only had 7 touches (29 yards for 4.1 pyc and a TD). Fran was just trying to see more guys in game action (we had 6 different RBs take a handoff). Courtney Lewis did pick up a couple of short TD runs moving him up on the career TD list. He led all rushers with 13 carries and 55 yards (4.2 ypc).
Squeeze that rock MikeMike Goodson made his collegiate debut with very mixed results. He had runs of 9, 25, and 8 but also had two more carries that he fumbled away. He finished the night with 43 yards on five carries (8.6 ypc) with 2 fumbles. When he held onto the ball you could see why he was the #3 RB recruit in the nation with jukes and spins right out of tackles.
The defensive player of the game was whoever The Citadel WR's glove manufacturer is. Those guys dropped 8-9 passes that could have made a significant difference in the game.
I was not particularly impressed with the new defense. We gave up 115 yards on the ground and 128 yards in the air. Most of that those yards were in the first half, so I guess it's good that we held them down in the second half, but at the same time that was when they started throwing the ball a lot to catch up and they dropped the majority of those big passes. I'm sure we'll get better as the season goes on but we'll also be playing better opponents.
Individually, Chris Harrington had a nice night with a team high 8 tackles including 1.5 sacks. Mark Dodge and Misi Tupe combined for 12 tackles (7 & 5, respectively) with Dodge forcing a fumble.
Special teams was as solid as I've seen it in the last couple of years. Kerry Franks blocked a punt that was recovered on Citadel's 1 yard line and then later returned a 58 yard kickoff. My boy, Justin Brantly, had a spectacular game punting. He had three official punts of 62, 55, & 53 yards. The first punt was a roller, the second was just a flat out bomb, & the third was a roller but he fielded a skipped snap to get it off. He actually had a fourth punt which was a 54 yarder but it was called a no play after Citadel was off sides (the penalty gave us a first down). Attaboy Justin!
Finally, I wanted to mention true freshman Matt Szymanski. He got the start following a kick-off against Layne Neumann. He kicked off 5 times with the first sailing deep into the end zone for a touchback. The other four were fielded right around the goal line and brought out. He hit all 5 of his PATs but did miss his first FG attempt, a 43 yarder, wide right. From where I was sitting it looked like it was good and me and my buddy Zach turned to each other and shrugged when the officials signaled no good.
I look for vast improvement next week as we host ULaLa, who are coming off of a 45-3 loss to LSU.