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Saturday October 21st, 2006
12:01amBlogPoll Roundtable 2.5
The newest edition of the BlogPoll Roundtable is out and is being hosted by Sooner lover, My Opinion on Sports. It is pretty much a midseason edition. I can't really think of anything creative or witty to say so I'll just get into the questions....
BlogPoll Roundtable 2.4Q1. Which coaches are clearly on the hot seat at this point? Who is surprisingly not?
A1. I'm going with Larry Coker for the first question. Miami is simply a mess right now, on the field and in the Pride Fighting Championship ring.
For the second question, I'm going to say Bobby Bowden. I don't think this was the way the question was intended to be answered but it was what popped into my mind. I have no doubts that old Bobby is under the hot light in Tallahassee but on a national level I simply can't believe he isn't getting more heat for the downward spiral FSU's program is in. Before last week's routing of the powerhouse that is Duke football, FSU had lost 6 of their previous 10 games dating back to last season. That is 2003 Aggie football bad.
Q2. Pick three of the undefeated teams and state your case as to why they won’t run the table.
A2. In order
- Rutgers - They're Rutgers.
- USC - Their schedule simply isn't favorable. @OreSt, @Stanford, Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame. No way they get through that unscathed.
- Louisville - Their next 3 games at @Syracuse, West Virginia, & @Rutgers. They're bound to lose one of those last two.
Q3. Which conference is playing the best football right now?
A3. SEC. Too many really good teams beating up on each other.
Q4. Which team is playing above and beyond your expectations this season?
A4. Rutgers. If you had told me before the season started that there wasn't a football team at Rutgers I would probably have said, "You know, I think I heard that somewhere before. I knew it was one of those schools from the north east." After them it is probably Michigan (I didn't think they'd be this good), Arkansas and then Texas A&M.
Q5. Which team is crashing and burning in regards to your expectations?
A5. The only two teams in my preseason Top 10 that haven't been a Top 10 team as recently as last week's poll are LSU & Oklahoma. OU has fallen harder and I'm afraid they'll continue that without preseason Big 12 Offensive POY Adrian Peterson (broken collar bone) and with the preseason Big 12 Defensive POY, Rufus Alexander, in some recent trouble with the law. Of course, in Norman having trouble with the law will get you a medical red-shirt from the NCAA ;)
Q6. Is your pre-season BCS championship game prediction still alive?
A6. #1 Ohio State v. #2 USC. The BCS should just use my preseason ballot
Friday October 20th, 2006
12:07amAg Football Preview: Oklahoma State
Before I start.....This was on the front page of OSU's website when I was looking up their stats....
It was just too good not to save. I got a good chuckle.
Anyways....
This weekend's game gives me big mixed emotions.
My first thought is, "Hey it is Oklahoma State. We clobbered (and stunned) them in '04, we clobbered them even more in '05. We should win this one." My second thought is, "Hmmm. I felt that same way going into the '04 Baylor game. I should definitely be more cautious." My third thought is, "Wow. I am really disappointed that this game won't be televised in any capacity."
You know what scares me even more? This will be the first game that I haven't either been to or watched on TV since that 2004 Baylor game.
There was a very quickly put together grassroots campaign to email the OSU athletic department and see if they would put the game on PPV. There were some Ags who got a response back saying that until the game was sold out this wouldn't be an option. They were also told that about 3,000 seats remained (this was on Tuesday) and the cheapest ticket price was $175.
Yeah, one hundred and seventy five dollars. For a ticket and the expense of going up to Stillwater it would cost you more than a season ticket at Kyle Field. I'll be listening to Dave South on the Aggie Sports Radio Network.
Now onto our opponent....
Oklahoma State is 4-2 on the season and 1-1 in Big 12 play. Over the last 3 weeks they have lost to Houston, then to Kansas State (!?!) and came out of Lawrence last weekend with a win over Kansas.
Their big name player on offense is QB Bobby Reid (So.) who is averaging 225 yards per game on 60% passing with 17 TDs and 5 INTs. He is also third on the squad in rushing with 224 yards on 54 carries (4.1 ypc) and 3 TDs.
Their running game is fairly split up between So. Mike Hamilton (70 carries, 439 yds, 6.3 ypc, 3 TDs), Fr. Keith Toston (58 carries, 308 yards, 5.4 ypc, 2 TDs), and Reid. They average 200 yards per game on the ground which is fairly stout.
They don't have the depth at WR that we have so Reid's passes have been essentially to 3 guys. Adarius Bowman (Jr-Tr from UNC) has 33 catches for 743 yards and 7 TDs, D'Juan Woods (Sr.) has 13 receptions for 227 yards and 4 TDs, and TE Brandon Pettigrew (So.) has 12 catches for 140 yards and 2 TDs. The 6'4" Bowman had a MONSTER game last weekend against KU picking up the majority of his of his season stats in one afternoon....13 receptions, 300 yards, and 4 TDs.
The Okies have good special teams. Their punter, Matt Fodge, is averaging 51.7 ypp. He is one punt away from leading the nation in punting (he has 21 and needed 22 to average the 3.6 ppg necessary to qualify). Their kick returner, Perrish Cox (Fr.) is averaging 37.4 yards in 8 returns which is quite good but it is not a whole bunch of opportunities (and he has a 96 yarder in there that skews it). Jason Ricks is 6-of-8 kicking FGs missing from 40 and 42. He did connect from 53 yards though.
The Cowboy's defense has been running their mouth a bit. You can read it in this article from The Oklahoman:
Apparently they didn't take notice of what happens when MU talked trash about Jorvorskie."We're a different defense than Missouri," OSU defensive tackle Larry Brown said. "A 275-pound guy, 280, whatever he is, the way I look at it, he's just a bigger target to take down. We'll bust his head just like we do a 200-pounder."
....
"I'm not worried," McBean said. "They can put a 300-pound guy back there. It's all about how you tackle. Hit 'em low and hit 'em hard, and they'll go down."The article also mentions that Jorvorskie had a career high rushing for 127 yards last weekend. Error. He had a career high rushing for 139 yards (to go with 3 TDs) last season against....Oklahoma State. Something else Mr. Brown and Mr. McBean didn't take notice of before making their comments. The two seniors, Brown and McBean have a total of 20 tackles between them this season.
To be honest, I don't think Jorvorskie will get the ball a whole bunch. Fran has shown that he likes to do what is unexpected so I wouldn't be surprised to see us throwing the ball around even getting Tellus into some action.
I must admit, the Cowpokes defense does look impressive on paper. They have 51 tackles for a loss including twenty one sacks. We need to watch out for DE Victor DeGrate (Sr.; who has 6 sacks), DE Nathan Peterson (Jr.; who has 4.5 sacks), and DE Marque Fountain (Sr.; who has 3.5 sacks). R-Fr. Andre Sexton leads the squad in tackles with 33 but they have eight players who could overtake him with a great game (which means they are at 20+). They will be playing a man down as their second leading tackler, Chris Collins (Fr.), will miss the remainder of the season after having knee surgery earlier this week.
They sure do seem to have a lot of really young kids in starting roles on both sides of the ball.
Kickoff is at 6pm. Here is the list of radio stations you can find the game on.
B.T.H.O. OSU! WHOOP!
Tuesday October 17th, 2006
12:01amCouple of Other Notes
I completely forgot to mention that the win against Mizzou means that we will be going bowling this postseason. That's good news.
On a different note....
For those of you who somehow missed the sickening occurrence in Miami over the weekend you can watch the melee here.
I was really excited about playing Miami next year and the following year. After watching that video, I would be OK with Bill Byrne dropping the game. Let them find someone else to disrespect. I don't even want those thugs coming into Kyle Field.
Almost as despicable is that the 13 Miami players suspended will miss only one game. Against Duke. There is a "put your dukes up" joke in there somewhere.
I have read that Georgia is looking for an opponent. I would love to set up a home-and-home with UGA. They are a perennial Top 15 team....and how great would it be to take a road trip down there? They're definitely on my list of road trip destinations.
(others would be Michigan, Ohio State, LSU, Colorado, Alabama, Tennessee, & Notre Dame. I've said it dozens and dozens of times....my only regret from college was not going to Notre Dame in 2000. One of my buddies had a van of friends and invited me but since it was the first game of my freshman year, it was before I was really into Ag Football. I went home for the weekend and watched it at my folk’s house. Man I wish I had gone.)
Just something to chew on.
Sunday October 15th, 2006
2:20am (edited: 12:28pm)Ags Upset Tigers 25-19
Fran knew who to give the ball to.
Fran signaling for the J-TrainJorvorskie ran over, around, and past MU's touted defense. In the first quarter we were just getting stuffed play after play at the line of scrimmage but as the game wore on J-Train simply wore them down to the point where he could do whatever he wanted. He finished the afternoon with 127 yards on 28 carries and a TD. Mike Goodson added another 65 yards on 15 carries.
The J-Train also had some words of wisdom for the Tigers after the game:
"People can say what they want to," Lane said. "This week, Missouri was saying we had offensive linemen as running backs. It's really a big joke to me. I went through all that in high school. It's not really a big thing to me. I know what I can do, and my teammates know what I can do."....
"They can be tired," Lane said. "They can be fresh. It really doesn't matter. I'm going to run over whoever is in the hole."
The biggest play of the game very well could have been on the third snap of the afternoon.
Saving a TDChase Daniel hit WR Will Frankin on a 65 yard pass but Jordan Peterson caught up with Franklin and popped the ball out of his hands at the 1 yard line. It went out of the back of the end zone for a touchback and not only saved us 7 points but gave us possession of the ball. Talk about a momentum swing right out of the gate. Peterson had a great afternoon with a big pass breakup and a couple of big tackles.
Stephen McGee had a quiet excellent afternoon. He was 19-for-23 for 183 yards and a TD pass. Not only did he complete a pass to himself but he also threw a pass where the ball was in the air for further than 7 yards....and we caught it. In all seriousness, he has done an excellent job the entire season protecting the football so we can control the clock. I may not get really excited about all of the short out-routes but we're not turning the ball over which has always been the key for us in games we win.
We had the ball for 41:30 yesterday. Yeah, that's crazy.
Misi Tupe, Melvin Bullitt, & Devin Gregg also had big afternoons with 11, 11, & 10 tackles respectively. Melvin also got great pressure on Daniel on several occasions blitzing and caused a couple of big incomplete passes.
The Tigers went for it on 4th down 3 different times in the game and were shut down on two of those, both in the 4th quarter. One was on a fake FG inside the 10 yard line and the final one was on a 4th & 2 run to the right that Gregg snuffed out giving us the ball back with 1:19 seconds left on the clock, which we ran out. They finished the afternoon 1-of-8 on 3rd down conversions and 1-of-4 on 4th down conversions.
3DC 4DC Tot =================== 2003 44% 71% 47$ 2004 44% 55% 45% 2005 48% 47% 48% ------------------- 2006 26% 60% 29%That helps a lot.
The defense was phenomenal in the second half, again. Coach Darnell has impressed me with his halftime adjustments in the last few games.
1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q 4th Q Yd/Pts Yd/Pts Yd/Pts Yd/Pts ====================================== tt 180/10 142/14 55/0 81/7 KU 95/10 38/0 108/6 67/0 MU 223/14 75/3 6/0 100/0We have surrendered a mere 13 second half points in our three Big 12 games....including just one lone TD.
I couldn't agree more Carl.
After the festivities my brother and I watched the first quarter of the Florida/Auburn game and then headed up to the REC for a little racquetball where I was rudely reminded how terribly out of shape I am. And my racquetball racquet broke.
All in all, it was a very pleasant Saturday.
Edit: I wanted to mention that McGee's deep pass (67 yards) to Kerry Franks was on the option pass. I love that play....he starts out running the option and then just drops back. Reggie also ran that play well.
Kerry Franks was also the target on a big reverse pass by Chad Schroeder (40 yards down to the 4 yard line) on our first possession that set up a FG.
My final comment is that our Fightin' Texas Aggies are now ranked #25 in the Coach's Poll and #23 in the AP Poll!