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Thursday November 6th, 2008
10:25pmAg Football Preview: #6 Oklahoma
Look out! The Lady PGA is in town.
Oh wait. Nevermind. I couldn't see his face and then the visor threw me off. It's just Bob Stoops.
Before I get into the Sooners I want to take a minute and say a big Thank You to all of our seniors who will be playing in their final game at Kyle Field. While the last 4 seasons have not been spectacular, there have been some good times and a lot of great memories. This senior class is my fondest class that I have been through in my time following Texas A&M.
Some of my all-time favorite players are Mike Bennett, Devin Gregg, J-Train, Stephen McGee, and of course Justin Brantly. There are others who's names we'll never forget like Johnathan Batson, Richie Bean, Arkeith Brown, Pierre Brown, Alton Dixon, Amos Gbunblee, Danny Gorrer, Johnathan Haynes, Nick "The Ultimate 12th Man" LaMantia, Cyril Obiozor, & Travis Schneider.
Thank you all for playing the way you have for the school we love so much. Don't ever underestimate the power of the Aggie network and good luck with all of your futures, no matter what you go on to do.
Now for the opponent....
Everyone talks so much about the passing attacks of texas tech and Mizzou and texas. Say what you will about those teams but this OU offense is the best in the nation. Bob Stoops has created an offensive monster with Sam Bradford, who I believe is the best QB in the Big 12/nation. Bradford is averaging 343 yards per game with 34 TDs, 6 INTs and a 68% completion percentage
YPG TD INT PCT ============== Bradford. 343 34 6 68% ------------------------ Harrell.. 402 30 6 71% McCoy.... 287 23 5 79% Daniels.. 333 26 8 77%Why isn't his name being mentioned for any big awards? I have no idea.
Back when Adrian Peterson was at OU he scared me because I always thought he was going to just shred us on the ground. Now I'm afraid Bradford is going to shred us through the air.
2008 tu KU KSU Neb ========= ======= ======= ======= ======= RushO 179 (35) 48 206 273 193 PassO 358 (3) 387 468 255 315 TotO 538 (3) 435 674 528 508 ScorO 49.8 (2) 35 45 58 62This offense is so good that they've only attempted 5 FGs on the entire year (3-of-5 overall; 1-of-3 from 30 or further). We're going to have to just keep up and not lose the turn over battle.
Bradford's top targets are WR Juaquin Iglesias (47 receptions, 87 ypg, 5 TD), Manuel Johnson (33/71.8/8) and TE Jermaine Gresham (34/57.7/9), who is one of those guys that you keeping thinking, "Man, didn't he graduate 2 years ago?"
Their rushing attack is solid and is a two man show. DeMarco Murray has 139 carries with 11 TDs and an average of 4.9 ypc while Chris Brown has 115 carries, 9 TDs and an average of 5.8 ypc.
Those two get the luxury of running behind a behemoth of an offensive line, led by monster Phil Loadholt, who at 6'9" and 360 lbs might be the largest person I've ever layed eyes on. His helmet looks like it took two equipment managers to squeeze it onto his head for him.
2008 tu KU KSU Neb ========= ======= ======= ======= ======= RushD 117 (35) 161 134 64 204 PassD 237 (90) 277 357 486 214 TotD 353 (59) 438 491 550 418 ScorD 23.1 (51) 45 31 35 28Wait. We're ranked 79th in pass defense. OU is ranked 90th!?! This could very well be Bob Stoops's worst defense in as many years as I can recall. Regardless, they have a very talented group of players. Three players have 3 or more INTS and five have at least 3.5 sacks.Keenan Clayton (#22) has forced 5 fumbles, has 6 pass breakups, and is second on the team with 58 tackles. He trails Travis Lewis (#28), by a very large margin, who has 92 tackles.
DE Auston English, the Big 12 Preseason Defensive POY, will miss the game due to a sprained knee. That's good for us.
Something that I forgot to mention in last week's recap was some changes we saw on our own defense. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Devin Gregg is finally getting the playing time he should be but in addition to that last week we saw Alton Dixon move up and play a good bit of linebacker. We also saw Von Miller move up and put his hand back on the ground at defensive end, which I love. When I mentioned to Sean during the game that he was playing about "Half and half" (between LB and DE) Sean quickly came up with our new nickname for Von. "Creamer".
Oh and by the way....Sean pulled us seats on the second deck, row 2, somewhere between the north 35-40 yard line. The best seats I've ever had*.
Next weekend you might catch me whistling "Boomer Sooner" as I prepare to watch them take down texas tech but this week it's all B.T.H.O. OU! WHOOP!*I had, in my possession, row 2 seats for the Texas State game in '05 but friggin' Hurricane Rita screwed me over....one of only 2 home games I've missed since I was a freshman in the fall of '00
Sunday November 2nd, 2008
1:55pmAgs Whollop Cyclones 49-35 and Beat Buffs 24-17
Been a little crazy so I'm going to do this in a semi-bullitt point for both games....
Iowa State
- Jamie McCoy was amazing!
He was a complete mismatch all night long (7 catches for 110 yards and 2 TDs)
- Devin Gregg played a lot, which was great to see. He also got flagged for a completely bogus call when he hammered WR Sedrick Johnson. They called it helmet to helmet but Gregg's helmet clearly hit Johnson's shoulder. It was a great, clean hit.
- JJ set another school record this time it was completion %age in a single game with 79.5% (on 31-of-39; breaking McGee's record of 69.4% against tu last year).....31 completions was the most since 1996
- Tannehill now owns the A&M freshman record for receptions (39) and receiving yards (583) in a season, taking it away from my boy, Terrence Murphy. He is still on pace to become A&M's first 1,000 yard receiver.
- With his 5th TD of the season Jeff Fuller also etched his name in the record book by taking sole possession of the school's freshman receiving TD record. He needs 3 more to tie the overall all time single season record.
- Brantly had one of the most beautiful punts I've ever seen when we chose to punt from ISU's 34 yard line. I initially thought it was an odd decision, thinking we'd either let Bullock give it a shot from long distance or go for it on 4th & 6, but Justin came out and the ball dropped inside the 1 yard line and was downed at the 2. You couldn't have placed it any better if you were playing English Bowling. In the past, Fran would have brought in McGee to pooch punt it, but Sherman like to let Justin do....and do it well.
- Freshman OLman, Joe Villavisencio, had his RS pulled
- No Goodson....and we actually ran for 128 yards (and 3 TDs)
- Defense was atrocious....gave up 574 yards to the 94th ranked total offense
Colorado
- It is evident that we are improving, which is giving me (and a lot of other fans) a positive feeling on the season regardless of our win loss. Let's hope this continues as the schedule toughens up a bit.
- JJ hasn't thrown an INT since the Oklahoma State game (and even in the two he threw in that game were the fault of the receivers). That is a span of 181 passing attempts and 11 TDs.
I have been blown away by how well JJ has played and developed this season. I was a huge Reggie fan, and I still think he was the best QB we've had, but at this point in their careers, JJ is much more polished and more complete. I couldn't be happier with the situation.
- I watched the tu/tt game last night, disappointed because my birthday wish of the stadium spontaneously combusting didn't come to fruition, and I was thinking to myself, "Holy crap what could Jerrod Johnson do if he had an offensive line like either of these two teams?" Both Colt McCoy and Graham Harrell have all day long to throw and when they do get pressured they make horrific decisions. Swap offensive lines and I'm not completely convinced the best QBs play for the currently ranked teams.
- My boy, Justin Brantly, is still making a strong charge at the Ray Guy Award and a spot as an All-American. He averaged 48 ypp on 7 punts including a 63 yard BOMB and 3 inside the 20 (at the 12, the 2, & the 7). You know you have big expectations when you see a punt and mention to your brother, "Ah, that one was ok" and then you hear the announcer say it was a 49 yard punt. His shortest punt (37 yards was because he pinned the ball at their 7 yard line. He is now 3rd in the nation averaging 46.54 yards per punt and is the highest of the "BCS team" punters.
- The officials get a big, fat F for this game. It was one of the worst officiated games we've had in a long time.
There were two calls that were reversed by the booth that were blatantly wrong. One was on a ball that was caught by CU that bounced off the turf and another on a reception that the receiver didn't get full possession until just before his second step out of bounds. Another botch was on CU's first play of the game, their TE caught the ball and turned up field (which is a "football move") and he was hit and the ball popped out. I watched the replay this morning on FSN's Big 12 No Huddle and I agreed with my original thought from the stands. Fumble - Texas A&M's ball. The last one really burnt me up. We were at our own 13 yard line and had a screen play called to Gray who was turned around looking at JJ. JJ was under pressure and threw the ball and it bounced about a yard in front of Gray. They threw a flag and called JJ for intentional grounding. I went bonkers. We got backed up to our own 3 because of it and couldn't get ahead of the chains.
- Youth - 3 TDs by freshmen receivers, thrown by a sophomore QB, and a FG and 3 PATs by a freshman kicker....2 INTs by a true freshmen
- Speaking of that true freshman, Trent Hunter, has become a beast for us at safety. You've got to love seeing a kid play that hard have success come his way and help the team
- Mike Bennett had a nice game (3.5 TFL and a FF)
- Devin Gregg deserves some ink for a pickup that I haven't heard anyone make mention of. In the 2nd quarter CU was lined up for a field goal at our 32 yard line and all of a sudden I saw Devin Gregg start to jump up and down yelling just before running towards CU's sideline. Then I saw what he saw....CU had a player just kind of standing, almost hidden all by himself in bounds. When Gregg got over there to cover him CU called a timeout which leads me to believe that they were about to run a fake field goal. I felt like that was a huge play by a veteran player, that I'm not sure a younger guy would have noticed.
- Our starting field position in the first half was really bad (our first 5 possessions started inside our 30....once at the 11 and once at our own 6).
- After a dreadful first half (79 total yards off offense). We really opened it up in the 3rd quarter. On our first drive JJ connected with Ryan Tannehill on a pass that I was sure was going to get picked off....but the ball was laced right over the first defender and under the second defender and Tannehill kept his concentration and made the grab. On our third possession it was an easy one play drive. JJ hit Jeff Fuller who was just streaking up the right sideline for a 59 yard pass and catch into the endzone. Fuller had another TD in the 3rd quarter as he dove on a short out route and got his feet down before going out of bounds.
- After we broke out the 21 point unanswered points in the third quarter things got a little hairy in the 4th. CU scored with 2:59 remaining to make it a 24-17 score. We went 3-and-out, only taking 30 seconds off the clock and CU had a nice return on our punt to put them on our 49 yard line with 2:29 remaining. Thankfully, Hunter came up with that big INT on their first snap and we were able to pick up a huge J-Train first down to seal the deal.
- Mike Goodson did not play again and in his absence, Cyrus Gray appeared to get a little more comfortable at this level. He finally broke his first big run with a 54 yarder on a cut back. He finished the afternoon with 80 yards on 11 carries.
- After pulling Joe Villavisencio's RS last week, his name did not come up on the participation chart. This is similar to us pulling Ricky Cavanaugh's RS in the Army game- haven't seen him since. Billy Chavis is in a similar situation but he is playing some on special teams so it's not such a complete and utter waste.
- The Ags are undefeated in my son's lifetime. Not many can say that!