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Saturday October 31st, 2009
11:21pmAg Football Recap: Ags Pick Up Fifth Win, 35-10
That score is closer than the game was. Sherman took a knee at the 1 yard line and about 2 minutes remaining in the game.
It was another very complete game played by our youngsters, the second in a row. It was also the second game in row that our offensive line showed up and played very well....and as a result, we ran the ball excellently.
Cyrus Gray ran for 119 yards and Christine Michael added 63 and a TD. They both ran very hard and looked great.
JJ didn't throw for eye-popping numbers this week but he was extremely efficient, 23-of-28 for 234 yards and 3 TDs (to zero INTs). He is putting up a phenomenal season so far.
The only two things I could really complain about was the fumble on the kick-off to start the second half and the penalty flag the officials threw on Howard Morrow. It was Military Appreciation Day at Kyle Field and when Morrow scored at the start of the fourth quarter he made a quick salute before tossing the ball to the official and they flagged him for un-sportsman like conduct. His father, step-father, and grandfather all served in our Nation's armed forces and he was paying tribute to them. The officials came away looking like complete morons.
One of the big components for us offensively was our success on 3rd down - we were 10-of-13 and we also converted 2-of-3 on 4th down (keep in mind that one of the 3rd downs and the 4th down we didn't convert were when we kneeled the ball at the one yard line - so really we were 10-of-12 and 2-of-2). That is HUGE.
ISU did play their star running back, Alexander Robinson, but he didn't really thrash us - 76 yards on 20 carries. We did not have to see Austen Arnaud which was my hope.
I thought that the defense played very well. We gave up only 324 yards (169 rushing and 155 passing) and only 10 points. It was the lowest yardage total we've allowed on the season and the second lowest point total (New Mexico only scored 6 on us).
A couple other things I wanted to touch on....
- Jeff Fuller played a fairly good number of snaps and had 5 receptions for 67 yards, including a 32 yard TD - but he was clearly not 100% on his leg. He was pretty careful on it and it made me really nervous that he was going to re-injure it somehow.
- Von Miller picked up another sack today giving him 13.5 on the year. That is the most sacks by any Aggie since Keith Mitchell's 14.5 in 1996 (before that you have to go back to the late 80s). Von is currently 7th on the single season sack record list. Von also had a spectacular play called back where he lept clean over ISU's lineman on a field goal attempt and blocked the FG (Trent Hunter ran it back inside the 20) but he was flagged, and rightfully so, for jumping a bit to soon. It was still pretty awesome though.
Overall, it was a great win, putting us one victory away from a bowl bid. Our next game will be up in Boulder and I'm getting my long johns washed because it's going to be chilly.
WHOOP!
Friday October 30th, 2009
10:54pmAg Football Preview: Iowa State
How are we going to respond? Are we going to have a hangover or are we going to be focused?Iowa State has to answer the same question after their first win in Licoln since 1977. I will say, however, ISU's win was much more fluky than ours. They won 9-7 on EIGHT, count'em, EIGHT turnovers - including 4 inside the five yard line (interception at the 1, fumble at the 1, fumble at the 1, fumble at the 5). Nebraska should have waxed'em.
Before last weekend ISU's last Big 12 road win was....'05 in Kyle Field. Thanks Fran....and thank God that Todd Blythe is out of eligibility.
This year the Cyclones are 5-3 on the year with wins against N.Dakota St, Kent St, Army, Baylor, and Nebraska and losses to Iowa, KSU, and KU. First year head coach Paul Rhoads (previously Auburn DC) has already matched Gene Chizik's win total of 5 (in two years).
A familiar face on the sidelines wearing red will be former A&M coach, Kennith Pope who is their RB coach.
ISU O TAMU D ========== ========== 204.3 (16) RUSH 152.1 (78) 183.4 (97) PASS 259.4 (108) 387.6 (55) TOT 411.6 (98) 24.3 (82) SCOR 32.9 (104)The Cyclones are kind of the opposite of texas tech - they run the ball VERY well and don't pass all that much. This part scares me because we have a tendency to get torched against strong running attacks. One big difference between this week and the KSU week is that we have big Tony Jerod Eddie in the lineup (he was injured for the KSU game) and he should make some difference up the middle.ISU is also keeping mum on if their top two offensive players will be in the ballgame, QB Austen Arnaud and RB Alexander Robinson. Robinson is one of the top backs in the Big 12 but has a groin injury and Arnaud has a bruised hand. Rhodes feels like both will play but I would prefer if neither did. Robinson is averaging 105 yards per game and has 6 TDs. If I could pick I would prefer Arnaud not play - he is second behind Robinson in rushing averaging 62 ypg and has 7 TDs on the ground. In the air he is 108-of-185 with 9 TDs and 5 INTs to go with 1246 yards.
TAMU O ISU D ========== ========== 180.3 (33) RUSH 137.5 (62) 308.7 (9) PASS 246.1 (99) 489.0 (3) TOT 383.6 (82) 35.9 (8) SCOR 19.8 (34)Jesse Smith is the best defender on the Cyclones squad with 87 tackles (35 more than the next guy), two INTs, and two forced fumbles. James Smith is that second tackler with 52 (he has one INT and two fumble recoveries) and David Sims is third in tackles and leads the team in INTs with 4. They have 11 sacks on the season 3 players have two sacks and one has three sacks.Kicker Grant Mahoney has a big leg and has hit 5 FGs of 45 yards or deeper (long of 52)....but he only has one touchback on kickoffs!?!
This one scares me a bit but a win would put us one W away from a bowl game.
BTHO ISU! WHOOP!
Tuesday November 27th, 2009
9:42pmAg Football Recap: texas tech Part II
Think there is any way we could get that shirt re-made in reverse colors?
I watched the "No Huddle" version of the game that broadcast on FSN and was a little disappointed that it only showed scoring drives and a couple of key turnovers....none-the-less it was better than simply going off of the images I had in my head.
I still can't believe that we were able to go from the garbage we saw last week to the stunningly impressive performance we saw this week. What a response - not only from last week to this week but responding after our first play fumble that led directly to a texas tech TD. I'm not sure I've ever seen a swing week-to-week quite like that, particularly in that direction. Usually, you'll see a team win a huge game and then suffer a hangover in the next game (see UH losing to UTEP after beating tech the week before).
So what can we attribute this to? Is this one of the youth issues - consistency? Or is this coaching - being able to motivate?
I asked in my tech preview which team would show up for us....the one we saw against oSu, the one we saw against KSU, or a third one we haven't seen yet. It was certainly the one we saw against oSu, which makes the KSU game look more like the anomaly this season. Of course, we're still young and we don't know about the coaches ability to motivate - so we don't know which team we'll see this Saturday, right?
One note that someone commented to me that I loved was that we actually covered tech's 21 point line.
JJ didn't have his best night number-wise. He threw for a season low 238 yards on 19-of-28 passing with one TD. He did, however, run for 71 yards on 10 carries - and many of those were crucial big yardage runs. I thought it was Jerrod's best performance of his career. He was poised, efficient, took care of the ball, and led the offense.
EZ was, again, the leading receiver with 4 receptions for 79 yards, including a big freebie on an off-sides deep pass that he yanked away from a tech defender for a 40 yard big play early in the game.
The key was that the OL was able to run block and let us see, for the first time, how great Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael really can be. Cyrus ran for 132 yards on 25 carries for 3 TDs (and added another 41 yards and a TD on 4 receptions) while C-Mike broke the 100 yard barrier for the first time in his young career with 121 yards on 22 carries with 2 TDs.
Other than the running game, the defense forced turnovers. We forced 5 turnovers (and only gave it up once) but we only scored 10 points off of those TOs. Even though we didn't get points directly they were still big because it took the ball away from tech preventing them from scoring - the most costly was the Fredricks INT inside the redzone just before the half keeping our lead 28-14.
It was a great victory, and as fans we can enjoy it, but as players they need to make sure they get ready for ISU who is also coming off of their biggest win of the last few seasons.