Texas A&M & Baseball In No Particular Order


Friday November 13th, 2009

3:52pm

Ag Football Preview: Oklahoma
I'm following our Ags on the road again this weekend making the drive up to Norman with my friend, Michael. We're leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday, going through College Station to pick up the tickets from my brother (who was my original partner but got stuck with a monster exam on Monday), plan on eating lunch somewhere between here and there, and getting to Norman a couple of hours before kickoff.

Fortunately for the players they get to fly up.

This year's Sooner squad has the same overall record as our Ags, at 5-4, but are one game ahead in the Big 12 standings (at 3-2 v. our 2-3).

This is a team that started the season ranked as the consensus #3 team in all the land but has suffered ENORMOUS losses due to injury. They lost reigning Heisman winner, Sam Bradford, to a shoulder separation in their season opening loss to BYU....and got him back for the Red River Shootout....only to lose him again mid-game to the exact same injury. They also lost All-American TE, Jermaine Gresham, their top returning pass catcher, just before the season started with torn cartilage in his right knee. Recently, as in the last 7-10 days, the Sooners have been hit hard again with OL Jarvis Jones (broken heel), OL Brody Eldridge (neck), DE Auston English (tendon in foot) all going on the shelf for the remainder of the season. Then on Wednesday it came out that OL Tavaris Jeffries might miss this weekend's game with a bruised shoulder. That would mean that OU would have lost 3 starting OLmen in a week's time.

And the Vegas line is still OU -20.

What? Are we that bad?

The answer is quite simple. The Sooners are playing at home. Owen Field at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is like an invincible force-field. Since Bob Stoops took over the program in 1999 the Land Thieves have compiled a 64-2 record at home. Yeah, two home losses in 11 years. That is a winning percentage of .970.

[just FYI the two losses were '01 oSu (20-10) and '05 TCU (17-10)].

Our last victory in Norman was in 1997 when we won 51-7. Under Stoops the Sooners have lost 4 games twice before this season, in 1995 (when they literally used a WR at QB) and in Stoops' debut of 1999 when they lost 5.

Wow, looking back at all those season records I just realized that 1999 (Independence Bowl), 2001 (Cotton Bowl), and 2005 (Holiday Bowl) are the only seasons that Stoops hasn't played in a BCS game. That's amazing.

They've played in more BCS bowl games than we've played in any bowl games. That is not amazing. 

   OU O               TAMU D
==========          ==========
139.1 (69)   RUSH   155.6 (75)
273.8 (23)   PASS   249.1 (98)
412.9 (32)    TOT   404.7 (95)
 29.8 (39)   SCOR    30.6 (98)

With the fall of Sam Bradford the Sooners have turned to RS-F Landry Jones who has been solid (particularly as a freshman) but is certainly no Bradford. Jones has thrown for 1,902 yards on 58.9% passing with 17 TDs to 11 INT and an average of 211.3 ypg. He is not a runner with only 31 yards gained on the season (with a net of -32). The strong suit of the OU offense is their running game with Chris Brown and DeMarco Murray. They are almost identical statistically. 

          Att Yds Avg TD  YPG
=============================
C.Brown.. 132 560 4.2  5 62.2
D.Murray. 113 512 4.5  5 64.0

The only difference is that Murray is a threat as a receiver as well and is second on the team with 28 receptions for 326 yards and 2 TDs. Ryan Broyles is the team's top target (52 for 665 and 10 TDs and an avg of 83.1 ypg)

The key to this game will be taking advantage of OU's depletion at OL and stopping the run game, which is something we struggled mightily with against KSU and CU.

Jimmy Stevens is 11-for-11 on FG attempts inside of 40 yards (0-2 from beyond) and punter Tress Way has actually been kicking the long FGs (4 of his 5 attempts are from beyond 40 yards) but hasn't hit a long one yet. As a punter he is much better averaging 43.8 ypp. 

  TAMU O             OU D       
==========        ==========     
184.6 (31)  RUSH   86.8 (5)     
293.0 (15)  PASS  179.7 (22)     
477.6 (4)    TOT  266.4 (9)     
 35.6 (9)   SCOR   12.3 (7)

This is hands-down the best defense we've come up against so far this year. They are led by their boys upfront, with one of the nation's top DLmen, DT Gerald McCoy. He was just named one of the four finalists for the Lombardi Award. Jeremy Beal is also a beast at DE (9.5 sacks).

Their LBer corps is also strong with Keenan Clayton, Ryan Reynolds (third in tackles and sacks), and Travis Lewis (the team leader in tackles).

We're going to have to establish the run in this game, which was something I thought we needed to do better last week in Boulder. Since Sherman took over we have averaged 182 yards on the ground in our wins and only 69 yards in our losses. This is going to be a HUGE mountain for our OL to climb, both in the run game as well as protecting Jerrod from Stoops's relentless defense.

Overall, this game is winnable but we're going to have to stop the run on defense and get it going on offense and not turn the ball over. We can't afford to give up scoring opportunities against a defense that is so stout.

Here's to a great weekend of football!

Gig'em & BTHO OU! WHOOP!

| Where are you?


Tuesday November 10th, 2009

10:52pm

Ag Football Recap: Great Trip to Boulder - Except the Score, 35-34


Folsom Field

My alarm went off at 3:55am on Thursday and I have discovered that at that time of the day, whether they're in because it is really, really late and I haven't taken them out....or if it's early and they're going in, my eyeballs and my contact lenses like to have a little mini-battle royale at my expense.

We were in the car at 4:30 and were sitting at our gate in terminal A by 5:30am. As we were sitting there I realized how addicted to computers we, as a society, are. A business lady located a plug, but it was behind a plant pot against a column in the middle of the terminal. Not one to be slowed down by decorational flora, she scooted the pot away so she could plug her laptop in and then sat on cross-legged on the floor of the airport terminal not concerned with the press in her slacks.

We had a layover in Salt Lake City but on the way over I was looking out of the window at a mountain range - it was one of those moments when you are just amazed at how cool the earth really is. Then all of a sudden the mountains ended and we were over a city - the white "Y" on the side of the mountain made me realize we were over Provo - the home of BYU. It made me think of one of my best friends from high school who went off to school there. I need to catch up with him.

The Salt Lake City Airport was, hands down, the cleanest airport I have ever stepped foot in.

We got to Denver and picked up our bright red PT Cruiser....then returned it because it smelled like smoke....and got another bright red PT Cruiser (Avis must have received a bulk discount). Our hotel was in Broomfield, CO, which is a suburb of Denver that is about 20 minutes south of Boulder. We stayed in a hotel called Aloft, which is apparently some new fangled idea. It was pretty cool....very hip and modern and everything had a hint of citrus scent to it.

We went to Flatiron Crossing, a built up suburbal (I made that word up and it is a good one) area with lots of shopping and restaurants one exit north (I'm pretty sure it was still considered part of Broomfield). We ate at a place called Bloom which serves "New American Cuisine", which means normal food with a slice of cucumber and some spinach on it at a ridiculous price. We came back to our citrus room for a nap and when we awoke we drove into Boulder to eat dinner. I had been told we needed to eat at The Sink which is a very college-feeling burger/pizza/bar. Good eats. From there we went to the movie theater at Flatiron Crossing and saw Couples Retreat. After that we went back to the hotel and crashed.

We slept in on Friday. We had no plans what-so-ever so we went to California Pizza Kitchen and then headed up north into the mountains to see Estes Park. It was gorgeous and once you get up into there on those roads that are cut through the mountains it makes you realize how small you are. I noticed that all the Colorado's city signs all have the elevations on them instead of the populations, like what we're accustomed to here in Texas. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Friday evening we met up with one of my really good friends, Zach, who graciously made the drive up from Colorado Springs. We didn't have a restaurant picked out so we kind of drove around aimlessly ending up in a neighboring town, Lafayette, where we kind of fell into a pretty good Italian restaurant. We had a nice evening of catching up and good stories. It is really nice to have good friends.

My wonderful wife stayed up late and insisted that we go to Midnight Yell at a bar/restaurant back in Flatiron Crossing called C.B. & Potts. When we walked in and David Allen Coe was playing, maroon was everywhere, and everyone had a smile on their face....Good bull, particularly so far from home.

Saturday morning we got up at 8:20am and grabbed some breakfast on the way to Boulder for our 11:30am kickoff. We parked at a local high school that was selling parking spaces as a fundraiser and then we walked through campus, which, like the rest of Colorado, is beautiful. All the architecture is consistent throughout campus (which is something that I dislike about our own campus) and all the buildings use flagstone instead of brick, which I love.

Folsom Field was gorgeous. It was hands-down, the most picturesque setting I've ever seen a football game from. We got inside pretty early so I went down and saw Ralphie - much smaller than I had imagined. She was about the size of a regular cow, and for some reason I always envisioned Buffaloes to be much larger than cattle.

From a football standpoint, this was a great game. From my standpoint I really can't believe we lost to a two win Colorado team. Our redzone offense is a huge concern for me - even on the drives where we did score from inside the 15 it took us so many snaps to get the points - we are terribly inefficient in there.

Here are some notes from the game....

After all the warnings I had received we didn't have a single fan say anything derogatory towards us. On the way to the stadium one student asked if we needed directions and pointed us the right direction, inside the stadium the gentleman behind us was kind....the group of late-30 year old fellas in front of us were jerks - but not to us - it was just their general disposition.

After the game I tried to put on my pleasant face for Jennifer. We went out to eat and then came back to the Citrus Center and napped until it was time to go to sleep.

Our flight was early on Sunday morning and we dropped the car off at the rental return parking lot at 6am and were in the air by 7:30am.

It was really nice getting a weekend away and I couldn't have spent it with anyone better.

| Where are you?


Internal Navigation Aids
Click HERE to go back to main page of "Texas A&M & Baseball In No Particular Order"
To Top of Page Counter