If you didn’t watch the A&M / Ole Miss game there’s really nothing I can do to describe it to you effectively. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. We did everything we could think of to give that game to Ole Miss. We turned the ball over six times. Six. Even people who don’t know anything about football (no offense Bryan) know that six is a lot of turnovers. We came within a hanging chad of giving up a game defining safety. We allowed them to convert on seemingly every third and fourth down conversion attempt (except one). We, on the other hand, failed to convert third and short and we failed to punch it in in the red zone. It was a rough first SEC road game.
But, somehow the good guys pulled it out. The defense came up with huge stops when they absolutely had to and scored a defensive touchdown for the third week in a row. They kept Ole Miss from converting a critical fourth and a centimeter (about a half an inch for you non-metric holdouts) giving Johnny a short field to work with for the go ahead touchdown and the defense came up with the game ending interception in the final minute of play. Johnny Manziel did his thing, ran in circles, ran downfield, sometimes ran backwards, escaped pressure, missed some throws he should have made, made some throws he should have missed, fumbled the ball within sniffin’ distance of the end zone, led two improbable scoring drives in the final eight minutes of play to win on the road and was again clearly the most interesting part of an incredibly interesting football game.
Here’s a highlight video that I think really captures the way other teams see Johnny Effin’ Football:
I owe my television an apology from Saturday. If that TV was a person, well, the things I said to it on Saturday would qualify as emotional abuse and I came within a gnat’s nut hair of physically abusing it as well. My poor mother in law was in the room and I may have shattered the heretofore unblemished image I had carefully cultivated with her over the last sixteen years. Theresa even had to take the kids out of the room at one point. With all of that fresh in my mind, the next time a cop looks me in the eye and says “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” I’m taking the easy way. I’d like to see the Aggies win the easy way too. To quote my old friend Sargent Murtaugh “I’m getting’ too old for this sh*t.”
Whew.
And now on to this week. When the schedule came out earlier this year I had circled Louisiana Tech as an easy game to win. After all, A&M has a perfect historical record against La Tech with an average margin of 31 points. There’s no way we’re losing to La Tech, right? But it turns out La Tech actually has a pretty solid team this year and finds itself undefeated and ranked in the top 25 for the first time since Al Gore invented the Internet. They’re scoring 50+ points a game and haven’t been held below 40 yet. They’re also creating a lot of turnovers. This is giving the boys from Ruston, Louisiana a lot of confidence, particularly after we struggled with perennial SEC doormat Ole Miss.
Well, I have two predictions for everyone. First, Ole Miss is better than people think and will finish 4th or 5th in the SEC West (rather than the assumed 7th), which would be good for 2nd in the Big 12-2-2+2. Second, La Tech isn’t bad, but they’re going to get their butts beat on Saturday. La Tech compliments their 3rd ranked scoring offense with a 106th ranked scoring defense. And they achieved these impressive numbers against less than stellar competition. We will easily have the best defense and the best offense they have to play all season. The one wrinkle in the deal is that we’ll face their pass-happy offense with a depleted defensive secondary. We’re a little banged up and we’ve got two suspended players (starting linebacker Steven Jenkins and back-up safety Howard Mathews). There might not be a punt all night. We’ll see.
Those that bet, or rather those that take bets have the line at Ags -9. I’d still take that bet. I think we’re at least two TD’s better than La Tech and let’s face it, to win by less would humiliating. We'll beat the spread on moral grounds alone.
This email has already gone on too long, but I think it’s worth mentioning the Ags in the NFL. Ryan Tannehill is playing as well as or better than the two QB’s drafted above him (Andrew Luck and RG III). He may become the franchise player for Miami that no one expected him to be, plus his wife is smokin’ hot. Aside: Speaking of RGIII, he got hurt last week, which sucks because I hear he’s a pretty decent guy. But, what I saw from him in college was that he was exceptional until he got hurt, which was not an uncommon event. And every Baylor Bold person I ever met gave me the one finger salute if I brought it up the possibility of that happening more rather than less in the pros. Well, I’m just sayin’, that’s all. Von Miller has five sacks through five games. With the Peyton show in Denver these days people just seem to accept that Von’s dominance is a given. It’s cool when being a badass surprises people, and it’s even cooler when they just know it’s coming. Jerrod Johnson is giving it another go, this time in the minor leagues. I really want this kid to get his chance in the NFL. Jorvorskie Lane is the starting fullback for the Dolphins and seems to finally have his life in order. And a bunch of linemen continue to get no credit, even from me.
I’m not driving to Shreveport for the neutral site game. I’d like to, but I love my wife too much to leave her alone with the three amigos again this weekend. Plus, when you drive to Shreveport, unfortunately you wind up in Shreveport, which is fine, except that it’s Shreveport, and Shreveport sucks. But, I think everyone else should go. You’ll love it. It’s a short drive from DFW. And someone has to be there to watch the Ags beat the hell outta Bobby Boucher and the South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, err Bulldogs.
Gig ‘em and Beat the Hell Outta Louisiana Tech!
Chuck ‘96
P.S. – Plan on coming to the LSU game next week. I think I just locked up our music for the tailgate. Look up Jordan Camerino on youtube. Good stuff.
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