10 Days . . .

My heart is aflutter and Chuck can barely sleep because . . .

Sam Houston State - Looking Ahead

It’s Friday morning and I once again find myself in a new and exotic land with a slight headache. This time my host city sounds like something from a Milton Bradley game. It’s Sugarland, a whimsical place with gumdrop traffic lights, lollipop stop signs, crowded freeways, no zoning, and a Starbucks at nearly every intersection. Yeah, in spite of the name it’s still just Houston. But, I have a little time for reflection which historically has proven to be a good thing at least once out of every three times it happens. Here’s hopin’.

Not much going on in Aggie football this week. Sam Houston State is coming to town. The squad from Huntsville is playing well, although they are an FCS team (formerly Div 1 AA). They are 8-2 and are a legitimate title contender in their division. They play sound football, don’t turn it over, run the ball well, and play excellent run defense. My hope is that the Aggies play perfect football. It’s really all you can do against a team like this. If Johnny Effin’ Football goes 20-22 for 250 yards and 4 TD’s and runs for another 100+ yards that’s a good outing. You can’t run up the score, but I don’t think you’re obligated to let them score necessarily. The game is at 2:30 and is only available in Texas on pay per view. Outside of Texas it will be available on ESPN Gameplan. We’ll be serving fajitas at the tailgate. Please come on out. We’d love to have you.

Aside from that there’s not much going on.

Oh, well there was that one thing. The Ags went to Tuscaloosa on Saturday and took down the number one team in college football on the road in dramatic fashion and has been the darling of the media since then with non-stop coverage of Johnny Effin’ Football and his potential as a Heisman finalist on account of his nearly perfect game against the number one defense in the country.

But apart from that, not much is going on in Aggieland.

If you didn’t see it, there’s something clearly wrong with you. But I’ll give you the “world as Chuck sees it” account of the game. Bama wins the toss and is not going to let JFF have the ball first. I’d like to make fun of them for this, but it’s just smart. Our defense forces a three and out and JFF gets his first crack at Bama. God created Johnny out of 195 pounds of pure energy combined with 10 pounds of badass, and a few plays later the Ags scored. Bama gets the ball makes a play or two and then our defense forces Bama’s first interception of the season after a safety delivers a crushing blow to the receiver just after he catches the ball and the ball pops out. Johnny dashes back on the field after using his super powers to return power to thousands of New Yorkers between possessions, and a few plays later the Ags scored. Bama gets the ball and goes three and out. Johnny makes sure the person he just resuscitated with the kiss of life is ok and returns to the field where, a few plays later, the Ags scored. End of the first quarter the score is 20-0 Ags (we missed another extra point).

A bunch of other stuff happens.

Fourth quarter, the Ags are hanging on to a precarious lead. Now only up 23-17 the Ags get the ball. Johnny calmly places his hand on Coach Kevin Damn Sumlin’s shoulder and says “Be at peace”, walks out on the field (although it appears his feet don’t actually touch the ground), and a few plays later the Ags score. We went for two on account of our kicker is the anti-Johnny. We didn’t get it. Ags up 29-17.

A bunch of other stuff happens.

In the final minutes of the game, Bama has the ball and is trying to move downfield. The score is 29-25 Ags. Because Johnny can’t play both offense and defense, he’s just a man after all, Bama quickly moves the ball down to the five yard line. All they have to do is punch it in. This is what may go down as one of the greatest goal line stands in A&M history. The Aggie defense, which has been playing outstanding football all season, stiffens up. First down, no dice. Second down, no dice. Third down, thanks to Dustin Harris’ game saving solo tackle on AJ McCarron, no dice. Fourth down, AJ McCarron rolls to his right, throws, and is picked off. The Ags run out the clock and win. The media goes nuts. The coaches go nuts. Chuck goes nuts. Johnny doesn’t feel like a nut so he has a Mounds bar instead.

I don’t think the Aggies have ever had a week like this where the media just shower them with love (I’m having an internal debate as to whether “the media” is singular or plural, so please forgive any resulting grammatical errors). Johnny, who has been a dark-horse Heisman candidate, now seems guaranteed to receive an invitation to New York. Top national recruits are calling the Ags to see if there’s room on the roster. People are talking about our assistant coaches getting head coaching jobs. Everyone gets a raise. The Ags might go to a BCS bowl game. We are virtually assured of our first ten win season in a long, long time.

Life is good.

Nothing lasts forever, but for now, life is good and I’m really enjoying being an Aggie. Even the worst potbangers in the world have nothing to say. Life is good.

Well, I do have this one problem. I need tickets for tomorrow’s game. Who in the world would think that I’d be over-committed on tickets for the Sam Houston State game? Right? Oh well. It’s like I tell my kids, sometimes shit don’t work out the way you want it to. Anyway, if you’re one of the people I’ve committed tickets to, you’re fine. But I told some other folks I’d try to find them some tickets. So, if you have extra tickets or know of someone with extra tickets, please let me know. Thanks.

Gig’em and Beat The Hell Outta Sam Houston State!

Chuck ‘96

Sweet Home Alabama

There are two kinds of Aggies in the world, those who understand that Johnny Effin’ Football will eventually be able to achieve space travel without all those cumbersome rockets and such, and those who live under a rock, in the desert, in Australia, reading Sylvia Plath and wondering what ever happened to that kid from the Wonder Years. Against yet another top 25 opponent, Mississippi State, Johnny put up more ego crushing numbers, going 30-36 for 311 yards and rushing for another 129 yards and 2 TD’s in a 38-13 rout. JFF lead the SEC in Total Offense, Scoring Offense, Rushing Offense, Kittens Saved, Passing Offense and Points Responsible for and remains the object of Kirk Herbstreit’s unhealthy (and a little creepy) hetero man-crush.

Over the last four weeks the Ags have played three top 25 teams. And, apart from dropping the heart-breaker to the Swamp Kittens, they have held up incredibly well, primarily on the road in the SEC no less. This week they go into Tuscaloosa with an opportunity to shake up the BCS title race by beating the #1 ranked Crimson Tide in their own house.

…speaking of “Crimson Tide”, I did a little checking on the internet for the meaning. Crimson Tide is the common name of the algae Karenia Brevis. It’s also a girly cocktail made of Vodka and Pomegranate juice, a pretty decent Denzel Washington movie and a slang term for, uhhh… shall we say “Aunt Flo”. Well anyway, my point is that I haven’t found anything that sounds fearsome about Crimson Tide (except maybe that last one). And yeah, I get that being the “Aggies” isn’t too intimidating either, but it beats being the “Maroon Horizon” or the “Humid Breeze” or whatever other nonsense would be in the same category as “Crimson Tide”.

Sorry.

Rant Over.

For now.

So, I reached out to some of my peeps about the sick, all-black unis that the Ags wore in Starkville last week. The universal response was that those threads were wheels-off. If you didn’t see it, the Bulldogs wore pretty white fairy costumes to commemorate the 11 year, 10 month and 4 day anniversary of their win over the Ags in the 2000 Independence Bowl. It was a Snow Bowl party. We showed up for the festivities in all black uniforms and brought the hosts a carefully gift wrapped ass-kicking. You could tell that they had spent a lot of time preparing for the party and I’m just glad we were able to be a part of it.

…speaking of parties, Tim and I went on a reconnaissance mission to Baton Rouge last weekend to study the local culture and determine how we might be able to tailgate there next year for the A&M/LSU game without it turning into some kind of Swamp People meets Deliverance fiasco. I don’t know that we’ve ever been as warmly welcomed by random people as we were down there. The food was fantastic. The beer was cold and plentiful. And the ire of the coon-asses was directed primarily at those folks from Bama. We heard “Tiger Bait!” shouted out all the time. It was a great game day atmosphere. It was perfect. Well, except that LSU let them back in it at the end and all those drunk Cajuns had to go home angry. Tim and I got the hell outta town before it got ugly and we’re determined to go back.

One of the problems I’m running into when it comes to writing these emails is that I don’t have 20+ years of SEC relationships to dwell on. For example, I’ve been told that Bama fans are every bit as arrogant and condescending as t.u. fans are, except without all the education and money. But they haven’t been that way to me yet. I know less about them than I do about salsa dancing. So as I try to come up with witty zingers about the Tide, all I can think is, man, I feel sorry for those toothless bastards. They’ve got nothing to live for but Bama football and UFO sightings. It seems unfair to try to take away the one, solitary thing Alabama as a state has going for it (well, apart from its relatively lofty academic standards which only appear “lofty” when compared to its neighbors Mississippi and Tennessee). But, see, that’s my dilemma. I’m stuck making academic jokes about Alabama because that’s the obvious, easy joke. It’s like making fun of Joe Biden for being an idiot. People that know him better make fun of him being a drunk, mean-spirited idiot. I’m sorry that was out of line (forgot the formality). Vice President Joe Biden is a… …well, anyway.

So, I find myself wondering, “How are we ever gonna beat Aunt Flo?” I thought about asking my wife, but I suspect, particularly if I asked it that way, her response would be “shut the hell up, you’re not funny.” (I actually get that quite a bit. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t really like football that much.) Still the question needs to be answered. And after careful consideration I believe we have a good chance of beating Bama if we can be effective on first downs and not turn the ball over. If we can get ahead early and force them to play catch up we’ll be better off. I wouldn’t say it’s likely that we will win, but I think we’ve got a better chance of winning tomorrow than Mack Brown has of keeping his job after this season. We have the 5^th ranked offense and the 46^th ranked defense. Bama has the #2 defense and the 48^th ranked offense. It’s not exactly an even match-up, but it’s not crazy to think we have a shot either. A win would be HUGE for Texas A&M and would set up an incredible finish to an already successful first season in the SEC.

So, that’s what I’m hoping for. The game is at 2:30 on CBS tomorrow. Every American, including the stone-age broadcast television recipients, will be able to watch it (as opposed to the wronghorn fans who have to have a website dedicated to identifying the few bars and restaurants that will be able to air their LHN-only game against Iowa State). The shame, of course, is that almost no one may be able to tune in to watch Iowa State beat the hell outta t.u. But about a zillion people will have a chance to watch Johnny Effin’ Football get after it against the Menstrual Mastodons of Tuscaloosa. Now that’s entertainment!

Gig ‘em and Beat the Hell Outta Alabama!

Chuck ‘96

Mississippi State

Short email today. Theresa said my last one wasn't funny and I figured, hell, I can achieve "not funny" with a lot less effort.

We beat the hell outta Auburn last week. Most yards Auburn has ever given up. Starters were pulled after one series in the second half as part of one of our Aggie charity programs to help the under-privileged.

This week we take on Mississippi State in what promises to be a good game. State hasn't beaten anyone of note this year, but they are ranked so we'll see. Maybe they really don't suck anymore. Or... Well some things change and some things don't.

Hopefully we're healed up by tomorrow. Coach Sumlin, for example, had to tend to his sore feet on Sunday after he developed blisters from kicking Gene Chizik's butt so hard the day before.

Johnny Effin Football stoked some controversy when photos of him surfaced dressed up for Halloween surrounded by beautiful, half naked women. I, for one, was shocked that beautiful college women would be interested in star athletes. Oh, the things I would have done differently if I had only known...

Things you should know about Miss. State: Not much. Maroon uniforms. SEC West doormat. Coached by Aggie legend Jackie Sherril from 1991 to 2003. Beat A&M in the 2000 Independence Bowl. Game at 11:00 tomorrow on ESPN.

Beat the Hell Outta Mississippi State!

Chuck '96

See, short and dull, like the list of t.u. fans still supporting Mack Brown these days

On the road again . . .

At the time of this writing I am many thousands of feet above the Nevada desert headed East in an aluminum tube with 160 other people who all appear to all feel the same way I do (let’s call it “unsettled”). For the middle of the day, it is surprisingly quiet. It’s giving me a little time to reflect on last week’s game against LSU and this week’s game against Auburn.

The cynics in sports will say there are no moral victories. And I get where they’re coming from. Winning is what matters most. Whatever #2 is, it’s way the hell back there. Would you rather lose a close game to a great team or beat a so-so team by 35? I think most people, including me, would take the “W” because losses suck. But not every loss is a complete failure. I mean, sure, this one feels like failure because we were in it, had a lead and could have won. And then we blew it. Feels awful. So, maybe in this case it would feel better if it had been a back and forth game and LSU had just out-manned us.

“Well Boys, we fought the good fight. Gave ‘em a run for their money. They were just bigger, faster, and stronger. There’s no shame in losing. We did the best we could. Keep a stiff upper lip. We’ll get better over time. Blah, blah, blah… [puke]”

Yeah, maybe that would feel better.

Well, to quote one my military heroes, Colonel Sherman Potter, I say “Horse hockey!” I just don’t see it that way. If that were the case, if we were just out-manned, we’d have no reason to be optimistic about the rest of this season. What in the world would we look forward to? Not much. Well I do feel optimistic about this season. What happened to us is we made mistakes. And, yeah, it sucks to let a game like that slip away. But, we can correct mistakes (and we’re not getting any faster or taller between now and February). We can get better at decision-making, turnovers, penalties, route-running and the like. We showed we were man enough to take on the big boys and give them all they could handle for most of the game.

At the beginning of the year, 13 out of 14 SEC teams thought we were going to get beat like a kid who stole something. A lot of SEC fans penciled in a little “W” next to the Texas A&M game on the pocket schedule their realtors mailed them over the summer. We were an afterthought. Now, I promise you, we have their full attention.

If you didn’t watch the LSU game, first of all, it’s probably your fault we lost. I won’t explain the mechanics of it, but rest assured, you should feel guilty it’s probably better if you don’t tell me who you are. The game played out a lot like the Florida game. We raced out to an early lead and then struggled to move the ball for a while. Our defense held up very well for most of the game, but gave up three touchdowns, each after an untimely turnover. We missed field goals, a PAT and were unable to put points on the board after a 76 yard kick return. But, we also put up the most yards that LSU has given up in the last 18 games. We held them to 2 of 16 on third down conversions. Our book-end tackles Joeckel and Matthews more than held their own against LSU’s incredible pass-rush and may have cemented their status as the best tackles in college football. As juniors both are projected to be top 10 picks in this year’s NFL draft. Demontre Moore played big boy football and added to his already gaudy sack and TFL totals. He is also projected to go in the top 10 in this year’s draft (unless we can convince him to stay). We're a good team.

Yeah, we’ve got their attention alright. Even Nick Satan, I mean Saban, is thinking about us.

This week we go to Auburn to play a team in disarray. With Auburn at 1-6, just two years removed from a National championship, coach Gene Chizik is on the hottest of hot seats. It’s gonna get bad over there. For a touch of perspective, just think about all the hand-wringing going on in Austin right now over a 5-2 wrongwhorn team. Mack's on the hot seat. I imagine an irritated crowd of t-shirt fans sticking their carefully manicured hands out of their BMW windows to give Mack the one finger salute as they drive down I-35. Now, replace that group with an angry mob of Alabama rednecks who may not be able to count all 6 losses because their spare hand is holding a pitchfork, but they know it’s a whole lot more than their one win which ain’t good. And they know where coach Chizik lives because it’s the only house in town without wheels.

Yeah, I’ll take the Barton Creek crowd any day.

The problem with Auburn is that they actually do have talent on the roster and they’re desperate. They’re like a cornered animal. A loss to us means they’re eliminated from bowl contention before November, which ain’t good. It also means that Gene Chizik may have to find a new job, which also ain’t good (at least if you’re Gene) cause it most likely involves about a 90% pay cut. I have to believe that we’re going to get Auburn’s best shot on Saturday.

But, I also think that we can win without too much trouble if we play our game and if we’re focused. Our last couple of outings have shown that we can do amazing things one moment and then immediately turn around and wet the bed. We will need to cut out the bed wetting and play relatively mistake free football Saturday. Auburn will be loud and crazy. Hopefully we’ll punch them in the face and not let them get any big ideas. This is the first game in a three game SEC road trip that starts and ends in the state of Alabama with a side trip to currently undefeated Mississippi State sandwiched in the middle. It will be helpful if we don’t wind up in a slugging match and accidentally get someone hurt before we travel to Tuscaloosa two weeks later to take our third shot at a top 10 ranked SEC team.

I thought I should start throwing in some semi-factual tidbits about the SEC teams we play so that people who aren’t already familiar with the SEC can have just enough information to start a bar fight. Auburn’s mascot is Aubie the Tiger. It’s such an original mascot that only two other teams in the conference use the same animal. Everyone loves tigers, they’re Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat! But, to confuse matters, they also have “war eagle’. War Eagle is actually just a battle cry, although they have had live eagles for years and the eagle circles the stadium before the game getting everyone riled up. The official word from the University is that “we’re the Tigers who say ‘War Eagle’.” The official word from everyone else is that this is a retarded explanation because you actually have a damn eagle.

The best known landmark in Auburn is Toomer’s Corner, a beautiful park area with two grand old oak trees that fans will wrap in toilet paper any time something good happens to Auburn. It was in the news a while back when maybe the dumbest Alabama fan (out of a world-class collection of incredibly stupid fans) famously poisoned the ancient oak trees, AND THEN CALLED A RADIO SHOW TO BRAG ABOUT IT. They *69ed his butt and he now resides in an 8X10 hospital jail cell (an upgrade over the wheeled domicile he had been occupying prior to his epic brainfart). Roll tide indeed. Anyway, his trial is scheduled to begin soon, but is temporarily on hold while they examine his brain after stunning revelations that he may have a screw loose.

That’s the news as I choose to report it.

Gig’em and Beat the Hell Outta Auburn!

Chuck ‘96

LSU - Oh man, oh man, oh man.

This is just a quick reminder that this weekend is monumentally important to the Aggies. And not just in terms of wins and losses. This is where we set the precedent for how awesome our fanbase is for visiting SEC fans. An 11:00 AM start might be a deterrent to the average SEC fan, but not us. We're going to have an absolute blowout party after the game. If you are even a little bit on the fence about coming, get your butt off the fence and come on down (or up as the case may be). There will be a lot of people who just hang out during the game, watching it on TV, drinking free beer, waiting for Tim to return and start frying the all that fish. We've got a bartender, kegs, shot girls, musicians, fried food, coonasses and hurricanes.

Come on. Bring friends. Have a drink. Watch a little football.

More to come.

- Chuck '96

Ole Miss? Wow. And now La Tech . . .

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:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1A5zDJWsFo

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 4^th or 5^th in the SEC West (rather than the assumed 7^th), 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 3^rd ranked scoring offense with a 106^th 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.