Ag Football Recap: The Commodores Sink at Kyle Field, 56-24

This was a weird game for me because I missed the first half.....and I never miss an entire half.

I'm the assistant coach to my son's soccer team and the head coach was out of town this weekend so I couldn't miss his game....which started at 10:30am.  His game would be over at 11:15 and it takes me exactly one hour to College Station and then usually 35 min. to park and walk to the stadium (and then 10 minutes to get up the ramp to my actual seats) but with the 11:21 kick-off, I was hoping to make it by halftime.

The unfamiliar situation spawned a great thing though.  My son has been asking weekly why he can't come to the Aggie games with me and honestly, it's because I don't think he could sit through an entire game, but this gave me an opportunity to take him and only have to worry about him making it through the second half.

I packed us a lunch to eat, all our Aggie gear, and coordinated a ticket for him on Friday so as we were walking back to the car after his game I told him that we had better hurry up because he was going to the game with me.  We kissed Momma and sister good bye and headed up to College Station.

We listened to the game on the radio on the way up and the Ags had stretched the lead to 28-0 as exited HW6 into town and I got concerned that he wouldn't get to see Johnny Football play.  Coming off his shoulder injury I thought that we'd be quick to get him out of the game safely and keep him as healthy as possible for the final stretch of our schedule (at #12 LSU and then at #5 Mizzou).

Out of sheer luck, I found a spot to park at the corner of Welsh and Kerry, which is just a couple blocks from the stadium.

I had anticipated a good little walk and his little legs can't keep up with mine so I had also thrown his bike in the back of my truck for him to ride up to the stadium, which worked great.

We got through the gates and there was about 5 minutes left in the half so we watched a few snaps from down by the south end-zone bleachers and then headed up the ramp so he could see the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band and all their formations.

He was really into waving his 12th Man Towel which made me proud.  I was also impressed with how much of the War Hymn he knew.  I've sing him The Spirit of Aggieland every night when I put him to bed but I'm not sure how he picked up so much of the War Hymn.

He was also remarkably sad when told him that we were going to build a new Kyle Field.  He wanted to know why they couldn't build the new one "over there" (pointing to Spence Park, which is visible from our seats) and argued that the current stadium has lots of seats already.  I'm not completely sure why he has such a nostalgic view of the stadium but I appreciated his concern.

After the half, we were treated to an opening pick-6 by Howard Matthews on the first play of the half.  We did get to see Johnny for 3 possessions, albeit only one was a full possession thanks to two fumbles (on the 1st play of the first drive and on the 2nd play of the second drive).  We ended with FIVE turnovers in the game.

Johnny left the after the third possession which ended with an 11 yard TD pass to Derel Walker with 6:10 remaining in the 3rd quarter.  He finished with 316 yards and 4 TDs (305 passing/11 rushing).

Malcome Kennedy had 8 receptions for 83 yards and Mike Evans had 5 for 77 and two TDs.

The defense forced 7 sacks in the game to literally double their season total.  Howard Matthews had a whale of a game, adding 14 tackles to his pick-6, as did Darion Claiborne, Steven Jenkins and Gavin Stansbury.

It was, without a doubt, the best defensive performance of the season.

The post-game was a big disappointment.  When we went back to bike rack where we had left Benjamin's bike, we discovered that someone else decided that they deserved it more and took it - training wheels and all.  I couldn't believe it and was seeing red.  He put on a big boy face but inside it crushed him - it was all he talked about on the way home.  It gutted me.

All in all, the day was a success but I just hope that he doesn't let the bike situation ruin the memories of the rest of the day.