Ag Football Recaps - Lamar, Rice & SMU

I have been insanely busy - at work, at home, & elsewhere....here is a rundown of where everything stands thus far this season....

Ags Beat Lamar, 73-3

In all honesty, it was a sloppy and loooooong game. There was a 2 hour "severe weather delay" - but not a drop of rain and the student side was still baking in the late afternoon sun.

It was the unvailing of the "new" Kyle Field Part I and the 104,728 in attendance made it the largest crowd to ever watch a football game in the state of Texas and the 38,000 students broke the NCAA record.

I met up with a friend, John (who's house I built), at the Chicken before the game.  We caught up, checked out the local scenery and huffed it over to Kyle Field.  Then during the "severe weather delay" I ran into an ooooooooooold friend, Jacob.  We went to school together from 1st grade through college graduation and played soccer when we were kids and got our Eagle Scout awards together.  It was good to see him.

The game itself was eh.  Kenny Hill was solid and we got to see a lot of Kyle Allen.  I thought the highlight was a Malcome Kennedy catch in the back right corner of the NE endzone - he went up over two defenders falling backwards in the air letting the ball come down to him - it was incredible.

To this point in the season we have scored on 14-of-15 redzone chances (12 of which were TDs) - the one miss was the kneel we took to run out the clock and put SC out of their misery.

The fourth quarter got a lot of unfamiliar faces a lot of snaps, deserved and earned by the walkons.  Connor McQueen got in on the action, Brice Dozial ended up leading the team with 86 yards rushing and added a TD) and then Boone Niederhofer hauled in a TD catch and had another called back on a penalty.

Then there was the looooooooooong walk back to my truck which was parked all the way over in Bryan back behind Northgate.

Ags Down Owls, 38-10 

My father-in-law gave us his tickets and I was able to invite my old roommate, Pat, to come up for the game.   It was the first game he and I had been to together in years so it was great to spend that time with him.

I thought that Rice ran the ball really well against us but over the course of the game we just overpowered them.  They did make me concerned about Auburn. 

The big hubub after the game was the discussion of the playing surface.  College Station got 5" of rain on Friday night (it was bad enough for them to cancel Yell Practice) and apparently with the newly sodded surface it cause a lot of problems with footing.  It was really bad.  The field crew was literally running onto the field every time the clock would stop to fill and tamp the surface - to the point that the students were cheering for individual crew members and chanting "Tamp!  Tamp!  Tamp!" each time they would strike the ground.

The biggest scare as a result of the field was when Speedy Noil had to come out after an apparent knee injury (I've heard he'll be out 3-5 weeks and that he'll be out a couple of weeks - not sure what the truth is).

Ben Bass was our 4th string MLB going into spring practices - and due to injuries and attrition he was our starter tonight due to injuries (Claiborne was kicked off the team, Hilliard got hurt in the SC game and is likely out for the season, & Mastrogiovanni twisted his ankle against Lamar).

We were witness to one of the most bizarre sequences of the season just prior to halftime.

Rice kicked a FG with 4 seconds left but there were 12 Aggies on the field so there was a flag.  Since the penalty was technically pre-snap, Rice actually had to re-kick.  On the rekick, Ricky Seals Jones blocked it and Armani Watts ran it back for a 93 yard TD......but A&M was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct when players from the sideline came onto the field between the time the ball was blocked and when Watts picked it up - they were thinking the half was over & were celebrating the blocked kick.  The touchdown was nullified and the ball came back to the A&M 42 yard line for one untimed down.  It was a crazy sequence of events.

Miles Garrett is officially a MONSTER.  He picked up 2.5 more sacks bringing his season total to 5.5.  He has more sacks than anyone on the entire 2013 roster.

Something I haven't mentioned was that this is the first year of the College Football Playoff.  There is some fancy committee that will pick teams for 4 playoff spots at the end of the season.  It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.  The Big 10 coaches are all calling for the conference champions to match up but that's because they suck and that's the only way they're going to get a team in.  Conversely, there are currently FIVE of the seven SEC West teams are ranked in the Top 10 of the AP Poll.  Not just SEC, but SEC West.  The division is 19-1 on the season - and that is only because Auburn and Arkansas played each other and one of them had to lose.

SMU ROAD TRIP!

I've gone on the road to 24 Aggie games away from Kyle Field, with at least a dozen different people, but this was the first game that Benjamin and I will road trip for.  His first game was last season against Vandy after only previously experiencing M&W games and fall camp scrimmages but this was his first road game.  The Ponies keep it pretty tame so it was a nice jumping off point for him.

Even though it was just a trip up to Dallas, I played it up big and we prepped as if we were driving to Tuscaloosa.  We made a list of things we would need, we mapped out our route, picked out our Aggie gear to wear throughout the weekend - the whole nine yards.

As soon as I got home from work on Friday evening, we loaded up and hit the road.  Our route was planned to take us through College Station so we could stop and eat.

Benjamin got his first experience at Laynes, which he declared the best chicken strips ever.

We ended up getting to GrandAggie's house in Dallas quite late on Friday night but still chatted for a bit before hitting the hay.

Benjamin was up bright and early (like 6am early) and got to spend time with Cici.  He was actually pretty upset when she had to leave to run some errands as we were getting ready to go grab some lunch before the game.

The SMU campus is beautiful and they have a pretty nice little tailgating scene.

The game itself was pretty sloppy but SMU is really bad this year (head coach June Jones actually resigned during the bye week they had prior to our game) and we were up 38-3 going into the half.  Boone Niederhoffer worked his way into the starting lineup at WR with Speedy out and Jeremy Tabuyo had a breakout with a 50 yard TD reception and a 30 yard TD reception.

For the third week in a row, both QBs got a good number of snaps (but Kenny Hill has started all and is clearly the starter).

Since it was a 2:30p kickoff, it was pretty warm (I think the high was 93).  The stadium has no cover anywhere and the bench seats were scalding hot.  We were getting heat from below and above and Benjamin was wearing out fast (also combined with his minimal sleep the night before) so we headed back to the house and watched the second half on TV (the final score was 56-6). The last thing we wanted was for Benjamin to be miserable.

Even with the live game experience cut down, it was a great little getaway weekend and he got to spend some good quality time with GrandAggie and Cici.



So that is where we are through week 4 of the season....undefeated with a top 10 ranking about to open up conference play against the greatest collection of conference foes in the history of the NCAA.  I LOVE this conference.

Ag Football Recap: Ags Shock #9 South Carolina (and rest of country), 52-28

First of all - IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!  HOORAY!

Sumlin took his team on the road for the season opener - in conference play, against a top 10 opponent, televised as the first game ever shown on the SEC Network - and dog stomped the Gamecocks.

I didn't see that coming.

Everyone kept asking me before the season, "How are the Aggies going to do without Johnny?" (and almost everyone said it with a smirky laugh).  I just smiled and said, "The offense will still be able to score, but not quite as much, and the defense has emense talent, but they're all freshmen and sophomores.  If we have a winning record, I'll be happy with the season.  But just wait until 2015 & 2016."

Haha - that's all out the window now.  Let the endless possibilities and unreasonable expectations loose.

With a 5pm CST kickoff (seriously?), our gameday consisted of me leaving work at 4pm to pick up Bekah from school and then go pick Benjamin up from school and then head to Sean's house where we were having our game watching party.  I figured it would take me 45 minutes to get there and I even warned him that I might beat him there.  It took me an hour and forty minutes.  I was LIVID.  Houston traffic sucks.

Thankfully, an Aggie invented the DVR, and Sean was kind enough to wait for us.

We got the ball first and Kenny Hill, in his first career start replacing the greatest college football player of all time, just marched us right down the field for a TD.

Hill finished the day breaking the school record with 511 passing yards.  He had 3 passing TDs and was 44-of-60 (also breaking the school record for completions in a game).  He was the 6th QB in SEC history to reach the 500 yard mark in a single game.

He was in complete control - no situation was too big.  It was the definition of poised.  He played like a junior or a senor - it was amazing.

Even with a 24 point 4th quarter lead, Sumlin left Kenny in to finish the game rather than let true freshman, Kyle Allen, get a couple snaps.  I was a little surprised about that so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out over these next couple of weeks.

Hill found 12 different receivers, including Malcome Kennedy 14 times (for 137 yards).  Tra Carson also banged in 3 TDs on the ground.  We had 99 snaps and only four went for a loss - including a kneel just before halftime.

It was the most yards and points that South Carolina has ever given up.

The win landed us the first blow in the SEC-forced cross division rivalry we now have with USC, topped off with a newly invented trophy - the Bonham Trophy.  I'm sure in 15 years or so that'll mean something.  Maybe?

The win also snapped an 18 game home winning streak by the Cocks, brought Sumlin's road record to a staggering 11-2, and stunted USC's chance at a 4th consecutive 11-2 season.  It was also only the second time that Steve Spurrier lost a season opener in his illustrious career (you have to go back to his days at Duke to find the other).

On the defensive side of the ball, the two standouts to me were both true freshmen - S Armani Watts and DE Myles Garrett.  We all knew that Garrett was going to be a freak but Watts played the best game at safety we've seen in years.  He had two EXCELLENT, clean, safe, bone crushing hits that prevented big gains (one in the endzone) and he picked off an errant USC pass (that came on a big pressure by MG).

With all that good news comes a little bad.  Starting MLB and TCU transfer, AJ Hilliard, dislocated his ankle and will be out for a long time and human/hulk Cam Clear tweaked his leg.  Clear was on a bike during the game so I imagine it wasn't a serious injury - I imagine the coaching staff will play it safe with him for a couple of weeks leading up to conference play.

With the win the Ags leapt from #21 in the pre-season polls all the way to #9.  Everyone's endless possibilities and unreasonable expectations are definitely loose.

This weekend we host Lamar at the halfway newly rennovated Kyle Field.  The place will be rocking and with the expanded seating this year (due to the construction schedule we have more seating this season than we will when the project is completed) it should be the largest crowd in school history (as will all the games this season).

And away we go.....