Ag Football Recap: Helpless Sooners Get Steamrolled by Ags, 41-13

This game was sold out before we were even announced as playing in it but thanks to one of the best gifts ever (from my father-in-law), Sean and I were able to attend.  We both took a vacation day on Friday and drove up to Dallas to meet up with my in-laws and drive to the game together.

Parking at Jerry's World is always crazy but its always interesting walking through the tailgaters as we're trying to figure out which gate we are standing in front of and which gate we need to enter through (because no matter what, they're never the same).

Once we got inside we had to split up to go to our respective seats.  Sean and I found ours, only to discover they weren't ours - we were a section too far over.  That's always an embarrassing verbal exchange, regardless of how polite both sides are.

This was a weird bowl game for me.  When we played Mizzou back in November I thought we were invincible and were going to roll whoever they match up against us but over the time off my old pessimistic self crept back into my head.  After watching LSU and Florida lose their bowl games, I started to buy into the thought that the 3 point Vegas line on the game was actually right.

I know a lot of Ags were slightly concerned about whether Johnny would show up focused after his Heisman ceremony and the celebrity tour he has been on.  He did Letterman, Leno, sat courtside for a Mavs/Heat game & chilled with Lebron after the game, pulled suites at a Cowboys game, was spotted in an Oklahoma casino, sat courtside at a Rockets game - and then chilled in lockerroom, went golfing with the Jonas Bros, etc.).

This, of course, was a pre-game topic of conversation but my father-in-law nailed it.....this is Sumlin's team with Sumlin's attitude.  He was right.

We went into half-time clinging to a 14-13 lead.....and then pulled away in the second half to finish with a 41-13 vitctory.

What an absolutely dominating performance that game was.  First of all, Johnny went crazy on Stoops' defense:

• Cotton Bowl MVP
• Individually, he had 516 yards of offense (229 rushing/287 passing) with 4 TDs (2/2) - his yardage broke the Cotton Bowl record by over 100 yards
• Johnny ran for the 4th most yards in Cotton Bowl history
• He set the NCAA Bowl Record for rushing yards in a game by a QB
• Missed throwing for 300 and rushing for 200 by 13 passing yards - that has been accomplished once in NCAA history (he did become the the first A&M and SEC player to go 200/200)
• Became 4th QB in NCAA history to have 20 rushing and 20 passing TDs in a season
• The 633 yards of offense by team was Cotton Bowl record
• The offense averaged 9.6 ypp (Cotton Bowl record)

I think that anyone who thought he didn't deserve the Heisman changed their minds (because they watched him play for the first time - it's the only reason they wouldn't have thought it earlier).

On the flip side, the defense was STOUT.  We held the #11 scoring offense in the country to one (1) touchdown on the evening.

I thought that Dustin Harris and Tony Hurd Jr. played their best games of the season.  Damontre Moore was solid as expected and Alonzo Williams also made his first career start on the DL.

Ryan Swope, who broke the school record for career receptions earlier in the season, took the record for career yards in the season finale as well - he ended his brilliant career with a total of 252 catches for 3,117 yards and 24 TDs (2nd in school history).  He had 104 yards and a TD on 8 receptions against the Sooners.

Mike Evans and EZ both added 80+ yards and EZ had an emotional final TD to put the exclamation point on the ballgame.

This game instantly jumps into my Top 3 All-Time Games I've Been To along with the '02 OU game and the '10 Nebraska game.  I'm not exactly sure where it falls - they're all a blur in my mind at this point - but there is no doubt I haven't had as much fun at a game in a long time.

One of the moments that I will take away was when the War Hymn was played at the end of the third quarter.  It was a rare moment when there was nothing else going on in the stadium - no advertisements or announcements or introduction or baton tossing - just the FTAB and 50,000 Ags in full voice celebrating not only a great game but a great season.  It echoed in my ears long after we walked out of the stadium.

We also got our first real opportunity for the "SEC!  SEC!  SEC!" chant. I'll be honest, it was a poor first effort - out of sync, differing speeds.  It'll get better, I have no doubt about that.

After the game we found an IHOP and had a surprisingly wonderful meal as we rehashed every exciting moment of the game.  When we got back to the house I'm not sure anyone had anything left in the tank - I know I was asleep within minutes.

Simply a wonderful game to cap off a wonderful season.

I cannot wait until the M&W game.

Cotton Bowl Preview: #11 Oklahoma

I went through all my game previews through the years and I noticed that I have never taken a historical look at OU's program.

The Sooners truly are one of the best programs in college football - one that I think is highly underrated when you're talking about the premier college football teams historically. 

They had three separate truly dominant eras.

Bud Wilkinson

The first of those three was under head coach Bud Wilkinson.  Wilkinson won three National Championships while played QB for Minnesota and was just as dominant on the sidelines in Norman.  He won 14 conference titles (thirteen in a row) and three National Championships ('50, '55, '56).

A few years back I read Jim Dent's The Undefeated, which told the story of the Sooners' 10 year stretch of dominance from '48-'57 under Wilkinson. They went 94-4-2 with two seperate win-streaks of 31 and 47 games.  During the 11 year span from 1948-1958 the Sooners lost more than one game in a season only once.  Wilkinson really made the Sooner state forget that they were a bunch of Tom Joads by giving them something to be proud of.

Interesting fact - one of Wilkinson's QBs at Oklahoma was a guy by the name of Darrell K. Royal.

Barry Switzer

The next stretch of dominance was under Barry Switzer, who took over in 1973 (he was previously their OC) and went on to win National Championships in '74, '75, & '85.

There were two things that fascinated me while reading his autobiography, Bootlegger's Boy.  One was that as an assistant coach at Arkansas he had two players that went by the names of Jimmy Johnson & Jerry Jones.  Yeah, that Jimmy Johnson & Jerry Jones. 

The Selmon Brothers

The other was that he landed a trio of brothers Lee Roy, Lucious, & Dewey Selmon - each of whom brought home unanimous All-American honors (a total of five between the three).  They all played together on the DL in 1973.  Apparently the saying in Norman in those times was, "God Bless Mrs. Selmon."

Their third era began when Bob Stoops took over the program in 1999.  They've been really good since then.  8 BCS Bowl appearances, including three National Championship games and one NC trophy.  That's a pretty good run.

Stoops has also added two Heisman winners under his belt but, in my opinion, the best player of the Stoops era was Adrian Peterson.  A.D. was like a man amongst boys on the field.


I've noticed that a lot of schools have given their Heisman winners a statue, but OU is probably the only school that has enough of them to call it Heisman Park.

Heisman Park in Norman, Ok

Billy Vessells won it in '52, Steve Owens in '69 (his trophy is displayed in the Coach's Restaurant in downtown Norman), Billy Sims in '78 (he's the loud annoying guy every year at the Heisman Ceremony) and then more recently, Jason "Eternally Eligible" White in '03 and Sam Bradford in '08.  You have to admit, that's pretty impressive.

The name Sooners came from the Oklahoma Territory Land Run back in 1889 - the Sooners were the ones who left early and the Boomers were the ones who waited for the gun to go off.  Think Tom Cruise in Far & Away.  That's why they're known in theses parts as the Land Thieves.

The Sooners play their home games at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.  They are typically pretty good there - from '99-'11 they lost two home games....but this year they lost twice (to currently ranked #5 Kansas State and #1 Notre Dame).  The stadium holds 82,000 but they can cram 85-86K in there.

A&M and Oklahoma have a pretty nice history against each other with 30 head-to-head bouts, including 18 times in the last 19 years.  The five games that are typically discussed around here are the

• '97 - Ags won 56-7 
• '00 - #1 OU snuck past Ags, 35-31
• '02 - Ags upset #1 OU (Reggie's coming out party)
• '03 - 77-0
• '10 - Ags win 33-19 over #8 OU during magical November run

 Hopefully this year's game will make the cut....in our favor.

I'm not going to dive in too deeply into analyzing this year's matchup.  I don't have any particular venom towards OU, especially now that former DC, Brent Venables, is gone. 

This is not one of Stoops' best Sooner squads but it's still a really good team.  We do have somewhat of an advantage in that Sumlin has been in the trenches with Stoops and we know what they do on offense fairly well with their spread attack.

 aTm O v. OU D
==============
 13  Rush  79
 13  Pass  26
  3   Tot  45
  3  Scor  40

Our offense is impressive because we did it against the SEC.  OU's defense (particularly pass defense) is impressive because they did it against the Big 12.

 OU O v. aTm D
==============
 59  Rush  37
  4  Pass  80
 10   Tot  56
 11  Scor  29

OU's offense is inflated because they got to light up the terrible Big 12 defenses.  Our defense is inflated due to the handful of inept SEC offenses. 

We'll see who bucks the trends more.  Frankly, as it seems it always is in bowl games - the winner will come down to QB play, turnovers, and special teams play.

BEAT THE HELL OUTTA OU!  WHOOP!

"The SEC is Overrated"

The Southeastern Conference is widely considered THE premier collegiate football conference in the country.  The last seven seasons have seen the SEC rise to a level of conference domination unseen for ages. It isn't just one great team, it's great teams across the conference.

The SEC a breeding ground for the NFL....and it always seems to come up once a year - "Could 'Bama beat (insert terrible NFL team)?"

Well, the answer to that is no - but all of the ballyhoo for the SEC creates anger and angst for non-SEC fan bases.  Losing is bad enough - nobody likes to have to also have "S-E-C!  S-E-C!  S-E-C!" rain down on them.

In retaliation, other fan bases throw stones at the SEC and claim, "It's overrated."  I've heard it for the past several years so I thought this would be a good time to take a look at that claim.  A&M is in it's first year in the SEC and we're matched up with Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl - what better time, right?

Obviously, I hear this claim of unwarrented adulation primarily from Big 12 fans - for many reasons.  I live and work with mostly Big 12 supporters, A&M has a strong history with them, and they have a legitimate claim for the title of second best conference.  I'm going to pick on them a bit and use them as the comparison.

The Cotton Bowl

Let's start of by looking at the Cotton Bowl itself.  The Cotton Bowl has been a match up between the Big 12 and the SEC since 1999.  The SEC has won 9 of the 14 games and since 2004 the SEC is 8-1.

Bowl Games

Bowl games are a good way to see how a conference does.  The SEC's dominance over the last 7 seasons has been incredible - here are the comparisons for the last 6 bowl seasons against non-conference opponents (with this season's games still to be played)....

• The SEC is 36-17 (.679)
• The Big 12 is 26-21 (.553)

Again, the Big 12 is just being used as a comparison.


Out-of-Conference

"Oh, the SEC is overrated because they just beat up on each other and inflate each others rankings."

Ok, so let's just look at out of conference records.  Over the last 7 seasons.....

• SEC is 329-69 (.827)
• Big 12 is 263-85 (.756)

That may not look like a big %-age difference but for the Big 12 to catch the SEC in %-age they would have to win 144 consecutive games. 

Again, the Big 12 is just being used as a comparison - I'm not trying to embarrass them.

"Oh, but the SEC doesn't play anybody out of conference - they just pad their records with powder puffs."

Ok, let's look at out of conference record vs. ranked opponents.  Over the last 7 seasons....

• SEC is 46-26 (.639)
• Big 12 is 19-36 (.345)
• SEC has played 17 more OoC games against ranked teams, and has lost 10 fewer
• For the Big 12 to get to .639 they would have to win 45 consecutive games against ranked opponents

"Oh, but the SEC is top heavy."

Those are the entire conference numbers.  That accounts for the pummeling that Vandy, Ole Miss, & Kentucky traditionally take.

Just for fun, here are the records against Top 10 OoC opponents:

• SEC is 18-12 (.600)
• Big 12 is 5-13 (.278) 

Ok, I was trying to embarrass the Big 12 there.

Head-to-Head

Like Billy Madison said, "You and me.  Mano y mono."

Over the last 7 seasons the SEC is 15-8 against the Big 12.  Three of the eight Big 12 wins have been against Ole Miss.  Quit picking on Ole Miss.

The SEC has also won two National Championships in head-to-head games with the Big 12 during that stretch - in 2007 when Florida beat OU and in 2009 when Alabama beat texas.

What Everyone Agrees On

The Big 10 is terrible.  The Big 10 is 17-31 against the SEC & Big 12 combined over the last 7 seasons.

The Takeaway

The SEC is THE best conference in the country.  Regardless of how tired everyone is of hearing it, it doesn't change the fact that it is still true.

I didn't even have to play the trump card of 6 consecutive National Champions.....going on 7.

S-E-C!  S-E-C!  S-E-C!

Johnny Heisman

"This is a moment that I have dreamed about since I’ve been a kid. Running around the back yard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Mary’s to my dad. Now, I am so blessed to be on the stage with such a group of great guys and to be invited into this fraternity, what a pleasure it really is. I’d like to start by thanking the Heisman Trust and everybody who made this weekend possible. What a great experience it was to meet the people that I have, Manti and Collin, not only great football players, but great guys off the field as well. It has been a pleasure to get to know you guys better and I wish ya’ll the best of luck.

It’s such an honor to represent Texas A&M and my teammates here tonight. I wish they could be on this stage with me. Texas A&M, choosing that school is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life and I am so proud to be a part of that.

To Mom, Dad, Meri and the entire family watching, you mean the world to me and I just want to thank you for the encouragement, the love and the patience over the years. To grandpa, to all of the times we used to play in the hallway and throw the ball until we couldn’t anymore, I love you with all my heart and you inspired me to play football. To Grandma, I’m so sorry for the things we broke in the house.

To my coaches back in Kerrville Tivy, Mark Smith, Julius Scott and everybody there, you taught us all what it meant to really fight and work for something that you wanted more than anything in the world. You taught us about passion and about heart and what it truly meant to say, “Tivy fight never dies.”

To Coach Sherman, Coach Rossley, Coach Sumlin, Coach Kingsbury, and everybody that’s been a part of me playing football for my entire life you’ve been truly a blessing. You’ve taught me not only what it means to be a football player but to be a man as well and for that I thank you so much.

I wish my whole team could be up here with me tonight, especially my great offensive line and the whole offense. Luke Joeckel, Jarvis Harrison, Cedric Ogbuehi, Jake Matthews and Patrick Lewis, I’m as safe standing right here as I am in the pocket with you guys. You’ve done a great job of keeping me off my back and I can’t thank you enough for everything. To all my teammates back home, I love you with all my heart.

I’d especially at this time like to honor somebody who is near and dear to everybody at Texas A&M, Joey Villavisencio. Around this time last year, a center on our team, passed away in a tragic car accident. It was something that as a whole team we really had to fight through and press on through the bowl game. And, to Mr. and Mrs. Villaviscencio, if I had a son I would want him to be exactly like him. I know Joey is in a better place.

Most of all, I want to thank God for allowing me to be here. All that he has blessed me with in my entire life I’m so thankful for. For the love and the grace you’ve shown me I’ll be forever grateful. In the values that I’ve learned from my parents and that have been carried over by Texas A&M. Leadership, respect and putting others first, it’s what the 12th Man is all about.

I believe the 12th Man is one of the greatest traditions in all of college football, forty thousand students standing not as fans but as members of our team. To the 12th Man, Texas A&M, Kerrville Texas and Aggies everywhere, this Heisman trophy is for you.

Gig’em." 

Johnny Manziel etched his name into college football history becoming the 78th winner of the Heisman Trophy.

I'll be honest, I was already a little emotional, but when he mentioned Joey V. in his speech it really touched me.

He had 72.8% of the possible points (2029 points from 923 voters with 3 points each), which makes it the 10th biggest victory in Heisman history.

Congratulations to Johnny - you have made Aggies across the nation proud of you.

Now let's BTHO OU!  WHOOP!

Post Season Awards Update

I wanted to give an update of the awards that have been handed out thus far....

I really looked hard to find a picture of Luke with his Outland Trophy because I know I've been pretty Johnny heavy in terms of pictures this season....but I couldn't find one.

• Davey O'Brien Award - Top QB - Johnny Manziel
• Outland Trophy - Top Interior Lineman - Luke Joeckel  

• Walter Camp All-Americans
• 1st Team - QB Johnny Manziel
• 1st Team - OL Luke Joeckel
• 1st Team - DL Damontre Moore
• 2nd Team - OL Jake Matthews
•  CBS Sports All-Americans
• 1st Team - QB Johnny Manziel
• 1st Team - OT Luke Joeckel
• 2nd Team - DE Damontre Moore

• SEC Individual Awards (voted by coaches)
• SEC Offensive Player of the Year: Johnny Manziel
• SEC Freshman of the Year: Johnny Manziel
• SEC Jacobs Blocking Trophy: Luke Joeckel
• SEC Coach of the Year: Kevin Sumlin
• All-SEC Team (voted by coaches)
• 1st Team - QB Johnny Manziel
• 1st Team - OL Luke Joeckel
• 1st Team - OL Jake Matthews
• 1st Team - DL Damontre Moore
• 2nd Team - WR Ryan Swope
• All-SEC Freshman Team (voted by coaches)
• QB Johnny Manziel
• WR Mike Evans
• AP Trey Williams

One thing that I thought was really interesting was that the SEC doesn't have an Honorable Mention team.  In the Big 12 there were at least 4-5 players from each team in the league that were named to the Honorable Mention squad.

Damontre wasn't able to bring home the Hendricks Award on Wednesday night - it ended up going to South Carolina stud, Jadeveon Clowney.  I can't argue that one.

Johnny, however, lost out on both the Walter Camp Award and the Maxwell Award to Manti T'eo (who also won the Lombardi, Bednarik, Nagurski, Butkus, and Walter Camp Awards).  I think I've made my case as to how I feel about that.

Even STILL, all indications point to Johnny bringing home the Heisman on Saturday night.  The three major polling/predicting indicators all point to him.

• The Scripps Heisman Poll - has correctly named 21 of the last 25 winners
• Stiffarmtrophy.com - has correctly named the last 10 winners (in 10 years of existence)
• HeismanPundit.com - has correctly named the last 4 winners (correctly ranked 5 of the top 6 in '08, all of the top 4 in '09 and '10, and the all of the top 7 in '11)

Also worth noting that since 2000 only two players have won both the Heisman and the Maxwell Award in a single season and only one player has won all three (Heisman, Maxwell, and Walter Camp) .

Oh yeah, and Vegas has him at 1/15....and T'eo is at 4/1.  Those are pretty staggering - and Vegas doesn't lose.

We'll all be watching tonight!  WHOOP!

A Look at the Hendricks Award

I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks laying out the case for Johnny's Heisman campaign but I thought I'd take a moment from the Johnny Football mania to look at our great defensive standout, Damontre Moore.

DaMonsta is a finalist for the Hendricks Award which is awarded to the top defensive end in college football.  It is named after Ted Hendricks, a former All-American who played his collegiate days at Miami from '66-'68.

The other finalists are Jadeveon Clowney (South Carolina), Sam Montgomery (LSU), Cornelius Carradine (FSU), Bjoern Werner (FSU), and Morgan Breslin (USC).  This is a very, very tough group of defenders.

Here are the stats:
                   Tackles                Pass Def.
               G Solo Ast Tot  TFL Sack PBU PD QBH FF FR
   M.Breslin  12  37   16  53  8.0 12.0  4   4  0   0  1
 C.Carradine  12  47   33  80 13.0 11.0  0   0  9   1  1
   J.Clowney  11  37   13  50 21.5 13.0  1      5   2  0
S.Montgomery  12  15   17  32 12.0  7.0  2   2  3   1  1
     D.Moore  12  54   26  80 20.0 12.5  2   2  8   1  0
    B.Werner  13  28   12  40 18.0 13.0  7   7  5   1  1 

Damontre also has two blocked kicks.

It should be a very close race but I really think that Damontre has just as good of a chance as any of those others.

What an amazing season Damontre has had, and holy cow has he be overshadowed by Johnny.  Think about what Von Miller did.  The guy is a legend in Aggieland.  I seriously campaigned to name our one year old Von (before we found out it was going to be a girl).  Now check this out....

                   Tackles                Pass Def.
                G Solo Ast Tot   TFL Sack PBU PD QBH FF FR
  '12 D.Moore  12  54   26  80  20.0 12.5  2   2  8   1  0
 '10 V.Miller  13  38   30  68  17.5 10.5  6   7  6   3  2

Didn't expect that did you?

Damontre Moore is the most underrated player on this years team....and he's an All-American.  Crazy, crazy.

Ags Go Cotton Pickin'

So it was announced this evening that A&M will be heading back up to Dallas to play in the 77th annual Cotton Bowl.

Our opponent will be Oklahoma, who were completely screwed out of a BCS bowl when Northern Illinois somehow leapt up from #21 to #15 in the BCS rankings after a win over #17 Kent State?

(and at the same time, texas only drops from #16 to #23 after losing both of the last two weekends?)

Of couse, they were only going to a BCS game because the BCS only takes two teams from each conference.  OU is ranked #11 but they would have leaped over 4 SEC schools ranked higher because Alabama and Florida got the two BCS bids.

This, to me, is a disappointing match up.  Like I said before, I love bowl games because you get an opportunity to play opponents that you normally don't get to.  This will be the 19th time we've faced OU in the last 20 years.

On the field, this should be an excellent game against two fairly evenly matched teams.  I'm just not excited.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to spend the next 30+ days trying to figure out which child I will sell to get tickets.

The game is already sold out and tickets are starting at $189 on Stubhub.

Orange Bowl tickets featuring NIU, however, are available for $16.

Over this next week we'll start seeing all of the individual player awards being handed out.  The big night is obviously next Saturday night in NYC with the Heisman but on Thursday night ESPN will be broadcasting The 2012 Home Depot College Football Awards (at 6:30pm).  There are 10 major individual awards that will announced that night.

Luke Joeckel is a finalist for the Outland Trophy for top interior lineman and Johnny is a finalist for the Maxwell Award and the Davey O'Brien.

Johnny is also a finalist for the Manning Award (announced Jan 6th) and Damontre Moore is a finalist for the Hendricks Award. (announced on Dec. 5th).

Joeckel and Moore were both also named to the 1st Team AFCA All-American squad.