Friday, September 21, 2012

Another college football post

Random thoughts on the last week or two of football and looking forward to this week. Last week was weird. To quote myself, "Dallas got crushed after looking great in week 1, USC lost to Stanford for the 4th straight year, A&M's top running back didn't play (and the fill-in only had 12 carries for 43 yards) yet the Aggies won by 45 points on the road, t.u. gave up 31 points to an SEC team yet won by 35 on the road, the Philly Eagles have turned the ball over 9 times in two games yet are 2-0, the Georgetown Eagles are undefeated and blowing people out, TCU struggled to beat Kansas, Kansas State struggled a bit with North Texas, Peyton Manning threw 3 interceptions in an 8 minute span... I think at this point, the only thing I know for sure is that Alabama is better than everyone everywhere. Every of the time." I should probably just stop there. But I won't.

A&M got off to a slow start but ended up doing exactly what they should do to a team of SMU's caliber. Johnny Manziel and the receivers made big, explosive plays like you'd expect out of this offense and the Wrecking Crew kept SMU's run and shoot attack in check all day. One thing to consider though is that their quarterback, Garrett Gilbert, formerly of the evil, devil beast Longhorns, is really, really bad. He was bad at Texas from the very first time he played significant minutes (turning the ball over 5 times against Alabama in a game that, for some odd reason, people thought he actually played well), and he was bad bad bad every time after that until he eventually left Austin and transferred to SMU. Well, he's still bad. 

One interesting stat I heard after that game: June Jones (SMU coach) has only seen his team go touchdown-less in three games in his entire coaching career, and last Saturday against A&M was one of them. That would suggest that this year's Wrecking Crew is, at a minimum, pretty good. Florida's 37 point outburst against Tennessee after only scoring 20 against A&M would also point to that. The season is young, but A&M currently ranks 14th nationally in scoring defense and 23rd nationally in yards per play defense, which are the two best defensive metrics in my opinion. (A&M has only played two games, while most teams at this point have played three. A&M also has not played an FCS school yet- they do this week- whereas many teams already have. My point? A&M's defensive (and offensive) rankings should all improve this weekend.)

Johnny Manziel, a.k.a. "Johnny Football," or "Johnny Freaking Football," had the first of what promises to be very many statistically impressive games, along with amazing highlight plays. If you ever have a few spare minutes, go look at his high school highlights on youtube. His best plays against SMU looked pretty much like those. He's innately slippery and hard to tackle. It's something that can't be taught, and he has it. Vince Young had it. Tony Romo has it. Not many people do. He's also incredibly fast and agile. If my memory serves me correctly, he ranked right up near the top of the Aggie team last year in all of their agility drills. That's a nice benefit for a quarterback. 

So when considering his performance, here are some numbers for you. He had over 400 total yards and accounted for six touchdowns. That has only been done one other time in Texas A&M history, by Reggie McNeal in 2005 (also against SMU, at Kyle Field). Reggie did it in his senior year, after four years of development. JFF did it in his second college game, on the road, in less than three quarters. 

Manziel has played two games now and still has not turned it over. His passer rating to start his career is higher than Ryan Tannehill's passer rating was in 2011. Tannehill was picked #8 in this year's NFL draft and is the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. I know it's early and the numbers don't mean much yet, but still, it is an impressive start. 

Assuming he stays healthy, Manziel will absolutely destroy just about every offensive record A&M has. From the "way too early to make projections file," here are some projections: if he just averages for his whole career what he's averaged in his first two games, which is not unreasonable at all considering the fact that his game one numbers were very pedestrian, he would pass for 12,600 yards and run for just under 5,000. That's assuming 13 games a year. That would make him the school's all-time leading passer and basically tied for the all-time leading rusher. Now, realistically, the running numbers should fall off as he becomes more comfortable as a passer. But the passing numbers should increase dramatically in this offense. 

Here are things to consider regarding that. In this offense, which is at least in part derived from Mike Leach's offense (A&M's offensive coordinatr is Kliff Kingsbury, who just so happened to be the first quarterback at Texas Tech to play under Leach), it takes a program a few years to really figure it out when they are switching to it from something drastically different. When Leach started at Tech, in year one, they only threw for 272 yards per game. In their first five games that year, Kingsbury threw nine interceptions and only had one game with a passer rating over 120. Two years later, as a senior, he passed for over 5000 yards and 45 touchdowns. There are plenty of other similar examples out there. We are seeing Manziel at what figures to be the worst part of his career. Barring injury, it should just get better and better as both he and the program overall learn the new system and learn how to execute it in different situations. The difference here is that Manziel is mobile. Sumlin and Kingsbury run a pass heave system that they perfected in Houston, but they didn't have the luxury of a mobile quarterback. The Aggies will incredibly hard to defend as Manziel figures out how to truly pass in this offense and then still uses his legs to convert third downs and keep defenses honest. A&M will be scary good over the next three years.

This week, it's an easy game again South Carolina State. A&M is favored by 51 points, so this is the type of game you hope to pull your starters in the third quarter and get the backup quarterbacks some quality reps. 

As for other football news, Alabama is so much the best team in America right now that they shouldn't even be ranked #1. They should be ranked higher. Like -3 or something. 

Texas got a big win, and it's obvious that they are a much, much better team than they've been the last two years, but we still don't know too much about them, because their schedule has been brutally awful. The three teams they've played have only combined for ONE win against an FBS school so far this year. Still, they blew out the teams they're supposed to blow out. After their bye this week, they play four straight games they could easily lose, so we'll see just how good they are. 2-2 is pretty realistic for that stretch.

And now I'm tired of typing.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Football is back! And so is my little blog...

Let's take a quick look back at week 1 in college football and a quick look ahead to week 2.

-I'll start with Texas A&M since they represent all that is good and holy in this world. The Aggies first game was postponed due to the hurricane, which was a giant let down for everyone (the cancellation, not the hurricane... the hurricane was just ok... I've had better). So... that's about it for looking back to week 1 for the Ags. I'll revisit them in a bit as I look to week 2.

-How about a little more SEC talk? South Carolina and Vanderbilt went about exactly the way I picture all SEC games going. Poor offense, good defense, low scoring, with the better team eventually winning. People always rave about the SEC defenses and use that a reason why A&M will supposedly get crushed, but I think a large part of the equation is just bad offense. Last year Alabama only played one team all season (Arkansas) that had a top 50 offense. ONE! Meanwhile, A&M played against 5 of the top 13. Some might say it's a chicken and egg scenario (Does the Big 12 have good offenses or bad defenses?) and maybe some  chicken and some egg in it (huh?), but the fact is, the SEC does NOT have dynamic offenses, outside of Arkansas and now, hopefully, A&M. 

-Alabama! SEC! SEC! It's just not fair. I'll just leave it at that. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just go look at the first half play by play from their game against Michigan. They are this year's national champions, in my opinion.

-Florida, who I did watch closely since they are playing A&M this week, looked... ok. They were just ok as a team last year, and there's not much to suggest they'll improve this year. Which isn't to say they're bad, they just aren't on the level they used to be, and they are beatable. They do have athletes though. They also have what the French call a certain... I don't know what, but whatever it is, it comes from being a program that has been really good for a long time. They don't have much at quarterback though and that will cost them a few games this year. And their defense didn't play nearly as well as I thought it would.

Now, on to some non-SEC stuff.

-The Longhorns, who naturally represent all that is evil and dirty in this world, had an easy win against Wyoming. I didn't see it so I can't comment on much, but my opinion all summer on the Horns' prospects has been this: a very good defense, and an offense that will be better than last year, both running and passing, though still not explosive, which will lead to 9 (most likely) or 10 wins. I felt like this game somewhat went with my predictions. The running game does look better, and t.u. has a few good backs that are each different in style. Two running backs rushed for 100+, which I'm assuming hasn't happened in a very long time for them. The passing game led by Davis Ash still doesn't produce big plays, but at least he protected the ball. That right there is a big reason I see t.u. winning more games this year. I could certainly talk more about them but I feel very dirty right now so let's move on.

-OU looked pretty bad for three quarters against a bad team. Very interesting development. They are still a highly regarded team but I get the sense that they're just teetering on the edge of falling back down to normalcy. I think Bob Stoops is one of the best, so I'll be interested to see how they handle this season. The good news for them is that the Big 12 only has one other school that recruits as well as they do, so they still have as much talent as anyone, although West Virginia's offense appears to be in a league of its own.

-West Virginia came within one missed extra point of scoring 70 points in back to back games, dating back to last year's bowl game. I spent all summer rolling my eyes at how people were overrating WVU. People seemed to only look at the bowl game and assume that WVU scored 70 every week, when in reality they did have a few struggles here and there. Seeing them come right out of the gate this year has changed my opinion on them somewhat, and I now have them winning the Big 12. The only two teams that I think have a chance to slow them down are OU and Texas, and both of those teams have issues of their own. So I have WVU winning the conference with an 11-1 record. Full prediction below.

-Baylor looked great. I know, I know, it was just SMU that they played, but the fact is, they racked up over 600 yards of offense despite losing the Heisman Trophy winner, a wide receiver that went in the first round of the NFL draft, and a running back that set the all-time single season rushing record for their school last year. You'd expect a drop-off, but there was none. I've been high on Baylor this off-season. I have still had them as an 8 or 9 win team even without RG3, because they are still with Art Briles. Briles is an evil genius, and I think we're really going to see that this year as their offense is almost as good as it was last year. Baylor has done a great job of re-inventing themselves, branding themselves as a "cool" football team, wearing flashy uniforms (their basketball team does as well), and having a superstar to help the image. Even with an atrocious defense last year, Baylor won 10 games. This year, they lose a little on offense but their defense should slightly improve, and I have them going 9-3. 

-I can't go without a quick mention of the Houston game against Texas State. WOW. So Houston goes 12-1 last year, loses their coach to Texas A&M, and promptly loses their first game, in which they were favored by about 35 points to a team that just started playing FBS football. All I know is that after seeing that score pop up, I immediately felt even better about the fact that Kevin Sumlin is A&M's coach, because for them to crumble like that in the first game without Sumlin tells me that Sumlin was the key ingredient in Houston's success. Another interesting note from that game is that in the days following, Houston's offensive coordinator Mike Nesbitt resigned. After one game. It's somewhat reminiscent of how Kevin Sumlin, who coached at A&M in 2002, got his first opportunity to be an offensive coordinator. A&M's offense was struggling badly under Dino Babers, and in the middle of the season, R.C. Slocum demoted Babers and promoted Sumlin, and just like that, A&M's offense improved. Scoring went up by 50%, and A&M ended up beating #1 ranked Oklahoma in one of the most memorable games ever at Kyle Field. 10 years later, Sumlin has now ascended to one of the highest levels you can reach, and back at the school he just left, the same thing is essentially happening ... something something circle of life.

Looking ahead to Week 2, from the viewpoint of a degenerate gambler:

-A&M (-2) vs. Florida: I can't really say too much that hasn't already been said about this game. Being the featured game of the week on ESPN, having College Gameday there, it's been talked about plenty. A&M new quarterback, A&M no depth at defensive line, Florida two quarterbacks, A&M home field advantage, blah blah blah. So I'll just go for the old journalistic trick of attempting to make connections to similar situations in the past. Here goes.

In 1989, R.C. Slocum took over and in his very first game, he hosted a top 10 SEC opponent. A&M was coming off of a 7 win season. And in an "I'm here to be reckoned with" statement game, he led his Ags to a 28-16 victory and went on to have a hall of fame coaching career.

Now, Sumlin inherits a team coming off of a 7 win season, and opens the year with a traditional SEC powerhouse at Kyle Field.

The fact is, even with the fact that A&M hasn't played a game yet and Florida has, Sumlin can still come in and make a big, fat statement to the SEC and all of college football and win this first game.

I was a student when A&M's offense was sputtering so badly in 2002 that R.C. demoted Babers mid-season and promoted Sumlin, and Sumlin, with the exact same players and playbook, increased our scoring average by over 50% and led us to an upset of the #1 team in the nation. He's a badass and he has been for a LONG time. He's not going to let the fact that this is the first game affect anything. He's going to go out and lead the team and have them ready. We may win, we may not, but we'll be ready.

In that LSU game in 1989, A&M's Larry Horton returned the opening kickoff of the game for a touchdown. How sweet would it be if Trey Williams did the exact same thing this Saturday...

I believe Sumlin is THE man for our program, and he will announce as much by leading us to a win over Florida. My official pick: A&M- 27, Florida, 24. (It's not one I'd bet on though)


Other gambling picks for the week:

I really like Georgia (-2.5) over Mizzou. 

I like Michigan (-21) over Air Force (assuming Air Force still isn't allowed to use planes).

I like Ohio State (-18) over Central Florida.

I like Miami (+7) over Kansas State, and would probably also throw a bet down on the moneyline for Miami, because I think there's a great shot they'll win the game.

I like Iowa State (+5) over Iowa and again, would consider a moneyline bet on ISU.

I like New Mexico (+38) against t.u. I think t.u. will easily win, of course, but they don't have the type of offense to cover very many 38 point spreads.

I like Louisiana Tech (-3.5) over Houston. 

I like Nebraska (-6) over UCLA. 

That's it. I may add some over/unders but haven't really looked at them yet. Last week, I didn't post picks here but I went 5-2 on picks against the spread posted on another website. They were:

Baylor (-9)- win
Baylor (OVER)- win
Michigan (+14)- loss
Boise (UNDER)- win
Stanford (-24)- loss
Texas State (+36)- win
Wyoming (+31.5)- win


Oh, and I almost forgot. I was going to make a couple predictions. Official prediction for A&M is 8-4 and has been all along for me. Bama wins the SEC and the whole country and maybe even plays an all-star football team from the USSR and beats them too to win the world. In the Big 12, which I still feel most knowledgeable about, I'm going with WVU at 1 loss, OU, t.u., and Baylor with 3 losses, TCU, KSU, and OSU right behind them, and ISU, KU, and Tech all struggling with only 1 or 2 conference wins. I haven't added all that up to make sure the math works, but something in that general vicinity is my prediction.