A Quick OU/Texas prediction

I was one of the few Aggies to predict t.u. would start 4-0. Well, they did, thanks to a comically easy schedule in September. One reason I thought they'd win their first four, including two games against opponents that beat them last year, was that last year's losses were usually caused by turnovers, and the law of averages said that t.u. wouldn't have such bad luck two years in a row. Not to say their losses last year were due to luck alone- they were a terrible offensive team- but they weren't as bad a team as their record suggested. Well, as I guessed, the turnovers have gone Bevo's way this year, and they're undefeated.  For now.

I also predicted that after the hot start, OU and OSU would demolish t.u., sending them to an eventual 7,8 or 9 (if they get REALLY lucky) win season. Well, slaughter day is upon the sips. Good for them for improving (brick by brick, if you have never watched ESPN), but despite their ridiculous 10/11 ranking, they are nowhere near ready to beat a team like OU.

Of course anything can happen, but I'll say right now that if t.u. somehow wins, it would be an EPIC upset. OU is favored by about 10 in Vegas, but I just can't see the sips keeping it that close. I'm predicting 42-17.

Ill write about the A&M game this afternoon.

Vegas, baby!

So last week I had the privilege (it took me four tries to spell that word correctly) of spending a long weekend in Vegas with my good friend Shailen. The entire purpose/goal of the trip was to spend Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday doing absolutely nothing other than watching football, preferably in front of about 100 t.v.s. And we accomplished this goal, for the most part, though I managed to ruin a good portion of the trip via the magical art of vomiting, as is my custom. I have a Ripken-like streak going on of getting sick and/or injured when traveling.

We stayed at Aria, which is French for "area," and it was a very nice area. We had a lot of fun, despite witnessing another awful collapse by the Aggies (at least I made money on that one, as I wholeheartedly agree with the "victory tax" method of betting against your own team). What I thought was particularly entertaining about the trip was just how old and lame we've become, which I will now share with you.

You see, Shailen and I met in college, when we were young, somewhat cool (well, Shailen was), and capable of staying up past midnight. We were part of the ironic cool crowd of Fish Camp counselors, young men who were willing to not only admit to listening to N'Sync but who could also demonstrate with military-like precision the entire "Bye Bye Bye" dance if necessary. And part of that still remains- we still have a man crush on Justin Timberlake- but somewhere along the way, we got old, and in Shailen's case, bald.

So while we like to still think we're young and hip, the fact is that Shailen has a child and has no hair, and I have a belly I never had before and take maintenance medications and have to be careful about what time I drink caffeine. It's just not the same. But Vegas is there for people like us to level the field, to party, to hold on to our youth. Right? RIGHT?!??!?

Well, truth is, I'm not a party animal and never have been. And I can't speak for Shailen, but based on our weekend, let's just say his party days are long gone as well.

Let me paint a few little pictures for you that will demonstrate just how not cool we now are:

1. If you ever wanted to know what the opposite of "doing Vegas right" is, I think we managed to stumble upon it with this one, regarding sleep and sleeping arrangements. We were in Vegas for three nights. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Our bedtimes? 10 p.m., 10 p.m., and 11 p.m. And here's the kicker: while other people were out trading various diseases with each other (and I'm not saying I wished to be those people or have even been those people in my younger days), Shailen and I were sharing a single bed... that is, until my snoring caused him to go sleep on the floor in the bathroom for two consecutive nights. And let me tell you, there are few things more startling than waking up at 4 a.m. to pee, feeling your way to the bathroom, turning on the light and finding a bald Indian asleep on the floor when you expected a clear path the toilet. Plus it's just sad.

The good news is that for the last night, we upgraded to a suite and I demanded that Shailen take the bed and I slept on the couch, which was fine. Anyway, let's move on to our next uncool example.

2. This is a short one, but it stings. Here's how you know you're neither young nor cool anymore. At many of these Vegas hotels that also include in-house night clubs, they have slutty looking girls walking around to promote these night clubs by giving out "VIP" passes (which anyone can have) to said clubs. That is, unless you are me. The fact that I walked by these girls not once or twice but three separate times and didn't even get offered a second glance, much less a phony VIP card, is almost enough to make me weep in public. Because to be clear, I'm fairly sure their instructions are to pass those passes out to anyone that is under 60 and "not the biggest loser you've ever seen." It was the second one that apparently got me.

(For the record, from what I saw, Shailen did get a pass one time, but was ignored one time as well, which made me feel better.)

3. This one's a little harder to describe, but one thing we decided to do was to eat a nice, expensive dinner. You could almost say this was our way of embracing our new-found oldness, eschewing the fast food mentality of our youth and enjoying a nice meal. And it was lovely. Yes, lovely. But even in the midst of our lovely man-date to a fancy restaurant (American Fish at Aria, if you were curious), we managed to be reminded over and over about how uncool we are. See, this meal was about maybe seeing if we were cool as adults, since we'd given up on being cool as young adults. So to that end, Shailen ordered a four part meal that included wine pairings with each course. I ordered fancy looking appetizers and a $70 steak. We both, for reasons still unknown, tried bourbon. And that's where it all started going wrong.

Shailen had, in another futile attempt to look like a cool adult, tried a glass of straight scotch earlier in the trip. As expected, he hated it. So then he started wondering what other drinks he could try that would look cool. So when our waitress asked us if we wanted a drink, I told her Shailen would like a bourbon, but unfortunately that led to me having to get one as well. I will never forget the look on his face as he tried it. It was such an unpleasant look that it caused me to literally fear taking a sip of mine.

Here is what Shailen tweeted immediately after trying bourbon: Bourbon is the same as scotch. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME? #itburnsthethroat

So we both struggled through that. In more uncool news, at one point the waitress asked me how I like my bullet. "My what?" I replied. "Bulliet is the kind of bourbon I gave you," she said. "Oh... um... not my favorite," I murmured. To which she replied with an evil smile and obvious sarcasm, "Can I get you another one?" NO YOU MAY NOT, DEVIL WOMAN!

Unfortunately I don't remember the other specific quotes, but suffice to say there were three or four more times where she caught us confusedly discussing what we were supposed to be doing or not doing regarding various parts of the fancy meal, and each time she would give us very disapproving looks, but then I think she actually started enjoying messing with us, offering us stuff that I think was made up and at point, I'm pretty sure she pointed and giggled. I'm used to that though...

4. Um, so remember when I mentioned Justin Timberlake earlier? So, through pure coincidence, it turns out there was a Timberlake show happening that very weekend, at Planet Hollywood. And I got tickets. If there is ever an example of how far we've fallen, it is this. On Saturday, I woke up feeling crappy, and ended up throwing up all day. I watched some football, slept some, puked a lot, but still had the Timberlake show in the back of my mind. It was set to start at 8. At about 5:30, Shailen went to go get some food and watch some more football at the sportsbook. As 8 p.m. approached, I kept waiting for Shailen to come back and get his ticket and go, and maybe I'd muster up the energy to go. Well, long story short, 8 o'clock came and went with nary a mention of Timberlake. Shailen came back to the room at 8:30, and we just laid around and went to sleep at 10. I was surprised he passed on the show, but at the same time, I wasn't. He's a nice guy, and I'm sure one reason he didn't is that I wasn't up for it. So the tickets went to waste. Very sad.

So, all in all, we just aren't young or cool anymore. And I haven't decided if I'm ok with that. But I am forced to at least acknowledge that it's true. My one parting shot confirmed it. As I was packing up to head to the airport (I had already taken Shailen earlier), I looked around the room. By my couch/bed, there was Pepto Bismol, pramipexole (for my restless legs), my inhaler, and some Advil. By Shailen's bed, I noticed some Sominex he had left behind. He had probably needed that to sleep on the bathroom floor.

Thoughts on college football, last week, this week, etc

Last week I briefly spoke about 3 games of interested, and wouldn't you know it, I nailed all 3. I said OU would beat FSU, Texas would easily win against UCLA, and that A&M would destroy Idaho. The A&M prediction was easy to make, but I feel smart nailing the OU and Texas picks. Lots of people had talked about OU's recent road struggles, but they managed to get over that, while Texas was only favored by a few points at UCLA, but just like I predicted (I'm really hurting my arm, patting myself on the back...), Texas finally decided to use their better players, dropping the odd strategy they had been employing (using their worst players), and sure enough, running away with an easy victory over an AWFUL UCLA team.

The true test start for Texas next week, so I'll talk more about them then. This week, the true test starts for Texas A&M and Oklahoma State. Here's a summary of a lot of the common thoughts from Aggie fans:

Last year, even with 5 turnovers and playing on the road, A&M statistically dominated the game only to lose on a last second field goal. Avoid the turnovers and A&M wins easily (so the thinking goes).

Last year, OSU had evil the evil genius Dana Holgerson calling plays, and they were really, really good offensively. This year, stud QB Brandon Weeden and uber-stud WR Justin Blackmon are both back, but without Holgerson calling the plays, their offense loses something (there may be something to this based on Blackmon's statistical drop-off this year and Weeden's increased interception total this year, but still too early to say conclusively, since they are average over 600 yards per game so far in 2011.). Meanwhile, in year two of the Tim DeRuyter era for A&M, the defense now knows the entire playbook and is free to run around at full speed without having to think so much, while also being free to run all sorts of crazy schemes, which will confuse OSU and A&M will slow them down and win easily (so the thinking goes).

This year, A&M's offense is one of the best there is and has no weaknesses, so whatever the defense for OSU (which has not been good so far) tries, we can counter with something and will be able to score at will. So then we will just need a few stops on defense, and should be able to win easily (so the thinking goes).

Here are my thoughts, which somewhat overlap with aspects of the above, but don't necessarily align all the way through. A&M does indeed have the best offense the history of Aggie football. We have one of the best quarterbacks we've ever had, we have the best running back tandem since Greg Hill and Rodney Thomas were running on bright green artificial turf with maroon numbers, and we have either the best or second best group of wide receivers we've ever had (the Bethel Johnson/Terrence Murphy/Jamaar Taylor/Greg Porter group was equally amazing). Put these skill players, along with a solid offensive line, up against a defense for OSU that is not spectacular, and we really should have no trouble scoring points.

A&M has already proven that we can move the ball and score points quickly, and we haven't even used big plays to do it. Amazingly, A&M only has 2 plays this season of over 30 yards (a 37 yard run by Cyrus Gray and a 32 yard pass from Tannehill to tight end Hutson Prioleau), yet the Aggies have still put up huge numbers in less than 3 quarters in each of their first two games. That means A&M is doing it bit by bit, 6, 8, 14 yards at a time, content to march down the field like that. It also means that there are big plays coming. A game like this, with so much at stake (Did I mention that this is the first matchup of two top-10 teams at Kyle Field since I've been alive? Yeah...), teams start taking chances. OSU will take chances. A&M should have a couple big (40+ yards) plays. Defenses get lulled to sleep by boring, rhythmic offenses, which is what A&M has sort of pretended to be this year. But that's the great part about this Aggie offense. They are able to be the boring, efficient offense, but rest assured, they can hit you with the big plays. Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael are both capable of making the 80 yard run at any time. The receivers for A&M are as well. So what's my point? It is this: A&M will be able to move the ball, both methodically and with big plays, all game long, in my opinion.

The game then comes down to A&M stopping OSU. I don't personally subscribe to the notion that the loss of Holgerson will hurt OSU that much. They are still, in my opinion, one of the best 10 offenses in the country, if not top 5. So can A&M stop them? I honestly think the Aggies will struggle to. OSU has scored 30 or more in 15 of their last 16 games. I think it will be very difficult for A&M to hold them under 30. The defense for A&M has shown signs of being very good, but the loss of Von Miller still hurts A&M. To win this game, the Aggies HAVE to do three things:

-Stop the run. A&M must force OSU into predictable passing situations. If they keep us off balance, they'll score 50.

-Bring pressure when we do know they're passing. We have to force Weeden to throw before he's ready. If he has time, he WILL pick us apart.

-Catch the ball if and when he throws an interceptable pass. A dropped interception cost A&M the game two years ago against this same opponent. Everyone knows how important turnovers are. The assumption is that Weeden will throw a couple bad balls. A&M must catch those.

Can A&M do those things? I really, honestly think we can, but stopping the run is the toughest of the three, and the most important. The other two follow from the first one.

I'm gonna cheat and do two official predictions. If A&M accomplishes what I believe they need to, A&M wins 45-31.

If A&M fails to stop the run and/or struggles to pressure Weeden and catch one or two bad passes from him, A&M loses 48-45.

Ok, no cheating. My OFFICIAL official prediction is the first one. I do think A&M wins. I think this is a special group of guys that A&M has right now, and I think Kyle Field is still Kyle Field, which means that as long as the talent is close between the two teams, A&M wins at Kyle.

Gonna be a great day.

Watty's Week 4 computer picks

Disclaimer I'm still giving for at least another week or two: these numbers still aren't really meaningful for several teams, since I'm still using some of last year's stats. I think after about 5 weeks, this year's numbers will be meaningful and will be the only numbers I use. So again, for some teams, they are pretty good, but for teams with a lot of turnover from last year or with major changes at quarterback or head coach, some of these are still not statistically relevant. That being said, here are the Week 4 picks:


Teams Prediction 1 Prediction 2 Vegas spread

Oklahoma State 31 41
Texas A&M 37 36 -4.5/70

North Carolina State 26 28
Cincinnati 26 35 -7.5/60.5

UCF 17 20
BYU 19 25 -2.5/42.5

Colorado 14 18
Ohio State 36 33 -16.5/44.5

Tulane 27 28
Duke 39 31 -10/55

Toledo 18 20
Syracuse 22 19 -2.5/55

UAB 38 32
East Carolina 34 30 -14/60.5

UTEP 10 12
South Florida 27 27 -29/47.5

Western Michigan 27 27
Illinois 28 36 -12.5/53

Ohio 20 21
Rutgers 11 19 -4.5/50.5

Eastern Michigan 13 12
Penn State 35 29 -28.5/44.5

Kansas State 20 25
Miami (Florida) 31 29 -12/47.5

SMU 36 36 -21.5/54
Memphis 17 16

Temple 19 20
Maryland 18 26 -8.5/51.5

Central Michigan 11 10
Michigan State 29 30 -21.5/49.5

Georgia 45 51 -9/54
Mississippi 27 30

Bowling Green 13 13
Miami (Ohio) 21 18 -4/52.5

Army 21 20 -4/50.5
Ball State 22 20

Virginia Tech 23 27 -20.5/46.5
Marshall 9 15

Arkansas 23 27
Alabama 36 44 -12/50.5

California 26 28
Washington 21 28 -1/58.5

LSU 13 21 -5.5/49.5
West Virginia 17 28

San Diego State 39 39
Michigan 36 36 -10.5/57

North Carolina 41 35
Georgia Tech 50 50 -7/58.5

Florida 21 27 -19.5/44
Kentucky 21 32

Notre Dame 21 24 -7/54.5
Pittsburgh 15 21

Florida State 18 23
Clemson 18 23 -2.5/50

New Mexico State 19 18
San Jose State 23 18 -10.5/46.5

Fresno State 19 21 -3/52
Idaho 19 17

Connecticut 13 17 -8.5/46.5
Buffalo 9 12

UCLA 23 23
Oregon State 30 24 -5/49.5

Nevada 30 33
Texas Tech 66 54 -17/61

Vanderbilt 20 18
South Carolina 31 41 -15.5/50

Louisiana Tech 23 25
Mississippi State 45 38 -19/59

Rice 42 38
Baylor 78 59 -20.5/67

Southern Mississippi 35 33
Virginia 37 31 -3/52.5

Nebraska 26 30 -21.5/59
Wyoming 25 31

Missouri 29 31
Oklahoma 25 35 -21/56.5

Colorado State 19 16
Utah State 27 26 -9.5/56

Tulsa 21 22
Boise State 54 44 -28/62

Oregon 59 64 -15/64.5
Arizona 29 28

USC 22 22
Arizona State 33 38 -2.5/53.5

Florida Atlantic 10 11
Auburn 50 53 -31.5/57.5

A short look ahead to some week 3 college football action

It's been a fun start to 2011 college football. There are some great games coming up this weekend. I'm particularly excited for the Oklahoma vs. Florida State matchup, though I won't be able to watch it since I'll be at Kyle Field watching the Aggies destroy Idaho. But I think this is a good chance for OU to show that they are legit, and I think they will do so. They are favored by about a field goal, but I think they'll cover and win by seven or more. There are lots of reports out of Tallahassee about the amount of young talent they have, and I don't doubt it, but it's still young. Give them another year or two and we might see them contending for a championship. For now, OU wins.

Many people will be interested in the Texas - UCLA matchup. I think Texas wins this one pretty easily, actually. Benching Garrett Gilbert was one of the easiest paths to improvement for the Horns, and now that they have finally done that, they can at least move forward as an offense. They'll still have to be creative to find ways to hide Ash and McCoy's inexperience, but Harsin is a creative guy. Throw in the fact that it seems that Malcom Brown is ready to take over as the lead running back (which is the obvious choice- he's far superior to any of their other running backs), and they will now have a new pep in their step. Oh, and UCLA is an awful, awful team. Texas wins easily.

Other big name games include Ohio State and Miami (come on, no one has a clue what will happen there), Tennessee and Florida (two teams looking to get back to past glory), Notre Dame and Michigan State (can Notre Dame finally win one of these crazy games?), and of course the always heated Buffalo versus Ball State matchup (just kidding, those are completely made up teams).

As for A&M, they are favored by 5 touchdowns against Idaho in what should be an easy tune up. Obviously you still have to take every opponent seriously, but Idaho shouldn't offer much resistance to the efficient Aggie offense. A&M kept things admittedly conservative against SMU, but with Oklahoma State looming, I'd hope the Aggies open things up just a bit more to work out any kinks that need working out. Official prediction: I'll go with A&M winning 51-14.

Watty's Week 3 College Football computer picks

Here are my computer formula-based picks for week 3 of the college football season. I'm still using 2010 stats plus 2011, so a lot of these are still meaningless, but there still isn't enough 2011 data for that be meaningful on its own. Maybe after a couple more weeks. So here are the picks, along with the Vegas lines as of Tuesday.


Prediction Vegas line
LSU 27 -4/49.5
Mississippi State 28

Boise State 42 -20/60.5
Toledo 23

Iowa State 17
Connecticut 20 -4/43.5

West Virginia 20
Maryland 27 0/57

Auburn 50
Clemson 28 -3.5/61.5

Pittsburgh 21
Iowa 30 -3/50.5

Akron 9
Cincinnati 34 -34.5/56.5

Wyoming 17
Bowling Green 17 -9.5/54.5

Eastern Michigan 19
Michigan 53 -28.5/63

Penn State 19 -6.5/44.5
Temple 21

Central Michigan 17
Western Michigan 24 -7.5/55.5

Mississippi 30 -2/47
Vanderbilt 25

Duke 17
Boston College 19 -7/47.5

Kansas 20
Georgia Tech 36 -14.5/61

Colorado State 21
Colorado 29 -7/50

Wisconsin 44 -16.5/64
Northern Illinois 38

Miami (Ohio) 17
Minnesota 22 -5/46.5

Tennessee 29
Florida 33 -9.5/51

Michigan State 27
Notre Dame 27 -4.5/51.5

Virginia 25
North Carolina 31 -10/48

Texas 26 -4/43.5
UCLA 22

Washington 21
Nebraska 38 -17/55

Texas Tech 43 -21/55.5
New Mexico 12

Northwestern 25 -7/54.5
Army 23

Tulane 20
UAB 27 -13/54

Navy 32
South Carolina 40 -16.5/58

Washington State 25
San Diego State 41 -5/58

Louisville 24
Kentucky 36 -5.5/41

Houston 34 -6.5/70.5
Louisiana Tech 25

Marshall 13
Ohio 20 -.3/47.5

Idaho 16
Texas A&M 37 -35.5/57.5

Buffalo 11
Ball State 14 -4.5/52

Arizona State 35
Illinois 33 -1/59

Kent State 12
Kansas State 31 -17.5/46.5

Syracuse 19
USC 31 -16.5/47

Oklahoma 35 -3.5/55
Florida State 31

UTEP 23
New Mexico State 14 -3/49.5

Ohio State 35
Miami (Florida) 27 -2.5/47.5

Utah 25
BYU 21 -3.5/46

Oklahoma State 61 -13.5/69
Tulsa 38

Hawai'i 43 -20/59
UNLV 16

Stanford 46 -9/54.5
Arizona 33

Louisiana-Monroe 13
TCU 39 -29/52

Arkansas State 22
Virginia Tech 36 -24/53

UCF 26 -5.5/51
Florida International 21

North Texas 15
Alabama 54 -46/53.5

Troy 27
Arkansas 62 -22.5/63.5

Watty's Week 2 computer picks

My super secret formula at work again... And again, early in the season, some of these are pretty worthless, though some are pretty good. For now, I'm using all of 2010 plus 2011, so for teams without much turnover, I have a pretty good model, but obviously for teams like Auburn and TCU, it's pretty worthless until we have a few more weeks of real data. That being said, here's what I have for this week. In theory obviously, if you were using this to make picks, you'd look for ones with huge differences between my model and the actual lines and pick accordingly. But based on my admission that these are mostly last year's numbers and that I pretty much just made this model up myself, you'd be pretty stupid to use this for real money betting (though I think I actually have a pretty good model... did I say that already?)

p.s. Sorry about the weird formatting. I suck at computers and internets.

        Prediction Vegas Line
BYU          19
Texas          28         -7/48

Missouri         28
Arizona State 22 -10/51

Oregon State 17
Wisconsin   34 -20.5/57.5

Iowa                 25      -6.5/44.5
Iowa State 15

Toledo        9
Ohio State 38 -17.5/52.5

Mississippi State 32 -5.5/57
Auburn                35

Northern Illinois 35 -4.5/62
Kansas                17

UTEP        18
SMU        26 -19.5/54

Cincinnati         25
Tennessee         31 -4.5/56

Virginia Tech 53 -17.5/63.5
East Carolina 24

Nevada        25
Oregon        46 -26.5/63

California         28 -6.5/47
Colorado         22

Alabama         32 -9.5/42
Penn State 13

TCU                 25
Air Force    21 -1/49.5

South Carolina 25 -3/51.5
Georgia        29

UAB        18
Florida        39 -23.5/53.5

Utah                 25
USC                 27 -8.5/51.5

Notre Dame 34 -3/55
Michigan         29

Houston        39 -21.5/64.5
North Texas 27

My Texas A&M preview

So for what it's worth, here are a few of my thoughts and my official prediction on the 2011 Ags.

On offense, A&M is pretty loaded. Trying to take off my maroon glasses and find weaknesses, and there just aren't many. Tight end, maybe? A&M is young at that position, but at the same time, they have three or four guys that they feel are adequate, so they have depth, if not dominance.

So going down the roster by position, we start at quarterback. Most people know the story by now. Halfway through 2010, A&M made the change from Jerrod Johnson, who never fully recovered from off-season shoulder surgery, to junior Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill exploded early, reeling off huge numbers against Kansas and Texas Tech before coming back to earth a bit. Even so, he led A&M to victories against OU, Nebraska, and Texas before finally suffering his first loss as a starter against LSU in the Cotton Bowl.

Tannehill returns as the unquestioned leader, and while I personally think most A&M fans gave him a little too much credit last year, he's still a top level QB by most accounts (don't be surprised when he goes very, VERY high- like top 5 high- in the NFL draft next year).

He has tons of weapons to throw to. At wide receiver, A&M returns the best receiver in school history in Jeff Fuller. He owns basically every record A&M has and I've been saying he's an NFL-ready receiver since his freshman year. One record he actually shares is the record for most catches in a season. He shares that record with Ryan Swope, who also returns. They are joined by Uzoma Nwachukwu, who has had a strong two seasons to start his A&M career, and a handful of other contributors. In fact, A&M returns their top 7 receivers from last year.

In addition to that, A&M returns the best two running backs in the Big 12, Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael. Either one is capable of carrying the load, but having both will allow Mike Sherman to ride the hot hand and keep them fresh. With Cyrus coming off a 1,000+ yard season, A&M is one of only four teams in America to return a 1,000 yard receiver (Fuller) and runner.

They will all be helped by an offensive line that is young on the edges but extremely good. The tackles are both true sophomores, but everyone in the A&M program thinks they are sure-fire NFL talents, and it was in large part due to them that A&M rolled off the six straight wins late last year, relying mostly on a dominating running attack.

So again, long story short, A&M's offense is loaded. There is a very real possibility that A&M's starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver will all be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft next year. I assume that is something that has not happened many times. This is unquestionably the most talented team at the skill positions that A&M has ever had.

So then, how will the defense be? Well, that's the million dollar question. Most people think the defense will improve over last year because they are in year two of the Tim DeRuyter era. He supposedly runs a complex scheme and year one is quite the learning curve, but in year two, the theory goes, the players now know the defense and are able to play faster and do more creative things scheme-wise.  Of course the question that can't be answered is the issue of how will A&M replace Von Miller? Miller left Aggieland as a consensus All-American and the highest draft pick in school history. A&M will try to replace him by committee, as a stable of promising players like Caleb Russell and Damontre Moore will fight for reps.

The other linebackers should be solid if not spectacular. Certainly good enough. The defensive line is the same story. No All-Americans, but solid play and plenty of returning talent from last season's conference-leading run defense.

Behind them is one of the best secondaries A&M has had in a long, long time. They can all tackle, they can all cover, and they're all aggressive and cocky. A&M didn't put up great pass defense numbers last year, but some of that was a little deceiving, because A&M played a very pass-happy schedule, as they will again this year.

So, as long as A&M can pressure the quarterback, the defense should be good. It has a chance to be really good. In my unbiased opinion, it won't be "great," but it doesn't need to be since the offense absolutely has a chance to be a top national unit.

The big question mark remains special teams. Randy Bullock has developed into a pretty good placekicker, but A&M's inability to find a dependable punter the last few years has been frustrating, and spring and fall reports seem to indicate that the problems are still there.

A&M has plenty of options at kick returner, and, assuming they can hold on the ball, punt returner seems to be ok as well.

From my perspective, A&M has enough talent to run the table. I'm not saying they will, but they legitimately could. The issue is that it's just hard to win every week, even against teams that are supposedly inferior. OU, Arkansas, and OSU are teams that A&M can certainly beat, but at the same time, beating all three is asking a lot, especially since only one of them is at Kyle Field. And aside from those three, you still have teams like Texas, Missouri, Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas State that could very easily beat a team like A&M on a given week. So it's just asking a lot to go through all that without ever slipping up against the decent teams while rising to the occasion to beat the best teams.

My point? I think A&M is a legitimately good team this year, but I do think OU will beat them, and I think the Ags will split with Arkansas and OSU, and I think somewhere along the way, A&M has one more bad week and ends up 9-3. I think 10 wins is more likely than 8 though, if that matters, and that 11 is more likely than 7.

College football week 1 computer predictions

One thing I thought would be fun (for me, at least) would be to try to come up with my own statistical model to use to try to predict the outcomes of college football games. A couple people on texags.com already do it, so I stole the idea from them and decided to give it a try this year.

Basically I compiled all the stats I felt were relevant, and then organized them and created ratings (relative to the average) for a handful of different categories. Then, using my own ideas of how they relate to each other, made a few formulas that I can use to plug those statistics in and then get a prediction for how those teams will fare against each other. Basically I do two sets of predictions and then average them. One of them looks at things from one team's offensive perspective and pits them against the defense's ratings, and the other looks at that same team's defensive stats and pits those against their opponents offensive ratings. From there, I add in home field advantage and my own top secret rating to account for strength of schedule, and out comes a prediction.

I will try to post these each Thursday in advance of that weekend's games. I'll probably only do around 20 games a week, mainly Big 12 games and other games of note, simply because it can be a little time consuming. And for the first few weeks, I'm forced to use last season's stats, which admittedly is somewhat useless. I am hoping that about 3 or 4 weeks in, each team will have enough current history to maybe make some semi-valid predictions. Until then, I'm using last year's numbers and with all the year-to-year turnover in college football, it renders these predictions pretty useless, but still fun. I expect that some of them will be pretty good, and some of them will be wildly wrong.

As you'll see, a few of these really jump out, and for some of them, there are obvious reasons. The Auburn score, for example, is obviously affected by the fact that Cam Newton was on the team last year. Everyone with a brain this year has rated Auburn to be worse than they were last year, so take this first prediction for what it's worth.

Some big numbers also pop up. Oklahoma State will supposedly score 72 points. That may sound crazy, but at the same time, that actually probably does happen once a week in college football, so it's not much of a stretch to say that OSU could do that this week. I actually kind of like the fact that my predictions include some huge blowouts and high scoring games, because those things do happen in real life, but people rarely predict them.

Anyway, all that being said, here is what came out of my computer for week 1:


Teams/Vegas line/My computer prediction

TCU -6/56       36
Baylor              24

SMU                26
A&M -16/56     36

UNLV               11
Wisc -35/56    36

Miss St -29      50
Memphis          12

Wake Forest      7
Syracuse -6     30

Utah St               16
Auburn -22/56    62

Akron                     6
Ohio St -34/48     47

Miami (OH)               9
Mizzou -17/47.5      31

Kent St                      6
Alabama -37/45.5    30

UCLA                     28
Houston -3/61.5     56

W. Michigan             34
Michigan -14/61       33

Minnesota               26
USC -21/51.5         47

S. Florida                   15
Notre Dame -10/47    19

BYU -3/55                  35
Mississippi                 30

S. Carolina -20/62      62
E. Carolina                 28

Rice                           19
t.u. -24/55                  48

Tulsa                         31
OU -24.5/64.5           58

Boise St -3.5/51         27
Georgia                      17

Oregon -3/55          32
LSU                         22

ULaLa                           18
Ok State -36.5/62.5       72

FAU                              10
Florida -35/46.5            35

Can A&M compete in the SEC?

With A&M's imminent move to the SEC (yes, it's still happening, and probably quite soon), many people have been trying to convince Aggies that it's a horrible idea based on the supposed fact that A&M will get routinely wailed on when playing against the big, bad SEC schools. According to these people, some of which are even Aggies, your basic SEC football team is roughly equivalent to an NFL wild-card team, and at best, A&M will have to hope for 6 wins a year. So, is there any truth to that? Is A&M destined to be middle-of-the-pack at best?

In a word, no. I'll keep this fairly brief, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that A&M won't be able to compete at the highest level. "But Tuna," you may say, "look at how bad A&M was for the last ten years! Look at how Texas dominated you, and how all the SEC schools have abused you!" And I can't deny those facts. The problem is, people that think that our 2005 results have any bearing on our 2012 results are not using logic. Yes, A&M had a bad decade. Kind of like how OU and Texas also endured before going on their respective runs. Does one down period define a program? No.

You see, being able to look back on things, there are very clear reasons why A&M had a bad decade. It boils down to two things: a bad athletic director and a bad coaching hire. The athletic director during the successful Slocum era was Wally Groff, and his major problem was that in the '90s, he thought we would just continue our success indefinitely because of our past success, and he neglected the very important aspect of facilities. Long story short, our facilities fell so far behind the likes of Texas, OU and others that RC could no longer recruit. That led to his teams getting gradually worse until he was eventually fired.

They hired Dennis Franchione. Seemed like a great hire at the time. We were all excited. I remember going up to meet Coach Fran at a basketball game the spring he was hired, wishing him well and telling him we were excited to have him. Well, turns out that for whatever reason, he was an awful fit here and darn near decimated the A&M football program. People are just now starting to realize how much he set A&M back.

Those two things caused major problems for A&M football. In the meantime, the same year Fran came, new athletic director Bill Byrne came from Nebraska. He helped with getting our facilities back on par with other schools (step 1), and, after firing Fran, hired what is turning out to be a good coach in Mike Sherman (step 2), and lo and behold, A&M is recruiting lights out and winning games again.

So as this relates to the SEC, it's simple. People who say we can't compete seem to always bring up the last ten years, as if the last ten years are what defines A&M football. People seem to think that we are the Longhorns pathetic little friend who just can't compete with them (never mind the fact that even with this last decade, A&M is still up 19-18 on Texas since scholarship limits were imposed in 1973, including 18-17 in the last 35, 13-12 in the last 25, and 3-2 in the last 5) and that we are sending the Fran program to the SEC.

The fact is, the program we're sending to the SEC is the program that finished in the top 25 last year and is currently ranked in the top 10 this year. The program that has a very, very good chance of putting its starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver in the first round of the NFL draft next spring (I'm curious how many times that's been done before). The program that just produced the #2 pick in the NFL draft this past year. The program that has had two straight very good recruiting classes to fill in behind those guys and that has already starting building an early top 10 recruiting class for both 2012 and 2013.

Will it be difficult? Yes. I am not arguing the fact that the SEC is the best conference in America, and that there will be more tough games and fewer easy wins. But is there any reason A&M can't do exactly what LSU does? No. People WAY overstate just how good the SEC is. Yes, they're the best, but it's not like they're unbeatable.

And here's another reason A&M should be competitive. I'm not the first to say this, but being the only SEC school in Texas will pay huge dividends for A&M's recruiting. Texas will always get good players and always have something to sell, whether it's a network or eventual independence or whatever, but moving to the SEC will give A&M something unique to sell to Texas kids as opposed to just trying to be nice guys or something. We can tell the kids that yes, you can play in the premiere conference in America while still staying in Texas. A&M is in one of the three (or four or five depending on if you include Ohio and Pennsylvania) recruiting hotbeds in America. We already are recruiting lights out. You add the SEC to our sales pitch, and there's no reason we won't have top 10 recruiting classes every year.

So in summary, and this is something I've sort of said already but is really my main answer to the "can we compete" question, people need to realize that A&M is a top 10 program right now. At least according to the polls. Only 2 SEC schools are ranked ahead of A&M. Why on earth would a top 10 team not be able to compete? And last I checked, if/when we go, we're going to go ahead and send our current team of future NFL players.

SEC update

Wow, what a crazy week! And we're just getting started.

Basically, everything is still happening as far as "A&M to the SEC" is concerned, but with a few new twists. I had originally written that I thought maybe the 8/22 BOR meeting would be a critical date. Well, after writing that, things sped up in a hurry. A&M basically decided to make their move, and they announced a special BOR meeting for today, 8/15. That will happen later this afternoon.

But to quickly go over what happened over the weekend, it appeared that today's BOR meeting was going to be for the purpose of announcing a done deal. The SEC presidents had a meeting scheduled for yesterday, and many people assumed that it was a meeting to officially approve A&M as a new member.

Well, in the meantime, ESPN, who happens to be partners on a $300 million deal with the University of Texas, spent all of last week both denying the story and flat out spreading false information about the story in an effort to squash the deal. UT, ever the spoiled brat, hired a p.r. firm to launch a smear campaign against A&M and, began exerting political threats and pressure towards A&M, and, with ESPN's help, planted some false stories designed to put doubts into the heads of the few remaining people who could supposedly stop the deal. One of those stories was regarding the issue of the 14th team (the other team the SEC would supposedly add to keep an even number). In reality, this is not and was not ever an issue for the SEC, as they are prepared to spend a year with only 13 teams, but throwing this diversionary story out there proved to be effective for a short time, as it dragged other schools into the story and created the perception that not only was the A&M invitation conditional on other factors (false), that this move was the beginning of an immediate and massive shift for the worse in conference realignment (false).

Another interesting thing to watch on Saturday was the all-out hatchet job done on A&M by almost every single on-air personality that ESPN has. If they were on t.v., radio, or Twitter, the message was the same: A&M was greedy, jealous, delusional, and oh by the way, would be a perennial loser in the SEC. It was truly stunning to watch such a coordinated effort. I personally listened to ESPN Radio for a good portion of the morning, watched some t.v. coverage that night, and read every single Twitter post about the issue along with catching up on what I missed by reading Texags.com as they had running tallies of the carnage. ESPN has clearly said goodbye to any and all journalistic credibility they had. Sure, they have their place in the sports world and I will continue to watch them (don't have much of a choice), but people need to know that what they do is not impartial. They are doing editorials, not news. They are "covering" a story that they are literally part of. Massive conflict of interest there.

So anyway, getting back to what happened and what's going to happen, it had appeared that things were all set, and many people expected the SEC to be meeting with the purpose of approving A&M. Then, somewhat out of the blue, the SEC released a statement saying that they are happy with 12 teams, they did not discuss any particular schools, but that if future conditions change, they might still expand. Well once again, the media (especially ESPN) showed no restraint in gleefully reporting that the SEC had "snubbed" A&M, that it was a done deal, that those dumb Aggies didn't even have an invitation! They mocked Texas A&M for the whole afternoon, even writing articles that likened A&M to the high school kid with a crush on a girl who doesn't like him (http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=6862753) and other sassy articles. Their headline right now even still says "SEC satisfied with alignment; no A&M invite ". Well, the only problem with that headline is that it is totally misleading.



What happened at the SEC meeting, and what a few responsible journalists thankfully reported, was that they met and had a conference call with some attorneys to make sure they aren't breaking any laws (the term "tortuous interference" has been thrown around a million times in the last week) and to protect themselves from a lawsuit. They then released the very carefully worded statement to let people know, on the record, that they are not approaching A&M. Does that mean they don't want A&M? Not remotely. It just means that technically, A&M needs to approach the SEC. And that's where today's BOR meeting for A&M comes in. If they were really saying that they weren't expanding and/or that Texas A&M was not going to be a part of their conference, trust me, they would have worded that statement a LOT differently. Essentially, the SEC was saying that you can't get re-married until you divorce. And that's fine, and A&m knew that going in. 


After the supposedly stunning announcement from the SEC, A&M President Loftin released a statement not long after (hmm... almost like he knew exactly what was going to happen...) indicating that the BOR meeting is still on, and that the point of the meeting is still to give him the authority to leave the Big 12, which A&M will be doing. And again, if the deal were really dead, trust me, Loftin would have worded his statement a LOT differently. 


Long story short, once A&M leaves, the SEC will (surprise!) welcome A&M with open arms. And a LOT of "journalists" will have a lot of egg on their faces. People in the know don't seem to know exactly when the deal will be official, but it could be as early as Wednesday or it could take a couple more weeks still.


Another thing to keep in mind with all of this, and it's another reason for my confidence that the deal will be done shortly, is that Mike Slive (SEC commissioner), Loftin, and all the people associated with them including their fellow advisors, decision makers and attorneys, these guys are not stupid. Considering the fact that this move almost happened last year, there is a zero percent chance that both sides have not considered all of these issues ahead of time. ZERO. Both sides knew exactly what legal risks were involved. Both sides knew exactly what kind of pettiness to expect from the University of Texas. Both sides knew of the risks with how things could be portrayed in the media, and knowing all that, have been very specific with what they've done, when they've done it, how they've done it, and what they've said about it and who they've said it to. The timing of everything has been orchestrated, and they are not surprised by anything that's happened.  


There are a ton of other sides to this story that hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about, including more on the incredibly bad reporting on this story and the issue of whether or not A&M can compete in the big, bad SEC. And I really could go on for thousands of words about the stuff I just wrote briefly about, but it's hard to decide which parts to drone on about and how much detail to go into. 


Most of my info has come from Billy Liucci of Texags.com (he's been far and away the most accurate and timely of all the reporters covering the story), a cross section of all the major national and state reporters who cover college football, the message boards at texags.com and my own little brain.

A&M to the SEC?

Yesterday was another one of those days where the internet (or "blogosphere," as dorks call it) went crazy with rumors that A&M was heading to the SEC and that it was a done deal. With Twitter being the new source of news these days, it's interesting to watch how quickly the fire spread, and then in the afternoon, people with different agendas worked to put the fires out. The question remains though, was yesterday significant? I think so.

First, a quick summary (Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) of why A&M wants to leave. A&M almost left last year when the University of Texas basically destroyed the Big 12. A&M had an offer on the table to join the SEC at that point (despite what some misinformed national media members think), and almost went, but decided to stick with the Big 12 based on the new promises and contracts that were negotiated. A&M saved the Big 12. The media would have you believe it was Texas that did that, but that's laughable. Texas is the reason the Big 12 almost broke up last year and will certainly be breaking up in the next couple years (or sooner). And I'm not just saying that as an Aggie. The facts are all there. I don't have the time or energy to get into all of them here, but the fact remains, A&M saved the conference last yer, contingent on certain concessions from the conference and the school in Austin.

Well, months later, it was clear that Texas had no intention of honoring the promises they made. Most of these promises are related to the Longhorn Network, Texas' joint venture with ESPN. One of the issues involved the Longhorns' desire to broadcast high school football games on their network. A&M and a couple other schools immediately spoke up, pointing out that that is an unfair recruiting advantage. Texas made no secret about how they were using the network. Without coming right out and saying it, they were telling recruits that if they committed to play at UT, they (UT) would, in exchange, put their high school game on television. It's no coincidence that two of the first games announced by the Longhorns were to feature the respective high schools of Jonathan Gray and Malcom Brown.

Additionally, Texas went full speed ahead with their goals of broadcasting multiple football games on the LHN, despite the previous promises to only do one and despite the legal issues involved. The legal issues came out in much more detail when, earlier this week, the actual contract that Texas and ESPN signed was released and detailed on themidnightyell.blogspot.com.There wasn't anything too shocking in there, but what it did do was show that UT had been doing some public lying regarding their intentions, seeing as how they signed a contract that specifically detailed their intentions, and the intentions are quite broad and aggressive, much moreso than they had led everyone to believe.

The other issue with the LHN is that the contract they signed with ESPN directly undercuts the television contract that the Big 12 has, and by doing so, Texas has made it quite clear that they care about their interests first and foremost and really don't care at all about the Big 12. Long story short, the Big 12 absolutely will not last more than a few more years, even if A&M decided to stay and take whatever the Longhorns dish.

Thankfully, A&M appears to have finally decided that enough is enough. A&M does indeed still have a standing offer to join the SEC. Many media members seem to scoff at the notion, but they are wrong. Why am I so sure? The simple answer: Billy Liucci. Liucci is the man behind Texags.com, and is the insider of all insiders when it comes to Texas A&M. He has been the first to report basically every big new story out of College Station, whether it was coaching changes or facilities news or conference realignment. And here's why I think yesterday's rumor-fest was significant.

Liucci is usually very careful about what he says. His reputation is on the line when he is going up against the likes of Stewart Mandel and Ivan Maisel. If he's not sure of something, he won't stick his neck out there. Yet for the last couple weeks, Liucci has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the future of A&M in the SEC. Then yesterday, he basically went all in, going on Twitter and Texags and multiple radio stations saying that, in essence, A&M is headed to the SEC, and that it could happen as soon as this month.

So the Texas A&M Board of Regents have a meeting scheduled on August 22nd. Will a decision be made then? I don't know, but I know that yesterday, Liucci said that he does not expect an announcement in the next 7-10 days, but he does think we'll hear something in the next month. Well that fits nicely with the timeline of August 22nd, now doesn't it?

Other unnamed sources that were quoted on Twitter all day yesterday said similar things. Rumors abounded that the deal is all but done and we are just waiting on a formal announcement, but won't hear it for a couple weeks.

So for now, there is so much smoke that I believe there is a major fire. Billy Liucci has gone public, even enduring some public mockery in the process, but even so, he reiterated just today that he is assuredly as plugged in as anyone else out there. I believe that we will hear some actual, concrete news sometime in the near future, and that at that point, we can look back to yesterday as the day that it first went down.