Lets just say adios with a kiss and a sighGet your tongue outta my mouth cause I'm kissing you goodbye.
Ray Stevens
Where: Jones Stadium, Lubbock
When: 6:00pm Central
TV: FX
Weather: High 60s, cloudy with possible showers
Line: Tech +9
Saturday is going to be the 70th time the Red Raiders and Texas A&M Aggies have met since 1927. When they meet for the 71st time, who knows, maybe the Cotton Bowl next year given that the Ags are off to the SEC. So lets do this one more time and see what happens.
Before we get to that, let’s look to last week….
The Raiders just keep trying to make their games more interesting than they need to be. Nothing like spotting the other team (who you are visiting by the way) a nice 20-0 advantage in the first quarter. Now Tech proceeded to outscore the Jayhawks 45-14 the rest of the game, but good lord the habit of spotting the bad guys a lead has got to stop. The good news is that Doege continued to put up big numbers (366 and 3 TD) and a running game showed up, with Eric Stephens picking up over 120 yards and two TDs. That’s great, cause we’re going to need it against the Aggies.
If you have turned off the Aggie games the past two weeks at half, you’d think A&M is undefeated and probably a Top 5 (top 10 certainly) team. The only problem for them this season is that like there are two Os in Goose, there are two halves in football boys. The second half of both the Oklahoma State and the Arkansas games have just been train wrecks. And as a farily biased fan without any stake in those games, it looks like the offense tends to panic and get away from running the ball and that’s what’s led to the losses.
I don’t know if you can install the wishbone offense in a week, but if I were the Aggies, looking at Tech’s horrendous defense I’d say “we are running this play on first down, second down, third down. Hell we may even run on fourth down”. I honestly don’t know why you would not put the ball in Cyrus Gray’s or Christine Michael’s hands on every play. They combined for 381 yards and 5 TDs on the ground against Arkansas. And ok, if they want to throw it, its not like they don’t have a good QB Tannehill has over 500 yards in the air the past two games and he has a few weapons, none better than Swope (go chaps) to go to.
Tech’s won 11 of the last 16 matchups between these two teams, but the Aggie’s are riding a nice two game streak over Tech. And for all the changes Tuberville has brought to Lubock, it really seems like he just doesn’t get the importance of this game and the UT game. I think its safe to say that Tech going 10-2, but losing to UT and A&M is a bad year. Going 2-10 but beating UT and the A&M will get you a contract extension and a raise. Bad news for Tuberville and Tech is they are young and probably don’t have the horses to keep up with the Aggies this year.
But there is always the SECOND HALF! Whoop!
BEST GUESS
TECH 34
Aggies 42
FUN WITH NUMBERS
35 – Zach Thomas’ number while at Tech. His INT turned the tide in this series
10 – number of times the Tech/Aggie game has been decided by 3 points or less
475.4– Average offense per game in 17 games under Tuberville (6 more yards than last 17 under leach) for what that’s worth Tech PR department
GUNS UP!
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