PREVIEW TEXAS TECH VS UT

MISS THE MIKE LEACH INTERVIEW? GO HERE: http://wisdomofthewannabes.blogspot.com/

“They say misery loves company. We coud start a factory and make misery. FRUSTRATED. INCORPORATED” – Soul Asylum, Misery

When: 11:00 am Nov 5

Where: Austin, DKR Stadium

TV: FX (look for the rotating announcer logos, its like FX is spoofing FOX)

Weather:  low 70s, sunny

Line: -14.5 UT (opened at -9)

Alright alright alright. Time for another matchup between the Longhorns and the Red Raiders. Got NO clue what team is traveling to Austin for Tech, but before we get to that, lets briefly look back on the past two week….(sorry boss came to town so no writing)

OU – 41-38. A Huge WIN in Norman, we’re the best team ever.

ISU – 41-7. To quote Norm McDonald “What the H?”

Ok Coach Tuberville, to continue the Soul Asylum song lets see if you can make the cure, because you made the disease. Good lord, I don’t know what to take out of that Iowa State game. About the only thing good is that there is no written record of Wisdom of the Crowd’s preview with a 42-7 Tech win prediction.

Tech is beat up across the board. Against ISU they lost another two starters and the backups look like they had no clue what to do. On offense, I swear Doege must be injured. Against the Cyclones he didn’t step into throws, floated passes and was just about as accurate as Zebbie Lethridge with a head cold.

So now you get to lick your wounds by hoping on a plane and flying down to Austin.  In case you don’t have the Longhorn Network (and that’s pretty much everyone), you missed them picking apart Kansas. But UT has some issues as their losses to OU and OSU showed. Now the Oklahoma State game could have been much closer than it was, but OU just destroyed UT both offensively and defensively.  That has got to give every Red Raider fan some hope.

UT on defense has some holes. Against the two “good” schools they played and lost to, they gave up an average of 46.5 points. Now those were to two Top 10 national offenses. Tech was another Top 10 offense until last week so that’s good.

Offensively, I still think their rotation of Ash and McCoy at quarterback is a bad idea and they should settle on one. And here’s a hint, the coaching staff is very much rumored to be leaning hard towards Ash. The horns have two great backs to. Malcolm Brown gets the majority of the carries, but Fozzie Whittaker gets his touches to.

And then there is some kid named Shipley. And than name should strike fear into any Big 12 defense.

Overall, I want to throw out the best and worst games for both these teams. Doing that, I think Tech has a pretty good shot here and knowing that UT fans will not be at full tilt for 11 am kick, DKR might not be the usual canyon of doom for tech.

But then history slaps you right in the face. The Longhorns have won two straight against the Red Raiders and lead the all-time series  44-15 and Tech hasn’t won in Austin since 1997. Tech has a puncher’s chance.

BEST GUESS

Tech – 35

UT – 38

FUN WITH NUMBERS

16-32 Doege’s passing stats last week against ISU

4-0 Tech’s road record stretching back to last year

1928 – Year that these two teams first met. UT won in Austin 12-0

GUNS UP!

PREVIEW: TEXAS TECH VS AGGIES

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 70^th time the Red Raiders and Texas A&M Aggies have met since 1927. When they meet for the 71^st 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!