Q NOTES 279

It was nice to spend a day thinking more about college football than American politics. Texas A&M just played its regular season finale against Tennessee and won 34-13. That makes the team's record 8-1, and A&M is ranked 5th in the nation in the CFP standings. 

The best way to summarize this season is that Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, and Tennessee weren't as good this year as I expected they would be, and A&M was much, much better than I thought they'd be after the first two games (squeaker against Vanderbilt, blowout loss to Alabama). One game, against Ole Miss, was cancelled and possibly cost A&M another win at Kyle Field.

The best thing about the season is that A&M finally looks like a team that could be a serious contender in the SEC West. The offensive line and the defense are real assets rather than liabilities. The offense is balanced, with the tight end being a contributing factor and running backs that can be relied upon to keep the chains moving. Finally, Kellen Mond had a very good senior year, and performed with a level of skill every A&M fan wanted to see in years 1-3, but didn't.

In the political realm, Cheez Doodle will apparently leave the White House the same way he entered it: as an obvious Russian asset, owned by and indebted to Vladimir Putin.

When Fox starts cracking down on someone like Lou Dobbs, you know the shit's hit the fan. There's no excuse for allowing snot bubbles like him to be on TV more than five minutes per year.

Football Fantasy

I was listening to the sports talk station on the car radio this afternoon, and the guy who does the Saturday afternoon program on CBS mentioned that football season was starting in two weeks. Some guy called in and there was some brief chatter about all the protests and counter-protests in the news recently. I didn't give a damn about the caller's opinion of the protests, and my mind started to drift...

Suppose EVERY black player at the high school, college, and pro levels agreed to stage a black unity protest and refused to play in any game until Donny Two Scoops totally and unequivocally denounced the white supremacy movement. It might be interesting to see how fans would react to all-white football, especially in SEC states. Would fans reconsider the whole white supremacy argument? Would there be enough public support for the players to make fans pressure Donny into abandoning his racist supporters? Then, what if some of the white players refused to play to demonstrate solidarity with their teammates?

LOL

After this rotten week (including election anxiety), I needed a laugh and I found it at one of the Texas A&M football chatter boards:

OP: I missed the game today. Where can I watch a replay?

Reply: Just stare at your dog's ass for a few hours.

Manziel Culture?

It took awhile, but former A&M star quarterback Kyle Allen has finally gone public about why he bailed out and headed for a new team. His reasons, as reported by CBS, confirm a few things I suspected.

IN THE BUNKER: He Gone

Super Bowl 49

Somehow I managed to get through the entire 2014 football season without watching a single NFL game. I considered watching the playoff games, but tossed that idea after discovering that so many of them were being shown in prime time. It ultimately came down to the Super Bowl or nothing.

So, the Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks met in the big game this afternoon. I don't have a favorite NFL team anymore, but in this matchup, I was rooting for New England. I watched most of the first half, then switched channels to avoid the ridiculous fucking halftime extravaganza. By the time I went back to the game, the Seahawks were leading 24-21 in the 4th quarter, but the Patriots were on offense with plenty of time to at least tie the score at 24-24.

New England got the touchdown instead to lead 28-24. Seattle then moved into position to win the game in the final minute, but the Pats got a game-saving interception (similar to the one the Aggies used to beat Alabama in 2012) and ran out the last 20 seconds or so. That last Seattle pass was hard to understand, all factors considered.

I stopped watching Super Bowls because so many of the games were boring, and the teams I pulled for usually lost. After today, I may reevaluate. 

Prognosticating

Anyone wondering about Texas A&M's destiny in football starting next week might be interested in the season predictions at Good Bull Hunting.

My initial prediction is 7-6, based on the simple reality of no Manziel and no Evans, without whose performances several of the Ws in 2012 and 2013 would have been losses. The Aggie defense can't be worse than last year's bottom ten bunch, but how much better it will be remains to be seen. In 2012, Johnny Manziel was an unknown quantity who turned out to be the most exciting A&M player I ever watched. I haven't seen indications that Kenny Hill has the same potential, but judging from the little I have seen, he could be adequate in the Sumlin offense, especially if the running backs are fully utilized and the OL can help out.

The opening game against South Carolina will provide some clues as to what expectations are reasonable for 2014. Right now, I have that game penciled in as a loss, along with Alabama, Auburn, and LSU (all of whom beat A&M when Manziel was playing). I expect A&M to also lose two of the following games: Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Missouri, or the bowl game. I reserve the right to review and revise my forecast if A&M performs effectively enough to beat South Carolina.

Schmoozing

So Johnny Manziel has been spending time shooting the shit about football with Jerry Jones. That's interesting. The young man who resurrected my interest in Texas Aggie football jawboning with the old fart who almost single-handedly destroyed my interest in professional football. Please, please, don't let Manziel end up on the Dallas Cowboys team roster.

From the bunker

I don't know why... but I can't seem to get enough of Adolf Hitler agonizing over the collapse of the Reich in Austin.

Awesome

Chinese Gangbangs

Saturday, Mack Brown was coaching his 8-3 longhorns in Waco against the bears in what amounted to a BDF championship game. Conference title and automatic slot in a prestigious BCS bowl game were on the line. Now it's Tuesday night, and the internet is buzzing with reports that Mack (a) has been ordered to resign, or (b) is in Miami recruiting more blue chip talent, or (c) will be replaced by Nick Saban, or (d) all the above.

This goddamned circle jerk is reminding me of the time Texas A&M replaced their all-time leader in football wins with a hotshot who was coaching at Alabama. Football under R.C. Slocum had gone stale, and it was easy to predict the number of Aggie Ws and Ls in August, before the season started. Many of us thought Dennis Franchione, who had succeeded at every stopover in his coaching career, would do the same in College Station. Instead, we got a cluster-fuck that set the program back another five years, and included history-making blowout losses to Oklahoma, and the utter waste of the most promising quarterback A&M had ever recruited to that point.

For purely selfish reasons, I hope that whoever replaces Mack in Austin will do for the longhorns what Coach Fran did for the Aggies.

RoboJohnny

It should have been obvious that something was happening behind the scenes, and now, thanks to dogged investigative reporting by Good Bull Hunting, the secret is revealed. Manziel only SEEMS indestructible, but now everything is explained.

SEC Power Rankings, Week 4

Team Speed Kills ranks the SEC teams in its power poll standings. LSU is in the top spot, followed by Alabama, then Georgia. The Aggies are in at number four. Other than LSU, every team the Aggies still have to play is ranked lower than they are. If the analysis is accurate, that's a good sign.

Hitler and Twitter

In the bunker, Der Fuhrer learns of another JFF misadventure and reacts as you might expect.

Rankings

According to Rivals.com, the Aggies are moving up in the world of football recruiting. The 2013 class that was officially signed, sealed and delivered today is rated as the 8th best class nationally. I thought it was interesting to see how the A&M class compared to those in their new conference (the SEC), and to those in their old conference (the Big WTF).

The Aggies (at number eight) have the fifth best class in the SEC, fourth best in the SEC West:

• Alabama (number one)
• Florida (number three)
• Louisiana State (number five)
• Ole Miss (number seven)
• Texas A&M (number eight)

TAMU is ahead of the other seven SEC teams, but they're also ahead of ALL their former rivals in the Big Whatever (including its two newest members):

• Oklahoma (15th)
• Texas (24th)
• West Virginia (25th)
• Baylor (29th)
• Oklahoma State (34th)
• TCU (35th)
• Kansas (44th)
• Texas Tech (51st)
• Iowa State (58th)
• Kansas State (62nd)

The conclusion seems to be that moving to the SEC helped the Aggies in recruiting, since they live in a swankier neighborhood now.

Super Bore

The Super Bowl between San Francisco and Baltimore kicks off in less than thirty minutes. For me, it's the who gives a shit bowl, since I'm not a fan of either team and don't really have a dog in this fight. I like Denver and New England, and would pull for either of them if they were playing -- but neither is. Overall, I like the 49ers less than the Ravens, so I'll probably watch out of force of habit, as long as the 49ers are behind, tied, or ahead by no more than 10 points.

Added 12:24 AM: The Ravens controlled the first two quarters and led 21-6. Then the big halftime extravaganza came on. After a few minutes of that crap, I was bored out of my skull and switched channels to a Columbo rerun on MeTV. That was the end of my football watching for the 2012 season. From what I read, there was a power failure in the second half and the 49ers almost rallied but still lost 34-31. I guess I didn't miss much.

Wrong again

Back when I got most of my news from reading words printed on paper, I would buy the Dallas Morning News for its sports section, which had comprehensive coverage of the Cowboys. In those days, I still cared about what NFL teams were doing.

The newspaper had a clear Longhorn bias in its college football reporting and commentary, and eventually I was so pissed off that I stopped buying. It's no surprise that most of the DMN sportswriters picked Oklahoma over the Aggies in Friday night's Cotton Bowl. Nice work, losers.

Conference Convolution

Okay, here's how things seem to be stacking up. The Pac-12 conference says it's happy with its existing structure, so scratch Oklahoma, Okie State, Texas and TexTech as potential westward migrants. Unwanted and unloved by the West Coast league, OU and Texas U. now claim they want to keep the Big 12 intact, which should get Baylor and its asswipe president off the litigation warpath. Meanwhile, rumors are floating around that Missouri would like to move east to the SEC. With the Aggies, that would expand the SEC to 14 teams, and Auburn says they'd be willing to move into the Eastern division of the conference, making two seven-team divisions. The Aggies presumably would play Mizzou every year instead of Auburn, which would count as a positive the way I'm scoring things.

Added 6:50 pm, same date: The latest bulletin is that Dan Beebe is finito as Big 12 Minus Two commissioner. That's okay -- Beebe was a guy who liked to wear DeLoss Dodds's boxer shorts while DeLoss was still in them. Problem is, who does the conference find to replace him ? Which competent administrator leaves a decent day job to climb aboard this leaking vessel ? On the other hand, who cares ?

Football 2011: Week One

I thought I would watch several college football games during the Labor Day weekend, but as it turned out, the Oregon vs LSU game was too one-sided to be worth watching, and I couldn't get interested in the rest of the Saturday warm-up exercises. Tonight, though, I did watch nearly all of the Aggies vs SMU. The Aggies turned two early interceptions into TDs and looked like they'd be rolling all night long, but SMU switched quarterbacks and made it a tight game for the rest of the first half. Superior manpower prevailed in the second half, and TAMU won 46-14. This is a good sign because for far too many years, the Aggies have been unimpressive in their early non-conference games against teams from the lower tier of the food chain. It's good to see TAMU deliver an ass-kicking instead of struggling to beat some schmo by two FGs.

Isn't life confusing enough without... ?

I was at Walmart yesterday, scanning old analog snapshots, and discovered the 2011 edition of Texas Football magazine was for sale. That's a sure sign football season is just around the corner, with new conference alignments being tested for the first time. The Big 12 will have ten teams on the field this fall, and the Big Ten will have twelve.  There's something fundamentally wrong with that, and you'd think the two conferences would negotiate some kind of name swap. Things were bad enough when the Big Ten had eleven teams, but now there are THREE major conferences with misleading names. My suggestion, given the likelihood that conferences will continue to add and drop members, is to eliminate the practice of using numbers altogether. The Pac-10 could change their name to Sunshine Supermen, for example (if the reference to an old Donovan song isn't too arcane).