40 Acres Sports

WTH?! (What the Heck?) moments are attempts to find the memorable and the off-beat perspective on Longhorns sports. Here are some interesting moments from the Texas’ game against the Aggies.

Pre-Game WTH 118 years?! I agree that egos have caused this rivalry to end. The Aggies says “It’s time for Texas A&M”… to slug it out with the SEC. The Horns have their path to blaze (LHN). Divorce is tough. Let’s reunite for the kids’ sake.

1st Quarter (7:26) WTH Tucker?! The 31 yard punt by Justin Tucker was making every Longhorn fan pull out their hair. The only good outcome was that most of his punts were never returned. He definitely made up for his punting woes at the end.

2nd Quarter (12:13) WTH Refs 1?! Keenan Robinson was called for roughing the passer when the QB Ryan Tannehill landed on him? Keenan must have pissed off the entire officiating crew because he also got called for a horse collar penalty in the third quarter when he clearly just had the jersey.

2nd Quarter (9:31) WTH Shipley?! This is not for the pass play to Irby for the first score. Before that play and the muffed punt that caused all the electricity for the Horns, Jaxon Shipley I think had the play of the game. On third down his bad knee gave way and he barely got a hand on the ball to knock it down. An Aggie defender was there ready to make the interception and take it to the house. Close call!

2nd Quarter (1:47) WTH Harsin?! Coach Harsin I am going to blame you for this interception thrown by Miles Onyegbule. Your innovative play calling gets this Horn team so fired up that they will throw into triple coverage to please you.

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We have completed a quarter of the season and it’s time to start looking at conference match ups for the Horns. But before we get back to football, I want to look back at Realignment Armageddon 2.0. We can surmise that the Big 12 is back together and everything is back to normal. (Who believes that?) I do think we need to take a look at what was lost. Here is what I believe the PAC 16 would have looked like if Larry Scott and the rest of the universities on the left coast would have opened the door to the 4 schools in the East.

The pod system would have played out by having the schools in the East only having to travel to the western time zone twice a year for football. The teams would play a home and away series for two years and switch to the other remaining teams in that pod. The travel schedule for most of the other university sports would be quite different due to the size of this conference, but we all know that football pays the bills. The media markets that this league would boast would cover 12 of the major 28 markets including the biggies such as LA, SF, Houston, & DFW.

Here is a look at the possible football schedule using the pod system for the Longhorns for the 2012 and 2014 season. The odd years would result in the teams switching destinations to accommodate the home and away series. The OU game would still be played at the Cotton Bowl every year. The remaining 3 non-conference games of the season would be a host of cupcake teams to offset a brutal but highly entertaining regular season (goodbye A&M)!

2012 – Pac 16 conference games

@ Oregon
Washington St
@ Standford
UCLA
@ Colorado
Arizona
@ Texas Tech
OU
@ OK State

2014 – Pac 16 conference games

Oregon St.
@ Washington
USC
@ California
Utah
@ Arizona St.
@ Texas Tech
OU
@ OK State

The Pac 16 games would provide better match ups and great destinations over the Big 12. The conference titles games would be the former Pac 8 schools (NW/West) against the Mountain/East division schools in locales such as Pasadena, Tempe or maybe even at Cowboy Stadium. Texas wants to play in large television markets for exposure and to play in mostly southern climates to recruit elite high school talent. The cons to this new frontier is that it would be much more difficult to reach a BCS bowl game or even the National Title game under the PAC 16 scenario. It looks like the Big 12 will allow the Longhorn Network to exist as long as the Tier 1 and Tier 2 television rights are shared among all schools in the league. There are probably some hurt feelings and back room deals that still need to be ironed out and another team needs to be added for this Big 12 conference to work. I just thought you might want to see what was lost last week when the Pac 12 was said that their full right now. I did enjoy DeLoss Dodds assessment of Texas during this entire upheaval. “We are who we are.”

Thanks for following my WTH articles throughout the season. I appreciate the opportunity to rant about the greatest University sports program in the country. You can continue to follow comments on all of UT sports on twitter @40AcresSports or follow me @Horns1991. HOOK EM!!

Best quote of A&M’s so far failed bid to leave the Big 12 for the SEC:

I’m not quite as sure why the SEC wants A&M, because other than getting its toes into the state of Texas – assuming College Station counts – this is like a high-end mall expanding to add a Walgreens.

From Jeff Schultz at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Andy Katz thinks pretty much every other recent conference move made sense, except of course the Aggies moving to the SEC. Some quotes from Katz:

This move specifically is done because Texas A&M didn’t like the way Texas was getting favored status from the Big 12.

And…

They didn’t like being treated as the second child.

The best one comes from the other host though…

A&M has been in the shadow of Texas for quite some while now.

Too bad for the Aggies. Instead of being little brother to Texas and Oklahoma whipping boy, they’ll now be fighting Mississipi State for fifth place in the SEC West. Aggie fans somehow think they’ll be better in SEC. They couldn’t consistently beat Texas Tech and Baylor but think they can hang with Bama and LSU.

Watch the video…

It was the first time since 1983 that a team from the state of Texas hosted a basketball game as the #1 team in the country, and until overtime it looked like it would be a while before it happened again. The top ranked Texas Longhorns were taken to the buzzer by the Texas A&M Aggies Saturday evening before the Horns finally pulled away in overtime 72 – 67. After only 3 points in the first half, senior All-American candidate put the team on his back and dominated with 23 points in the second half and overtime. His big 3-pointer and and then game ending block of an Aggie 3-pointer in OT finished off the thrilling victory.

Some brief highlights and thoughts on the game from ESPN are below…

Next up for the Horns are back-to-back road games against top 15 opponents. They’ll face #12 Monday night on ESPN and then travel to play #15 on Saturday on CBS.

WTH?! (What the Heck?) moments are attempts to find the memorable and the off-beat perspective on Longhorns sports. Here are some interesting moments from the Texas Longhorns’ game against the Texas A&M Aggies.

True freshman receiver Marquise Goodwin's kick return TD in the 4th quarter ended it. (Image: Statesman)

1st Quarter (13:44) WTH Goonies?! The UT defense (aka “Goonies” or “Legion of Boom”) gave up a 70 yard touchdown pass to A&M Jeff Fuller which got the Aggies student body kissing crazy. The defense could not come up with any significant stops most of the night (A&M had 532 total yards). Some say that the short week caused the defense to be tired. Whatever the reason for the worst defensive outing of the year Coach Blood needs to get it corrected.

1st Quarter (10:12) WTH 4th Down?! decided that he was practically going to go for it on every 4th down play (1 for 3 for the night). I do not mind the aggressive play calling but the razzle-dazzle option play to punter that traveled 15 yards to come up two yards short was ridiculous.

2nd Quarter (14:10 & 1:11) WTH 65 yards?! That is exactly the yardage that ran up the middle to gouge the A&M defense for the go ahead score to start the second quarter. The run was so spectacular that it will definitely be replayed in New York during the Heisman presentation. That also happens to be the exact amount of yardage that Colt led the offense just before the half to take back the lead 21-14. He completed 4 out of 5 passes and ran twice during this series to grab back any momentum away for the Aggies. Two signature moments that every Longhorn fan needs to remember about Colt because I know the Aggies will never forget it.

2nd Quarter (6:27) WTH Frederick?! I have heard of being juked out of your shoes, but I never thought I would see it. A&M Terrence Frederick was trying to cover UT when Terrence came out of both of his shoes. He did make the tackle in his stocking feet after the 12 yard completion.

Halftime WTH Aggie Band?! Well we lost another halftime to the Aggies. Will we ever win one?!

4th Quarter (6:57) WTH Goodwin?! The great equalizer after your rival just scored a touchdown to bring them within 3 points in the 4th quarter. returned the kickoff 95 yards for the final margin that sealed the win for the Horns. Speed kills and Marquise had the ultimate answer.

Next up for the Longhorn’s is the Big XII Championship against the Huskers at 7pm on Dec. 5th.

It wasn’t the game most Texas fans expected, but the wild, close game against Texas A&M might end up being a blessing for the Horns and . The coaches have plenty of tape to motivate the offense and the defense all week and McCoy put on a Heisman highlight reel for the entire country. Check out highlights from the game below:

Close game? Blowout? The records don’t always matter when the Texas Longhorns take on the Texas A&M Aggies. This is their bowl game, the closest they’ll ever be to an important game. For the Horns it’s another step on the road to a national title shot. Can the Horns take care of business and not let emotion and momentum keep the Ags around? Find out what we think in our game predictions below:

Brian - Why are so many people predicting this game is going to be remotely close? This is a Texas A&M team that got blown out of the water by and embarrassed by a shell of an team. They gave up 30 and barely beat Utah State. The Aggie offense has had it’s moments this season and quarterback Jarrod Johnson can chuck it a little (though he often has no control of where it’s headed), but the vaunted Wrecking Crew defense is one of the nation’s best. Tonight in front of a national Turkey Day audience the Horns are going to roll up big points and is going to put up more big numbers for his Heisman campaign. Texas wins big. Texas 45, Texas A&M 17

Ross - Why I am nervous about the A&M game? Let’s take a look at the last few regular season games for this Longhorn team. Here are the winning margins of the last five games: 31 points, 33 pts, 32 pts, 27 pts, and last week was 34 points. Why should I be worried, the Longhorns have been putting teams away since the Sooners. OK, let’s look at the last five A&M contests.

2004 26-13 Win / 2005 40-29 Win / 2006 7-12 Loss / 2007 30-38 Loss / 2008 49 – 9 Win

The record is 3-2 that past five years and Colt McCoy has a losing record against the Aggies. The 2005 undefeated team went in to College Station (same momentum) and won a much closer game than the score indicated. I would like to think that we would win by the same 30 point average that we have racked up the last few weeks, but this is a rivalry game so I expect this to be a nail biter. Texas 28, Texas A&M 17

More Predictions

• Inside Texas
• Orangebloods
• Statesman Prediction Contest

Yes Longhorn fans, it is that time of year again. We will all huddle up around TV’s, radios or file into the stands at College Station to watch our beloved Longhorns play the Aggies. Once again the mighty Horns come into this game with everything on the line and the Aggies have nothing to lose. The Longhorns are having a dream season where we are in the hunt for another National Championship. While the Aggies have been hot and cold and are just hoping to make a bowl game at this point of the season, so here we go again!

While in recent history of this rivalry has leaned the longhorns way, there have been those games where Texas comes in needing a win to achieve their goals. And the unthinkable happens a dreaded loss. has led the longhorns down the undefeated path this year, and with the win last week, he is now the winningest quarterback in college football history. So what better feather to put in McCoy’s cap, than to beat A&M, win the Big XII, and win a National Championship? Once we get our fill of turkey, let’s hold our horns up high and root loud and proud. This years game looks to be a good one, but I expect the Longhorns to walk away late and win big.

Looks like the mighty 12th Man can’t sell out their biggest game of the year against a team they claim is their rival. Texas A&M’s 12th Man Foundation didn’t sell their entire allotment of tickets to Aggies and have opened up ticket sales to the general public. Head over to their site and buy as many as you can afford and paint Kyle Field burnt orange.

Or if you want to choose your own seats check out what’s available on StubHub.