40 Acres Sports

Charles had the 4th best freshman total in school history by halftime.

Check out my live thoughts on the game here.

OU is about to lose to UCLA and start their season by losing two of their first three games. Is that a good thing or bad thing for Texas? Of course we still have to actually beat them. Personally I think it’s great for recruiting, and since we beat Ohio State in the Columbus last week all we have to do is win all of our games. We don’t have to worry about respect.

Tonight against [tag]Rice[/tag] we just need to stay sharp and stay healthy. They obviously can’t really compete with us, so start off strong early and things will fall into place. We need to make sure we’re not still enjoying last week’s victory as well as get ready for what should be a solid test in two weeks at Missouri.

First Quarter

• I still don’t like the black shoes.
• Good to see us throwing to David Thomas right off the bat, Ohio State was able to tak him out of the game last week. Fantastic grab on the first play of the game.
• A lot of single back with Vince Young under center. That’s a first this season.
• Not only is Jamaal Charles quick and shifty, but he’s got amazing balance as well. Doesn’t go down easy. Great 25 yard run for a touchdown. Nice way to start off things in your first career start.
• I still love David Pino.

Texas 7, Rice 0

• Greg Johnson instead of Richmond McGee. Not too deep, but at least it wasn’t a line drive. Good coverage too. Plus a penalty.
• Tarell Brown can’t let the runner get outside of him on the option. He’s got to force it back into the middle and the linebackers.
• An even worse job by Michael Griffin on the next play. He’s staring in at the dive fake and the QB and just let everyone get outside of him.
• Griffin looks like he is slow playing it. Are we going to rely on just the corner to cover the pitch man? That’s a flawed plan. Griffin made the play that time just because he’s ten times the athlete the running back is.
• I didn’t think you were allowed to just fall into the endzone downing a punt like that. I thought you had to keep the ball and your body from touching the line.
• Henry Melton needs a nickname.
• I thought VY was going to take that one 90+ yards. Great run but it was too easy. It kind of look like we didn’t even run a play, just told Vince to roll left and run for his life.
• Seriously, the black shoes make us look like we’re jogging. They’re terrible. Charles just kind of wandered another 25 yards for the TD.

Texas 14, Rice 0

• Okay that’s enough of that, let’s see if we can throw the thing around a little. If we get up too much we’re not going to be able to throw or it’ll look like we’re running it up. And for the 50th time, we need to get Ramonce Taylor the ball!
• At least Johnson appears to be kicking the ball where he wants. Still would like to see more distance on it, but maybe there’s some wind.
• Did we know Rice runs the option? We had a man on the running back that time but we waited back and took on the blocker instead of getting in there and blowing him up.
• I don’t know why the Owls don’t just run the option until we stop it.
• Come on Vince, you’ve got to make that throw. Limas Sweed is wide open and he tries to be too perfect. When he’s that open, lead him back into the middle of the field instead of trying to make the perfect throw to his outside shoulder.
• Pretty good run by Charles considering we only had 10 men on the field.
• Two pretty poor decisions by Vince on two plays in a row. 3rd and 15, he needs to throw the ball away or find Charles and dump the ball off instead of taking a sack. Every little bit of field position could matter in a big game.
• Better showing by the defense, but that may be because they didn’t bother to try running the option even once.
• There’s the Sweed we know. Just kind of let’s the Rice DB have the ball on a catch he should’ve easily had for a first down. Of course, moron national media who don’t actually watch any games will chalk up another interception for Vince Young and begin talking trash about his throwing ability again.

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Q&A with Jamaal from Horns’ official site.

My over/under on number of Rice pass attempts is 7.

You can now buy framed and unframed prints from TexasSports.com.

Fox Sports recaps how football recruiting is going so far.

They have VY a clear #2. Be sure to check our Heisman poll.

That means Texas now has the nation’s 2nd longest win streak behind USC.

We learned in January that Electronic Arts (and all other developers except Take Two) had lost the rights to develop baseball games depicting Major League Baseball teams or players. EA’s MVP Baseball 2005 was probably the best baseball game on the market last year so it was bad news for a lot of fans of the game and MLB video games in general.

But bad news for them is good news for college baseball fans. The first screenshots of EA’s new college baseball game called MVP 06 NCAA Baseball have surfaced and they look great. And who else to feature in the game than the National Champion Texas Longhorns? The graphics look good and it’s cool to see those burnt orange unis and the aluminum bat in a video game.

The game will feature a dynasty mode taking your team on the Road to Omaha, but will they be able to truly recreate the college atmosphere? Will there be recruiting? Pitchers who play third base? Accurate college stadiums? Or will it just be the same game wrapped in some new uniforms with a lot of new teams? One of the best things about EA’s NCAA Football games is the true college feel of the game, hopefully their attempt at college baseball is just as successful and just as fun.

I predict it outsells anything Take Two releases.