40 Acres Sports

An SEC match-up between Auburn and Georgia is the only game between ranked teams today but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad day for college football fans. The Big 12 may be home to the day’s best games including a huge trap for the still undefeated Kansas Jayhawks as they travel to Stillwater to face Oklahoma State.

Here’s today’s lineup:

(12) Michigan at Wisconsin – 11:00 am on ESPN. After losing their first two games of the season Michigan has beaten a bunch of mediocre Big 10 teams to climb back up to number twelve in the current polls. Wisconsin beats them at home unless Chad Henne has a huge day.

Texas A&M at (6) Missouri – 11:30 am on FSN. This could be an ugly one for the Aggies, Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel is going to light them up today and put the final nail in Dennis Franchione’s coffin.

Air Force at Notre Dame – 1:30 pm on NBC. 1-9. Ha. Go Air Force!

Texas Tech at (14) Texas – 2:30 pm on ABC. The game will reportedly be in high definition, finally. Tech is always a scary game for the Horns and today shouldn’t be any different.

(18) Auburn at (10) Georgia – 2:30 pm on CBS. The only game of the day between two top 25 teams. I haven’t been particularly impressed with either team this year but they play great defense and they’ve been winning tough games.

(4) Kansas at Oklahoma State – 7:00 pm on ABC. The Jayhawks’ defense has been incredible this season but the OSU Cowboys’ offense will give them one of their first tests of the year. I’m calling the upset, Okie State wins at home tonight in front of a national audience.

(17) USC at California – 7:00 pm on ABC. Not nearly the match-up we thought this game was going to be a month ago but still should be fun to watch. A battle to see which team will finish third in the Pac-10.

Microsoft adds ESPN programing to the Xbox 360. I might pay $4.50 for a game in HD if I could have it on more than my Xbox.

Texas starts at #16 in ESPN’s week 1 college basketball power poll. Should be moving up if they can take out UTSA.

Basketball opens season with 87-56 exhibition win over Xavier. Augustin and James lead the scoring, freshman Johnson plays 19 minutes.

If I were the Athletic Director of Oklahoma State University, I would try to figure out a way to remove Texas from the schedule. Or maybe just transfer out of the Big 12 all together. This game was absolutely ridiculous, and probably the best comeback against OSU of the 3 in the last 4 years.

What I want to know is why Texas only decides to play in the 4th quarter? If they played like that for the whole game, we might be looking at playing in the Sugar Bowl this year. In case you missed it, here are the highlights.

None of Texas’ wins against [tag]Oklahoma State[/tag] the last few years have come easily and that isn’t likely to change today. This team showed last week it could come back from a big deficit and win, but hopefully they don’t have to keep doing that. I wouldn’t mind jumping out to an early 17-point lead like last year, that might be the only way I’m not a nervous wreck this afternoon.

Here are three keys to a Texas victory against the Cowboys:

1. Find a way to run the football

Oklahoma State isn’t a terrible football team but they’re not a good one either. This is a team that’s giving up an average of nearly 26 points per game and gave up 41 in an early season loss to Troy. The Longhorns won against Nebraska because they suddenly rediscovered the zone read, against the Cowboys they’ll have to try that and a bunch more because they can’t win if they can’t run the ball. [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] showed what he can do when he’s feeling it, let’s hope he can stay on a roll, find a few holes, and make some more big plays this week.

2. Beat the blitz

Texas got lucky last week. The Cornhuskers blitzed often and with tons of success against the Longhorns for the first three quarters. Quarterback [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] didn’t have time to think let alone throw and that resulted in one of the worst performances in his career. Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy is 40 years old and claims his team won’t blitz like Nebraska did but I don’t buy it, they’d be stupid not to. McCoy and the Texas offense have to threaten the defense deep in order to open on the quick hot routes they’ll need to hit to beat the blitz. Of course if Charles rushes for nearly 300 yards again that would be nice as well.

3. Have a linebacker lead the team in tackles

The bad news: Sergio Kindle is out this week. The good news: the coaching staff appears to be noticing that the young, athletic linebackers can make more plays that the veteran group. Last week the team’s top three tacklers were all linebackers (when is the last time that happened?) and the defense needs to be led again by it’s linebackers against OSU and their option attack. If Marcus Griffin or another member of the Texas secondary is the game’s leading tackler that probably means OSU running back Dantrell Savage had a big day and the Horns are headed home to Austin as losers.

Prediction: Texas 35, Oklahoma State 31

Longhorns hoping for two strong halves against Okie Lite. I might not survive a first half like the last few years.

Kevin Durant and the Seattle SuperSonics are one step closer to moving to Oklahoma City. Sucks for him, guarantee he doesn’t re-sign when his contract is up.

He struggled in his NBA debut last night but [tag]Kevin Durant[/tag] picked up his game against the Phoenix Suns in a loss. He still hasn’t quite found his shot yet but scored 27 points and helped keep Seattle in it until the fourth quarter. Highlights from ESPN are below:

He played more minutes than everyone else, made less than 50% of his shots, and jacked up six threes but showed flashes of what he’s going to be capable of very soon. You know he’s going to be big time when he drops 27 points on a very good team (with an admittedly suspect defense) and all anyone can talk about it is what he’s going to do when he’s really ready.

It looks like we’ll get to see the Sonics a lot on national television this season thanks to Kevin, but you’re going to need to be a night owl to watch them play. Their first two games started at about 9:30 pm Central so by halftime it was already way past my bedtime. The next few games will only by available on Fox Northwest but fans who get NBA TV will be able to see Durant and the Sonics against the Pistons on November 11th.

One day after claiming no new injuries, Texas training staff announces Sergio Kindle is out for Oklahoma State game. Crap.