40 Acres Sports

Texas back at #2; Really not all that surprised by this.

Lots of negative ones but Vince did become the 7th player in NCAA history to throw and rush for over 200 yards in the same game.

Vince took the team on his back and saved the season.

Seeing as how the Horns suffered so many injuries yesterday, here’s the Statesman’s injury report from this morning:

• DE Brian Robison strained a calf muscle in the first half and did not return.
• WR Brian Carter injured his left knee in the first half and did not return.
• OT Jonathan Scott injured his left leg near the end of the third.
• RB Selvin Young appeared to tweak his ankle in the third quarter and did not return.
• RB Jamaal Charles suffered cramps throughout the game.
• LB Robert Killebrew and RB Chris Ogbonnaya both limped off the field very late in the 4th.

It sounds like Carter’s may be the most serious one, let’s hope it’s nothing too bad. The kid is a senior and has stepped up and made some big catches this year. Robison’s is also a little troubling.

We’ll have updates when/if they become available.

Update

The Dallas Morning news reports that Robison, Carter, and Ogbannaya are all out for Saturday’s game against Baylor. No further information on the severity of the injuries or how long they’d be out is available. (11/3/2005)

Tonight’s game will be the first TBS televised game I’ve watched all the way through, so it will be interesting to see what kind of job they do. I don’t recognize either of the announcers but they can’t be any worse than the guys ABC trots out there every week.

First Quarter

• Good kick by Greg Johnson and an even better hit! [tag]Oklahoma State[/tag] returner had a seam and Johnson just came flying up and laid him out.
• Good first series from the defense, had a chance to get a turnover but still forced a three and out.
• Ramonce Taylor drops a wide open pass and we’ve got 4th down. If he catches that one in stride he might be able to get into the end zone with his speed.
• I don’t know what the wind is like but I’m pretty confident that David Pino won’t make too many 52 yard field goals. We should have tried to pin them back deep or go for it, but we don’t and we get the kick blocked.
• Great play design on 4th and one by Okie State for the touchdown. They rushed up to the line, looked like they were going to go for the short gain with everything they got and snuck a wide receiver out of the backfield. Dajuan Woods ran wide open down the field all by himself.

Texas 0, Okie State 7

• Great run from Vince Young on 3rd and long, 45 yards or so. He’s looked a little off again today so let’s hope this settles him down.
• Another holding penalty from David Thomas. He seems to get one of those and a false start every week. We just flat out can’t do that on first and goal. 2nd and goal from the 5 is a lot better than a tough 10 yard penalty.
• Wow, Vince air mailed that one about 10 yards over Quan Cosby’s head. Wasn’t even close. Somehow the announcers blamed it on Cosby.
• Another holding penalty. We may have the best offensive line in the country but we are the worst at holding I’ve ever seen. We seem to get caught more than any team I’ve ever seen.
• Touchdown David Thomas! Great pass from VY on 3rd and goal from the 20 yard line. Threaded it in there. Thomas needs to do more catching with those great hands of them and stop using them to hold.
• Did they just claim the holder, Matt Nordgren, falst started on the extra point? It looked like the right side of the line moved, but I’m pretty sure they said number 7. Crap, it just caused us to get the kick blocked. Way too much penetration in the middle of the line.

Texas 6, Okie State 7

• We’re playing absolutely terrible, the only way this game is remotely close is if we give it to them. We’ve got to settle down on offense.
• Decent kick and much better coverage. Of course, we were freaking offsides on the thing. How many penalties is that already? 4? 5? Ugh.
• The Cowboys are just playing with a lot more energy than we are. It sure looks like we must’ve spent all week celebrating our number one BCS ranking. Another big run and they’re inside our 10. They’re running right down our throats right now.
• Anytime they run the toss we have about 5 guys crash down inside for no reason and then they can just run untouched around the corner. We’ve got to pull our heads out.

Texas 6, Okie State 14

• Another high throw from Vince and this one’s picked off.
• And Oklahoma State immediately converts it into points. Our defense looked like they’d never seen the zone read before as OSU QB Al Pena runs untouched into the end zone. Embarassing.

Texas 6, Okie State 21

• Let’s come out and run it down their throats with Vince and Jamaal Charles.
• Big keeper from Vince. Down to the OSU 30.
• Looks like the OSU defense is forcing Charles outside and then they’re bottling him up. No seams up the middle for him yet.
• Vince has missed every throw by a mile. He hasn’t been close at all. 4th down.
• Pino converts the 45 yard field goal. More bad protection but he gets the 3 points.

Texas 9, Okie State 21

• Deep kick into the end zone by Johnson and great coverage. Cowboys will start at the 15 yard line, let’s hope we take the field position and get the ball back for our offense.

(more …)

Apparently Virginia Tech isn’t going to be the only fashion victim this week, the Florida Gators are playing well so far in their upset bid but they’re looking terrible doing it. Not even HD helps.

According to Fanblogs, Nike is punishing the fans of 4 different teams for not buying enough Nike gear. Or maybe it’s part of a special promotion. One of those two.

Billy Pittman and Ramonce Taylor have been close friends for 10 years.

Only one real big game this week (not including Thursday’s Virginia Tech game) and it’s the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” The matchup between undefeated Georgia and underachieving Florida is by far this week’s marquee matchup. The Bulldogs have been squeaking by opponents and will be without quarterback D.J. Shockley today. Can the Gators play up to their ability today and pull off the upset? Can they bring tears of joy to Urban Meyer’s face? The game is at 2:30 pm CST on CBS (in high definition, ABC sucks).

There’s one other game today between two ranked teams, #25 Michigan at #21 Northwestern, but that’s not particularly exciting. The Big 10 has a bunch of pretty good teams, but Penn State and Ohio State are the only teams really worth watching. Meanwhile, Texas plays a very, very bad Oklahoma State that should have Vince Young standing next to Mack Brown for the majority of the second half. The game will be on TBS at 6 pm CST.

Here’s how we think this week shakes out:

Related Links

• Last week’s picks
• SI.com Top 25 Scoreboards

“Texas’ 35-point victory over No. 10 Texas Tech stands out more than Tech’s 20-point victory over No. 13 BC.”

Our Thoughts

Brian – Down weeks for both Young and Bush. Vince was off all day long Saturday versus Tech, completing only 12 of 22 passes, but he hit several big passes and led his team to a victory over a top 10 team. Meanwhile, Bush only rushed for 51 yards, but had the type of highlight making punt return that Heisman voters love. Take out that return TD and Bush would barely be holding off Maroney and his teammate Leinart. He’ll have to keep putting up those kind of plays if USC is only going to get him 8 carries per week.

Jacobs drops this week and barely stays in my poll at all. He was injured early in Bowling Green’s game against Western Michigan and passed for only 98 yards. With his lack of national exposure and weak competition he has to put up ridiculous numbers in order to be invited to New York, after the last two week’s he’s no longer on pace to do that.

More interesting than all of this, rumor has it that Matt Leinart and Kristin from the MTV reality show “Laguna Beach” were dating at one point. He was a junior playing QB for a national champion and she was still a senior in high school at the time. It’s kind of pathetic if you win the Heisman and all it gets you is high school chicks.

Matt – Brady Quinn was just ridiculous, so I moved him into the chase and dropped Matt Leinart all together. I am almost looking at this now as, if I was to start a new team, which of the current college players would I pick. Now, I probably wouldn’t take Vince #1, but so far he has had the best season of my top 5. Looking at my list, I would probably have to go with Brady Quinn. He has the size, the arm, and the smarts to make it big in the NFL.

And who on ESPN’s staff is still giving Matt Leinart 1st place votes. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

Related Links

• Last week’s Heisman poll
• ESPN Experts Poll