40 Acres Sports

I think Detroit had much bigger needs than a 3rd top tier receiver.

David Smoak is reporting the backup LB will require surgery on his knee.

J. Charles #2. I love their photo features, too bad they couldn’t use a photo from the right game.

“Jamaal Charles continues to impress us each week”

37 photos from the game.

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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I swear, it is amazing to have such big games so early in the college football season. This week we have a huge matchup with #5 Tennessee traveling down to The Swamp to play #6 Florida. Some other interesting matchup will be #8 Florida St at #17 Boston College, Michigan St at #10 Notre Dame, and #13 Miami at #20 Clemson. Looks like another weekend where I will just dominate Brian. Here is how we think things will shake out this weekend:

Related Links

• Last week’s picks

Q&A with Jamaal from Horns’ official site.