40 Acres Sports

Looks like we’re definitely headed towards another situation where the early FSN game is going to interfere with the start of the Texas vs. [tag]Rice[/tag] game. Texas Tech and Oklahoma State have decided to forego defense and play a 9-hour offensive shootout. All is not lost however, if you’re a DirecTV customer the game will start on schedule on channel 667 and you can check out FSN Southwest’s contingency plan for the telecast over on the official UT football site. Plus I’ll post frequent updates on the game here on this post. Stay tuned…

First Quarter

• Rice won the toss and will kick off.
• Good deep kick and [tag]Quan Cosby[/tag] takes a knee.
• Chris Hall starting at right tackle again. Limas Sweed is healthy enough to make the start at receiver.
• Colt McCoy misses Cosby on a 12 yard out.
• [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] may never touch the football again. Another damn fumble. Rice football.
• No surprises starting at linebacker. Same three veterans: Derry, Bobino, Killebrew.
• Great penetration on the blitz by [tag]Rashad Bobino[/tag] results in a loss of yards.
• [tag]Deon Beasley[/tag] got the start at cornerback over Brandon Foster.
• How is that not grounding? Rice OL forgets to block Frank Okam and he gets a free run at the QB.
• There’s a flag, they called it after all. Rice lining up for 50-yard field goal attempt.
• Rice kicker misses wide left. My former coworker and former Rice kicker Derek Crabtree would’ve made that one. Or so he’d tell me.
• Charles is still the running back. McCoy hits Jermichael Finley on a quick out for a 9 yard game.
• Charles reverses field and gets a good gain. Kid has tons of talent, hold on to the ball and I’ll be your best friend.
• Ugly option play and McCoy gets brought down hard. Guard Cedric Dockery got his ass kicked.
• Great catch on a hitch by Cosby. Colt tried to get him killed. Short of the first down and Texas has to punt.
• Texas sends out [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] with the rest of the punting team in some sort of likely fake but we screw it up and have to blow a timeout.
• After the timeout we’ve got the regular offense out there for 4th and 2.
• Lead dive out by Charles behind FB Atwan Cobb gets the first down.
• Completion from McCoy to Nate Jones on a slant. 7 yard gain.
• McCoy fumbles the shotgun snap but he rolls to his left and finds Cosby alone for a completion and a first down.
• Terrible looking play where two Texas linemen are running laterally 3 yards deep in the backfield and Charles has to fight his way through them on the counter before he can get a couple of yards. Yikes.
• Tony Hills with an obvious hold made more obvious by the fact that he threw his hands up in the air trying to claim innocence. Costs the Horns a first and goal opportunity.
• McCoy and Cosby bail out Hills. Great pass and catch for the touchdown on 3rd and long. The inside receiver was even more open on the play.

Rice 0, Texas 7

• About 1:30 left in the Tech/OSU game and OSU just scored to go up by four on a 54 yard TD catch.
• Didn’t know Texas was using the Bill Bates air conditioned shoulder pads. Great technology.
• Great job by Aaron Lewis to string out the play, Bobino flies to the ball and blows up the blocker, and Lewis is able to make the tackle.
• The Rice receiver might have been bobbling that ball. Rice thinks so too and is running the no huddle.
• Rice’s line is getting whipped right now. They’re doubling the two defensive tackles and that allowed the end to come and make the tackle untouched.
• As I’ve said over and over again, that spread punt formation is the dumbest thing in college football. Texas gets the ball at their 33.
• Colt is holding the ball a tick too long on the deep ball. Another underthrown bomb and another incompletion. He’s got a good enough arm if he gets rid of it a little quicker he’d be a lot more successful.
• Long run by Charles on the single back counter.
• Another ill advised deep ball. Come on Colt. Be smart. Interception but there’s flag on the play.
• McCoy bailed out by the pass interference call. That could have gone either way. First down Texas.
• John Chiles in the game. McCoy motioned left and Chiles ran the zone read. Nice idea but center Dallas Griffin got his ass beat and a Rice lineman blew up the play.
• Two incompletions and Texas will have to attempt a field goal.
• Ryan Bailey’s 44-yard field goal goes right down the middle.

Rice 0, Texas 10

• If our corners are going to give 15 yard cushion they can’t miss freaking tackles. Beasley whiffs and there’s a good gain for Rice.
• Ryan Palmer shows Beasley how to do it.
• Sergio Kindle in the game. Texas defensive line is blowing up the zone read every time.
• Looked like all the young linebackers might have been out there on that series. Rice has to punt.
• Cosby fair catches a line drive punt at the 10 and Texas starts this possession with bad field position.
• Charles lined up at wideout and McCoy puts a beautiful pass in his hands and Charles drops it. Would have been an easy 6.
• Colt is leaving all these short passes up high. Doesn’t seem to have the zip on it he did last season.
• The game is on regular FSN Southwest now so I’ll be doing less play by play and make more witty comments.

(more …)

Last week’s keys didn’t work out so well. We barely won, Brian Orakpo got hurt, and John Chiles could barely even see the field from where he was sitting on the bench. Let’s hope the Horns come out firing against [tag]TCU[/tag] and turn things around for the rest of the season.

1. Get Jamaal Charles running north/south.

There was some minor controversy this week over a [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] quote on Scout that the Longhorns’ sideways running style had made him more hesitant. I’m not sure he should have said it, but I agree with him. I don’t know if it’s Charles or the system (or both) but if your running back is spending half his time running lateraly you’re not going to be successful consistently. If we’re not running the zone read with an athletic QB then we should take a cue from teams like the Indianapolis Colts, which Greg Davis spent time with this offseason. If we can’t run more consistently from the shotgun then we have to put Colt McCoy under center more.

2. Don’t give receivers a ten-yard cushion.

It doesn’t matter who our cornerbacks are if we continue to give wide receivers a 10+ yard cushion. Playing that far off you’re not going to get burned deep but you’re also going to let the opposing QB eat you alive ten yards at a time. If you let a quarterback get comfortable he’s making the easy passes. This week [tag]Duane Akina[/tag] has give Brandon Foster, Ryan Palmer, and/or Deon Beasley a better chance to succeed (or fail).

3. Convert short yardage opportunities.

Not being able to get one yard costs us two games last season and almost costs us against Arkansas State. If it’s first and goal from the two or third and one, the linemen have to be willing and able to whoop somebody’s a**. The offensive line didn’t have a terrible game against ASU but couldn’t get it done when it mattered. Texas should be a team that can maul and get 2 – 3 yards even if everyone in the stadium knows it’s coming, but we haven’t been able to do that since Cedric Benson left.

CNNSI has Jamaal Charles at #9 in their top 20 running backs. He’s ahead of some very good backs.

Heisman Pundit rates Jamaal Charles as college football’s third fastest player. Charles is one of the best actual football players on the list.

Colt McCoy and Jamaal Charles are bulking up for 2007 season. Word is that McCoy has looked real good this spring.

No track until at least after spring football practice is over for Jamaal Charles.

The final score against [tag]Rice[/tag] wasn’t close and the game was over by halftime, but picking guys as players of the game was surprisingly difficult. There were solid performances from multiple guys on both sides of the ball and most of the big guys only played about a half. As for the play of the game, with several big gainers in a game that got out of hand quickly I chose a play that could end up being a signal of what the offense is capable of.

Players of the Game

Offense – [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] even with only eight carries put up the biggest game Saturday, 110 yards with an average of a whopping 13.6 yards per carry and a TD is a hell of a day. He even ripped off the team’s longest run of the year with a carry of 46 yards. The team had three runs of over 35 yards, hopefully the big plays continue against some stiffer competition.

Defense – [tag]Tim Crowder[/tag] edges out a surprising Scott Derry. Crowder finished with seven solo tackles (eight total), seven tackles for loss, a sack, a forced fumble, and he recovered a fumble for his first career touchdown. You can’t ask for a much better day out of defensive lineman. He was in the Rice backfield on seemingly every play and was a big reason the Owls finished the game with -12 yards rushing. He’s been a consistent force all season.

Play of the Game

The most important play against Rice wasn’t the most explosive play of the day and didn’t result in points, but does tells us a lot about the future of this offense this season. Here’s this week’s play of the game:

On the play [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] hits freshman tight end [tag]Jermichael Finley[/tag] for a 22-yard completion on the first pass attempt of the game. McCoy makes a good read and throw to Finley who is running a 15-yard out. McCoy drops the pass in nicely and Finley makes a leaping grab on a ball a little behind him. It was the first completion to a tight end of the season and something I hope to see a lot more of. It’s important that the young quarterbacks have solid tight ends to rely on. Hopefully this isn’t the last time this season we see these two hook up.

First off, it was one of the hottest games that I have ever been to. The temperature was around 100 degrees and there was basically no breeze what-so-ever. As far as the game went, Texas obviously dominated a weaker [tag]North Texas[/tag] team, but I came away a little under-impressed with Texas’ performance. The offensive unit didn’t seem to have much of a spark, and there were really no plays that had any sort of wow factor. With that said, here is how I graded the performances:

Quarterback – Overall Grade: A-

[tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] started the game off quickly with a 60 yard touchdown pass to Limas Sweed on the third play of the game. Colt threw for two more touchdowns, added one on the ground, and threw for 178 yards. Overall I was impressed with Colt’s calmness on the field. He didn’t seem nervous at all and most of his throws were on the money (although a few of passes seemed to float on him a little). [tag] Jevan Snead[/tag] didn’t seem to be as relaxed as McCoy, but he still made some decent throws. And a few of his incompletions were definitely the receivers’ fault.

Running Backs – Overall Grade: A

There really should be an asterisk next to this grade, as the defense for North Texas was so weak it was hard to get a good feel for just how good the Texas’ backs were running. But with that said, the running backs looked good. [tag]Selvin Young[/tag] looks like a new man out there, showing off his regained speed. Young scored one touchdown on the ground and added another one receiving (did he embarrass that defender or what?). [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] ran for 77 yards and a score, but for some reason I was expecting a little more flash from him. I kept waiting for him to break one for a 50 yard gain. Colt actually had the longest running play of the day with a 27 yard scamper he almost broke for a touchdown.

Receivers – Overall Grade: C

I was pretty disappointed with the performance of the receivers, aside from [tag]Limas Sweed[/tag] that is. Sweed definitely did his part, going for a career best 111 yards and added 2 scores. Other than Sweed however, there were way too many dropped passes. Hardy dropped a couple I can remember and even Pittman dropped a pretty easy pass. Snead’s interception was also the result of a pass that was tipped off of Jordan Shipley’s hands. I expect this was all just nerves, but I hope they all get over it because this can’t happen against Ohio State.

(more …)

The new SI magazine for August 21, 2006 will be sporting regional Special Edition covers, with 6 teams who they think will be battling it out for #1. Below are the cover images (click to enlarge photo), along with who is on each cover.

I have put them in order of who I think are the Top 6. I almost put Ohio State #1, except apparently they have someone who thinks they can drink 30-40 beers per day. My theory is that it was probably O’Doul’s.

It looks like ESPN is doing something similar, but is only using 3 different covers.

Jamaal Charles, Tim Crowder, Mike Griffin, and Frank Okam honored.