Bright Lights on the Texas Plains

The million-dollar question is going to be this - when the Game Day crew steps off the bus and takes a deep breath of that Lubbock air, how quickly will they get back on the bus and find a backup spot to do the show?

Seriously folks, I have a confession to make - as early as Saturday night late and definitely into Sunday and Monday I was all ready to chalk this game up to that Texas loss that I so confidently saw looming throughout the season. But since then I've come to my senses as I've thought long and hard (longer and harder than I care to admit) about these two teams, the recent history and their respective roads to where we are today. So let's stop with the Who-Goosed-the-Moose and get on with it (copyright: Robert "The Legend" Brashear, circa 1993).

Texas at Texas Tech:
Without a doubt the biggest game in the history of this Red Raider football program. Someone please make sure Spike Dykes has his heart meds handy because the old man will likely need them for this one. Seriously though, Red Raider fan has to be excited about where this program is coming into this game and of course the potential for where it could go should they upset the mighty Longhorns on Saturday night. They are most certainly one of the most entertaining teams to watch these days and it helps that they are so effective at what they do. Harrell is (again!) putting up some pretty gaudy numbers while Crabtree, although not as impressive as last year's stats, continues to prove he's an elite player in the college game. Add that to the myriad of other weapons this offense has, add a dash of crazy Leach, mix it together and you've got textbook Red Raider football - score fast, score early and score often. And although I'm not ready to tout the "they've arrived" status of their defense just yet, they certainly have played better this year than in year's past - quite a bit better....but there's a reason and I'll get to it in a moment (see number 2 below). All in all, Leach deserves a lot of credit as, at the very least, he's maintained a fairly consistent program since his arrival on the plains of west Texas - his next big challenge will be to get this team over the hump and into that "next level" - and he'll get his chance this weekend, as well as with his next 2 games following this one.

On the flip side, Texas is coming into this game playing at a level that few can claim to have matched as of yet this season - and what a huge surprise! You all read it here early and often, I didn't expect this Texas team to be where they are today, not even close. I, as did many others, saw this Texas team breaking in a bunch of new and inexperienced faces and essentially getting ready for a big run in '09. But man-o-man, this team's level of play has been nothing short of astonishing and with Colt playing at a ridiculous level week in and week, he's been a tremendous and pleasant surprise given his semi slump from last year. The season certainly isn't over yet, but to be completing over 80% of your passes this deep into the season against this current gauntlet is just stupid. The funny thing is you almost expect him to have an off game one of these weeks and complete a disappointing 65% of his passes (note the sarcasm please). Simply put, the kid does not make many mistakes and his awareness on the field is second to none - I'll say it now, there's not a player out there who's playing at his level - not one. And this Texas defense is the epitome of "bend don't break". Yes, they've given up some hefty yards, but my response to that is this: they've done so against some of the best offenses in the country and, more importantly, THEY'VE WON THOSE GAMES!! I'll repeat a great quote by Muschamp coming into the season, "stats are for losers, I want to win." Amen brother.

So what does it all mean? What's the difference going to be in this game? I'm glad you asked.

1. "Let's get physical...physical" - Over the past 8 years Texas has absolutely owned this series, winning (I think this is right and I know I can count on Hooser to keep me honest) 7 of the last 8. A huge reason for this has been that Texas has simply come out and "out-phyiscaled" the Red Raiders. The one knock I'll give to past Tech teams is when they go up against hard-hitting, physical teams they typically run into some sort of issues. This has not been more evident than in some of the more recent Texas wins over Tech - the 50-something to 20-something games.
   
2. Tested - Quick Tech fan, tell me your toughest two opponents to date.....No, not UMASS and Eastern Washington, it's Kansas and Nebraska. And, as you read here earlier this week, both of these teams are a shell of what they were expected to be this year - and the Huskers played the Raiders damn close (in Lubbock I think), losing by 6. Not only have the Horns been more tested, they've done so in 3 straight weeks leading up to this game and that last little fact is huge. It's not as if Texas is claiming to have played top 10 teams in the first month of the season - they've played and beaten 3 teams in the top 12 (one in the top 5, one in the top 10, and one in the top 12) in the month of October. In doing this Texas has learned how to do something the Raiders haven't had to do yet - gut out a tough win against a very good, high-quality opponent. Trust me, this matters - maybe more so anything else. The flip side is you worry a little about Texas not having much left in the tank while Tech hasn't had to exert as much (so it would seem). I don't know, it's definitely valid, but I just don't feel it's going to be an issue for this team - just a gut feeling. Orakpo dominated OU's offensive line throughout the game - he will present some issues from time to time on Saturday.
   
3. Time of Possession - Other than turnovers, which I expect the Horns to limit to 1 or less, this will be THE stat for the game. And this my friends is where, at the end of the day, this game will be won. An interesting first-half stat in the Texas/OSU game last week - Texas average starting field position was on their own 14 - and that included 2 drives starting inside their 10 yard line. OSU average starting field position? Their own 41. The point is this - it doesn't matter where Texas starts their drives, they have proven more than capable of maintain long, sustained drives that more times than not result in a touchdown. If Texas can string together some of these 4-6 minute, grind-out drives, and subsequently keeping Harrell and company off the field, they will be very hard to beat. Another sub-plot in this area is 3rd down conversions. I'm too lazy to go and dig this up, but I *believe* Texas leads the nation in third-down conversions - if not, they are very high on the list.We will see just how much that Tech defense has arrived.
   
4. Coaching/Game Planning - Look, I like Mike Leach a lot. He is and always has been a great offensive mind from his days at Kentucky and OU to his current tenure in Lubbock. I also love that he's in the Big 12 - other than the great Spike Dykes, he's one of the better fits at this university and he's fun as hell to follow (see Pirate stories). But here's the one knock on him: you know exactly what you're going to get. Doesn't mean he won't beat you every time at it, it's just that you know what you're going to get. And this is why the Red Raiders may run into some trouble this weekend - they've got Will Muschamp to contend with. No one with half a brain can really believe that Texas is going to "shut down" this Tech offense - they'll put up some yards and some points - but I have confidence in Muschamp's bunch being able to make a big stop when they need it most - I don't have that same confidence in Tech's defense. At the end of the day, I think Texas will be able to put a game plan together that will make Tech work harder for yards and points than they've been accustomed to and that in turn will make Leach desperate - going for it on fourth and long from his own end of the field, etc. We've seen it before and I wouldn't be surprised if we see it again in the second half on Saturday night.
   

At the end of the day, if Texas gets down by a couple of scores, I know they'll have the confidence to do what it takes to claw back. Conversely, I'm not sure Tech has that same confidence, primarily because they haven't faced that situation too often, much less this year. And I know, I know, Lubbock at night can be an absolutely brutal place to play, but there's a clear-cut, unequivocal reason that Texas is the number one team in the country - can you say the same about Tech's ranking? I'm not sure either, but we're going to find out.

Texas - 47
Texas Tech - 35

Counter Point...
http://fannation.com/blogs/post/281536

Fun with the numbers:
- Combined Tech's opponents are 4 games under .500
- Combined Texas' opponents are 13 games over .500
- Over 200 yards difference between Horns average giving up and Tech average putting up
- Over 140 yards difference between Tech average giving up and Texas average putting up
- Almost identical in points allowed (18 for Horns and 21 for Raiders)

Georgia vs. Florida:
This should be one hell of a hum-dinger in and of itself - and a huge chance for the both teams to continue to enhance their standing in the minds of the voters. The Dawgs are coming off of a pretty impressive offensive performance in Baton Rouge - down or not, that's never an easy place to play - while Florida is coming off of a country ass whoopin' of lowly Kentucky.

Not going to spend a whole hell of a lot of time here as we know the story with these teams - both of semi-surprising/embarrassing losses on their resumes, yet both are starting to click really well. Georgia's injuries coupled with their gaping holes in defense is the difference here - Florida gets payback from last year's end-zone romp.

Florida - 42
Georgia - 28

Brown at Penn:
Move over Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas Tech - make way for Brown vs. Penn. This late-season showdown between the Ivy League's best should ultimately determine who takes home the....trophy? Whatever the hell it is they hand out at the end of the year. I'm afraid the Quakers have their work cut out for them - smart kids or not, these cats cannot move the ball too well. Meanwhile, Brown is putting up some pretty impressive numbers (as far as Ivy League teams go) over the past few game, averaging 370 yards per game thus far this year. Penn is averaging 280 per game, but only have 2 games over the 300 mark in total yards. They're completing 50% of their passes and have a less than stellar running game. Chalk Penn's record thus far up to an easy schedule (I guess). The only thing that will keep them in this game is Brown seems to think that committing turnovers is a must in the game of football - averaging 2 per game (1 fumble and 1 INT). At the end of the day the Dougherty and Sewall tandem will be too much for the Quakers to handle - Brown runs away in this one. Besides, can someone with the Quakers as the mascot really be that good? Doubtful.

Brown - 27

Penn - 12

NFL Notes:
I didn't get to any of my thoughts on the NFL last weekend - primarily because I didn't see much, but a couple of things - what a huge win for the Giants in Pittsburgh. I didn't think for a second that NY would pull that one out, but what a game. And no, they didn't win because of the safety - last I checked they were going to get the ball back anyway, right? And they still drove down and scored a TD. More on the Giants below.

It occurred to me as I was reading through the standings the other night that we're pretty much at the half way point in the season - so with that I'll highlight some of the surprises of the year thus far including my mid-season hardware:

• About those Giants - yes, I'm a fan, but is there a better, tougher team than these Giants right now? Case in point: they've got only 1 loss; they lost Usi and Strahan and STILL lead the league in sacks; they've been able to completely ignore the off-field mess with Burress and they're in squarely in the driver's seat in the toughest division in football. Long way to go, but this team's ability to maintain this level of play through some real adversity is something else. Big kudos to Coughlin and to Manning this year - they are the best team thus far. Which brings me to...
• The Titans - I know, I know, they are the only undefeated team with the best defense in the league, but I just can't put them ahead of the Giants - not yet. With that said, they are really 1b to New York's 1a, and rightfully so. And....they're doing it with a backup QB. Simply put, these guys don't make mistakes, they play phenomenal defense and they can run the ball. That my friends, is how you win football games.
• How far and how fast have the Colts fallen off? I know injuries are killing these guys, but they can't continue to use that as an excuse - they've got a lot of their ailing bodies back. Sanders is still out and that's a big one, but their offensive line is pretty much back. Still time to turn it on, but they've got quite the uphill battle if they want to make the playoffs.
  
• Jets finished third in their division last year just ahead of the Dolphins without Favre. With Favre they are....third in their division.
  
• Biggest surprise team of the year (in a good way) - Redskins (Dolphins could also be in here).
  
• Biggest surprise team of the year (in a bad way) - Colts.
  
• MVP so far - Drew Brees. Someone name me a QB who's playing better than he is right now....that's what I thought.
  
• Coach of the year so far - Jim Zorn. I picked him to win this at the beginning of the season and then got scared after the first game. This team has been something else thus far and how good/efficient is Jason Campbell?
  
• Rookie of the Year so far - Matt Ryan/Chris Johnson - Ryan probably gets the nod here given the team he's on and where they've come. Really spectacular job by a rookie QB, rookie head coach and rookie GM.
  
• Defensive POY so far - Gotta go with Haynesworth here. I think you could argue that he's the best player on the best defense. Demarcus Ware is also having a good year, but overshadowed by the soap opera that is the Dallas Cowboys.
  
• Comeback POY - I think I'd go with Chad Pennington here. He's having a very good year after struggling mightily in New York. Joey Porter may be an option here too as I think he may be leading the league in sacks and he's like 50 years old.
  
• Toughest Player on the planet right now - Ben Roethlisberger. I'm pretty sure he's been sacked or knocked down like 176 times so far this year. I just don't see him maintaining this pace without missing time with an injury. It's a good thing he's built like a tight end.
  
• Projected Divisional Winners in the NFC - Giants, Panthers, Bears and Cardinals (yea, I said it, Cardinals - who's going to beat them out?)
• Projected Divisional Winners in AFC - Bills, Steelers, Titans and Chargers

NBA Preview:
Believe it or not, the NBA is officially underway. Because this beast is already long enough, I won't get into too much of this, but here are my quick 5 things to watch for this year:

1. Will the Celtics have enough motivation (and enough in the tank) to make a repeat run? Being a year older at their age in this league means a lot. And of course I'm talking about the big 3 (KG, Peirce and Allan). KG has his ring so you have to wonder if he'll continue to play with the motivation and desire that we've come to expect from the Big Ticket throughout his career.
   
2. Can the Lakers stay healthy enough to get back to the big dance? There are few folks (see KG comment above) who are as driven and motivated to win as Kobe Bryant is. Now that he's got a healthy Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza back (NOTE: Ariza may just be the bigger return over the course of the season) to complement he and Gasol, will it be enough? The bad news is the west isn't getting any easier. Will be interesting to see how Odom adjusts to a sixth man role. If it doesn't work, they should be able to get some good pieces for him.
   
3. Will we finally see the hype around Greg Oden come back down to earth? I'm going to sound like a broken record here as I've been preaching this for year plus now - we've seen guys like him in the draft who have busted before, so why are we dead set on crowning this guy a hall-of-famer when all we've seen of him is one half of a college season? Not only did he miss his entire rookie season to injury, not 10 minutes into his first real game on Wednesday night we saw him go down with another injury. It's probably not a major one from the sounds of it, but please, give me a break with this guy. Let's wait and see what he can do first....the poor kid will never be able to live up to this hype.
   
4. Who's going to contend in the East? You've got your defending champs, but here are 3 teams to look out for: Detroit - always a threat...until Dumars blows the team up like he's promised to do; Cleveland - It's Lebron James folks; Toronto - With a front court including Chris Bosh and Jermaine Oneal, anything is possible.
   
5. Will my dark horse to come out of the west stay healthy? I'm talking health so I must be talking about the Houston Rockets. I'm less worried about Yao's health than I am about McGrady's. If T-Mac loses significant time again this year you HAVE to move him. Have to. The addition of Artest to this team will make a much bigger impact than most believe - he makes them a contender in that conference....again, if they're healthy.
   

Enjoy the games this weekend (the football games that is) - get your tortillas ready Tech fan, you're going to need them to cry into after the game. Hook 'em.

Business-As-Usual Weekend

The teams will the most to lose were able to take care of business this past weekend, setting up for a huge do-or-die Saturday next week for a handful of teams. Great win for the Horns, although a little bit closer than it probably should have been, but hey, Oklahoma State is a damn good team. The Red Raiders are probably pretty happy that Texas was able to squeak it out as well as I don't think they wanted any part of a Texas team coming off of a loss. Let's take a quick look at these two teams.

Texas:
Big win for the Horns - as Mack said in the post-game press conference, this ain't the same Oklahoma State team from years past. Mike Gundy has these guys playing a very high level. And more important, they proved that the running game is for real. I heard some folks suggesting that Texas may have been looking ahead to next week - I don't think so, I just think Oklahoma State is that good. And one more thing about these Cowboys - they shouldn't drop one bit in the polls after that game.

With that said, I also believe that this game was about 4 or 5 plays from being a 17-20 point game in favor of the Horns. Those 4-5 plays came in the form of special teams and turnovers - both turnovers came during long, sustained drives (Colt's fumble coming inside the OSU 10 yard line) and on special teams we gave them a short field a few times - can't do that with an offense this explosive. That will be a huge key next week in Lubbock - can't give that offense a short field...ever. Another great game by Colt McCoy, even with the turnovers, completing (AGAIN!) over 80% of his passes for damn-near 400 yards. He had two TD passes (Shipley and Cosby) that were absolutely perfect balls.

I'm not ready to make any predictions or projections for next week's game, but I'll say this - if Texas turns the ball over against Tech they have no chance to win.

Texas Tech:
What can you say - they continue to do what it is they do. Last week I said that this game started the REAL schedule for the Red Raiders, but the Jayhawks sure didn't put up much of a fight after the first 10 minutes of the game. I don't want to take anything away from the Red Raiders and what they've done because regardless of the level of their competition thus far, they've done what they're supposed to do. I had picked KU to upset Tech partly because I was concerned about Tech looking ahead to the Texas match up. How wrong I was - there was no looking ahead for these guys.

The Red Raiders are certainly in a nice position right now and control their own destiny, which is the best you can hope for in the BCS era, but these guys will face competition over the next 3 games that is far superior to anything they've seen thus far this year and that's when we'll find out just what these guys are made of - however you have to be impressed with what they've done this year. And yes, I realize that I made this same comment of "let's see how they do against much better competition" coming into this game with Kansas (and even predicted an upset - eek), but these next 3 games are against their south division brethren - see number 1 below. Either way, you know this Tech team will be tested. The biggest question for the Red Raiders for the next month will be this - like it or not, you're right smack in the middle of the spotlight now...can you handle it? We will certainly see. 

What did we learn this weekend?

1. We learned that the jig is up for the Big 12 north. Coming into the year it was looking like the Big 12 was quickly becoming the most complete conference in the country with Missouri and Kansas poised to make big runs after last year's success, and Colorado and Nebraska looking to make big strides. Not so much. Kansas played a pretty competitive game in Norman last weekend and had a chance to make a statement at home against Tech and instead chose to throw in the towel before halftime. Horrible game all around for the Jayhawks. With that loss, the top two teams in the north division have lost 2 straight when playing against the "meat" of the south division. One could argue that the Big 12 south is the toughest division in college football, but with the north division being exposed over the last few weeks, it would be tough to argue the Big 12 is the best all around conference in the game.
2. We learned that hey, the SEC can put up (and give up) some points too. Georgia and LSU put up some surprising offensive numbers this weekend with the Dawgs beating the Tigers 52-38. It usually takes SEC teams a couple of games to throw up numbers like that (Florida notwithstanding). One of the biggest concerns for this LSU team was their offense, but this was a pretty impressive performance...unfortunately it wasn't impressive enough. Great running game by both teams in this one. And don't look now, but Auburn got steamrolled by West Virginia on Thursday night - very surprising given the history and reputation of this Auburn defense. Not discarding the SEC as a "bad" defensive group, not at all, but there is a tide that's turning. 
   
3. We learned that although Penn State will likely run away with the Big 10 title, they likely won't be able to control their own destiny if they want to make it to Miami in January. Many argue that the conference championship game is a disadvantage for the Big 12 and SEC schools, but it can also be an advantage. I don't think Alabama or Texas gets through the regular season unscathed, but I do think that both teams will be able to get to their respective conference championship games and thus will get the opportunity to jump Penn State. That's an eternity away, but something to consider - don't just discount those conference games as a complete downer for those that have to play them. 

Quote of the Day from one blog comment:

"Those that thought Texas had a super scary team frighten easily. In one of the few tests of the season McCoy melted down in the second half, and the Texas rush defense was bullied." 

Let me see if I got this straight: Texas a) beat the number 7 ranked team in the nation, b) held the Cowboys to less than half of their scoring average, c) although gave up a lot of rushing yards for Texas' (anyone's really) standards, held the Cowboys under their game average, and d) did this after man-handling the number 11 team in the country and beating the number 1 team in the country in consecutive weeks. I'll say it again - they won't ever get national attention/respect, but this Oklahoma State team is damn good and having seen them and OU up close and personal this year I would give the edge to the Cowboys. 

That's what I got gang - no NFL notes today as I didn't see but about 20 minutes of one of the games today (Cowboys) and I'm so mad at how bad I did (again) with my picks I'm just not in the mood. But yes, I'm happy those Giants pulled out a big win. Super Bowl preview??? 

I'll be back on Halloween with a super scary Texas/Tech preview.