ccott98

Recent Comments
Head-to-head must mean something. TAMU should be ahead of FL. FL may be better than TAMU now, but we will never know. Florida's defense has improved. FL has a championship caliber offense. However, TAMU's defense has greatly improved too. And dare I say more than Florida's. TAMU's offense is much improved as well; not as much as Florida's, but improved none the less. I believe TAMU & FL are still evenly matched. Either way, TAMU won when the game was played.
You do realize the game went 7overtimes. The game was hard fight andwell played on both sides of the ball by both teams. Both defenses were disruptive during regulation. Both teams had several sacks. I don't remember LSU's sack total, but A&M had 6. Both teams had better than 10 tackles for loss. Come on now, understand what happened before you start writing stupid things.
Completely agree about the officiating... but it was NOT one sided. Several times LSU was the recipient of favorable ball spots too.
Really?!?!?!? A&M got shorted a yard on a 3rd down play that forced A&M to punt (2nd quarter, I think) . LSU was given a yard that extended the drive; led to a touchdown to tie the game at 17. 2nd OT, Nick Brosette's elbow was down before the ball crossed the goal line. Not arguing that A&M received some help... just admit LSU did too.
TAMU should most definitely be above SCAR; and should probably be above Mizzou. SCAR has had just a coyote of games that can't be called struggle wins; and against inarguably mediocre competition at best. Mizzou started the season 1-5; and this win streak includes settings over Idaho, UCONN, FL, TENN, and Vandy. Not exactly strong competition.
I'm finding it a difficult to believe that Florida opens as a 5 point favorite. They just got beat by an LSU team that has struggled more than A&M. A&M just went toe-to-toe with Alabama, save a few plays. Add the fact that the A&M defense spends a ton of time the backfield. My prediction for the game is A&M rushes for 200+ yards and wins 37-24.
And you claim that I'm biased. I based my argument on facts, not what ifs and bias. Tennessee out played A&M in the 4th and part of the 3rd. A&M out played Tennessee in the entire 1st half. A&M also outplayed Tennessee in overtime; and if you can't see that, then you clearly don't understand what bias is.
Please site sources...I haven't heard nor seen any media outlets saying that was targeting.
Nevermind, I didn't realize that the author's name was Chris.
Are you addressing me? If so, why do you say so? Because I stopped forgot to finish a thought? If you must know, I had to go to a meeting and when I got out, I went back and added to another thought that I had earlier in my argument. Hit "Publish Comment" before realizing that I hadn't finished the last sentence of my argument. How does that mean I don't deserve my occupation?
Tennessee's physicality???? Get real. The only physical player Tennessee had was the running back who replaced Hurd. That man is a beast, better than Hurd in my opinion. The rest of the team has a lot of work to do to be a physical team. Tennessee is where A&M was last year in this regard. Tennessee players were dropping like flies in this game. They were anything but physical. And don't give me the lame a$$ argument that A&M players got away with targeting. The Tenn. coaches should teach their players not to lead with their heads. How many times did you see a Tennessee player drop their head just before they attempted to make a tackle? Answer...just about every time. The Daniel's hit, thank God he's ok, was a prime example of it. Tennessee and their lack of physicality led to nearly every injury the team incurred Saturday.
I need to finish my thought. We need to admit that both teams played a great half of football and that they both played a crappy half of football. This game was a very sloppy game and showed that both teams have major weaknesses.
To the author of this article... I guess you forgot what happened in the 1st quarter when A&M outplayed Tenn.; or the 2nd quarter when both teams played good football and were evenly matched. I guess you also forgot the 3rd quarter when A&M marched down the field and scored to make it 28-7 Ags. It wasn’t until A&M started calling a conservative offensive game in the 3rd, that Tenn outplayed A&M. If I remember correctly, the total offense for both teams at the half were fairly close to each other. A&M 1st quarter possessions: 8 25 74 22 for 129 yards. A&M 2nd quarter possessions: 13 32 -1 53 for 97 yards. TENN. 1st quarter possessions: 63 71 41 for 175 yards. Tenn. 2nd quarter possessions: 20 5 18 32 2 for Tenn = 77. This gives us the 1st half yardage total for each team, A&M = 226, Tenn = 25. 26 yard difference is a very small margin. Take into account the score and A&M outplayed Tenn. in the 1st half. Now to address the what ifs… Tenn. what ifs with rebuttals: 1. 4 starters not out - 1. if Hurd was in Kamara would not have gone off like he did. Kamara is better than Hurd. He can run & catch; plus he’s faster and just as tough, if not tougher. 2. # of turnovers 1. A&M forced 5 of the 7, so don’t even go there 3. Breaks in the game???? 1. What breaks are you talking about? 1. Bad officiating? - That went both ways throughout the game 2. Targeting call/ no calls? 1. Please, The Tenn. players were leading with their heads when they tackled. 2. The return where the 12th man lit up the Tenn kick returner was a clean hit; shoulder to shoulder with incidental head contact. the Aggie player led with his shoulder. 3. the Hit by the Tenn. player on the 12th man was clearly head to head. As stated above, the Vols tackled leading with their heads. 4. Playing the What if game 1. Get real…I can play it too… A&M What ifs: 1. what if Garrett was at full strength? Clearly the 1st play of the game showed that Tenn’s. left tackle was not capable of stopping Garrett when he’s mostly ready to go. In that 1st series Garrett re tweaked his injured ankle and was only at about 65%-70%, in Garrett’s own words. 2. What if A&M hadn’t called a conservative offensive game after they went up 28-7? 3. What if A&M hadn’t gotten takeaway slap happy and properly tackled like they have all season until this past Saturday? 31 missed tackles in this game alone is more than they had in the previous 5 combined. 4. what if Trayveon Williams hadn’t slowed down heading into the end zone near the end of the game? That would have put the game out of reach. 5. What if the A&M kicker didn’t miss the field goal at the end of regulation? See, I can come up with just as many what ifs favoring A&M as you can favoring Tenn. So let’s drop the what if’s and admit that
The Aggie D-line is better than any Tenn. has seen to date. Expect Dobbs to be under duress the entire game. I foresee 2-3 sacks and around 10 knock downs. Add to that, the A&M run game, if UT gets down by 17, I don't see another miraculous UT comeback.
I have the game as a toss up; but given A&M's track record the last few seasons in openers, I'll go with A&M to win. Sumlin seems to do a good job getting the team ready for the season opener.
I have to disagree with A&M's best player pick. While Manziel put up amazing numbers, Dat Nguyen was the better player in my opinion. 51 starts, 517 career tackles, not a single season under 100 tackles, and a career avg. of 129+ tackles per season. In his senior season alone he had: 147 total tackles 20 tackles for loss 4 sacks 2 fumbles recovered 2 ints
@ John Cooper, you contradict yourself with your comment on why A&M was dropped a spot in favor of MSU. You said, "Texas A&M dropped one spot after its overtime victory against Arkansas, but that had more to do with MSU than anything." I have no problem with that statement. If you believe MSU to be better that's ok; its your opinion. However, when you said, "Mississippi State took care of business against Auburn Saturday night, and although it wasn’t pretty, it didn’t have to be. Just win, baby!", you say that MSU moved up because they won, ugly, but won. Well, what did the Aggies do? They also won; and to a team that will most likely win more games than Auburn. So summed up...MSU wins = jump 2 spots because they won against a very bad team; A&M wins = drop a spot because MSU beat a very bad team. I'm just confused and would love to get an explanation as to why that its not a double standard. In your own "plagiarized" words, "Just win, baby!"
Didn't those lowly Aggies beat AU last year...41-38 if I recall; 63-21 in 2012. The only AU win over the lowly Aggies came 2 years ago in a close and hotly contested game (45-41).
Its interesting, Auburn finishes the season 8-5, loses their bowl game, and a bunch of starters. A&M also finishes 8-5, wins their bowl game, loses fewer starters than Auburn. Both schools have a ton of defensive talent that was wastied last year. They both hired defensive gurus to fix their defensive woes. A&M also has arguably the best DE in the Conference. Yet its Auburn that has all the off season momentum and national title expectations? I'm confused. I'm not saying that A&M should have national title expectations, but I think there is too much put on the Muschamp hire or there is too little being put on the Chavis hire.
I get the total yards number based upon an improvement from last year. Last year TAMU had about 6,000 ( 4k passing, 2k rushing) yards in a mostly 1 dimensional offense last year. TAMU will be much more balanced this year. I figure TAMU will up the passing yareds, more experienced QB & Receivers. An additional 500 yards is nothing. I fully believe the run offense will gain an additional thousand yards from last year. As I said, they spent the entire off season working on the offensive line and run game. As far as MSUs offense, I don't recall saying that there would be a "huge" drop-off. In fact, I don't recall saying that there would be any offensive drop-off. I don't believe that TAMU will have a top 10 defense, or even a top 25; but, a top 50 is very doable. A top 10 offense paired with a top 50 defense will make TAMU a very dangerous team. I expect at the end of the year, the SEC west will have 7 teams ranked, with 3 in the top 10. The other thing you have to realize is that TAMU typically overachieves when they have little to no pressure and under achieve when the expectations are high. No one outside of College Station believes TAMU will do much. I predict an 9 or 10 win season (includes bowl win).
I gotta take exception to your analysis. I think you are way off on your offensive ranking for TAMU. They will once again lead the SEC in passing yards, I say they get about 3000 yards. I say this because Sumlin fired his RB and O-line coach and replaced him with a man who will bring a new toughness and focus to the running game. TAMU last season with its poorly used run game still managed almost 2000 yards. That will give TAMU about 7500 yards of total offense. That number would have been good enough for #1 last year; and should be good enough for the same this year. I also had a few other minor differences in the other rankings as well. My rankings are as follows: Offense TAMU 1, Auburn 2, Bama 3, MSU 4, Ole Miss 5, Arkansas 6, LSU 7 Defense Ole Miss 1, Bama 2, Arkansas 3, LSU 4, Auburn 5, MSU 6, TAMU 7 Coaching Bama 1, Auburn 2, MSU 3, Ole Miss 4, TAMU 5, Arkansas 6, LSU 7 Bama 3 + 2 + 1 = 6 Auburn 2 + 5 + 2 = 9 Miss 5 + 1 + 4 = 10 *TAMU 1 + 7 + 5 = 13 *MSU 4 + 6 + 3 = 13 Ark 6 + 3 + 6 = 15 LSU 7 + 4 + 7 = 18 *I have TAMU ahead of MSU because that game is at Kyle Field. Even though TAMU will probably still have the 7th best defense in the west, they will be much improved. I see most of the west as very close in skill and ability. I believe the west will get all 7 teams into bowls this year; and that just about every divisional game will be decided by 10 pts. or less.
Couple observations...1) homers make stupid predictions & 2) people who think A&M will score less than 30 need to share whatever it is they are smoking because it must be some really good s**t. The A&M-MSU game will be close and both teams will score in the upper 30s or 40s. My predictions, for what they're worth: 42-38 A&M. 27-24 Bama 35-21 Auburn 24-20 Tenn USC over Ken UGA wins by more than 28 over Vandy
TAMU wins big. Ags get up early and force Arkansas to pass, thus having to mostly abandon the run. 45-24 TAMU.