The Token Aggie's View of Texas-Bama
Chris Bellomy
with strong skill position players can give the bovine D
fits. The rest of the season showed that not many teams are
as talented at those positions as the Aggies. This defense
is solid. Bama's offense is productive in spurts, and Saban
is very adept at exploiting matchup problems. Problem is
that Texas doesn't have much available to exploit. I don't
see Bama scoring more than about 24.
Texas offense vs. Bama defense: This is tougher, but McCoy
is the Heisman candidate spurned, and the rest of the team
will take that personally as well, especially Shipley. The
key will be getting something -- anything -- out of the
backfield. Tre Newton needs to find the next mental gear
to preserve McCoy's life expectancy. I think he will. Colt
will get knocked around a bit but he'll also make Bama
pay with his feet as well as his arm. Bovines shouldn't
score fewer than 20, could score as much as 31.
Special teams: Wash
Coaching: Saban by a smidge. I'm not in awe of Nick Saban,
but he is an excellent gameday technician, and his teams
always seem to win the 4th quarter when it counts. Meanwhile
Brown has deftly left things to his assistants as usual,
and while Muschamp has been exactly the lunatic you guys
can love, Greg Davis has unexpectedly been excellent. I
am very surprised to see this team where it is today,
mostly because I felt sure that Davis would produce a
couple of total goose eggs of gameplans without enough
talent to save his ass. I still don't think there's enough
talent there to save the coach he was Before Vince, but
he's clearly not that coach anymore. He has been outstanding
at getting the ball in the hands of the players most
likely to make big plays, regardless of the run/pass
ratio. I haven't seen the tentativeness that used to
define him. The guy really deserves a ton of love from
Orangebloodia after all the abuse used to (rightfully)
get, as he has been the difference for you this year.
In the final analysis, though, Saban's impressive gameday
management gives him a slight edge over Brown's tendency
to get sloppy with the clock.
Prediction: I'm a poker player and I like to predict
things in probabilities. It's a great cop-out because I
could predict a 99% chance of a Texas victory, and when
it turned out to be wrong, I just just say "the 1% has
to hit *sometime*" and still say I was right all along.
But I do think that there's a 65% chance that Texas
wins this game, and I think it'll be at a score somewhere
close to 27-20. I don't expect it to be particularly
dramatic, either.
In a side note, I still think that TCU would be a much
more formidable opponent for you. The MWC's record in
its bowl games so far really should be starting to
wake a few people up. That is *not* a weak conference,
and TCU annihilated it. I honestly am starting to think
that they are probably the best team in the country
right now... though not by much at all. And my confidence
factor on that is not nearly as great as my belief that
Texas will beat Bama.
cb
Steve Cutchen
Bellomy <ten.wohsdoog@sirhc> wrote:
Pretty good analysis all round. I have picked Texas 28-24.
What scares me most is that Greg Davis is gonna have NOTHING in the bag
for Saben. We will be very predictable, and that will be what costs us
the game if we lose.
Aggies got hosed by the clock in the first half. Seconds were going
off all down that last drive (after first downs) that shouldn't have.
and no way that downing the ball takes 2.5 seconds.
OTOH, Sherman trying to kill 2:10 on the penultimate drive was stoopid.
With you guys' offense? Seriously?
And the Aggie receiver HAS to know the time and get the FUCK down on
the GROUND after making the catch.
Getting the punt blocked and giving up a TD serves Serman right for
being a scared girlie idiot. Have some freaking FAITH, dood. Your
offense is excellent. What the fuck do they think about themselves if
YOU don't trust them? Dumnass. I feel bad for the players and fans.