2006 Cotton Bowl Preview v. #15 Tennessee

Aggie Football Preview Part I: The Cotton Bowl v. #15 Tennessee

The SBC Cotton Bowl ticket manager informed Texas A&M officials by telephone Monday that our bowl game Jan. 1 against Tennessee is sold out, including the 5,000 tickets Tennessee turned back from its allotment.
-CoachFran.com

WHOOP! Less than 36 hours after the announcement!

First of all I just want to say that back in August, coming off a more than miserable 4-8 season, I knew that we were going to be a much better team but I had no idea that we would end up where we are today. I give all the credit to Coach Fran and his staff for not only motivating our young men to play together as a team but for sticking to their "big picture" plan and not bowing to all the Sunday morning quarterbacks that seem to be so much more prevalent in this the internet/AM radio-age where everyone has an opinion (I'm guilty myself).

In my 2004 Aggie Football Season Preview I mentioned that both Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso picked Texas A&M as their sleeper team in the Big XII. I knew they were on TV for a reason.

After last season I wanted nothing more than to go to a bowl game within traveling distance. I was dreaming of the Alamo Bowl so you can only imagine my excitement of getting a bid from the Cotton Bowl.

Before you get to thinking that I'm just happy to be going and that the score doesn't matter I should tell you that I don't think that....I think that the #20 Ags are just as good as #15 Tennessee is and that we've got everything going our way.

UT just played in the SEC Championship game against a great Auburn team and came up short. I can imagine a little disappointment in playing in the Cotton Bowl when they had the opportunity to be playing in the BCS. If Tennessee overlooks us they will without a doubt lose.

Before I get down to it, I'm going to tell you that I'm going to try and be as objective as possible. Now let's match these teams up a bit....

Tennessee (9-3; 7-2)          TAMU (7-4; 5-3)
09/05 UNLV         W 42-17    09/02 @Utah (19)      L 41-21
09/08 Florida (11) W 30-28    09/11 Wyoming         W 31-0
09/25 La-Tech      W 42-17    09/18 Clemson (25)    W 27-6
10/02 Auburn (8)   L 34-10    10/02 K-State         W 42-30
10/09 @Georgia (3) W 19-14    10/09 @Iowa St        W 34-3
10/16 @Ole Miss    W 21-17    10/16 @Ok.State (15)  W 36-20
10/23 Alabama      W 17-13    10/23 Colorado        W 29-26 OT
10/30 @S.Carolina  W 43-29    10/30 @Baylor         L 35-34 OT
11/06 Notre Dame   L 17-13    11/06 Oklahoma (2)    L 42-35
11/20 @Vanderbilt  W 38-33    11/13 texas tech (25) W 32-25 OT
11/27 @Kentucky    W 37-31    11/26 @texas (5)      L 26-13
12/04 Auburn** (3) L 38-28

**SEC Championship game (neutral site)
(you can click on the A&M opponents to read the preview and the score to read the recap)

The Vols had the misfortune of running into Auburn twice while the Ags had the misfortune of playing Utah before anyone knew about Utah. A&M has 3 BCS teams on their schedule which accounted for 3 of the 4 L's (and to think that we played Pitt, Utah, V-Tech, texas & OU all last year). The Baylor loss was a total embarrassment but it was one of those things that was bound to happen one of these years simply due to the laws of probability (hadn't lost to them since 1985) and credit goes out to their head coach for going for the two-point conversion to win it. We all learned our lesson about looking ahead on our schedule before playing the current week's game (we had #2 OU at Kyle Field the following week and ESPN's College Game Day was packed and ready to roll into Aggieland for the first time since 2000).

The Vols, like the Aggies, won some very close games....beat Florida with 00:06 FG, & drove on Ole Miss in last 6 minutes for game winning TD Tennessee had a close call with SEC perennial doormat, Vanderbilt, but was able to hold off the Commodore's 4th quarter offense to 13 points.

Volunteer's Offense & A&M's Defense

UT Offense v. A&M Defense

UT	Avg/G (rnk)		Avg/G	A&M
Rush Offense	181 (32)		134 (40)	Rush Defense
Pass Offense	212 (61)		245 (94)	Pass Defense
Scoring Offense	28 (45)		23 (43)	Scoring Defense
Total Offense	393 (41)		379 (59)	Total Defense

Tennessee has a very good rushing game. Their two-headed monster of Gerald Riggs Jr. and Cedric Houston could very well both finish the season with both of them as 1,000 yard rushers (Riggs has 1,005 & Houston has 943 yards). As a team they've rushed for >200 yards 6 times on the season with a high of 347 against Louisiana Tech. I imagine they would have added to that number of games had they not had to play Auburn (twice), Georgia & Alabama who are all ranked in the top 30 in the NCAA against the rush.

The QB game is a total mess for Tennessee. I'm not exactly sure yet what is going on there but they have three QBs in the mix, with two who have a significant amount more playing time.

                     PASSING            RUSHING
               Com-Att  Yds TD/INT    Att Yds TD
Eric Ainge       109-198 1452   17/9     16 -29  0
Rick Clausen      63-109  727    5/5      6 -13  1
Brent Schaeffer   17-33   291    2/1     30 123  1

Rick Clausen, the younger brother of Casey Clausen, has started the last 3 games for the Vols so I would imagine he'll be getting the call in Dallas.

Those three QBs have done an excellent job spreading the ball around....they have 5 receivers with >250 yards receiving and 4 of those have >20 receptions.

WR            Rec Yds Avg/G TD
Robert Meachem 21 412      3
Jayson Swain   26 364      4
Tony Brown     27 347      2
C.J.Fayton     21 285      2
Bret Smith     16 275      5

All of those guys are WRs so I'm going to make the assumption that they don't use their tight ends or running backs very much in the passing game.

As for the Ags we're very, very young on defense.

Our defensive line consists of 2 red shirt freshmen, Jason Jack & Red Bryant (both Rivals.com Freshmen All-Americans), Mike Montgomery (first team All-Big XII), and big Johnny Jolly. Our traditionally NFL-level linebackers have taken a hit over the last few years but have been improved by recent standards by a couple of Juco transfers (Lee Foliaki and Renuel Greene) and youngsters growing up (Justin Warren & Archie McDaniel). Our defensive backs are our most experienced group but probably our biggest liability. Free safety, Jaxson Appel, is leading the team in tackles for the second season in a row...in fact 4 of our top 5 tacklers are defensive backs. Our corners Jonte Buhl and Byron Jones are both seniors and have 68 and 61 tackles each, respectively. Jones is a great tackler but seems to get turned around a bit when the ball is in the air (he's a great gunner for our special teams). Our other backs are strong safety, Japhus Brown (another member of the Rivals.com Freshmen All-American team) and red shirt freshman Erik Mayes at CB.

We have played against some of the better running backs in the nation (4 of the top 11 backs; Peterson, Benson, Morency, & Sproles) and only one of them was even within 30 yards of his season average.

Rnk Player           AVG/G   vs.A&M
4. Cedric Benson     160      165
6. Adrian Peterson   154      101
8. Vernand Morency   145      111
11. Darren Sproles    120       61

Against the pass we've only given up >300 yards twice (once to Utah and once to Colorado). We were able to hold texas tech's vaunted passing game to a mere 294 yards (a season low for them) as well as OU's Jason White to <>

Part II of this Preview will be added to this one tomorrow....I just couldn't get it all typed up and I'm sure this first part was approaching "too long" as it is....It'll include A&M's offense and UT's defense and some other factors that could or could not play a part in the game. I'll see ya all back again tomorrow....

Aggie Football Preview: Cotton Bowl Part II

I thought that today would be a good day to run through some non-X&O type stuff....like some history, etc.

This is Texas A&M's 11th Cotton Bowl appearance and it's first since 1998 when we took on UCLA. It is our first bowl game since the 2001 Galleryfurniture.com Bowl and the 28th in school history. We did not accept a 2002 invitation and in 2003 we were not eligible.

As for the Volunteers, this will be their 6th Cotton Bowl appearance and their first since 2000 against Kansas State. It is their 16th consecutive bowl game and will be their 45th bowl ever, placing them in second place all-time behind Alabama's 51.

The last time these two teams faced each other was in the 1957 Gator Bowl which just so happened to be Coach Bear Bryant's last game in an A&M uniform as well as the last game for A&M's lone Heisman winner, John David Crow, who won the award in that 1957 season. We lost that game 3-0 on a 17-yard FG with less than 5 min remaining in the game.

As for this year's game, the Cotton Bowl ticket office has sold out of tickets as did the Texas A&M ticket office. The only way to currently purchase tickets without going through a third party is to contact Tennessee's ticket office or pull tickets on Thursday (for students only)....but good luck. Here is what it looks like outside of Kyle Field (even after 2 nasty thunderstorms)....

They've been there since Sunday night so I wouldn't go stomping through there because they're likely to be a tad bit cranky.

I do need to make a couple of corrections/additions to my Part I Preview.

After having some chat room discussions with some Tennessee fans (the folks over at Vols to the Wall were the most helpful) I have learned that UT is down to their third string QB with Clausen. They started the season with both Erik Ainge and Brent Schaeffer splitting duties at the QB positions (both as true freshmen) similar to what we did with Reggie and Dustin Long in previous years. Unfortunately, Schaeffer went down with a broken collarbone during the South Carolina game and then the following weekend, against Notre Dame, Ainge was injured with what was explained to me as being "a level 3 sublaxation of the shoulder". This is what led Clausen to seeing so much game time (he's been the QB ever since Ainge came out against ND).

I have read that both should be available for the game and I have read that both will miss the game....I'm going to leave it to that.

[edit: "Freshman Brent Schaeffer is trying to work himself back into the rotation at quarterback after not playing since he broke his collarbone on Oct. 30. Junior Rick Clausen, who started the last three games, will start in the bowl. Erik Ainge, who separated his shoulder in the Notre Dame game on Nov. 6, will not be ready to play." -- December 15 AP article]

There have also been some rumors that Schaeffer has been missing class and hasn't had the best attitude (there is another rumor circulating that he might be considering transferring)....all of that is rumor and there is no factual basis to it at this point.

All-Conference Players. I think it'll be easiest to do it in the form of a chart....

Tennessee  Po AP Coaches        Texas A&M    Po   AP Coaches
J.Allen    DB  2    1           J.Appel      FS    1    H
K.Burnett  LB  1    1           J.Buhl       CB    H    -
D.Colquitt P   2    2           A.DeLaGarza  OL    H    -
O.Gaither  LB  -    2           J.Jack       DE    -    H
P.Haralson DE  2    -           K.Elder      OL    -    H
C.Houston  RB  -    2           J.Jolly      DL    H    H
J.Mahelona DT  1    -           B.Jones      DB    H    2
M.Munoz    OT  1    -           G.Hangartner OL    1    H
J.Respert  C   H    -           J.Hightower  OL    H    H
G.Riggs    RB  H    -           R.McNeal     QB    2    2
                              M.Montgomery DE    1    1
                              T.Murphy     WR    2    1
1 = 1st Team Honors             T.Pegram     K     2    2
2 = 2nd Team Honors             J.Warren     LB    H    -
H = Honorable Mention

The Aggie list is quite a bit longer but if you take away guys with only honorable mention the Aggie list drops to 7 players and the Vol list drops to 8 players.

There are some more honors that have been bestowed upon the two teams....Freshmen All-American is one of those.

There are two publications that I have come across so far with Aggies on the list, Rivals.com & The Sporting News....Here are each team's representatives....

TAMU
Rivals.com                 Sporting News
 Red Bryant DT (1st team)   R.Bryant (1st)
 Chris Yoder C (1st)        J.Jack (1st)
 Jason Jack DE (2nd)        J.Brown (2nd)
 Japhus Brown S (2nd)       C.Yoder (3rd)
TENN
Rivals.com                 Sporting News
 Roshaun Fellows CB (1st)   R.Fellows (1st)
 Erik Ainge QB (2nd)        E.Ainge (2nd)
 Jonathan Hefney CB (2nd)   J.Hefney (2nd)

No team in the nation had more players on either list than Texas A&M. WHOOP! Red Bryant was named the Big XII Defensive Freshman of the Year by The Sporting News & Erik Ainge was named the SEC Offensive Freshman of the Year.

The more I read about the two teams the more similarities I find between them. The biggest difference is that UT went 1-2 against Top 5 teams and we went 0-3.

I'll try to have the final part of this up tomorrow but remember that finals start tomorrow....so no promises....school comes first this week.

Aggie Football Preview: Cotton Bowl Part III

A&M's Offense and Tennessee's Defense

A&M Offense v. UT Defense

A&M	Avg/G (rnk)		Avg/G	UT
Rush Offense	175 (37)		124 (31)	Rush Defense
Pass Offense	263 (20)		236 (88)	Pass Defense
Scoring Offense	30 (28)		24 (46)	Scoring Defense
Total Offense	438 (16)		360 (47)	Total Defense

PSHEW. The last portion of my preview....this has become a bit taxing on me because I didn't intend to make it so dog-on long....but I did it to myself cause I love it.

Ok. Let's start with Tennessee's defense. They are much better against the run compared to the pass. Some of that might be due to the fact that the best running team UT faced all year was Louisiana Tech who is ranked 20th in the nation in rushing. The only other team they have faced in the Top 40 teams in rushing is Auburn who is ranked #25 (they faced'em twice). A&M is ranked #37 and therefore will be the 3rd best rushing team they've faced (going back to my analysis on A&M's Defense....we have faced 4 of the top 16 rushing teams).

From what I've gathered from chat rooms (another good Vol website is VolTalk) is that their base defense is a 4-3-4 and they run a Mustang package where they line up 4-2-5. I've been told that they blitz about 15-20% of the time (but after seeing us against texas they might bump that up a bit).

Their passing defense is suspect, as is A&M's. I should point out, as I did with the rushing, that the best passing teams they faced was Florida (whom they beat) who is ranked 13th in the nation in passing, Georgia (29th; they beat them too), and Auburn (35th). As you can see, A&M is the 20th best passing team in the land which would make us the 2nd best passing team UT will have faced.

I told you guys yesterday about their good, young cornerbacks Jonathan Hefney and Roshaun Fellows (both Freshmen All-Americans) and FS Josh Allen who was named to the All-SEC team and led the conference in tackles.

Other good defensive players are DT Jesse Mahelona and DE Parys Haralson who, with his 7 sacks, Reggie might want to watch out for.

Finally, I think I need to point out that fewest point given up by the Vols over the last 3 games is 31 points.

Now onto something that I am much, much more familiar with....the Aggie offense.

We are led by our fearless QB, Reggie McNeal, who sits behind only 5 other players in the nation in total offense (he's 6th with 296 yards/game).

                    PASSING          RUSHING
              Com-Att  Yds TD/INT   Att Yds TD
Reggie McNeal   177-306 2550   13/3   142 700  8

I have written about Reggie's assault on the A&M record book previously, but I'll briefly recap it....Reggie is 1 passing yard short of the school's single season record and he already owns the school record for rushing yards by a QB.

Our running game is led by Courtney Lewis who was a 1,000 yard rusher in 2003 as a freshman. I'm haven't had the feeling that C-Lew has been completely healthy this year, which combined with our new found love for throwing the ball around has taken an awful lot of carries away from him. He has 748 yards & 9 TDs on 169 carries this year.

Our receiving corps is one of our strong points, as it is for Tennessee. We have 6 players with >200 yards receiving but only 2 with >20 receptions.

                  Rec Yds Yd/G TD
Terrence Murphy    51 682   68  3
Jason Carter       34 458   42  0
Kerry Franks       12 278   28  2
Tydrick Riley      19 269   27  1
Earvin Taylor      17 246   22  1
DeQawn Mobley      11 224   20  3

T-Murph is not only our obvious go-to-guy but he's my favorite player. Had he not missed 1/2 of the Wyoming game and the entire Clemson game due to injury he would have ~780 yards which would put him within 100 yards of the single season receiving yards record here at A&M (with one game to go). He already owns the career receiving yards record and career receptions record.

Jason Carter is an interesting story. He was recruited as a blue chip QB but got caught up in a numbers game at the position so we have moved him around on the field simply to get his athleticism into action. He doesn't have the best hands but he is one of our playmakers.

Kerry Franks is a true freshman who is bound for greatness here in Aggieland. He will be threatening T-Murph's status when his eligibility comes to an end.

Riley is a chain-moving possession receiver (probably the best hands of the bunch) and DeQawn Mobley is a Juco transfer who didn't get into the action as much as I thought he would this year.

I should point out that of our WRs Murphy, Carter, Riley, and Chad Schroeder (who is one of our deep route WRs) were all QBs either in HS or during some point in time here at A&M and Coach Fran loves to use their assets (Carter and Schroeder have both thrown for a TD this year).

I think the one thing that sets A&M & Tennessee apart is our turnover margin. A&M has turned the ball over 8 times all season (3 INT and 5 fumbles) while taking the ball away 22 times (13 INTs and 9 fumble recoveries) for a +14. Tennessee is +1 with 15 INTs thrown and 7 fumbles lost and 15 defensive INTs and 8 fumbles recovered.

As it has in every single one of A&M's games this year, the team with the most takeaways will takeaway the W.

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