Texas Aggie Football - Why I'm Optimistic
After watching my beloved Aggies get shellacked by a subpar 2009 Georgia Bulldog football team sans D.C. in a toilet bowl, you would you think that I'd be ready to jump off a ledge. Well, perhaps then I was pretty upset, but "jump off a ledge upset?" Not so much.
My friend in Austin whom I was watching the game with was a little more so... the only mistake I made was allowing him to use my TexAgs account to berate our coaching staff and risk my account being tagged as a troll and getting banned for life. Fortunately, the latter didn't happen. Can't say so much for the former. But that's okay, when you love your friends you let them sometimes act out. Don't you? ;-)
After seeing the state of Aggie football over the last month since that poorly executed football game in Shreveport, I have a lot of reasons for optimism and yes, faith in Coach Sherman. We'll see if that plays out but looking at what's going on behind the scenes I think we're not only going to be "just fine," but we'll be very successful.
First off is the Defense, hardly a strength of our team last year.
Last year, we were ranked #105 out of 119 teams in FBS. After the Independence (toilet) Bowl, Joe Kines retired, making way for the newly hired D.C. Tim DeRuyter, who turned around Air Force's defense from a poor 78th ranked unit to the #11 defense nationally. Those stats are not an indicator that he's going to turn this ragtag group into the "Wrecking Crew" of the 80's and 90's, but he brings the attitude and philosophy that made those defenses great. Gary Patterson, TCU head coach, denoted that DeRuyter's AFA defenses "hunted together" and DeRuyter himself said that he wants a team who goes into every game "ready to rip someone's head off." (not literally) - that kind of a killer instinct in a defense is what we need if we are going to return to being the Wrecking Crew again. Come to think of it, isn't that the attitude that Bo Pelini brought to return Nebraska's defense, which was very porous under Callahan, back to the glory of the Blackshirts that played for Tom Osborne?
In addition, DeRuyter has a lot of raw material to work with. If you look at the depth chart of the 2009 Texas A&M defense, 9 players on the 2-deep chart and 2 starters were either true or redshirt freshmen. This can explain why they could play lights out and shut down Texas Tech's spread (so to speak, holding them to 30 is an accomplishment for any team), and the previous week get a 62 point egg dropped on them from a less talented Kansas State team. These players bring to A&M what has been missing in the disasterous FranPhoney years: Team Speed (which is something you need when defending a lot of pass-happy offenses every week). These guys will get better as they get stronger and learn the game... a good mentor like DeRuyter can only help them more.
And you wonder why FBS sack leader Von Miller, who is being projected as a second-to-third round pick in the NFL Draft, is staying in Aggieland for his senior season? :-)
And then there's the offense:
Did you know? Our top four recruits committed for 2010 are Offensive Lineman? All four stars. All blue chip potential. One of them, Luke Joeckel (6'6" 280#), has already signed a Letter of Intent and is going to be on campus for spring workouts. Our OL hasn't been great since the final years of the Slocum era, but we can see that Mike Sherman, who rose through the ranks as the Offensive Line coach under Slocum in the glory days, is committed to winning in the trenches and opening up Mack Truck sized holes for our already good stable of skill players like Christine Michael (who we all know is a stud). I can almost guarantee that at least one of these OL recruits will start in 2010 (in fact, we had one Fish OL as a starter on the depth chart in 2009) and most will make the two deep roster (as Sherman unlike Fran doesn't believe in automatic redshirting... he is just going to put the best players on the field).
Just wait till this talented group gains some experience and is blocking for Michael in his junior season... look out Big 12! Not only that, Tannehill, who will take over for Jarrod Johnson at QB, will have a seasoned group to lead, a darn good line in front of him, and an experienced defense with good team speed on the other side of the ball. It could be a special year for A&M. I don't think next year could be too bad either, we will make strides on defense as the "kiddie corps" matures and hopefully embraces DeRuyter's philosophy and the old Fran regime offensive lineman graduate and are replaced completely with Sherm's guys. Johnson will be a senior and will return every skill guy on offense and that chemistry can propel the Ags to improving on what was already a great offense last year.
Aggie Football's future can be really good... it just needs to now happen in the weight room, in practice, and on the field. We have the pieces in place - now we have to go make it happen.
My friend in Austin whom I was watching the game with was a little more so... the only mistake I made was allowing him to use my TexAgs account to berate our coaching staff and risk my account being tagged as a troll and getting banned for life. Fortunately, the latter didn't happen. Can't say so much for the former. But that's okay, when you love your friends you let them sometimes act out. Don't you? ;-)
After seeing the state of Aggie football over the last month since that poorly executed football game in Shreveport, I have a lot of reasons for optimism and yes, faith in Coach Sherman. We'll see if that plays out but looking at what's going on behind the scenes I think we're not only going to be "just fine," but we'll be very successful.
First off is the Defense, hardly a strength of our team last year.
Last year, we were ranked #105 out of 119 teams in FBS. After the Independence (toilet) Bowl, Joe Kines retired, making way for the newly hired D.C. Tim DeRuyter, who turned around Air Force's defense from a poor 78th ranked unit to the #11 defense nationally. Those stats are not an indicator that he's going to turn this ragtag group into the "Wrecking Crew" of the 80's and 90's, but he brings the attitude and philosophy that made those defenses great. Gary Patterson, TCU head coach, denoted that DeRuyter's AFA defenses "hunted together" and DeRuyter himself said that he wants a team who goes into every game "ready to rip someone's head off." (not literally) - that kind of a killer instinct in a defense is what we need if we are going to return to being the Wrecking Crew again. Come to think of it, isn't that the attitude that Bo Pelini brought to return Nebraska's defense, which was very porous under Callahan, back to the glory of the Blackshirts that played for Tom Osborne?
In addition, DeRuyter has a lot of raw material to work with. If you look at the depth chart of the 2009 Texas A&M defense, 9 players on the 2-deep chart and 2 starters were either true or redshirt freshmen. This can explain why they could play lights out and shut down Texas Tech's spread (so to speak, holding them to 30 is an accomplishment for any team), and the previous week get a 62 point egg dropped on them from a less talented Kansas State team. These players bring to A&M what has been missing in the disasterous FranPhoney years: Team Speed (which is something you need when defending a lot of pass-happy offenses every week). These guys will get better as they get stronger and learn the game... a good mentor like DeRuyter can only help them more.
And you wonder why FBS sack leader Von Miller, who is being projected as a second-to-third round pick in the NFL Draft, is staying in Aggieland for his senior season? :-)
And then there's the offense:
Did you know? Our top four recruits committed for 2010 are Offensive Lineman? All four stars. All blue chip potential. One of them, Luke Joeckel (6'6" 280#), has already signed a Letter of Intent and is going to be on campus for spring workouts. Our OL hasn't been great since the final years of the Slocum era, but we can see that Mike Sherman, who rose through the ranks as the Offensive Line coach under Slocum in the glory days, is committed to winning in the trenches and opening up Mack Truck sized holes for our already good stable of skill players like Christine Michael (who we all know is a stud). I can almost guarantee that at least one of these OL recruits will start in 2010 (in fact, we had one Fish OL as a starter on the depth chart in 2009) and most will make the two deep roster (as Sherman unlike Fran doesn't believe in automatic redshirting... he is just going to put the best players on the field).
Just wait till this talented group gains some experience and is blocking for Michael in his junior season... look out Big 12! Not only that, Tannehill, who will take over for Jarrod Johnson at QB, will have a seasoned group to lead, a darn good line in front of him, and an experienced defense with good team speed on the other side of the ball. It could be a special year for A&M. I don't think next year could be too bad either, we will make strides on defense as the "kiddie corps" matures and hopefully embraces DeRuyter's philosophy and the old Fran regime offensive lineman graduate and are replaced completely with Sherm's guys. Johnson will be a senior and will return every skill guy on offense and that chemistry can propel the Ags to improving on what was already a great offense last year.
Aggie Football's future can be really good... it just needs to now happen in the weight room, in practice, and on the field. We have the pieces in place - now we have to go make it happen.
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