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Football Schedule

Arkansas St.	Sat 08/30	L 14 - 18
@ New Mexico	Sat 09/06	W 28 - 22
Miami Hall Of Canes	Sat 09/20	L 23 - 41
Army	Sat 09/27	W 21 - 17
@ Oklahoma St.	Sat 10/04	L 28 - 56
Kansas St. Bring On The Cats	Sat 10/11	L 30 - 44
Texas Tech Double-T Nation	Sat 10/18	L 25 - 43
@ Iowa St. Clone Chronicles	Sat 10/25	W 49 - 35
Colorado The Ralphie Report	Sat 11/01	W 24 - 17
Oklahoma Crimson And Cream Machine	Sat 11/08	L 28 - 66
@ Baylor	Sat 11/15	L 21 - 41
@ Texas Burnt Orange Nation	Thu 11/27	7:00 PM CST

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Texas A&M Aggies I Am The 12th Man
@ Texas Longhorns Burnt Orange Nation

Thursday, Nov 27, 2008, 7:00 PM CST
Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium

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Bill Byrne Will Be Rooting For Oklahoma To Beat Texas Tech

by Beergut on Nov 19, 2008 2:16 PM CST

I'm sure Bill Byrne will be watching the Texas Tech-OU game on Saturday, but there is no doubt in my mind who Byrne will be rooting for. Byrne will be hoping/praying/begging for a Sooner win on Saturday. Why? The game doesn't effect Texas A&M. With a 7-loss season already, we're not going to a bowl game, so it doesn't effect our post-season status. Regardless of which team wins, the winner is almost assured of winning the Big 12 South, because the media attention paid to this game will help the BCS ranking of the winner. If OU wins and wins out, they will win the tie-breaker based on BCS standings, and take the South. If Tech wins, they automaticaly win the Big 12 South. Either way, assuming whichever team wins the game wins out, they will be going to a BCS bowl. The amount of money A&M receives from the bowl distribution won't change regardless of who wins. So why will Byrne be rooting for the Sooners? Because it reflects a belief in his business model.

If Tech wins on Saturday, it means a team with a smaller budget and fewer resources can win division, conference, and even national titles. It means that Byrne's claim that "to be a champion, you have to spend like a champion" is wrong. It means that the underlying premise of Byrne's "Building Champions" campaign is wrong. It means that efficiency, not reckless spending, is the key to athletic success. If Tech wins on Saturday, it will mean that making the right hires as coaches and letting them hire the right people is the way to win championships, not hiring your cronies from former jobs, and treating the athletic department as a political machine to offer patronage to your buddies. If Tech wins on Saturday, it means Bill Byrne is WRONG, and everyone will know it. He can't have that happen, so he'll be rooting like crazy for OU.

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Jerryland Stadium In Arlington To Host 2014 Final Four

Jerry Jones' new billion dollar jewel of a stadium in Arlington will host the 2014 Final Four. This will be the first Final Four hosted in the Metroplex since 1986. Can you imagine how crazy it would be if A&M made the Final Four that season? A sea of maroon would descend on Arlington, TX. This is a long-term goal we can shoot for.

about 13 hours ago Beergut comment 0 comments 0 recs

Baylor Game Drive Chart

by Beergut on Nov 19, 2008 1:19 PM CST

As always, thanks to Rocky Top Talk for putting these together.

FULL SCREEN VERSION

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Women's Basketball Earns Highest Ever Ranking

The ESPN Coaches Top 25 poll recognizes the greatness that is Gary Blair and ranks the Lady Ags #7 in the nation.

1 day ago Beergut comment 0 comments 0 recs

Ags Top SFA 55-48

by miketag on Nov 18, 2008 10:05 PM CST

Bryan Davis and Donald Sloan led the Aggies, each scoring 16. Nathan Walkup pulled down a team leading 11 rebounds. Josh Carter struggled from outside but had 9 points. It is a nice win over a likely tourney team. We need to find our shooting touch. Pretty tough defense for the second game in a row. So far, so good.

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Stephen F.Austin Lumberjacks at Texas A&M Aggies

by Beergut on Nov 18, 2008 7:15 PM CST

BTHOsfa!!!!!

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11-18-99 2:42 am

by jarrett.adams on Nov 18, 2008 1:06 PM CST

I hope no one minds, but I am going to step outside the sports realm for just a moment to remember those lost in the tragic events that transpired 9 years ago today.

Bonfire Memorial

These 12 brave souls should and will, not ever be forgotten.
We did not only lose 12 classmates, we lost 12 brothers and sisters.

Miranda Denise Adams
Christopher D. Breen
Michael Stephen Ebanks
Jeremy Richard Frampton
Jamie Lynn Hand
Christopher Lee Heard
Timothy Doran Kerlee, Jr
Lucas John Kimmel
Bryan A. McClain
Chad A. Powell
Jerry Don Self
Nathan Scott West

I feel I do not have adequate words to express the emotions of what happened that day, so I will leave you with the words of two people who experienced this first hand.

The first, a story by Fred Maddox, shows the heroism of one...

A hero...

Subject: The Twelfth Man

The twelve young people who died were truly remarkable kids. They were scholars, student athletes, active in Boy Scouts, 4-H, Church groups,they were leaders. If you had to chose a dozen students to represent the best of Texas A&M, you probably wouldn't do much better than these.

I have just learned about Timothy Doran Kerlee, Jr. He was the twelfth student to die, when his life support was disconnected last Friday evening. Let me tell you about this amazing kid.

Tim graduated last year from Germantown High School in Germantown,Tennessee. He was an Eagle Scout, graduated third in his class, and was elected to his High School Hall of Fame. He was a student athlete, and a member of the National Honor Society. He was active in the youth group and drama club at his Methodist Church.

He was actively recruited by Texas A&M, and when he enrolled he tested out of his entire freshman year. That is how this 17 year-old could be classified as a sophomore. Tim's father said that he was thrilled to be at A&M, and especially excited about bonfire.

When the stack collapsed, his pelvis was crushed, his arm was broken, and his (organs badly damaged.)

On the front page of Friday's Dallas Morning News is a large photo of the collapsed stack taken during the early part of the rescue effort. You can see a team working at the base of the logs to save a trapped student. About five feet above the rescue team is Tim Kerlee, reclining on a pile of logs, propped up on one elbow. Unless you look carefully at the photo you will probably not notice that his legs are laying in an odd position. <P>What was happening,according to the rescue teams, was that Kerlee was directing the teams to other students trapped in the stack. He kept telling them that he was O.K., and he directed rescuers to at least five other students before he allowed them to take him down from the stack.

He was taken into emergency surgery, and when they opened him up they found his organs so badly damaged that they couldn't identify much of what they saw. They closed him up, wrapped him in a sheet to hold him together, and placed on life support. He lived long enough to see and speak to his parents. He was aware that he was dying and asked to be removed from life support. When his parents asked him why he wanted to, he asked them why he should fight for a few more days of life when he could be in Heaven with Jesus right now. Well, he got his wish.

I feel sorry that I never had a chance to know Tim Kerlee, but I praise God for kids like Tim Kerlee. If you had to pick a twelfth man you couldn't do much better.

Photo Credit: JP Beato/the Battalion

The second story is from Eric Opiela who was the Student Body Vice President at the University of Texas for the 1999-2000 school year. Here are his thoughts from the memorial service he attended at Reed Arena.

I had the great privilege of attending the memorial service at A&M tonight and was deeply moved by the events I experienced. The A&M student body is truly one of the great treasures of our State.

As part of the UT delegation, we sat on the floor of Reed Arena, and immediately following the end of the service, I heard this rustling sound behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the sight of close to 20,000 students spontaneously putting their arms on their neighbor’s shoulders, forming a great circle around the arena.

The mass stood there in a pin-drop silence for close to five minutes, then, from somewhere, someone began to hum quietly the hymn "Amazing Grace". Within seconds, the whole arena was singing. I tried too—I choked, I cried.

This event brought me to tears. It was one if not the defining moment of my college career. I learned something tonight. For all us Longhorns discount A&M in our neverending rivalry, we need to realize one thing. Aggieland is a special place, with special people. It is infinitely better equipped than us at dealing with a tragedy such as this for one simple reason. It is a family. It is a family that cares for its own, a family that reaches out, a family that is unified in the face of adversity; a family that moved this Longhorn to tears. My heart, my prayers; and the heart of the UT student body go out tonight to Aggies and their family and friends as they, recover, from this great loss. Texas A&M, The Eyes of Texas are Upon You—and they look with sincere sympathy upon a family that has been through so much tragedy this semester.

here.

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What Are Your Expectations For Basketball?

by Beergut on Nov 18, 2008 9:05 AM CST

I know we have one more football game left. I know the big game is approaching next week. However, we have our second basketball game of the season tonight. We're playing a Stephen F. Austin team that won 26 games last year, and would have made the Big Dance if they had managed to win the Southland Conference tournament after winning the regular season title.

After winning our first game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, I am again left where I was at the beginning of last season, where I'm wondering if our players know what they're doing on offense. Turgeon's postgame comments again left me scratching my head.

This brought me to a question of expectations for the program. I don't know if I am alone in this area, but I expect our program to improve on last season's showing in the Big Dance, and make the Sweet Sixteen this year. I think we have progressed enough as a program to where we should expect to be in the NCAA Tournament every year, and we should expect to experience some success there. Maybe I am still living in the era of Billy Clyde Gillispie, where I became spoiled, and expected to have a good coach leading our program, but I think we should expect a minimum of twenty wins and a post-season appearance every year. I expect a team that is competitive every time they walk onto the court, no matter who they play. My expectation of fielding a competitive team every time out is probably one of the reasons why I stress so much over our defensive intensity (or lack thereof). Against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, I felt we gave up too many open shots and allowed too many good looks. Against good teams, those open looks will result in points, and we'll get buried. These are issues we can fix now, but I would also argue that defensive intensity and scheme is something installed in the pre-season, before we play our first game.

I do wonder if Mark Turgeon realizes that this isn't the A&M of the 1990s, where we would have just been happy to win 18 games and make some kind of postseason tournament. We expect to win now, and we expect to be in play in March. I sometimes wonder if Turgeon is ready for that change in mindset, having come from Wichita State, where there isn't as much pressure as there is in a Big 12 program.

What are your expectations for the Texas A&M men's basketball program?

Poll