The #6 ranked A&M baseball team will have their first team practice of the season tomorrow afternoon at Olsen Field. The Aggies will open the season on February 17 when they host Illinois-Chicago at the newly renovated Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. The Aggies are led by three returning All-American players in pitchers Ross Stripling and Michael Wacha, and outfielder Tyler Naquin. The Aggies return 16 letterwinners from the team that won the Big 12 Conference (in a tie with texas), the Big 12 Tournament, and advanced to the College World Series. With so much experienced talent returning, the Aggies are expected to do well in 2012.

Stripling led the nation in wins in 2011 after compiling a 14-2 record, and Wacha finished the season 9-4 with a 2.29 ERA in 129.2 innings pitched. Naquin was the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year last season, leading the nation in hits and leading the conference in hitting with a .381 batting average. The Aggies also return Jacob House at 1B, Charlie Curl at 2B, and power-hitter Matt Juengel at 3B. Freshman All-American outfielder Krey Bratsen, who hit .332 with 36 RBIs and 31 stolen bases last year, returns in centerfield, while Naquin should take RF and Brandon Wood should play left.

We lost Kevin Gonzalez at catcher, and freshman catcher/pitcher Daniel Mengden or sophomore Troy Stein are expected to compete for the position. Mengden may also see some time as a relief pitcher. Mikey Reynolds, a junior college transfer, may take over the shortstop position.

I am hoping Ross Hales can work his way into the starting rotation, although Derrick Hadley and Denny Clemente can give us some other options there. Rafael Pineda and freshmen Gandy Stubblefield and Corey Ray should also compete for a spot in the rotation. In the bullpen, Kyle Martin returns as the setup man, and Mengden should get a shot at closer. Estevan Uriegas will also be used in relief.

We have a team to get excited about in 2012 as we take aim at another postseason appearance. It also starts tomorrow, as the Aggies get a chance to practice on the newly renovated Olsen Field for the first time.

There is growing support to change the number of wins needed for bowl eligibility to seven games starting in 2014, when the new BCS cycle begins. While no one wants to watch mediocre football, I'm not sure changing the eligibility standards for bowl games is a positive change. Ostensibly, bowl games are a reward for the players for a good season, and arguably a 6-6 season does not deserve a reward. When coaches are fired for going 6-6 in a season, you start to wonder why exactly the game is considered a reward. However, looking at it from that perspective ignores other opportunities bowl games present. In the case of A&M this past season, the Texas Bowl gave us an opportunity to end the season on a positive note, to send off a strong senior class with players like Cyrus Gray, Jeff, Fuller, and Ryan Tannehill with a win. Bowl games also give the team and coaches an opportunity for extra practice in preparation for the bowl, similar to an another Spring Practice period. In 2009, when A&M went to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport after a 6-6 season with a freshman and sophomore-dominated team, achieving a bowl berth was a season-long goal. The benefits of the extra practice showed on the field during a 2010 season when the Aggies won the Big 12 South Division, and knocked off two Top 10 ranked teams in the process.

If the eligibility standard for bowl games is increased to seven games, you are looking at eliminating some bowl games, because there will not be enough eligible teams to fill out the bowl rosters. While I am sure most college football fans won't miss the Beef O'Brady Bowl, Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, or the Compass Bowl, I don't want some of the traditional bowls to be eliminated. People can say what they want about the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, but it has been around for 35 years. Since the game is only a short three-hour drive from Dallas, the tickets are cheap, and you can hit the casinos before and after the game, it is a perfect day trip destination for a college football junkie. For someone who likes to gamble like me, it is an easy excuse for a long weekend of college football and gaming. I am also a huge fan of the Las Vegas Bowl for the same reasons, although it requires a plane flight from Dallas to get there.

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We have all heard the mantra: You can't run the spread offense in the SEC, the defenses are too good. It is just like the mantra that the spread offense won't work in the NFL, the defenses are too fast for it to work. Somehow, the New England Patriots have ridden the spread offense to their second Super Bowl appearance in the last four years, but that still doesn't dissuade the critics. Likewise, despite the success of several teams running the spread in the Southeastern Conference, the myth that the offense cannot be successful in the SEC, or that you can't win championships running the spread in the SEC continues.

Critics of the spread offense will plug their ears at this news, but the spread offense is being run successfully in the SEC today. The team that led the SEC in total offense in 2011 was Arkansas, which has been running Bobby Petrino's spread offense since he arrived in Fayetteville in 2008. Arkansas finished the 2011 season averaging 445.8 yards per game, better than second-place Alabama by a whole 7.4 ypg average. Arkansas also unsurprisingly finished first in the conference in passing offense in 2011 with an average of 307.8 ypg. This is a whole 65 yards better than the second-place finisher Tennessee, who averaged just 242 ypg passing. The high offensive rankings and superior production in the spread offense isn't anything new for Arkansas; they finished #9 in the nation and #2 in the SEC in total offense in 2010, averaging a solid 482.5 yards per game. The team ahead of them in both the national and conference rankings? Auburn, at 499.2 yards per game, finished #7 in the nation and #1 in the SEC in total offense in 2010 while running a spread offense. Auburn also won the BCS championship game for the 2010 season. In the 2011 season, Auburn finished #100 in the nation in total offense running the same scheme they ran in 2010. The difference between the two Auburn teams? Player experience and personal excellence.

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• I'm not someone who follows recruiting with the intensity of people who wait with baited breath over the decision of where a seventeen or eighteen year old kid will decide to go to college. I can understand, to an extent, the excitement of watching a team being built, and speculating over roster management and what amounts to organizational building every year can be a nice distraction during the football off-season. This lack of focus on recruiting allows me to keep the whole process at arm's length, and take a less emotional view of what happens when news breaks. It may sound arrogant to say so, but if a high school recruit is interested in playing in the Big 12 over the SEC, I don't want him. If a kid is interested in being somewhere in the Big 12 over A&M, I don't want him. I'm not worried about Michael Wilson committing to Oklahoma State, because if he doesn't want to play in the SEC, we don't want him. I've heard unsubstantiated rumors he wanted assurances on playing time. Rivals has him listed at 6'6 265 lbs, which means he'll need a redshirt season next year. If he thinks he can get early playing time at Oklahoma State, where Joe Wickline hasn't had a true freshman start a game since 2006, when a guy named Russell Okung moved into the starting lineup against Kansas in game five, good luck to him. If these kids think it will be easier for them to get playing time at another school and don't want to embrace the challenge of playing the SEC, good luck to them.
• After his visit to College Station went well this past weekend, I expect Thomas Johnson to commit to A&M soon. The disappointing news is that Lufkin DT Tomme Mark was arrested on charges of evading arrest Saturday night, and will likely not receive an offer from A&M as a result. I wish Mark well at University of Houston.
  
• Our men's basketball team continues to play hard and at times play well, even though the results aren't always showing in the win column. The Aggies played #5 Kansas at Lawrence without Khris Middleton and gave them one hell of a game, leading at halftime 30-28. Elston Turner scored 24 points, a career-high for him, David Loubeau had 15, and we even had some contributions from Naji Hibbert and Daniel Alexander on the offensive end. We held Kansas to 20% shooting from beyond the arc, and held them to 64 points, their third lowest point total of the season. The only thing that I ask from our basketball team is that they give it everything they have every time they step on the court, and they did that tonight. We're slowly becoming a scrappy basketball team, and if we can get Milldeton and Kourtney Roberson back, we can become a dangerous team to play in the final third of the season.

The traditional measure for grading a defense on a game-by-game basis and on a season overall are to look at their statistics, and see how they match up against metrics of success decided on beforehand. Average yards per play, average yard per carry, average yards per passing attempt, average yards per completion, average points per game, they are all statistics used to judge the success of a defense. One of the statistics I've been researching lately has been a concept of drive-killing plays (DKPs). Simply put, a drive-killing play is a big play made by the defense that more often than not completely stops or kills the opposing offensive drive. Sacks, tackles for loss, interceptions, and fumble recoveries are all drive-killing plays. Granted, an interceptions or a fumble recovery completely stops the offensive drive, because it gives the ball back to your offense, but sacks and tackles for loss are also drive-killers, because they put the offense off-schedule, and force it to make a big play in order to get back on schedule and keep the drive going. Obviously, a desired drive-killing play ratio (DKPR) would be 3:1, because if you made a drive-killing play once every three plays, you'd be making one every three downs, and in theory stopping the first down and killing every single offensive drive. The closer you are able to get to a ratio of 3:1, in theory, the more successful your defense will be, in theory.

To test out my theory, I went and look at the statistics for the two most successful defenses in the nation this year, the defenses of Alabama and LSU, who happened to play in the BCS Championship Game this past season. Alabama and LSU also make appropriate test subjects because they are both going to be opponents for A&M in 2012 in the SEC West. In 2011, opposing teams ran a total of 720 offensive plays against Alabama's defense (386 rush, 334 pass). On those 720 offensive plays, Alabama compiled a total of 13 interceptions, 7 fumble recoveries, 29 sacks, and 95 tackle for loss. Adding up the turnover total and tackles for loss (sack totals are included in tackles for loss), you come up with a sum of 115 drive-killing plays. So of the 720 offensive plays ran against Alabama in the 2011 season, the Crimson Tide defense had a drive-killing play 115 times, or a ratio of one drive-killing play every 6.3 plays. The Crimson Tide's drive-killing play ratio, or DKPR is 6.3:1. LSU's numbers are very similar. LSU had a total of 897 offensive plays ran on them in 2011, 106 of which resulted in a tackle for loss, and they had 18 interceptions and 12 fumble recoveries. LSU had a total of 136 drive-killing plays in 2011 on 897 offensive plays, or one drive-killing play every 6.6 offensive plays. LSU's 2011 DKPR was 6.6.

What about A&M?

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Elston Turner scored a career-high 23 points, David Loubeau added 16, and Dash Harris scored 14 points and dished out 6 assists as the Aggies defeated Oklahoma, 81-75, in overtime today at Reed Arena. In a game where Khris Middleton went down after re-injuring his knee, Naji Hibbert came off the bench to play 28 big minutes and scored 9 points and 3 rebounds. Ray Turner was also a key reserve, as he put up 8 points and snagged 5 rebounds, all of them on the offensive end.

The Aggies were able to employ a zone defense for much of the game, and Oklahoma only shot 28% from beyond the arc, hitting 4 three-pointers. Oklahoma's inability to score from the outside was key, as they shot 49% from the floor. A&M was able to shoot a hot 52.5% from the floor in the game, and they needed every one of those points, as they were a mediocre 12-22 from the free throw line.

Elston Turner was huge in this game, with no shot bigger than the three he hit with 40 seconds left in regulation, tying the game at 65, and forcing overtime. The Aggies outscored OU 16-10 in overtime, with a garbage three by Stephen Pledger making the final outcome look closer than it was. After Khris Middleton went down in the first half, the Aggies ended the half on a 14-6 run to overcome an eight-point deficit, and tie the game up. It wasn't pretty most of the time, but there were moments of good basketball being played by A&M today. The players came together after their star player went down, and used a group effort to overcome OU. The win moves the Aggies to 11-7 on the season, 2-4 in conference play. The Aggies travel to Lawrence to take on Kansas on Monday.

Although I expect Kevin Sumlin to eventually feature a balanced offense at A&M, one that is able to run and pass the ball when we want to, whether the defense tries to stop it or not, I think it is clear the emphasis in his first season will be on the passing game. This emphasis makes sense, because while we return plenty of talent at the RB position in Christine Michael, Ben Malena, and Will Randolph, in addition to a commitment from one of the top running backs in the nation in Trey Williams, we also return a WR corps loaded with talent, led by Ryan Swope, who will be preseason All-SEC, and Uzoma Nwachukwu. Looking at our incoming recruiting class, we have four WRs coming in, and only Williams coming in at RB. We're hosting another WR recruit this weekend in Skyline's Thomas Johnson. Putting more WRs on our roster has been a priority in recruiting.

We also have three TEs on our roster who have seen plenty of playing time in Nehmiah Hicks, Hutson Prioleau, and Michael LaMothe. We don't have any scholarship fullbacks in our roster, and aren't recruiting any to play the position. Under Mike Sherman, we used WRs and TEs as FBs and H-backs because it allowed us to simplify our personnel groupings while making it more difficult for the defense to match us. Anyone expecting us to come out and line up in the I-formation early on this season is going to be disappointed.

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