Dollar Bill reported in his Wednesday Weekly that we have added Sam Houston State to our football schedule to fill the November 17 slot, putting them right between our game at Alabama and our regular season finale against Missouri. The inclusion of another DI-AA school on our schedule simply means the decision to add a road game to play Louisiana Tech at a neutral site was more about getting Louisiana Tech on our schedule, even on their terms, than it was any desire to preserve schedule strength. We basically paid out $200,000 and added a road opener to our schedule so we could still schedule two DI-AA games. Dollar Bill athletic directin', y'all.

In other news, the replacement for Terrell Williams has been found, as A&M has hired Terry Price away from Texas Tech. Price, a former student, Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 1992, was an All-American defensive end for the Aggies on two SWC Championship teams. He was just hired on at Tech after a second stint at Mississippi in 2009-2011. Prior to being on Houston Nutt's staff at Mississippi, Price was with Tommy Tuberville at Auburn from 1999-2008, following his first stint at Mississippi from 1995-1998 with Tuberville.

Price is known as a good recruiter, helping bring Cadillac Williams and Karlos Dansby to Auburn, and was part of multiple top 10 defenses with the Tigers, with his defensive ends being among the national leaders in sacks and tackles for loss. During Tuberville's time at Auburn, he had an assembly line of stellar defensive ends on his lines, and Price was their teacher. For those following at home, this means Price has ties to Texas A&M, extensive experience coaching in the SEC, and is an ace recruiter. This all adds up to another home run coaching hire for Coach Kevin Sumlin.

The one holdover from Mike Sherman's staff at A&M is now gone, as defensive line coach Terrell Williams fills the defensive line coach position on Dennis Allen's staff with the Oakland Raiders. As frustrating as it is to have to be filling a position on your staff this late in the year, I can't help but be happy for Coach Williams. A job coaching in the NFL is what many coaches strive for, and this is a chance for Williams to chase that dream. A Los Angeles native, this is a chance for Williams to coach a team he grew up watching, and he is working for another Aggie in Dennis Allen, who played at A&M from 1991-94. Coach Williams was a tremendous asset to the A&M staff in his time in Aggieland, doing a very nice job with our defensive line, and was an excellent recruiter for us. He did a terrific job improving our defensive line from where we were when Buddy Wyatt left, and improved their technique and production. I wish him well as he makes the jump to the League.

We now begin our search for a new defensive line coach. I trust Coach Sumlin to make the right choice, and bring in someone who can help us.

A&M athletic director Bill Byrne decided yesterday that instead of letting everyone wonder if he IS truly a fool, he'd go ahead and announce the football schedule changes he has made, and remove all doubt. As we were informed yesterday, the Aggies will no longer be opening their 2012 season with a home game against McNeese State on September 1. Instead Dollar Bill, in a fit of brilliance, decided we should go on the road and open our season at a 'neutral' site in Shreveport, Lousiana against Louisiana Tech. With a new coaching staff implementing a new offense and defense, I don't see any reason why we would want to open our season in the friendly confines of our home stadium in front of a partisan crowd against a D-IAA school where we will have a decided talent advantage. No, it makes much more sense to take our team on the road and open the season on a Thursday night against a team that went to a bowl game last year, won their conference championship, and returns 16 starters. It isn't like a glorified scrimmage against a I-AA program would help our players adjust to a new system on both sides of the ball and get comfortable with the new coaching staff in a live game situation. No, it makes much more sense to make things difficult for ourselves, and open the season on the road, and make sure our home opener is also our SEC opener against Florida.

We're also scheduling South Carolina State on September 22, filling one of the open dates on our schedule. $Bill cites the desire to avoid having two games against I-AA opponents as his rationale for dropping the McNeese game and replacing it with Louisiana Tech while adding the SCSU game. His inexplicable decision to give up a home game for a game at a site that is neutral in name only (Louisiana Tech has played at Independence Stadium in Shreveport 71 times, and considers it their home away from home) is indefensible. We now currently only have four home games on our schedule (Florida, SCSU, LSU, and Missouri). $Bill says we will have a home game against an opponent to be announced on November 17 at Kyle, which will give us five home games. If $Bill somehow avoids screwing up the arrangements with Arkansas (do you really have any faith in him to get this right?), we could end up with only six home games at Kyle Field in 2012, with four of them being conference games. If Byrne does screw it up, as I fear he will, we will have five home games and seven road games in 2012. Why the hell would you want to shell out money for season tickets in that situation?

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In 2010, Von Miller won the Butkus Award, and was named the best linebacker in all of college football. In 2011, after a season in which he tallied 64 tackles, 11 1/2 sacks, and 2 forced fumbles despite missing one game because of an injury, Miller has been named the Associated Press NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Miller beat out defensive end Aldon Smith of the San Francisco 49ers, who received 11 votes to Miller's 39 from the 50 media members who did the voting. I believe the competition between Miller and Smith (who played for Missouri in college) for the award this year is the first time former Big 12 players have finished first and second in the voting for the Defensive Rookie of the Year award.

I have been poring through A&M's media guide for NFL information, and I think Von is the first A&M player to be named Rookie of the Year, so he can add that to his other list of firsts for A&M.

Coach Sumlin completed his staff this week with the hiring of Air Force defensive coordinator/associate head coach Matt Wallerstedt as the new linebacker coach. Wallerstedt replaced Nick Toth, our OLB coach who moved to Fresno State to join Tim DeRuyter's staff as their new defensive coordinator, and Dat Nguyen, our inside linebacker coach last season. Wallerstedt comes to A&M after stints at Air Force, Akron, Kansas State, and Wyoming. Wallerstedt is a veteran, with over 20 years of coaching experience.Wallerstedt continued the 3-4 defense after DeRuyter left Air Force, and has linebakcers leading his defense in tackles the past two seasons. Air Force finished #37 in total defense in 2010, but fell off to #65 last season.

Wallerstedt is an interesting hire, because he is older than most of our staff, and is a departure from Coach Sumlin's approach of hiring younger, up-and-coming assistants. Wallerstedt also doesn't appear to have any direct connections to Texas, although he was the recruiting coordinator for Kansas State in 2006, so he has recruited players from here. Wallerstedt worked in a 4-3 scheme at Kansas State, so he could be able to help with the transition from the 3-4 we've been running to a multiple approach using both the 3-4 and the 4-3 Under scheme. Being able to pluck a defensive coordinator from another D-IA school to be a position coach in your program is always a nice position to be in, and Wallerstedt is a solid hire. He completes Coach Sumlin's staff at nine assistant coaches.

• Randy Bullock, Jeff Fuller, and Tony Jerod-Eddie will all be playing in the Senior Bowl at 3 PM tomorrow on the NFL Network. Bullock, Fuller, and TJE will all be on the South team, which will be coached by the Washington Redskins coaching staff. Cyrus Gray and Ryan Tannehill were invited but are not playing in this game due to injury. Hopefully Fuller can impress on the field, because the reports from practices say he has been suffering from some drops, I haven't heard any reports on TJE, so I hope he is performing well. Gray and Tannehill should be available for the Combine and pro day at A&M.
• Congrats to Mike Sherman, who was hired today to be the offensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins under new head coach Joe Philbin. Sherman was a candidate for the Tamp Bay Bucs head coaching job which ended up going to Greg Schiano. I actually think we may see Sherman be a head coach in the NFL again soon. In the mean time, I look forward to watching him work with Philbin as they try to rebuild the Dolphins into a winning franchise.
  
• On the recruiting front, Euless Trinity defensive end Polo Manukainiu and current commit Long Beach Poly DE Alonzo Williams are visiting Aggieland this weekend. I am hopeful we'll get a commitment from Polo, because we need to continue building depth on the defensive line. I'm still hopeful we're going to find some juco defensive tackles to bring in, because we need to fill out the roster at that position. Keller Fossil Ridge DT Aaron Curry reportedly does not have an offer from A&M, per Billy Liucci, although Rivals has him listed with an A&M offer. I'll take Liucci's word for it, because Curry seems to have listed every single school who has shown some interest as having offered him, and I think that is a little unrealistic. Regardless, we need to get some interior defensive linemen in this class.
  

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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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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