Childress signed catcher Andrew Nettune today. Nettune was listed as one of the top 100 recruits by Scouts.com and believes that A&M will "fulfill his long term dream" of winning the College World Series". MAN I hope he is right.

According the the AD, the Dec 9th match up against UCLA will be "A&M's first nonconference game ever shown on a national network broadcast".

Men's basketball assistant coach Al Johnson is taking a medical leave, lets hope everything is okay. Billy's radio show kicks off today at 7pm CST. For out-of-towners you can stream the broadcast from WTAW's site. I have been to a number of these shows, Billy is a pretty funny guy. Made fun of the players constantly.

Big news for the football team, they will be playing in the Holiday Bowl against Cal and our players are "trilled". Okay maybe it is not big news, but it is nice that the Gator Bowl yahoos are no longer holding this up, at least for us. We have some interesting, and previously unknown to me, history with Cal. The 12th-man kickoff team debuted against Cal in a 1983 19-17 loss at Kyle Field. Now THAT is good trivia.

It is also interesting that in the year of the young QB, the only two seniors staring at QB in the Big 12 meet in the championship.

The Holiday Bowl exec's announced Cal has accepted their bid and Texas A&M is waiting on the stupid Gator Bowl mess. If everything goes a planned we will be trated with a red state/blue state show down. All-Big 12 football awards were announced. MisiTupe was named defensive new comer of the year. Melvin Bullitt was named to the first-team defense. J-train, Chris Alexander, Ma Bennett, and Cody Wallace were all named to the second-team offense. Justin Brantly, Mike Goodson, Kirk Elder, Chris Harrington, Stephen McGee, Chad Schroeder, Misi Tupe, and Justin Warren got honorable mentions. I count 13 awards. Not too shabby. In case you missed the Texas game (unlikely) or want to watch it again (likely), a replay is available on Aggie All-Access.

I missed this one when it came out, the Aggies were name the (big inhale) Tostitos Fiesta Bowl National Team of the Week after beating Texas. I was not aware that was an award that could be won, but yay!


Looks like Billy's comment on the crowd size was notice by a few more people. Lets hope he does not jump ship for a program with a good November draw. Is it just me, or have we forgotten that things were like 3 years ago? That crowd on Monday would have the 6th largest crowd of the year (I checked) in 2004. That includes the Kanasas game were I swear every other person there was a Jayhawk. The season opener this year against Prairie View A&M would have been the 3rd largest crown in 2004.

The women's basketball team spanked Arizona by 20, 64-44, last night at Reed Arena. I like Blair's quote, "Mo and TK can tear up a zone". With 20 and 18 points, respectively, I think he is right.

The men's basketball team took care of UALR last night, 75-35. AK looked great: 6-7 from the field, 13 points, 9 boards, and 2 steals. He is strong on the boards and has developed good moves to get to the basket, but still thinks "Joe is a great guy and... is the best player in the Big 12". It is not all smiles though. Billy made a point of how "the players notice" the crowd size, which was 5,544.

Is 5,544 really a small crowd for this point in the season? Lets look at the size of some of the other crowds last night:

• #14 Syracuse 19,235
• NC State 13,135
  
• Nebraska 9,661
  
• Notre Dame 8,178
  
• #23 Georgetown 6,942
• Baylor 4,289
• Missouri 1,234

So it was not the worst crowd, but for the 8th ranked team in nation you would expect more.

Billy likes our schedule because "every single game has gotten harder". It is about to get REAL hard with Pacific, @ LSU, and @ UCLA due up. We will soon know "how good the Aggies are".

Here are some good photos of the game.

Mark Dodge was named AT&T Big 12 Conference Defensive Player of the Week. The architect of the recently shredded #1 running defence in the nation is now the head coach at Iowa State. And we are still going to the Holiday Bowl.

Senior Christi Hahn was named to the All-Big 12 volleyball team.

Looks like a number of Longhorns hade quite the Big-12-championship road trip planned, too bad we spoiled had to spoil it.

I am watching the game via a live Internet video feed. I had to pay a small fee (currently in D.C.). The resolution is low, no stats, and no score, but I must say this is amazing.

Providing the feed free to any one in Texas (and Arkansas for some reason) must help quite a bit with recruiting. Billy mentioned early on that getting the games on TV in Houston and Dallas was one of his priorities for making advances in recruiting, looks like the AD is half-way listening.

Nov 26

The main story on the athletic department's web site is still "Texas A&M 12, Texas 7". 3 days later. I love it. The win shot us back into the top 25, but our Big 12 standing and bowl projection stay the same (Holiday vs Cal). You can go ahead and reserve your tickets.

Remember the first time you heard Fran hired Gary Darnell as defensive coordinator? Remember thinking, "Who the f is Darnell? 1-10? WTF?"? I do. Seems some opinions have changed. Mine has. Apparently he is quite the communicator. As Chris Harrington put it, "It's very easy to just sit back and not listen to what he's saying..." Yikes.

The men's basketball team plays Arkansas-Little Rock on Monday. These guys are pre-season favorites to win the power house Sun Belt’s West Division. And yes, the Sun Belt conference gets an auto-14-seed-first-round-loss bid to the tourney.

Game Highlights

Here are some highlights of the game from videoag98, try the mute button if you can't handle the Led Zeppelin.

Nov 24

In case you didn't know WE WON! And we did it with defense (most ints (4) in a game, tied for fewest points allowed(7)) and on the ground (most rushing yards (244) in a game, 2nd highest individual rusher(McGee with 95)). Texas SAID they were going to ready for the option, however both TD runs were off the option.

As you might expect, Fran was validated, redeemed, and got his signature victory. Not bad for three hours of work.

Mack Brown sides with the crowd on the hit to McCoy, big surprise.

The men's basketball team beat Idaho State. Josh Carter went 8-10 from 3 (a school record), making Idaho State's zone seem like a bad idea.

The soccer team lost to UNC, after going up 1-0 in the first the Aggies allowed 3 goals in the 2nd.

Nov 23

Things are looking better this year, but Vegas can't see past Texas's so-so Big 12 home record (30-1). Fran insists that not giving J-Train the ball is nothing personal. I guess it's just bad coaching. Texas is still worried about Lane, and his passing abilities. Texas safety Michael Griffin hopes to keep my least favorite tradition alive and inch closer to the NCAA record for blocked punts. Jackie Sherrill thinks a victory on Friday would be Fran's biggest win. Bigger than the 2005 OT win over Baylor? Come on Jackie.

The volleyball team won. Corbelli thinks the team is ready for a "giant step". After 5-15 in Big 12 lets hope so.

Nov 22

A rematch awaits the the women's soccer team soccer team @ UNC. The Tar Heals only loss this year was in their season opener against the Aggies. Their first season-opener loss in 948375 years.

Off-campus Bonfire burned. Anyone know if they got through the war hymn? Do they know to sing the war hymn?

Colt's dad says his son will play on Friday, which sucks. Every one seems to think McGee will have to throw the ball because either UT can't defend the pass and/or we can't run the rock. However we can't be one-dimensional and expect to win. Great.

Here are a few historical highlights of the past 113 years.

Right now we are lookig at the Holiday Bowl playing against Cal.

According to Mack Brown's web site, the old 13-0/Bevo story is false. Kudos to Mack's persistence. I am guessing the process that ended in the epicly sized domain name went something like... mackbrownfootball.com, taken. mackbrowntexas.com, taken. mackbrowntexasfootball.com, taken. mackbrown-texasfootball.com, AVAILABLE.

2 McNeese State starters had the same number of points as my mom in a more-turnovers-than-points effort.