The Day After: Texas A&M 26, Missouri 40

Well, the Fire Franchione-o-Meter has finally hit 0. Raise your hand if at this point you don’t think Franchione will be gone next year. Didn’t think so.

We didn’t look that bad against Missouri. It was a lot closer than the final score would indicate. We finally spit out a passable passing game, and the McGee-Bennett hook-ups that I’d dreamed about finally happened, but they were about 11 games too late (Bennett is 6-7, a freak athlete with great hands, is unstoppable, and the rest of our receivers can’t get separation to save their lives. How is it that we haven’t used Bennett like an Antonio Gates or a Jason Whitten? One of the 534,234,234 reasons that Franchione should be fired). In the end though, we couldn’t stop their offense, and I never had the feeling that we’d be able to pull the upset. Bottom line is that we’re a Top 40 team, and we played about as well as a Top 40 team would play against a Top 5 team in an away game.

I mean, other than that, there’s not much more left to say. Like I said before, Franchione’s only graceful exit would be to beat t.u. two weeks from now, but that now looks tougher than I’d thought it be. Mike Leach can whine all he wants, but his team got handed by the Longhorns. I want to know what Jamaal Charles is smoking right now because the dude is on fire. And unfortunately, Colt McCoy has picked it up too. Did anyone know that Opie could run? I’m starting to feel that God is a Longhorns fan. Or that Mack Brown has sold his soul to Satan, which I think is a more plausible explanation of the Longhorns’ season thus far.

Since all I can say about the Aggies’ loss is that we lost, I’m tacking on the quick hits across the board in this post as well:

Ohio State goes down to Illinois. All I can say is, “I told you so.” See my last Quick Hits Across the Board. I’ve been watching this Buckeyes team, and they were one of the weakest number one teams in recent memory. This Illinois team is a pretty good team, but I’m not ready to anoint Juice Williams with the holy oil as the next Vince Young. He needs to complete more than half his passes and get a lot more yards running and passing before I’d be impressed.

Boston College goes down yet again. Again, all I can say is, “I told you so.” And again, see my last Quick Hits Across the Board. What do you get when you have a team that plays no one and has a quarterback who puts up gaudy stats against cupcake teams? An overrated team. I’ve been sick and tired of hearing about national championship talk surrounding BC, and I’m glad that it’s ended.

Michigan blows it. And that’s too bad. They could have been the feel-good story of the year. But without Mike Hart or Chad Henne playing in the game, I don’t think this is a surprise to anyone. I can’t believe, however, that Lloyd Carr didn’t put those two in the game to save them up for the Ohio State game. Wisconsin exactly isn’t a McNeese State in which you can save your starters against. Carr is another bozo who the Michigan faithful won’t miss next year.

Georgia is the hottest team in the SEC. I never thought I’d say that during this season, but it’s true. Auburn got totally whooped on. It makes me wonder if we really do want Tommy Tuberville if his teams are going through their own whippings. And Auburn’s offense is ranked 90^th or something pretty bad like that. I just don’t picture Tuberville changing the A&M program into a perennial Top 10 program. I have a sick feeling about the potential hiring move, and usually I’m dead-on about these sick feelings.

LSU vs. OU should be the national championship. It’s what everyone in the country wants to see (unless you’re a Ducks fan), and there’s a good chance that it can happen, but both teams face major hurdles in the forms of conference championships. If they both win the rest of their games, they both deserve to be there. Here are some other championship scenario run-downs:

Oregon vs. OU: I might give the Ducks the edge in this game. Big 12 teams don’t match up well against Pac 10 teams for some reason.

LSU vs. Kansas: LSU in a romp. KU hung 76 on Nebraska, but the Aggies also clobbered Nebraska. Other than that, KU has yet to play a quality team.

LSU vs. Missouri: Again, LSU in a romp. Chase Daniels looked like Tom Brady against our D, but our defense doesn’t have Glenn Dorsey running after you all night.

Oregon vs. Kansas or Missouri: Oh gawd, one of the most boring national championship games ever. Should this happen, the clamor for a BCS play-off will get even louder. By the way, I will always be against a play-off system. By not having a play-off system, every game each week has significance. It’s what makes college football the most exciting sport to watch. Have you seen NBA regular season games lately? It looks as if the players don’t realize that exhibition season is over. Shaq looks as if he’s going to try to sleepwalk through the season until the playoffs start. And that’s too bad, because the way the Heat are playing, they’ll be lucky to get the 8^th seed in the atrocious Eastern Conference.

At least there’s Aggie Basketball: The Texas A&M Men’s basketball season started this weekend at #14, and the arrival of DeAndre Jordan makes me almost forget the terrible football season we’ve had. The only thing is that Michael Beasley of Kansas State is even better and will make Kevin Durant look like Adam Keefe.