Listen! Aggies Will Win

It’s a thin, brittle limb, but I’m going to climb out on it anyway - Texas A&M will beat No. 1 Oklahoma today.

There, I did it.

What? Oklahoma’s favored by 10. You sure? Ten points, huh?

OK, Texas A&M could beat No. 1 Oklahoma today. There, that’s better.

What? They lost by how much last time? Forty-five points. Worst loss in A&M history. You’re kidding? You’re not. Oh.

All right then, Texas A&M might challenge No. 1 Oklahoma today - in the first half.

Wait a minute. Who cares about last year or point spreads? I gotta go with the gut; even if I am mistaking solid conviction for a tuna on rye.

Oklahoma will lose and make everyone’s Top 25 ballot more confusing than the one in Palm Beach County.

The Sooners will lose because the odds are against them. A rough guess of those odds is about 86,128 to 22, give or take a few here and there.

Eight-six thousand is the number of Aggies expected to jam into Kyle Field - one of, if not the most, ahem, spirited college stadiums in America. They started to arrive about Monday. Chances are they didn’t sleep last night. They will be ripe, hungry for a win, stand the entire game (an Aggies tradition) and scream with reckless abandon.

The crowd will be the largest ever to see a football game in the state. It might also be the loudest ever to see a football game anywhere. To date, the loudest recorded outdoor sporting event was on Oct. 1 when Denver Broncos fans hit 128.7 decibels against the New England Patriots.

The A&M yell leaders, which believe it or not is one of the top honors bestowed to an Aggie, will try and stoke the crowd past that mark.

“I’ve been in a lot of stadiums, and ours is as loud on game day as any,” said A&M coach R.C. Slocum. “The thing that’s unique is the noise is organized with the yells.”

But the home-field advantage is not the only reason the Aggies will win. They will win because of 265-pound running back Ja’Mar Toombs, who thrives in big games.

In an upset against Kansas State this year, Toombs had three touchdowns. Against No. 7 Texas last year, he had a career-best 126 yards in an A&M win. Against No. 2 Nebraska as a freshman in 1998, he had 110 yards on 10 carries in an win for the Aggies.

Now, Toombs is ready for Oklahoma. At least he sounds ready.

“I use everything I have inside me to get ready for a game like this,” Toombs told the Bryan-College Station Eagle. “You have to let it simmer. It’s hard to hold it down. I just want to scream out in the middle of class, `Beat the hell out of OU.”’

Save it for the game, big fella.

If you’re not convinced the crowd and Toombs are enough to push A&M over the top, how about the defense? The Aggies only allow 13.1 points per game. In the last four games. they have allowed 6.8 points per game. They have 16 interceptions this season. That’s 16, Mr. Heupel.

Slocum is also 4-1 against Top 10 teams at home.

And if all that isn’t enough, how about this? The Aggies are just simply due. In eight tries, they have never, repeat never, beaten a team ranked No. 1 by the AP.

Big scoring in Big 10

So much for the notion that the Pac-10 is the only conference without defense. Michigan and Northwestern scored 105 points. Those are Big Ten teams, people. One-and-a-half yards and a chorus of yawns. You know, the Big Ten.

“I open the paper and I see a 50s score with Northwestern and Michigan and I think things have gone crazy,” said USC coach Paul Hackett.

(Trojans fans have suspected that for a long time, but I digress.)

Hackett’s right, it has become a mad, pass-happy college football world. Even in the Big Ten.

Last weekend, five Big Ten quarterbacks gained 300 yards in total offense and none of them was Purdue’s Drew Brees. Zak Kustok gained 377 yards for Northwestern. Rashard Casey gained 369 for Penn State. Antwaan Randle El gained 339 for Indiana. Brooks Bollinger gained 331 for Wisconsin. And Drew Henson gained 300 for Michigan.

“Where’s the old run-the-ball and win 6-3?” Hackett questioned.

Who knows? But at this rate, the over/under line for the Rose Bowl is going to be 158.

Flying tortillas

Texas Tech students renewed their tradition of tossing tortillas at Texas players during the pregame warmups last week. The tortilla toss had become a custom back in the old Southwest Conference days. But the SWC banned tortilla tossing and said it was punishable by a 15-yard penalty.

The Big 12 - Texas and Texas Tech’s current conference - doesn’t have a food-tossing rule.