It was the best of times. It was the best of times.
An amazing touchdown pass from Houston Texans quarterback T.J. Yates to wide receiver Kevin Walter gave the team a 20-19 come-from-behind victory Sunday over Cincinnati and propelled the team toward its first-ever playoff berth. While the Texans would have eventually ended up in a post-season game for the first time in the team’s nine-year history, the deal was sealed a short time later when the New Orleans Saints defeated the Tennessee Titans. How perfect could that be?
I mean, the Titans is the team Bud Adams packed up and moved from Houston. My previous favorite Houston Oilers was the last team to secure a playoff berth for the Bayou City in 1993. Adams, who will forever be on a lot of folks s**t lists, picked up the team and headed for the hills when he couldn’t get his way, that being a new stadium, naturally.
Yates is a rookie and the Texans third-string quarterback after starter Matt Schaub and backup Matt Leinart were knocked out for the season. Houston also was playing without one of the NFL’s top receivers, Andre Johnson and starting linebacker Mario Williams. The latter was the Texans first round draft choice in 2006. The defensive star was chosen ahead of both USC running back Reggie Bush and Houston native and Texas quarterback Vince Young.
The Texans have been battered this year but continued winning even though not always doing so in the prettiest of fashions.
It is hard to believe Houston will advance beyond one or two rounds in the playoffs much less winning an AFC crown or Super Bowl. Just getting to where they are this year, particularly with as much adversity the team has faced would definitely be seen as an accomplishment. Everything else the Texans do from now on is gravy, albeit good ol’ sawmill gravy.
It’s Monday, if you needed a reminder. Rather than having to use my brain cells one iota more than needed — like that was going to happen — I thought I would pass along a little interesting reading.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
A lot of stories are coming out about front-runner de jour of the GOP presidential pack, former House Speaker Newt “Newt” Gingrich. Many such articlesdeal with subjects such as his ego and pomposity. Those are not exactly high crimes and misdemeanors but for a party with a solid know-nothing wing it is uncertain how the Newt might fare against, say, a Mormon. As an article I read yesterday, sorry, I don’t remember where I saw it, pointed out, G.W. Bush had a bachelor’s degree from Yale and an M.B.A. from Harvard. Had that not been such public knowledge one would have never known it because he didn’t just play dumb, he played dumb to perfection.
Scientists are all excited aboutthe discovery of Kepler 22b, the Earth-like planet with a surface temperature of 72 degrees. Sounds good to me if it rains there.
Some foots-ball talk
It seems as if every year the list of college football bowl games get longer and longer. Bowls are not just the destination for collegiate teams which win their conference but now second and sometimes third and maybe fourth place teams get a piece of the action. Plus adding the name of the corporate sponsor just about makes me throw up in my mouth a little. The Viagra Erection Bowl, the Little Friskies Killer Cat Bowl, the Cruex There’s A Fungus Among Us Bowl, the Amish Quilt Bowl … the list goes on and on.
It doesn’t matter what Texans haters or Texans self-haters say. It is quite an accomplishment to come so far under so much adversity, including the loss of starting QB Matt Schaub and backup Matt Leinart last week. Star receiver Andre Johnson, unfortunately, went out in the Texans 17-10 win with recurring problems to his Achilles tendon. Johnson may be back in a couple of weeks but punter Bret Hartmann is lost for the season after suffering a tear to his left anterior cruciate ligament. Inside linebacker Brian Cushing also left the game with a hurt knee but is expected to return next week against Cincinnati. The team has signed a couple of backups, the Cajun Man himself, Jake Delhomme was signed as second-string QB. Delhomme played college ball at Louisiana-Lafayette. He played for New Orleans as well as Super Bowl runner ups Carolina Panthers. Former Texans punter Matt Turk has been signed to substitute for the injured Hartmann.
I wonder if anyone will remember the name Justin Tucker? Last night Tucker became a hero after literally booting a last-second kick for 40 yards through the east Central Texas air of Kyle Field, thus ending one of the most storied college football rivalries of all times.In the end it was Texas Longhorns 27 Texas A & M Aggies 25.
It would be no exaggeration for me to say that I practically knew the words to “The Aggie War Hymn” by they time I was five thanks to a record of Aggie songs my oldest brother brought home once, during the several semesters he attended A & M. A Christmas picture snapped with my four brothers at my Grandmother’s house one Christmas shows me hamming it up with a toy guitar while proudly wearing an Aggie Corps of Cadets garrison cap.
I have several close relatives who are Aggies — given that you believe once an Aggie always an Aggie — and a number of friends who attended “The” University of Texas at Austin. Actually, if you say “The University of Texas” that pretty much is understood to be the campus which is bounded to the west by “The Drag” or Guadalupe (pronounced “Guad-a-loop”) Street in Austin. I thought about attending UT both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. My undergrad degree is from Stephen F. Austin. I’ve not attended graduate school. Obviously, I have nothing against TAMU. I just never thought of it as a collegiate choice due to the criteria I used to select a school. As is the case with some folks who might get a degree from a good school, some people I know who have gone to either school seems to think their educations are much more special than they believe.
Wither thou goest Bevo? Photo by Taylor Ramsey courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
But the end of a regular football game between Texas and Texas A & M has nothing to do with academics. Well, at least not with athletics per se. The end of this long famous rivalry — the two teams may not play each other for at least seven or more years — has to do with money. The O’Jays, those grand philosophers of funk, sang it best:
The football rivalry festered during the many years the two schools played each other in what I feel was the Daddy of all collegiate conferences, the Southwest Conference. Those teams plus others such as TCU, Baylor, Rice, Texas Tech, Houston, SMU and Arkansas, were mostly a Texas affair from the SWC’s beginnings in 1914. Schools from Oklahoma also played from time-to-time in the league’s history. The conference was truly an all-Texas from 1991, when Arkansas left, until the SWC disbanded in 1996. The break came as some of the schools heard those coins a jingle-jangle-jingling.
For the love of money People don’t care who they hurt or beat
UT as the king of the schools comprising the Texas component of the Big 12 seemed to have all the prestige — a National Championship in 2006 and runner-up in 2009 — and big money that it could want. Money, though, seemed to overtake prestige. The University signed a $300 million deal with ESPN for its own sports network. The move, of course, rankled some schools and caused others to go “Wild West” on everyone and to do anything at all for money.
For the love of money A woman will sell her precious body
Talk began of one Big 12 school going here another going there. Then, other schools, in other conferences, started making deals for new super-duper league alignments in which geography was thrown out the window.
In the meantime, Texas A & M had its eye on the prize. It lusted for what many to consider to be the Mother of all athletic conferences, the Southeast Conference. It seemed at one time as if the Big 12 would implode. That would surely be big trouble for schools already on the bubble such as Baylor. Baylor, which has one of the Lone Star State’s best law schools, sued.
All of the drama — to this point at least — played out to the ending blow last evening as Texas A & M said goodbye to its long-time rival, like the steady and sure teen headed out to make his way in the world. Unfortunately, the bon voyage ended badly for A & M. Now, the nationally-ranked albeit no potential national champion Aggies, will face some really tough SEC opponents in years to come and perhaps even experience extended periods of future cellar-dwelling what with foes such as LSU, Alabama, Auburn, et. al.
And of the rivalries, well, providing a school needs rivalries — perhaps not but whatever extra revenue, recruiting benefits and camaraderie such serial competitions bring, why not? — Texas still has a huge one with Oklahoma in the “Red River Shootout.” The Aggies may end up renewing an old Southwest Conference rival with Arkansas within the SEC. The teams are not strangers having played 68 games. The two teams first played in 1903 and met in October when the now No. 3 Razorbacks beat A & M 42-38. Another possible in-conference rival is present No. 1, the LSU Tigers. The Aggies have played the Louisiana team 50 times, the most games with any non-conference school although the two schools were twice in a pre-SWC league for a couple of years.
The loss of rivalry is a loss of tradition. Yet It isn’t just college tradition that is being destroyed by ” … that lean, mean, mean green/Almighty dollar, money … “ as the poignant 1973 O’Jays hit penned by Gamble, Huff and Jackson says.
High schools are being infected by big money. Look around Texas and one can find multi-million dollar football stadiums with deluxe computerized scoreboards and huge Jumbotron-like screens, usually bearing the name of some corporate sponsor.
Sure the money helps students. There is the old joke about one never having seen a stadium filled for a chemistry lecture. But the money doesn’t strictly benefit the kids in either college or high school. Look at UT’s Mack Brown, paid $5.166 million, making him the highest-paid Texas state employee. Then there is the money made in deals among school alumni. Let’s not even go to professional sports. It’s about enough to make one’s head explode.
So as we say adios to a great old rivalry, perhaps we shouldn’t go out with verses of the “Aggie War Hymn” or “Texas Fight.” Perhaps we should just keep in the groove with the O’Jays, “All for the love of money … ” Tradition, flattened by bundles of cash.
If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. Or I wouldn’t have no luck at all, if you’re into double negatives. However you say it, that seems the motto for my Houston Texans. The Texans, on a four-game winning streak and at the top of the AFC South at 7-3, have a habit of losing key starters just as their situation looks promising. First there was the NFL’s best receiver, Andre Johnson, sensational linebacker Mario Williams and now quarterback Matt Schaub. Johnson has been practicing and could be back during any future game but the prospects are less promising for Williams, with a torn pectoral muscle, and Schaub. The latter has a misfranc, or midfoot, fracture of the foot.
The sporting Van Pelts. Lucy, r, and Linus.
Plenty of nay-sayers say nay when it comes to former USC Heisman winner Matt Leinart taking over for Schaub at QB. Much of the derision stems from his Southern California roots where he led USC to a national championship. Like current Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, Leinart has been labeled a “pretty boy.” And while photos of Leinart in a hot tub with a crowd of scantily-clad beautiful women doesn’t help his cause — I’m sure it wasn’t personally detrimental — the man’s got some talent or he wouldn’t be where he is today. Leinart didn’t get the job done at Arizona on his first pro stop, but on the sidelines with Head Coach Gary Kubiak, the backup has been in the spot to learn what he needs to know. Whether he applies it is the big question.
Something also to remember: The Texans are 7-3 now with a good many of those wins without Johnson or Williams. This is a big step for the Texans, a team that has never made the playoffs. A little faith in their abilities is difficult as they’ve dealt themselves multiple times the old “Lucy Van Pelt,” you know, come up like Charlie Brown to kick the ball only to have Lucy pull the ball away. But it seems a fan has two choices in such a situation. Either you stop watching or paying any attention whatsoever to your team, or you have a little faith. Well, there is a third choice, which is kind of waiting in between, while holding your breath. I will be doing the latter. I will take time to breathe however.
This afternoon I started off writing about the death of Smokin’ Joe Frazier — so long Smokin’ Joe. I also mentioned how things aren’t very happy in Happy Valley with the Penn State football program embroiled in scandal and it looking as if 84-year-old head coachJoe Paterno may soon find himself doing something else for the first time in almost a half-century. The latter stems from the indictment of former assistant Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky for his alleged serial abuse of young boys.
I didn’t work today so I listened to some of the sports shows on radio a little more than often. Check out the links I have provided and you will key in on what I have thought about today. Maybe you can make more sense out of things, more explicitly the Penn State controversy, than I can.
This afternoon I also heard one of the guys on The Blitz, a sports talk show out of Houston, complain about the excessive number of playoff spots in Texas high school football. I haven’t really thought about it but I read the University Interscholastic League — or UIL, the governing body for high school athletic and academic competition in Texas — rules and Fred or A.J. or whomever was griping it was was right. The amount of playoff spots are insane.
“Conference 4A and 5A the top four teams from each district advance to the playoffs. The two schools with the largest enrollments automatically advance to the Division I bracket. The remaining two schools advance into the Division II bracket. There are two state champions per conference in Conference 4A and 5A.”
The numbers advancing to playoffs are reduced to three team for all divisions of 3A, 2A, and 1A, and top two teams for the two divisions of six-man football. I noticed some of the area schools headed to post-season play. Check out the win-loss records of some of these schools:
Port Arthur Memorial (9-1) vs. Pasadena South Houston (3-7)
Kirbyville (2-8) vs. Rusk (3-7)
Port Arthur Sabine Pass (2-6) vs. Burton (8-2)
Burkeville (1-6) vs. Milano (9-1)
What the hell was the UIL thinking? I will be the first to tell you that practically anything can happen in Texas high school football although the sport and where it is played is not completely immune to the laws of probability.
I have given thought to these stories and this complaint about high school football, which may only piss off a certain number of Texans, although more high school football and not less usually reigns supreme in the Lone Star State. A common thread that I have unsuccessfully tried to weave this afternoon runs through these stories. Perhaps it is apparent to some and not others or to none at all. Yes, a link exists but putting these varied thoughts into one.
But I will not provide that bond. Not today at least. Somewhere along the way, the line broke. Or it went all a-which-a-ways. That happens sometimes. S**t happens. That is an inelegant term but it is true, as much so to a writer as to a beggar man-thief and perhaps even a street car conductor.
I wish that I could leave this little box with something of greater certitude but my certitude has just lost altitude.
