Saturday, October 22, 2005

Whew! Aggies move to 2-0 in untelevised games...barely!

The Aggies game against Kansas State just ended and A&M barely squeaked by to win 30-28. Again, I had to "watch" it on Yahoo! Sports via box score updates every 30 seconds. Things seemed to be going well in the first quarter when A&M jumped out to a 14-0 lead but then on fourth and one in the red zone, the Aggies elected to fake (!?) an almost guaranteed field goal. They didn't convert and from then on I had a nagging bad feeling.

Ever since A&M beat K-State in the Big 12 Championship in 1998, the Aggies haven't lost to the Wildcats, but there have been a string of games where the Aggies dominated the entire game only to let the victory nearly slip away. Today was no different. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, I was getting very nervous and really starting to think that my no TV win/loss record was going to lose out to Tim Smith's road game win/loss record. Thankfully the Aggies improved to 2-0 in untelevised games and have finally won their first road game of the year.

The Aggies now only need one more win to achieve bowl eligibility and we have at least one more winable game against Iowa State which is at home. The only thing yet to be determined is the television coverage. Earlier this week, A&M was put on six-day advanced notice of television coverage. This means that A&M/Iowa State could be played at 11:30 AM on FSN, 2:30 PM on ABC, 6:00 PM on TBS or possibly not at all. So we are undefeated at home and undefeated when we are not on TV so my vote is no TV for the Iowa State game to take advantage of both streaks. We'll have to wait until tomorrow after the dust settles from today's games for the official announcement though. But we're really going to need a win next week because we might not have a reasonable shot at a win for the rest of the season.

UPDATE: The powers that be at the TV networks have made their decisions. A&M will face Iowa State at 2:30 PM on ABC next Saturday. Here's to keeping this season's home win streak alive!

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