one aspect that has not been mentioned is special teams and most specifically kicking and punting. The punting game was inconsistent last year - I don’t think it impacted the season in a negative way as much as it could have. The Aggies also had a solid kicker last year in Isaiah Gomez and I really hope the new guy is good.

Yikes sorry for making a joke. No more of that from me

As long as the kicking and punting isn't noticeably bad then I am happy. Hopefully we just don't have to see much kicking and punting this season in general :grin:

Not your fault. For what it's worth I thought it was a humorous assessment of the times in which we live. Government has and will continue to exert its influence over college athletics, and this was an example of something that actually could happen. People say they don't want to read about politics but the truth is it's in everything and as long as an opinion doesn't dominate the topic or attack any other users it's a potentially interesting take. Others disagree but guess what-this is a discussion forum If everyone were supposed to talk about the same things in the same way this would be an agreement forum.

Let's face it, all this pre-season chat has about as much practical value as trying to guess your Christmas presents. Why not throw in some humor to break up the monotony of posts based on the tiny leaks of information from so-called sports experts ? This whole topic if you reduce it down to its most basic is just the product of bored people who are impatient for the game to be played. None of this insight is worth a cent once the season starts. But it gets some people by so I guess I'll just go sit in the corner and once again regret daring to express an opinion that veers from the path.

We lost Poerio, who averaged almost 20 yards a catch on 16 catches. The guys that return have mostly short averages per catch. Need a better average than what the returning wideouts got last year.
Larison had a decent average, but now he isn’t going to be in as a wide receiver often.

I'm really intrigued to see how much gametime freshman Mascheroni gets. He's a much bigger body than most of our returning contributors and his tape shows speed and sticky hands (of course that's the point of highlight tape). We need a guy who can just get open downfield though, I agree with you.

Does anyone have a link to Texas A&M University Commerce's message board?

I have not been able to find one. Not sure if one exists.

The kickoff special teams play was pretty much a disaster at Bozeman last year - never understood the strategy that night. Montana State had a very good kickoff returner. Seems to me the best strategy is jus to pound it far into or out of the end zone. I think most good college kickers can do that. The very strange and short kicks that night didn’t work at all. Anyway special teams and defense are major factors in getting to playoff and further status. I think this year’s defense should be quite good. They were very good last year with the exception of Montana State.

Pickett has length, and Babbs caught most balls thrown to him last year in limited duty.

There are a other tall receivers. Chad Davis, who caught five passes against Cal is 6’3.
I’m a fan of Babbs. He was so dangerous after the catch before he missed a year.
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I think part of the short average gain per completion is we threw many passes for one or two yard gains, checking down as a safety valve or running screens that gain little. Its not all due to not catching balls downfield.

“ The guys that return have mostly short averages per catch. Need a better average than what the returning wideouts got last year.”
Part of that is on our QB. With Jake and Miles, they are super accurate on the short and medium range tosses but we’ve been missing the deep ball for several seasons. I’ll have to go back and look at Miles completions, but my basic impression is we just don’t throw deep very often.

That affected Granfors and Poerio less for some reason. Kraft who does return has a pretty decent average per catch as well.
I’ll just add that I’m not disputing that we don't throw many deep balls. But the players that somehow got more yards per catch are mostly gone. And I’m not trying to define the problem being the QB, the receivers or the plays. However, I do recall seeing a bunch of catches for negligible gain.

In terms of kickoffs, I'm pretty much always against attempting strategic short kicking. Boot it out the back of the endzone every time.

According to Bob Dunning, the Aggies are 43-1 over the last 4 seasons.

We could be playing Georgia and still get an Ags by 1 prediction :lol:

Sagarin has his starting ratings out for the year. These are supposedly based on recent history of the team over time, but how much time they don’t say. Davis is third in the Big Sky following Montana State and Sac State. Davis, Idaho, Montana and Weber all within a point of each other., so essentially tied.

They estimate a line of 19.07 for the game against Commerce.

It's going to be tough with the high heat and humidity. When was the last time the Ags played an Aug/Sept game in the south?

Tulsa 9//2/2021. i think that qualifies, although opinions may vary. It is 200 miles from Commerce by air. Kickoff was 6:30, temperature 93 degrees, wind 12mph.
Tulsa was worn down at the end of the game,

Been a minute but gearing up for football…..not complete but here’s a few thoughts on commerce as I’m prepping for fcs.

Commerce:
Lost a monster WR to Arkansas. Yes that SEC Arky. Kid was a beast.
They’ve got about 5/6 starter back on offense pending how you count starters. Qb (Rodriguez) is solid. Not overwhelming but decent. RB is solid. They were hit harder at WR with losses and a couple on the OL. Offense should be slightly better than last year.

Defense prob take a little step back. Returns roughly 35% of it tackles & 50 ish % of their defensive stats in total. LB took a hit. Secondary will be the strength.

Very little transfer help.

Their win against SELA last year stands out as impressive. (We don’t play transitive properties but as a comparison point SELA beat Idaho in fcs playoffs)
Other than that performance nothing impressive jumps out. IW beat them 35-7 and mostly had their way with them.

New coach. New schemes

End of last year Ags would have likely been about a 20
pt fav in Commerce (23 ish pts adjusting for home field.) I have Commerce at almost the exact power rating as last year (up offense, down defense) and the Ags close to 3 points better. Improving on defense and slightly on offense. If building off last year that would make them 23 pts favs. Doesn’t mean that’s what it will be at all but just my perspective as I do my prep.

I'm sure that the offense will look different with a new guy at the helm, but I don't think it can be understated how critical Armstrong (the receiver that went to Arkansas) was to what offense they had last season. The team as a whole had 20 passing TDs on the season with 13 of those going to Armstrong. I'm sure some of their other guys will step up in his absence, but you don't easily just replace that kind of production.

The ten day forecast for Commerce Texas calls it to be 101 between 8 and 9PM. Thats the high for the day.

Ooof...a temperature of 101 will feel even hotter when you add in the high humidity that is typical of Texas. Conditioning and team depth will play a big role in that kind of sweltering weather.

New 10 day forecast, only a high of 90.. Hope this one is correct.

You must have been looking at Thursday of this week

No, they changed the forecast. It was on my phone and you can drill down to see a graph. It was a different graph than this Thursday, with the peak temperature after game time. Friday Sept 1st looks like that now.

92 at kickoff and 97 high for next Thursday in Commerce - source Weather Underground. Dewpoint is going to be much higher than Davis though.

We're 1 week away! GO AGS!

Gonna be hot as Hades next week. It has sure been hot around here the last couple of days. Hope the bodies and minds are ready for that kind of climate.