Texas A&M Football: 5 Keys to the Game Versus Arkansas

 By Michael Taglienti (Featured Columnist) on September 27, 2012
Courtesy of Bleacher Report

The Texas A&M Football team will take on the Arkansas Razorbacks at Kyle Field on Saturday. The game will mark the first conference contest between the two schools since 1991, when both schools were members of the now-defunct Southwest Conference.
This contest pits two teams going against each other who are currently headed in opposite directions. The Aggies enter the game on a two-game winning streak after overwhelming SMU and South Carolina State in consecutive weeks. They have a 2-1 record on the season.
Arkansas is 1-3 and has lost three consecutive games. The Arkansas program is in disarray after losing their head coach in the offseason and their starting quarterback to a concussion in their second game.
Both the Aggies and the Razorbacks are 0-1 in the Southeastern Conference. This game is a West division contest and neither team can afford to lose it if they want to qualify for a bowl game.
This is a look at five keys to the game for the Aggies to beat Arkansas.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Take an Early Lead

The Aggie offense has started slowly the last two games, but needs to jump on the Razorbacks early. Arkansas is like a wounded animal right now. The players are looking for a reason to give up hope on the season.
The Ags need to come out of the gate and score and kill any hope Arkansas has of stealing a victory on the road. The offense needs to hit a big play early and demoralize the Hogs defense. If Arkansas has success early, the game could become a dog fight.
Arkansas has a lot of skill-position talent and with Tyler Wilson at quarterback, they are as dangerous an offense as any team in the country.
A&M needs to score early to create doubt in the minds of the Arkansas' players, and apply pressure to the Razorback offense to make them think they need to take some chances to keep up.
 

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Shut Down Arkansas Running Game

Arkansas running back Knile Davis is one of the most talented running backs in the country. He has struggled to get going this season after missing the 2011 season with an injury.
Davis is only averaging 3.2 yards per carry so far in 2012. The Ags need to shut him and the rest of the Arkansas running backs down and force the Arkansas offense to become one-dimensional.
Arkansas head coach John L. Smith would love nothing more than to control the clock with the running game and keep the Aggie offense on the sidelines. It is very important for the Aggies to control the line of scrimmage on defense and prevent Davis, Ronnie Wingo and Dennis Johnson from running all over the Ags.

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Force Turnovers

This goes along with getting an early score. If the Aggies can force turnovers, especially early in the game, they can gain a lot of momentum and kill the will of the Razorbacks. Arkansas is looking for a reason to give up. The Ags need to give them that reason.
The Texas A&M and Arkansas defenses have each only forced one turnover this season. Whoever wins the turnover battle in this game is likely to win the game. Forcing turnovers creates momentum, and the Aggies do not want to give the Razorbacks any momentum in this game.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Limit Turnovers on Offense

While the Aggie defense needs to force turnovers, the offense cannot afford to make any. The Aggie offense is running the spread passing scheme but have only committed one turnover in three games.
With a redshirt freshman quarterback running a passing scheme, that is somewhat of a statistical anomaly. At some point, Aggie quarterback Johnny Manziel is likely to have a bad game and commit multiple turnovers.
The Ags just have to hope it is not this weekend against an Arkansas team that is just waiting to quit on the season.

Sarah Glenn/Getty Images

Put Pressure on Tyler Wilson

The Arkansas offensive line has been suspect during their first four games. The Aggies currently lead the nation in sacks.
The A&M defense does not need to get a bunch of sacks against Arkansas, but they need to consistently apply pressure to him.
Damontre Moore and his teammates need to consistently get a pass rush and make Wilson uncomfortable. They cannot give him time to sit back there and pick apart a secondary that has not proven it can stop a good passing attack yet.
In their previous game against Arkansas, wide receiver Cobi Hamilton had 303 yards receiving and three touchdowns. The Ags need to make Wilson scramble so he will not have time to find Hamilton against the Ags secondary.
The Aggies have employed a soft zone scheme during their first three games. They will not be successful against the Razorbacks if they cannot apply pressure to Wilson.

Report: Potential Texas A&M stadium expansion could seat 103,500, cost $450 million

By Jerry Hinnen | Blogger

September 25, 2012 4:52 pm ETCourtesy of CBS Sports.com

Texas A&M has made no secret of its plans to renovate 85-year-old Kyle Field into one of the premier college football facilities in the country. But a Tuesday report from the Bryan-College Station Eaglemakes it clear just how big the Aggies are thinking with this expansion.

The Eagle cited multiple local government officials present at an "impromptu meeting" Monday where Texas A&M University System chancellor John Sharp presented a tentative three-year renovation plan, a plan that would cost "from $425 to $450 million" and increase Kyle Field's capacity from its current 82,589 to "93,000 to 103,500."

According to the Eagle, among the officials present at the meeting weren't just Sharp and other Aggie representatives, but College Station mayor Nancy Berry (last seen in this spacemaking her own YouTube response to Will Muschamp), Bryan mayor Jason Bienski, and other officials from each city. The plan presented by Sharp would reportedly ask the two municipalities to "pitch in" as much as $38 million toward the renovation project.

Though far from A&M's preferred option, as recently as April Aggie officials were leaving the door open to the possibility of a full demolition of Kyle Field and a season spent playing at nearby Houston's Reliant Stadium. That move would be a sizable blow to the local economy -- and a likely motivation behind Sharp's request that public funds be used on the stadium renovation.

In a statement issued Tuesday and published in the Houston Chronicle, A&M president R. Bowen Loftin said that nothing has been decided about the Kyle Field project just yet ... including whether the Aggies might move for a season or not.

"It is important to reiterate that no decisions have been made as to whether the Aggies will play a season away from Kyle Field, and we continue to hope that this will be an unlikely option," Loftin said.

At this stage, however, it seems that Kyle Field will be spared and instead undergo its expansion in stages over the course of the plan's three years. Then-athletic director Bill Byrne said in January that he preferred the expansion to proceed "a deck at a time."

However the expansion is completed, if it does push Kyle Field all the way up to that 103,000-seat mark, it could give the Aggies the largest official stadium capacity in the SEC -- Tennessee's Neyland Stadium is the current No. 1 at 102,455, with Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium No. 2 at just under 102,000 -- and put them on the shortlist of the largest college football stadiums in the country.

To truly feel like a full-fledged member of the SEC football fraternity, the Aggies will have to earn their way on the field -- preferably, for them, starting this Saturday against two-touchdown underdog Arkansas. But dreaming this big when it comes to overhauling their facility is certainly a nice start.

Miami Dolphins’ Jorvorskie Lane loses weight, gains a job

Once 304 pounds and working for a moving company, Jorvorskie Lane dropped to 257 and beat out two competitors for the Dolphins’ fullback job.

BY BARRY JACKSON bjackson@MiamiHerald.com

 

Jorvorskie Lane would be driving the Ashley truck day after day, hauling furniture through monotonous stretches of Central Texas, and the thought could not escape him:
This is not what I want to do. I should be punishing people on a football field.
A year later and 47 pounds lighter, Lane has emerged as one of the Dolphins’ feel-good stories, an NFL dream finally fulfilled four years after leaving Texas A&M.
“For anybody who has made mistakes in life, look at my situation,” he said. “I made the mistake of being too heavy. If you want to do something in life, go do it. I feel blessed.”
Lane thought for months about making fundamental changes in his life, but finally committed to it in February, the weekend before his birthday, when his weight stood at 304 pounds.
He was discouraged because the St. Louis Rams called in January but never followed up.
“They said they would work me out but didn’t go through with it,” he said. “That kind of got me down…. I just put in my mind that this is what I want to do. I just started doing the right thing.”
That meant changing his lifestyle as much as his diet. That meant no more “hanging out and partying,” no more late-night snacks, no more sweets.
He committed to a program of fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit, tons of water and very few carbohydrates.
And he ran. And ran some more, with some MMA and boxing training sprinkled in.
“I ran all the time,” he said. “I was running four, five miles a day. If I didn’t run straight, I would break it up. It was crazy. Before I knew it, I was 270.”
FINALLY IN SHAPE
The timing was fortuitous, because Dolphins offensive coordinator Mike Sherman (Lane’s former coach at Texas A&M) called him in May to see if he was in shape. Lane told him he was.
“He said, ‘Are you ready? I’m going to get these guys to work you out. I know you can play,’ ” Lane said.
Sherman convinced general manager Jeff Ireland to give him a tryout, but Ireland agreed only on one condition: Lane said Ireland “told me if I come in at more than 268, we would not even go through with the workout. Fortunately, I was already 262.”
The Dolphins signed him after the workout and he subsequently beat out Jerome Messam and Ryan Mahafee for a roster spot.
“Mike said he was in excellent shape and when he had him, he was a talented player,” Philbin said. “When we brought him in, you could see the natural balance, movement skills, the ability to catch the football.”
Lane is at 257 pounds now, his lowest in several years. Toughest habit to give up?
“Eating late,” he said. “You had to change your social life. When you hang out with friends, the first thing you want to do when you get done is eat. I had to change all that.”
Lane ran for 780 yards (4.6 per carry) as a junior, but Sherman moved him to fullback in his senior year after Sherman replaced coach Dennis Franchione. Lane blocked primarily for Mike Goodson, now with the Oakland Raiders.
Lane finished with 49 touchdowns in 49 college games but allowed his weight to balloon to 295 pounds, went undrafted, then spent a year in the Indoor League.
To support his wife and three young children, Lane spent four months working for the furniture company, “moving stuff from peoples’ houses, driving to Waco” from College Station. But he said he quit last October – “I got tired of it” – with the hope that an NFL job would materialize.
‘BIG INFLUENCE’
He appreciates the guidance from his half-brother, Packers tight end Jermichael Finley, who “was a real big influence” and talks or texts with him twice a week.
Philbin tagged Lane with an amusing nickname, Butterball, but Lane has no objections: “He can call me anything he wants.”
Philbin said Lane has “steadily improved” but “still has a long way to go... If you were playing a pickup game, you’d probably pick him in the first or second round.”
Lane, ranked 11th among fullbacks this season by Pro Football Focus, said he appreciates Sherman lobbying for him. Sherman said early in training camp that he hoped Lane would make the team because he “needs a job.”
And now that he’s in the league, “I’m going to punish people,” he said. “I’m not going to outrun nobody. That’s what I’ve been doing since I’ve been playing football – punishing people.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/22/3014380/miami-dolphins-jorvorskie-lane.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/22/3014380/miami-dolphins-jorvorskie-lane.html#storylink=cpy