It's College Football Eve!

Is anybody else out there anticipating having trouble sleeping tonight? ESPN just made the comparison between Christmas and the opening day of football season, and I have to say its a good one. When I was a kid I never could sleep well on Christmas Eve and I'll feel good if I manage five hours of shut-eye tonight.

On a semi-related note, the next four days promise to be just tremendous. Tomorrow will be superb for obvious reasons and Friday is First Yell featuring Wayne Brady (you are of course free to insert your own joke here). This morning I discovered that ESPN will be carrying the Michigan-Vanderbilt game so my Saturday will begin at 9:00 central with ESPN Gameday, followed by the Michigan game. This will give way to massive amounts of tailgating while watching some late afternoon games. The Aggies play at 6:00 central and I couldn't be more excited. Our seats are around the 20 yard line, somewhere in the second deck. I'll have plenty of pictures and thoughts to go with them posted for your perusal and enjoyment on Sunday. Speaking of Sunday, TCU plays Baylor, my fantasy football draft is at 4:00 and there are rumors of a quest to find Beerfest showing at a local theater. Clearly the only thing that could make the next four days better would be having the day off on Monday to recover.

Guess what? Monday is Labor Day, a federal holiday! Hooray! Whoop even! What's that you say? Texas A&M doesn't observe Labor Day? WHAT KIND OF A PINKO COMMIE OUTFIT ARE WE RUNNING HERE??? WE DON'T GET LABOR DAY OFF? Well, it was almost going to be a perfect weekend. Just out of curiosity, how many universities do take Labor Day off? I know that Michigan does, but it didn't occur to me until today, when an Aggie brought it up, but the state of Michigan is home to the UAW, so maybe we are unique in celebrating this particular holiday. If you would like to weigh in, please use the comment section liberally, I'm interested to know how the land lays out there.

I was going to post something along the lines of an Aggie season preview, but then I realized that I know next to nothing about this team, so that will have to wait until next year. Ryan at TAMABINPO did take the time to put together an excellent preview though, so please head over and check that out. I did join TexAgs.com and I've been trying to have meaningful discussions with long-time Aggies about what sort of shape the program is in, heading into this season. Based on these discussions and watching some highlights from a year ago, I put together this list of thoughts about the upcoming season:

-The Aggies have a pretty good offensive line and its getting almost no buzz nationally. I think that this is one of the five most underrated offensive lines in the country.

-The Running Backs are both deep and talented enough to get the job done. Courtney Lewis, if healthy, should be good for ~1200 yards and 10-12 TDs. Jorvorskie Lane reminds me A LOT of TJ Duckett.

-The combination of the O-Line and RBs should equal a running game that is somewhere between above average and pretty darn good.

-As much as everybody seems to love Stephen McGee, I think that he is the weakest link on the offense. He is a sophomore and will make mistakes. If A&M can put him in a position to play within himself and limit these mistakes, the offense will be very, very good.

-The defensive line needs to get pressure on the QB for the defense to succeed.

-The LBs are in danger of wearing down as the season progresses. Only playing two at a time will help, but the lack of depth here is worrying. Both OU and tu are going to be running teams, so hopefully something is left in the tank here come December.

-The defensive backs will be improved, but are still the weakest position group on the team. Jordan Peterson and Danny Gorrer both seem to have the speed to play on the corner, but as at QB, youth equals mistakes. How many mistakes lead to long TDs will determine whether this group is bad again or aspires to be average.

-I haven't followed a team closely before that has run the 4-2-5, so I'm interested to see how the WHIP position plays out. A&M seems at least average at the safeties and the WHIP. It will also be interesting see how much these three players play in pass support and how much they come in run support.

-This is a good opportunity for me to say Whoop!

Gig 'Em.