Dispatch from The Sports Desk: A trip to College Station

December rolls around, as it always does. Dreary and grey outside, rosey and warm inside. The sport of football fundamentally changes and the focus for yours truly shifts to the ice and college hardwood on the weeknights. Without further ado, some notes from the sports desk in recent weeks.

A Trip To The SEC

College Station Texas is a mix of a rollicking southern college town and upper middle class suburbia. When I envision Texas in my head, I think cattle ranches and oil rigs, that’s not this Texas.

This Texas is obsessed with one thing and one thing only. Football. Specifically Aggie football. In the most loving sense of the word, Texas A&M fandom is a cult. Partly of personality and partially spiritually. Every business in the small town has the name Aggie somewhere in it and on gameday Kyle Field and it’s surrounding lots of land become a party. Flooded with college coeds and alumn alike, people who get tied to the community so tightly through college that they just never leave.

There’s something a little bit haunting about that, but also something beautiful. Oh, I should mention, I descended into the cult at high noon of it’s most highly anticipated ritual, a matchup 13 years in the making against rival Texas.

In the eyes of the Aggies, to know Texas is to hate Texas. Hot, thick, sturdy, gnarled hate. Strong like Oak and deeply personal. Texas is the worst enemy of the common man. The true villain. Is Texas back? Will Texas win a title?

It is not fun to be little brother, and unfortunately, that’s the position A&M currently find themselves in. It’s also the position I find myself in. I’ve somehow stumbled into this cult of a football team that hasn’t done any serious winning in about well four to five decades. Classic, I know how to pick em.

To attend a game at Kyle Field is a somewhat religious experience. The Choir is the hundred thousand fans chanting Aggie hymns and swaying to “Saw varsity’s (The Texas Longhorn) horns off”, never really stops pumping noise in. I could only compare the noise to a Stanley Cup Conference Finals game, which remains the loudest environment I’ve been in.

Texas bullied this team though. Texas A&M is in year one of a rebuild, the timeline can be quick but this was not the year. A bed rock of 8-4 is a solid place to start though. Marcel Reed is a fun guy to watch.

I hope to return to college station, it’s a town based solely on the existence of a football program. That’s the kind of place for me.

On CFB

• Texas is not a CFB title contender. They have a path, but they’re a paper five seed, incapable of blowing out average teams and with a true problem at QB. Hard to view them as anything more than a dominant trench system, dear friend Bryan Brown would tell me that’s what wins a title, we’ll see.

Teams that can win the Title

• Oregon: Best coach, best lines, best QB. Winning combo.
• Georgia: If they can grind out wins with the run game and an elite defense anything is possible.
• Tennesee: QB Nico Iamaleava needs to stay hot but if he continues to play well this is a really great football team.
• Ohio State: Losing to Michigan might be the mental kill shot, but if they get back to being quite frankly the most talented roster in the country and the play calling gets more aggressive, they can create a truly awkward situation and win the whole thing, but still you can’t beat Michigan.

NFL

• I cannot get a read on the Rams, the pass rush is solid, the secondary is questionable. The biggest question though is the offense, when this team clicks it’s probably the best offense in the league hands down end of story. They haven’t put it together for more than a game or two this year yet though. If Stafford stays hot, this is a legitimately scary team that you do not want to play in the playoffs. The margin for error though, is now razor thin. The playoff run starts now.
• Chiefs black magic is boring. The thing that makes me hate the new Patriots is the fact that the offense is pretty much unwatchable at this point. That’s not changing. At least the Patriots offense was high flying, the Chiefs are far away from that. Off season emphasis needs to be put on tackles and getting actual threats at wide out for this team, I miss Rashee Rice.
• Broncos win this week and they’re in the playoffs. Pretty neat. Time for the next great Bo Nix test.

The Avs Jettison Fourgiev

Thank god. This thing came together at the perfect time. You ]could not wait through Christmas with a goaltending tandem that was giving up four plus goals a game, you just couldn’t. Scott Wedgewood looks like a solid backup. Mackenzie Blackwood, who knows, but he’s a 6’4 super athlete. He’s worth taking a shot on.

The guy had a 91 save percentage behind one of the worst defenses in the league, let’s see if he can improve behind one of the best. Chants of WOOOOOD should be echoing out of Ball Arena soon enough. Thank Christ that in this Christmas season the Avs acquired a goaltender. The last time they moved a Kovalenko for a goalie they got a guy named Roy, and only Christ’s father saved more than him.

NHL Top 10

1. Minnesota Wild
2. Vegas Golden Knights
3. Winnipeg Jets
4. Washington Capitals
5. Dallas Stars
6. New Jersey Devils
7. Florida Panthers
8. LA Kings
9. Carolina Hurricanes
10. Toronto Maple Leafs