“I’d rather play Auburn early, Florida late. Those are two really tough road games, they also have to go to South Carolina and Starkville.”
TexAgs executive editor Billy Liucci has been attentively listening to every word from Texas A&M football head coach Mike Elko thus far and he provided a forecast for success this season while speaking to Andy Staples of On3 at SEC media days in Dallas last week.
“I think A&M’s defense, if they get (to the College Football Playoff), it’s going to be quarterback (Conner Weigman) and defense. Mike Elko will downplay, but when he does believe in something, he says it. He doesn’t make a joke or check you, he’ll say it. When he came out in spring and made the comment that ‘I think this could be the best defense I’ve had at A&M,’ you listen to that. They led the league in run defense a couple years and were top 10 at least one year. When he says that, I’m like ‘OK.'” Luicci said. “I’d rather play Auburn early, Florida late and flip flop those. Those are two really tough road games for A&M. They also have to go to South Carolina and to Starkville.”
The Aggies host Notre Dame at Kyle Field on Aug. 31 to begin the season.
Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Shaun_Holkko.
Sleeping GIANT in College Station? Why Texas A&M, Mike Elko can SHOCK College Football in 2024@BillyLiucci of @TexAgs joins @Andy_Staples to discuss all things going on in College Station surrounding Mike Elko’s program pic.twitter.com/oU81dAUsrd
Will the Irish remain a top dog in college football?
There’s no question Notre Dame is one of the biggest brands in college football. But how much longer can it retain that status? It’s a question worth asking as its last national championship gets further and further away.
However, in explaining his reason for picking the Irish, Staples did so with some caution mixed in:
“The Fighting Irish dominated the sport for generations, but they haven’t won a national title since 1988. So why are they still on this list? Because Brian Kelly made them nationally competitive again by taking them to a BCS national title game and two CFP appearances. In the era of the 12-team College Football Playoff, though, Notre Dame is going to have to actually win some of these high-stakes postseason games to stay on the list.”
So the Irish’s future as a blue blood rests in the hands of [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and his staff with the support of [autotag]Pete Bevacqua[/autotag]. The fan base won’t be happy if he can’t sustain that tradition of excellence, and that also could mean a blow to the program’s reputation. Hopefully, he won’t let that happen.
Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.
If you ask a Michigan fan, they’ll say the team down south.
However, if you ask them about each other, most things that will be said aren’t going to be very complimentary. Heck, the two dislike each other so much that they’ve both gone extended time refusing to schedule the other.
The two longtime rivals aren’t set to play each other again until a home-and-home together in 2033 and 2034.
Andy Staples of On3 put together his 12-team College Football Playoff projection on Tuesday, and what do you know, he has Notre Dame earning the ninth seed and traveling to take on No. 8 Michigan in the first round.
Perhaps even better is he gave Ohio State the No. 1 seed, which means the Notre Dame-Michigan winner would take on the Buckeyes.
And with that alone you can see why the intrigue for this expanded College Football Playoff is so great, even if it continues to decimate many of the game’s traditions.
Andy Staples of On3 thinks the Sooners will be a “wild card” in Year 3 under Brent Venables. Could they make the expanded playoff?
The Oklahoma Sooners are at an interesting inflection point two and a half months from the beginning of the 2024 college football season.
The Sooners are entering year three of the [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] era in Norman. After he was hired to be OU’s next head coach in December of 2021, a disappointing 6-7 campaign in 2022 followed.
Oklahoma rebounded in 2023 with a 10-3 mark in year two, and there’s no question that this is a Brent Venables program now. He’s got his guys in place on the field and on the coaching staff.
But the Sooners head to the [autotag]Southeastern Conference[/autotag] in 2024, after a long run atop the [autotag]Big 12 Conference[/autotag] that featured fourteen conference titles. That’s ten more than anyone else.
The SEC will be a much tougher road than the Big 12 was, and On3’s Andy Staples has some concerns for the Sooners in 2024, calling them a mystery.
According to Staples, the floor for this Oklahoma team could be 6-6. However, he also thinks the ceiling could be a trip to the [autotag]College Football Playoff[/autotag].
“If they’re 6-6, if they’re 7-5,” Staples said, “What do you do about Brent Venables? How do you feel about Brent Venables if you’re [autotag]Joe Castiglione[/autotag], their athletic director?”
Staples and others present the offensive line as a concern for the team in 2024. Oklahoma is replacing the entire unit this season. [autotag]Tyler Guyton[/autotag] was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the [autotag]NFL Draft[/autotag] and [autotag]Cayden Green[/autotag] transferred to Missouri. The Sooners also lost [autotag]Walter Rouse[/autotag], [autotag]Andrew Raym[/autotag] and [autotag]McKade Mettauer[/autotag] up front.
Staples notes that the Sooners added pieces via the [autotag]transfer portal[/autotag] to fill those holes. [autotag]Spencer Brown[/autotag] came over from Michigan State in the winter portal window. [autotag]Branson Hickman[/autotag] is a plug and play piece at center, transferring in during the spring window from SMU. [autotag]Michael Tarquin[/autotag], [autotag]Febechi Nwaiwu[/autotag] and [autotag]Geriean Hatchett[/autotag] also arrived via the portal and will have an impact along the offensive line this fall.
These players will form the core of the unit along with young pieces like [autotag]Joshua Bates[/autotag], [autotag]Jacob Sexton[/autotag],[autotag]Troy Everett[/autotag] and [autotag]Jake Taylor[/autotag], but it is a patchwork O-line that will have to protect quarterback [autotag]Jackson Arnold[/autotag] if the Sooners want to be successful in 2024.
Staples thinks the Sooners are the deepest they’ve been in a while on defense, and he knows why the OU staff and fans are excited for Arnold. He praised the wide receiver group as well.
Many in the national media don’t seem to have the faith in Venables quite yet that most Sooner fans do. They site the SEC presenting a challenge that Oklahoma hasn’t seen before.
But Venables is one of the great defensive minds in college football. He’s leading the way for the program, in addition to all of the skill and depth on that side of the ball. Then, of course, there’s that talented but young quarterback stepping into the starting role.
The Sooners may very well be a wildcard in year one in their new conference. But if the offensive line can hold up long enough for Arnold to have time to throw, it could be a very fun year in Norman.
If not, it could be detrimental to Arnold’s development, and 2024 could be a long season in the SEC.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.You can also follow Aaron on X @AaronGelvin.
In an interview with K State online’s Derek Young, new Aggies OC Collin Klein looks like the perfect fit heading into the 2024 season.
Whenever a new assistant coach is hired during a transition, understanding how their coaching style will impact a program is vital to projecting future success.
As a new era of Texas A&M Football under head coach Mike Elko is less than a month underway, the former Aggies defensive coordinator has already made multiple hires, starting with defensive line coach Season Spencer, new O-line coach Adam Cushing, and new cornerbacks coach Ishmael Aristide.
However, after Wednesday’s announcement that Elko has officially brought in former Kansas State offensive coordinator Collin Klein to take over as the program’s new OC, questions regarding what he’ll bring to an Aggie offense in need of a boost. Needing an insider’s perspective, On3’s Andy Staples sat down with Kansas State’s Online’s Derek Young to gain perspective on Klein’s fit under Elko’s guidance.
While his scheme will likely receive multiple tweaks based on A&M’s 2024 depth at the skill positions, Bobby Petrino, who served as the Aggies OC during the 2023 season, was never fully authorized to take over the offense to his liking completely, leading to the 7th-ranked scoring unit in the SEC. Behind Klein’s playcalling, the Wildcats, with less talent than A&M, finished 23rd in total offense and second in the high-scoring Big 12.
“We’ll put it this way. His first year as a play-caller, offensive coordinator at Kansas State, they won the Big 12 Championship and he had a top-two or top-three [rushing] offense in the Big 12,” Young stated. “The second year, everyone has questions what he can do without Deuce Vaughn, even without Adrian Martinez to an extent — even though Will Howard took over the job — without Malik Knowles at wide receiver. And all he did was No. 1 in the Big 12 in points per drive and yardage rate.
“So only two years of a sample size, but it’s about the best two years you can ask of a Power Five offensive coordinator.”
As reported earlier this week, Klein had recently been contacted by both Penn State and Notre Dame for their OC positions, as Young further noted that Klein’s “Star is rising” after serving as the Wildcats full-time offensive coordinator for just two seasons. Klein, who played for Kansas State (2008-2012) under legendary head coach Bill Snyder, was a Heisman finalist during his senior campaign, losing to Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel.
After foregoing several professional playing opportunities, Klein’s coaching career began as a graduate assistant with K State from 2014-15, then spent a year at Northern Iowa as the quarterbacks coach in 2016.
Returning to the program that made him a household name, Klein served as the Wildcats Quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator before taking over full-time in 2022-2023.
Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes, and opinions. Follow Cameron on Twitter: @CameronOhnysty.
Built in 1948, it’s ready for a renovation led by Andy Staples.
MESA, Ariz. — A U.S. Open champ, two prominent PGA Tour stars and an NFL Hall of Famer call it home. Now Mesa Country Club, a true gem in the greater Phoenix area, is getting ready for a major renovation.
Located in an older part of the third largest city in Arizona, the club sits across the street from a cemetery and just blocks away from Hohokam Park, home to the Oakland A’s spring training.
What makes the place, though, is topography that features sometimes astounding elevation changes for a course that’s almost smack dab in the middle of the generally flat greater Phoenix area.
“Built in 1948 by William P. Bell, the Golden Age architect,” said Andy Staples of Staples Golf Design, the Scottsale-based firm hired for the renovation. “We think it was one of the first courses William P. Bell and his son William F. Bell designed together.”
What’s also attractive to many of its members is its location. The Loop 202 is just a mile to the north. Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport is less than 15 minutes to the west. Scottsdale residents – including honorary members and PGA Tour stars Max Homa and Joel Dahmen – are about 35 minutes away.
Other members include PGA Tour Champions golfers Steve Jones, who won the 1996 U.S. Open, and Michael Allen. Don’t forget 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and former Chicago Bears great Brian Urlacher.
“I first played here in 1982. Just old school. Love it,” Jones said. “You don’t get tired of this course. Small greens. You gotta have your irons under control. It’s a challenge. And the membership is just the frosting on the cake.”
A flag, golf ball and signed scorecard commemorate Joel Dahmen’s course-record 58 at Mesa Country Club in Arizona. (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
The laid-back Mesa Country Club isn’t trying to keep its membership rolls a secret, nor does it have someone stationed at the front desk reminding everyone to take off their hats indoors. It is a private club with a relaxed atmosphere, none of the stuffy pretenses found elsewhere.
“Mesa Country Club is a special spot in the Valley, which has a lot of high-end private courses, but it’s a great country club but also has great people and has a blue-collar attitude,” Dahmen said. “You can show up in jeans, you can show up in a T-shirt. It’s just a really special spot for me. It’s like how I grew up playing golf. It’s a little more laid back, not as many rules.”
Old-school golf in the desert
As for the layout, it’s unlike most of the desert golf common in the Phoenix metropolitan area. That’s partly due to the age of the venue.
“We’re not really thought of as being an historic state for great old classic golf courses, which is one of the reasons I was hired because I have those tendencies,” Staples said.
MCC has a lot in common with Phoenix Country Club (host of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on the PGA Tour Champions) and Arizona Country Club, also in Phoenix. All three layouts are old-school, parkland-style designs with rolling hills, huge trees and lots of grass.
Mesa Country Club has too much grass, in fact, and a reduction is a major part of the renovation. Staples said his redesign will take it from about 125 acres of sod to about 100. As you play the course, you can easily spot several areas where there will be no grass in the future – these are areas that don’t need it, as they are for the most part out of play.
Mesa Country Club
The course was built on a mesa, with several steep climbs most noticeable on:
The par-5 fifth hole, with a dramatic downhill fairway that if managed properly could lead to getting home in two.
The par-3 seventh, which has a canal rushing next to the tee box before meandering across the front of the green.
The 10th hole, a par 4 on which the back tees are on a deck right off the clubhouse, requiring a tee shot over the road that leads cars to the parking lot.
The par-3 16th, with an elevated tee box aimed at a small green that becomes narrow if there’s a back pin in play.
The par-5 18th, which will see most golfers hitting a third shot up a steep hill to a green situated just off the clubhouse deck.
Mesa Country Club in Mesa, Arizona (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
There’s a canal that slithers about the property, crossing several fairways and forcing some golfers to rethink their second shots on a couple of the par 5s. It comes into play on five holes. There also are a couple of lakes along the ninth hole, which features the trickiest green on the course.
The course was long overdue for a renovation, with the irrigation system in greatest need of an upgrade. Staples is big on conservation and responsible water consumption, calling it a “core value of sustainable golf design.”
He’s not just looking to renovate for next season but for decades down the road.
“What I try to do in all my golf courses is do it in such a manner that is looking 20, 30, 40 years down the line. Water efficiency, labor efficiency, those costs are only going up. So water is a huge aspect.”
A major re-do of all the greenside bunkers is planned. There won’t be any new bunkers, but the existing ones will be reshaped with added depth as needed and new sand added to all of them. Fairway bunkers, meanwhile, will be left as is, as there aren’t infinite resources available. The fairway bunkers will be reworked at a later date.
A rendering of the new seventh green at Mesa Country Club in Arizona
The greens, meanwhile, suffered from the common problem of shrinkage. They’ll be restored to their original sizes and brought up to modern standards.
Brian Reed, Mesa Country Club’s vice president of the board, confirmed the course will close on Feb. 18, 2024, with a goal to reopen on Nov. 1. He said the club is committing $10 million to the project.
Staples, who likes to tell a self-deprecating joke that he’s not the son of a famous golf course architect nor does he have a major championship or two on his playing resume, does have an impressive list of renovations and new builds in his portfolio. Most notable among his renovation work is Olympia Fields Country Club in Illinois. Of the seven courses he built, Sand Hollow Resort’s Links Course in Hurricane, Utah, and the Match Course at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, stand out.
As far as the future of Mesa Country Club, Staples says it’s probably not too far down the road before the golf club invests in TifTuf, a strain of Bermuda grass that can thrive year-round around Phoenix, even in the brutal summer heat. That will render the days of overseeding with rye grass for the winter a thing of the past, giving three weeks of playing time back to the membership.
The key to this renovation, though, is keeping the course grounded in its historical style, Staples said.
“I’d like to think that my tilt towards classic architecture tipped it in my favor.”
Maason Smith will miss Week 1 as punishment for receiving improper benefits at an autograph signing in July 2021.
The NCAA’s decision to suspend star LSU defensive tackle [autotag]Maason Smith[/autotag]` for the season-opener against Florida State on Sunday has resulted in wide media backlash, not just from LSU media but from the national contingent, as well.
On3’s Andy Staples voiced his frustration with recent NCAA decisions to refuse eligibility waivers for players like Colorado’s Tyler Brown, North Carolina’s Tez Walker and Florida State’s Darrell Jackson.
“(Brown) enrolled at Colorado in December,” Staples said, per On3. “That was before the NCAA did change this rule. And yes, they said the rule change was coming. But if we all remember — the NCAA also said NIL was going to be allowed on July 1, 2021. So, when Maason Smith, the LSU defensive tackle, participated in an autograph signing about a month before that — well, he probably shouldn’t have been punished using that logic.
“Oh, wait. He’s missing the Florida State game because of doing something that is completely within the rules now. This is why everyone hates the NCAA.”
SEC Network host Paul Finebaum also took issue with the suspension.
“When I started thinking about it a month before NIL, just show some compassion,” he said. “Having seen Charlie Baker speak earlier this year in Washington DC and listening to him blame everything on the NCAA while he was the NCAA president, I walked out of there going, ‘This guy is a change agent. He’s going to do things differently.’ Two months later, I haven’t seen one thing different from the NCAA other than a bunch of hot air.
“I know it may be against the NCAA rules, but they went against their own rules at Penn State. This is where I’d like to see some leadership from Charlie Baker or someone up there saying, ‘You know what? Let’s mitigate this problem. We have a situation going on at North Carolina. We have the situation here. Let’s try to help the player.’
“Instead, they continue to make it more difficult. We’re not talking about some crazy scheme here to funnel millions of dollars. We’re talking about a 30-day window where if somebody had done it, it would’ve been legal.”
Regardless of the backlash, Smith will have to wait until Week 2’s home opener against Grambling to return from the torn ACL he suffered in last year’s season opener.
Contact/Follow us @LSUTigersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Louisiana State news, notes, and opinions.
Follow Tyler to continue the conversation on Twitter: @TylerNettuno
2018 LSU Vs. Texas A&M game featured in The Athletic’s “20 most influential games of the 2000s”
In an article written for The Athletic, writer Andy Staples authored a piece listing the 20 most influential games of the 2000s, which of course included the November 24th, 2018 LSU Vs. Texas A&M game, as the Aggies defeated the LSU Tigers 74-72 in a record 7 overtimes in a packed Kyle Field, landing at No.18 on the list. Just by looking at the title of this article, Aggies everywhere remember where they were, how they felt, and probably what they were wearing during that game while jumping out of their seat nearly every play during the exhilarating seven overtime stretch.
I myself remember the night vividly, sick with a terrible head cold while thinking to myself “well, we’ll get a shot at em’ next year..” with two minutes left on the clock in the 4th quarter after a Foster Moreau 14-yard touchdown reception from Joe Burrow put LSU up 31-24, looking to seal the deal for Burrow and company. Before getting to this point, the game was hard-fought, with both teams trading touchdowns every quarter, with quarterback Kellen Mond and running back Trayveon Williams leading the way offensively for the Aggies, while future Heisman winner and national champion quarterback Joe Burrow led the charge for the Tigers.
Here is how Andy Staples eloquently detailed the final moments of the game:
LSU coach Ed Orgeron got a Powerade bath with 29 seconds remaining in regulation when the Tigers thought they had intercepted Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond to seal a win.
Unfortunately for LSU, Mond’s knee was ruled down. Texas A&M scored on the final play of regulation to force overtime. And then the game just kept going.
Ninety minutes, seven overtimes and one near-brawl later, the Aggies won 74-72. If it hadn’t been the regular-season finale for the exhausted teams, they each would have been blown out the following week.
This game forced the NCAA to re-examine how college football breaks ties. The results have been underwhelming. Now, teams must attempt two-point conversions after touchdowns in the second overtime. If the game reaches a third overtime, teams run alternating two-point conversion plays instead of offensive possessions. Essentially, this is college football’s version of penalty kicks.
We saw it last year when Illinois beat Penn State in nine overtimes that were at once compelling and wholly unsatisfying.
As explained above, as exciting as the game was for the program, and Texas A&M Aggies everywhere, the game went on much longer than the NCAA preferred, and essentially changed the rules for overtime, and so far, teams may want to completely avoid the extra period in what they see as an unfair advantage in most cases.
Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes, and opinions. Follow Cameron on Twitter: @CameronOhnysty
Yet another reminder of how many viewers the Irish can bring in.
Everyone knows how much weight Notre Dame carries when it comes to TV ratings. To that end, a piece by Andy Staples of The Athletic, which is available only to subscribers, indicates just how often the Irish brought in big ratings during the latter half of the previous decade. Research compiled by Sports Media Watch indicates that 17 Irish games from 2015 to 2019 were members of the Four Million Club, meaning they scored at least 4 million TV viewers. Here’s where they rank compared to other programs:
If you want TV networks to pay premium prices for your games, you need games that crack the Four Million Club.
From 2015-19, 55 SEC-on-SEC games did it. 49 Big Ten-on-Big Ten games did it.
Staples dives a little further into the numbers and indicates that four of the Notre Dame games involved Pac-12 schools (two apiece against USC and Stanford). That means almost as many Irish games involving two of their annual rivals were in the Four Million Club as pure Pac-12 games. It demonstrates how much that conference would benefit from its potential alliance with the ACC and Big Ten.
The story also shows that the Irish’s 2016 season opener at Texas on ABC drew the most viewers during the aforementioned period at nearly 10.95 million. The game was a heartbreaking 50-47 double-overtime loss for the Irish. It served as a bad omen as they eventually finished 4-8, one of the worst records in program history. Fortunately, it proved to be an aberration as they have won at least 10 games every season since.
Would Penn State be worthy of being invited to a college football Super League? Absolutely, says one college football writer.
Remember in the good old days of college football conference realignment? The talk of potential super conferences with 16 members in the Big Ten and SEC, ripping apart the Big 12 and leaving the scraps for the Pac-10 (at the time)? Those were fun times, for some of us at least. Well, the fun hypothetical talk about super conferences has been awakened from its slumber, thanks to developments in the world of soccer.
For those who are unaware of what we’re referring to, here’s a quick rundown. In brief, 12 of the top soccer clubs in Europe have agreed to form their own super league as a replacement for the existing Champions League. Some of the clubs involved in the super league being formed include Real Madris, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Barcelona. You can read more about the basic info of this super league on For The Win.
Basically, this would be like Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Notre Dame starting up their own conference with a few chosen others. So, naturally, as we are having fun with this discussion, the question becomes where Penn State would fit into the mix. Would Penn State be considered worthy of inclusion in a super league?
According to Andy Staples of The Athletic, absolutely. The Nittany Lions would be worthy of being invited to partake in a college football super league. Penn State was named in Staples’ list of 15 programs he would include in a super college football conference.
You can read Staples’ full list here, but it does include a few other Big Ten programs. You won’t struggle to figure out which of those schools are there. Ohio State and Michigan are automatics. But a fourth Big Ten member is also included with Nebraska making the cut. Tradition and history apparently must count for something, right?
