It’s not been a pleasant week in Aggieland.
As noted in Monday’s weekly local football report, Aggie head coach Dennis Franchione made several dubious decisions late in last Saturday night’s 17-16 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners. In particular, Aggies everywhere are wondering why Coach Fran decided to have Aggie QB Stephen McGee — who was passing poorly in the game anyway — throw a pass on 3rd and goal at the Sooners 2 yard line late in the game down 17-10 rather than simply hand the ball to the Aggies 275 lbs RB, Javorskie Lane on 3rd down and even 4th down, if necessary. After McGee was forced to throw the ball away under heavy pressure on the 3rd down play, Coach Fran settled for one of the most unpopular field goals in the history of Aggieland on 4th down.
Well, all of that went over about like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl in Aggieland and reopened the lingering doubts that many Aggie fans have about Coach Fran from last year’s disastrous season (see here and here). It was in that volatile environment that Coach Fran faced media questions on Tuesday about his decision, and this is what he had to say:

“Hindsight is always easy, and you certainly rethink everything that you do in situations. We wouldn’t have called the play on third down that we called if we didn’t think it was going to work.”
“Well, a lot of those [short yardage plays in which Lane has been successful] are not on the 2-yard line where defenses are bunched down as close as they are. A lot of them are in the field in a little bit different situations.”

Apparently, Coach Fran was unaware of the fact that Lane had previously carried the ball on 3rd & 4th downs this season 27 times, resulting in 18 first downs and 6 TD’s. In other words, an 89% success rate. Moreover, Lane has not been stopped short of a 1st down on 3rd or 4th down in the Ags’ last seven games, including all six of the Aggies’ Big 12 conference games. On 16 of his 18 successful 1st down conversions, Lane has run for more yardage than needed to make the 1st down.
In light of these facts, the rabid Aggie fans — who were not pleased with the call to begin with — are livid now.
With tough games looming at home against Nebraska and at Austin against Texas, the Aggies are squarely facing a potential three game losing streak to close the regular season and a minor bowl game, which will not sit well with most of the Aggie fan base. Win one of the next two games and the Ags will finish 9-3 and probably head to San Diego’s Holiday Bowl, which most Aggies would consider a reasonably successful season given last year’s disastrous season. Win both games and the Ags would finish 10-2 and head to the Cotton Bowl, which no one could complain about. Regardless of whether the Aggies win either of their next two games, my sense is that Coach Fran is safe for at least one more season. However, if the Aggies get blown out in both of those games — not likely for a team that is only five points away from being undefeated — then all bets are off.

Giants 14 Texans 10

In a game that set offense back to the days prior to development of the T formation, the Giants (6-2) hung on to beat the Texans (2-6) as neither team could muster 300 yards total offense. About the only good thing about Texans QB David Carr’s 5.7 yds per pass was that it was better than Giants QB Eli Manning’s 5.6 yds per pass. The Texans actually had a shot at winning the game late in the 4th quarter when FB Jameel Cook coughed up a fumble after catching a short pass at the Giants’ 35 yard line. That was the Texans’ only turnover in the game, but the margin of error is pretty thin when the offense can only muster 250 total offense. The Texans travel to Jacksonville next Sunday for what could be an ugly revenge game with the Jaguars (5-3) before returning home for a winnable game the following Sunday against the Bills (3-5).

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When your team is getting hammered 44-0, it must feel good to lay the wood in the way that Minnesota’s Dominic Jones did to Ohio State’s Ray Small last Saturday (see video below). It’s the hit of the year.

Texans QB David Carr gets the NY Times treatment this week as the local team prepares to be hammered by the Giants this Sunday in the Meadowlands. Former Dallas Cowboy personnel director Gil Brandt, who knows a thing or two about evaluating football players, is quoted as making the following observation about Carr:

ìI think maybe sometimes a guy doesnít have the tenacity or is too nice a guy to really play to his capabilities,î Brandt said in a telephone interview. ìHeís an enigma to me.î

That is football-speak for questioning whether Carr has the heart and leadership ability to be an above-average quarterback in the NFL. Based on what I saw last Sunday, Brandt is spot on in his observation about Carr. With each passing week, it is becoming clearer than Carr is not going to be as good an NFL quarterback as contemporaries such as the Saints’ Drew Brees or the Bengals’ Carson Palmer. Indeed, Carr is at a point where he must answer the question of whether he is a better QB than Sage Rosenfels.
Carr’s defenders point to his salty NFL quarterback rating, which was 4th in the league going into last week’s debacle against the Titans. However, the NFL’s QB rating is about as misleading as batting average in baseball in terms of evaluating a player’s true effectiveness. QB Score per play — a far more accurate statistic for evaluating QB play developed by the folks over at the Wages of Wins blog — reflects that Carr is nowhere near the top level of NFL QB’s. When rushing, sacks, and fumbles are considered along with passing stats, then Carr was ranked only as the 19th best QB in the NFL going into the Titans game. Based on his disastrous game against the Titans last Sunday, Carr was ranked dead last in the NFL for the week in QB Score per play.
Just to underscore the misleading nature of the NFL’s QB rating, after Carrís horrific Week Eight effort, he barely dropped in the NFL QB rating — from 4th to 6th. In comparison, QB Score per play ranks him 23rd among NFL signal-callers, which appears to be much closer to where Texans head coach Gary Kubiak is rating Carr.
I don’t think that level of performance is what Bob McNair had in mind when he selected Carr as the Texans’ first draft choice in 2002.

In this NY Sunday Times article, Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame profiles Dallas Cowboy Head Coach MisÈrables, Bill Parcells:

Right now he is living alone in what amounts to a hotel room in Irving, Tex., whose sole virtue is that it is a 10-minute drive to both the Cowboysí practice facility and Texas Stadium. Itís just him and whatever it is that keeps him in the game. For the longest time he pretended that he didnít need it. He walked out of two jobs without having another in hand, and he has played hard-to-get with N.F.L. owners more times than any coach in N.F.L. history. After he quit the Jets, in 1999, he said at a press conference: ìIíve coached my last football game. You can write that on your little chalkboard. This is it. Itís over.î Now, even as his job appears to be making him sick, he has abandoned the pose. ìAs you get older,î he says, pointing to a screen, where the play is frozen, ìyour needs diminish. They donít increase. They diminish. I need less money. I need less sex. But this ó this doesnít change.î
What this is, he canít ó or wonít ó specify. But when your life has been defined by the pressure of competition and your response to it, thereís a feeling you get, and itís hard to shake. You wake up each morning knowing the next game is all that matters. If you fail in it, nothing youíve done with your life counts. By your very nature you always have to start all over again, fresh. Itís an uncomfortable feeling, but itís nonetheless addictive. Even if you have millions in the bank and everyone around you tells you that youíre a success, you seek out that uncomfortable place. And if you donít, youíre on the wrong side of the thin curtain that separates Cyclone Hart from Vito Antuofermo. ìItís a cloistered, narrow existence that Iím not proud of,î says Parcells. ìI donít know whatís going on in the world. And I donít have time to find out. All I think about is football and winning. But hey ó î He sweeps his hand over his desk and points to the office that scarcely registers his presence. ìWhoís got it better than me?î

I’m convinced that a part of the fascination with Parcells is similar to the enchantment that some folks have in going to auto races in anticipation of a spectacular wreck — they just want to be there when he finally blows his stack. Based on Lewis’ article, it probably won’t be too much longer until Parcells does.

Titans 28 Texans 22

The Texans (2-5) returned to earth with a thud after last week’s unlikely victory over the Jaguars as Titans and former Longhorn hero Vince Young threw and rushed for a TD in a game that the Texans could have easily won if QB David Carr had shown up to play. In a curious relapse to his play for most of the past four seasons, Carr reverted to his deer-in-the-headlights look as he coughed up a couple of fumbles (one for a Titans’ TD) and an easy interception, so Coach Kubiak replaced him early in the 2nd half after the second of his fumbles. Carr’s performance on the field was bad, but my sense is that his demeanor on the sideline is even more telling regarding whether the Texans should continue hitching their wagon to him as the franchise QB.

Carr essentially looked aloof and somewhat clueless on the sideline after each incident of his poor performance. There is certainly nothing wrong with not getting overly down on oneself for making demoralizing mistakes that hurt your team and Carr certainly said all the right things after the game. But appearing not to give a damn about those mistakes during the game on the sidelines — or worse, acting as if the mistakes were not primarily his fault — is a good way to lose your teammates’ respect fast. In arguably the most important development of this game, the Texans seemed to respond to backup QB Sage Rosenfels much better than Carr, which — as John Lopez notes — is an ominous sign for Carr’s future in Houston. The Texans really needed to win this game because they don’t have much of a chance in their next two, at the Giants and at the Jaguars. Look for the Texans to be 2-7 when they have their next realistic chance for a win in Week 11 at home against the Bills.

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Texans 27 Jaguars 7

Where on earth did that come from?

In a game in which no one gave them much of a chance of staying close, much less winning, the Texans (2-4) played the Jaguars to a standstill for the better part of three quarters and then put them away with by capitalizing on a couple of 2nd half fumbles. Rookie RB Wali Lundy gave the Texans their first presence this season in the running game with 93 yards on 19 carries and QB David Carr was efficient in the passing game while throwing TD passes (to WR Andre Johnson and rookie TE Owen Daniels) with no interceptions. With a winnable game next week at 1-5 Tennessee, the Texans could be 3-4, the first time that they have sniffed the .500 mark since the final game of the 2004 season.

The Jaguars came into this game off of a bye week after creaming the Jets 41-0. They were looking at the Texans game as being a nice scrimmage before next week’s showdown with the Eagles. It didn’t turn out that way. Coaching an NFL football team must be a very trying experience.

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By now, you have probably seen Arizona Cardinals’ head coach Denny Green’s meltdown after his team blew a 20 point lead to the Bears over the final 17 minutes of the Monday Night game earlier this week. Even Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy was impressed. “That was one of the best ones I’ve ever seen,” Van Gundy told the Houston Chronicle. “I loved that. It was great. I could feel his passion. I could feel the sting, too.”
Although Green’s tirade was entertaining, it really wasn’t one of the best coach rants of all-time. For example, Green’s performance is rank amateurism in comparison to the following:

The King of Tirades, former Indiana University and current Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight, has a classic halftime speech here as well this collection of ten of his best tirades. And don’t miss this hilarious commercial that Coach Knight did for Minute Maid.
Not exactly a tirade, but no collection of coaching meltdowns is complete without former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes going nuclear on a Clemson linebacker at the end of his final game as Ohio State’s head coach.
Former Colts coach Jim Mora’s famous tirade after his team lost a game by turning the ball over five times — “Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. You kiddin’ me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game.”
This video includes a nice collection of tirades by former Raiders coach and current Nebraska coach Bill Callahan, former Jets coach Herm Edwards and former Saints coach Mike Ditka, among others.
Finally, one of the best ever, former Cubs manager Lee Elia’s tirade in 1983 over his club’s 5-14 start that season. Incredibly, Elia lasted several more months that season before being fired.