Written by Matt | 30 October 2007

Not sure if I should be giving happy dap to Rock M Nation for bringing this up but this year’s Tiger team has eerie similarities to last years. The Tigers started 7-1 last year and lost our defensive leader in the 8th game on a freak non-contact injury to a team that we took behind the woodshed. If you remember, we then decided to screw the pooch and lost 3 of our last four, and the bowl game. Crap.

Last year, we were deeper at D-End when Brian Smith blew his hip up. Stryker Sulak and Xzavie Jackson stepped up and were ready to roll. Now with Pig Brown taking buckshot to the Achillies, we have underclassmen with less experience than Kip Dynomite in a cage fight. Justin Garrett, Del Howard, and William Moore have to get it done. And Pig’s leadership will be played by a couple of cast members; Lorenzo Williams (calling you from the Telephone Trophy to the right) and Sean Weatherspoon, this week’s Shakespeare’s Pizza Playa of the Week.

In aught-six, our offense was explosive, focusing on Martin Rucker, Brad Ekwerekwu, Tony Temple, and Tommy Saunders/Will Franklin. This year’s squad is even better; Rucker, Chase Coffman, Saunders, Franklin, Jeremy Maclin, DaNario Alexander, and the potpourri of running backs. The Tigers have more weapons than the Russians in WWII. That’s a hell of a cache as we’ve seen.

Our schedule last year was bad down the stretch. After a tough loss to Oklahoma, we got waxed by Nebraska in Lincoln, and the season was pretty much over after that. We even lost to Iowa effing State AFTER Dan McCarney got the pink slip. That edition of the Tigers had no clue how to play on the road. This year's squad knows the road better than a lot lizard, evident by the OU game. But also evident by the OU game was the fact that game was the only B12 game we’ve played on the road…and we lost. I’ll throw that one out the window because this squad, while young, is experienced and we played OU well enough to have a chance to win. We have two true road games left before the Kansas game. K-State and Colorado are similar squads; sketchier than when your 16 year old sister came home drunk on a school night. But both teams can beat you like the Sandman did Mac in Punchout.

Next week in Boulder is where we define our season; do we lay down and die like we did last year or do we pull a Nikki Sixx and come back from the dead…again?

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