M will throttle KU

Kansas University football fans are not pleased. Sure, the Jayhawks are struggling on the field, but that’s not why the faithful are peeved. They know this is a transition year under a first-year head coach.

KU fans are miffed because the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band won’t be here Saturday to perform at halftime of the Kansas-Texas A&M game.

The Aggie Band did its shtick at the KU-A&M game here in 1998, and if you’ve never seen them you’ve missed something because their precision marching will knock your socks off.

According to Tim Rhea, the Aggie Band director, they make one airplane journey per season and this year they went to Pittsburgh.

“It’s nothing against Kansas,” Rhea told me. “We try to go to places we’ve never been before and we’d never been to Pittsburgh. We want our band to be exposed to all parts of the country.”

Cost of the trip to Pitt, Rhea said, was $200,000.

“We wish we could go everywhere,” Rhea said, “but financially that’s impossible. To go everywhere would cost a half-million dollars.”

Disappointed Kansas fans will just have to settle for watching the A&M yell leaders. You can’t miss them. They’re dressed in white, sort of like bare-headed sailors. Don’t call them cheerleaders, either. They’re yell leaders.

A&M yell leaders conduct midnight yell practices before games. Following a home victory, yell leaders are carried across campus and tossed into the Fish Pond. Then what? They practice yells, of course. With the fight song containing such words as hullabaloo, caneck and chig-gar-roo-gar-rem, practice is mandatory.

Nowhere in the Aggie operating procedure does it say what is done with yell leaders after road victories. However, if you see them jumping into Potter Lake on Saturday evening, you’ll know why.

Yes, A&M should have little trouble defeating the Jayhawks. Think not? Then go to KUsports.com and enter the We Whacked Woodling contest. I promise I won’t go undefeated this week like I did last week.

Here are this week’s picks:

Oklahoma State 29, Nebraska 25 Â Cowboys disturb the peace of Nebraska quarterback Jammal Lord by knocking off Cornhuskers for first time since 1962. “Yank Frank” T-shirts resurface as Huskers stall in Stillwater, Okla.

Colorado 46, Baylor 0 Â Buffaloes on a roll now after roller-skating through Kansas last Saturday. Chris Brown goes over 300 yards rushing for second straight week. Having Baylor at home is tantamount to a bye.

Oklahoma 31, Iowa State 12 Â Sooners cooking with gas now after eating Texas for lunch last week and will now chow down on Seneca Wallace and Cyclones for dinner. Burp.

Texas 23, Kansas State 11 Â Texas QB Chris Simms quiets critics as Longhorns bounce back from loss to Oklahoma to extend their astonishing road win streak to 11 while ending K-State’s home win streak at eight.

Texas Tech 33, Missouri 19 Â Road-weary Red Raiders return home and sock it to Tigers. Texas Tech has played five of its first seven games away from Lubbock, Texas, including last three in a row. Mizzou winless in hostile settings (0-6) since spilling Kansas, 38-34, last October in Lawrence.

Texas A&M 44, Kansas 0 Â Aggies’ Wrecking Crew defense rocks against Big 12’s least effective offense while A&M’s fender-bender offense rolls against league’s worst defense.