August 14, 2003
Texas A&M placekicker Todd Pegram was perfect in his field goal attempts highlighting the Aggies' scrimmage Thursday morning at Kyle Field, A&M coach Dennis Franchione said.
Pegram, a sophomore from Plano West High School, is the Aggies' returning starter at the position and last season became the just the second freshman to the lead the Aggies in scoring (68 points), joining former All-America placekicker Tony Franklin.
Pegram connected from 47, 40, 30, 29 and 27 yards, and was 4-for-4 in extra points during the closed workout. Franchione is predicting good things for his placekicker.
"Todd Pegram, I thought, had a great day," Franchione said. "I think he was perfect. I predicted Todd would have a good solid year for us and he's having a great August camp."
Last season, Pegram connected on 12-of-21 field goal attempts and 32-of-33 extra point attempts.
"When you come in as a freshman and go from kicking in front of 10,000 to kicking in front of 85,000, and you lose the black little tee to kicking off grass, it's a transition," Franchione said. "It's really a mental challenge as much as anything, too. I would think Todd went through some of that last year."
Franchione said that he sees a different Pegram now than the one he saw on tape last season.
"I see a much more mature, emotionally ready [player] for this season," Franchione said. "He's really hitting the ball well. You can tell. He's very consistent. We need to be able to get points when we get down there, and right now the way that Todd has played you would like to think we can."
The scrimmage served as the lone workout for the Aggies who will practice twice on Friday, and Franchione said the team got more plays in than was planned.
"We got a lot of live kicking done today," Franchione said. "We ended up going 77 plays which is a few more plays than I anticipated. The important thing from this is for the players to see [the tape] and correct their mistakes and come out tomorrow and get better from it. There will be a lot of good things in this because it is a first scrimmage and there are some rough things."
There has been a lot of anticipation building around Franchione's recent praises of the offensive line position. During the scrimmage, Franchione gave the second team the majority of the repetitions.
"We got to look at a lot guys though today," Franchione said. "We did not look at our first team offensive line today and that was the plan. We did look at our second team offensive line a lot today.
"I think we feel pretty confident with the direction of our first offensive line and we needed to find out more about the second group today than we did the first group."
The annual Picture and Poster Day presented by Cingular Wireless will take place on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Kyle Field. Fans may bring one item to be autographed and footballs must be personalized.
The gates on the west side of Kyle Field will be open at 5 p.m. Fans may gather in the west (Former Students) stands and will be permitted on the field by an announcement at approximately 6 p.m. The event will conclude at 7 p.m.
A&M is preparing for its first game which is against Arkansas State on Saturday, August 30, at 7 p.m. at Kyle Field.