The Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of the college football season and HCT’s weekly local football reviews, so here’s the first edition of the 2007 season:
Oregon 48 Houston 27
Well, you have to hand to the Coogs, they certainly don’t schedule only creampuffs for non-conference games and they keep things entertaining. After spotting Oregon a 14-0 first quarter lead, the Cougars closed to within 34-27 with 1:50 left in the third quarter. But then on the next play, the Ducks exploited a chronic weakness of the Cougars during the Art Briles era — a porous defense — for an 80 yard TD run for a 41-27 lead that took the wind out of Houston’s sails. The Cougars actually outgained the Ducks (538 yds to 468 yds), but Houston’s five turnovers (two interceptions, two fumbles and blocked punt, three of which were inside the Oregon 20) more than made up for that offensive output. Despite the continuing defensive struggles, the Cougars appear to have found a good QB in redshirt freshman Casey Keenum and will have two weeks to regroup before taking on Tulane in New Orleans on September 15.
Texas Longhorns 21 Arkansas State 13
H’mm. Texas fans are rightfully concerned after watching the Horns fumble and stumble against Arkansas State. The Indians outpassed the Longhorns (272 to 223), outrushed them (125 to 117), tallied more first downs (26 to 23), punted fewer times (3 to 4), threw fewer interceptions (1 to 2), had a stronger kickoff return game (94 return yards to 73), and held the ball longer in time of possession (30:12 to 29:49). The Longhorns have been tabbed as 10 point favorites in their game against mid-major power TCU (1-0) next Saturday in Austin, but expect that line to move down a bit as the game approaches. Absent a substantially better effort against the Horned Frogs, the Horns could well lose that game.
Texas Aggies 38 Montana State 7
After spotting Montana State an early 7-0 lead, the Ags methodically hammered out the victory using their somewhat boring but effective strategy of emphasizing the rushing attack, throwing short passes and restricting turnovers. However, even the most optimistic Ags have to be concerned about an Ag defense that gave up over 400 yards to a Division I-AA team that replaced its head coach just three months ago and an offense that still does not appear to be able to execute a pass play of over 7 yards or so. The Aggies get a stiffer test at home next week against Fresno State (1-0), who enter the week as 17 point underdogs.
Coming off the Todd Graham affair, this is not how the Owls wanted to kick off the David Bailiff era. The Rice Football Webletter commented as follows in this article entitled “Could It Get Any Worse Than This?”:
Perhaps the worst strategic decision made on the turf of Rice Stadium Saturday night came not from the Owl quarterback, not from the head coach ñ though both sources stunned the crowd of 11,800 with the length and breadth of their miscreancy during the course of this excruciating, five and one-half hour game.
Nope, the worst decision came from the tongue of Rice Athletic Director Chris del Conte, who, given the election of sending the teams home and playing the game over later in the season after the second of two, hour-long, lightning-induced weather delays ñ or electing to wait it out and get the game in ñ chose to stand fast and play ball.
The Rice Owls responded by imploding their own building here Saturday night as a, shall we say, less-than-imaginative offense yielded up five key turnovers en route to a 16-14 loss to an aroused, strutting and confident Nicholls State team.
The fancy banners which newly-adorn the stately, former-72,000-seat-edifice still stand on a muggy Sunday morning. But down like so many tons of concrete and structural steel have fallen the remains, not of a building, but of a rebuilding.Ouch! The Owls attempt to rebound as 6 point underdogs next week in Waco against Baylor (0-1).
Coogs might have taken the lead in the 3rd Q inside Oregon’s ten. Instead, they toss an INT, and it’s all Oregon after that.
That’s really how Art Briles teams have performed — show some offense against good teams, but never ever beat them because of penalties, bad defense, special teams miscues, and lack of awareness in critical, momentum-affecting situations.
The Coogs high school coaching staff is frequently exposed against bigtime programs, but you do have to give ’em credit for being able to move the ball against most of those programs.
Briles’ inability to put together a decent defensive unit is baffling to me. Generally, his players tackle poorly and the pass coverage is iffy, at best. My sense is that Briles still has not found a defensive coordinator who is capable of putting the defense on equal footing with Houston’s offense. If he finds one, then Houston has the template for being a consistent mid-major power.
The fact that A&M and UT played down to their competition even after what happened to Michigan (who were ridiculous overconfident against a very good small school team they should have been able to handle) doesn’t bode well. Maybe they were both “trying too hard” or not in sync or whatever. It’s still troublesome. TCU can go to Austin and win and Fresno St. is one of the mid-major powers that take a BCS school scalp from time to time.