Right now I'm watching the Conference USA Championship Game between Tulsa and East Carolina. And I'm annoyed.
I'm annoyed because, not only does this game have to run opposite the ACC Championship game on ABC and the Army-Navy rivalry on CBS (Army's camouflage helmets and pants look cool, by the way), but ESPN couldn't even have the decency to put it on their primary network; this game is on ESPN2 so that they can show a meaningless game between Pitt and UConn on their main channel. The chauvinism of the Bowl Championship Series strikes again!
I'm also annoyed because these two teams are playing in the C-USA Championship Game even though the University of Houston Cougars beat them both. Both teams were ranked when they played Houston, no less.
But I'm most annoyed because the Cougars have nobody but themselves to blame for not being in this game. Had the Coogs taken care of business against Rice last Saturday, in fact, at this very moment I'd be at Robertson Stadium along with thirty thousand other people watching this game. All the Cougars had to do in order to host today's Conference USA Championship was to beat Rice last Saturday.
They didn't. The last two games of Houston's regular season, in fact, were rather frustrating and the Cougars really didn't deserve to win either of them.
The only reason they notched a 42-37 victory over Texas-El Paso at Robertson Stadium two weeks ago, in fact, is because they mounted yet another one of the season's amazing come-from-behind rallies to win the game. The Cougars spent most of that game playing some of their sloppiest and most uninspired football of the season. The offense couldn't get untracked, the defense was porous and let the Miners score at will, and special teams were a disaster, missing two field goals and an extra point in the first half alone. At one point, the Coogs were nineteen points behind; I spent the first three quarters of the game sitting in the stands asking myself why I flew all the way back from Dubai to watch this crap.
It wasn't until late in the game that the Cougars finally got it together. They battled back and, with 4:54 left in the game, QB Case Keenum (who actually had a good afternoon, completing 41 of 51 for 480 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions) completed a 16-yard touchdown pass to Kierrie Johnson to make the score 36-35, Houston's first lead of the game. But this was one of those games where everything seemed to go wrong for the Coogs, and on the next play - with the Coogs up by only one, the coaching staff decided to go for the two-point conversion - Keenum, in a decision that he will readily admit is the worst of his quarterbacking career, threw the ball across his body and across the field and right into the waiting arms of UTEP defender Josh Ferguson, who took it 100 yards to score two points for the Miners and put them back up by a point.
But on the next possession the UH defense, which wasn't able to stop the Miners or mount anything resembling a pass rush all afternoon long, finally stepped up. Phillip Hunt flew in on third down and shoved UTEP QB Trent Vittatoe to the ground, forcing a three-and-out for the Miners and giving the ball back to the Coogs.
During that series my cousin-in-law, who was watching the game with me at the time, directed my attention to the UH sideline. Keenum was behind the bench, pacing back and forth. Even from a distance, his body language was clear: he knew he had just made one of the stupidest mistakes of his football life, and he wanted to redeem himself. Thanks to the defense, he got his chance. Keenum methodically marched the offense down the field and to the goal line, where he, with 41 seconds remaining, called his own name on a one-yard touchdown run. The Miners then got the ball back, but with mere seconds on the clock and no time outs, there was little they could do. Vittatoe's desperation hail mary was intercepted in the endzone as time expired.
With that improbable win - the Coogs' 19-point comeback was the greatest in school history - the table was set. Beat crosstown rival Rice, and Houston would win Conference USA West and host the championship game with a conference title and a trip to the Liberty Bowl on the line.
Unfortunately, it seems that this fact was lost on the University of Houston defense as they went into last Saturday's rivalry game at Rice Stadium. They simply got torched by the Owls, surrendering six touchdowns and almost 600 yards of total offense. The only thing they seemed to do successfully was to keep star Owl receiver Jarett Dillard in check, limiting him to four receptions for 41 yards. But that didn't matter, because Rice QB Chase Clement simply had too many other options available to him, notably receiver James Casey, who finished the afternoon with 12 receptions for 172 yards and three touchdowns. When Clement, who was 28-of-41 for 381 yards and five touchdowns, didn't feel like throwing the ball, he simply ran it, gaining another 58 yards and one touchdown on 13 carries. Houston's run defense was equally as ineffective against Owl RB C.J. Ugokwe, who carried the ball 18 times for 110 yards. The defense could not mount a pass rush, they could not tackle, they could not cover their receivers and they simply were no match for Rice's offense.
With the defense's inability to be a factor in this game, it was up to the Cougar offense to match the Owls score for score. Any while they weren't horrible by any means - they did manage to score 42 points on Rice's defense, and usually 42 points should be enough to win a game - the fact that they made a handful of mistakes - a fumble, an interception, bad plays that killed a few drives - meant that they were unable to keep up. Once the Cougars fell behind by 28 points early in the fourth quarter, it was clear that there would be no miraculous comeback this time.
Rice went on to win the Bayou Bucket, 56-42. Houston's loss, along with Tulsa's victory over Marshall that day, assured that the Golden Hurricane would host today's conference championship game against ECU.
Thus concludes Houston's regular season. They ended their season with a 7-5 record, which is precisely what I predicted they'd accomplish back in August. Their record is good enough to get them to their fourth-consecutive postseason bowl game this holiday season; the Coogs should know which game they're going to sometime later today or tomorrow. I'll post my 2008 season review after that game.
The Bayou Bucket's all-time series record is now Houston 25, Rice 10.
And... In spite of the fact that they got to host the Conference USA title game, Tulsa just lost to East Carolina, 27-24. The Pirates win their first conference title since they were members of the SouCon back in '76, and head to the Liberty Bowl. Congratulations are in order for Skip Holtz and the Pirates; my Coogs, meanwhile, can only watch and wonder what could have been.
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