A five-and-a-half hour rain delay meant that a game that would have kicked off at 3 pm in front of a homecoming crowd at TDECU ended up kicking off at 8:30 in front of an almost-empty stadium. The ensuing game was hard to watch: Houston had a 24-10 lead at halftime, but the second half was an unholy mess of poor playcalling, even poorer execution, stupid penalties and a disastrous turnover. The Pirates scored twice in the fourth quarter to force overtime, and the UH faithful (the several hundred that were there, at least) once again began to fear the worst.
Fortunately, the Cougars ended up winning overtime rather easily. Their winning streak now stands at six games.
The Good: Marcus Jones returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Alton McCaskill busted off a 25 yard touchdown run on the first play of overtime. The defense forced three fumbles, two of which the Cougars converted into touchdowns and the third of which sealed the overtime victory.
The Bad: The lengthy weather delay was not good for anyone, especially the players, which is why Ryan is willing to cut them some slack for their poor performance:
But instead of ripping everyone, I think the players should get some leeway here. They were ready and amped up for 3 pm, they went through their routine Friday night and Saturday, ate their pregame meals, did walk-throughs, went to the stadium, got taped up and stretched, and had started drills when the delay began. So they sat in a locker room for hours with little to do other than stretching, doing homework, or playing on their phones. Then, they were given 30 minutes to get up and get mentally and physically prepared for the game. It’s hard to turn that on and off and back on again.
It sucks and that’s partially why the play was uneven and, at times, just flat awful and I’m willing to excuse them for that. Both Tune and ECU QB Holton Ahlers were not good and you have to allow that some of that was the weather delay. Tune missed throws that he hadn’t missed in more than a month and looked tentative like he did in the Tech game and during parts of last year.
The Ugly: Everything else. Where do I even begin?
- The Cougars ran for only 87 yards, 25 of which came on McCaskill's game-winning scramble in overtime.
- Clayton Tune passed for only 169 yards and was sacked five times.
- The offensive line did a piss-poor job at blocking; it was so bad that Dana Holgorsen himself went over and screamed at them when they were on the sideline. Between the poor running attack and the five sacks allowed, it's clear that the O-line is still a huge liability, seven games into the season.
- Speaking of Holgorsen, Houston's playcalling was ridiculous and that falls on him. The Coogs ran the wildcat - on third down - three separate times - to no effect.
- After catching a short pass, Christian Trahan fumbled that ball at the UH 16 yard line. This resulted in East Carolina's game-tying touchdown two plays later.
- Overall, the Cougar offense was simply inept. Of Houston's 16 possessions, 7 ended in punts, two ended in missed field goals, one ended with a fumble and two ended at the ends of the two halves.
- The Cougars committed 10 penalties for 80 yards. Some of these were boneheaded personal fouls; a few of them gave ECU a fresh set of downs when the defense seemingly had them stopped.
- Dalton Witherspoon missed two of three field goal attempts. To be fair, one of them shouldn't have even been attempted.
This isn't to say that ECU's stats were any better. The Pirates turned the ball over three times, converted only one of 12 third down attempts, were 0-3 on fourth down attempts and rushed for only 82 yards themselves. Clearly, the long weather delay adversely affected both teams. This was not a fun game to watch.
What It Means: The ugliest win is always better than the prettiest loss, so I'll take the result. But the Cougars host a ranked SMU team this weekend, and if they play anywhere as close as badly this Saturday as they played last Saturday, they will be humiliated.
At least the weather is expected to be better.
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