The Last Three Games

Things have been happening in my life over the past several weeks that have taken attention away from this blog. So I'll just provide a quick recap of the most recent three games of the 2023 University of Houston Cougar football season. 

Houston 24, #8 Texas 31: The overlap between the schools entering the Big 12 and the schools leaving it meant that the Houston Cougars and the Texas Longhorns got to face each other for the first time since 2002 and only the fourth time since the Southwest Conference broke up. After yet another slow start - the Cougars were behind 0-21 at one point - Houston rallied to put a scare into the #8 Texas Longhorns at TDECU Stadium.

Houston QB Donovan Smith completed 32 of 46 passes for 378 yards and three touchdowns. Matthew Golden caught two of those touchdown passes, while Joseph Manjack IV had one score (both receivers had 88 receiving yards on the day). The ability of Houston receivers to get open against the Texas secondary was refreshingly surprising. After giving up 21 unanswered points, the UH defense made adjustments that limited the Longhorns to just 10 points for the rest of the game; Texas was held to a dismal 3 of 12 on third down conversion attempts. (They also bizarrely attempted a fake field goal that UH special teams snuffed out.)

With the good came the bad, however. Smith turned the ball over twice; once on a sack-and-fumble and once on an interception. The Cougar rushing game could only manage a paltry 14 yards for the entire game. That said, the Cougars had a chance in this game up until the very end, when the Longhorns might have caught a break from the refs. Houston had third-and-1 at the Texas 10-yard line with just over a minute left in the game. The Cougars handed off RB Stacy Sneed, who appeared to gain enough for a first down at the Texas 9-yard line. However, the referees marked the ball closer to the 10-yard line. The Cougars then failed to convert on the ensuing fourth-and-inches play, securing the win for the Horns.

Things that make you go hmmm. 

The announced crowd of 42,812 is the second-largest crowd in TDECU Stadium history. Yes, a lot of them were wearing burnt orange. But the game was a lot of fun and I hope another 21 years don't go by before the Longhorns and Cougars play each other again.

The Chron's James Mueller writes that the Cougars, "which almost nobody gave a chance of beating Texas, had the No. 8 team in the country on the ropes." Ryan points out that the Cougars squandered chances to win this game even before the questionable spot occurred.

Houston 0, Kansas State 41: Not much to say about this one. The Cougars, having to go on the road to chilly Manhattan, Kansas after the emotional letdown of the Texas game, were clearly unprepared and unmotivated. The embarrassing result was Houston's first shutout since 2000. The Cougars couldn't do anything right on either side of the ball; even when they were gifted a Wildcat fumble on the KSU 26-yard line early in the second quarter, they couldn't convert it into any points. 

Ryan calls the game "disorganized and pitiful" and points out that UH's 208 yards of total offense "is the lowest output of the Dana Holgorsen era." Yet some people in the national media still think he is an "offensive guru."

Houston 25, Baylor 24 (OT): The "Pillow Fight on the Brazos" pitted two 3-5 teams against each other. And it was about as ugly as one would expect. Neither team could score in the first quarter, but a 26-yard touchdown pass from Donovan Smith to Samuel Brown in the second half gave the Cougars a seven-point halftime lead. Baylor would tie things up in the fourth quarter, but another Donovan Smith touchdown - this time a 24-yard pass to Tony Mathis, Jr. - gave the Coogs the lead again.

On the very next possession, the Bears threw an interception deep in their own territory, giving the Cougars a chance to pad their lead. Instead, the Coogs failed to make a first down and missed a field goal attempt. Baylor got the ball back, and - aided by Houston's failure to prevent the Bears from converting 4th and 17 (!) - marched right down the field to score a touchdown with 30 seconds left and force the game into overtime, where they got the ball first and promptly scored again. The Cougars responded with a touchdown of their own on a Donovan Smith one-yard run into the endzone, and then decided attempt a two-point conversion to either win or go home. 

The resulting play, christened "Horns Down," worked. After lining up in a five-wide set, Smith scrambled into the endzone to give the Coogs the one-point victory. A gutsy decision, yes, but given the state of the Cougars defense at that point it was also probably the right call. 

The one-point overtime victory over Baylor was Houston's first over the Bears since 1993 and their first win on the road over an established Big 12 school. It also gave a measure of revenge for UH fans still bitter that Baylor was included in the Big 12, at Houston's expense, when the Southwest Conference broke up. 

What All of This Means: The Cougars are now 4-5 and can still make a bowl if they win at least two of their last three games. Which is somewhat miraculous, considering how rough this season has been.