Houston 0, Cincinnati 34

The Cougars were supposed to make a road trip to Cincinnati last weekend. Unfortunately, they never bothered to show up. 

Ryan says there was no good or bad - just ugly - in this game, and I agree, so...

The Ugly: In addition to being shut out, the Cougars were outgained, 362 yards to 233 (they only managed 99 passing yards), managed only 12 first downs the entire game (the Bearcats had 22), turned the ball over three times (Cinci had no turnovers), missed what should have been an easy field goal, and were penalized seven times for 68 yards. 

In short, pretty much everything that could have gone wrong for the Cougars did.

What It Means: The team appeared to be making progress over the past couple of weeks, but took a big step backwards last Saturday. Through the season's first four games, UH's offense has been utterly abysmal, as Ryan explains: 

Houston is now 129th nationally (out of 133) in scoring at 13.0 ppg. The Cougars have scored 7, 12, 33, 0 for a total of 52 points in their first four games.

Yikes.

Next up for the Cougars is #18-ranked Iowa State at TDECU Stadium. This will be the very first meeting between the two programs.

Houston 33, Rice 7

The Cougars easily avenged last year's loss to their crosstown rivals.

The Good: After sputtering through the first two games of the season, the UH offense finally came to life. Quarterback Donavan Smith passed for 142 yards and a touchdown, and rushed for two more scores, and  threw no interceptions. RB Stacy Sneed scored on a 65-yard touchdown run of his own. Mehki Mews returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown as well. The Cougar defense kept the Owls off the scoreboard until late in the fourth quarter, made an interception that led to an easy UH touchdown, and limited Rice to 159 total offensive yards for the entire game.

The Bad: While he had a good game overall, Smith only completed 12 of 21 passes and appears to continue to struggle with his passing decisions. The Coogs' third-down efficiency - they only converted 6 of 14 attempts - still isn't great. Two UH defensive players were ejected for targeting.

What It Means: Rice is unlikely to be mistaken for a good team this season, so it's hard to tell just how much this victory means in terms of the Coogs' prospects for the remainder of the fall. But getting the win - the first of the Willie Fritz era - and bringing the Bayou Bucket back to Cullen Boulevard is nevertheless a milestone in this team's rebuilding process.

The Cougars now travel to Cincinnati to begin Big 12 conference play.

Perugia's Minimetrò

One more post about our Thanksgiving trip to Italy almost two years ago. This one is inspired by a YouTube video I recently came across.  

The Italian town of Perugia, where Corinne and I stayed while visiting her nephew and niece-in-law over the holiday, is served by a automated people mover system called the "Minimetrò." Corinne and I rode the Minimetrò during our stay in Perugia, and I took some pictures.

The single-line system is explored in the first six-and-a-half minutes of the YouTube video linked above (the rest of the video is dedicated to another "gadgetbahn" in Bologna) and provides a pretty comprehensive overview of the system. Unlike the person in the video, we did not ride it end-to-end; we just took it a few stops from the Case Bruciate neighborhood (where Corinne's nephew and niece-in-law lived) to the city center to do some exploring and shopping.

The three-kilometer-long line opened in 2008. It has has seven stations and runs from Perugia's medieval city center, located at the top of a hill, to a large park-and-ride on the outskirts of town. The purpose of this line is to reduce automobile traffic in the old city center by giving people a way to get there without using their vehicle.

The system is serviced by small cabs that can probably carry a maximum 15 to 20 passengers each. They come at fairly-frequent intervals - as short as 60 seconds between cabs - so you're never waiting long at a station for one to arrive. Here's a picture of Corinne entering a cab (and carrying a bag of Perugina chocolate!) at the Pincetto station in the city center. 

The cabs are pulled between stations by cables, which are plainly visible in the picture above. A single ride currently costs €1.50, although a variety of fare options are available.

The Minimetrò also provides connectivity to Italy's larger railway network by way of a station near Perugia's main train station. It crosses just north of the main train platform (see photo above) and there is a walkway between the two stations.

The map of the MiniMetrò system on the urbanrail.net website suggests that a second, north-south line connecting to the existing line in the city center is planned. 

My overall impression of the Minimetrò was that it was prompt, comfortable and easy to use (it didn't hurt that the signage was in English as well as Italian). Given the relatively small volumes of people the system can carry, I'm not sure if it is truly an efficient mode of transportation. However, since Perugia's population is just over 160 thousand people, maybe it doesn't need to carry large volumes of people in order to be effective. 

In terms of public transportation technologies, it is certainly unique.

Houston 12, Oklahoma 16

Well... The Coogs covered the spread:

Jackson Arnold threw two touchdown passes and No. 15 Oklahoma held off Houston 16-12 on Saturday night.

The Sooners (2-0) struggled to move the ball and punted eight times. The Cougars (0-2) outgained Oklahoma 318-249 in total yards, including 260-174 in passing.

Oklahoma got a late interception from Robert Spears-Jennings to end one drive and a late safety from Gracen Halton to extend a slim lead.

“We did enough things wrong to deserve to lose,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said. “We were fortunate to find a way to win. Overall, our body of work on offense not very good today. I’m really proud of the guys that stepped up when they had an opportunity."

The Good: The UH defense only allowed OU to score 14 points - none after halftime - and seven of those were the result of a short field caused by a muffed punt (more on that in a moment). They picked off Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold once, sacked him three times, and limited the Sooners to 4-14 on third down conversion attempts. 

The Bad: If Oklahoma's offense sputtered, Houston's wasn't much better. They themselves could only manage 4 third-down conversions on 15 attempts and only gained 58 rushing yards. Ryan takes note of Houston's abysmal offensive numbers through two games:

The Cougars are 129th in scoring (out of 133) at 9.5 points per game. Only three teams have scored fewer touchdowns than UH.

The Coogs are 130th in third down conversion percentage. UH was 4/7 converting on 3rd and short (1-4 yards) vs. OU, with the notable difference in attempts being way up from week one (UH was 0/2 vs. UNLV). UH is 2/14 converting on third and long this season (9+ yards).

The Ugly: Punt returner Mekhi Mews was charged with a muffed punt on Houston's ten yard line early in the game. Although reviews suggested he didn't actually touch the ball, the referees did not reverse their call and the Sooners subsequently scored. The Cougars failed on their two-point conversion attempt after they scored early in the third quarter (way too early to start chasing the points, IMO). And a poorly-executed run from the Coogs' own five yard line resulted in a safety that effectively ended the game.

What It Means: The Sooners made just enough mistakes to lose; however, the Cougars made just enough errors of their own to be unable to take advantage and pull off the upset. I don't want to take anything away from this result; facing the 15th-ranked team in the nation in front of 83,653 fans and losing by only four points is an accomplishment, especially given how poorly the Cougars played a week ago, and certainly suggests that this team is improving. 

But wow... What could have been.

Next up for the Coogs is crosstown rival Rice, at TDECU Stadium. Can they avenge last year's loss?

Houston 7, UNLV 27

 Yeah, it's going to be a long season.

The University of Houston Cougars football team endured a tough 27-7 loss to the UNLV Rebels in their home season opener on Saturday evening.

It marked a challenging start for Houston, as the Cougars went scoreless through the first three quarters, trailing 14-0 at halftime. The Cougars' lone score came in the final minute of the fourth quarter when wide receiver Joseph Manjack IV managed a 2-yard touchdown, narrowing the deficit to 27-7. However, this late effort was not enough to overcome a sluggish offensive performance.

If the 7-27 score, with the Coogs' lone touchdown coming in garbage time, sounds familiar, that's because it is. (They were passing out rally towels to fans commemorating the tenth anniversary of TDECU Stadium's opening. I guess the team decided to do some commemoration of its own...)

The UH defense, in spite of some lapses, actually held its own. They gave up a respectable 20 points and 308 yards of offense, even though they were oftentimes put in bad positions by the offense. They intercepted Las Vegas once and stuffed them on fourth down once. 

The offense, on the other hand, was abysmal. Quarterback Donavan Smith had his worst game in a UH uniform, completing only 15 of 30 passes for 135 yards and two interceptions. He looked tentative, held on to the ball too long, and made poor decisions; it simply wasn't a good game for him. It certainly didn't help that he has no protection from what is probably the weakest offensive line in recent UH football program history. It can neither pass block - Smith was sacked six times - nor run block, as evidenced by the Cougars' pathetic 38 total rushing yards.

It's true that the football program is adjusting to new players, new coaches, new schemes, new everything. It's also true that the Rebels are not a bad team - they won nine games, were Mountain West Conference runners-up, and went to a bowl last year. But I was nevertheless very surprised at just how bad the Cougars looked last Saturday: aside from the poor offense, there were special teams miscues, missed tackles, and too many penalties (ten for 74 yards). This team has a lot of work ahead of them.

Ryan runs some numbers from Fritz's "horrific" debut, while Brad believes that, with this loss, the Cougars "set the bar so low that it is nearly impossible to not improve" as the season progresses:

I don’t believe that hardships build character. I believe that hardships reveal character, and your response to hardships is what builds character. You might also hear that competition makes you stronger. That is partially true because competition reveals your weaknesses. How you address those weaknesses is what makes you stronger.

Next up for the Cougars is a trip to Norman to play the Oklahoma Sooners. They are 29-point underdogs.