AAC Championship: Houston 24, Temple 13

The Cougars clinched their first conference championship since 2006 last weekend, defeating the AAC East champion, 22nd-ranked Temple, at TDECU Stadium. (Check out these awesome pictures of the game.)

The Good: Greg Ward, Jr was his usual self, rushing for 148 yards and two touchdowns. The Cougar defense forced two turnovers, stopped three Temple fourth-down conversion attempts and limited the Owl offense to a single touchdown.

The Bad: The UH offense sputtered in the second half, with three-consecutive three-and-outs even as the Owls scored the game's final ten points. Temple quarterback P.J.Walker had his way with the UH defense, passing for 287 yards and a touchdown.

The Ugly: Employees of security contractor CSC, in a (generally unsuccessful) attempt to keep students from rushing the field after the game, were filmed physically assaulting people. This story made national news, and the University of Houston has terminated its contract with CSC as a result.

What it means: By virtue of being the highest-ranked "Group of Five" school, the Cougars have punched their ticket to the so-called "New Year's Six" group of bowl games; they will face Florida State in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on December 31.

Whether the Coogs can beat the Seminoles, I have no idea. What I do know is that, regardless of the Peach Bowl's outcome, the 2015 season is an unqualified success. 12 wins, a conference championship, a "New Year's Six" bowl: this was the year long-suffering UH fans have been waiting for, and I don't think anybody, save the most delusionally-optimistic of UH fans, could have predicted something like this back in August. (I sure as Hell didn't!) I'm pretty happy right now.


Go Coogs!

North Texas hires a new football coach

Welcome to Denton, Mr. Littrell:

North Carolina offensive coordinator Seth Littrell will be named head coach at North Texas, the school announced on Saturday night.

Littrell and the Tar Heels are in their first ACC title game Saturday against Clemson.

Littrell, 37, has been at UNC the past two seasons. Before joining the Tar Heels, he was an offensive coordinator at Indiana (2012-13) and Arizona (2009-11). He also was an assistant at Texas Tech from 2005 to 2008.

Before Littrell was hired, the Denton Record-Chronicle's Brett Vito argued that this is a hire that North Texas must get right:

(Interim head coach Mike) Canales hinted at just how important UNT’s new coach would be to the program’s hopes to improve in his final appearance with the Mean Green.

“I wish the new coach the best of luck because this place means a lot to me,” Canales said. “I want to see it be successful and back to going to bowl games. They will do great things and this program will go right back to where it needs to be.”

McCarney had the Mean Green at that point back in 2013, when UNT produced one of the greatest seasons in program history — a 9-4 campaign capped by a win against UNLV in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

UNT just couldn’t sustain that momentum, slid back to 4-8 and finally 1-11, leaving the 2013 season as the only winning campaign in the past 11 years.

The empty stands UNT played in front of for most of the year are a glaring indication that the Mean Green are going to do more than just field a team at a nice venue to convince all but their most loyal supporters to come out.

Miss on this decision, and UNT could be looking at an even longer stretch of floundering football, one that will further diminish what support the school has to work with in terms of support going forward at a time other programs UNT competes with in the state appear to be on the rise.

This is the key issue: North Texas has excellent facilities, most notably Apogee Stadium, completed in 2011 at a cost of $78 million. It is located in the recruit-rich DFW Metroplex. It has the 5th-largest enrollment in the state. There is no reason why this program cannot be competitive in Conference USA.

Yet the Mean Green continue to struggle, both on the field and at the gate. An announced crowd of 8,305 attended UNT's season-ending loss to UTEP, although as Vito reports (and as anybody who watched it on TV can attest) that the actual number of people in the stands was much lower. The program averaged 13,631 for its season just concluded - the lowest average, Vito reports, since 1998. That's not the type of return that UNT athletics expects on its investment, and it's not the type of return that makes the program sustainable.

UNT just can’t afford to miss on this hire. It’s been a long, long time since UNT was consistently successful back in the early 2000s under Darrell Dickey, who led the Mean Green to four straight conference titles beginning in 2001.

Ironically, Dickey was named the interim coach at Memphis on Sunday after Justin Fuente left for Virginia Tech.

UNT has to start stringing together winning seasons again like it did for a while under Dickey. The school and its supporters have invested far too much to see the program continue to flounder.

UNT has searched for an answer to how to spark its program ever since that run of winning seasons.

The school has a new stadium and a spot in Conference USA.

Soon it will have a new coach. For UNT’s sake, the school had better hope it will have the final piece of the puzzle with its new head coach as well.

What about Littrell's coaching experience?

Littrell has excelled while guiding UNC’s offense in 2014 and 2015. The Tar Heels are averaging 495.7 yards per game this season. Before UNC, he served as offensive coordinator at Indiana University, which finished ninth in the nation in total offense in 2013, averaging 508.5 yards per game. Littrell first became an offensive coordinator during a three-year stay at the University of Arizona from 2009-11. He was the co-offensive coordinator in 2010 and took over the job full-time the following season.

Littrell, an Oklahoma native, last worked in Texas from 2005-08, when he was the running backs coach at Texas Tech. He is a University of Oklahoma graduate and was a running back and team captain on the Sooners’ 2000 national championship team.

Littrell went into coaching after his playing days and has coached in seven bowl games.

Looks pretty good. Having been a Mean Green fan since I moved to Denton in 1999, and following the football program's ups-and-downs through the tenures of Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, Dan McCarney and Mike Canales (twice, in an interim capacity), I can only hope that Littrell succeeds. I guess we'll find out, starting in the fall of 2016.

Houston 52, Navy 31

The Cougars won the AAC West title in convincing fashion last Saturday, manhandling 16th-ranked Navy in front of a sellout crowd at TDECU stadium.

The Good: Greg Ward Jr, who missed last week's loss to UConn with an injury, completed 26 of 35 passes for 308 yards and 3 touchdowns. He also rushed for 83 yards and a touchdown. Brandon Wilson, who was switched from cornerback to running back to take the place of an injured Kenneth Farrow, rushed for 111 yards and two touchdowns. Wide receiver Demarcus Ayers had eight receptions for 161 yards and one touchdown, including a pair of highlight-reel catches. He also threw for a touchdown. The defense utterly smothered Navy's potent triple option, holding the Midshipmen to just 4 of 11 third down conversions and limiting Heisman hopeful Keenan Reynolds to 84 yards and one TD on 19 carries.

The Bad: Reynolds had a good day in the air, completing 13 of 16 passes for 312 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. That being said, Navy's preferred offense is not pass-oriented, and they were clearly out of their comfort zone.

The Ugly: Although Navy probably didn't need to be prolonging the inevitable by spiking the ball when they were down by 21 with less than a minute remaining, the smattering of boos from UH fans was uncalled for. You don't boo a service academy, folks!

What it Means: The Cougars will face Temple at TDECU Stadium for the American Athletic Conference Championship next Saturday. The winner will likely be the "Group of 5" representative to the "New Year's Six" group of prestigious bowls.

Thanks to the win, Houston also reappears in the College Football Playoff rankings at #19. Tom Fornelli at CBS Sports thinks the playoff committee is slighting them:

I'm not exactly enraged over this, but Houston just doesn't get enough credit for being 11-1 simply because it's in the American Athletic Conference. I know the AAC isn't a Power Five conference, but it currently has three teams ranked by the committee. It deserves a bit more respect than it gets.

This is a Houston team that not only beat a Navy team that was ranked No. 15 last week, but beat it by 21 points. Its sole loss (at 6-6 UConn) looks really bad, but it's important to realize the Cougars lost on the road without their starting quarterback.

So while I'm not going to sit here and say Houston should be in the top 10, at 11-1, with the season it has had, it certainly deserves to be higher than No. 19 if Navy was able to reach No. 15 last week.

More important to UH faithful is that head coach Tom Herman, who had been rumored to be in the running for other head coaching jobs around the nation, is apparently sticking around in Houston for a little while longer:

Houston Cougar head coach Tom Herman yesterday sought to set aside the rumors that he’s been considering leaving the University of Houston. Addressing the media in advance of Saturday’s American Athletic Conference title game, Herman stated that he and the school have agreed in principle to terms for a new contract.

“We have agreed in principle,” Herman said. “That is probably the best way to put it. We are working out the details of a contract, I don’t want to speak on any specifics, because those aren’t worked out yet, but we are moving in the right direction and have agreed in principle on the generalities of what is next."

“I’m here right now,” Herman continued. “And again, these things take twists and turns along the way as they sometimes do, but I don’t anticipate that happening. That is about all I am going to say about it.”

I'm not going to be completely comfortable about this until the contract is signed, nor am I under any illusion that Herman is going to stay at UH for more than a few more years. But it would have left a bad taste in my mouth if he had decided to move on after just one season. Thanks to him, this season has been successful beyond my imagination, and I think he can do greater things here if he stays a little while longer.

That includes a win over a tough Temple Owl team and a Conference Championship on Saturday.

Some 5-7 teams get to go bowling

Some teams with losing records will be going bowling this season:

It’s official: There will be multiple teams with losing records playing in bowl games next month.

With only currently 75 bowl-eligible teams to fill 80 bowl berths, at least two bowls will need teams with 5-7 records. And there could be as many as five teams with losing record earning bowl berths because not enough teams reached six wins to fill the record 41 bowl games, including the College Football Playoff title game.

I've always pushed back against the argument that there are "too many" bowl games. Nobody's forcing anyone to watch the ones they find uninteresting or unworthy, and as a college football fan I agree with something that former Sports Illustrated sportswriter Arash Markazi once said: "At the end of the day, it's still college football and what could be better than college football in December and early January? Saying there are too many bowl games is like saying there are too many presents under the Christmas tree."

That being said, you have to wonder if we've reached the bowl saturation threshold. Bowl games are supposed to be a reward for teams that had a successful, winning season. More recently, the proliferation of bowl games has meant that anybody who manages a .500 record goes to a bowl. Now we've come to the point where teams with losing records get to go bowling.

While we've come a long way from when deserving teams were routinely shut out of bowl games - I used to keep tally of the winning teams that were Screwed and Shafted out of postseason play - it appears we've reached the point where bowl games are an award for participation, rather than an actual reward for success.

Unless, perhaps, it's success in the classroom, which will decide which schools with losing records make it to the postseason:

Teams with 5-7 records will become eligible for at least two bowl bids and as many as five, based on their Academic Progress Rates. The NCAA Division I council approved a recommendation made by the football oversight committee Monday to fill the record 41 bowls with five-win teams because not enough teams will meet the standard bowl-eligibility requirements.

To no one's surprise, a certain school on South Main has made the list of potentials:

Based on 2013-14, Nebraska has the best APR among 5-7 teams, at 985. Missouri and Kansas State are next on the list, with an APR of 976, followed by Minnesota (975), San Jose State (975), Illinois (973) and Rice (973).

Nebraska, as the first team in line for a bowl invite based on APR, announced Monday night it will play in a bowl if invited.

Missouri, however, will decline any potential bowl. In order for the Owls to make it into the postseason, other schools listed above will have to decline invites as well, and a couple of teams fighting for bowl eligibility will have to lose on Saturday:

Kansas State can become bowl eligible Saturday with a win at West Virginia, but the Wildcats should get in either way. Georgia State (5-6) visits Georgia Southern and South Alabama (5-6) hosts Appalachian State as those teams seek to reach bowl-eligibility based on record and shut out the 5-7 teams with high APRs.

In the past 20 years, only three teams with losing records have received bowl berths: Georgia Tech (2012), UCLA (2011) and North Texas (2001).

I remember that 2001 North Texas team well, because I lived in Denton at the time. They went 0-5 out-of-conference, but their 5-1 in-conference record was good enough for them to clinch the Sun Belt title and go to the New Orleans Bowl.

At the time, the idea of a team with a losing record going to a bowl seemed like a bizarre oddity, a once-in-a-generation fluke. But now it appears to be becoming commonplace.

Guy V. Lewis, 1922-2015

The legendary University of Houston basketball coach has passed away:

Guy V. Lewis, the self-professed “good ol’ boy from Arp” and father of the Phi Slama Jama basketball dynasty at the University of Houston, has died. He was 93.

Lewis died Thursday in Kyle.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Hall of Fame Coach Guy V. Lewis, who passed away this morning," UH athletic director Hunter Yurachek said on Twitter. "A true Cougar legend."

With his signature red polka-dot towel in hand, Lewis was the winningest coach in UH history, compiling 592 victories and making five Final Four trips while coaching such stars as Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler in 30 seasons from 1956 to 1986.

Off the court, he was regarded as a visionary and innovator for putting together the 1968 “Game of the Century” against top-ranked UCLA at the Astrodome and for being one of the first college basketball coaches to embrace racial integration in the South.

“He belongs on a pedestal with the greatest coaches ever to coach the game,” Drexler said. “Where the game of basketball is today is because of Guy V. Lewis.”

I'm glad Lewis lived long enough to see himself finally get inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Given his contributions to the sport, he should have been inducted much sooner. The fact that he never won a national championship - North Carolina State's miracle finish against the Cougars in the 1983 NCAA Championship will always be a dark spot in this city's sports history - was the only blemish on his amazing legacy.

“The coaches I hated coaching against were the real good ones, and Guy was one of those,” legendary UCLA coach John Wooden said in 1998. “I think Guy took a bum rap because he never won a national championship.”

Lewis led the Cougars to Final Four appearances in 1967, 1968, 1982, 1983 and 1984. Those accomplishments seem even more amazing today, considering the dumpster fire that UH basketball has been lately.

Guy Vernon Lewis was born on March 19, 1922, in Arp, Texas, just outside Tyler, the son of an independent oil wildcatter at the height of the East Texas oil boom.

After serving as an Army Air Corps flight instructor in World War II, Lewis returned and played two years at Rice and eventually decided to attend UH in 1946. A 6-foot-3 co-captain, Lewis was the leading scorer on the first two UH basketball teams in 1946-47.

Lewis returned to UH for the 1953-54 season, serving two seasons as an assistant before his promotion to head coach when Alden Pasche retired in 1956.

UH reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 1961, one of 14 appearances under Lewis. In all, Lewis coached 15 All-Americans and 10 NBA first-round picks, among them Donnie Schyerak, Gary Phillips, Hayes, Chaney, Drexler, Olajuwon, Dwight Davis, Dwight Jones, Otis Birdsong, Rob Williams and Michael Young.

Three players – Hayes, Drexler and Olajuwon – are in the Hall of Fame and were voted among the NBA’s 50 greatest players of all-time.

Guy and his wife, Dena, who passed away shortly before he did, lived in the same University Oaks neighborhood where I grew up and where my parents still live. So it's not a stretch to say that I've lost a neighbor as well as a legend. 

Thank you, Guy, and rest in peace.

Houston 17, Connecticut 20

Yep. It was a trap game.

The Good: Brandon Wilson returned a kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown. The Cougar defense only allowed two UConn field goals off of four UH turnovers.

The Bad: Those four turnovers (two fumbles, two interceptions) tell the story of the afternoon for the Coogs. The offense was held to a season-low 318 yards and one touchdown. The defense was burned on a trick play for a UConn touchdown. Elandon Roberts was ejected from the game after being called for targeting, and knocking out of the game, UConn starting QB Bryant Shirreffs.

The Ugly: The Cougars had a lot of injuries going into this game, and appear to have even more as a result of it. Kyle Postma started behind center in place of an injured Greg Ward Jr, but he was so ruthlessly battered by the Husky defense - the makeshift offensive line, itself ravaged by injuries, simply could not protect him - that he had to be replaced by Ward in the fourth quarter. Running back Kenneth Farrow was injured late in the game as well.

What it means: Houston's quest for an undefeated season is over, but they still have a chance to win the ACC's Western Division and advance to the Conference Championship with a win over Navy at TDECU stadium next Saturday. But they need to get healthy.

Houston 35, Memphis 34

I'm still not sure how the Cougars managed to win this one:

Perhaps it was playing before a record crowd crammed inside of TDECU Stadium. Maybe it was playing a 8-1 Memphis football team that was the best opponent the University of Houston had faced the entire season. It could be as simple as sideline guests JJ Watt and DeAndre Hopkins contaminating the Cougars with the crapiness of the Houston Texans.

No matter the reason, for the first 29 minutes of the Saturday night’s game, the Cougars weren't playing like an undefeated college football team. Down 20-0, having gained just 24 yards on offense with only four first downs for the game, the Cougars appeared dead in the water. Then quarterback Greg Ward, Jr. was knocked out of the game, and under backup Kyle Postma, the offense sprang to life, scoring on a 30-yard pass from Postma to Linell Bonner just before the half.

Still the Cougars were down 34-14 with 14 minutes remaining in the game and hopes of the perfect season, the conference title, and a New Year’s Bowl were rapidly falling away. Of the 282 teams that have trailed by at least 20 points in the fourth quarter, none have come back to the win, and UH was positioned to become number 283. But as the clock reached zero, after the 48-yard field goal attempt of Memphis’ Jake Elliott went wide right, the Cougars were the somewhat miraculous 35-34 victors to go 10-0 on the season. (See our slideshow of photos from the game here.)

The Good: Kyle Postma. He completed 21 of 33 passes for 236, a touchdown and no interceptions. He also rushed for 49 yards and another TD. Demarcus Ayers led all receivers with 13 receptions for 127 yards. While the Memphis defense managed to hold the Cougar ground attack to less than 100 yards, they still managed to give up four rushing TDs. Houston's defense had a rough day, but still forced two turnovers and, at games' end, keep Memphis at the very edge of Elliot's field goal range, resulting in the game-saving miss.

The Bad: Greg Ward Jr had perhaps his worst start at QB (fortunately, his ankle injury isn't serious). Memphis gained 278 yards through the air - Tiger QB Paxton Lynch was 20-for-32 passing with two touchdowns and an interception - and 212 yards on the ground. They manhandled Houston's defensive line and converted 12 of 19 third downs. Houston receivers dropped several catchable passes.

The Ugly: There's really no other way to describe the first half. The Tigers had Ward rattled and the running game contained; Houston's first six possessions all ended in punts. In the second half, Memphis defender Reggis Ball purposely tried to injure Ayers by twisting his leg after a play was whistled dead. This thug move should have gotten him ejected, but the referees didn't even see it. In fact, the officiating of this game was blatantly one-sided, with many calls (or non-calls) benefitting the Tigers.

The Beautiful: 42,159 was the largest on-campus crowd in the history of University of Houston football. The fans were loud, and the overwhelming majority stayed until the end even though things looked bleak on more than one occasion. I would like to think that this game represents a turning point in terms of this city's support of Cougar football.

What it means:

It was probably a game the Cougars should have lost. It was definitely a game that, in recent years past, the Cougars would have lost. But Herman’s got this team believing that it can do anything. And it’s a team that’s dealt with lots of adversity this season — the offensive line has been hit by injury after injury, Postma started the season as a back-up wide receiver, key contributors on defense were missing this game because of injury, the receiver and running back cops are decimated by injury, and yet the Cougars found a way to pull out the win, go to 10-0 on the season. And yet all that matters for Herman is winning the conference title.

The conference title is still a few steps away, but it became much more realistic after last Saturday's miraculous finish. Next up for the Coogs is their first-ever trip to Storrs, Connecticut to face the Huskies. Trap game, anyone?

Rockets fire Kevin McHale

Can't say I was expecting this:

Eleven games into a 4-7 Houston Rockets season that has sped past concerning and is careening toward disastrous, Alexander pulled the trigger and fired head coach Kevin McHale, as first reported by Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski. Assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaff will be the interim head coach when the team takes on Portland tonight at Toyota Center.

The move comes as a surprise, insomuch as nobody could have foreseen this coming when the season began. However, it was evident from opening night that this team had major issues. They lost their first three games of the season, each by 20 points, before going on a four game winning streak. However, that string of wins was followed by four more losses, many of the same embarrassing variety as the first three losses of the season.

A 111-95 loss to Boston at home Monday night, a game the Rockets led midway through the third quarter, was the final straw. The Rockets' brass had seen enough. McHale had clearly lost his players and the confidence of the franchise, and he was done.

The team had plenty of excuses for its poor start — injuries, the integration of Ty Lawson, the close association with the Kardashians (ok, I made up that last one) — but it all boils down to this team's treatment of defense as optional instead of integral, and energy levels that fluctuate worse than those of a narcoleptic. In short, this team just doesn't appear to give a shit. At the very least, they didn't give a shit about McHale or they wouldn't have been habitually losing to lottery teams by double digits.

The performance of the Rockets this season has certainly been disappointing, especially coming off their success at the end of last season. Nevertheless, it's a bit unexpected to see the same guy who coached this team to that success last season get the axe so early this season.

With that said: Les Alexander has owned the Rockets long enough to know that Houston is a fair-weather, front-runner sports town, and he probably understood that his franchise was hemorrhaging the interest and goodwill it created among local sports fans with its abysmal performance to start the 2015-16 season. Realizing that dwindling fan support equals dwindling revenues, Alexander decided to make a change at the top. Whether it makes a difference on the court remains to be seen - that discussion is for people who know more about basketball than I do - but at least Alexander can show local fans that he's being proactive, thereby holding their interest in his product.

No word as to when the Rockets will announce McHale's permanent replacements, but there are plenty of potential candidates.

Houston 33, Cincinnati 30

The Cougars faced their toughest test of the year in the rain last Saturday, but came away with a close victory after the Cougar defense forced four straight incompletions on Cincinnati's last possession.

The Good: The Cougar defense accounted for 9 of Houston's 33 points. Brandon Wilson intercepted Cincinnati QB Gunner Kiel and returned it 51 yards for a touchdown. Kiel was also sacked in the endzone for a safety. UH special teams recovered a muffed Cincinnati punt, which would later lead to a score. The Cougar offense employed a clock-chewing, grind-it-out approach in the rain, amassing 266 yards on 66 carries and maintaining possession for 37 and a half minutes. Keeping the ball out of the hands of the Bearcat offense was a good idea, because...

The Bad: Kiel absolutely torched the Houston secondary for 523 passing yards and four touchdowns. Until the final series of the game, the Cougar defense simply had no answer for him and his receivers. Greg Ward threw two interceptions. Running back Ryan Jackson left the game with a broken collarbone and is out for the rest of the season. Cornerback William Jackson III suffered a knee injury and is probably going to miss the next two games.

The Ugly: The Bearcats amassed 11 penalties, three of which were unsportsmanlike conduct flags - including one on coach Tommy Tuberville - after a single play. The Cincinnati meltdown led to an easy Houston score. Another Houston touchdown, however, was called back on a highly-questionable offensive pass interference penalty.

What it Means: The Cougars remain undefeated and, at 9-0, have surpassed last season's win total. Next up is a home game against a ranked Memphis team whose own aspirations for an undefeated season came to an end last weekend against Navy. The Tigers will be angry, and if Memphis QB Paxton Lynch is anywhere as close as effective against the Houston secondary as Kiel was, the Cougars could be in for a long afternoon.

The Houston Press's John Royal (who appears to have borrowed the "good, bad, ugly" format from me!) has more.

Houston 34, Vanderbilt 0

The Cougars put together their most dominating performance of the season on a rainy Halloween night, shutting out Vanderbilt and remaining undefeated.

The Good: The Cougar defense was obviously the story of the evening. They forced a fumble and three interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown by William Jackson III, and held the Commodores to a paltry 185 yards of total offense. On the offensive side of the ball, Quarterback Greg Ward Jr completed 15 of 23 passes for 221 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. He also rushed for 33 yards and a touchdown. Kenneth Farrow led all rushers with 82 yards and a touchdown.

The Bad: Ward fumbled the ball twice in the rain, and was held below his per-game rushing average for the year. Unfortunately for Vanderbilt, it didn't matter.

The Ugly: There really wasn't anything ugly about this game, other than the weather. And while I know that there's no point in complaining about attendance, I would have liked to have seen a crowd larger than 29,565 at this game. Yes, it was raining, parts of the city had flooded earlier in the day, and a lot of people had Halloween activities to attend. But I was really expecting an undefeated, ranked team playing an SEC opponent to draw a bit better. Coach Tom Herman is not impressed, either.

What it Means: This was Houston's first shutout of an SEC school since 1969 (when they blanked Mississippi State 74-0). The Coogs beat the Commodores, who won against Missouri last week, by 17 points more than Georgia, 23 more than Ole Miss and 25 more than South Carolina. Where's our SEC invite?

The 8-0 Cougars host Cincinnati on Saturday for homecoming. The Bearcats will be the best team, record-wise, that the Coogs have faced this season.

Hopefully the crowd will be more to my - and coach Herman's - liking.