Finding ways to lose

My father, who has spent many years watching crappy Houston sports teams, has a saying: losing teams find ways to lose. Yesterday's game between the Houston Texans and the Indianapolis Colts was simply proof: the Texans, up by seventeen points with just over four minutes to go, found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Much of the blame has to be placed on backup quarterback Sage Rosenfels, who started in place of an ill Matt Schaub. Rosenfels was responsible for the two fumbles that led to easy Indianapolis scores as well as the interception that sealed the game. The collapse ruined what had been, for the first 55 minutes, the best game of the season for the Texans.

But it's not all Rosenfels' fault. The Texans are simply a losing team. Without a doubt, the losing-est sports franchise in the city's history (and that's saying something!) Yesterday, they found yet another way to lose.

What an embarrassment.

Houston 41, (23) East Carolina 24

I certainly didn't see this coming.

The Cougars snapped their three-game losing streak in grand fashion last Saturday, upending the #23-ranked East Carolina Pirates, 41-23, before 43,641 stunned fans in Greenville, North Carolina. In doing so, the Cougars notched their first win over a ranked opponent since their defeat of Southern Mississippi in 1996 and their first defeat of a ranked opponent on the road since they upset #3-ranked Texas in 1984.

Quarterback Case Keenum struggled early on, fumbling the ball twice and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown. He also got sacked three times. But once he got himself together he was unstoppable. He ended the day completing 36 of 44 passes for 399 yards and three touchdowns. Furthermore, the Coogs managed to rack up 222 rushing yards on 40 carries. Freshman RB Bryce Beall came into his own, carrying 22 times for 132 yards, and Case Keenum scrambled for 23 more. East Carolina was most flummoxed, however, by direct snaps to backup quarterback Blake Joseph, who carried five times for 31 yards.

But the story of the day was the defense. They held the Pirates to 275 yards and a 1-of-13 effort on third downs. They also recovered an East Carolina fumble and intercepted the ball twice.

That's not to say that the Cougars' performance last Saturday was flawless. The team committed four turnovers, and special teams struggled through three failed field goal attempts. Given all the mistakes the Cougars made early on, the fact that they handily defeated ECU is even more impressive.

No doubt about it: this was a huge win for the University of Houston, and was exactly what the team and its fans needed after the struggles of the last few weeks. With a much-needed bye week this weekend and a winnable home game - their first in over a month - against Alabama-Birmingham one week from tonight, the prospects for the season just got a lot brighter.

2008 Houston Astros postmortem

With last Sunday's 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves, the Houston Astros closed the door on their 2008 campaign.

Given the fact that I was in Dubai for much of the period between April and August, I honestly did not follow the Astros as closely as I normally do. So I really don't have anything too insightful to say about the team other than the fact that, while they certainly struggled at times, they showed improvement over the previous season. They even made things interesting in what, for all accounts, was supposed to be a "rebuilding" year: left for dead after a horrendous stretch in May and June (at one point managing a 5-19 stretch that included an eight-game losing streak), the Astros were able to mount a second-half rally and kept themselves in the NL Wild-Card chase until the last week of the season. (I'm not even going to go into the controversy surrounding the decision to move the Astros' "home" games against the Cubs to Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike and the effect that move had on the team's Wild-Card chances.)

Aside from the fact that the Astros' 86-75 record in 2008 was a thirteen-win improvement over 2007's 73-89 campaign, Houston also showed a little bit of improvement in their pitching (a 4.36 ERA in 2008, compared to 4.68 in 2007) as well as their hitting (the team batted 2.63 in 2008 compared to 2.60, and that seemingly insignificant improvement was good enough to move the Astros from twelfth in the National League in batting average in 2007 to seventh in 2008). And who would have thought, at the beginning of the season, that new closer Jose Valverde would lead the NL in saves (44) at the end of the season?

I'm merely scratching the surface here - there are folks out there that have a much more informed and detailed insight into the team than I do - but the bottom line is that the 2008 Houston Astros certainly exceeded expectations for the season. Whether it is part of a trend that bodes well for 2009 remains to be seen, but at the very least it shows that, if nothing else, the Houston Astros have a viable and competitive base to build upon for 2009.

With the season over, the Astros bid farewell to catcher Brad Ausmus, who was a fixture of the ballclub for the past seven and a half seasons.

Electrification at last!

Electricity was restored to our house shortly after noon on Saturday September 27, roughly two weeks and twelve hours after Hurricane Ike took us off-line.

Cable and internet service still has not been restored, however. I'm currently writing from my hotel in Plano, where I am spending the week on business.

I told you I wasn't sold on USC

Back in August, I wrote:

But this is also the same Southern Cal program that, over the last couple of seasons, has developed an uncanny knack for losing games it shouldn't; see Oregon State and UCLA and 2006 and Stanford (!) last season. Will Pete Carroll's team get tripped up by an inferior opponent again this year?

Now we know the answer. Although I wasn't expecting it to happen this early in the season.

The no-electricity blues

We are now on our twelfth day without electricity.

Originally, Centerpoint said that 80% of my ZIP Code would have power by Monday the 22nd. Monday has come and gone. Now they're saying Friday. Maybe.

What makes it even more frustrating is that crews were working around our neighborhood early last week when they were bringing the housing complexes adjacent to the University of Houston back online. That resulted in a few houses in my neighborhood getting power, and we thought they would bring the rest of the neighborhood online shortly afterward.

But then the line crews disappeared. They haven't been back since.

Needless to say, this really sucks.

Houston 25, Colorado State 28

Yesterday my brother and a couple of friends drove up from Denver to Fort Collins to witness another heartbreakingly-close loss for the Cougars. The Cougars had rallied back from a 17-point halftime deficit and, with eight seconds left, were in position to send the game into overtime with a field goal. However, the Coogs decided to take a shot into the endzone before sending out the field goal unit, and Case Keenum's fade route to LJ Castile in the corner of the endzone was picked off by Colorado State defender (and son of Houston Texans head coach) Klint Kubiak, ending the game.

In my preseason outlook, I expected the team to be 2-2 right now, with losses to OSU and one of the two MWC schools. I thought that it would take time for the team to adjust to the new staff's offensive and defensive schemes. I was also worried that the team would struggle with its weak spots at wide receivers and linebackers. As it turns out, all of those things have happened. Add in the disruption of the team's routine and concentration caused by Hurricane Ike - I remain convinced that last week's "home" game against Air Force should simply have been canceled - and there's little wonder why this team sits at 1-3 right now.The weather yesterday was perfect for football. Colorado State has an excellent tailgating culture; other than a couple of drunken bozos (every school has a few), their fans were friendly and hospitable.

Colorado State's Hughes Stadium is a comfortable venue which sits at the foot of the Front Range; at a capacity of 34,400 it's only a little larger than Robertson. The school enjoys tremendous student stupport - the entire east side grandstand is reserved for students - and the band sits at the 50 yard line.
The offense started out slow; they sputtered for almost half the game and didn’t really get things going until the last drive of the first half. Receivers are still dropping easy passes. The O-Line is still having trouble establishing itself as an effective run blocking outfit (although to their credit they did improve as the game wore on). Quarterback Case Keenum did not have his best outing; he did pass for 380 yards and three touchdowns but also threw three interceptions, including the one that ended the game.
But the bigger problem is the defense. One thing that stood out to me was the way the UH defense was so physically dominated by Colorado State. The Rams' O-Line continually blew the Coogs off the ball. Going into the season I did not anticipate the degree to which this defense lacks size and speed. Also, it's become obvious to me that, just because somebody is a senior or a four-year starter, doesn't mean that they are an outstanding player. It's clear that the Cougar defense is going to struggle all season long.
Then there's the Unholy Trinity. It's difficult for any team to win with a minus-4 turnover margin. And although the Cougar special teams otherwise played well, they made one critical mistake when they were unable to cover Colorado State's botched field goal attempt (on 4th and 16, no less) in the first half. CSU was able to convert the botched attempt into a first down, and that saved a drive that resulted in a touchdown. Those are the kinds of mistakes that teams need to be able to capitalize upon.

Given the way Coogs played in the first half, the fact that they rallied back and had a chance to win or tie the game at the end is rather remarkable and should be commended. I was also happy to see that the high altitude did not seem to take a toll on the team; in fact, they played better at the end of the game than they played at the beginning. But the Coogs simply can't dig themselves into big first-half holes and then expect to rally themselves out of those holes in the second half; they need to play with intensity from the very start.

I don't disagree with the decision to throw the ball into the endzone with eight seconds left. Why not take a shot at avoiding overtime on the road, if you can do it and if it's a safe play, i.e. either the receiver catches it, or the ball falls incomplete with a couple of seconds left for the field goal attempt? But the decision to throw the fade to LJ in the corner of the endzone was not a safe play. The Coogs had already done it twice, so CSU was ready for it. Furthermore, Case's pass to LJ was not well-thrown.

Next up for the Cougars is ECU in Greenville, which is going to be tough. Given the problems that currently plague the team - an offense that still makes a lot of mistakes, a defense that cannot stop anybody, and a team that starts out slow and allows themselves to fall behind early - it's becoming clear that this is going to be a long season for University of Houston football. Right now, my preseason prediction of a seven-win is beginning to look optimistic.

Keeping cool

It's been over a week since Hurricane Ike, and power still has not been returned to my house.

I guess this is one way to seek relief from the heat until the power comes back on...

Ike picture time!

Now that I'm at my brother's place in Denver and have steady and reliable internet access, I can finally upload the pictures that I took right after the storm hit. Click on any photo for a larger image.

This was the view from our street as the outer bands of Ike began moving out and people began emerging to survey the destruction. Falling tree branches broke out the back window of the car on the right:

Lori and Kirby survey the damage:

Swollen by Ike's rainwaters, Braes Bayou rises to the top of its banks and floods North MacGregor Way:A tree limb sits upon a power line. This was one of several instances of tree-downed power lines in our neighborhood:
I think it's safe to assume that the van is a total loss:Most of the property damage to our neighborhood was caused by falling tree trunks and limbs, rather than by the winds themselves. This house lost its front porch to falling tree branches:

An entire uprooted pine tree lays upon a house, causing roof damage. If you look carefully, you can see another toppled pine tree laying upon the garage in back:

Much of the city's traffic lights were damaged by Ike's winds. On Scott Street near the UH campus, a signal gantry lays in the street:

The University of Houston itself did not sustain a great deal of storm damage, although the College of Architecture sustained damage when part of its roof peeled away and water leaked into the building. The roof membrane of the campus's rec center was also blown off by the storm:

Everybody lent a hand to the post-hurricane clean-up effort, including Kirby:

Ike, Part Five

It's been almost six full days since the storm hit. We're still without power, and Centerpoint is now saying that our zip code won't be back online until sometime next week. Lori's dad brought us a generator, and we've been using it to run the refrigerator and some fans, but our whiny neighbor who lives behind us complains when we run it after 10 pm. There's nothing for me to do at my work right now (but at least the office has reopened) and both Lori's work and Kirby's school are closed until Monday at the earliest. So let me simply echo what John has to say about the present state of Houston, lest anybody from outside Houston think things are fine:

THINGS ARE NOT NORMAL HERE.

Not even close.

It's getting better. More gas stations and grocery stores are open. A lot of restaurants have re-opened (and the ones with free wi-fi are definitely getting our business), albeit with truncated menus, and several malls, museums and movie theaters have returned to operation as well. But Houston is still a long way from returning to normal. Much of the city is still without power, we're still under a midnight-to-six curfew to deter looters, the lack of operating traffic lights make driving though the city a cautious and slow task, and collective patience is beginning to fray as the lack of power, open businesses or working schools create a sense of boredom and "cabin fever" among the populace.

Houston will return to normal. But it's not there yet. Not by a long shot.

Luckily for me, I will be escaping Houston in a few hours on a previously-scheduled trip to visit my brother in Denver. He and I are going to go see the Cougars play Colorado State in Fort Collins this weekend. With any luck, by the time I get back to Houston on Sunday power will have been restored to my neighborhood. But I'm not going to hold my breath.