Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl: North Texas 31, Army 38

Since the NCAA started allowing teams with 5-7 records (and high APR scores) to participate in bowl games last season, every team with a losing record had, remarkably, won their bowl game.

Of course, it had to be North Texas to come along last Tuesday and break that streak. 

The 2016 Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl was actually entertaining. The Mean Green rallied from a ten-point deficit to send the game into overtime, but - alas! - couldn't answer the Black Knights' touchdown on their first overtime possession.

North Texas beat Army in the regular season, 35-18, but then went on to lose four out of their next five games and the Mean Green were clearly struggling as they entered this bowl game. UNT ends the season with a 5-8 record, which doesn't sound great but nevertheless represents as many wins as they've accumulated in the last two seasons combined. Here's to hoping that North Texas can continue improving next season.

Army, on the other hand, ends their season on a high note, winning their first bowl game since 2010 only a few weeks after breaking their 14-year drought over arch-rival Navy.

Incidentally, this isn't the first time a 5-7 UNT team has gone bowling. In 2001, they went to the New Orleans Bowl with that record because they won the Sunbelt Conference in spite of their overall losing record. They were then dispatched by Colorado State, 20-45.

UH football: coaching change, Las Vegas bowl, and season wrapup

When Tom Herman was hired, I wrote the following:

If Herman is successful at Houston, it is probable that he will move on to another job at a higher profile school in a three or four years. That’s fine with me, because it will have meant that he left the program in better shape than he found it; my only request for Coach Herman is that he not screw the Cougars the way Kevin Sumlin did when he left for Texas A&M (who cost the Coogs a Sugar Bowl appearance by spending too much time negotiating with the Aggies and too little time preparing for the Conference USA Championship Game).

Unfortunately, Tom Herman did indeed screw the Cougars, not because he left for his dream job at Texas after only two years - he clearly had his foot out the door the entire time he was here - but because he abruptly departed immediately following his team's final game of the season and took most of his coaching staff with him in the process, leaving UH to prepare for its bowl game with a skeleton staff and a bumnch of players who felt betrayed and demoralized.

Tom Herman (or "Vermin," as he's now known on UH message boards) will be well-compensated in Austin, to the tune of $28.75 million over five years, plus incentives. I hope he's worth it. Herman has only been a head coach for two years, and while some of his wins have been impressive (Florida State, Oklahoma, Louisville), he's also had some disappointing losses (UConn, SMU). For a man who preaches the importance of winning conference championships, he managed a rather sad 2-3 record in the AAC West this past season, good enough for fourth place. Herman is also a less-than-stellar 6-4 on the road. Those numbers won't cut it on the Forty Acres.

In the wake of Herman's departure, the University of Houston conducted a coaching search that reportedly included high-profile names such as former LSU head coach Les Miles, Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, and West Virginia head caoch Dana Holgerson, but ultimately settled on promoting from within and elevated offensive coordinator Major Applewhite to the head coach position.

Applewhite took the helm of the program just in time to lead the Cougars to their bowl appearance in Las Vegas against Mountain West Conference champion San Diego State. Even given its status as a lower-tier bowl game, the Las Vegas Bowl would have been a nice win for the Coogs, as it would have assured the Cougars of back-to-back double-digit-win seasons, probably would have earned them a place in the final top 25, and at the very least would have ended a dsappointing season on a high note.

Alas, that didn't happen. The Cougars jumped out to a 10-0 lead and led 10-6 at halftime, but completely collapsed in the second half. Greg Ward Jr ended his college career in sour fashion, throwing four interceptions, and the offense could only manage a pathetic 25 rushing yards forthe entire game. The Aztecs scored the game's final 34 points, and SDSU RB Donnel Pumphery broke the NCAA career rushing record against the UH defense. In retrospect, it was probably too much to expect that the Cougars, with its players demoralized and its staff hollowed out, would win this game. But that doesn't make the blowout loss much easier to stomach.

So a season that began with so much promise ends with a whimper: the Cougars failed to win their conference or go to a New Year's Six Bowl, their head coach abruptly abandoned them after only two years (and an entire season of distracting, media-fueled speculation), and, after being ranked as high as #6 during the season, the team won't even crack the season-ending top 25. The Big XII's decision not to expand - the UH program had hoped to be invited into the ranks of the Power Five - only added insult to injury.

Normally, a nine-win season which includes victories over to-ranked Oklahoma and Louisville, and the program's highest average attendance since 1978 would be cause for celebration. But the 2016 UH Cougar football season leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth.

Nothing to do but move forward now. Although I admit to being underwhelmed by the Applewhite hire - the last time the Coogs promoted from within it turned out to be a disaster - I've liked the guy ever since he was quarterback at Texas (he played when I was attending graduate school there) and so I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt. That being said, there are a lot of things he needs to do - quickly - in order to keep the 2017 season from being a true disaster. The first order of business is assembling a staff. Then he has to figure out how to fill the holes going into the 2017 season; the team is losing a lot of talent - Ward, cornerback Brandon Wilson, linebackers Steven Taylor and Tyus Bowser, defensive end Cameron Malveaux, just to name a few - and he also needs to find a way to fix the offensive line, which was the team's most glaring weak spot in 2016. The Chronicle's Joseph Duarte has a list of these and other tasks for Applewhite to attend to.

The 2017 season features games against former SWC foes Rice and Texas Tech and easy, fun road trips to San Antonio and Tulane. The Coogs also get the three teams they lost to this season - SMU, Navy and Memphis - at home next fall. There's certainly reason for optimism heading forward.

Romantic, rapey or just rubbish?

Emily Crockett ponders the 1944 Christmastime standard "Baby, It's Cold Outside:"

When you first hear it, the song seems like a cute, flirty call-and-response duet between a man and his lady friend who are debating whether she should stay the night. On the one hand, what would her parents or the neighbors think? On the other hand, it’s just so cold outside. The ending is ambiguous, but it’s implied that she decides to stay after all, keeping them both warm on a cold winter’s night. 

But when you listen closer, the song’s lyrics also seem, well ... a little rapey. The guy ignores his date’s protests and badgers her to stay, which feels a lot like sexual coercion. At one point the woman asks, “Say, what’s in this drink?” — which is pretty alarming to a modern audience that understands how roofies work. The original score even lists the man’s part as “Wolf” and the woman’s part as “Mouse,” making the predator/prey dynamic creepily explicit. 

The song’s legions of defenders argue that those concerns are overblown. They note “What’s in this drink?” was a common joke in the 1930s and ’40s made by people who wanted to make an excuse for something that they knew very well they shouldn’t be doing. And in that more prudish time period, women were expected to turn down sex (at first, anyway) even if they wanted it. 

The vastly different ways people hear the same short song have set off an annual internet battle over its feminist merits. For every think piece calling it a “date-rape anthem,” there’s a corresponding “Oh, come on” take about how oversensitive “social justice warriors” are killing romance and seduction and taking the song’s lyrics out of context. 

Which reading is right? Is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” too problematic to enjoy with a clear conscience anymore, or is our perception of it the real problem?

Crockett goes on to break down the song's lyrics, providing both a "rapey" and "romantic" interpretation of each verse, and then goes into a lengthy discussion about the song, its historical context, its modern interpretation, sexual assault, feminism and affirmative consent. The "romantic versus rapey" debate regarding "Baby, It's cold Outside" is not new, and is culturally important.

However, this debate overlooks the most important and fundamental issue regarding this song, which is that IT ABSOLUTELY SUCKS.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is the Yuletide equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. Its call-and-response lyrical structure is obnoxious and annoying, and the lyrics themselves are as vapid as they are creepy. The song is melodically repetitive, monotonous and uninteresting; it lacks the most basic elements of songcraft, such as a bridge or a chorus. What's more, it's not even a song about Christmas; there's no mention of anything holiday-related in the lyrics. "It's cold outside" in January, February and even March, too, depending on where you live, so why is this piece of acoustic crap assumed to be a holiday song?

Look, a lot of Christmas songs are utter garbage. Humanity died a little when "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" were recorded, and don't even get me started on the mind-bending stupidity that is "Christmas Shoes." But "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is the absolute worst. It is unlistenable, a crime against music. I don't know it really is a song about date rape, but I do know that I feel like my ears are being raped every time it is played.

So, please: stop playing this song. Better yet, delete or destroy every copy and every version of this song, and for the love of baby Jesus stop recording new versions of it every year.

The best way to resolve the "rapey versus romantic" debate regarding "Baby, It's cold Outside" - and, in the process, to improve Christmas music as a whole - is to simply erase this horrible excuse for a song out of existence entirely.

Seriously. It sucks.

UH wins and attendance, 2016

The Cougars are getting ready to face San Diego State in the Las Vegas Bowl next weekend, and are searching for their next head coach (who hopefully will not be this guy). In the meantime, here's my annual update of the Houston wins-versus-attendance graph for UH Cougar Football:

The Coogs averaged 38,953 fans at TDECU Stadium this past season*, which is a 5,666 fan increase over last year and 9,724 fan increase over last two years.

This was also Houston's highest average attendance since 1978 (39,253) and fifth highest in program history (behind 1966, 1967, 1977 and 1978).

I'm not sure that the Cougars will be able to improve on these numbers in 2017, especially since the 2016 season didn't end with the Cotton Bowl appearance that the UH faithful hoped for.

On the other hand, there was a time in this program's history when, if you told me that the Coogs would one day average almost 39k fans per game, I would have laughed in your face.

I will update the "wins" bar on this graph if the Cougars win their bowl game.

* The game against Oklahoma at NRG Stadium is officially considered a neutral site game. Add that game in, and the Coogs averaged 43.5k fans per game in Houston this season.

Checking in on China's road-straddling bus

After making its much-anticipated debut last August, it looks like the innovative transit solution is now, quite literally, collecting dust:

Well, what once looked like a treatment for China’s serious cases of pollution and traffic “is currently causing them,” as Shanghaiist puts it. A local reporter checked up on the 72-foot-long behemoth earlier this month and found it to be right where engineers left it back in August: on the 300-meter test track of a Hebei city road, blocking lanes and gathering a thick layer of dust in an open shed.

And it looks like it won’t be moving any time soon. Shanghaiist reports that the lease for the track was supposed to expire in August, but has since been renewed for another year. Song Youzhou, the designer, insisted his staff still tests the line every week and that his company—which earlier had been accused of operating a Ponzi scheme—is searching for new investors. (He blames the accumulated dust on China’s smog.) But workers still guarding the bus (or more accurately, the train) told local news that they haven’t heard a peep from the company.

I'm not going to lie: I'm a little bit sad about this, because - in spite if its obvious ridiculousness and impracticality in most urban areas - this project intrigued me and I wanted to see if it could actually succeed.

This is not to entirely abandon hope for the road-straddling behemoth; its current problems seem to be more financial than technical and it might yet survive. However, as a transportation planner, I think that transit's future isn't in inventing fancy gadgets that will completely replace the bus, but is rather in making improvements to the bus itself.

Flights from Houston to Havana

They become a reality, starting this Saturday.

United Airlines this week will begin nonstop Saturday flights between Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport and Havana, according to the airline. 

United will operate a Boeing 737 for the Houston flight, as well as daily nonstop service between Newark Liberty International Airport and Havana's José Martí International Airport. Newark flights began Tuesday.

This had been in the works for most of the year. The question is whether this service will actually last. 

#20 Houston 44, Memphis 48

It's tough for the kids to win - especially on the road - when rumors are swirling about their head coach's imminent departure to another school. Such was the case at Memphis last Friday.

The Good: Down seventeen points at the half, the Cougars mounted a 27-point second half rally and actually led the game with a minute and a half remaining. Greg Ward Jr finished the day with 47 completions on 67 attempts for 487 yards and four touchdowns. He and running back Duke Catalon also combined for 125 rushing yards and a touchdown.

The Bad: The rally simply wasn't good enough, as Memphis scored with 19 seconds remaining to win the game. The same UH defense that shut down Louisville the previous week was utterly embarrassed by the Tigers' offense, surrendering six touchdowns and 555 total yards of offense, while creating no turnovers.

The Ugly: Houston turned the ball over twice and committed 10 penalties for 94 yards. And, as expected, Tom Herman left the Cougars to become the head coach of the Texas Longhorns the following day. I'll have more to say about that later.

What It Means: The loss keeps the Cougars from reaching double-digit wins for the second year in a row, ensures a losing record in the AAC West division, and most likely knocks them out of the top 25. In terms of which bowl game the Cougars go to, however, it probably doesn't change anything.

I'd also like to point out that my preseason prediction of a 9-3 season for the Coogs was spot on. I just didn't expect that one of their wins would be against Oklahoma and one of their losses would be against lowly SMU.

Next up for the Cougars is their bowl game, which will be announced this weekend. Defensive coordinator Todd Orlando will assume interim head coaching duties for this one while the school, yet again, searches for a new head coach.

Remembering the November 21, 1992 tornado outbreak

Today Space City Weather produced their first installment of Space City Rewind, which looks back at historical weather events in the Houston region. Today's topic was the frightening onslaught of tornadoes across Houston and surrounding counties that occurred exactly 24 yeas ago. Significant damage occurred, but amazingly there were no fatalities.

I remember that day pretty well, because mom and I went to the Sam's Club on Loop 610 south to do some pre-Thanksgiving stocking up and were blissfully unaware of the tornadoes that were streaking across the city as we shopped. We would later learn that one of the most destructive tornadoes missed my cousins, who were living in the Sterling Green subdivision in Channelview at the time, by only a few hundred feet. They were lucky, to say the least; the damage - houses without roofs, etc. - would be visible from their back yard.

The entire article, which (rather wonkily) discusses the atmospheric conditions that caused the tornadoes, the usefulness of then-brand-new Doppler radar in tracking tornadoes, the damage the tornadoes wrought and the aftermath of the disaster, is lengthy but well worth the read. Especially this bottom line:

The takeaway message here is simple: While an outbreak of this magnitude represents an outlier for Southeast Texas, the fact is that it can happen here. Know how to respond to a tornado. Have a plan ready if a tornado is about to bear down on your home. You should also have a method to receive weather warnings at night or when you may be distracted.

All in all, some excellent reporting. You can support them by buying a Space City Weather T-shirt, if you're so inclined!

John Jenkins: ahead of his time?

No coach in the history of the University of Houston football program has been more controversial than John Jenkins, who was the brains behind the Cougars' Run-and-Shoot spectacle of the late '80s and early '90s:

Back then, with coach John Jenkins in charge, Houston was college football's most intriguing and polarizing team. Most coaches believed that defense and running the ball won games; Jenkins laughed at that notion. Instead, his Cougars ran a no-huddle offense and lined up with four receivers on most plays, compiling eye-popping passing statistics and forcing defenses to cover the entire field. 

As precursors to the passing masterminds and spread formations that have transformed contemporary college football, Jenkins and his Houston teams are forgotten disruptors—a coach and a system that were way, way ahead of their time. 

"I think the game's more fun for players now than it was 20 or 30 years ago," says Hal Mumme, a longtime college coach and offensive guru who learned from Jenkins. "And John Jenkins was a big part of changing those attitudes." 

Jenkins only spent six years at Houston: three as offensive coordinator, and three as head coach. He resigned under pressure, and hasn't coached in college again. But he had a lasting impact on the sport. 

Consider: Houston's 1989 offense, which was led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Andre Ware, still holds the NCAA record for passing yards and total yards per game and is second in points per game. One year later, [David] Klingler set several NCAA marks that remain today, including passing yards per game and touchdowns per game. Ware and Klingler, both of whom ran option offenses in high school, became first round NFL draft picks in large part due to their success in Jenkins's offense. 

"It's taken college football 20-some odd years to catch up to what we were doing back then," Klingler says. "And in some ways, they still haven't. That just tells you how much of an offensive genius John Jenkins was."

John Jenkins made a lot of enemies while he was at the University of Houston, especially because of his penchant for running up the score on hapless opponents such as Eastern Washington or an SMU team coming back from the Death Penalty. He focused on offense and neglected defense, with predictable results. He left the UH program under a cloud of scandal* in 1993, after back-to-back losing seasons; his tenure marked the beginning of the nadir of the UH football program. His antics effectively got him blackballed from ever coaching again at the college level; he now is a scout for the Canadian Football League. The Run-and-Shoot offense itself, after having a few years of glory in the NFL in the early 1990s, has now been superseded by newer offensive philosophies.

And with all that said, his offense was something to behold. And it has certainly affected the way football is played, almost 30 years later:

While Jenkins is happy with his current role with the Argonauts, he still thinks about returning to college coaching. How, he wonders, would his offense look now? "If anybody would ever hire him today, it would be the same discussions," Klingler says. "They'd be scoring 95 points against people and everybody would be offended about how he was running up the score. It would be right back to the same thing because he's just that good." 

That said, what if? could be the wrong question. Maybe Jenkins doesn't have to wonder; maybe he just has to look around. Ware, who is now an ESPN college football analyst, said coaches often ask him about his Houston days. When he called the Missouri-Kentucky game on Oct. 29, he noticed Missouri ran some of the same formations and routes that the Cougars did in the late 1980s and 1990s. 

"It's still very prevalent out there, some of the stuff that we did," Ware says. "It's grown. It started as a plant and sprung its own limbs, and now you see what it is today. I think we were the foundation of what you see a lot, not only in college but in some NFL stadiums on Sundays."

(*One oft-repeated story is that he spliced footage of porn into game films to keep the kids' attention.)

Sugar Land gets bigger

A full 33% bigger, in fact:

Sugar Land City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve, on final reading, the annexation of the Greatwood and New Territory areas. 

The areas comprise 3,850 acres of land, and consist of nine municipal utility districts, which will be absorbed into the city.

The annexation takes effect on December 12, and will increase Sugar Land's population from 87,367 to more than 117,000 residents.

This will make Sugar Land the third-largest municipality in the region, behind Houston and Pasadena and ahead of Pearland and League City.

Where would The Woodlands rank among the top five? We'll never know until they actually incorporate...