2021 Houston Cougar football schedule released

Assuming that the pandemic is over by the time the next football season starts and the Cougars are actually able to play a full season's worth of games, this is what it will look like:

Sat Sep 04     Texas Tech (at NRG Stadium)

Sat Sep 11     at Rice

Sat Sep 18     Grambling State

Sat Sep 25     Navy

Fri Oct  01     at Tulsa

Thu Oct 07    at Tulane

Sat Oct 16     (off)

Sat Oct 23     East Carolina

Sat Oct 30     SMU

Sat Nov 06    at South Florida

Sat Nov 13    at Temple

Fri Nov 19     Memphis

Sat Nov 28    at UConn

There are a few things about this schedule that work in UH's favor. The Coogs don't leave the City of Houston for the entire month of September. They get SMU and Memphis at home. They avoid Central Florida and Cincinnati altogether. The only non-Saturday home game is a Friday-before-Thanksgiving matchup against Memphis. Houston gets their bye week right in the middle of the season, where it's likely to do them the most good. 

There are some drawbacks as well. There are two sets of back-to-back road games, and the Cougars only play one game at home in all of November. The end-of-season trip to play no-longer-a-conference-mate Connecticut was something of an act of desperation; there was apparently no other FBS school available to fill out the schedule. 

Most significantly, this schedule is not going to sell a lot of season tickets. The closest thing the Cougars have to a "marquee" home matchup, against former SWC foe Texas Tech, has been moved to NRG Stadium. The team's true "home" slate is not going to excite the average sports fan, although Grambling State's band will be fun to watch.

With that said, this is a schedule that the Cougars should be able to do well against. It's definitely easier than the slate they faced in 2020 (even though they only played a portion of it): only three opponents on this schedule had winning records last season, and the Coogs get two of them at home. Having all four September games in the city is an advantage to a team that needs a fast start to the season. 

The Cougars need to start winning gain. This schedule gives them the chance to do that. If the 2021 squad cannot notch a winning record against such a relatively weak lineup, then it will almost certainly be time to declare the Dana Holgorsen experiment a failure.

Joe Broback predicts anywhere between 6 and 9 wins for the Coogs with this schedule. Ryan Monceaux shares his thoughts as well. 

I'm just hoping that this fall we'll be able to tailgate again.