What will Joe Paterno's legacy be?

Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum ponders it:

Paterno's final chapter should, by the hardbound terms of traditional journalism, begin with the tawdry story of (former assistant coach and alleged child molester Jerry) Sandusky, which colored -- nay, dominated -- the final three months of his life. But even most of those who have been critical (including me) of Paterno's failure to act when alerted about inappropriate behavior between Sandusky and an underage boy would agree that this extraordinary man deserves an obituary without mention of Sandusky, who is facing multiple charges of sexual abuse against children.
Alas, a Sandusky-less obit cannot happen. But put aside for a moment those last few tragic months and remember what Paterno meant to so many.

There's no denying Paterno's profound legacy as a college football coach: he spent 46 years at the head of Penn State's football program and in the process became the winningest coach in major college football history. His teams finished the season ranked in the top 5 of the AP poll 12 times, five of his teams were undefeated, and he won national championships in 1982 and 1986. He and his wife were philanthropists, donating $4 million back to Penn State. Paterno was a beloved figure to the Penn State community and an icon to the college football world in general. To belittle or to overlook all that he accomplished during his career simply because of the way it ended would be grossly unfair.
That being said, as McCallum glumly notes, a full accounting of Paterno's legacy cannot exclude his role in the child molestation scandal that eventually ended his career. By referring reports of Sandusky's alleged abuse to his superior, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, Paterno may have done what was legally required of him (in fairness, it should be noted that Curley is under indictment for his role in failing to pursue the matter, whereas Paterno was never accused of any criminal wrongdoing). However, given Paterno's own position of leadership, it's not unreasonable to have expected that he do more: he could have gone directly to the police with these allegations, or he could have followed up with Curley to see if they had investigated the matter any further, or, at the very least, he could have seen to it that Sandusky was no longer allowed access to Penn State facilities. Paterno has stated to the press that he wasn't sure how to handle the situation, that he "was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was," and that, in retrospect, he regretted not doing more. I take him at his word. But that doesn't excuse his failure to be more proactive in a matter as serious and as heinous as the possible sexual molestation of children.
Another college football legend, Ohio State's Woody Hayes, is remembered as much for his punching of an opposing player in the 1978 Gator Bowl as he is for his tremendous success as a head coach. Only time will tell if Paterno will indeed be remembered for the scandal that ended his coaching career as much as for the success he had during that career itself. I think the Chronicle's Jerome Solomon sums it up best:

After the scandal become public, Paterno described what he didn't do as one of the great sorrows of his life.
"In hindsight, I wish I had done more," he said.
We all do, JoePa. We all do.
But like all men have and will, Paterno fell short of perfection.
Though tens of thousands who worship the ground he coached on might have you believe otherwise, Joe Paterno was not a god.

(UPDATE: following the release of the Freeh Report and the imposition of NCAA sanctions on the Penn State football program, I have re-evaluated Paterno's legacy.)

Texans fall to Ravens in playoffs

Given how well the Texans otherwise played in their 13-20 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in yesterday's AFC Divisional playoff game, you can't help but think that, if the Texans had a healthy Matt Schaub at quarterback (instead of rookie T. J. Yates, who threw three interceptions) and didn't have bumbling moron Jacoby Jones at punt returner (his fumble of a punt early in the game set up an easy Baltimore score that proved to be the difference in the score), they might have actually won this game.

The Texans' defense was stout: they allowed only 11 first downs and 227 total yards to the Ravens, sacked Ravens QB Joe Flacco five times, and came up with a heroic goal-line stand that kept the score from getting out of hand. Running back Arian Foster, meanwhile, lit up the Ravens' run defense for 132 yards on 27 carries. But the four turnovers provided by Jones and Yates proved to be Houston's undoing. The Ravens go on to battle the New England Patriots in next week's AFC Championship game, with the winner going to the Superbowl. The Texans go home, their season over.

That being said, the long-suffering Texans franchise has a lot to be proud of this season. The team won their division and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history in spite of season-ending injuries to the likes of Schaub and lineman Mario Williams and extended spells without Foster or wide receiver Andre Johnson, and a week ago they defeated Cincinnati to win their very first playoff game. That sets the team up for what could be an even more promising season in 2012.

Provided they stay healthy. And find somebody else to handle punt returns.

2011 UH Football Attendance

One final item worth noting from now-concluded 2011 University of Houston football season is the program's average attendance:

(click to enlarge)

I was worried that, coming of a disappointing 5-7 season in 2010, there would be a drop-off from last year's average of 31,728 fans per game. But excitement generated by the return of Case Keenum as well as a twelve-game winning streak caused the fans to return in 2011, and the Coogs essentially equaled last year's draw with an average attendance of 31,731 fans per game. The Conference USA Championship Game against Southern Miss attracted 32,413 people, which was the largest crowd ever for a Cougar football game at Robertson. (Too bad they didn't get treated to a better game. Yes, I'm still bitter.)

The reason attendance didn't get any higher than that is simple: the Cougars have essentially maxed out their current capacity at 32,000-seat Robertson Stadium. To show this, I've added a gray line to the graph to show the capacity of the venue that the Cougars have played the majority of their home games in since 1965. It shows that the Astrodome, where the Cougars played their home games from 1965 through 1997, had a capacity of 50,000 until the venue's lighted scoreboard was ripped out to make room for more seats prior to the 1990 season. In 1997, the Cougars began playing most of their games in Robertson Stadium and moved there full-time the following year. The stadium originally sat 22,000 fans, but was expanded to a capacity of 32,000 in 1999. As the graph shows, the last two seasons the team's average attendance per game has met that capacity. The program has finally reached the point where it cannot accommodate any more fans in its current venue.

Plans for a larger stadium to replace Robertson have been on the drawing board for years, and yesterday the University of Houston took a major step towards that goal by releasing an official Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to architecture firms interested in designing the facility. The new stadium would have an initial capacity of 40,000, with provisions for future expansion, and construction would begin following the 2012 season.

There's no question that Cougar football needs a new stadium, not just one with more seats but also with better sightlines, amenities and luxury suites. But the biggest obstacle to the new stadium being built remains fundraising. To date only about $60 million of the estimated $120 million needed to construct the facility has been raised. A deal regarding a lead naming rights gift has yet to come to fruition, despite persistent rumors that it will happen soon.

That being said, the fact that the Coogs have maxed out their capacity in their current home is a good problem for the program to have. For so many years the team has struggled with poor attendance; one of the reasons the University of Houston left the Astrodome was that it was simply too large of a venue for the program. Winning and increased local interest in UH football have brought the fans back, and hopefully that trend will continue in the coming years as the program builds on its recent success and begins play in the Big East.

Wrapping up the 2011 college football season

The 2011 college football season came to an end last night with Alabama's 21-0 victory over LSU in the BCS National Championship Game. Kudos to the Crimson Tide; not only did I predict last September that Alabama would not be in the national title mix, but I was also among those who thought that Oklahoma State, rather than Alabama, was more worthy of facing LSU in the national title game. I was proven wrong on both counts. Although Oklahoma State fans might beg to differ, in terms of crowning a champion I think the BCS got it right this year.

Rounding out the top five in both the AP and Coaches' polls are LSU, Oklahoma State, Oregon and Arkansas.

The season also ended on a happy note for the University of Houston Cougars and new head coach Tony Levine. They convincingly defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions, 30-14, in the Ticketcity.com Bowl in Dallas last week. Case Keenum ended his college career with another record-setting day, completing 45 of 69 attempts for 538 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Penn State fell behind early - the Coogs were up 17-0 by the end of the first quarter - and the Lions' anemic offense simply couldn't catch up.

The naysayer might argue that Houston's victory over Penn State means little; that the Nittany Lions were unfocused after suffering through a devastating sex abuse scandal that resulted in the unceremonious firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno. However, the fact remains Penn State was ranked, had finished the regular season with a 9-3 record, and was a Big Ten powerhouse: one of the most historically-storied programs in all of college football. As the Houston Press's John Royal argues, this truly is a big win for the Coogs:

There will probably still be doubters. Those critics who say the Cougars season was a fluke. That they would have been demolished if they made a BCS Bowl. And the detractors will probably say this game proves nothing, what with all of the distractions going on around Penn State this season.

But the Cougars were beset by distractions this past month, too. And they set aside those distractions and played their game of the season, demolishing a ranked opponent before a national audience. They beat a squad that should have been able to dominate them physically, and probably had the better players, more highly recruited players.

It may just be the TicketCity Bowl, but the Cougars are winners. And they won this game without a single doubt. So criticize all you want because right now, the Cougars don't care. Instead, the question should probably be: How in the hell did Penn State manage to win nine games this season?

The Cougars ended the season ranked 18th in the AP poll, which is a pathetic travesty but which probably speaks to the fact that the national sportswriters were unimpressed by Houston's weak schedule as well as their crushing defeat at the hands of Southern Miss on national television. The coaches were a bit more generous, placing the Cougars 14th in the final USA Today poll, and I think that's probably more accurate. Regardless of their placement, the Cougars end their season with a national ranking for the first time since the 1990 season. The Coogs also end the season with 13 wins for the first time in school history (LSU was the only other program in major college football to do so this season) and a victory in a bowl game for only the second time since 1980.

It's true that no team ended the season with a winning record. It's also true that the Southern Miss team that handed he Coogs their only loss of the season was pretty good (the Golden Eagles ended the season with a 12-2 record, a bowl win of their own, a #20 ranking in the AP poll and a #19 ranking in the USA Today poll). Nevertheless, the Cougars and their fans will forever look back at last December's C-USA title game and wonder what could have been.

The North Texas Mean Green, under new head coach Dan McCarney, ended the season with a 5-7 record, which is a two-win improvement over the 2010 campaign. It's a step in the right direction.

Anyway, on to the offseason. Sigh...

Merry Christmas!

Here's to hoping that everybody has a wonderful holiday season, and best wishes for 2012!

Cougar football: a new coach and a new conference

The last few weeks have been pretty crappy ones for Cougar football fans such as myself. I've been so bummed out that I haven't been able to bring myself to write anything about the end of the season until now.

After making it through the entire regular season undefeated, the Cougars suffered a catastrophic 28-49 loss at home to Southern Miss in the Conference USA Championship Game. The Cougars were unfocused, uninspired, and completely befuddled by a superior Golden Eagle gameplan. The offense was out of sync and unable to move the ball against USM. Case Keenum was off-target much of the time and threw two interceptions, and when he did find his receivers they oftentimes couldn't catch the ball. The rushing game, meanwhile, could only manage 55 total yards of offense all afternoon. The UH defense was similarly exposed, giving up touchdown passes of 69 and 61 yards and allowing 207 yards to USM's rushing attack. Special teams performed poorly as well, allowing a punt to be blocked and returned for an easy Golden Eagle touchdown.

It was the Cougars' worst performance of the year and it came at the worst possible time. The nationally-televised loss cost the Coogs their shot at a BCS Bowl (and all the money and prestige it would entail), any chance Case Keenum had of even being invited to the Heisman Trophy ceremony evaporated, and the team plummeted in the AP rankings from #7 to #20. If the Coogs lose to Penn State in the Ticketcity Bowl in Dallas on January 2nd, they will likely become the first team in college football history to win twelve games and not even end the season ranked in the top 25. Richard Justice, in one of his last columns as a Houston Chronicle sportswriter, explains just how costly the loss was for the UH football program:

Rather than the Sugar Bowl's estimated $17 million payoff, the Coogs likely will be getting around $1 million. Because bowl money is shared with 11 other Conference USA members, UH's net loss probably is $2.5 million.

Also lost were prestige and a chance to prove once and for all that UH belonged on the national stage. Unfortunately, UH proved all the people who had doubts correct.

The 12-1 Coogs will forever be seen as a paper tiger that rode a weak schedule up the ladder, and when confronted with a real test were run off the field.

"It was a very, very tough locker room, obviously, for a lot of guys who've accomplished a lot this year," UH head coach Kevin Sumlin said.

UH fans will forever wonder if Sumlin was fully engaged with his team during a week when his name was connected with the job openings at Texas A&M and Arizona State.

There's absolutely no doubt that the rumors flying about Kevin Sumlin's possible move to Texas A&M the week of the game served as a distraction to the team, and, quite frankly, after blowing the most important game of his career to date, many UH fans (myself included) were ready to see him go. A week and a half after the conference championship loss, Sumlin finally made it official: he was headed to College Station to become the next head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies.

It remains to be seen if the Aggies will be pleased with Sumlin (or $cumlin, as he's now known on UH athletics message boards) at the helm of their football program. While there's no denying that he's a good coach based on what he did here at Houston, the fact is that he is 0-2 in championship games in lowly Conference USA and, more tellingly, is also 3-7 without Case Keenum at quarterback. As such, I'm somewhat skeptical that Sumlin will be able to lead the Aggies to great success as they join the SEC - the nation's toughest football conference and a conference he has no previous coaching experience in - next year. We'll see.

With Sumlin's departure, assistant head coach Tony Levine was elevated to the head coaching position on an interim basis. A few days ago, the "interim" was removed from his job title as Athletics Director Mack Rhoades officially introduced him as the program's next head coach. The 39-year-old Levine had been an assistant at UH since the 2008 season; he played wide receiver at the University of Minnesota and his experience as an assistant includes stints at the high school, college and professional levels. While the players and some UH faithful reacted positively to the hire, other UH fans who were hoping for a "name" coach were less enthused. Of course, only time will tell if Levine will be successful here, but I imagine he can quickly make a lot of new friends if he is able to lead the Coogs to victory in the Ticketcity.com bowl next week.

As head coach, Levine will have one advantage that no previous UH coach has had: membership in an automatically-qualifying BCS conference. The falling dominoes of conference realignment that have occurred over the past several months - Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, TCU and West Virginia to the Big XII, Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC - meant that a spot had finally opened for Houston in one of the nation's six AQ conferences. Earlier this month, the Big East announced that Houston, along with Central Florida, SMU, Boise State and San Diego State, will be joining that conference in time for the 2013 season.

Critics point out that this move by the Big East is a desperate attempt to remain viable, that the geographic spread of the conference is unwieldy, and that there's no guarantee that the Big East will be able to retain its BCS berth long-term, especially since the current BCS arrangement expires after the 2013 season. And that's all true. But it's also true that the new Big East is still, top-to-bottom, a stronger conference than C-USA. The fact that the Big East remains a power basketball conference doesn't hurt, either. In the end, this move was a no-brainer for the University of Houston.

There's nothing for the Cougar football program to do now except lick its wounds and move on. The Ticketcity.com bowl provides a chance for redemption, and although 2012 will be something of a rebuilding year for a team losing so many talented seniors, it will give Levine time to grow into his role as coach and get the team ready for Big East play in 2013.

But oh, what could have been...

ESPN College Gameday

Yesterday ESPN College Gameday came to the University of Houston for the very first time. Kirby and I went up to campus to check out the festivities, as they were.
Early in the morning, some posters on UH message boards were wringing their hands about what the perceived as a "sparse" crowd behind the College Gameday set, which they felt looked bad on television. However, by by the time we got there shortly after 10 am, the crowd was pretty decent.
Here's another view of the crowd right behind the College Gameday set. Houston's cheerleaders were prominently featured, but SMU's cheer squad was also in attendance made it on TV as well. Kirby poses in front of the famous ESPN College Gameday bus.
This is as close as I could get to the set itself. That's Lee Corso on the left and Kirk Herbstreit on the right.
One more crowd shot. The maroon Washington State flag in the center somehow makes its appearance at every ESPN College Gameday show every Saturday.
In a moment that will go down in University of Houston Cougar lore, at the conclusion of the broadcast Lee Corso uttered an expletive before he put on the Shasta head and predicted Houston to defeat Southern Methodist. We weren't standing in front of a speaker, so we didn't hear it at the time (which is probably a good thing for Kirby's sake), but the incident quickly made it on to YouTube. The reaction from the rest of the ESPN crew (as well as UH track legend Carl Lewis, seen wearing red in the picture above) is priceless (language warning):

Corso later went back on television and apologized for his outburst.

The Cougar nation also got some national props for "the coolest kid ever," the son of a former UH player who dressed up as the Heisman Trophy.

As it turned out, Corso's profanity-laced prognostication was correct. That afternoon, the Cougars convincingly defeated SMU, 37-7, to notch their eleventh straight victory of the season. This Friday the Cougars will square off against Tulsa, with the winner capturing the Conference USA Western Division.

Only time will tell when, or even if, ESPN College Gameday makes another visit to the University of Houston campus. But yesterday's event was a real treat, and the publicity was a real boon to the school, its students, its fans and its football program. Go Coogs!

Iowa State knocks off #2 Oklahoma State, 37-31

I'm wondering if I should include this game on my list of the top ten upsets in college football history, should I ever decide to update it. The Cowboys went into Ames as 27-point favorites. They leave with their national title hopes likely crushed.

Granted, Oklahoma State was playing one day after their women's basketball coach, Kurt Budke, was killed, along with three others, in a plane crash. That may have affected the team's focus. It's also possible that the Cowboys were looking past a 5-4 Iowa State team and were thinking about their big showdown with Oklahoma the following weekend.

But still: with a shot at the national title on the line, the Cowboys should have taken care of business. It just goes to show that anything can happen in college football, and that making it through the regular season undefeated is a rare feat indeed.

Which is why I'm worried about the Cougars against SMU tomorrow...

The Astros in the American League

Pardon me while I vomit:

MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday afternoon that the sale of the Houston Astros from former owner Drayton McLane to new owner Jim Crane has been unanimously approved.

As part of the agreement, the Astros will be moved to the American League West in 2013, with Crane getting a $70 million discount on the sale price of the team. That will even out baseball’s two leagues at 15 teams apiece and allow for the fair implementation of two additional Wild Card spots. It also means that interleague play is going to be a year-round thing.

I knew this was coming as part of the sale of the franchise to the new owner, and I understand Major League Baseball's desire to equalize the number of teams in the two leagues (the National League currently has 16 teams while the American League has 14). But, as somebody who grew up a loyal follower of the National League, I don't like it.

I don't like the designated hitter. It takes a lot of strategy out of the game.

I don't like the fact that the Astros will be giving up their long-standing divisional rivalries against teams like the Cardinals, Cubs and Reds and replacing them with new divisional "rivals" like the Angels, A's and Mariners.

I don't like the fact that playing those new divisional "rivals" on the road means 9 pm start times for television.

I don't like the fact that the presence of insufferably arrogant Yankees and Red Sox fans will now be an annual occurrence at Minute Maid Park.

I don't even like the fact that the Astros will get to play the Texas Rangers more often since both teams will now be in the same division. The two teams already play each other every year anyway. Big deal.

Nope. Don't like it at all.

To be fair to new owner Jim Crane: the move was forced on him. He didn't have a choice.

Of course, if he can't breathe some life back into the moribund team, which lost a franchise-record 106 games last season, it really won't matter which league the Astros are in because they won't be worth watching anyway.

The Astros will move to the American League beginning in the 2013 season.

Cougars are 10-0 and can make it into the BCS if they win out

Time to breathe some life back into this blog.

I had actually started several posts over the last month and a half - about the death of Steve Jobs, about the Cougars, about the tragedy that has occurred at Penn State - but for whatever reason I never got around to finishing any of them in a timely manner. I just been too busy or too lazy to put up any new entries, hence the lack of recent posts.

But enough excuses. I want to take a few minutes to gloat about the University of Houston Cougar football program, which is having its best season since the Run and Shoot era of the late 80s.

Right now, they are 10-0 and are only one of three undefeated teams remaining in FBS (LSU and Oklahoma State being the other two). They are ranked #11 in the BCS standings; if the Coogs manage to win the rest of their games (SMU this weekend, at Tulsa the day after Thanksgiving, and then the C-USA Conference Championship, most likely at Robertson against Southern Mississippi) they are assured of a spot in one of the BCS bowl games. QB Case Keenum's name is beginning to reappear in Heisman conversations. This is happening even as rumors of impending announcements regarding Houston's move to the automatically-qualifying Big East conference and groundbreaking for a new stadium continue to circulate.

Oh, and did I mention the ESPN College Football Gameday is coming to Houston this Saturday for the first time ever?

Indeed, it's an amazing time to be a UH football fan. One decade after the infamous 0-11 season that marked the low point of Cougar football, the Coogs have a chance to end the regular season undefeated and "bust the BCS." But the road ahead is not going to be easy. SMU knocked off TCU earlier this season and has a potent offense. Tulsa has a mobile quarterback in D. J. Kinne that is sure to give the Houston defense fits and road games are never easy. And Southern Miss, should the Cougars meet them in the conference championship, is 9-1 and is ranked #20. The team can see the promised land off in the distance, but it's going to be an uphill climb to get there.

This is to take nothing away from the season that the Coogs have had so far. I've enjoyed every minute of it. But now that they've gotten this far, there would still be a sense of disappointment if they didn't finish the journey. It's all in their hands.

Go Coogs!