“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Houston Cougars head coach Kevin Sumlin said yesterday about the team’s game with the SMU Mustangs this weekend. And though that’s pretty much coaching cliché number one, Sumlin is hinting at the actual truth this time out.
The Mustangs, though 3-3 on the season, are 2-0 in Conference USA play, and are tied for first place in the West Division, the same division in which the 5-1 (1-1) Cougars reside. This is thus a game the Cougars need to win if their goal of winning the conference is to be achieved.
Sumlin likens SMU to the Coogs. Both teams are in their second year under a head coach with run-and-shoot pioneer and former Hawaii head coach June Jones heading up SMU.
“You can see how they have improved since he got there,” Sumlin says of Jones and the Mustangs. And that’s a worrisome thing for the Cougars as last year, despite SMU winning only one game, Houston still needed 21 fourth-quarter points to escape with the victory.
Sumlin seeks a team that, like his, is only now fully understanding the
coach’s system and implementing it with success. SMU is only a couple
of plays from being 5-1 as they’ve lost two games in overtime,
including last week when a SMU field goal attempt was blocked in
overtime by Navy.
And like Mississippi State, SMU has a strong
running game, led by junior running back Shawnbrey McNeal who has run
for 500 yards this season. But being as this is a June Jones team, SMU
also offers up a strong run-and-shoot passing game commanded by
sophomore quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell who has thrown for 1,685 yards
and 12 TDs.
Then there’s the SMU defense, which is fourth in the
nation in takeaways with 20, and second in the nation with 13
interceptions behind a 3-4 defense that Sumlin calls aggressive.
“This team is beyond dangerous. This is a good team,” he says.
The
Cougars are riding high off of last week’s victory, but they are an
injured team. The left side of the offensive line was completely new
last week, and there were three new players, including two true
freshmen, starting on defense last week. But in some ways, Sumlin sees
this as a plus.
“I think it shows that we’re starting to build
some depth, and even though, it’s young, I think these bunch of guys
went into the game and played extremely hard,” he said. “They didn’t do
everything exactly right all of the time, but they did enough for us to
win. I think, I know, we’re better for it.”
But hopefully, the Cougars won’t have to rely on the young players for the victory this week.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
During
yesterday’s media luncheon, Sumlin commented on the surreal nature of
last week’s game which was played in a nearly empty Superdome. He
thought there were more UH fans than Tulane fans in the stadium, and he
felt the vast emptiness sucked the energy out of the team in the first
half.
“”There wasn’t a lot of excitement,” he said. “Our fans
were great. The loudest people in the place. We had to tell the PA
announcer to stop talking the whole time — I think we had two
penalties because of that, and I know [Tulane] did too, so it was kind
of mutual thing to tell him to shut up. He was the loudest guy in the
whole place.”
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For the first time, Sumlin
legitimately addressed the team’s rankings and the meaning of those
rankings. He stated that while it was important to the fans, it did
help with the recruiting. But, he concluded, “I’m more interested to
see where we are in about a month-and-a-half, two months.”
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Sumlin
also addressed the team’s kicking problems. While saying it was a shame
that the kicking overshadowed a very good game by the rest of the
special teams last week, he acknowledged that it is a problem. Right
now, he’s holding an open competition for the kicking spot, and he says
that the guy who kicks off to start the game is the winner.
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This is the team’s first home game this month after playing three straight on the road.
Playing
on the road “really doesn’t affect the schedule until Friday, because
you leave earlier. That’s basically it,” senior defensive back Carson
Blackmon said about all of those games. “It definitely makes coming
home — you appreciate it more. The home games, the band, playing in
front of your fans…it makes you appreciate it more.”
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This
game is the school’s 64th homecoming game. It will be aired on CBS
College Sports, and kickoff is currently set for 6:34 p.m.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.
