UH Tries To Avoid Its History

​A long time ago, in a football universe far, far away, the Houston Cougars were a dominant offensive force. Their run-and-shoot offense was putting up huge numbers on college teams nationwide. The team was regularly ranked in the Top 20, and though they had been on a probation that prevented national TV exposure and trips to bowl games, they had managed to produce a Heisman trophy quarterback while also being mentioned in national title discussions.

The time was 1991. John Jenkins was the coach and David Klingler was the returning quarterback. Klingler was the cover boy of Sports Illustrated‘s college football preview issue.  The team came into the season ranked 12. They had finished the previous season at 10-1, the probation and sanctions were gone, and the Cougars were going to rule the Southwest Conference, compete for the national title, rack up major award after major award, and they were going to win a major bowl game.

Then came a disastrous TV appearance. A game in Miami on a Thursday
night on ESPN playing the Miami Hurricanes, one of the dominant teams of
college football. Instead of proving that they belonged in the national
discussion, the Cougars had their ass kicked as Miami won the game
40-10.  

The Cougars never recovered, finishing a season that
began with high hopes at 4-7. The highlight, if it could be called that,
was defeating a non-ranked Texas squad in the Astrodome. he team also
finished 4-7 in 1992, and the John Jenkins era was over.

The
Cougars spent the next decade and a half wondering about the desert.
One-win season followed one-win season. The Southwest Conference
dissolved, and the big boys abandoned the Coogs to the irrelevancy of
Conference USA, a new conference best known as a collection of superior
basketball programs (Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, DePaul) than it
was for football.  And still the Cougars struggled.

They reached a
bowl game in 1996, and finished 7-4 in 1999. But those were the
highlights.  Then came the zero-win season of 2001 and continued C-USA
mediocrity. Art Briles arrived in 2003 and slowly starting bringing the
Cougars back up to speed. In his four seasons, the team went to three
bowl games and once won the conference title. The Coogs won the Armed
Forces Bowl in Kevin Sumlin’s first year as head coach, and finished
2009 with a 10-4 record while spending a majority of the year in the
national rankings, getting as high as number 12.

The school was
back. Led by Sumlin and possible Heisman candidate quarterback Case
Keenum, the Cougars were once more in the national conversation. Keenum
spent the summer appearing on ESPN TV and radio. While they weren’t seen
as a national title contender, they were seen as a favorite to win the
conference, to get double-digit wins, and to get to a bowl game.

​Then
came a disastrous TV appearance. The nationally ranked Cougars were
playing the winless UCLA Bruins on the Fox Sports Net cable channels
across the country. And the Cougars found themselves embarrassed, losing
31-13.  But that wasn’t the worst. The Cougars lost Keenum and his
backup, Cotton Turner, for the season. And their future was placed in
the hands of two freshmen QB, Terrance Broadway and David Piland, two
players that Sumlin had intended to redshirt for the season.

The
team’s next game is Saturday afternoon when they host conference foe
Tulane. The indications are that the 2010 Cougars aren’t going to go the
way of the 1991 Cougars, a team that folded when met with adversity.  

Those
1991 Cougars were pretty much of a one-dimensional pass team. The 2010
Cougars have already proven that they can run the football, and while
Keenum was the key to many of the team’s wins in 2009, this year’s
Cougars think they can find a way to win games and reach their goal, a
Conference USA championship, without him.

“We’re going to be
fine,” running back Bryce Beall said yesterday. “Great players have to
elevate their game to another level. I think we’re [the running backs]
taking this personal, to do what we can to make it easier for our
quarterbacks, and make their job a lot easier.”

Keenum was not
only the team’s quarterback, he was their leader. Beall says the older
players are going to have to take over that role, and, he’s confident
that if he and the others make it easier for Broadway and Piland, then
things will be fine.

“I’m confident in them,” Beall said of the
freshmen. “We’ve just got to make their job a lot easier. Case made our
jobs a lot easier, now it’s our time to make their jobs a lot easier.
We’ve just got to go out there and be playmakers.”

The season has
gotten tougher for the Cougars without a doubt. Case Keenum was, is,
one of the special talents that don’t come around often. But the Cougars
have more depth now. They have more playmakers. And if they all go out
and execute and do their jobs like the jobs are supposed to be done,
then the Cougars will be fine.

There may be a few growing pains
for Terrance Broadway and David Piland, but Beall and his fellow Cougars
are going to do everything possible to prevent a return to the
awfulness that so defined the Cougar football for most of the 1990s and
early 2000s.

This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2010.