cougars and owls battle for the bayou bucket!

(via chron.com)

Like just about any football coach who is of sound mind, Kevin Sumlin aspires to have an all-purpose offense.

Effective running game.

Efficient passing game.

And whether the Houston Cougars are traveling by land or by air, he’d like his players to protect the ball with the vigilance that the legendary John Heisman preached to his players decades ago. Heisman, whose Georgia Tech team once bludgeoned Cumberland College 220-0, had a well-rehearsed spiel for his players before every season. Holding a football, Heisman would ask his players, “What is this?”

Before anybody dared say a word, Heisman would launch into how “a football is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere in which the outer leather casing is drawn up tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing.”

Pause.

“Better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.”

Ah, but we digress. In any case, the optimal offense offers high rewards at low risk. Since Sumlin arrived at UH in 2008, his modus operandi has been to operate a fast-paced, spread offense that simultaneously stretches and saps the energy of the opposing defense. The UH mantra has been to move the chains, move the chains, usually by sprinkling running plays into a barrage of high-percentage short passes.

“For us to be the team we want to be and when we’re effective, we’re a balanced football team,” said Sumlin, whose team plays the Rice Owls at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in 37th Bayou Bucket battle. “That’s who we are and that’s who we want to be.”

It’s just that the Cougars’ notion of balance isn’t what you might think. The typical Division I-A team runs the ball 55 percent of the time. The Cougars have run the ball 45 percent of the time this season — the highest ratio of the Sumlin era (40 percent in 2008, 35 in 2009).

Does that mean the Cougars are trying to get closer and closer to the national average, or to make sure that they at least get to that 45-percent threshold each game? Not exactly. Not as the team is currently constructed.

The Cougars never intended to spend much time establishing the run against an active, athletic, aggressive Bulldogs front in the first place. MSU is 26th in the nation rushing defense and has allowed 3.5 yards (compared to the national average of 4.4) per carry.

“We basically take what the defense gives us,” Kingsbury said. “Saturday night, it was going to be hard to run against that D-line. Georgia wasn’t able to do it. LSU couldn’t do it. We don’t strive for any sort of balance. It’s just first downs and points.

“There’s no use banging your head against he wall. If we think we can get ’em in space and be more successful that way, then that’s what we’re going to do. If we think we have the lineup, like against Tulane to hand it off 45 times, we’ll do that. Whatever we feel we can exploit, we’re going to try to take advantage of.”

The Cougars (3-2, 2-0 in Conference USA) ran the ball 45 times (for 175 yards) and threw 28 passes in their most recent victory against Tulane. In the Cougars’ other C-USA victory, they had 42 runs (for 308 yards) and 34 passes against UTEP. Bryce Beall rushed for 195 yards against UTEP, 123 against Tulane.

So the secret to UH success would seem to be to feed the ball to Beall?

Sumlin said it’s not that simple.

“If we were able to just run it down people’s throats, we’d do it,” Sumlin said. “We’ve shown we’ll do it. For the first time since we’ve been here, we were able to do it earlier in the year against certain teams.”

The Cougars tried to establish the run early in a 31-13 defeat at UCLA and stalled. Beall rushed 14 times for 52 yards, and UH didn’t score a touchdown until the garbage time after the 1-2 quarterbacks, Case Keenum and Cotton Turner, went down with season-ending injuries.

As constructed, the Cougars simply can’t pound away with the running game regardless of the opponent. This week’s opponent, Rice, has had a plenty respectable run defense (148.3 yards per game, 4.1 per carry). The Owls are 117th out of 120 teams in passing yardage allowed (290.2), and they’ve come about that ranking honestly. They’re 116th in pass-efficiency defense, having allowed 9.1 yards per attempt. The Owls have only two interceptions to show for 191 passing attempts.

UH quarterback David Piland would appear to have an open invitation to throw the ball at will. Of course, Rice could try to drop everybody it can into coverage and hope — as UTEP did — that the Cougars don’t take what the defense gives.

The bad news for Cougars is, they’re still vulnerable to teams that are persistent with the running game. The Cougars got outrushed by Mississippi State 409-47 and needed only 60 minutes to drop from 78th to 112th in rushing defense.

The good news for the Cougars is, they’re hitting the point in the schedule where they face a steady diet of the wide-open, spread-offense C-USA teams their new 3-4 defense is most geared to handling.

UH coach Kevin Sumlin, having surveyed the wreckage after an 18-game home winning streak ended so emphatically: “What it proves is that as a program, we have to become more physical. Who we are right now, what are size is and everything else, that’s who we are. That doesn’t change how physical we can be. And that’s not just about effort. That’s about pad level and technique, too, when you’re a littler team.”

The Cougars plan to have sophomore Jacolby Ashworth back in the starting lineup at left tackle against Rice.

Senior Jaryd Anderson got the start this past Saturday and had a rough to of it in a 47-24 defeat against Mississippi State. Ashworth replaced Anderson, who got called for a holding penalty in the end zone that gave MSU a safety, during the second quarter.

“He (Ashworth) has been inconsistent the last couple of games and through practice,” Sumlin said. “It was one of those situations during practice where we just felt like the other guy had earned it. He went back in and we get a couple of false starts right away. We’ve got to do a better job as coaches and create situations in practice that lend itself to better execution in all phases of the game.”

The Cougars actually led Mississippi State for a brief spell, 7-0. By the time the Cougars scored again, the Bulldogs had a 26-7 advantage.

“We’re disappointed across the board,” UH senior linebacker Matt Nicholson said. “Losing like that sticks with you. All weekend, you’re thinking about. You’re thinking, `What could I have done differently?’ What could we have done differently.’ We’ve got to be honest with ourselves, be honest with each other and make the corrections.

The 409 rushing yards allowed were the most against the Cougars since they surrendered a school-record 445 against Louisville in a 66-45 defeat in 2003.

“I think we’re fine because we still have all our goals in front of us,” Nicholson said. “We’re still 2-0 in conference, which is right were we want to be. You never want to lose any games, but those are non-conference games and we’re trying to learn some stuff from it. We’re still in the driver’s seat for conference.”

UH safety Roisean Haynes said there’s no reason for the defeat to have a hangover effect.

Not with the Cougars playing cross-town rival Rice next.

“Just it being Rice alone will motivate guys to want to get out there and play hard,” Haynes said. “We’re more of a team that is liable to bounce back from a loss than fall into a slump. We’ve been in situations like this before. It’s not the end of the world or the end of the season.

“We still can win this conference. We’re still in the hunt. We’re still No. 1 on our side. As far as motivation, you can’t ask for motivation than it just being Rice. We’ve got to keep the Bucket here. We still have a lot of goals and a lot of things to achieve next week alone. I doubt the team will fall into a slump. If anything, it makes more motivation — if we needed any.”

At this time last season, the Cougars had three victories against teams from power conferences (Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Mississippi State) and were in the national rankings.

Now they’re on their third starting quarterback and nowhere to be found on the national radar.

“”It’s always great to have that publicity of being one of the top teams in the country, top teams in the country,” UH safety Nick Saenz said. ” But in reality, our goal then was the same. Our goal now is the same. It’s to win the conference championship. Whatever comes after that, it’s all positive.

“It is good being on a national stage. Now, realistically, that national stage probably realistically isn’t going to be there that much. So we’ve got to go win every game. Of course, you’d like to be out there like that. But we’re still playing football. It’s all good.”

Adding to the degree of difficulty in fixing the Cougars’ run defense is the absence of senior nose tackle Matangi Tonga.

A torn meniscus in the right knee is expected to sideline Tonga, whom UH coach Kevin Sumlin calls “a critical part of what we’re doing,” for four weeks. Sophomore Tyrone Campbell will slide from end into Tonga’s spot. Another sophomore, Kelvin King, will start and Campbell’s old spot at end. “You never want to lose your big nose tackle. Guys like that are hard to find,” UH linebacker Matt Nicholson said. “Luckily we will get him back in a couple weeks. We’ve got to get some guys to step up. It’s part of the season. It’s part of the game.”

Nicholson will be the first to attest that Tonga’s value goes far beyond what 12 tackles — two behind the line — in the first four games and one quarter show.

“It’s a bit of a thankless position,” Nicholson said. “People watching the game may not notice, but I certainly know if they’re doing the job, I’m just flying around and nobody’s touching me. If it’s the other way around, I definitely notice.”