You could hear a lot of sounds coming from TDECU Stadium Saturday as the Houston Cougars took on Tulane.
Whack. That’s the vaunted “Third Ward Defense” getting gashed for big plays in the fourth quarter when the game was still on the line.
Thunk. That’s the Coogs losing the turnover battle.
Clunk: That’s the offense getting shut down in the second half until a frantic, too-little-too-late, comeback attempt.
It all added up to a 31-24, not-as-close-as-the-score-indicates, loss to the Tulane Green Wave. And the sound you hear now is the air quickly coming out of the Cougars’ balloon. The Coogs are 5-4 on the season with a 3-2 record in the AAC. The biggest problem is three of those four losses, including both conference defeats, have come at home. Ouch.
But all is not lost, Cougar fans. Houston has some bottom feeders coming up on the schedule, and no team has taken control of the conference race. This week’s ECU/Cincinnati tilt will go a long way in determining a conference championship, and Memphis is still out there with one loss. Let’s remember the Cougars end the season with Cincy, and Memphis is clearly beatable.
That being said, the loss to Tulane clearly shows the Cougars need to make some changes if they are going to salvage this season.
Where do we start? Well, defensive coordinator David Gibbs said it best on Twitter Sunday:
Word from”the Tre”is the Coogs played throwback D on Homecoming.We’ll work to get it fixed. Not acceptable. #ThingsHaveChanged#UH3rdWardD
— David Gibbs (@CoachDavidGibbs) November 9, 2014
Yes, for the Cougars to be successful the rest of this season it starts on defense. At times, Tulane seemed to move the ball at will and converted 62 percent of third downs. The offensive line held strong, allowing the Coogs only one sack. Sure, Houston continued it’s record-setting turnover streak, but the defense looked as vulnerable as it did against BYU — especially when it mattered most.
Speaking of turnovers, the Cougars had way too many of them. Four to be exact. One of them came on the final play of the game when the Cougars were in position to (somehow) send the game into overtime. That was an interception by Greg Ward, Jr. — his third of the game and one of two he threw in the fourth quarter. The Coogs also coughed up a fumble in the first quarter.
The gaffes did not go unnoticed.
In the post-game news conference, head coach Tony Levine said, “I talk about it every week. Our formula for winning starts with turnovers. Not creating them, by themselves, but winning the turnover margin. We did not do that today.”
Senior linebacker Efrem Oliphant said: “We had too many turnovers on offense and didn’t get enough on defense. We didn’t stop them when we needed to. We can’t allow ourselves to be put in that position. ”
So we’ve taken a look at defense and turnovers, but perhaps the biggest change going into the bye week needs to come on offense. The Cougars recipe for success during the three-game winning streak started with a solid running game; but against Tulane the Coogs inexplicably went away from that recipe and let Ward sling the ball all over the field.
Last week I suggested the Cougars needed to have a more balanced attack to succeed against the Green Wave, but this went way over to the other side of the spectrum.
Ward threw a whopping 45 passes, which is far and away the most attempts in his short career as a starter. He also ran the ball 18 times. Ward is talented, but he’s not the kind of quarterback a team can ride to a victory. Cougar running backs, who feasted on AAC defenses the last three weeks, touched the ball only 13 times for 40 yards.
Yikes.
Vacating the success strategy not only put undue pressure on Ward and the offensive line, it allowed Tulane to win the time of possession battle. In fact, the Green Wave had the ball for more than 10 minutes in the fourth quarter.
Levine called this a “total team loss.” It was the letdown so many people warned and worried about, and it came at the worst possible time. Now it’s time to make some changes so the next sound you hear is one of triumph instead of the complete crash of the Cougars’ season.
Edited By: Ali Balchunas
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