Houston Football: Cougars De-Clawed by Roadrunners

Houston had the perfect script written.

It had brand new stadium to play in, high expectations after last season’s eight-win campaign, a high-octane offense with a successful quarterback, and an ESPNU audience to show off to the nation Houston football is on the way back.

Yeah, someone forgot to tell UTSA how the story was supposed to end, as the Roadrunners came into TDECU Stadium and imposed their will en route to a 27-7 upset over the Cougars Friday night.

“I’m very, very disappointed,” Houston coach Tony Levine said during his post-game news conference. “(UTSA) out-coached us, they out-played us, they out-executed us, and we got some work to do.”

This one was dreadful from start to finish. The Cougars went three-and-out to start the game. UTSA was able to score early to take a 7-0 lead. But the game was close early last year, so most people figured Houston would figure it out, right? Not so much.

The Roadrunners controlled both sides of the ball, pushing Houston’s defensive line around, especially in the second half. It wasn’t as if UTSA was running a complex offense at that point. Houston simply had no answer to runs right up the middle.

And on defense, the Roadrunners were flying around the ball. They got a lot of pressure on John O’Korn, including four sacks, and never allowed him to get into a rhythm. O’Korn did not look anything like the player who won AAC Freshman of the Year honors.

Instead, O’Korn threw four interceptions. Some of them came at important times during a Houston drive. O’Korn finished just 21-of-43 for 204 yards. It was only the second time as a starter (Louisville last season) O’Korn didn’t throw a touchdown pass, and the four picks were a career-high. It got so bad Levine put in backup Billy Cosh, but insisted after the game O’Korn is the starter.

Turnovers were the absolute Achilles’ heel for Houston in this game. It’s ironic considering the Cougars led the country last year in takeaways and turnover margin (+25). It started with a fumble near the red zone as the Cougars were driving, then a punt that flew through the hands of Dylan Seibert that led to the Roadrunners first touchdown. UTSA scored 12 of its 27 points off UH turnovers.

“I just told our student-athletes that we can be a good football team,” Levine said. “But it doesn’t matter who we play if we turn it over seven times and we only get one; we won’t beat anybody doing that.”

You have to give a lot of credit to the Roadrunners. They didn’t seem at all phased by all of the hype surrounding this game. Coach Larry Coker has been there and done that in much larger stadiums and stages than what his team saw Friday night. Coker and his coaching staff had a game plan and they executed it to near perfection – seemingly catching Houston completely off guard. This is a team to watch for in the weeks and years to come.

And if (and that’s a big if) there is a bright spot for Houston, it’s the fact it got beat by an up-and-coming team with Texas-sized talent. The other good thing for the Coogs? There’s always next week, and Grambling State may be the mirror opposite of UTSA. This should give the Cougars time to lick their wounds and figure out what went wrong.

They better do it fast, or this could be a very long season in that shiny new stadium.