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September 12 Sheet
Houston (-7) at
UL-Lafayette - 5:00pm Pacific
Everything I have read about first
year Cougar head coach Art Briles has been positive. He
reportedly has the entire community rallying to support this team
which is the first time it has happened in years. Briles was an
extremely successful Texas HS coach winning 4 state
championships. Houston could not have been much more impressive
in their season opening 48-14 win over Rice. They almost doubled
the Owls total yardage and easily could have won by more if they
wanted to. True freshman QB Kevin Kolb finished 17-of-22 for 246
yards and 2 touchdowns. Kolb played one year of high school under
Briles and knows the offensive system well. Briles runs some
extremely unique offensive sets that create all kinds of matchup
problems for opposing defenses. They also incorporate a hurry-up
version.
Houston lost 50-3 to Michigan last
week but the performance was much better than the score would
indicate. The Wolverines uncharacteristically made it a point to
play their starters into the 4th quarter and try to run up the
score. Houston did a few good things and hung around to only
trail 22-0 at half-time. UM QB Navarre went almost the entire way
and the Wolverines scored 21 4th quarter points. Houston QB Kolb
never could get much going but finished 15-of-31 with no
interceptions in his first college road game. They came close to
connecting on some big plays but it was not in the cards. Houston
features some fast wide receivers, solid running backs, and a
bigoffensive line. Most importantly this new offensive scheme
is very unorthodox and will be highly successful
against any average (i.e. not Michigan) defense. On defense, UH
played great vs Rice in opener and was respectable vs Michigan.
UM QB Navarre was frustrated to only complete 13-of-30 passes.
ULL finished 3-9 last year and 2-4 in
the Sun Belt. They return 6 starters on offense but must replace
QB, and top RB. They gave their fans a false sense of optimism
after losing by only 7 at South Carolina in their season opener.
Fans suggested the game could have even been closer if not for
costly turnovers. Fact is, the key play in the game was an 89
yard missed FG return for a touchdown by the Ragin Cajuns which
were their only points of the game. Lou Holtz had South Carolina
clearly sand bagging with big game vs Virginia on deck. Reports
say Gamecocks only used about 10% of their playbook. Last week,
Lafayette was beaten soundly by an average Louisiana Tech team.
Tech led 27-3 at the half and went on to win 34-3 with a 449 to
292 total yard edge. The Ragin Cajuns only entered the red zone
once in the entire game and now have just 3 offensive points to
their credit in two games. This is an offense that only put up
16.9ppg last season and now has a redshirt freshman at QB in Jerry
Babb. He has received mixed reviews but has thrown one
interception in each game so far. New starting RB Chester Johnson
is "?" with a shoulder injury. Defensively they are not much
better with just 5 starters back and five of the top seven
tacklers from last year departed. Rover LB Jamal Smith (leading
returning tackler) has not played yet this season with an ankle
injury and is expected to miss.
The Houston offense is going to
rebound and put some points on the board. They will be able to
mix run and pass in an array of unorthodox formations and quick
snaps that will give the ULL defense fits. The Ragin Cajuns are
just 10-18 ATS in home games since 1996 and 0-4 ATS and SU in last
four meetings with Houston. Cougars won last year 36-17 early on
in the season when they were not playing very well. This years
version is better, well coached, and should again win comfortably.
Houston 1 UNIT
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