Following Saturday’s game, Houston and UTSA had their starting QB and kickers named their respective league’s players of the week. How many times has that happened? Clayton Tune and Bubba Baxa won it in the American, and QB Frank Harris and place-kicker Jared Sackett in C-USA.
The Coogs and Roadrunners have played three times, with the road team winning each. The Roadrunners are the only opponent that UH has faced three or more times where the home team has never won.
Joseph Manjack caught all three balls thrown at him Saturday and made a fantastic Sportscenter top play for a TD in the 3rd quarter. But he also graded out as UH’s best run-blocker.
FACT CHECK: You may have seen tweets about five players in FBS with nine QB pressures this season. These tweets indicate that UH has two of the five (D’Anthony Jones, Nelson Ceaser). This is misleading.
It is true: fact-checkers have found that there are five players nationally with nine QB pressures this season. But three of those players have played two games (while two have played one). The two that have nine pressures in one game? Both are Houston Cougars.
Two of the three other players with 9+ pressures have played 115+ snaps each (the 3rd has 76 snaps). Combined, Jones and Ceaser have played 101.
We rate this claim as mostly true but missing important context.
UH had 57, 74, and 61 yards in each of the first three quarters but had 112 yards in the 4th. More importantly, 17 points.
UTSA had 22 yards in the first, 201 yards in the second, 104 in the 3rd, and 86 in the 4th.
Houston was 25th in the country last year in red zone scores (49/55) and has started 2022 at 6/6. The two-point conversion in the third overtime counts as a touchdown in terms of red zone chances but not in otherwise (individual stats, rushing stats, etc).
Houston converted 13 third downs in the UTSA game, the most in the Dana Holgorsen era (UH converted 10 in regulation which would have still been the most in the Dana era, too).
The 21 third-down attempts are the most under Dana (17 in regulation would have tied for second-most).
At 62%, UH is 6th in the country in third-down conversion percentage (among teams that played FBS opponents; 11th overall). UH was 47th last year, 66th in 2020, and 108th in Holgorsen’s first year.
2022 is the 11th time in school history that UH begins a season with two true road games. The only 2-0 starts in those 11 games were in 1988 and 1989. The Coogs barely won those four road games: a combined 196-14 over La Tech, Mizzou, UNLV, and Arizona State.
2022 is just the third season where UH has started with two road games since the Run and Shoot (2000, 2007).
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