Today, we meet Dana Holgorsen for his first in-season press conference. Plus, the crazy story of UTSA QB Frank Harris’ comeback from near amputation in the spring. And the complete disaster at SDSU shows the backside of conference realignment.
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Monday Musings. It might be hard to remember, but UH was ranked going into the UTSA game last year. UH was 24 in the AP and 25 in the coaches poll. UTSA has never lost a game at UH (1-0), and UH has never lost a game at UTSA (2-0). Each team points to one play from last year’s game that either won or lost it. UH obviously points to the Clayton Tune ‘AirTune’ flip in the 3rd OT, and UTSA fans seem hung up on a 3rd quarter penalty for too many men on the field that gave UH a first down on a drive that ended in a TD.
One thing lost from that game: UH went on an 18-play, 10.5-minute drive, resulting in a field goal. To put that in context, UTSA had the ball 9:47 in the first and fourth quarters combined.
I’m sure someone, somewhere, has run the numbers on points per second on scoring drives. The .0048 points per second on that one…well, that’s something.
Texas Football. Our buddy Mike Craven at Dave Campbell’s Texas Football wrote about Frank Harris’ WTF offseason today. Harris didn’t throw a pass for six months and attended spring practice in a wheelchair due to complications from four surgeries in a three-month span.
Saturday, he will lead the Roadrunners onto the field at TDECU Stadium.
Walk Ons. UH gave out printed rosters to the media on the first day of camp (August 2) and again later in the month. There have been some roster additions since then – walk-ons that have earned their way onto the roster:
| # | Name | Position | High School |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | Samuel Padgitt | WR | SA East Central |
| 37 | Chance Prosperie | WR | Port Neches-Groves |
| 39 | Sergio Snider | RB | Arlington Martin |
| 44 | Brandon Phan | P | Jersey Village |
| 48 | Kasmi Arinze | LB | Parish Episcopal (Dallas) |
| 52 | Quillan Jimenez | LS | Sickles (Fl) |
Padgitt’s father is the OC at FB Marshall, and his uncle works for the football program at Tyler JC.
According to 24/7, Snider had offers from Nebraska, UH, Arizona State, Baylor, TCU, OU, Mississippi State, Oregon, Texas Tech, Utah, etc. Snider was recruited by Juice Johnson at Baylor and Drew Hollingshead at Miss State (before he became offensive coordinator at WKU under Tyson Helton).
Kamsi Arinze had offers from Colorado and Abilene Christian.
Realignment Woes. While Eight schools will celebrate their move to the Big 12 over the next two seasons, there’s a rough side to it, too. Take San Diego State. SDSU said they intended to leave the conference but weren’t quite ready to submit their withdrawal papers.
The league rightly called them on it and said they owed the $17,000,000 exit fee. SDSU had to crawfish when their expected Pac-12 offer didn’t show up (because the conference was blasted to bits by the Big Ten and Big 12).
What does that look like in the real world? For their Week 0 game against Ohio, SDSU distributed nearly 24,000 tickets. But only 16,831 showed up. The stadium was embarrassingly empty.
The school sold 33% less season tickets than last year. If your AD has to email your donors to beg them to bring a friend the day of the game, things are not great. SDSU was misled by the Pac-12, and they vastly overestimated their value.
