The bad football we saw last night will continue nationwide for a while. UH’s massive viral hit and the part they got wrong. And the kicking game could be the deciding factor on Saturday evening in Houston. Does anyone have an advantage?
the daily #32 | 9/1/2023 | Archives
Thank You! We debuted the daily on August 1st and in that month, we did 31 updates covering 103 topics and garnering over 110,000 views. You made this our most popular feature in a long time. More to come!
Sloppy. Besides the 2.5 minutes of drama late in the Minnesota/Nebraska game, it was an underwhelming Thursday night of football (and UM-UN ended 13-10!). Felt just like last week.
My take is that with so many transfers, this will be the future. Teams just aren’t clicking in week one. With 42 new players, it’s reasonable to expect this will happen Saturday night for the Coogs. UH will need time to get everyone settled, coexisting, and gelling.
Success! The Oilers colors UH unveiled for Saturday’s uniform were greeted with almost universal praise. The Carl Lewis video and the photos each became viral sensations on X. After just a quick look at 15 influencers, I found over 4.3 million views of the Cougar gear. Have to figure that the overall numbers were many multiples of that. Big win for UH.
Oops. Not having any merch to offer fans is a major mistake. It seems easy to be prepared for that. Worst case, have some sort of pre-order ready to go. People pre-order books, albums, and concert and game tickets. They’re conditioned to it so let them fork over their money. People with no affinity towards UH, people in the city of Houston, old Oilers fans, throwback collectors, and maybe even some UH fans. Just a lost opportunity. Messaging on this was not great, either, with the Chief Revenue Officer and the AD giving conflicting statements inside of two hours.
Houston’s Color! The red, white, and “Houston Blue” color scheme are iconically Houston, but not for the reason you’re thinking. It has nothing to do with the former pro football team.
For me, it was being able to see a cop car from 6 miles away.
The throwback I want are those sweet HPD cars on the street.
College Kickers. Since Dana Holgorsen has designated GoCoogs as a kicking-focused website, we’ll lean in on it: the kicking matchup on Saturday will play a big part in deciding the game.
UH trots out Jack Martin, with an Alabama (and Troy) pedigree, but with just one made 29-yard FG against NMSU in his career. His kickoff numbers are pedestrian (128 kickoffs for a 55-yard average or to the 10-yard line), but KO strategies vary, so hard to read too much into the numbers until we see him play.
UTSA is in a similar predictament. Literally. One of their two “or” kickers is #82 Chase Allen, an Alabama transfer. But Allen did not see action in 2021 or 2022 – ostensibly, he was behind Martin, the second-string kicker. In 2020, he averaged just under 50 yards a kick and had touchbacks 22% of the time. He’s never attempted a scoring kick in a game.
The other kicker is #47 Tate Sandell, a redshirt freshman who kicked off 20 times last year for UTSA for a 50-yard average (one touchback). The issue for the Roadrunners is neither have ever attempted a scoring kick.
Between the three possible kickers: two are from Texas, two played at Alabama, but only one has put points on the board (once!) in seven combined seasons.
Thoughts After The Game. Tomorrow is the debut of our new postgame show called After Thoughts. Cougar Sports Editor Starns Leland and I will riff on the game and the hoopla surrounding it. It will be a slightly different postgame show but still plenty of football. Also: make sure to watch Andy Yanez’s Let’s Rage Coogs and After Thoughts, too.
