UH Football is 2-5 all-time on October 10th. Both wins came against Mississippi State in Starkville as bounce-backs from a loss the previous week, and in both games, the Cougars scored 31 points. Moon Mullins, in his first start after an injury during spring practice, and Case Keenum, in his first game after getting UH to #12 in the polls and losing at UTEP, led the Cougars in these games.
Two games and two photo galleries:
1970
UH came into the Mississippi State game in 1970 after a loss at Oklahoma State. The loss dropped UH from the AP Top 20, where they’d been for their last seven games, going back to 1969.
The Cougars bounced back and beat State 31-14. Mullins had played sparingly in the season’s first two games, but Yeoman believed he was ready.
“He told me he felt pretty good, so I decided to start him just before the game,” Yeoman explained after the game. “Our kids feel pretty good when he’s in there.”
Moon went 11/16 for 173 yards and threw a TD pass to Riley Odoms.
“We got a little better today, Yeoman said. “We looked real good…we looked real good.”
Elmo Wright caught six passes for 130 yards. “If we can get the ball to Elmo, he’s going to do some damage,” Yeoman said.
“We put a type of double coverage on Wright, but he still caught ’em,” State coach Charley Shira said. “Wright is a great athlete, there’s no doubt about it.
UH lost to Alabama and Ole Miss that season but finished #19 in the AP Poll.
2009
Case Keenum threw four touchdown passes – two each to James Cleveland and Tyron Carrier – as Houston beat Mississippi State in Starkville, 31-24. Keenum finished with 434 yards passing.
It had been a wild start to the season for UH: after an FCS win, UH beat #5 Oklahoma State on the road, then Texas Tech at home in back-to-back weeks. The Coogs climbed to #12 in the AP before going to El Paso and losing to UTEP 58-41. Off that humiliating loss, the Coogs went to State and got back on the right track.
“Anytime you can win like we did today, it is a team victory,” Kevin Sumlin said after the game. “Every Saturday it is hard to win, but to go on the road, in an environment like this, and pick up a win is big time. I was proud of how hard we fought.”
“We played well enough to get it done,” Keenum said. “Mississippi State is a very good football team. Our defense did an incredible job of creating turnovers. We also played well enough offensively to win the ball game.”
It was the 18th straight game UH had run up 400 yards of offense – every game of the Kevin Sumlin/Dana Holgorsen regime. The Cougars had 14 games of 500 yards in that 18-game stretch.
UH remained in both polls until the C-USA Championship game at ECU.
