First Quarter: Sloppy as hell for both teams. They start 0-6 on Third Downs combined. Muffed UTSA punt return, immediately followed by a UH snap off the QB's face and back to UTSA, who go 3 and out. UH gets a first down, then tries to punt, but the snap slips through the punter's hands, he tries to throw/kick it from his own like 8 yd line, fumbles, and then gets the ball on the 3 yard line. UTSA takes free touchdown. UH QB sucks, so far, but UH's WR Greenberry has ~60 yards on 3 catches, 2 back-shoulder buttonhooks down the sideline (like UNLV did on that drive that they scored the TD on, UH did 2 22-yd ones back to back), and a crossing route over the middle, which I think UTSA has been leaving open (the middle of the field, behind the DL) because UH has had 2 other slant plays that have worked well. They keep throwing deep down the sides though, into 5-8 DB's, which I don't understand. UTSA offense is impotent as hell, their free 3 yard TD being the only thing of note. DL is pretty good, but the UH QB gets rattled easy. At the end of the First Quarter, it's 7-0 UTSA.
Second Quarter: UH TD slips through hands, and then next play is tip drill UTSA pick. Rough luck. UTSA DL strung out the runs well though, so I guess UH figured they needed to pass. 3 TO's for Houston now. One decade of my life, 2 timeouts, and a delay of game, a holding penalty (oh noes, streak snapped!) and eventually UTSA moves the ball a tiny bit down the field, then punts. No timeouts, 3 minutes into the 2nd quarter though for UTSA, which is silly. Christ, that was boring. UH is ineffective due to a dazzling combination of horrible "execution" and UTSA defenders existing. In other words, incredibly bad throw right to UTSA defender (he overthrew into the next county). UTSA offense snuffed. Next 10 minutes become contest between UH and UTSA over which one can suck more on offense, with UH taking the lead (in the "we suck" competition, not the game) because UTSA's DL is pretty good now and getting some pressure. UTSA also shanks 47 yd FG. Finally, in final 1:30, UTSA's lil' slot guy Grubb gets a screen then a 34-yd floater, and UTSA runs in another TD. First half mercifully over, UTSA lead 14-0, but I dislike both teams equally.
Third Quarter: UTSA gets first possession. Apparently there was a rule change at halftime outlawing the forward pass, because after a play-action, UTSA calls 8 run plays in a row, all up the middle. A bit of success. Then a little play-action, another time-out, then it's back to the ground for a TD. UTSA trying to shorten the game I assume, because the drive takes 6 minutes, 53 seconds. I think that really took the wind out of UH, and the fact that their offense comes out and resumes its sucking compounds their defensive woes. UH throws another pick before even getting to midfield. UTSA grinds clock, nails easy FG, and at this point I figure UH is pretty much done. They've done nothing on offense (-56 rush yards? the fuck?), and their defense basically spent 13 consecutive minutes getting punched in the face (metaphorically, of course). UH turns the ball over so quickly it's almost funny. Except it turns out it's just sad. UTSA runs ball, quarter ends. UTSA 24-0.
Fourth Quarter: UH gets some yards, once again the middle is open (it's all pass plays of course), but then the UH QB throws pick #4. UTSA stopped, but then UH, who must have some horrible karma stored up, fumbles the ball for turnover number 6 (7 if you count the muffed punt). UTSA grinds more clock, kicks FG. Also used another timeout because Larry Coker. UH subs QB (finally, don't know why they stuck with the crap one for so long), and then eventually get a TD in garbage time, ironically on the ground. Game ends, UTSA wins 27-7, and I shed a few tears. Mostly out of sadness, but partly out of joy, because now you guys don't need to spend all that time watching that snoozefest. I don't know, maybe I'm just spoiled by RR and PAC offenses.
Thoughts: Larry Coker's a smart dude. Disguises lots of blitzes on defense, though he didn't need to do as much of it as I expected because his DL got decent pressure on the QB. UH being garbage certainly made them look better than they were. They're stacked with seniors on the OL, but they didn't really do that much on offense. I know, it's partly the gameplan. They were salting away the game for a while. Not sure how the hell Houston couldn't stop 8 straight runs up the gut, but whatever. They're certainly not explosive, and they weren't THAT slow, pace-of-play-wise, when the game was close. Coker uses timeouts too quickly imo. Just an fyi. I'll only be worried if we're not a TD away from them by the 2nd half, but as it stands I think we should have a 1-3 score lead (depending on how long it takes for AS to settle down) going into halftime, and from there WE salt the game away. FYI, they tried a bit of hurryup, but they got some false starts, then they stopped doing that. If Anu plays like he did against UNLV, we walk out of there with a very comfortable win. If he doesn't I still think we're balanced enough on offense that we still win, but it'll be a 1-2 score game in that case. UTSA needs the game of their life to win imo, they're just not close to our athleticism, and if they can't grind our D down and keep our offense off the field, we'll pull away pretty quickly.
Anyway, I don't care about the score, but I'm predicting a Cats win by 3 scores.
How about you guys? Any thoughts?
