No. 4 Houston: Kevin Sumlin is a rising star in the coaching business and his team should be dangerous this season. QB Case Keenum is an underrated gem with wonderful pocket presence and is just one of those undersized, Texas-bred quarterbacks who light up the scoreboard all season. He has a lot of speed around him and UH imported some talented juco O-linemen. The D does have a lot of holes to fill but UH is going to win a lot of shootouts. The game at Oklahoma State could be a 70-55 kind of affair. Then, UH gets a week off before hosting Texas Tech; Mike Leach protégé UH offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen gets to try to take down his mentor. The Cougs have the talent to keep both games very interesting. Road trips to Tulsa and UTEP also will be worth watching. Ten wins might seem like a lot but I think it's very realistic and would get them into the top 25. http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blo...blog/index?entryID=4221801&name=feldman_bruce
UH genuinely looking solid this year? I mean ahead of TCU kinda solid? Or just a ballsy pick by the writer.
Unless CUSA has a down year (lol) I don't see the Coogs going bowling this year.... too many holes... and we are kings of the injury bug.
Not going bowling? In the words of Ozzie Guillen...psss please...Tell me a weakness offensively. At the very least this team will outscore the 4 out of 5 teams that they play. This team wins 8 games at a minimum and is likely the pre-season favorite to win at the very least the west division of CUSA.
You do realize UH is returning the nation's #2 offense and #1 passing QB, right?? They're just going to be better.
When you are built on winning games through shoot outs, you wont go anywhere. I see it as a dead end.
I was at that game, bigtexxx. I'm no Rice hater; I'll always give y'all a hard time, but Rice is a legitimately awesome school. Rice has very little shot of beating UH again this coming season. In fact, Rice has very little shot of ever having a season like that again in the next umpteen years. The school has such high entrance requirements that it prevents many talented athletes -- many of whom might have chosen Rice for the education -- from attending the school. Chase Clement, Jarrett Dillard, and James Casey MADE that team. They were FANTASTIC, and any college football fan will tell you they were a joy to watch (even my fellow Coogs if they can pull their heads out of their butts). Yeah, it was frustrating to watch Casey burn the Coogs for 8 yards every time he caught a little option pass in the backfield, but I marveled at just how GOOD they were. Everything was firing in that game, and the Art Briles defense (let's face it, not much changed there) just couldn't stop anything. They've gone. All three of them are gone. They were there to run the option. They ended up running one of the most entertaining vertical games I've ever seen. Having those three players on Rice at the same time is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Rice fans are lucky they got to watch them. Face it, the very thing that makes Rice such a fantastic academic school hurts them in football. And they can't just skim off the best talent from juco. Baseball's different, and I'm not sure why. Maybe baseball players are smarter. I doubt it. Maybe baseball players typically come from backgrounds where education is more valued. Probably not. Maybe there's just a bigger pool of baseball talent around the country. Maybe the fact that it's an individual sport helps players stand out better. Or maybe it's just tradition. For some reason, Rice baseball isn't hurt by the same thing that hurts Rice basketball and football. Maybe someone else can explain it to me.
Why, because it's BETTER, of course! Check! Probably not. Check! (because, you know, it's BETTER!) Nope. Baseball is not an "individual sport". (before I get hammered yet again for this: yes, I'm well aware of and agree that the team dynamic is far stronger in football, American football, and basketball, but that by no means makes baseball an "individual sport." Golf and bowling are "individual sports".) Check! (and, it's better!) Explanation: baseball is just better.
Same here. Simply BEING in that conference would help UH be a better team. And taking it to Texas, A&M, Tech, OSU, Arkansas, and sucklahoma would be awesome. I'm down with tongue-in-cheek, and baseball IS my favorite sport. But I'll stick by my argument that it's an individual sport; the only thing that requires any teamwork in baseball is throwing. And the positioning of each player should be automatic; you don't need to develop chemistry on a baseball team, Reggie Jackson.
Can you record an out without throwing? It is not possible to singlehandedly execute what is required to win a baseball game alone. Thus, it is by its very nature a team sport, regardless of whether the guys like each other or how much greater the cooperative dynamic is in other team sports. The Lakers won a few titles with bad chemistry, btw. But I'm glad we agree on which sport is the best; even if we think differently about its nature!
