Offensive struggles continue
Cougars record season-low282 total yards in second straight blowout loss, dip below.500
After a second consecutive blowout loss, this is the harsh reality for the University ofHouston football program.
“We’re clearly not anywhere close to where we need to be as a football team and a program to be able to compete in this league,” coach Dana Holgorsen said after Saturday’s 38-10 loss to No. 6 Cincinnati at Nippert Stadium. “Just not there yet.”
In only his second season, Holgorsen envisions better days ahead for the Cougars.
Saturday wasn’t one of them.
After a promising start to the season, the Cougars are trending inthewrong direction after consecutive losses to Central Florida and Cincinnati.
Answers to two questions continue to elude UH: How to stop the run? And where has the offense gone?
Gerrid Doaks ran to the left, right, up the middle and anywhere elsehewanted with a career-high 184 yards, most coming during the first half. Dual-threat quarterback Desmond Ridder ran for 103 yards and three touchdowns and threw for another in three quarters.
The damage report: Cincinnati finished with 510 yards, 342 on the ground, in yet another dominating performance. Itwas a familiar script for the Cougars, who have surrendered 82 points, 695 rushing yards and 1,191 yards total offense in the last two games.
There is plenty of blame to go around. A UH offense that just a few weeks ago was averagingmore than30 points per game was held scoreless in the second half. UH has produced just three touchdowns in the last eight quarters.
“Our confidence is shot,” Holgorsen said during his postgame radio interview. “We got exposed in all three phases.”
UH dropped below .500 for the first time this season at 2-3 overall, 2-2 in the American Athletic Conference. The remaining four gameswon’t be easy, either, against South Florida, No. 18 SMU, Tulsa and Memphis.
“Mymessage to the team (after the game): If you think it’s hard now, it’s going
to get harder next week,” Holgorsen said. “We’ve got four games left. We’ve got to get a lot better.”
Few teams outside the Power Five are having as good a seasonas Cincinnati, which at 6-0 can make an argument for inclusion in theCollege FootballPlayoff. It didn’t help the Cougars were playing without top players — wide receiver Marquez Stevenson and defensive end Payton Turner and key middle linebacker Donavan Mutin.
“As good as advertised,” Holgorsen said of Cincinnati, which has held five straight opponents to 13 points or less.
Doaks had 166 yards in the first half with bookend plays that summed up the game for the Cougars — a breakaway 72-yard run on the Bearcats’ third offensive play to set up his 2-yard touchdown run and a 48yard run at the end of first half, whichwas capped by a 4-yard catch by JoshWhyle.
The last touchdown capped a wild final 1:40 before halftime when the Bearcats turned a slim 14-7 lead into a 28-10 halftime advantage.
Locked in a close game, Cincinnati pushed the lead to 21-7 on a 32-yard run by Ridder with 1:40 left in the
first half. After a 27-yard field goal by UH’s Dalton Witherspoon — capping a drive highlighted by a 54yard catch by Nathaniel Dell — Cincinnati’s Tre Tucker took Bubba Baxa’s kickoff — which Holgorsen called “one of the worst kicks I’ve seen in all my years of coaching” — out of the end zone and returned it to the Bearcats’ 45.
From there, Doaks took the handoff and found a hole for a 48-yard gain. Two plays later, Whyle hauled in a jump-ball pass to the corner of the end zone for a 4yard touchdown.
“I told them at halftime the end of the second quarter was unacceptable football on every single level,” Holgorsen said.
He added: “I thought we
had a little bit of momentum right there, and then we completely shut down on special teams and defense. Not acceptable.”
Cole Smith had a 32-yard field goal as Cincinnati began the second half with a 17-play, 60-yard drive that took 9:12 off the clock.
UH players were not made available for interviews after the game.
UH’s lone touchdown drive included a 34-yard catch by Bryson Smith while laying on the turf and two plays where the Cougars went up-tempo and caught Cincinnati offguard. The first byKyle Porter was an 11-yard run to the Bearcats’ 3-yard line. Porter punched it into the end zone on the next play. But there also were plenty of missed chances, most notably two incomplete passes inside the 10 that forced the Cougars to settle for a field goal late in the second quarter.
UH finished with a season-low 282 yards. Quarterback Clayton Tune finished 20 of 34 for 189 yards and one interception. Porter had 16 carries for 69 yards.
Ridder had scoring runs of 10, 32 and 12. He’s been responsible for 13 touchdowns in the last three games.