Cougar Reminders serve as notice to Ward he must bring his ‘A’ game
On a rainy Sunday evening, Greg Ward Jr. was on the practice field 30 minutes after the rest of the University of Houston football team had left to seek dry shelter indoors.
Ward had two balls raised to shoulder pad level. Every five yards, he would drop to the ground, bounce up without taking his hands off the balls and do it all again. For 100 yards. Four trips down the field. Coach Tom Herman calls the punishment Cougar Reminders, a way to instill in the players that turnovers, among other things, won’t be tolerated. Even Ward, the Cougars’ dual-threat quarterback, is not immune to the consequences.
“Any time anybody turns the ball over around here it’s a pretty big deal,” Herman said. “They get punished pretty severely.”
Added Ward: “That’s not our expectations, not our culture. I had to pay for it.”
Ward will try to bounce back
when the No. 18 Cougars (8-0, 4-0 American Athletic Conference) host Cincinnati (5-3, 2-2) Saturday at TDECU Stadium.
Herman called Ward’s performance against Vanderbilt “just OK by our standards.” He fumbled twice. He was sacked three times. He missed reads in the passing game and was impatient in the pocket.
Behind a dominating defense, UH won 34-0.
“We need him to play better this week and in the coming weeks than he did against Vanderbilt for us to win,” Herman said.
On tap: Kiel then Lynch
The next two weeks also offer an opportunity for Ward to see how he measures up against arguably two of the top quarterbacks in the AAC.
Cincinnati quarterback Gunner Kiel leads a highpowered offense that has produced more than 700 yards in a game twice this season. Kiel, who began his career at Notre Dame, completed all 15 of his passes — the most without an incompletion in the last 20 years by any FBS quarterback — and threw five touchdown passes in a 52-7 rout of Central Florida.
After facing Cincinnati, UH has a possible top-20 showdown with Memphis, which features 6-7, 245-pound quarterback Paxton Lynch. The junior could be the top available quarterback should he declare for the NFL draft after this season.
Ward, meanwhile, leads the nation with 16 rushing touchdowns. He’s completing 70.8 percent of his passes for 1,955 yards with 11 touchdowns and only two interceptions.
Ward was briefly mentioned as a dark horse Heisman Trophy candidate early in the season. Just this week he was named a semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien Award and Maxwell Award.
“That means nothing at all,” Ward said. “I don’t even think about it. It goes in one ear and out the other.”
Working on patience
As Ward continues to develop as a quarterback, Herman and offensive coordinator Major Applewhite hope one thing stays in his head: be patient in the pocket.
“That’s one (tendency) that we may not break this year,” Herman said. “But we can at least curtail a little bit of it. He’s got to be a little bit more patient. We’re talking a millisecond, half a second, three quarters of a second. But it could be the difference between completing the pass and taking off scrambling and getting tackled for a 2-yard gain.”
Ward’s last two games could statistically be considered among his worst. He has been sacked five times and has seen his rushing numbers drastically dip. But he’s completing 63.4 percent of his passes and the UH offense hasn’t skipped a beat, rolling past Central Florida and Vanderbilt by a combined 93-10 score.
Herman said Ward’s 11yard touchdown pass to Demarcus Ayers against Vanderbilt was maybe “the best throw of his career.”
“From a macro level when we got here in January to where he is now, his progression has been off the charts,” Herman said.