Cougars don’t mind driving in fast lane
Few teams in the country score at a rate faster than UH.
And that goes hand in hand with the Cougars’ quick ascent this season.
No. 16 UH welcomes No. 25 Memphis on Saturday at TDECU Stadium in a matchup of highpowered offenses and two of the American Athletic Conference’s best signal callers.
What’s UH’s edge? Pace and ability to apply immediate pressure on opposing defenses.
The Cougars have 20 touchdown drives of two minutes or less this season. They have 10 touchdown drives of one minute or less, which ranks 15th in the nation.
“We’re never going to
be one of those teams that tries to run as many plays as you can on offense,” UH coach Tom Herman said. “We believe offense, defense and special teams are not mutually exclusive, and there is a management-of-the-game component of using the clock and making first downs. But I think when we get rolling, you normally see if we get a first or second first down in the series, we’ll start to pick up the tempo.”
As far as one-minute drives are concerned, Oklahoma leads the nation with 17. Baylor, Oklahoma State and Tulsa have 16
apiece for a tie at second.
The Cougars’ 10 scoring drives of one minute or less are tied with Oregon and Ohio State.
In its most time-consuming drive this season, UH went 71 yards in 16 plays, taking 8:38 off the clock. Nothing else comes close.
The fastest was the Cougars’ first offensive play in a 42-7 win over Tulane. Greg Ward Jr.’s pass found Chance Allen for a 49-yard touchdown that took nine seconds off the clock.
That kind of pace was absent last year.
UH offensive coordinator Major Applewhite said quick drives are no accident. But UH (9-0, 5-0 AAC) can do more to make sure they occur at a higher rate.
“It’s twofold,” Applewhite said. “We can do some things to help create those drives as coaches, certain calls to continue to stay aggressive. But we also have to execute. It’s very easy to stay fast tempo and aggressive with play calls when you’re both playing behind the chains. At the same time, we have to create some as coaches. It goes hand in hand.”
The Cougars regularly practice at a quick pace, Herman said.
“You slow down, kind of grind it out, and then boom — you ratchet it back up,” Herman said. “I think a lot of our successes do come when we are ratcheting up the tempo.”
Ward echoed Applewhite’s sentiments. There is room to grow on offense, and the team hasn’t been as crisp as it wants.
“It’s been very successful,” Ward said. “It’s just we have to finish drives. We have to go out there and get two first downs. We can’t have three-andouts. We can’t put our defense in bad field position. We just have to keep finishing.”
They have no choice but to do so Saturday.
As Herman noted Monday, not many teams are going through a two-week gauntlet of quarterbacks like UH is. The Cougars held off Gunner Kiel and Cincinnati over the weekend, but in comes sizable Paxton Lynch and Memphis (8-1, 4-1).
Lynch (6-7, 245 pounds) is eighth in the Football Bowl Subdivision in passing yards with 3,014.
“That dude, he’s a creature, man,” Herman said of Lynch. “There’s really no knock on him. He’s a fantastic quarterback. Going to play on Sundays, certainly.”