Coach Tom Herman and the Cougars are feeling the effects of a grueling season.
On Mondays, the University of Houston football team rests.
It’s really the only chance to catch a breather, part of an NCAA-mandated off day, in a grueling, highdemand weekly schedule that runs from early August through November.
Players use the time to run errands.
They catch up on schoolwork.
These days, they also take Epsom salt baths and spend time in a Cryotherapy sub-zero chamber to recover from bruised and battered ankles, knees, shoulders, necks and possibly even a few egos.
“We’re really banged up,” coach Tom Herman said, his team reeling from two losses in three weeks that knocked the Cougars out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
All 128 Football Bowl Subdivision schools are dealing with injuries right about now. For the record, Herman is not making excuses. Rather he’s acknowledging the current state of his team, which is 6-2 and will try to reverse course Saturday against Central Florida at TDECU Stadium.
As injuries have piled up, a lack of quality depth has been exposed. To make matters worse, the Cougars will have played nine consecutive weeks — longer if you count a month of preseason camp — when they finally get a week off after Saturday.
Time to re-evaluate
Mounting injuries and the late open date in the schedule has Herman planning to revisit his stance on what he calls “the hardest training camp in the history of college football.”
“The right answer is I don’t know,” Herman said earlier this week when asked if the Cougars are worn down from such a rigorous training regimen. “It’s on my list of things to evaluate.”
When the open date comes in Week 10, it will mark the longest stretch without a break in a season for the Cougars since 2006, when they played 12 consecutive games and didn’t have a bye until the final week of the regular season.
Six times during the past decade, UH’s open date has come in September, including Week 3 last year.
“When the bye week comes so late in the year, what do you do to prevent this from happening?” Herman said. “It is my job as the head coach to figure that out.”
So much of the Cougars’ identity and culture is built, Herman said, on “fanatical effort” and “running as fast as you can and hitting somebody as violently possible when you get there.”
“It’s hard to be who we are without training the way that we train,” Herman said. “Did that catch up to us this week (in a 38-16 loss to SMU)? Maybe that was the case. But none of it matters. The win and loss column doesn’t care.”
Herman said he had an idea the schedule — which included four games in 19 days in September — could catch up to the team but underestimated how to prepare for the grind.
“I said that I’m not worried about it right now,” Herman said. “I’m worried about the residual effects in October. I was right in my foreseeing of that but wrong in how to deal with it. We had a plan. We knew it was coming. We obviously didn’t respond well.”
The injury bug hit hard
The injuries have occurred in areas the Cougars could not afford.
Cornerback/kick returner Brandon Wilson missed three games with a high-ankle sprain. Running back Duke Catalon was out four games with a concussion and foot injury. Wide receiver Ra’Shaad Samples, projected to be a staple in the passing game, has missed the entire season with a concussion. Another receiver, Marquez Stevenson, just made his debut after suffering a broken collarbone in August.
Against UCF, the Cougars will be without starting center Will Noble (neck stinger) and right tackle Na’Ty Rodgers (ankle). Inside linebacker Matthew Adams is dealing with a severely banged up shoulder.
“Really difficult, probably more than anybody realizes,” Herman said of the difficulty of getting into a rhythm offensively with injuries on the offensive line and backfield.
Even off the field is not safe for the Cougars. Outside linebacker Tyus Bowser is out with a fractured orbital bone suffered in a “scuffle” with Adams in a team-bonding activity.
“I definitely feel it,” receiver
Steven Dunbar said of the wear-and-tear of a long season. “You just have to make sure to maintain your body and make sure you’re getting treatment.”
Rest is on the way
Asked when many of the injuries occur, Herman went down a long list of players who have been hurt in games. The most common practice injury is concussion, with the Cougars having at least six players out with symptoms at one point in camp.
“We don’t have a lot of (injuries) in practice,” Herman said. “The ones we see in practices more than in games is concussions, because your helmets are getting hit hundreds of times in practice, but only 60-80 times in a game.”
For now, the countdown is on: just four more days before a much-needed break.
“We are trying to do anything and everything possible,” Herman said, “to be as fresh as we can be when we jog out of that tunnel at 11 a.m. on Saturday.”