4 games in 19 days leave Cougars in a daze
Tight schedule takes place on various nights: Sunday, Saturday, Friday and now Thursday
Most weeks, the University of Houston would be in the middle of game preparation.
Instead, the Cougars will board a plane for New Orleans on Wednesday, a day before playing Tulane in an American Athletic Conference opener.
Short weeks are nothing new in college football, but the Cougars are especially experienced with an opening-month schedule that has been anything but normal. Keeping track of the day of the week has been a challenge.
In terms of planning, UH’s schedule has been all over the place with games on Sunday (Oklahoma), Saturday (Prairie View A&M), Friday (Washington State) and, finally, Thursday.
If you are scoring at home, that’s four games in 19 days.
Coach Dana Holgorsen has said the September schedule — which has included two games against ranked Power Five opponents — is “unique” with so many games packed in a short time. What you won’t hear from Holgorsen and players are complaints and excuses.
“The scheduling gods weren’t good to us,” Holgorsen said Tuesday on his weekly radio show. “There is nothing we can do about it. The conference and TVs have everything to do with that. We obliged and were nice, and we’re not complaining. We’re showing up and playing. Hopefully, the TVs will be nicer to us next year.”
The biggest challenge in regard to preparation has been three consecutive six-day weeks, which forces the program to alter its practice schedules, film study and meetings. There also are NCAA restrictions that require a mandatory day off each week for studentathletes and limit practice time, instruction and other activities to 20 hours per week.
“Nobody can do anything about the schedule,” said Holgorsen, whose Cougars are off to a 1-2 start. “We are going to play one game in our home stadium and a lot of games on the road against really good, high-quality teams. So just don’t think about it.”
UH has been able to get into something of a routine, although other factors such as recovery from quick turnarounds and recuperation from injuries have taken a toll.
“At the end of the day, it’s a grind,” defensive end Derek Parish said. “At the end of the day, nobody cares. We’ve got to win. Personally, I don’t really think much about it because it’s the season. You practice and play games. We just happened to get the short end of it, I guess.”
How did UH’s schedule come together?
Months before the AAC released its schedule, UH agreed last November to move up its game against Washington State, set for a Saturday on campus at TDECU Stadium, to Friday as part of the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff at NRG Stadium. The change came with a prime-time ESPN slot and a payout of close to $2 million.
The next domino came in early January when UH filled its final non-conference date with FCS-level Prairie View A&M.
Finally, the AAC released its schedule in February. ESPN was looking for a Thursday night game in September, and with many schools still playing non-conference road games, UH and Tulane were placed in the prime-time spot.
“That week (Sept. 21) was a week that ESPN said we really need a Thursday game,” said Tom Odjakjian, the AAC’s senior associate commissioner for broadcasting. “A lot of people still had nonconference games that were road games. We didn’t have many home games to begin with, and then you had to find two teams that were actually playing each other. Sometimes it can get tricky in September.”
At the time, UH’s first four games were scheduled over 20 days.
The final schedule piece came together in late April. For months, the idea of the UH-OU opener moving to a nationally televised Sunday spot, on Labor Day weekend no less, had been discussed, with Fox and ESPN expressing interest. The two schools pulled the trigger, announcing the game would move from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1 and be televised on ABC.
“To be prime time on ABC is pretty special,” Odjakjian said.
The last time UH had such a packed schedule to begin a season came in 2004, when they played four games in 19 days against Rice (Sunday), Oklahoma (Saturday), Army (Saturday) and Miami (Thursday).
Other than shorter weeks, left tackle Josh Jones said nothing has changed in the way the Cougars prepare.
“It’s tough, but we don’t look at it like that,” Jones said. “You look at it as a grind. You look at it as we are trying to win games and you have to put in the work. Even though it might be on top of each other, you have to keep putting in the work.”
After Thursday’s game, UH returns to a normal schedule, even getting nine days to prepare before the next game Sept. 28 at North Texas. That game is followed by the first of two open dates on the schedule heading into a big home showdown Oct. 12 with Cincinnati. There is only one non-Saturday game left on the schedule — a Thursday (Oct. 24) home game against SMU on ESPN — and the final open date comes between games against AAC favorites Central Florida and Memphis in early November.
Earlier this week, Holgorsen reminded his team what’s ahead.
“After Thursday, we’ve got one game in 22 days,” he said, “so we have a lot of time to be able to recuperate.”