UH’S dubious first
» Cougars won’t play in September for first time in program history after North Texas cancels.
HOUSTON — The week-byweek dismantling of the University of Houston’s opening-month football schedule is complete. The score: COVID 5, Cougars 0. For the first time in their program’s 74-year history, the Cougars will not play in September after Wednesday’s announcement that another season opener, this time Saturday against North Texas, was canceled due to COVID-19 issues.
That makes five games either postponed or canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, including four season openers, three coming in the last 12 days.
North Texas informed UH on Wednesday that four positive COVID-19 tests this week, and subsequent contact tracing, left the Mean Green unable to field a team Saturday.
Chris Pezman, UH’S vice president for athletics, said in a statement that he understood “this Covid-related decision North Texas has made to not play Saturday’s game” and appreciated “the consistent dialogue” with UNT athletic officials.
“I am disappointed for our student-athletes who have continued to focus on competing this season and were ready to play this Saturday,” Pezman added. “We will continue to work to adjust our schedule with the hopes of playing as soon as we can.”
UH lost previous scheduled openers against Rice, Memphis
and Baylor. Another game, against Washington State, was canceled in July when the Pac-12 decided not to play conference games before opting out of the fall season. Three opponents (Memphis, Baylor and North Texas) canceled due to COVID issues, while Rice officials took a cautious approach and pushed back the start of its season.
After this weekend’s games, provided there are no further cancellations, UH will join Rice, Temple and Florida Atlantic as the only FBS schools — among conferences and independents that originally moved forward with playing this fall — yet to play a game. Previously, the latest
start to a season for Uhwas Sept. 29 in 1956.
Schools across the country have braced for the possibility games could be interrupted due to the ongoing pandemic, and so far 21 games have either been postponed or canceled since August, including three Wednesday involving teams from the American Athletic Conference.
“Everybody gets to play but us,” sophomore receiver Nathaniel Dell posted on Twitter.
Along with Uh-north Texas, Tulsa’s game at Arkansas State and South Florida’s visit to Florida Atlantic were called off. Earlier Wednesday, USF said it had paused on-field football activities
“out of an abundance of caution” following Tuesday’s announcement that Notre Dame reported seven positive tests and13 players in isolation. The Irish beat USF 52-0 on Saturday.
Holgorsen was frustrated by the short notice and lack of communication from Baylor officials.
“I don’t know how it gets to 22 hours before the game. We’ve had four games canceled, so we’re kind of used to that,” Holgorsen saidmonday, two days before the bad news from North Texas. “How it gets to 22 hours before the game, I don’t know. There’s a reason why our conference and the Big 12 tests three times a week. I would think that our opponent kind of knows where they’re at, just likewe kind of knew where we were.”
On Tuesday night, Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades said that he was “disappointed in their head coach (Holgorsen) and the chirping,” and he relayed the sentiment to Pezman.
Before this week, North Texas had played two games with no major issues.
“We knewtherewould be challenges with COVID-19 this season, and we were taking precautions to hopefully avoid this situation,” UNT athletic directorwren Baker said.
What’s on deck for UH? The next scheduled game isn’t until Oct. 8, a Thursday night home date against Tulane.