It was just one of those nights for the Houston Cougars on Thursday. Playing at home against a Tulsa team that had come to town scuffling a bit after some tough losses, Houston looked unstable from the start. Out-of-sync, Houston made enough plays to take a lead into halftime but looked to be on the brink of a disaster of a loss. Fortunately for the Cougars, the fourth quarter saw the home team finish in a flurry with a 24-3 scoring advantage in what turned out to be a 41-26 victory.
As expected, Ed Oliver was tough to handle all night for the overmatched Tulsa offensive line. One of the top draft prospects in 2019, Oliver finished his night with double-digit tackles and 1.5 tackles for a loss. Considering he did that while at times being triple-covered, there is no other way to explain how impressive he continues to be.
Important Ed Oliver asterisk this season pic.twitter.com/zRlHqAD4Za
— Matt Brown (@MattBrownCFB) October 5, 2018
if ed oliver came barreling down at you like this how do you react? pic.twitter.com/EHbuVSc3z4
— mike taddow (@MikeTaddow) October 5, 2018
On offense, D’Eriq King ended up having a good night with five total touchdowns (3 passing, 2 rushing), including a 61-yard touchdown run to help light the much-needed spark for Houston in the fourth quarter.
A 41-26 victory looks more lopsided than it really was. Tulsa held a 26-17 lead early in the fourth quarter at a time when Houston’s offense was sputtering. King’s 61-yard touchdown was later followed by a field goal to put Houston up by one, and then Tulsa just completely imploded on offense. A Tulsa fumble led to a Houston touchdown on the very next play.
Tulsa’s very next offensive play was an intercepted pass thrown by Seth Boomer, and King completed a touchdown pass to Marquez Stevenson two plays later. In a span of 91 seconds, Houston turned a 26-24 deficit into a 15-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. It was a rough night for Houston, but the big plays popped up at the best possible time.
At 4-1 and now 1-0 in AAC play, Houston has put themselves in the mix for the Group of Five’s reserved spot in the New Years Six bowl lineup. But can you trust this team to be able to make the run it will need to make? Thursday gave you reasons to believe they could with their ability to strike quickly and make some plays on defense, but the first three quarters would probably suggest otherwise.
Houston has the talent to be able to win a good number of their remaining games on the schedule in the same fashion they did against Tulsa. Games against East Carolina, SMU and Tulane should be games where Houston can get away with some sloppiness and inconsistent play. The biggest challenges will be against teams like Navy, USF and Memphis. Navy can slow things down with their option offense, and that game is in Annapolis. USF has been playing well and is one of the three undefeated teams in the AAC as we currently stand. And a regular season finale at Memphis could be interesting if the Tigers can get on a roll as well. Of course, if Houston can get by all of those obstacles, a potential AAC Championship Game against UCF would likely be waiting for them too.
Remember that only Group of Five conference champions are eligible for the guaranteed spot in the New Years Six bowl lineup, with the highest-ranked conference champion from the AAC, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt Conference eligible for consideration. This means Houston has to win the conference championship and then hope they have the body of work that is worthy of staying ahead of the champion from the Mountain West Conference (the other conferences likely will not have a shot).
Having already lost one game, and doing so in a 63-49 setback against Texas Tech after winning against Arizona, Houston has a very small margin for error if they are to play in their first New Years Six bowl game since the 2015 Peach Bowl. Because Boise State is sitting out there with one loss, Houston will likely have to run the table in order to sneak ahead of the Broncos in the race to the NY6. If Houston does run the table, including a potential win against UCF in the conference championship game, then they will have the better resume compared to the Broncos.
Houston absolutely deserves to be in the conversation as October gets started, but Thursday night was the reason to believe they won’t quite be there at the end of the season.
