If you had told me prior to the game that Greg Ward would finish with just 89 yards passing, I would have bet the farm that Houston would end up on the wrong end of the scoreboard. Thank goodness that I don't know any fortune tellers.
I'm honestly at a bit of a loss of words for the passing performance. On one hand you have a young true sophomore quarterback that completed 78 percent of his passes and on the other hand you have a quarterback that was inconsistent with his reads and failed to throw for 100 yards or more for the first time in his short tenure at quarterback. I expected Ward to make another step forward this week with his development and that just didn't seem to be the case. Yes the 78-percent completion rate is nice, but you can't get caught up in that. This offense seems to be getting further and further away from the Air Raid offense that Houston fans have grown to love and adore over the last several years. I don't want to be too hard on Ward because it was just his third start, but I never would have seen that coming hand in hand with a Houston win.
On the plus side, the coaching staff seems more willing to lean on the running game and if winning ball games comes with that, then I guess you have to do what you have to do. I've been saying for weeks they seemed reluctant to run the ball and rely on the ground game, that certainly wasn't the case today. The Cougars amassed 217 rushing yards and led by Kenneth Farrow's 112 yards on 22 carries. Ryan Jackson chipped in with 62 yards and two touchdowns on 14 attempts while somewhat surprising to me Greg Ward only had 26 yards on seven carries. I realize that a ground-and-pound offense is far from what most Houston fans want and the offense as a whole still has many problems but I do have to give props to the coaching staff for at least going with what worked in order to get the 'W'.
Defensively the Cougars continue to do what they've been doing and, really played a big part in leading the Cougars to the win on Saturday. They held USF to just 222 yards of total offense on the day and just three points as they carried their turnover streak to 31 straight games now off of another Adrian McDonald INT.
The Cougars were able to generate some pressure defensively on USF quarterback Steven Bench who was sacked three times and completed just 12-of-25 passing attempts for 147 yards and one interception. I know this offense wasn't the most productive unit they've faced, but they held a very talented true freshman running back to just 47 yards rushing and really took away the one advantage that USF appeared to have coming into the game. With the lack of an effective running game, USF was forced to try and play catch up and Houston's defense really stepped up after the Cougars got out to the big lead.
Houston now sits at 5-3 (3-1) are still remain very much in the thick of things for the AAC, with four games to go. But still have a lot of work to do offensively.
This post was edited on 11/1 10:55 PM by -Powell-
I'm honestly at a bit of a loss of words for the passing performance. On one hand you have a young true sophomore quarterback that completed 78 percent of his passes and on the other hand you have a quarterback that was inconsistent with his reads and failed to throw for 100 yards or more for the first time in his short tenure at quarterback. I expected Ward to make another step forward this week with his development and that just didn't seem to be the case. Yes the 78-percent completion rate is nice, but you can't get caught up in that. This offense seems to be getting further and further away from the Air Raid offense that Houston fans have grown to love and adore over the last several years. I don't want to be too hard on Ward because it was just his third start, but I never would have seen that coming hand in hand with a Houston win.
On the plus side, the coaching staff seems more willing to lean on the running game and if winning ball games comes with that, then I guess you have to do what you have to do. I've been saying for weeks they seemed reluctant to run the ball and rely on the ground game, that certainly wasn't the case today. The Cougars amassed 217 rushing yards and led by Kenneth Farrow's 112 yards on 22 carries. Ryan Jackson chipped in with 62 yards and two touchdowns on 14 attempts while somewhat surprising to me Greg Ward only had 26 yards on seven carries. I realize that a ground-and-pound offense is far from what most Houston fans want and the offense as a whole still has many problems but I do have to give props to the coaching staff for at least going with what worked in order to get the 'W'.
Defensively the Cougars continue to do what they've been doing and, really played a big part in leading the Cougars to the win on Saturday. They held USF to just 222 yards of total offense on the day and just three points as they carried their turnover streak to 31 straight games now off of another Adrian McDonald INT.
The Cougars were able to generate some pressure defensively on USF quarterback Steven Bench who was sacked three times and completed just 12-of-25 passing attempts for 147 yards and one interception. I know this offense wasn't the most productive unit they've faced, but they held a very talented true freshman running back to just 47 yards rushing and really took away the one advantage that USF appeared to have coming into the game. With the lack of an effective running game, USF was forced to try and play catch up and Houston's defense really stepped up after the Cougars got out to the big lead.
Houston now sits at 5-3 (3-1) are still remain very much in the thick of things for the AAC, with four games to go. But still have a lot of work to do offensively.
This post was edited on 11/1 10:55 PM by -Powell-
