Houston hosts No. 3 Louisville Thursday night with a chance to get back in the national spotlight
by Dick Weiss
The University of Houston set college football on fire the first weekend of the season when the Cougars defeated third-ranked Oklahoma, 33-23, before a near sellout crowd at NGR Stadium and a nationally televised audience.
Quarterback Greg Ward Jr. passed for 321 yards and two touchdowns and drew mentions as a Heisman Trophy candidate and the Cougars remained in rarified air for the first month of the season, rising as high as No. 5 in the USA Today poll, before American Athletic Conference play began Oct. 10.
The Cougars, who have since lost to league rivals Navy and SMU, are 8-2 overall and have a chance to reappear on the national map again tonight when they play third-ranked Louisville at TDECU Stadium. The Cougars have won 14 straight home games.
“Our season hasn't exactly gone the way we hoped it would,” Cougars' wide receiver Chance Wilson said. “But it's going to be great. This is our Super Bowl. Coach says it's a one game season.”
This is the latest among the elite nonleague games. The American has played in recent years. In addition to Houston’s earlier win against Oklahoma, teams from The American have gone against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Florida State - all of which are ranked in the national top 15. All of the conference teams have been willing to schedule ambitiously to bolster their computer rankings, and it has paid off.
The American is ranked fourth among the 10 FBS conferences - ahead of the ACC and the Big 12, among others - in the Wolfe computer model and is no lower than fifth in any of the nationally accepted ratings.
Louisville jumped into the college football playoff conversation when the Cardinals (9-1), who had been ranked sixth in the college football playoff rankings, defeated Wake Forest, 44-12, last Saturday and No. 2. Clemson, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4, Washington all lost.
And they come to Houston with dynamic quarterback Lamar Jackson, the 6-3, 205-pound sophomore who is the current frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy. Jackson has already passed for 2,898 yards and 27 touchdowns and rushed for another 1,334 yards -- an average of 7.3 yards per carry -- and 19 touchdowns.
“I don't know if God has made one who can even compare to him,” Houston coach Tom Herman said. “These guys have played against (Houston quarterback) Greg (Ward Jr.) all spring and all fall camp and they know what it looks like when a guy breaks the pocket and scrambles around. Now, they were never able to tackle him. Corralling a guy is one thing. Getting him to the ground is another. This guy is special. He can not only hurt you in the pocket but he can also make plays with his feet.”
Herman knows all about Jackson. He recruited him for Ohio State when Jackson was a senior at Boynton Beach, Fla. three years ago.
“We watched a lot of film of him. In the end, we went in another direction,” Herman said. “But I knew what kind of talent he had coming out of high school.”
Jackson made his first start as a true freshman in early September of 2015 when the Cardinals hosted Houston at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. He threw for a touchdown, ran for another but had four turnovers in a 34-31 loss. “His first start, as a true freshman, he was a bit of a deer in the headlights,” Herman said. “But he's a different guy, so poised, very understanding of their offense. But you knew from high school he was going to be a very special guy.”
And Louisville “is a completely different animal this year,” Herman said. “It will be a big challenge. Obviously their offense gets so much credit, as well they should and deserve; but they are also in the top 10 in the country in a bunch of defensive statistics, too. So this is a very well rounded team that is playing at an elite level now.”
Ward -- the most exciting player in The American last season -- looked like he could have provided an interesting test for the Cardinals' defense. He lit up the Cards last year, passing 236 yards and rushing for 98. Ward threw two of three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter last season to rally the Cougars past the Cardinals last year.
“He made some plays against us where it looked like we had him boxed in and looked we had everybody covered,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino cautioned, “and he was still able to create room and run out and make conversions. His ability to run the ball was the way they won the game in the fourth quarter.”
Ward and has completed 68 percent of his passes for 2608 yards and 16 touchdowns this season. But he has been playing hurt, nursing an injury to his throwing shoulder in the season opener against the Sooners, and has been less of a dual threat.
Ward threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as Houston defeated Tulane, 30-18, last Saturday, but aggravated the injury when he dove on a spiked ball on a two minute drive and a defender landed on his shoulder in the closing seconds of the first half.
Ward was forced to sit out at the start of the second half. But he had to reenter the game in the fourth quarter after backup Kyle Postma suffered a broken bone in his forearm that will require surgery and sideline him the final two games of the regular season. Ward is expected to start against the Cardinals, despite being banged up,
The national spotlight is too hard to resist for Ward and a Houston team looking to repolish their image while giving The American a boost.