The Houston Cougar Defense: A Cornucopia Of Not So Great

Great question. With the low octane PSU offense, mainly due to the putridness at qb, it’s hard to say if PSU can exploit this especially vulnerable Houston defense.

Obviously they have to keep the Houston offense off the field so they are definitely going to run the ball like mad. But that’s not exactly geared to a shootout type game, which is probably what will be needed (lots of scores) to win this game.

I almost hate to say this, but I wish McGloin wasn’t hurt for this game. This is the EXACT type of defense he does well against. Maybe Bolden will surprise me and step up big time, but he hasn’t shown anything this year that tells me he will.

Bottom line is this match-up scares me. PSU cannot afford to fall behind early on. This is one game where if they win the toss they need to elect to receive the ball.

Cornerback DJ Hayden (#2) – He’s their playmaker in the secondary. Hayden is solid in both in run support and in coverage, evidenced by his leading the team in forced fumbles, passes deflected and pass breakups. Add in two interceptions, one for a touchdown, and he is a dangerous threat on the edge. He’s the likely candidate to cover Derek Moye on January 2nd. We’ll find out how good Moye is at run blocking in this game.

The trolling is surprisingly low, and any attempts get squashed by both PSU and UH fans. Although you do have your standard “I’m a special PSU insider and this is gonna be a big name coaching hire but I can’t tell you who it is otherwise he might back out” guy.

They keep bringing up that S&P+ (and FEI, for that matter) is an invalid way to analyze anything about Houston, because of the way it throws out plays/drives where the the game isn’t deemed “competitive”. Looking at their schedule, this eliminates basically a few entire games and several second halves. This actually scares me a little bit. This is a team that thoroughly dominated their entire conference, a la Boise. I’m chalking up the C-USA championship game performance to a team that was already counting it as a win and looking forward to their BCS bowl.

But if I’m understanding the explanation of the statistics right, then if anything this likely makes Houston’s S&P+ numbers even better than they otherwise would be. By the 4th quarter, either the defense is pretty tired from being on the field for 40 min, or they have backups in. The numbers would probably be poorer if the every single play was counted.

They can throw, and our base D is soft cover 3. If Bolden starts, we may complete less than 10 passes. These are issues.

That said, PSU has the athletes on D to play tight cover 2 and the horses on D line to get pressure with 4. Let’s hope that the D has been able to focus and practice lots of cover 2 these past few weeks…no small task.

Prediction: PSU 27, UH 17. Two PSU rb’s go over 100 yards. PSU passes for less than 150. At least 5 Rational Lion plays run by belton, and at least 1 direct snap to Green.

yippee ki yeah!!!! Rob at QB throwing bounce passes to receivers and McG stating that, “with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I would have punched Drake first”…..and Silas having to run the ball 45 times because Dukes was late for a meeting and #21 was caught smokin’ and tokin’ and some of the team flunked and all of the 3-ring Circus revolving around a NO head coach and Joyner is a complete asshole and PSU has as much of a chance as being north of RTE30 than scoring 30 points and the D being on the field for 75% of the game…oh crap, I just can’t go on. Oh yes, I can…just wait until Mike Munchak gets here, he’ll kick ass and take names. Oh wait I mean Cowher. My barber’s cousin’s brake mechanic told him that he could take that to the bank. Ah, I love a good, unreasonable lyin’ rant in the morning….it’s like the smell of napalm.