The Houston football team generally promises fans a good show for its home games, but the show put on against Southern Methodist on Sunday at Robertson Stadium was probably a bit more exciting than fans would have liked.
The Cougars struggled out of the gate against a downtrodden Mustangs’ squad, but avoided a crushing upset by holding on for a 38-28 win before a crowd of 22,774 and a national television audience.
Neither team had problems on offense with the two combining for 1,012 total yards of offense. The Cougars’ secondary lit up early and often by elusive SMU sophomore quarterback Justin Willis, who made plays with both his hands and feet. By the same token, Houston redshirt freshman quarterback Case Keenum managed to exploit holes in the Mustangs’ secondary.
Houston, which claimed its fourth consecutive win, led by 17 at halftime, but the Mustangs scored twice in the third quarter to cut the lead to three.
However, Keenum threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Donnie Avery (10 catches, 116 yards, 1 TD) that gave the Cougars some breathing room with 12:08 left in the game.
The defense took care of the rest, holding the Mustangs scoreless in the final period to preserve the win, which makes the Cougars (6-3, 5-1 Conference USA) bowl eligible and keeps them in sole possession of first place in the C-USAWest Division.
Indeed, it was far from a flawless performance, but the defending C-USA champions will take it.
"It was a good, tough win against a team that plays us extremely hard just like everybody else, because we understand that we have an ‘X’ on us," head coach Art Briles said. "I think you have to give SMU credit. They came in here, played relax and played with some emotion, but I think our guys challenged it and overcame what they brought."
Meanwhile, SMU’s season continues to slip into oblivion under head coach Phil Bennett, who was fired last week but will be allowed to coach the remainder of the season. The Mustangs (1-8, 0-5) dropped their seventh consecutive decision and remain in the cellar of the West Division.
Still, Briles will likely remember this win for some time.
"I think we earned some respect," Briles said. "I don’t think the respect was there at the beginning (because) of some pre-game activities, but I think we earned some respect as the game went on."
The pre-game activities that Briles referred to involved the entire SMU team, which stomped on the UH logo in the center of the field during warm-ups. That incident didn’t sit too well with the Cougars, who spent much of the night trying to avenge the insult.
Thanks to Keenum, who got the start, and senior running back Anthony Alridge, the Cougars had the last laugh. Keenum kept the offense moving like a well-oiled machine to the tune of 552 total yards.
Alridge carried the Cougars’ rushing attack, finishing with 154 yards and two touchdowns on a career-high 31 carries. He also threw his first career touchdown pass – a 24-yarder – to redshirt freshman wide receiver Chaz Rodriguez in the second quarter.
With Keenum and Alridge leading the way, the Cougars had few problems on offense.
"The entire offense played well tonight," said Keenum, who completed 19-of-27 yards for a career-high 264 yards and two touchdowns. "Everyone knows the ball’s coming to Anthony Alridge and we still give it to him 31 times and we still execute."
The outcome probably wouldn’t have been as close if the Houston defense had been able to figure out Willis (17-of-29 passing, 333 yards, 3 TDs, 1 rushing TD) early on. The sophomore constantly eluded pressure and played mind games with the Cougars’ secondary.
Willis threw two touchdown passes in the third quarter to give the Mustangs a shot. His final touchdown strike – a 21-yarder to Zack Sledge (2 catches, 72 yards, 2 TDs) – pulled the Mustangs within 31-28.
However, the defense caught up with Willis in the fourth quarter with SMU trailing by 10.
On the Mustangs’ next-to-last possession deep inside their own territory, Willis was sacked by junior defensive end Phillip Hunt and senior linebacker Brendan Pahulu on second and third down, respectively, with Hunt involved in both plays.
The sacks forced SMU to punt and seemingly snuffed out its chances of making a comeback.
"Going into the game, the game plan was to keep Justin Willis inside the box and bull rush," said Hunt, who finished with six tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, and a forced fumble. "But after he started picking our secondary apart, it turned into an all-out war. We had to do whatever we could to win the game."
