Cougars block out hype

Congratulations to Marshall. They had a goal coming into the game and they accomplished it.

“They said they wanted to see our second quarterback and they did,” head coach Kevin Sumlin said.

Several of Marshall’s defensive players told the Huntington Herald Dispatch that their focus against the Cougars was to knock Case Keenum out of the game.

“We try to kill the head of the snake every game,” Delvin Johnson told the Dispatch. “Putting out the quarterback is a real big deal for us.”

The Thundering Herd got a healthy dose of Cotton Turner in the fourth quarter — Mazel tov — but not before the Cougars hung 56 points on them. Keenum left the field with an unblemished uniform. The UH offensive line allowed zero sacks, and Turner tacked on a touchdown pass of his own to Daniel Spencer give the Cougars a 63-28 win.

The Cougars played fast and efficient on offense, gaining 621 yards on 57 plays while holding the ball for just 17:45.

“It seemed like for a long time we weren’t on the field very much,” Keenum said.

Nine of the Cougars’ first 11 drives resulted in touchdowns — none of those drives lasted longer than 2:45.

“Room for improvement that I see is going 11-for-11,” running back Michael Hayes said.

Keenum was precise as ever, at one point completing 15 passes in a row, and finishing 24-28 for 376 yards and tied a career-high with six touchdowns.

“It’s a good spot to be in and that’s what we’re trying to get to every game,” Keenum said. “We practice at that level, try to get into a groove, try to get things rolling and stay in that groove for as long as possible. I thought we did a good job of keeping in that groove.

“Even when we had to sit down, the defense was out there for so long, we had to sit down for an extended period of time, TV timeouts, to be able to pick up at that same pace and stay back in that little sweet spot is good.”

Keenum passed former Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang for the all-time NCAA mark in total offense with a 30-yard pass to Justin Johnson in the first quarter.

The Cougars countered the Herd’s hyped-pass rush with quick passes that got receivers in space and allowed UH to take advantage of its skill players’ abilities to block downfield.

“There’s a bunch of guys that caught short passes and ran like hell today,” Sumlin said.

Patrick Edwards, Tyron Carrier and Hayes each gained at least 90 yards receiving with Edwards and Carrier scoring once, and Hayes twice.

Charles Sims also found the end zone on a 50-yard run. He finished with 75 yards on seven carries.

“It’s almost like a contest between those guys,” Sumlin said. “They come off the field and they start talking to each other, they block for each other. I think what’s lost in all of that is whenever you have those types of plays, those running backs are flying down the field, but there’s people getting blocked all over the place. Patrick Edwards and E.J. (Smith) and Justin (Johnson), as well as they play with the football, they play just as well without the ball in their hands. When you see that, you’ve got a team that cares about winning and not about themselves.

“Probably the greatest complement that I could give those two running backs is they play as hard without the ball as they do with the ball. You saw, Charles was on a punt return tonight. Mike Hayes has been covering kicks, been on punt return too. Those guys, they’re playing a lot of snaps and they’re playing as hard as anyone in the country.”

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