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The noise grows, but Cougars refuse to hear it

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The Cougars came out strong in their season opener and will go into every game with a focused mentality. |  Justin Tijerina/The Cougar

After a hard-hitting 60 minutes of play that resulted in a victory over the No. 3 team in the country, the Cougars come away as the overwhelming favorite in their remaining games this season.

If the team can run the gauntlet and keep winning, an undefeated season by the Cougars would be hard to overlook when it comes time for the playoff committee to decide on who stays and goes.

What lies ahead

Before thinking about January and the possible implications, head coach Tom Herman and the Cougars have to remain focused on each individual game and compete on the same level as they did against the University of Oklahoma Sooners.

Going into the season opener, Herman made it a priority to keep his team shut out from the hype and external noise of playing against OU. To everyone’s surprise — except for the Cougars — the team remained poised and dominated their Power-Five foe, especially in the second half where they held the Sooners scoreless until a garbage-time touchdown with less than three minutes to play.

The national noise that comes with beating a contender and, in turn, establishing the team as one, will be immense.

It will be up to Herman to again put his team in a hypothetical-soundproof chamber to keep the buzz from becoming a distraction. If the early indications prove anything, it seems like the Cougars are on point with that.

During the post-game press conference, Herman credited his team for being humble and emotionless. He said that the Cougars know that the OU victory was just one game, and that when the next game rolls around they’ll consider themselves 0-0.

That next game will see the Cougars facing the Lamar University Cardinals, who are coming off a 38-14 loss and aim to claim their first win of the season.

While this may seem like a landslide victory for the Cougars, just ask the Louisiana State University Tigers or the University of Tennessee Volunteers if any wins are guaranteed on game day.

LSU, who was ranked fifth in the country, lost to a formidable-yet-unranked opponent in the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

The Volunteers, who were ranked ninth, had to take it to overtime to come out with a win against the upset-prone Appalachian State University Mountaineers.

“Second-to-none”

In the post-game press conference, senior quarterback Greg Ward Jr. reiterated his coach’s words.

“We only worry about who we have to play that week,” Ward said. “And next week is Lamar, so we’re really just going to be focused on them. We’re not worried about who we play or the conference they’re in.”

Regardless of what happens during the game against Lamar, the Cougars won’t have time to do anything but focus on their next opponent. They will get only four days of rest before heading to Ohio to take on the University of Cincinnati Bearcats on Sept. 15.

In last season’s game at TDECU Stadium, the Bearcats gave UH all that they could handle before the Cougars closed it out in a 33-30 nail biter.

But just like last week, that game was in the past and Houston will only look at what’s in front of them and at that moment.

Although the Cougars beat their biggest opponent of the season, it doesn’t mean that they are finished facing hardships throughout the year. Herman knows that. To win big down the road, Herman will have to keep his team fixated on future goals and take it one game at a time.

As expected, there’s a mantra behind most things that the Cougars do.

“There’s a Navy SEALs quote that says: ‘When faced with adversity, you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training,’” Herman said. “We feel like our training is second-to-none.”

From week to week, the Cougars will let its training do the talking and reject the escalating buzz.

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