"High" Expectations

I still think you guys don’t get my point on having high expectations for the football program so I’m going to explain in full detail why the expectations are high now at UH.

  1. Facilities: Gone are the days where the team practiced indoor at the AAC, and outside in the track area. The program has a new state of the art football facility. The new facility should be attracting very good recruits alone.

  2. New Football Stadium: Sure the stadium only holds 40 K, but it can easily be expanded to 60 K if need be should UH eventually get in a P5 conference. TDECU is clearly an upgrade over Robertson.

  3. Herman set the standard: Herman year 1 took this team to a new years 6 bowl. Think about it. Briles didn’t, Sumlin didn’t even though he was “close”, Pardee didn’t either. He made UH relevant and fun to watch. He got UH the most notoriety I’ve seen my sports teams (Astros before they won the WS, Rockets I was too young for the title years, Texans) ever have. Sure year 2 didn’t go as planned but lets be real, we know he had 1 foot out the door once the rumors started rolling in. Herman got the recruits to come here. He created the H-Town Takeover Slogan. Applewhite so far has killed all that momentum.

  4. He left Applewhite with talent. We will see how Josh Heupel does year 1 at UCF, but if he has a very good year there after Frost left him with talent that should tell you how bad of a HC Applewhite is. Herman left Applewhite with talent. Not to mention Applewhite helped recruit some of the guys Herman left him with. So he really shouldn’t be having an excuse.

  5. We are trying to get in a Big Conference: You see the developments with the baseball program and the basketball program. They both are getting or have gotten new facilities and arenas. When the next realignment comes, hopefully from the Pac 12 UH should be considered a candidate. Why would the Pac 12 want a team who cant even win consistently and win conference titles and make New years 6 appearances. The bar is not winning 8 or 9 games anymore. It should be more.

  6. Our conference foes: First lets look at who is in our division. Smu, Tulane, Tulsa, Memphis, and Navy. No disrespect to them but we should have better recruiting classes than them every single season and we definitely should be at the top of the West standings every single season. Memphis loses their HC, Fuente, to V-Tech and Norvell picks up where he left off. SMU hasn’t been good in a LONG time, Tulsa hasn’t been good since the Todd Graham days. Navy is a good program but they are limited in who they can bring in recruiting wise. Fritz is a good HC but Tulane isn’t a good enough FB program to where you can lose to 2 times in the past 4 seasons. Second, look at the east. UCF has 2 BCS bowl appearances. Call me petty but why should they have more than us? They came off a 0 win season in 2015, hired Frost and in 2 seasons they go to their 2nd BCS bowl. Taggert leaves USF and they make a splash hire in Charlie Strong who is an absolute great fit for them. Remains to be seen on Cincy, ECU, and UConn but it looks like Temple might be on the rise going forward. No reason we shouldn’t be owning recruiting in the AAC and going to aac title games.

So that’s why I have high expectations for this season and going forward.

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It’s fitting you put “high” in quotes. Especially with the Herman part.

I’ve been hearing this same line for over 20 years. Since our first year in CUSA. We said the same thing back then… Competing against many of the same teams, plus “little” schools like USM, Marshall, TCU, and Louisville (UL was mediocre to poor in football at the time).

As many have said, “the other team has scholarship players too.” It’s not easy to dominate any conference.

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We all expect a better win-loss record this year, I think. Numbers 5-6 are just your opinion, which I respect, but we don’t know who’s going to be good until we hit the field.

Some of us are tired of you busting CMA’s chops all the time. He has a different personality from Herman. Herman is a PR guy, CMA is a football coach. Also, we struggled on offense last year, I think, because CMA couldn’t get the guy he really wanted - K. Briles.

Good coaches hire good assistants and CMA has done that, but, defensive coordinator still troubles me. I’ll give him one more year. With the improvement in personnel in the secondary this year, I don’t see why our corners should be lining up 7-8 yards off the ball on every play. If that continues, DC needs replaced.

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My expectation is that Major earns at least $100K in performance bonus by winning at least 9 regular season games.

8 wins? No soup for you.

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look at what conference TCU and Louisville was in compared to the conference they are now. TCU dominated the Mountain West and as a result they got to the big 12. Louisville got 3 conference titles each in the CUSA and Big East. Boise St has dominated the Mountain West and WAC. Not saying every single year we should be champions but we should have more conference titles to show for.

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I don’t agree with all your takes, but this is the only one I truly have a problem with. Heupel’s first year vs. CMA’s first year is not a valid comparison. Why? Because Huepel will have the benefit of a returning all conference QB. CMA lost Greg Ward and struggled to find the best fit in his absence. Heupel will not have any such decisions to make unless his QB gets hurt. If Heupel comes in and has a very good first year, that will not have any bearing whatsoever on whether CMA is a good or bad coach.

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herman year 1 had a qb problem. o korn transferred and he brought in adam Shultz to compete with ward and we managed to go to a new years 6 bowl week 1. that’s not an excuse its a fact. at least UCF with heupel they are changing systems and coaching staffs. Applewhite is a continuity hire.

Injury is what kept King from being our starter last year, imho. Once King was healthy, he needed the reps and it wasn’t until USF game that CMA felt he was ready at QB. If Milton goes down in camp or early in the year, UCF will have a very different sort of season from what everyone expects.

According to Alfred, that will make Heupel a bad coach.

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There was no QB issue. Ward was the returning starter.

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he wasn’t the clear cut starter.

Nothing wrong with having high expectations this year. We should win at least 9 games with the talent and schedule. If things click early for the offense, we may be looking at a special season like we had in 2015.

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He was to anyone who had been around the program.
Does it even occur to you that Herman may not have been as good a coach as you think he is and that he may have gone with OKorn just because he was a more stereotypical QB instead of a short duel threat?
How would our year have been then?
Ward was obviously the better on field QB. Any clean slate BS was either coach speak or an idiot talking.
Either way it means you’re wrong in saying he had a QB problem entering 2015.

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You’re convuluting your argument by saying Herman May not have been as good of a coach as people think he was. Being the only coach to take us to a big bowl in who knows how many years, and win it, sure does support the notion that he was a good coach here.

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Levine left Herman with much more talent than Herman left CMA …PERIOD !!

Herman had a better coaching staff.

While the jury is still out on whether CMA can be a successful coach or not, it is also true about Herman.

I am not overly optimistic about either one.

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Actually, that would be called anecdotal evidence. One time does not a pattern make.
In this case it is more likely that we had a great team with a great QB who masked his offenses deficiencies.
Also, I didn’t say ‘people’, I said Diehard specifically.

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You have to agree that Herman had better coordinators year 1 than CMA year 1. Todd Orlando is a better DC than Coach D. And Greg Ward Jr. is a better OC than Washington ;).

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Ben beat me to it. Tom Herman winning a NY6 in his first year here with Greg Ward at QB and the Jack Boyz defense we had makes him a good coach the same way winning the National Championship in 2010 with Cam Newton makes Gene Chizik a good coach. Not surprisingly, without Cam Newton, the next year Chizik went 8-5 followed by 3-9. One great season doesn’t make a coach great, or even good. Herman didn’t have a solid option at QB last year and correspondingly, didn’t have a great year. I think a few people are way under-estimating talent at key positions that a coach either does or does not inherit.

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no way you think that.

gene chizik wasn’t a good coach to begin with. he was a questionable hire at auburn. he wasn’t good at iowa st.