One thing we can all agree on... UH Admin gets an A+

Cougar Football
1

Not necessarily on the hire, although I am willing to give it a shot. On the release of a controversial hire:

  1. They waited till a Sat when the FCS championship and NFL Wildcards games were going.
  2. They had pre-canned statements from KB, CMA, Pez all referring to vetting and standards at UH.
  3. I have never seen a termination clause made immediately public knowledge the way that KB’s was.
  4. Announcement was made through social media and spread from there, but no big presser with Q&A.

I say you can’t do much better than what was done.

Here it is guys (I am one of the neutrals - not ecstatic due to perception, not outraged because the faith-based side of me thinks everyone deserves redemption and justice):

The Associate Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach for the Houston Cougars is Kendal Briles.
The Offensive Line Coach and Run Game Coordinator is Randy Clements.

Everyone wanted CMA to hire someone to take over the offense. From a purely football side of this, he knocked it out of the park. There is no doubt this offense next year and for the foreseeable future is going to be explosive. With the defense we have, we just went from “Can we get in the conference championship game” to “Are we going to be claiming a national championship like UCF after going undefeated?”

The real question is, with this potent offense and defense we are going to have, when CMA is poached to another school after winning so much (inevitable), will the university be bold enough to have Kendal Briles, Head Coach?

Alright… I may be trollin’ a little bit with that last statement.

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From a purely football standpoint, this is an unbelievable hire that should do great things for us both on the field and in recruiting. If the offense can gel quickly, it should be a thing of beauty.

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I love the hire. I wanted it to happen and I want to thank all of those who made it happen.

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Slow down. Our D has big holes to fill. let’s see how that works out.

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We will out score the other team.

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That’s what Sumlin thought. Worked here for one season.

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The biggest hole we have on defense is a real legit defensive coordinator who will use Ed Oliver’s talent as good as the last one did.

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Your bullet points - critics are calling it calculated, but for me it was, like, really smart PR the way they did it.

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Yes, we have holes on defense, but lets put this subject into perspective…if Briles and Clements were our Assistant Coaches this season, would the outcome of our schedule be different? The point differential is noted with each team we played along with my prediction and speculation of the outcome of the season.

Texas Tech -3 (UH wins)
Tulsa -28 (hard to predict because the D collapsed; probably still a loss, but the score would have been closer)
Memphis -4 (UH wins)
Tulane -3 (UH wins)

AAC Championship vs UCF (tough one to call, but a narrow loss)

Liberty Bowl vs Iowa State (UH win)

In summary, I believe we would have finished 11-2 instead of 7-5 and finish in the Top 20.

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Those are reasonable assumptions, Goose…That could easily have been our record last year with the upgrade in coaching…

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One thing we can all agree on?

No way!

If you have to make mealy mouthed lawyerly statements BEFORE the controversy you know you are doing something wrong.

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Well, then, many would disagree with you regarding these hires. So, you stand in disagreement.

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The question is why?

Are these two so terrific that we have to get involved in this mess?

Are these two the only people out there doing this type of work?

We couldn’t do any better?

Sorry, I am disgusted!

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We now must make the change at DC.

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Without a doubt, UH hired the best OC on the market. And, no. From a football standpoint, UH could do no better. Sorry about you being sorry, but I do understand where you’re coming from.

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THIS :point_up: !!!

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I think we’ll be better on defense, especially if Deontay Anderson is cleared to play next season.

The DL should be the best we’ve had in ages. Ed and Carter are as good a pair of DTs as you’ll find at any SEC school. I think most of us expect Chambers to be good. I know TCU was counting on him this past season. Then we have Payton Turner, Zach Vaughn, Aymiel Fleming, Noah Jones, Alex Duke, and Blake Little plus the freshmen–Tahj Boyd, Willie Smith, and Logan Hall–we signed.

I was concerned about LB, but getting Owens is a game changer. He was 2nd in tackles in the Orange Bowl and appears to be a guy who is getting better and better since coming back from his injury. Plus Egbule and Godfrey started last year, and Anenih impressed for a true freshman. We also have Elijah Gooden, Jared Milburn, Derek Parish, Amaud Willis-Dalton, and the newcomers, Donovan Mutin, Delaken Goodson, and Zamar Kirven.

As for the secondary, along with Anderson we return captain Garrett Davis, Collin Wilder, and the coaches are high on JC transfer Gleson Sprewell. So safety looks good. Corner was the major weakness, IMO. I can’t know, but I would hope we could find two competent guys among seven returnees–Isaiah Johnson, Jeremy Winchester, Alex Myers, Javian Smith, Kadarian Smith, DJ Small, and Devodric Bynum. Last year was Johnson’s first at the position, and Javian Smith supposedly has shown flashes.

So I expect us to be improved and am counting on a top 20 ranking in scoring defense. If the offense can finish as high it should be a fun year.

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Thank you for that analysis. If this was Reddit I’d gold your post. Exciting to know we have potential playmakers on the defense surrounding Ed.

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Agree on LB.
CB and WR are the two spots that give our coaches the most heartburn right now.
We are young at WR, but the starting 3 could be pretty good - Corbin, Lark, and Stevenson. The coaches like Singleton a lot too. We also have several highly touted players incoming - Jakori, Payton, Julon, and Henry.
At CB, I think we have to pray that a year of experience and a new DB coach (I don’t expect Jennings back) will make the difference. If we don’t improve, this will be our Achilles heel next year.