We had a WR along with AA who was in the same 40 league, Donnie Avery who ran a 4 2 at the combine. There was a lot of speed in that team. Even Jackie Battle at 230 pounds ran in the low 4.4s. l hope to see that kind of speed again someday at TDECU.
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Battle was clocked at 4.38 at the UH pro day after his senior year. That kind of speed is insane at his size. Dude was like 6’2, 230 at UH. There’s a reason why he lasted so long in the NFL.
Battle and Quick in the same backfield in 2006 was ridic and a lot of fun to watch.
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2006 was a great year. We went 10-4 and won CUSA and played South Carolina in the Liberty bowl, losing 44-36. We had a prolific offense as follows:
Kolb threw for 3809 yards with 30 TDs and only 4 INT.
Alridge ran for 959 yards averaging 10+ per carry
Battle ran for 943 yards averaging 5+ per carry
Vincent Marshall had 979 yards receiving
Donnie Avery had 852 yards receiving
Jerod Harvey had 671 yards receiving
Biren Early had 420 yards receiving
And TE MArk Hefner had 214 yards receiving.
But as Coogs we make things interesting as we beat rice 31-30 to start the year.
Went to Miami and lost in the Orange bowl 14-13( road warriors were there)
Lost at home to ULALA 31-28
Lost our only conference game at Southern Miss 31-27 only to beat them in the Conference USA championship game 34-20
That year was our last conference championship before Herman won the AAC in 2015!
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No excuse to have lost the Miami game whose team had quit before we gave them life OR to ULALA.
As much talent as we had on offense there were too many lulls. Also recall Briles slowing it down and changing the play calling whenever we went up by 3 scores, usually resulted in us sweating the last couple minutes. That team had elite offensive talent and no D and should have been able to take down S. Car. I will never forget the qb in motion play that caused us to lose 40 yards when we had the ball inside their 2.
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I attended The Liberty Bowl Game.
The QB in Motion play was a disaster and, frankly, the dumbest play I have seen. It cuts off the QB’s vision of 1/2 of the field. I hated that play. Can you tell?
By the by The Liberty Bowl drew a huge crowd for that game.I thoroughly enjoyed it!
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I too was at the game and was amazed at the number of Coogs in attendance. And yes, a stupid play. At minimum we would have kicked a FG.
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The infamous 4th and 50.
That’s my second favorite bowl game I’ve ever attended and in some ways my favorite. Beale Street was so much fun before and after the game.
The only game I put above it is the 2015 Peach Bowl. My time as a Coog only goes back to 2004 so I’m obviously only considering bowls going back that far.
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Robert, I was there at that game too, and we had a great time !!!
And yes, that was the stupidest play called since The Stagger Lee (Oilers)…
Straight Up Stupid.
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Going into the game, Gamecock fans assumed a blowout and no competition. Coming out of the game, I heard a lot of them talking about how tough a game it was and how well we played. It was a loss, but it still gained us some respect.
After the game, my son and I took on Beale Street and forgot about the loss. Regardless of what some on here say, I like playing in Memphis.
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With less than a minute in the game we had the ball and Kolb was throwing the ball when I heard a SC fan say, “My god, does this team ever quit?”
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That was quite a fun trip. I was surprised at the large UH contingent. I remember what I think was the opening drive when Kolb threw it downfield to Vincent Marshall for the touchdown and I think SC fans were in shock realizing that these boys came to play.
UH had a very large crowd there.
If we ever get back to The Liberty Bowl I strongly recommend it to our fans.
Beale St. is fun, the food is good, and the atmosphere at The Stadium is excellent.
The parade down Beale St. is especially awesome.
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Memphis is a great place to go for a bowl game. Hope to go again someday.
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I did too with my wife and youngest son. But what I really learned at that game was just how low some USM fans were as were rooting for South Carolina. I think Briles lost the game in the 4 th quarter although having the center toss the ball 10 feet over the QB’s head and then having the qb kick the ball out of bounds resulting in a penalty likely did us in as well.
All by himself Briles lost that game. They could not stop our Offense so Briles did it for them
The center snap was a direct result of Briles. A stupid directional snap with the qb in motion. All it did was key the defense and in that case cost us a great drive to squash us. Briles also cost us key games in the Hawaii bowl and the Tulsa debacle. Then there was the bowl game vs kansas which is second to only army when it comes to embarrassing bowl game stinkers.
I hadn’t thought about this but every HC since Briles got here had some pretty embarrassing bowl game losses except for Herman.
Briles - 2005 Fort Worth Bowl
Sumlin - 2009 Fort Worth Bowl
Levine - 2013 Birmingham Bowl
Applewhite - All 3 of his bowl games
Holgorsen, to save himself from adding his name to the list above decided to not win the requisite number of games to become bowl eligible. Just kidding. I think.
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Those second halves by Applewhite were scary.
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