Why Memphis, UCF are Better Than UH

Cougar Football
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Memphis vs UH 4-0 (would be 5-0 except for a very close FG miss)

Memphis - 3 HC’s in last 17 years… Mike Norvell - 2016-19, 4 yrs, Justin Fuente - 2012-15, 4 yrs, and Tommy West - 9 yrs.

UCF vs UH is 6-3 and 3-2 in the AAC. They have won 4 AAC FB Championships and played in 3 N.Y.6 Bowls while in the AAC.

UCF - 3 HC’s in the last 16 seasons. Josh Heupel 2018-19, 2yrs, Scott Frost 2016-17, 2yrs, and Geroge O’Leary 2004-15, 12 yrs.

Houston has been successful against Cincinnati, Navy and Temple in AAC play but are now behind them. Memphis(tied), Cincinnati and Temple both own 1 AAC FB Championship along with UH.

If Memphis wins out (Might require beating Cincinnati 2 weeks in a row) they can become the 3rd AAC team to play in a N.Y. 6 Bowl.

Difference between UH and Memphis, UCF (even Navy, Kim Niumatalolo in his 12th. season) is those teams did not experience the turnover rate in coaching that UH has in the last 10+ seasons.

UH has had 5 HC’s in the last 10+ years, 6 HC’s in the last 16 years compared to UCF’s 3 with O’Leary’s building and maintaining the program for 12 years. Began 0-11 and ended 0-8. Left team loaded with recruits and culture of success so that Scott Frost became unbeaten in his 2nd season.

Bill Yeoman was 1-10 in his last year but left team with a culture of winning and loaded with talent. Pardee in his 2nd season was winning at UH with Yeoman recruited QB who wins the Heisman the next year.

College FB teams can experience success with stability and quality HC. Unfortunately in today’s game HC’s are constantly leaving teams like UH for the P5 money. Not complaining, it’s today’s FB culture.

Oh, and one team that owned UH in the CUSA Conference - S. Miss.
who has a 9-5 record against UH and they rank their 2011 win against UH with their Alabama win as their all time greatest wins.

Southern Miss. had only 2 HC’s in the last 21 years when they beat UH to win the CUSA crown. Jeff Bower 17 yrs, followed by Larry Fedora, 4 yrs… Winning culture (5 CUSA Championships) and coaching stability. S. Miss. has since had 3 HC’s in 8 years and have done nothing of note.

Here’s hoping UH has stability in coaching and culture (D and O).

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Since 2015 (when we last won the conference) both UH and UCF have had 2 coaching changes. They’ve maintained/generated success and we haven’t.

While coaching changes are problem at UH, its a problem across the G5. Luke Fickell, Mike Norvell will both be at new jobs in the next year or two.

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Yes they have maintained success due to the culture that O’Leary created and that Frost built upon. Heupel is having injuries and his team has 3 losses. It will be interesting if they can maintain their level of success with Heupel. We had Yeoman, Pardee, then Jenkins. Jenkins nor Pardee recruited at Yeoman’s level and well, the rest is history.

Again, next year is a crucial year for UCF who has also been hurt by the new culture of college FB and HC’s moving on.

Funny how super-fans and athletic depts. complain about the average fans moving on/away from their team unless they are winning. It is also part of that new college FB culture. P5 as well as G5 fans.

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2 of the last 3 coaches that left UH were fired. We are partially to blame for the turnover.

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I agree.

Yeoman would have been fired and this fansite would have every other post calling for him to be fired. Win now or else.

So, we experienced the what else and we are looking up at Memphis, UCF and Cincinnati.

Hopefully we become patient, let Holgorsen rebuild the program and enjoy a few seasons of success like UCF and Southern Miss experienced.

Can you imagine UH 5 ACC titles like S. Miss. did in the short time we played with them in CUSA or go to 3 N.Y. 6 bowls in 6 yrs. like UCF did?

Guess we would be pretty obnoxious and hard to live with. Entitlement would set in, but…

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Yep. I can’t wait to get some sustained success (and I think we will have it, especially with Dana being here to stay).

Our fanbase is already obnoxious and hard to live with (nothing like UT though!)…

Some of our fans think we are OSU or Alabama and that every P5 is drooling to add us when we’ve been pretty mediocre over the last 30 years.

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mediocre maybe, but still better than half of the “P5” over the same period using any metric you want to measure by

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Btw…Navy ( #23) got absolutely killed. The conference is not as good as advertised this year.

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It has alot to do with how we recruit and the amount of players they recruit. While we may have a higher ranking of recruits it does not guarantee success and that’s on coaching. Also, those schools market themselves the same way we do, the difference is we shoot ourselves in the foot with other things. Like stream lining communication, ticket sales and cougar pride, parking, donations, gameday, food, recruiting, marketing (no billboards of team), space uniforms (genius idea by UCF), uniqueness (liberty bowl memphis), changing perceptions from kids in highschool and middle schools. Even giving a car decal to put on your car window is marketing. I just think it all plays a role and it seems like we are still trying to establish a football brand like our basketball brand but the question is how far ahead are these other schools from us, how far is the top p5 from us and can we make up the gap in 2 years.

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Living in Katy and the success of the Katy Tigers is well known. Years ago a friend had a son play in the Katy system. All the Jr. Highs that fed Katy played the same O and D.

This meant that when these kids were seniors and still playing, they were at the reacting stage and not the thinking stage. They did not always have the best talent when playing a North Shore type team. What they did was playing Katy football and making the other team try to stop them.

What really made this possible was those in charge, starting with the Katy HC who made certain no one changed anything from the SYSTEM.

D’s eventually catch up with O’s and eventually tweaking does not work enough to keep doing what you were doing. But a school can enjoy years of success before change is demanded.

It starts with having a good HC and then keeping him. Today that is the hard part.

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Big problem is just not hiring the right people, which sets us back considerably.

Jenkins, Helton, Dimel, Levine, and Applewhite were the coaches for 19 of the last 30 seasons…in none of those seasons did we have a bowl win (0-6). We’ve gone 3 for 8 in hiring good coaches (or good staffs) for the last 30 years…that’s why we continue to flounder.

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This is a great point. Look at our offenses over the past 30 years. Run and Shoot to Pro Style to whatever Dimel ran, to the Briles offense, to the Air Raid, to the Bush offense, to Meacham’s Air Raid, back to Bush’s offense, to the RPO, to the Briles offense again, and now back to a modified Air Raid. Tough to keep changing up schemes and have young players be able to adapt that quickly.

Also doesn’t help when we’ve had 4 OL coaches in 4 years, 4 Secondary coaches in 4 years, and 4 QB coaches in 4 years. When I pinpoint where we are weakest this season and have little depth…those are the 3 spots I’d point at first.

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Correct.

But like the wizzard of oz told Dorthy. Ignore the man behind the curtain.

UH has had a far worse history with those who run the show. The AD’s and Presidents who have the final say on who is hired and how much is invested in FB.

Philip Hoffman was school president form 1961 - 77. Just look at what UH athletics was like during his watch.

Harry Fouke was AD for the UH from 1945-1979. I forgive him for playing and attending Rice. But Rice fans may regret never having him as their AD. Especially since his program was passing the sinking Rice program.

We now have another president who cares about athletics though we have seen many more AD’s pass through the AD office in the past 20 years. Only Dave Maggard stands out to me as being special with how very little he had to work with.

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I agree, but its still not good enough to get us to where we want to be.

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But the coaches that left had recruited well and left them with a full cupboard. They didn’t take their best recruits with them and they stayed for the bowl.

Buyercoog, 20 years from now I think we will look back on Pez as being a great AD. Well, actually I may not be here in 20 years. If I am, I will have outlived parents by 12 and 17 years.

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In addition, the state of Florida is heavily recruited just like the state of Texas, however UCF only has to contend with 3 P5 schools (Miami, Florida State, and Florida) for superiority and perception. UCF can literally own their major city because unlike the city of Houston, I am pretty sure Orlando is not a major destination city for grads of other schools.

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UCF is special in that how recently they began playing college FB. Their first varsity FB team was fielded in 1979. UH was about to win the SWC again and play in their 3rd Cotton Bowl in four years.

UCF has only been playing BCS/FBS or Div.1 FB since 1996. George O’Leary became HC in 2004. So about the time the newness of playing with the big boys was warring off, He started them on the road to experiencing big boy winning seasons.

UCF has yet to go through the dark ages like UH did after the SWC.
They experienced their greatest rival going into the BE and that just motivated them to out perform USF. USF is now outside of the P5 and behind UCF in FB.

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The problem is in administration. Either ADs have not been
supported or the directors don’t know what they are doing.
Twice UH chose HCs from the existing staff. Both of them hurt
the program.

Is there any argument that UH could not have hired Willie Fritz
or Chad Morris instead of Applewhite or Levine? Is there any
argument that the results would not have been better?

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize a winning coach.

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I think two factors really hurt us going back to 1992. #1 was hiring Helton, who installed the Pro-Style offense with the hold over Run and Shoot players. If we had hired a spread offense head coach, it may have enhanced our chances of making the B?G 12 in 1995. #2 was Briles dumping us in 2007 and taking RGIII with him to Baylor.

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That led to the rise of Case Keenum though, so I am okay with #2. I just wish Keenum had a conference championship.

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