Damn they cut right when heās about to answer the question about the freshmen
Yeah, I thought I pulled out my headset.
I really like listening to CMA, the guy comes across as genuine instead of a snake oil salesman. I can see a parent appreciating his candor and sincerity. I listened to the Gotlieb interview that came on after the press conference and I just like the guy. Thereās something reassuring about him. Itās not the same as the glitz and noise that accompanied LTH. We knew we were playing with fire with LTH, but his BS was so good, you wanted to believe it even knowing it was BS. With CMA its just an entirely different vibe, a good, calming vibe that makes me believe I can trust him. Do I think he will be here long term? Who knows; but heās here now and he has my full support.
This was very insightful.
Here are a few points that I caught.
-
Play calling: They intentionally made is simple for this game given the prior circumstances with the city and team. (I agree)
-
QB Interceptions. KA was taking his shots. At first, I thought the deep interception was a bad throw, but after sleeping on it a couple days. That was worth the shot. Like CMA said, it was 4th down, why not. I am guilty of screaming āTAKE A SHOTā during games, so I wonāt be a hypocrite.
-
CMA is good.
I thought that was interesting also when he brought up not wanting to complicate the offense in that environment. It does make me wonder if Coach Applewhite is gonna open up more of the offense now that UH is playing at home this weekend.
He seems to brush off the penalties/ turnovers. 105 yards off of penaltiesā¦ wow
The transcript of the interview is on uhcougars.com His answer to the freshman question is that more will play. Itās a long season.
Thank you for posting. Remember that what is said in front of a microphone will always be different than the locker room. What is said between close doors remains behind close doors. We won chapter one. Letās build on the story and make it a great one. One chapter at a time and the play calling will get more and more varied. I appreciate Majorās eloquence like you mentioned red80 this is a huge plus for us.
IMO they may pull a Lamar from last year and just run the ball on every play.
I hope they open things up the need game time with the play book. I just want to see them sling it around.
Totally agree on 1 and 3 but I thought I saw a receiver on the outside with one-on-one. But, hey. we won and as long as Allen knew he was throwing into triple coverage with nothing to loose, Iām cool with it. But if he didnāt see an open guy or a guy not triple covered, that needs work and CMA acknowledge that and not just with the QB.
I have relaxed a lot since hearing him say they purposely kept things very simple. Iāve played at the collegiate level but never under this kind of distraction like with Harvey. Worst I have had to deal with was a girl friend dumping me. So I take back most of what I was griping about with play calling and so forth.
But, even with a backyard play book, you can still call āgo deepā in the huddle and just heave it a few times. 
I hope they at least open it up in the first half. Looking at Riceās two games so far, itās hard to tell what their strengths and weaknesses are because they played a good team in Stanford and a terrible team in UTEP.
Against Stanford, Rice ran for 146 (3.8 avg) and passed for 94 (4.0 avg), and gave up 287 rushing (8.0 avg) and 369 passing (10.0 avg).
Against UTEP, Rice ran for 306 (6.2 avg) and passed for 131 (7.3 avg), and gave up 26 rushing (1.1 avg) and 203 passing (6.2 avg).
Iām guessing our team is somewhere between Stanford and UTEP, but obviously much closer to Stanford. What I gather from this is that our defense should be able to completely shut Rice down. Our weakness on D is against the pass and Rice couldnāt even throw the ball against UTEP. Rice is heavily unbalanced in favor of the run and we all know how good we are against the run. On offense, Rice should give us a good opportunity to open up the passing game a bit. We shouldnāt have any trouble running the ball, but even UTEP threw for 203 and 2 receptions over 40 yards. Iād like to see us air it out some this game and see what our receivers can do down field.