UH Defense Steals Show in Preseason Scrimmage

[Mustang98]

UH defense steals show in preseason scrimmage


Chronicle News Services

The Cougars' defense stole the show in UH's first scrimmage of the preseason, registering 11 sacks and one interception. Senior outside linebacker Brendan Pahulu had four sacks and redshirt freshman cornerback Jamal Robinson forced the game's only turnover, picking off a Case Keenum pass.

Keenum threw for 92 yards and two touchdowns as coach Art Briles rotated all three of his quarterbacks. Sophomore Blake Joseph was 11-of-19 for 114 yards, while senior transfer Al Peña was 2-of-7 for 11 yards but rushed for 22 yards on 10 carries.

All in all, Briles was pleased.

"I thought the defense moved around really well," he said. "I thought we clicked in some areas offensively."

Hope this is a good indicator that the C-USA West is more wide open than previously thought. Isn't it a bad thing when your own offense can't score against your own defense? Or is it the other way around? I think we may surprise some people this year.

[perunapower]

UH defense steals show in preseason scrimmage


Chronicle News Services

The Cougars' defense stole the show in UH's first scrimmage of the preseason, registering 11 sacks and one interception. Senior outside linebacker Brendan Pahulu had four sacks and redshirt freshman cornerback Jamal Robinson forced the game's only turnover, picking off a Case Keenum pass.

Keenum threw for 92 yards and two touchdowns as coach Art Briles rotated all three of his quarterbacks. Sophomore Blake Joseph was 11-of-19 for 114 yards, while senior transfer Al Peña was 2-of-7 for 11 yards but rushed for 22 yards on 10 carries.

All in all, Briles was pleased.

"I thought the defense moved around really well," he said. "I thought we clicked in some areas offensively."

Hope this is a good indicator that the C-USA West is more wide open than previously thought. Isn't it a bad thing when your own offense can't score against your own defense? Or is it the other way around? I think we may surprise some people this year.

11 sacks!?! In one scrimmage!?! I think some teams could have less sacks with no OL. I'd say either UH has an insurmountable defense or an awful OL.

Tulsa is still the favorite to win the West, even with Tennial having to stay on the sidelines. I like our chances to win the West though.

[Stallion]

probably done with quick whistle to protect the QB like at SMU Spring Game.

[PK]

Quick whistle or not...their defense was obviously all over the back field. So...good defense or s@#ty OL?

[GuardianFrog]

I hope you guys run Cougar High into the ground.

[tristatecoog]

Nice Froggy. The UH QB situation is very fluid. Out of three QBs, none is breaking out of the pack right now. You've got an Ok State transfer (Sr. graduate), a RS-Fr and RS-Soph. None of them has played. The offense will probably be challenged the first few games, unlike SMU.

[OC Mustang]

Nice Froggy. The UH QB situation is very fluid. Out of three QBs, none is breaking out of the pack right now. You've got an Ok State transfer (Sr. graduate), a RS-Fr and RS-Soph. None of them has played. The offense will probably be challenged the first few games, unlike SMU.

We have some experience in this area. Good luck with that.

[PonyPride]

I'm with PK on this one.

"The Cougars' defense stole the show in UH's first scrimmage of the preseason, registering 11 sacks and one interception."

That sounds like "we had a fantastic QB who knew the system so thoroughly he got rid of the ball in a flash, and was so important that nobody was really allowed to look at him, much less breathe on him or tackle him." They also lost several starting offensive linemen.

Can't take anything too specific from these scrimmages, at SMU or elsewhere without knowing specifically what the coaches are asking the players to do. As has been pointed out before, coaches aren't going to say what that is, anyway.

[GuardianFrog]

Houston's defense ranked 72nd last year, and it is not like they have been recruiting well on in that area. I think the Ponies have a better shot at a bowl this year than the Cougars.

[ponyte]

Scrimmages during two a days are not very revealing. The offense and defense are usually on a leash and limited in the scope of their capabilities. One will be more interested in the performance once the season starts. Also, defenses tend to advance quicker during two a days than offenses.

[mrydel]

Also, defenses tend to advance quicker during two a days than offenses.

I know that I was always the first to the water at breaks.

[MustangIcon]

Scrimmages can be very deceptive as we all know. Z. Zimmerman burned our secondary all day long in our scrimmage. That doesn't necessarily mean Zimmerman will be burning people all year or that our secondary will get smoked by every receiver we face.

In UH's case their defense is probably improved while their O-Line is probably a little worse. The most important factor in this is that of the 3 QBs that played only one of them has taken snaps in an actual game in this offense and his experience is limited to less than 15 pass attempts. The offense is based on a relatively small number of plays with a great deal of options and check downs within those plays. I would attribute the 11 sacks to the new QBs more than anything else, although I don't fancy myself to be a Cougar expert.

UH, like every CUSA game on our schedule aside from @ So. Miss, is a game we could very likely win. Whether we will or not, I am not sure.

[me@smu]

If I remember correctly, we did pretty well shutting down the passing last year and all their yards come off runs that were huge...ie one good block and that kid aldridge was gone. Believe we had 4 or 5 sacks.

I could see our defense doing well shutting down Houston, just curious if our offense can put up points.

[Corso]

.... That sounds like "we had a fantastic QB who knew the system so thoroughly he got rid of the ball in a flash, and was so important that nobody was really allowed to look at him, much less breathe on him or tackle him." They also lost several starting offensive linemen....

Couldn't agree more. Kevin Kolb, like him or not, was the perfect pilot for that offense. Nobody else has taken a snap at UH since Andre Ware (well .... you get the idea). I'm sure Coach Briles will get the offense going just fine, but I'm guessing that this "defense shines" reports is a loose translation for "still looking for a quarterback."

[Stallion]

UH still EASILY-not even close- has the best talent in the West. If they can find an average QB that doesn't make mistakes they will win the West.