Cougars Douse UAB Blazers With Second Half Deluge

By Larry Nauss: SPM Assistant Editor
Posted Friday, October 10, 2008

HOUSTON, Texas - Swayze Waters is the place kicker and punter for the University of Alabama at Birmingham football team, and he played a critical role in their fortunes on Thursday night at Robertson Stadium in a game against the University of Houston. Another portent of doom for his Blazers mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, also involving water (the kind you sprinkle on your lawn). A torrent of the wet stuff, looking more like a water cannon instead of a sprinkler head gone awry, was inadvertently (maybe, maybe not?) unleashed on the entire UAB sideline late in the third quarter, right after Houston cornerback Brandon Brinkley picked off a pass attempt by UAB quarterback Joseph Webb and returned it 35 yards to give the Cougars their first lead (24-20) in this bizarre game, which was a tale of two completely different halves.

For a few minutes, the players milling about on the UAB sideline had to seek cover, and the first 15-20 rows of the UH student section seated behind the Blazers' bench got drenched, but they didn't seem to particularly care, whooping it up as part of the crowd of 18,524, while others witnessed this rather strange turn of events on CBS College Sports Network's national telecast of the game. The Blazers' mascot is a fire-breathing dragon, but after his visit to Robertson on Thursday night, he's in dire need of some charcoal lighter fluid or perhaps gasoline to get that fire burning in his throat again, following his unfortunate water cannon encounter.

After nailing an impressive 50-yard field goal to open the scoring in the first quarter, Waters figured prominently in a play which turned this game around early in the second half. A fumbled snap by Waters on a punt attempt cost UAB possession of the ball at their own 8-yard line, from which the Cougars managed to score their first touchdown of the game on a 14-yard pass-and-run play from quarterback Case Keenum to Tyron Carrier, who tightroped down the right sideline in bounds for the score, narrowing Houston's deficit to 20-10.

How did Houston dig the huge hole they climbed back out of in the second half of this eventual 45-20 runaway Cougar victory? By collectively not showing up to play football in the entire first half. The only significantly important play Houston made in the entire half was an interception by Matt Nicholson of a potential UAB touchdown pass in the first quarter. UAB managed to hit paydirt on a 9-play, 61-yard drive, scoring the TD on a 3-yard run off tackle by Webb, giving the Blazers a 10-0 advantage early in the second quarter. Another Waters FG made the score 13-0 midway through the second period.

After Houston finally scored a modest three points with a 35-yard field goal from Ben Bell, UAB used the final 1:27 of the second quarter to mount an impressive 80-yard drive, covering that distance in a mere five plays to put the visitors from Birmingham in command by 20-3 at the break. Webb hit his wide open tight end Zack Langford in the left corner of the end zone on the 21-yard scoring toss.

Houston mustered virtually no offense in the first half, while the Blazers racked up an impressive 277 yards of offense. Meanwhile, the Cougar defense seemed clueless as to where and when Bell was going with the ball, as the elusive UAB signal caller kept the home team back on its heels with nifty run and pass plays. At one point, Cougar defensive line coach Jim Jeffcoat (of Dallas Cowboys fame) got so frustrated with his unit that he threw his clipboard down so hard it bounced up off the natural turf and almost hit one of his lads in the head.

But as if the last remaining remnant of Hurricane Ike had swept through Houston during the halftime ceremonies honoring the 1988 Cougar football squad, a completely different Houston team seemed to have donned their red-and-white uniforms after the intermission. The Cougars began playing with a newfound snarl and intensity, and the results were quick and deadly to the Blazers, in more ways than one.

Following the errant punt snap and fumble by Waters, Houston began to pour it on, both literally and figuratively, suddenly holding the UAB offense to a lot of three-and-outs on defense and with an awakened offensive attack which overcame their first half cat nap. Following the erasure of the 17-point UAB halftime lead, the Cougars put the game out of reach on a scintillating, 70-yard pass-and-run play from Keenum to Patrick Edwards, a former walk-on, who took a short pass on a crossing pattern and scampered all the way down the right sideline to the end zone. That score put the Cougars comfortably in front 31-20, and the way Houston's defense was devouring the UAB offense, particularly senior defensive end Phillip Hunt, who tied a career-high with three sacks, and the aforementioned Nicholson, who had 14 tackles, it was pretty apparent that Houston would probably not relinquish its lead.

A 78-yard run from scrimmage by Cougar freshman tailback Bryce Beall involved an adroit cut back move to elude a tackler and then a race for the goal line, getting tackled from behind on the UAB 2-yard line. He received his just desserts by bruising his way into the end zone two plays later for an insurmountable 38-20 Houston margin. The Cougars finished off their frenzied, 42 unanswered point scoring downpour on a tremendous 99-yard drive against an obviously dazed and gassed UAB defense, with Keenum scoring the TD on a one-yard romp to close out the points for Houston.

QB Keenum racked up 360 total passing yards, making this his seventh consecutive game with over 300, leading Houston's No. 1 nationally ranked passing attack. Overall, despite their desultory first half offensive performance, Houston gained an impressive 549 yards on offense for the game. Beall eclipsed the century mark in rushing for the Cougars, with a total of 107 yards gained on the turf.

Was Houston's second half resurgence due to some inspired halftime speech by head coach Kevin Sumlin? Not according to him.

"We talked at halftime about us and the schemes. We have to be a team that comes out and plays on the edge and we didn't do that early tonight. The way college football is now, you have to be ready to play emotionally or you will get beat. You see that every week. The good thing that happened tonight was that we grew up as a team. Three weeks ago in that same situation we wouldn't have responded in the same way. The thing you can take from this is that emotionally there is no team good enough in football to roll your hat out and play."

Sumlin thought his defensive unit played well overall.

"Even though [UAB] put up big numbers in the first half, I think [our] defense kept us in the game. They only really gave up one little drive and that ended with a big play. I thought they played well as a unit. As a defense, [we] were physical. Joe Webb is a great player. He has been putting up 300 yards every game including up against some SEC teams. We weren't going to stop him, we just need to contain him and our defense played at that emotional level."

Sumlin also thought his field general Keenum recovered well after making some first half mistakes.

"He was a little bit off in the first half, but he is a good player and he just had to play his way out of it. He leads the country in total yards. He had some dropped balls too in the first half. The entire team was just half a beat off. We had missed tackles and penalties. Those guys turned around and played well in the second half and it was good to see this team grow up."

Keenum discussed the biggest Cougar comeback in 20 years.

"It's always fun to be a part of a comeback. I was talking to someone on the sideline and he said we should have flipped the halves there; we should have done what we did in the second half in the first half. You've got to give it to UAB - they came out and played hard and got into us early and we weren't able to respond in the first half. We came out in the second half hard and were able to get some big stops on defense. A lot of the receivers made some big plays. Bryce made a lot of good scoring plays tonight.

Keenum also praised his receivers for helping him keep his streak of 300+ passing yards games going at seven and still counting.

"That's one thing that comes with the territory when you have receivers like we do. You can name off eight right now that can catch the ball. It is very nice to have receivers like that."

Beall commented on his big second half running play and his teams' second half performance.

"Coach called the rocket play. He told me to be patient, he was going to show up and sure enough when I went up I saw a lot of Michael [Bloesch] ahead of me, he made a cut, he cut the guy down and I cut right off on him and I just took what I could. We just came out of [halftime] up on more energy. The first half it just seemed like we were dead and we weren't excited about everything."

Beall indicated there wasn't any big speech from the coaches at halftime. "They really didn't say much, the only thing we've got to do is learn to execute, so they didn't say much to us."

Hunt talked about Houston's defensive effort against a talented opposing QB.

"It feels good; we were able to put some pressure on him [Joe Webb]. He is a big-time player, so we really wanted to get in his head early in the game and we were fortunate that we were able to do that. He is a great player and we did not want to allow him to beat us with his feet or his arm so we had to get pressure on him."

Blazers head coach Neil Callaway knows Houston pretty well. He served as an offensive assistant coach from 1993-96 under Kim Helton, during Helton's tenure as Houston head coach from 1993-99. In an ironic twist of fate, Helton is now Callaway's offensive coordinator at UAB. Although Helton didn't enjoy much success during his tenure as the head man for Houston in the win-loss column (24-54-1), he did win one C-USA championship in 1996, with his Cougar team losing to Syracuse in the Liberty Bowl. He also enjoyed quite a following during the latter stages of his Houston career on a morning drive-time radio talk show, during which he was billed as "The Love Coach", offering sage advice to generally lovelorn female callers involved in relationships or marriages. Helton has a wealth of experience as both a college and NFL coach, and always comes across as a great guy, although unfortunately for him, his UAB offense took a giant nose-dive in the second half of this game.

UAB is currently in the midst of a disappointing 1-6 campaign, and they are winless in Conference USA (0-2), however they're operating under NCAA restrictions on their scholarship limit due to failure to meet NCAA guidelines regarding academics and graduation rates, inherited by the current coaching regime from their predecessors. The Blazers only suit up 68 scholarship athletes, well below the NCAA maximum team allowable of 85 for Division I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools.

UH upped their season record to 3-3 overall, but the Coogs are undefeated in Conference USA games at 2-0 after defeating then 23rd nationally-ranked East Carolina on the road in Greenville two weekends ago. Their remaining schedule is also favorable, with their only remaining game against a team with a winning record at home vs. Tulsa on November 15, a game which could decide the champion of C-USA West.

Next up for the Cougars will be a C-USA date in Dallas against Southern Methodist University (SMU) next Saturday, October 18 at 6:00 p.m. CDT.

UAB will face C-USA foe Marshall University in a 3:00 CDT kickoff on Saturday, October 18 at Legion Field in Birmingham.