The Cougars struck early, finishing their first drive with kicker Dalton Witherspoon drilling a 46-yarder, his longest field goal of the night. Houston then scored on four consecutive drives putting the Cougars up 31-3 with 10:25 left in the first half. That explosive Houston offense was nowhere to be found in the second half in which they only scored once. The missed tackles that haunted the Cougars in their season-opener against the fifth-ranked Sooners went uncorrected in Saturday's game against the overmatched Panthers. The Cougars are going to have to dig deep on both sides of the ball if they want to stand a chance against No. 20 Washington State next week.
No. 1 Clemson looked comfortable as they won their record-tying 17th straight game with a 24-10 victory over the Aggies on Saturday. The Tigers wanted to leave no doubts that they were a better team than the Aggies after Texas A&M'S nail-biting 28-26 loss to Clemson in 2018. "We wanted to leave no doubt this year," Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence said. "I think we did that." Aggie quarterback Kellen Mond, who threw for 430 yards against Clemson in their meeting last season, left much to be desired after being restricted to only 236 yards passing with an interception and a fumble on Saturday. Toward the end of the first half, Clemson receiver Tee Higgins reached behind him to grab a pass from Lawrence at the A&M 2. Two plays later, Lawrence scored on a 1-yard run sending the Tigers up 17-3 at the half. The Aggies never recovered. Aggie coach Jimbo Fisher will have plenty to harp on in practice this week as his team struggled on both sides of the ball. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was especially proud of how his secondary responded to keep the Aggies out of the end zone. There was "a lot of talk about our secondary in last year's game versus A&M and these guys responded," Swinney said. Clemson is expected to hold firm to its No. 1 position and the Aggies will likely take a huge dive down the rankings. Texas A&M hosts Lamar next week and Clemson returns to ACC play at Syracuse.
LSU quarterback Joe Burrow was on fire, delivering all the big throws for the Tigers in their near-perfect 45-38 win over the Longhorns Saturday night. Burrow threw for 471 yards and four touchdowns. "Man, he was so fired up," LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. "The kid is a baller. He lives for that moment and I'll tell you what, those were some tough plays." Burrow was laser-focused after the half when he was 15-of-18 passing for 251 yards and two touchdowns. LSU receiver Justin Jefferson had nine receptions for 163 yards and three scores. Jefferson's final touchdown reception came when Burrow dropped back to avoid a blitz and fired the pass. The completion was good enough for a first down but Jefferson broke a tackle and sped down the sideline for a touchdown. LSU's new wide-open offense was razor sharp but the defense missed tackles and gave up huge plays and scoring drives. With kickoff temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, it's no wonder LSU players had trouble with cramps all night. Texas fans booed when they thought LSU players were stalling. When asked if LSU's cramping halted his team's momentum, Herman said "Yes." Longhorn quarterback Sam Ehlinger, who matched Burrow nearly blow for blow, finished with 401 passing yards and four touchdowns. Texas is at Rice next week and LSU hosts Northwestern State.
Texas Tech quarterback Alan Bowman threw three touchdown passes and the Red Raiders coasted to a 38-3 victory over UTEP on Saturday night. The Red Raider defense allowed just 131 yards total offense in Texas Tech's eight-straight win against UTEP. "Obviously we never want to punt but to walk off the field and know, probably like they are not going to score, they are definitely not going to score," Bowman said. "For them to have our back like that on offense just makes it more of, `OK, we can try to make this throw because we know they are going to the field and they are going to make a stop in the next possession.' So it definitely opens up a lot more for us and gives us a little bit more confidence.
Senior receiver Denzel Mims stole the show with three touchdowns and 147 yards on 12 receptions for Baylor in their 63-14 win over UTSA on Saturday. Baylor third-year starting quarterback Charlie Brewer completed 12-of-16 passes for 163 yards and three touchdowns while only playing the first half. Kickoff temperature was 99 degrees but the turf was much warmer. "Felt like it was 150 degrees," said Brewer, who was sent to the locker room early by coach Matt Rhule after feeling a burning sensation in his feet. "I'm good," said Brewer, who had X-rays to make sure there were no issues. "Feet were hot. I tried to go back in, and he wouldn't let me." The Bears followed up their 39-point season-opening victory by scoring their most points since 2015. Baylor is off next week and UTSA is home next Saturday against Army.
Wake Forest quarterback Jamie Newman threw for 312 yards passing and three touchdowns leading the Demon Deacons to a 41-21 victory over Rice on Friday night. Senior receiver Scotty Washington finished with 158 receiving yards on 7 receptions and three touchdowns for Wake Forest in their relentless takedown of the Owls. Rice quarterback Tom Stewart was 19-of-30 for only 185 yards and a touchdown after replacing starter Wiley Green, who was carted off the field in the first quarter. Rice faces No. 9 Texas in Houston next week and Wake Forest hosts North Carolina.
Cooper Rothe kicked three field goals and Tyler Hall snagged a pick-six to lead Wyoming to a 23-14 victory over Texas State on Saturday. The Bobcats controlled the first half but Hall intercepted a pass from Gresch Jensen and dashed 72 yards for the score, giving Wyoming a 20-14 lead in the fourth quarter. Rothe kicked a 19-yard field goal, sealing the win for Wyoming on the final quarter.
It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the new essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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