A Look at The AAC

The UH/AAC football report: Coogs run out of gas again; AAC ranked teams go 2-1

The UH/AAC football report: Coogs run out of gas again; AAC ranked teams go 2-1
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There were only four games in the AAC this week, but three of them featured the conference's ranked teams. One of those ranked teams visited UH this week. Here's how I saw Week 12 in the AAC:

Coogs start hot but finish flat again

The Coogs jumped out to a 17-7 lead after the 1st quarter and looked like they were on their way to an upset. Then the second quarter happened. The Tigers outscored the Coogs 21-3 in the second quarter and never looked back cruising to a 45-27 win. UH was more than doubled up in offensive output 531 to 256. Good news: this team should be better next year and years to come. Bad news: there's two more games left this season and the offseason to wait through. If they can improve their efficiency on offense and improve to be an average to better than average defense, this team will be a top team in the conference again.

Other Key Results

Temple 29, Tulane 21: The nine points scored in the third quarter proved to be the difference between these two 6-3 teams. The Owls were up 22-7 heading into the fourth quarter when the Green wave finally found some offense.

#17 Cincinnati 20, USF 17: It took a heroic effort from Michael Warren II and a 37-yard field goal as time expired for the Bearcats to beat the Bulls. USF outgained Cincy by 160 yards, but couldn't pull off the upset of the conference's highest ranked team.

#23 Navy 20, #16 Notre Dame 52: The Midshipmen were dominated by their historic rival. The Fighting Irish recovered four fumbles on their way to a dominant performance. However, Navy still rushed for 281 yards in their loss.

Stars Of The Week

Brady White, QB, Memphis: If you saw a Power 5 quarterback threw for 341 yards and five touchdowns in an 18-point win over a conference rival on the road, you'd think he'd be in the Heisman race right? Someday, things will change for Group of 5 players, specifically in the AAC.

Michael Warren II, RB, Cincinnati: As I stated earlier, Warren kept the Bearcats in the game and helped them win almost singlehandedly. He totaled 164 yards on 28 touches and a touchdown. He accounted for 58.9% of their total yards on offense.

Jadan Blue, WR, Temple: At 12 catches for 131 yards and a touchdown in the Owls win over the Green Wave, Blue accounted for 54.5% of the receptions, 44.1% of the passing yards and a third of the touchdown passes. He's the team's leading receiver this season and is only a sophmore.

Games To Watch This Week

UCF @ Tulane

SMU @ #23 Navy

Temple @ #17 Cincinnati

Players To Watch This Week

Doug Gabriel, UCF: The Golden Knights are a prolific passing team. The Green Wave are stingy against the pass. The one that wins this battle should also win the game.

Malcolm Perry, Navy: Perry is Navy's leading passer and rusher in their triple option attack. However, SMU is worse against the pass than they are against the run. Perry's performance in both phases of the offense will be key to the outcome.

Anthony Russo, Temple: If the Owls want to pull off the upset against Cincy, Russo will have to have a great game. If he can keep the chains moving via the pass game against a Bearcats defense gives up more yards in the air than on the ground, The Owls will have a shot.

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Nobody saw this coming! Composite Getty Image.

It’s a fun series between the Astros and Rangers through the weekend in Arlington, but by no means is it a critical series. It would be nice for the Astros to not lose three out of the four games (or obviously all four) to their upstate rivals. The Astros have lost their last five road series, dropping two out of three games in each of them. As with the Astros, pitching has been the strength of the team for the Rangers thus far. After the humdinger Hunter Brown-Jacob deGrom mound matchup Thursday night, the Rangers give the ball Friday to Nathan Eovaldi with his earned run average at 1.78, then Saturday it’s Tyler Mahle with his even more sparkling 1.47 ERA. Heading into Thursday play, the Mariners having lost five of their last six games meant just a game and a half separate first from fourth place in the American League West. The Astros, Rangers, and Athletics are all right there. Only the Angels are inconsequential.

Star power!

There is an asterisk to attach but Jeremy Pena is making a real charge at becoming a first-time All-Star game selection. Among American League shortstops, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. is clearly the best. The clear number two in the pecking order coming into this season was the Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, who is on fire after a slow start that began with him missing seven games on the injured list. Athletics’ rookie Jacob Wilson goes into the weekend batting .350 and amazingly has struck out just nine times in 164 at bats. Rangers’ stud Corey Seager being on the injured list with a balky hamstring for the second time this season helps the Astros this weekend and likely frees up an All-Star spot.

Now to that aforementioned asterisk. Pena has been sensational so far, indisputably the Astros’ best everyday player. We just need to see more staying power of performance before fully slotting Pena in the top tier of shortstops. Pena’s four-hit game Wednesday night hiked his batting average to .315, his OPS to .840. Well, last year Pena put head to pillow the night of May 15 with his batting average at .333, his OPS at .830. The rest of the season Pena hit .240 with a meager .653 OPS. That Pena drew a paltry 18 walks over his last 114 games. 2025 Pena has showed markedly better plate discipline. He’ll never be a high walks-drawn guy but incremental improvement matters, and can bear fruit in other ways.

Fruitless continues to describe an awfully high percentage of Christian Walker’s plate appearances. 2023 Jose Abreu was better (2024 Abreu was not). Plenty of season still remains for a turnaround, but more than a quarter of the season is gone and it’s not as if Walker is trending in the right direction. In three games against the Royals he went zero for 12 with seven strikeouts. With his final whiff, Walker reached the 50 strikeout “milestone” for the season in his 154th at bat. Feeble and lousy are fair characterizations of a .208 batting average and .625 OPS, magnified for someone batting clean-up most nights. Starting play Thursday 13 big leaguers actually had struck out more than Walker so far this season, among them only the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds carries a lower OPS. Walker has been even worse with runners in scoring position, batting just .171, with a sub-abysmal 20 strikeouts in 41 at bats.

Using Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement statistic, the Astros’ three worst non-pitchers this season are Walker, Yordan Alvarez, and Jose Altuve. Those are the three highest paid players on the team. Altuve’s extended funk has him hitting .202 over his last 27 games with a .538 OPS. Altuve was dropped to second in the batting order basically at his request. It has not sparked him. If Altuve doesn’t pick it up, manager Joe Espada will have to consider dropping Altuve several more spots down the lineup. Alvarez is at 11 games and counting missed with a muscle strain in his right hand. He will not be approaching the career-high 147 games played last season.

Relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a revelation last season. Before joining the Astros at age 31 Scott had a big-league ERA of 9.00 in 46 innings scattered over three seasons. So it was pretty much out of nowhere that the only South African pitcher in MLB history posted a scintillating 1.36 ERA into early August before fading and winding up with a still stellar 2.23 mark. The clock struck midnight on his Cinderella story this year though, and with the Astros needing to open a roster spot this week, Scott was designated for assignment.

Book it!

Longtime Astros’ broadcasting stalwart Bill Brown has authored several books. His latest is Wartime Athletes, which tells the stories of athletes across a number of sports who served in the U.S. military during various wars. If you know anything about Bill Brown, you know each story was meticulously researched and makes for an interesting read. I’m no Oprah when it comes to the power of suggestion for reading material, but Wartime Athletes is worth your time and/or is a worthy gift for someone else.

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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