A Look At The AAC
The UH/AAC Report: Coogs run out of gas vs UCF, plus a couple close calls for ranked teams
Nov 6, 2019, 6:55 am
UH Football Official Twitter Account
Week 10 in the AAC was a slate of only five games long. There was still enough meat on the bone to digest. College football is too interesting to say five games was no fun to watch or track in a conference as exciting as the AAC. Let's take a look at the week that was:
UH falls to UCF 44-29
The Coogs actually led the once ranked Golden Knights after the 1st quarter (17-14) and at the half (23-21). However, the 3rd quarter came in like a South Texas cold front and dramatically changed the weather. After trading punts on their initial possessions of the 3rd, UH went on to trade three punts for touchdowns and ended up down 19 points heading into the 4th. Things didn't get much better for the Coogs as they only managed to put up six more points on a late touchdown and failed two point conversion. There is a bright side. The Coogs "held" the Golden Knights to under 500 yards of offense (468), won the time of possession battle (41:31 to 18:29), and tied in turnovers with one a piece. It comes down to execution on offense and limiting the big plays on defense. They gave up seven plays of 20 yards or more. Speculation from a national media member this week said D'Eriq King would enter the Transfer Portal and won't return to UH. ESPN 97.5's John Granato explained on "Granato and Raheel With Del" (hour one right at the 28:55 mark) that Coach Dana Holgorsen said King is enjoying playing football again, is running scout team right now, and will be back next year. I trust this info because of their close relationship over the course of about 10 years plus, whereas this national media member is a Herman Honk who wants to keep his all-access in Austin.
Other Key Results
#24 Memphis 54, #15 SMU 48: The final score was closer than the game appeared. From the eye test, Memphis was clearly the better, more prepared team that also adjusted quicker. SMU seemed to be caught off guard early, and gathered themselves too late. Both are still ranked as they should be.
#17 Cincinnati 46, ECU 43: Trailing 40-28, the Bearcats were in danger of losing to the Pirates. They managed a furious comeback along with a game winning field goal as time expired. Despite the win, they dropped to #20 in the rankings.
Navy 56, UConn 10: Jermaine, why in the world is THIS a key result? Because it catapulted the Midshipmen to #24 in the rankings this week. The 7-1 Navy team's lone loss is to the now #21 ranked Memphis Tigers.
Stars of the Week
Navy Offense: The Midshipmen ran the ball 51 times for 408 yards and seven touchdowns. Six guys carried the ball at least three times and averaged at least 6.8 yards per carry. The triple option is like a dinosaur that has found a way to survive and thrive.
Shane Buechele, QB, SMU: Buechele went 34/54 for 456 yards and three touchdowns in a losing effort. What's scary is that he still has another year of eligibility left.
Cincinnati Offense: RB Michael Warren II had 18 carries for 141 yards and three touchdowns; quarterback Desmond Ridder had 12 carries for 121 yards; and RB Gerrid Doaks had nine carries for 39 yards and a touchdown. Remember what I said earlier about them being down by 12 heading into the 4th, and this stat line is that much more impressive.
Games to Watch This Week
Temple @ USF
UCF @ Tulsa
ECU @ #25 SMU
UConn @ #20 Cincinnati
Players to Watch This Week
Xavier Jones, SMU: Look for Jones to pad his stats against an ECU team that gives up an average of 204.3 yards per game on the ground.
Cincinnati Offense: The Huskies just gave up 408 yards rushing against the Midshipmen. The Bearcats aren't as profficient running the ball, but they did hang 301 yards rushing on ECU.
Gabriel Davis, UCF: At 6'3 212lbs, Davis is a big body receiver averaging 18.2 yards per reception this season. Tulsa only has two sub 6' defensive backs (5'9 and 5'11). It'll be an interesting matchup for the pro prospect.
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 two 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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