Houston Football 2014 Spring Wrap Up

Strengths & question marks coming out of spring

The strength of the team certainly looks like it’ll be the defense, which is a pretty unusual statement concerning a Houston football team over the years. But last year’s defense was the best that Cougar fans have seen in quite some time, UH was fortunate enough to hold onto defensive coordinator David Gibbs over the off-season, and a lot of the talent from last year’s D returns in 2014.

Confirming last year’s results, the defense looked far ahead of the offense all Spring long.

The biggest question mark remains the offensive line, which wasn’t the best unit on the team already last year, and hasn’t shown a huge amount of improvement this Spring. During the Spring Game, the quarterbacks were running for their lives most of the game, and rarely had enough time to make things happen.

Name a few breakout players to keep an eye on in 2014

Lee Hightower is a newcomer who looks like he’ll slide right in with the first team defense. He’s a safety who started 11 games as a freshman at Boise State in 2012, and sat out the 2013 year as a transfer. His height (6’2″) and ball skills make him look like a potential star.

Also on defense, there will be a lot of eyeballs on Trevon Randle, a former highly-touted recruit to LSU, but who will have a steep learning curve because he hasn’t played football that counts since his senior year of high school in 2010. He spent the ’11 season redshirting at LSU, the ’12 season sitting out due to transfer rules, and the ’13 season sitting out due to an issue that UH was very hush-hush about. Nonetheless, the talent is clearly there, he’s bulked up and been converted from linebacker to rush end, and everybody’s hoping that he’ll get the opportunity to show what he can do.

Grade each position group

QB: B  John O’Korn wasn’t perfect as a true freshman starter last year, but he was pretty good. (58.1% completions, 28 TD, 10 INT) There were times (Rutgers) when he looked like he had it all figured out, but against the better defenses in the conference (UCF, Louisville, Cincy) he looked more like a lost true freshman.

The fact that the coaches moved his back-up (fellow true freshman Greg Ward) to WR full-time in the Spring indicates to me that they think they’re ready for JOK to take the next step. Which is good, because UH has high expectations for its quarterbacks.

RB: C+  The carries were pretty well split between Ryan Jackson (the speedy outside runner) and Kenneth Farrow (the bruising, between-the-tackles runner) last year. Both did a respectable job, but neither was anything to write home about. It might be hard for either to really break out this year because, as previously mentioned, the OL is the team’s biggest question mark.

WR: A-  Arguably the best single position on the team, led by arguably the best single player on the team in junior wide receiver Deontay Greenberry. DG was a Notre Dame verbal commit who stunned the recruiting community on signing day by choosing the Coogs over the Irish. As a freshman in ’12, he showed flashes of what he could be, but really put it together last year as a sophomore, where he often looked like an NFL receiver going up against over-matched college kids. He led the team in catches (82), yards (1,202) and TD (11) despite missing a game. Most of the UH fan base is pretty resigned to the idea that he’ll be playing on Sundays the year after this, so we’re all going to enjoy him while he’s here.

The rest of the unit isn’t too shabby, either, led by Daniel Spencer, who turned himself from a notorious pass-dropper in ’12 to a legitimately dependable playmaker last year. The aforementioned Greg Ward ran with the 1’s in the Spring, and possesses the kind of jaw-dropping quickness that makes you figure he’s going to break a big play or several if he gets enough touches this fall.

OL: C-  Have I mentioned that there’s some uncertainty surrounding the O-line? It wasn’t the team’s best unit last year, and graduates starting RG Kevin Forsch, starting LT Deanthony Sims, and a couple of key reserves, as well. On top of that, starting RT Zach Johnson tore his ACL at the end of the Spring. They have a new, very experienced positional coach there in Gordy Shaw and I’m hoping he’ll get things straightened out by this fall, but that remains to be seen.

DL: B-  The unit is led by a pair of seniors in space-eating defensive tackle Joey Mbu and defensive end Trevor Harris, a guy who came out of the JuCo ranks last year without a lot of fanfare and quietly became the most production defensive lineman on the team.

Tyus Bowser became a fan favorite from the end position last year as a true freshman, surprising everybody by not getting the redshirt in the first place, and then putting together a few stretches where he just looked unblockable. He’s extremely athletic, and with another year to acclimate to the college game could really do some damage. The unit does take a hit from a torn ACL suffered by senior Eric Braswell this Spring.

LB: A-  If there’s a better unit on the team than the receivers, it’s the linebackers, and if there’s a better player than Greenberry, it’s Derrick Mathews. After earning a starting job as a true freshman in 2011, he’s rattled off three consecutive 100+ tackle seasons, led the team with 7 sacks a year ago, and is quick enough to be effective when dropping into coverage. His size doesn’t jump out at you, but he’s one of those guys who always seems to be around the ball making plays.

Fellow senior Efrem Oliphant came out of nowhere last year to lead the squad with 134 tackles, and Steven Taylor is coming off a solid freshman season that entrenched him as a leader at this position for years to come.

Secondary: B  The Coogs were extremely young last year, but if there’s a position where they got hit by graduation, it’s the secondary, where they graduated both starting cornerbacks. The starting safeties return, including the criminally underrated Trevon Stewart (all he did last year was record 109 tackles while leading the nation in turnovers…somehow this didn’t earn him a first team all-AAC nod) and with Hightower coming in, I expect this unit to recover from the graduations without missing a step.

Special teams: C+  The good? Demarcus Ayers is a speed demon who you have to keep an eye on in the return game. The bad? Richie Leone graduates, after a season in which he was one of the nation’s best punters, and handled the majority of the place-kicking duties, as well. Interestingly, when Leone wasn’t handling kicking duties, they went to walk-on Kyle Bullard instead of scholarship freshman Ty Cummings.

There are a few punters on the roster, headlined by Oklahoma transfer Dylan Seibert, but early returns from the Spring weren’t the most promising. This is a position where head coach and former special teams coordinator Tony Levine needs to earn his paycheck.

What can we expect from Houston in 2014? 

The team should be better in 2014 just based on the overall talent of the team, but with one of the nation’s weakest schedules, it will be hard to prove it. (Do make a point to check out the Cougar-on-Cougar action when UH travels to BYU for an ESPN game on September 11th. If that contest is half as exciting as this past year’s game in Houston was, you won’t want to miss it.) I expect the Coogs will go somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-3 and hopefully compete with UCF and/or Cincinnati for the AAC crown.

Random story line I feel is important to mention: the biggest X-factor in this year’s team will be offensive coordinator Travis Bush, who was the running backs coach in 2012, was unexpectedly thrust into the OC role after one game when the Houston OC resigned, was relegated back to running back duties last year with the hiring of OC Doug Meacham, and then promoted back to OC when Meacham left for TCU.

Bush got promoted back to OC in time for the bowl game against Vandy, and Levine promised that you’d see Bush’s impact immediately in the bowl game…unfortunately the team threw 28 incomplete passes, turned the ball over three times, didn’t score in the first half or the fourth quarter, and lost. So suffice it to say, the Cougar fan base is still waiting and hoping for Bush to prove himself.

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Dustin Rensink  provided the information for our Houston Football 2014 Spring Wrap Up. For more Houston football information, commentary and analysis, you can follow Dustin on Twitter @scottandholman.

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