Look For University of Houston to Emerge as a Football Power

When was the last time that the University of Houston Cougars were relevant? 

The days of the run-n-shoot with David Klingler and Andre Ware flinging the ball around seem like a lifetime ago. 

It may seem strange now, but there was a time when UH was a Texas football power.  They won four Southwest Conference championships in the late 70's and early 80's and as recently as 1990 they were ranked third in the country by the AP (they finished that season ranked 10th). 

After a decade of irrelevance marked by NCAA sanctions, a move to a small-time conference, and a winless season, UH looks to re-emerge as a viable football school. 

The sanctions set UH back, but they have recovered and now have no reason not to be a bigger deal than they are.  In fact, I see in them some of the same potential that Miami had prior to the 1980s.  I'm not saying I expect UH to win five national championships and become a dynasty, but the two schools are very similar.

Both schools rest in incredibly fertile recruiting grounds.  In fact, the greater metro areas of Miami and Houston rank No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in terms of current NFL players produced. 

Miami has always had to make do with subpar facilities, as Houston does, and both schools are saddled with apathetic alumni and inadequate boosters/fans (have you ever seen the number of empty seats at non-Florida State Miami games?). 

The one thing Houston has going for it that Miami didn't before it's rise to prominence is a rich football history.  Houston had an outstanding program from the 1960s through the early 1990s, first as an independent under Bill Yeoman, then as a member of the Southwest Conference. 

A change for the better occurred at UH with the hiring of Art Briles in 2003.  Briles worked a small miracle at Houston, taking a team that went winless in 2001 (my freshman year at UH, bad times) to a triple-overtime classic bowl appearance two years later and a conference championship three years after that. 

After Briles jilted Houston for Baylor following the 2007 season, UH got it right again with the hiring of Kevin Sumlin. 

The team finished up the 2008 season with a misleading 7-5 record.  It's misleading because two games were affected by Hurricane Ike midseason.

The Air Force game was changed from a 2:30 kickoff at home to a 10:00 am kickoff in Dallas with only two days notice to beat the advance of the storm, and after that the team stayed in Dallas for the rest of the week before leaving to take on Colorado State in Fort Collins. 

Both games were decided by three points, and I believe that the distractions provided by the storm proved to be the difference in both games, and the difference between a 7-5 season and a 9-3 season. 

UH showed what it could do when focused for big opponents, beating then No. 23 East Carolina 41-24 on the road, and then beating No. 25 Tulsa 70-30 at home. 

Houston has always had a tradition of having entertaining, high-octane offenses, and under Briles and Sumlin they have continued that tradition. 

Offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen came from Texas Tech and employs a similar passing attack, which should prove to be an attractive option to recruits that wouldn't have normally considered Houston. 

It seems that UH is on the right path, and provided they can hold on to their up-and-coming coaches, should be poised for big things in the near future.