HOUSTON (AP) -When No. 17 Houston takes the field Saturday night against SMU, it will have been almost a month since the Cougars last played at home.
They’ve been through a lot since then, including an embarrassing loss at UTEP followed by a drop from the national rankings, a big win at Mississippi State to get back in the polls and finally their first Conference USA win at Tulane.
It’s homecoming week for Houston’s fans and alumni, but also for the road-weary Cougars who haven’t played at Robertson Stadium since the thrilling last-second victory over Texas Tech on Sept. 26.
“It feels like forever,” said quarterback Case Keenum, whose team has played in Houston only twice this season. “We’re ready to show what we can do at home again.”
Coach Kevin Sumlin knows his team is ready to play in front of a friendly crowd after trips to El Paso, Texas, Starkville, Miss., and New Orleans.
k people may underestimate what home field advantage really is. Playing in front of your friends and your family and being loud really, really boosts the adrenaline of our players, particularly with such a young team.”
Houston (5-1, 1-1 Conference USA) will face an opportunistic SMU (3-3, 2-0) that is leading the C-USA’s West division. The Mustangs are tied for second in the country with 13 interceptions and their 20 forced turnovers are fourth in the nation.
“We try not to worry about what the other team does too much,” Keenum said. “We worry about what we do, our job, what our assignments are, what our goals are. Taking care of the football is a goal every week. Ball security is definitely a big issue and it turns games around, no matter who you’re playing.”
SMU coach June Jones knows the Mustangs need to force mistakes to compete with Houston.
“We’re going to have to take the ball away and create some things to give our offense some more chances to do it and not turn it over to them,” Jones said. “Because if you turn it over to them, they know what to do with it. Their quarterback is good and they’ve got a great scheme.”
The Mustangs are similar to the Cougars in that they rely heavily on their passing attack. Houston leads the country and the conference with 425.3 yards passing a game and SMU is second in the C-USA with 280.8 a game.
game this season, already rushing for more yards (500) alone than the Mustangs did as a team (497) last year. That could be a challenge to Houston’s 115th-ranked run defense, which is allowing more than 222 yards a game.
“The biggest addition to their offense has been Shawnbrey McNeal,” Sumlin said. “He’s a wire-to-wire threat. He was a sprint champion out of high school, 190 pounds, a complete player. So that takes a little more pressure off Bo Levi Mitchell of having to throw it all the time.”
SMU has lost three games, but two of those defeats came in overtime. The Mustangs lost a close one to the Cougars last season. SMU led by 12 entering the fourth quarter but gave up 21 points late, including the go-ahead score with 24 seconds left, and Houston won 44-38.
The Mustangs play two of their next three on the road and Jones knows stealing a win away from home will be key in his team reaching its goal. They face Tulsa, another West division foe, next week.
“It’s hard to win, period, but winning on the road is difficult,” he said. “We’ve won one on the road and it was in the conference and now we’re playing two pretty good football teams. Our goal is to get to a bowl game and win a minimum of six games, hopefully we can win more.”
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