2011 UH Cougar Watch- Ouch!

Now that I've gotten past my finite disappointment over the Coogs losing the C-USA Championship game and a BCS Sugar Bowl berth in that 49-28 upset Southern Miss sprung on them, time to reflect on what happened yesterday.

It's simple.  They picked a bad time to have a lousy day on offense and defense with a Southern Miss team that felt disrespected and more than ready.to play in front of a national television audience.

I hadn't felt that badly about a UH loss since a certain NCAA basketball title game in 1983.   Add to that pain burnt orange hateraid drinkers gloating about it and other BCS conference schools sniffing around our coach is only ratcheting up the anxiety level that UH fans are feeling right now..

There was some potential Black history that died with that upset loss.   Had the Coogs won the game Kevin Sumlin would have become the first African-American FBS head coach to lead a non-AQ school BCS buster squad.

Thanks to the job Sumlin has done in building on what Art Briles had done to resurrect the UH program, Texas A&M in the wake of them firing Mike Sherman wants to have a chat with him to see if he'll come up to College Station to coach the Aggies as they get ready to move to the SEC in 2012.

UH AD Mack Rhoades says they will do everything possible to keep him, and Coach K says that he's happy at UH.

"At this point in my career, I'm very happy at the University of Houston," Sumlin said. "I think there's a lot of things that can happen with us. I think the conference realignment issue is critical and the stadium issue is critical for us to move forward. And there are some limitations if those things don't happen."

But the facts are that the Cougars still had an amazing year and they are still going to a bowl game, it's just not the BCS one they wanted.  My 12-1 squad will head up I-45 to play Penn State in the Ticket City Bowl on January 2 in Dallas.


But like every other Cougar fan, student, player and alum, I think deep down  we'd all rather be going to New Orleans again.   But the Cotton Bowl will be the destination instead.