2014 Pre-season Rankings: #16 Houston Cougars

SportsRatings 2014 College Football Pre-season Top 128

Houston Cougars  (American #1)

#16	2013 Results	AP NR USA NR	Strength:#44  Success:#60  Overall:#46
		Record: 8-5	Bowl: lost to Vanderbilt 41-24 (Compass)
	2014 Outlook	Picks: AP NR | USA #48 | Lindy's #56 | Athlon #69 | Steele #44
		Record: 10-2	Bowl odds: 99.9%   Playoff odds: 5%

You want surprise picks? We got surprise picks. How about Houston in the top 25? It's a pick no one else is remotely making—though technically, those 2 votes in the USA poll represent two coaches who think Houston is #25, or one who thinks the Cougars are #24.

Offense 6 ret. starters	2013 Scoring Offense: #39 (raw) #42 (adjusted for opposition)
	2014 Projected Scoring Offense: #9 (adjusted)

Houston's offense was hit so hard by injuries last year that it's amazing they finished with an above-average scoring offense. Our correction for these injuries elevates last year's offense to 17th best in the country, and from there they make the leap into the top ten.

Passing Game	2013 Passing Rank: #27 (raw) #27 (adjusted)	2013 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #94
	2014 Projected Passing Rank: #8 (adjusted)	2014 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #108

John O'Korn (3,117 yards, 28 TDs, 10 int) had a stellar freshman year leading the Cougars and his sophomore year should be better. Five of his top six targets are back including #1 Deontay Greenberry (1,202 yards, 11 TDs) and Daniel Spencer (768 yards). Protection left a bit to be desired last year with 29 sacks; there were 518 attempts, but still, it's the only drawback to the passing game making the top ten.

Rushing

2013 Rushing Rank: #95 (raw) #91 (adjusted)

2014 Projected Rushing Rank: #80 (adj.)

Houston's five top rushers are back from last year led by Ryan Jackson (661 yards) and Kenneth Farrow (514), each of whom had 6 touchdowns. The offensive line was in decent shape until Zach Johnson tore his ACL at the end of spring practice; he will miss the year. They do have seniors Bryce Redman and Rowdy Harper back and get transfers Ben Dew (Hawaii) and Travis Cross (Oklahoma State), both of whom have starting experience there. Still, the line looks weaker and may limit improvement in the ground game.

2013 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #67    Pass Defense  per-game: #96   Per-attempt: #62
Defense 9 ret. starters	'13 Scoring Defense: #21 (raw) #48 (adjusted)	'13 sacks: #57	'13 picks: #2
	'14 Projected Scoring Defense: #31 (adjusted)	'14 sacks: #25	'14 picks: #1

With starter Trevor Harris (3.5 sacks) and backup Tyus Bowser (4.5 sacks) among those back on the defensive line, the Cougars—who return 28 of 31 sacks from '12—could have a top 25-level pass rush in 2014. They did lose former starter Eric Braswell, out with an ACL tear. At linebacker all three starters return; Derrick Matthews (116 tackles, 7 sacks) is back as well as #1 tackler Efrem Oliphant (134 tackles, 10 tackles for loss). Though they lose Zach McMillan (5 interceptions), Adrian McDonald (6 interceptions) and Trevon Stewart (109 tackles) are back in the secondary and Boise State transfer Lee Hightower is now eligible; they won't match last year's 25 picks as a team but should come close enough that they nab our #1 adjusted ranking (adjusts for how pick-prone opponents are). Overall the defense returns its top five tacklers and should take a solid step up.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Punter/kicker Richie Leone is gone; he averaged 43.2 yards per punt and made 11 of 17 field goals. Kyle Bullard took over as placekicker (6 of 6 FG) and he's back.
• Return Game:  Demarcus Ayers (27.6 yard average on kickoffs; 1 touchdown) is back but Damian Payne (4.3 average on punts) transferred to UTEP.
• Turnovers projection:  Houston's fumble margin (+10) was too good to be true last year and won't happen again; we also don't think they can match last year's 25 interceptions. All in all turnovers won't give nearly the boost this year that they did last season.
• Injury correction:  Injuries on offense hit Houston harder than any other team in the FBS last year, and it gives a big boost to their rating this year as explained under Offense. The defense  avoided injury for the most part.

Coaching/Recruiting      2014 Recruiting Rank: #47          2013 Recruiting Rank: #53
Tony Levine brings in another good class for Houston, ranking in the top half of the American Athletic Conference. Levine's first year began as a disaster and only partially recovered at 5-7 (following 13-1). His 2nd year—last season—was a pretty big success at 8-5.

2013 Recap 
Houston jumped out to 5-0 against a pretty easy schedule but they did beat Rice 31-26. They lost a shootout to BYU 47-46, then beat Rutgers and USF before losing three games in a row to 12-1 UCF, 12-1 Louisville, and 9-4 Cincinnati by a combined 19 points. They blanked SMU 34-0 but in the Compass Bowl they were defeated by Vanderbilt 41-24.

Last year's prediction: Last year at this time we were as down on the Cougars as we are "up" on them now. We didn't foresee much of any improvement in the team, ranking them #95 and projecting a 4-8 record. The big thing was the defense—we saw no improvement happening, and it did. We actually managed to overestimate the passing game, which fell short due to all the injuries.

2014 Outlook

Houston 2014 schedule & forecast
8/29	Fri	vs.	UTSA	91%	W
9/6	Sat	vs.	Grambling State	100%	W
9/11	Thu	@	BYU	35%	L
9/20	Sat	vs.	UNLV	97%	W
10/2	Thu	vs.	*UCF	79%	W
10/11	Sat	@	*Memphis	80%	W
10/17	Fri	vs.	*Temple	97%	W
11/1	Sat	@	*South Florida	95%	W
11/8	Sat	vs.	*Tulane	98%	W
11/22	Sat	vs.	*Tulsa	97%	W
11/28	Fri	@	*SMU	96%	W
12/6	Sat	@	*Cincinnati	73%	W
Straight up: 11-1  Cume: 10-2  Odds of 12-0: 12%

Combine a team that we think is going to be very good with a schedule that's one of the easiest in the nation, and what do you have? A team that is expected to win lots and lots of games. We see one major challenge on Houston's schedule, and that's BYU, another team we rank higher than anyone else does. In fact, according to our rankings Houston at BYU is one of the top non-conference clashes of the year. We favor the Cougars (of BYU).

Other than that we don't see a likely loss on the schedule. Houston originally scheduled not one but two FCS teams, Grambling State and Tennessee Tech, and neither is any good even in the lower division (they were 1-10 and 5-7 respectively). [update] They cancelled Tennessee Tech and play UNLV instead. We don't see a lot of difference in outcome. They get Texas-San Antonio at home as well as Central Florida (whom we downgraded a lot for '14). Memphis may provide some resistance, too, but after that there are five near-gimmes in a row before Cincinnati, who is their toughest test other than BYU.

All of this adds up to an 11-1 season, with the cumulative projection split between 10 and 11 wins. On the top chart you can see that the "mode" or most common outcome is 11-1 but on the lower chart, 11 or more wins is slightly less than a 50% occurrence.

Our odds of Houston going undefeated are 12%, and we give them 5% odds of making the College Football Playoff. Normally a team with a schedule this weak would have near-zero odds, but if Houston is really a top 25 team then their wins will be convincing enough that they will appear to be for real, and if they beat BYU that will be another big plus (if BYU is a great team too). Still, note that an undefeated Houston makes the playoff only 40% of the time, where any Power Conference team that goes undefeated is guaranteed admission.

It's fair, too, to point out that our predictions for Houston have been lousy the last couple of years, and that the program has vacillated to extremes (10-4 to 5-7 to 13-1 to 5-7 to 8-5) and is hard to pin down. Last year's squad was plagued with injuries and reliant on turnovers; teams that volatile are a bad fit for an automated prediction system which is basically what we do. But, out-of-left-field predictions are a lot more fun than the polls which basically mimic each other. If we had made this kind of pick with Auburn last year we'd be called geniuses. Teams come out of left field all the time, and it will be interesting to watch what Houston does this year.

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Comments

[NTXCoog]

Houston does not play TN Tech. That game was bought out and UH is playing UNLV on 9/20.

[SportsRatings]

Thanks for the heads-up. I fixed a few other dates on the schedule, too.