However, the penalties on Phillips is unnecessary. He could have easily stopped before hitting the UW QB… That would stopped the UW drive and they would not have scored their first TD.

Finally, Hadden missed another FG… I put that on coaching. He was inaccurate before… He is better but he is not great. They have more than one season to find someone to replace him… If he made all the FGs, we would have won.

So, even though we dominated the game and should have won, instead we lost by one point. So, there were faults but they were part coaching. part players.

Anyway UH played well, in my opinion… If they looked great because UW is not that good, we have a problem!!

I am tired of changes and rebuilding, and our recruits are getting better. If the team can win four to five games, I think we should give him another year.

Go Rainbow Warriors!!

1st and most obvious to me, Clune is worth every penny he’s getting paid. If you would have told me UH would hold any Pac12 team (except for Colorado) to 17pts when coming off a disaterous 2013 defensive campaign, I probably would have laughed.

The 91yd TD was the deciding score of the game… big plays can/will happen, but the way UH defense hung in there after and pretty much shut down UW the rest of the game, and on top of that give the offense a chance to win late, is something to be very encouraged with. Take away the 91yd score, and UW only got 245yds of offense.

2nd big positive sign was the lack of penalties, which is a good sign of the coaches promoting discipline. However, one 15yd penaltiy in particular directly led to UW’s 1st TD. The biggest item to note is that there were only 2 false starts (which is understandable being the 1st game of year), and ZERO HOLDING PENALTIES ON THE O-LINE. Which leads us to…

3rd positive was the OLine does appear to be improved. They held their own vs a solid UW front 7. There isn’t a single defensive unit in the MWC that will be better than UW or OSU in terms of talent, so I’m glad to see the line allow Iosefa to get 140yd (4.8ypc) both numbers are excellent.

Woosley for the most part was solid, although the completion % cooled off in the second half. At this point, I think UH has the right guy starting at QB.

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Pretty sure the haters are solely going to point to the failed 4th down in the redzone, leading to the game deciding TD, and paint a doom and gloom picture. I believe it was a mistake going for it because UH’s O was clicking, UH had the lead and the flow of the game didn’t warrant the risk. Had UH been behind by 2 scores and flow of game looking bleak, then I wouldn’t argue going for it.

The haters will likely forget that Hadden missed a very make able FG at the end of the 1st half that would have tipped the score in UH’s favor. Unfortunately/fortunately for UH, I think 2-3 games could hinge on Hadden’s inconsistent leg.

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Next up is OSU… Will be another tough game and likely to be a big underdog again. Mannion is a much higher calibre QB than UW had tonight, and Clune has to prepare for team that is really good at screen passes. The good news for UH is that OSU was not impressive vs Portland St.

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Looking around the MWC, you could argue that UH was the most impressive team that didn’t play a cupcake, although CSU probably gets the nod. CSU looked like a team that could make some noise this year, although rival Colorado is pretty awful and beating them has become less of an accomplishment the past few years.

Boise looks increasingly unathletic and team speed is down vs years past. They got blown out even when they forced several turnovers vs a quality Ole Miss team. I truly believe BSU is going to fade in the years following Peterson’s departure (the kind of already faded somewhat under Peterson the past 2 years).

Nevada & Wyoming were unimpressive beating FCS teams So Utah & Montana. Air Force, SJSU, and SDSU handled their business with their FCS opponents.

This weeks easiest bet was the LV Bowl rematch of Fresno vs USC. In the LV Bowl, an uninspired USC team with a lame duck coach, in a neutral site, put the hammer down on Fresno with Carr and Adams lighting up the stat sheet. Today, a fully inspired USC playing its 1st home game of 2014 vs a rebuilding Fresno squad was predictably a bigger mismatch than the bowl game. The spread was sealed up before halftime.

Looking forward to Utah St vs Tennessee tomorrow/today. Hopefully the Aggies (my personal pick to win the MWC) will pull off a signature win in an otherwise dismal week for the MWC. We will see if the top of the MWC can compete with mid-level SEC. I just hope Utah St doesn’t get too jittery playing in 102,000 seat Neyland Stadium, which will be full.

did they finish?
yes, indeed. we scored 6 to their 0 in the second half.

BOWS!!!!!!!!