2018 College Football Team Previews: Houston Cougars
Houston Cougars
Location: Houston, TX
Coach: Major Applewhite (7-6) 2nd Season
Stadium: TDECU Stadium (Capacity: 40,000)
CSJ Projections:
5th: AAC (3rd West Division)
5th: Texas
59th: FBS
61st: Division I
2017 In A Sentence: The Cougars finished an up and down season at 7–4, having signature wins over Arizona and South Florida, but having suffered inexplicable losses to Tulsa and Tulane and ended the season with a Hawai’i Bowl loss t Fresno State Bulldogs, 33–27.
Biggest Shoes to Fill: RB Duke Catalon, who led Houston in rushing the past two seasons, has left the team for personal reasons. He rushed for 1,165 yards and 12 touchdowns in his two seasons at UH. He also added 367 receiving yards and four touchdowns.
Key Player: DT Ed Oliver had 16.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks, pretty much unheard-of disruption for a 3-4 lineman. The now-junior also recorded 73 tackles and has been named to just about all the major All-American squads after last year and in this preseason. He is also a surefire first round NFL pick if all goes well this year.
Fearless Prediction: The Cougars have all the ingredients to make a surge in the AAC West and very well could surpass last year’s seven-win total. Another bowl game at least is a certainty for Houston but very well could find itself in the AAC title game if all plays out in the close games, which they lost four of last year.
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
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