James Casey, Toren Dixon (R) celebrate after key touchdown in last year's beat-down of Coogs (PTH photo)

HOUSTON (Nov. 27) – Seems like only yesterday when a noisy, impressively-sized throng occupied Rice Stadium to watch the Owls extend their 2008 season record to 9-3 with a convincing win over the Houston Cougars and a reclaim of the Bayou Bucket trophy.

Owlook

That was exactly a year ago, though, and the waters that have flowed under the South Main Street bridge since then haven’t been exactly clear and pure. The Rice team that won a half-century high-water-mark 10 games last season was expected to have some growing pains this season, but not nearly to the extent that they have, what with losses to graduation, injuries, ill-fated personnel decisions, and troublesome scheduling.

We ran into former Rice quarterback-dad Craig Clement at the UTEP game, and his remark about this season compared to last was to the point. "Well, it sure proves that Chase was not just a ‘system quarterback,’ like they said he was," he said, with more than a touch of irony.

In fact, the loss of Chase Clement and his two All-American receivers in Jarett Dillard and James Casey was a body blow to Rice’s offensive capabilities, visiting a regression on their remaining Owl teammates to an extent that hardly anyone close to the program expected. With the offensive firepower that was generated by those three guys, Rice was able to score consistently and copiously during the ‘08 campaign. But teams that the Owls outscored last year fiftysomething to fortysomething, were turning around and beating them fortysomething to much, much less, this season.

Hardly anyone expected that dire a turn of events, indeed, except, that is,   a bunch of pollster sportswriters who subtracted Chase's and Thor’s and JD’s stats and accordingly relegated the Owls to the nether regions of the pre-season C-USA standings.

We didn’t think they were right in August, but darned if they weren’t, and so now, after a disastrous 0-9 start, Coach David Bailiff’s Owl team is trying to salvage at least enough of a season to recruit on and foster reasonably optimistic expectations for next year.

The Owls went a long way in that direction by pulling off two consecutive conference wins against Tulane and UTEP,  the past two weeks, after being narrowly edged by front-runner SMU just a week before that. Naturally, a win over the University of Houston would be a huge rectifier for the disappointments and travails of the 2009 campaign.

But from whatever vantage point, move the X’s and O’s around on the giant chalkboard as you will, yet it remains a serious challenge to figure out a way to keep the Owls in this UH ballgame for 60 minutes.

Houston’s talent in the skill positions on offense, and its team speed are such that a steady Owl defensive effort can be torn to smithereens in an instant by the slightest breakdown.

"We’re going to have to try to keep the ball out of their hands," Coach Bailiff hypothesized. "They’ve got so much team speed; they can distribute it to a lot of different places. They do a good job of spreading the field and getting players on islands. If you miss that tackle they can go a long way."

"They have a way of turning a two- yard gain into an 80-yard touchdown in a hurry."

And one may expect that the Rice mentor was blowing only the slightest bit of smoke when he insisted, in his Monday press briefing and also at Wednesday’s Bayou Bucket luncheon, that he considered UH quarterback Case Keenum to be the best in the land, worthy of the Heisman Trophy.

"I really believe he should be the front-runner for the Heisman," DB said. "I think he's that good of a player. I think he's the best player in college football this year. He’s had an amazing season."

To remain competitive, the Owls not only will have to rack up points of their own,but they’ll also have to do something to keep the UH offense on the sideline at least part of the time. But even that, with as quick a scoring capability as the Cougars have, may prove to be an exercise in frustration.

"You have to figure out a way to slow them down and hopefully get some takeaways," Coach Bailiff said, in classic understatement. "And it’s going to take the offense to absolutely be at its best; we can’t have a lot of three-and-outs and give them opportunities to move the ball. They’ve scored on everybody, they’ve proved they can win ‘em late. Our offense, defense and special teams will have to be at their very best."

One ray of hope lay in the fact that the Cougars’ rushing defense ranks number 111 in the country out of 120 Division 1A teams. In other words, they’re worse defending the rush than is UTEP, a team which beat the Cougars rather handily earlier this season, and the team against which the Owls put up over a couple of hundred yards on the ground and,  aided by a half-dozen turnovers, gained a thrilling victory over in Rice Stadium Saturday.

Coach Bailiff said the Cougars stack up most similarly to Texas Tech, among teams the Owls have faced thus far this season. That game was an even match for a while, but turned into a beat-down late in the game.

"I’m sure they’re looking at that Tech game film, really studying that film," Coach Baliff said. "We did well there the first half but not the second half."

Somebody needs to send UH head coach Kevin Sumlin and his assistants game films of Rice’s embarrassingly one-sided losses to Navy and UCF. If those wouldn’t be enough to create a huge reservoir of overconfidence, nothing would. And it wouldn’t hurt for the men in red to go onto the field Saturday with just a little bit of excess swagger.

Neither side needs to be lectured about the importance of gaining the edge in local bragging rights. "This game is everything for us," Rice junior OL Scott Mitchell said Monday.. "We’ve got a two-game winning streak, we're trying for three, and it's the Bayou Bucket we’re talking about."

Perhaps it doesn’t mean everything, but it does mean being able to keep that Bucket for another 365 days. Rice’s possession of same is something that sticks in the craw of all Cougars – or whatever stomach part it is the Cougars have. Being able to claim the city championship after having undergone such a miserable first nine weeks of the season would be a major pick-me-up for the Rice football program, from Coach Bailiff on down to the lowliest towel-folder and most recently acquired fan.

Stranger things have happened -- or at least almost happened. Like, for instance, Thursday night’s near upset of the Texas Longhorns by a considerably less talented Texas Aggie team. Effort, want-to, desire, those intangible elements of the human spirit that give strength in circumstances of adversity – those are all of the things that come into play so much more than usual, when it comes to these rivalry games like the one played before well-nigh 100,000 people Thursday night in College Station, and the one that will be played before considerably fewer, come Saturday night, on Houston’s old East End.

--P.T.H.