A blog a day

Houston Cougars vs. Tulane Green Wave, 9/9/06

Out of curiousity as much as anything else, I decided I'd go see the University of Houston Cougar football team play the Tulane University "Green Wave" football team. As you recall from my post last week, the Coogs had barely escaped with a win against their cross-town rivals, the Rice Owls. I noted that the game would start at 6PM, so we wouldn't have a repeat performance of the 8PM start/12:30 AM get back home time like we did against Rice the week before. Even though the weather prediction was "iffy" (quite a bit of rain coming from off the Gul Coast), because the game was starting earlier, I was able to talk the entire family into going this time.

It was UH's first home game for the year, at Robertson Stadium, which seats about 32-33ooo. Ultimately, about 16,000+ were in attendance - this is a relatively low number for most University football games of UH's size. I have several theories on this, which I'll talk about in a subsequent post.

We got to the UH campus (where Robertson Stadium is) at about 4:45. We decided to buy tickets at the Stadium - we could have bought them online but we noticed two different prices for tickets on two different UH websites. Grand total was $48 for the entire 4 person McCormick clan. I was wearing my red UH Alumni shirt, and the family was decked out in UH gear (except for son #1 - he just didn't want to do it ... reasons for that later), so we were able to get in a line serving sausage, hotdogs, etc. for $5 right outside the Stadium entrance.

We managed to get in to the stadium right as the UH band was doing pre-game entertainment on the field. Since there was only 16k at a stadium seating 32k, we had plenty of seating opportunities - we picked our seats in the End Zone.

Right away I noticed that the Stadium had undergone some good renovations. There was a new scoreboard with excellent graphics. (The scoreboard featured an awesome video filled with great plays and players from past UH teams, while playing "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. There were also banners under the Stadium featuring UH teams from decades past. Even the weather started to clear up. All in all, it was really a sight to see.

As for the game itself, UH got out to a quick 14-0 lead on Tulane. However, unlike last week, UH did not let up. Tulane never really got into the game as the final score indicated: UH 45, Tulane 7. I actually felt sorry for Tulane - they are from New Orleans, and actually had to play all their home games on the road last year, due to Hurricane Katrina damage to their campus. My hunch is that they have not yet shaken off the affects of Hurricane Katrina.

In retrospect, I still see the Coogs making mistakes that I think a better opponent would have taken advantage of. Some of Tulane's receivers were wide open, and just dropped the ball. UH also committed some stupid penalties. The UH quarterback also missed some of his recievers - mostly by throwing behind them or too low. Nevertheless, it's hard to argue with a 45-7 final score.

We stayed through the end of the game - again, that was no problem for getting home, sincet he game started 2 hours earlier than the Rice game the previous week. The UH Athletic department also had a fireworks display after the game, which we enjoyed (there were times when they would have a fireworks display after games they lost ... I hope they don't make that mistake again!).

No Comment | Posted in » UH cougars