The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Coach Dana Holgorsen on U of H vs Memphis

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

University of Houston Head Coach Dana Holgorsen joins Matt as the Cougars prepare for Memphis

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On his music to my ears. Our beloved Houston Cougars. Back on the field Saturday, T.D. UC Stadium. 2.30. Should be glorious about 65, 70 degrees. I would assume Dana Holgerson, no better place to spend two and a half, three hours watching college football than on the campus university. Houston. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I'd say it's fair to say. Homecoming. It's weather all week. It's been a little chilly out there for the last few days, but you're right. It's now forecasted for about 65, and we'll probably keep going up. That's a beautiful fall day for a pretty good matchup here, I think. How often did you send the kids outside in Morgantown?

I mean, was that a regular occurrence, especially this time of year? Or did you have an indoor practice facility there? Well, not like the one we have here. It was about half that. So it was a little bit more challenging. There I was, you know, I would get forced inside due to just, you know, whether it's lightning or have to make the decision to go inside and really didn't want to. here I got to make the decision if I want to go outside, you know, because of the indoors.

So functional, we've got so much space. But my goal is to try to practice throughout the course of the week the way the weather is going to be like on game day. You know, so if you're getting 30-degree temperatures and you've got to play in it, then we're going to be outside and we're going to practice in it. You know, it was pretty tough earlier in the week when it was 39 degrees out in the little. a little wet, so that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Not going to play in it like that and really want to get our work done. So we were inside for a few days.

We'll go outside tomorrow. And then obviously, it's going to be pretty excited about Saturday as well. And look, you and I will laugh about this a couple of years from now. I know this has been a tough season for a lot of folks on campus. But just as a whole, it's been wacky that you've had two off weeks, a bunch of games in a short period of time, some Thursday games. a Friday game in the mix, and a second biweek. I would assume that the byway doesn't come in a terrible time because you've been beset by some of the injuries that it gives a chance of guys from healing,

like Clayton Tune, for example, in your offensive line for sure. Yeah, without a doubt it's the worst schedule in the history of college football. I don't know how else to put it. I mean, that's not an excuse or anything. It's just, you know, some of it can be controlled. Some of it can't be controlled. The conference makes decisions, which I've expressed my anger towards the American when it comes to what they did with us on a couple of these games and all that.

But I just wanted an even playing field more than anything. I mean, I don't think that's too much to ask for. But we've had four short weeks. I mean, it's very rare that a Power 5 school has any short weeks. We've had four. And then this by week, you know, it's a five. you know, it's a little late for it. You know, I'd like to have it a little bit earlier in the year

and break up some of those short weeks. But, you know, we have one this late in the year. It did allow us to be able to get healthy. And, you know, as healthy as we can. We've got 17 guys on the long-term can't play list. But, you know, a guy like Clayton's going to be 100%, which is going to, you know, bode well for us. And we're excited about that.

Speaking of biweek, Tulsa's on a bi-week this week. They don't have to play. and that gives them two weeks to prepare for us, and we only get one to prepare for them. So there's another American group, if you ask me. You know what? I'll call Oresco right now. This will never happen again.

We're going to play all home games next year, no road games. He'll be here Saturday, so I'm going to keep complaining. I would like to be a fly on the wall on that one, that's for sure. Let's go to the UCF game for a little bit. It was a couple weeks ago. I was actually in Miami as you guys were playing, and for the first half, I mean, the offense was just, moving along. What happened

late second quarter? Did you feel like there was even some more points left on the board that could have maybe extended things and made things a little more comfortable for you in the second half? Yeah, I think, you know, I thought we left 10 points out there. You know, we moved the ball up and down the field. I mean, I thought our game plan was excellent. The guys were out there

that were motivated to play. We were executing. We rushed for over 200 yards in the first half. You know, I had 23 points on the board up by two, but I thought we should have had another 10 points and been at around 33, you know, and then our defensive coordinator, Joe Cawthorne says, they got 14 on us. They made really good plays, but they shouldn't have got seven. So it should have been 33 to 14, which would have made them uncomfortable in the second half, you know.

But it was 21, 23, and I'll be honest with you, they got a lot more. depth than we do. And just we got, we got war out. You know, we had a couple of guys that got banged up. You can see, I mean, we were trying, man, and, you know, we just didn't have the juice, and we just couldn't hold up. You know, it's just the situation we're in. They're hard to beat there now. I mean, it was hot, and it was loud, and they had a good atmosphere. And, I mean, they haven't lost them since, I think, 2015. So there's a reason for that, you know, just they got some pretty good stuff going on. They're a lot better. It didn't surprise me that they

lost that Tulsa last week just because of their road records, not nearly as good as their home record. But proud of the way the guys played, we're ready to go. Just didn't have enough juice and gas in the tank to be able to finish that thing off. You know, Dana Hogerson with us here, brought to you by the joint caropractic

here on the Matt Thomas show. Coach, and you, this is, look, this is not your first go-around with the Cougars and the American Athletic in a group of five schools. But is depth from now, having been on all sides of it, is depth of this league? Is that the number one thing that really separates the group of five from the Power Five schools at this point? Do you think?

Yeah, and we dealt with that previous place I was at, too. You know, I mean, we were, you know, going back, my first year at WVU were in the, basically, you know, that version of the American, when I was here at Houston, we were in Conference USA. When I went to West Virginia, we were Big East and basically half-to-year-old. the Conference USA and half the Big East formed the American. So a lot of the same schools. And going into the Big 12 the next year, it took a couple of years to be able to build the thing the right way to be able to hold up.

I think this league has done a great job of doing that. You know, the whole Power Six thing is a real thing. I mean, this is the next best conference. And you can even make an argument that the American, based on the fact that we've had, I think, five teams ranked throughout the course of the year, is in better shape in some of the power conferences right now. So it's just, you know, I think this league's done a great job of continuing to build up. You know, Memphis is, you know, rolling and Central Florida is rolling.

Cincinnati's done a great job. You know, SMU's building. So it's just, it's a challenging league. And we've got to build our program the way that we know how to build it to be able to compete in this league. I don't know. Look, not that I'm carrying the banner for the conference, Dana, But to see SMU Memphis play, the primetime game a couple weeks ago, jam-packed crowd at Liberty Bowl, it did give the opportunity for the lead to kind of beat its own Chessable because it was a great game,

huge crowd, and it was in a good primetime spotlight. So I don't know, again, I don't know if Houston fans are doing that, but I actually sat down and enjoyed that football game because these are teams that you want to go beat next year for a conference championship. Well, there's no, there's no doubt. I mean, that's who that's who we're with. That's who we're married to. who we're in the conference with. I mean, guys like Houston and Cincinnati,

and, you know, South Florida has been there, and Central Florida hosted Game Day last year. Houston hosted Game Day a few years ago. You know, Memphis did this year. Cincinnati's the top 20 teams. So, I mean, it's a league to be proud of, and it's really good football. And it's getting better.

The thing that encourages me is it's getting better. I mean, we know where we're at right now is not where we're going to be next year. I mean, this thing's going to continue to build and get good, but we're going to have to be. It's not like we've got to build it, and we're just guaranteed championships. We've got to build it the right way, and then we've got to compete, and there's some good teams on our schedule.

You know, it doesn't get any better than Houston, Memphis, Saturday at 2.30. That's a good football game that's going to be played here in TCUD-E State. All right, you mentioned Clayton's ready to go 100%. How's your running back health right now? It's good. Patrick Carr should be back, ready to roll. Kyle Porter's ready to go. You know, we got a full stable of them back there.

That running back position usually need three or four of them, but they're all ready to roll. All right, Dana, thank you for the time. Best luck Saturday. And again, 2.30 and a glorious Saturday. Hopefully that good crowd will be out there. Thanks for the visit, as always. Thanks, ma'am.

You got it. That's Dana Hogerson, brought to you by the Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of your Houston Cougars.