2022 G5 Preview: Houston Looks Phenomenal
Dana Holgorsen has his best roster ever entering 2022. What can he do with it?
This is part of the American Athletic Conference Preview, the final conference in the Outside Zone’s Group of Five season preview package. Check out the preview landing page for all previous stories.
Houston has the capacity for bursts of truly elite football. The Cougars have struggled to sustain that kind of top-tier success throughout their football history – especially since they were left out of what would ultimately become the Power Five back in 1996 with the dissolution of the SWC – but there’s no questioning the ceiling here. Just look at the program’s history.
Writ large, the Cougars are an above-average bunch. They have a 448-361-15 record at the FBS level, 29 bowl berths, 15 finishes in the AP top 25, a Heisman winner and 11 conference championships – including four in a Southwest Conference that included Arkansas, Baylor, SMU at its peak, TCU, Texas and Texas A&M (among a few others). They win more than they lose, have more successful tenures than not, and can be relied on generally as a competitive program in an area with a ton of recruiting talent.
But, unlike many of their counterparts in that realm of solid but largely unspectacular football, Houston has the scope for far more than just bowl contention. With such a rich home base from which to pull talent, the Cougars have a rich history of supremely talented breakout teams.
Bill Yeoman built the No. 2 offense in college football on the way to an 8-2 campaign in 1966. He struck again with 26 wins to only eight losses from 1969-71, finishing 12th in 1969, 19th in 1970 and 17th in 1971. After a rebuilding season, the Cougars bounced back in 1973 with an 11-1 season, fielding a top 15 unit on either side of the ball and ripping through every opponent on the schedule but Auburn – including a bludgeoning of then 15th-ranked Miami (Fla.) on the road and a season-ending bowl blowout (47-7) over No. 17 Tulane.
The 1976 Cougars went 10-2, rattling off four ranked wins over No. 4 Maryland, No. 20 Texas, No. 5 Texas Tech (both on the road) and No. 9 Texas A&M by two touchdowns on average and finishing fourth. The 1979 team may have been even better, finishing 11-1 and No. 5 nationally with a road win over No. 4 Arkansas, a bowl win over No. 7 Nebraska and the lone loss of the season coming against No. 8 Texas by one score.
After a downturn at the end of Yeoman’s tenure, the Cougars bounced back to their elite form at the end of the 1980s, winning 28 games to six losses from 1988-90 – with John Jenkins’ first team at the helm capping the run as the Cougars went 10-1 in 1990. That bunch averaged nearly 47 points per game, finished 10th in the AP Poll and was a loss to Texas away from having a very strong claim to the national title.
The modern era has seen these highs spread further apart as the Cougars dipped into C-USA and eventually jumped to the AAC, but they’re still there. Art Briles went 10-4 in 2006, winning the league and fielding one of the nation’s best offenses. His replacement, Kevin Sumlin, matched that mark in 2009 with the nation’s No. 2 offense and ascended far beyond it in 2011.
Behind the arm of Case Keenum and the best offense in the sport, the 2011 Cougars went 12-1 and finished No. 18 in the final AP poll.
Tony Levine, Sumlin’s successor, was never able to match that success, though Tom Herman sure was. Working with Levine’s recruits (he wasn’t successful at Houston, but he sure could recruit), Herman produced one of the school’s best teams ever in year one, taking the 2015 Cougars to a 13-1 record with the AAC crown and ranked wins over No. 9 Florida State, No. 25 Memphis, No. 16 Navy and No. 20 Temple.
After several years of work in rebuilding after the dreadful Major Applewhite tenure, Dana Holgorsen has the Cougars on the precipice of another tremendous season in 2022.
There’s a case to be made that Holgorsen’s tenure has already yielded an all-time season. Houston came up short of Cincinnati in last season’s AAC title game, and it took a baffling week one loss to Texas Tech that held it back from serious national consideration, but the Cougars were aces in their other 12 games. They finished with top 20 units on offense and defense and claimed victories over quality opponents like Auburn and SMU. It wasn’t a great schedule, but DC Doug Belk’s defense was spectacular and Holgorsen’s modified air raid offense was as good as ever.
This year’s team can clear that lofty bar. With chances at big wins against a pair of Big 12 teams (not good ones, but Big 12 teams all the same) and C-USA champion UTSA in the non-conference, along with in-league road matchups against ECU, Memphis and SMU, the Cougars can make a real statement in their last year of G5 football before jumping to the Big 12. Add in an overwhelmingly likely conference title bout with Cincinnati, and Houston has the runway for one of the best seasons in program history – and one that could earn it some serious attention on the national level.
Leading the way is quarterback Clayton Tune. Now entering his fifth season as a starter for Houston, Tune is finally starting to show the ability that generated so much excitement back in the class of 2018 when he snubbed several Big 12 callers for the Cougars. The 2021 campaign was his best for completion percentage (68.3) by nearly 10 points, yardage (3,544) by nearly 1,000 yards and touchdowns (30) by 15 scores. He improved in efficiency by nearly 30 points from 2020. His deep ball, overall accuracy, comfort within the offense and just about everything else saw significant improvement.
Whether you believe he’s in for another year of improvement or not (I think he’s just about at his ceiling) doesn't matter. He runs the Holgorsen offense very well and if he can keep that completion rate around 70 percent he won’t need to do a whole lot else. Barring serious regression, Tune is just about the perfect fit for the offense – without or without continued development.
Tune’s return is important, but even more important is the litany of skill talent around him. This is a wideout and halfback-centric offense; where those players go, it will follow. And this skill corps is largely excellent.
All-league wideout Nathaniel Dell is back to fill one starting spot. He’s fresh off an awesome season, hauling in a team-best 90 receptions for 1,329 yards and 12 touchdowns. He splits time between the slot and outside spots despite his limited size (5-10) and is a nightmare to defend in either role.
Working largely in the short-to-intermediate zone, Dell is good for nearly seven yards after the catch on average and is so consistently open underneath that defenses essentially must put a press corner on him. As soon as they do, Houston sends him deep. He wasn’t a high-volume aerial threat last year, but the hits sure do hurt – he turned 12 receptions made deeper than 20 yards from the LOS into 353 yards and seven scores last year. Cincinnati, which touted the best passing defense in America, surrendered nine receptions for 152 yards and a score to Dell last season. He’s unstoppable, and his connection with Tune is fantastic.
The Cougars were largely without a true No. 2 target last year and likely will be again this year. They operated instead with a committee of pass-catching options behind Dell, including nine players with at least 10 receptions, six with more than 20, but none snagging more than 37 receptions.
That high-water mark belonged to tight end Christian Trahan, who picked up 398 yards and a pair of scores on 37 receptions. He returns to fill the TE role this year. The No. 3 receptions leader (36), former walk-on Jale Herslow, is off to the NFL and No. 4 (29) Jeremy Singleton transferred to Georgia Southern. Herslow was a fairly standard possession target, while Singleton was the de facto deep threat for the Cougars – and neither will be seriously missed.
The best option to step into the vacancy left by those two out wide is KeSean Carter, who was fifth on the team in receptions last year with 26, which he turned into 331 yards and a score. He’s not as explosive as Dell or Singleton, but he fits pretty well into the role Herslow played last year.
Behind him, the room is green but talented: freshman Matthew Golden was a four-star in the class of 2022 and has sky-high expectations internally. Former three-star Sam Brown has transferred over from West Virginia, providing Houston with a bigger body (6-2, 200) but very little in the way of experience (10 receptions for 108 yards in two years).
The Cougars also added Cody Jackson from Oklahoma, Brice Johnson from Ole Miss and Joseph Manjack IV from USC from the portal, though Johnson was a walk-on and Manjack claims only seven receptions for 67 yards. Jackson pulled in just five receptions for 45 yards, but can offer much more excitement as an option because he was a borderline top-100 recruit in 2021. Internally, C.J. Guidry is a burner and could be in for a larger role.
Alton McCaskill’s spring ACL tear has done some serious damage to the halfback room, even if it probably won’t cripple a rushing attack that was better last year than some gave it credit for. He’ll miss the 2022 campaign, ceding his starting role to last season’s speed back, former Texas Tech transfer Ta’Zhawn Henry. Henry toted the ball 111 times for 524 yards and seven scores last season. He’s a capable receiver, too.
Houston will be asking a lot of him to put him in the starting role – especially because he’s only 5-7 – but it’s a responsibility he needs to take on. USC transfer Brandon Campbell and youngster Stacy Sneed should be able to help, although both are essentially brand new. Campbell, a former four-star, carried 12 times for 53 yards as a true freshman in 2021, Sneed hasn’t done a thing at the college level.
The only real concern offensively is the line, which has a trio of starters to replace and plenty of young talent to do so. It’s a concern, but a minor one. Holgorsen offenses rarely struggle.
Belk has some work to do defensively with the departures of DL Logan Hall and CB pairing Marcus Jones/Damarion Williams. Still, there are plenty of reasons for optimism elsewhere, with six starters and plenty of contributors behind them returning.
It’s especially hard to worry about the front. Hall was fantastic in 2021, sure, but Houston posted 45 sacks and 98 TFL last year. That doesn’t come from one player, it’s a schematic advantage that the Cougars can claim for as long as Belk sticks around. He has end Derek Parish (12 TFL, five sacks) and nose tackle Chidozie Nwankwo (22 tackles) back in the starting line, with Nelson Ceaser (four TFL, 3.5 sacks) next in line for the other end spot and one of Latrell Bankston, Atilias Bell or Sedrick Williams taking over Hall’s spot at 3-tech.
Bankston is the most proven of the trio, racking up 17 tackles last year before injuries essentially ended his season. Bell came on strong as the season came to a close, and Williams is the most athletically impressive despite a size disadvantage but doesn’t have much to show for it. All three will play.
Last year’s leading tackler (77), Donavan Mutin, returns at linebacker – all but ending any possible concerns about the position room. Malik Robinson can fill the other role, even if he isn’t quite the player that Mutin is. Mannie Nunnery will pitch in too, as will OU transfer Jamal Morris, another former four-star. Houston is basically doing what UCF does in the portal, without then immediately asking those P5 castoffs to lead the team.
Art Green and Alex Hogan are going to be asked to do quite a bit at cornerback. Both contributed last year, Green had 18 tackles, Hogan had 27; neither started. That needs to change with this offseason’s departures, and there’s not much room for growing pains. Hasaan Hypolite and Gervarrius Owens can provide plenty of help from the safety spots, as can Jayce Rogers in the slot (all returning starters), but the point remains: Green and Hogan have to be ready to go. If one isn’t, JUCO signee Moses Alexander is the next man up. Whoever takes control out wide, they’ll be leaned on heavily in a system that loves to pattern match.