The Pecan Park Eagle

UH Coach Tony Levine accepts semi-final (?) possession of the Bayou Bucket from Program MC Butch Alsandor on 9/21/2013 at Reliant Stadium.

The Bayou Bucket is a wrap, for now, at least. Yesterday, September 21, 2013, the Houston Cougars and the Rice Owls closed the door on their annual intra-city college football game between the two major universities of our town due to foreseeable future scheduling problems. With Houston leaving the C-USA membership they have shared with Rice and also moving to the American Athletic Conference, neither school can now see a clear way to keep their own annual playing date on the tab for years to come, but both schools expressed hope that they will find a way to get together again someday.

1:30 PM, 9/21/2013: The Bayou Bucket started under foreboding skies and a major chance of heavy rain. Fortunately, Reliant Stadium has a roof.

As a partisan alumni supporter of UH, but also a Houston childhood fan of Rice, my hope follows the flow of both schools. The game is good for both universities and also for the City of Houston. The amicable rivalry between UH and Rice has been an excellent model for the condition we usually describe as good sportsmanship – and also for community focus on these two jewels of higher learning that always belong by their shared roots to life quality in their City of Houston.

The Bayou Bucket game between Rice and UH has been played almost annually since 1971. Except for a daunting three-year hiatus (1996-98) that followed the collapse of the Southwest Conference, the two schools have met every other season since, through their game of yesterday. With UH winning, 31-26, in 2013, the series record wheel stops with the Cougars leading in wins, 29 to 11.

Wikipedia does an excellent job summarizing the history of the Bayou Bucket Series, but they have yet to update their “All Time Series” totals to reflect that UH has 29 wins now, not the mere 27 wins they show. The game-by-game chart has them there all right, but some website tender simply failed to do the upkeep math on the tote board. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou_Bucket_Classic

As per usual, the Owls and Cougars mixed it up Saturday with a lot of fire for the local trophy bragging rights.

Yesterday’s game itself was a thriller, one made possible by defensive errors, sputtering offenses, and some tactical late play decision-making and poor time management by UH.

Leading late in the fourth quarter by 31-20, UH could have run out the clock had they run the ball in bounds more and kept the clock moving for a couple of first downs, starting from about their own 25. Instead, they use first down to run a sweep right for no gain that stops the clock when the runner has no choice but to be pushed out of bounds. That’s followed by a second down long pass up the middle by freshman QB John O’Corn that is totally uncatchable, stopping the clock again.

An abortive third down forces a punt. UH gets the ball back after a “three and out” by Rice and UH drives to about the Rice 32 before the drive stalls with about two yards needed for a first down on fourth. Instead of going for it to possibly ice the game against a Rice club with no timeouts remaining, UH Coach Tony Levine elects to try a field goal from the 39.

Meanwhile, waiting on the kick, I’m thinking: “Tony, is this really a good idea? The worst that could happen on the running try for a first down is the loss of the ball on downs to a club that now has to go nearly 70 yards in about two minutes with no timeouts – just to get within one score of catching up. Whereas, the worst thing about a field goal here is ….

“Whereas” happened.

Alex Lyons of Rice blocked the UH field goal try and ran it back 61-yards for the Owl TD. They missed the extra point, but now Rice trailed by only 31-26. If they could get the ball back on an onside kick and then score another TD against a tired UH defense, they could win the game.

“Nightmare on Cougar Street” was delivered.

The Owls pulled off the most beautiful onside kick I’ve ever seen. The Owls recovered the ball on their own 47 with two minutes left to complete the job, but they could not do the miracle full cycle.

Houston won, 31-26, before 34,831 real fans of both schools, allowing the UH Cougars to keep the Bayou Bucket trophy until, if and when, the two same city schools meet again.

Goodbye, Rice Owls! We’ll see you again – somewhere down the road!

“Who?”

I said, “Goodbye, Rice Owls! We’ll see you again – somewhere down the road!”

“Who?”

6:00 PM, 9/21/20i13: Same day, different sky. By day’s end, the heavens had changed. This is the sky that UH fans saw at game’s end.

… Have a nice laid-back Sunday, Everybody!

This entry was posted on September 22, 2013 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.