If ever a season opener meant more to a college football team's fan base than Saturday's debut for the Houston Cougars, it would be hard to quantify when and where it was played.
That's because No. 15 Houston has more potential messages to send in its matchup against No. 3 Oklahoma than available outcomes when the schools meet at NRG Stadium in a battle of College Football Playoff contenders.
The Cougars, defending champions of the second-tier American Athletic Conference, would love to become an expansion addition to the Big 12, the Power 5 league the Sooners won last season. Coming off a 13-1 season that did not merit a playoff berth, Houston hopes to use a victory over OU, a 2015 playoff participant, to show it belongs in this year's postseason bracket. Both of those issues will be on the table.
Above all else, Houston wants to prove it can thrive at the highest level of major-college football and not have its bright young coach, Tom Herman, parlay that success into a job at Texas, Texas A&M, LSU or some other power program that might have a vacancy in December. That is tomorrow's concern, but it fits hand-in-glove with the other two and provides a third reason that more than 2,000 Houston students spent hours in line for OU tickets earlier this week while Herman bought pizza to cushion the wait.
Greg Ward Jr., the Cougars' senior quarterback, has been waiting for this showcase opportunity since Houston capped last season with a 38-24 victory over Florida State in the Peach Bowl. That triumph vaulted UH to No. 8 in last year's final Associated Press poll and into this year's national championship discussion.
"We understand the target is on our back now," Ward said in a recent interview. "We completely embrace that. We have to prepare harder than we did last year. Every little single thing we do, we have to take it like we're playing Oklahoma or we're playing Florida State."
That has been the daily mantra for players since January. The added layer of validating a Big 12 pedigree surfaced in July, when Big 12 officials acknowledged ongoing expansion talks and Houston earned the public support of top administrators at Texas and Texas Tech.
Asked at a news conference earlier this week if he viewed this game as the school's audition for Big 12 membership, Herman replied: "I've been told by the people in charge that it isn't."
But there is no hiding the fact that the contest looms as a 60-minute referendum on the team's playoff hopes for this season. A loss takes Houston out of that discussion. But a victory validates Houston as a national contender, even if Herman prefers to characterize his squad as nothing more than "the same disrespected, little American Conference team with a giant chip on their shoulder" that won every game Ward started last season.
The lone loss, a 20-17 setback to Connecticut, came in a game Ward did not start but took limited snaps because of an ankle injury. That means Ward posted a 13-0 record as the Cougars' starter last season.
If he can produce a similar 13-0 record this season, including nonconference victories over No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 19 Louisville (Nov. 17), Herman made it clear that should equate to a CFP opportunity.
"If a team from the American Conference beats the No. 3 team in the country and then later in the year beats another Top 25 team ... and goes undefeated and they don't get in, then that's a problem," Herman said, deftly avoiding references to his own team while making his point. "They need to blow it up and start over."
It's difficult to disagree with Herman on that one. But no team can go 13-0 without starting off 1-0, which is the goal this week against Oklahoma. For the Cougars, the venue is ideal (five miles from campus in the Houston Texans' home stadium) and the Sooners' defense lost its top pass rusher (defensive end Charles Tapper) and its best defensive back (cornerback Zack Sanchez) to the NFL Draft in April.
OU coach Bob Stoops understands his team will be walking into a less-than-neutral atmosphere for what is considered a neutral-site contest.
"We're aware we're not at home. So we've got to bring some extra attitude and extra effort," Stoops said. "Houston is an excellent football team. They're well-coached and they have a lot of great players."
But the difference-maker is Ward, who joined Clemson's Deshaun Watson on the two-player list of Division I quarterbacks who threw for more than 2,000 yards and topped the 1,000-yard rushing mark last season. Ward did so while completing 67 percent of his passes and developing a quiet confidence his team will need Saturday.
Asked about the team's potential this season, Ward said: "We can match up with anyone else, I would say."
We'll learn quickly if that is true. For the Cougars, the biggest matchup of the season comes Saturday.
