Houston v. Louisville (LJ8)

[BullyPulpit]

I realize that this year's Houston is not of the same quality as the 2015 and 2016 squads. I remembered that Houston had done a pretty good job of stopping Louisville's offense the last two times they played. I went back to review the stats from those games and they were pretty surprising. The 2015 game was Lamar Jackson's freshman season, and he played so poorly that he was benched in favor of the backup. In 2016, Houston absolutely destroyed Jackson and Louisville, completely shutting down Louisville's offense. Granted, 2016 was towards the end of the year and Louisville struggled mightily down the stretch, but Houston showed a penchant for stopping a top-notch dual-threat QB. I have posted Jackson's stats from those two games below. This has me concerned, especially considering that our passing numbers are down this season.  If Louisville can contain Flowers completely, what is plan B?

From 2015 to 2017, only 3 teams have rushed for more than 200 yards against Houston. In 2015, a Paxton Lynch led Memphis managed 212 yards on 54 carries. In 2016, Navy rushed for 306 yard on 63 carries. This season, Tulsa, in what appears to be a total and complete aberration, ran for 288 yards on 53 carries. The long and short of it is that this Houston team has been really good against the run for essentially the past 3 seasons. In my opinion, we will have to rush for at least 280 yards in order to win this game. I don't see Flowers with a 250+ yard passing performance in this one. What are we going to do if Flowers gets held to less than 4 yards per carry? 

In my opinion, Houston is the most important game of the season for us. I can't imagine a scenario where we would lose to both UCONN and Tulsa. A win against Houston all but assures us that the game against UCF will be the de facto AAC East Championship game. Hopefully the coaching staff is working on a plan B in the event Houston is able to account for Flowers the same way they were able to account for Jackson the past two seasons.