Well, yeah, USM has basically looked that way on offense, with a few random reprieves, for the past six years. I thought it was OK when Damion Fletcher was in the game Friday, but Jeff Bower has taken consistent heat for the very un-creative approach to the offense through four different, indistingishable and unsuccessful coordinators over the past decade.

Maybe I'm desensitized to the offense, though, because I feel like 20 points should be enough for a closer game, and most of my frustration was over the defense. Houston didn't do much more than flip the ball out into the flat itself. But Southern disguised nothing, sat in an undisguised, scared soft zone and rolled out the red carpet for at least 8-10 yards any time Houston wanted it out there. USM didn't challenge the receivers on the short dinky stuff ONCE. They let UH run it and let themselves be blocked for first downs and better time after time after time, and never adjusted. The option run for touchdown by Kolb was a disgrace to the university. That was a high school triple option, nothing deceptive, and two unblocked players in a position to make a play ran down inside on the dive like they'd just pulled them out of the stands two plays earlier with no time to cover the concepts of 'responsibility' or 'contain.' No turnovers, nothing remotely resembling pressure on Kolb. Bad angles, busted assignments. Nothing at any point to get Houston outside of its conservative gameplan. I don't know, zone blitzing? Something. It was just big swatches of green space that weren't there at all back in October.

So, right, the offense was boring, predictable and ridiculous, but we've been mostly winning with that for years. Twenty points is supposed to be enough cushion for a Southern Miss defense in C-USA games.