Briles Proud of Team's Success

Memphis is known as the birthplace of the blues. Despite a 44-36 loss to South Carolina in the 48th annual Liberty Bowl, UH fans have nothing to be blue about.

In one of the most exciting games of the bowl season, both teams delighted the national television audience and 56,103 in attendance with an impressive display of offensive fireworks.

In his 50th consecutive start, Kevin Kolb threw for 386 yards and three touchdowns. The performance ended his career at 13,715 total yards, ranking him third in NCAA history.

Coach Art Briles was pleased with the team’s effort: “We were very excited and anxious about the game, and I think we performed well. I may have done some things as a coach that may have hurt the outcome of the game. We had a couple of unforced errors that I will take the fall for. But, just as our team has all season long, we battled hard. Our guys play hard, they fight hard, they believed. That's an inspiration to me as a coach."

Finishing the year at 10-4, the 2006 football team is just the fourth in school history to post a double-digit win total. That bodes well for the future of the program. After a year of C-USA championship glory and dramatically increased attendance, Briles has helped raise the status of Houston Cougar football.

Don’t let the bowl loss get you singing the blues just yet - 2007’s song should be all red.

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