Houston players in familiar territory with coaching change

Tyler McCloskey is one of many football players from the University of Houston who haven’t been to Las Vegas.

A bunch of early twentysomethings taking their first trip to Las Vegas for five days with a game to be played at the end of the week could be dangerous. Houston arrives Tuesday for its first Las Vegas Bowl and meets San Diego State at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday.

McCloskey, a senior tight end, said attending a nightclub on The Strip could be enticing.

“That’s still a game-time decision,” a laughing McCloskey said. “We’ll see. But I know how to stay focused and handle distractions.”

There were plenty of distractions surrounding the Cougars this season, and if there’s a team in the nation that deserves one night to unwind, it’s probably Houston, which has had three head coaches in the last month.

Houston ended a two-week coaching search Friday when offensive coordinator Major Applewhite was promoted to head coach and will be the man in charge for the Las Vegas Bowl.

Defensive coordinator Todd Orlando, who also was a candidate for the opening, was named interim coach after Tom Herman left the Cougars to take over at the University of Texas on Nov. 27. Orlando is expected to follow Herman to Austin, according to multiple reports.

“Distractions have kind of become our thing out here,” McCloskey said. “It happened all year with where is our coach going to go? We were expecting some type of change. We kind of turned it into a joke in the locker room. A debate of where our coach is going, but we never let it affect us.”

Most players would be impacted by a coaching change before the season concludes, but the majority of juniors and seniors on the Houston roster have been through a coaching change before. Houston fired Tony Levine in 2014 after three seasons as the Cougars’ head coach.

“We’ve been here before,” McCloskey said. “It’s all going to be OK. We let the board handle the coaching search and we as players worry about playing San Diego State. We have a good culture in our locker room.

“This won’t be an issue on the field. No one is distracted.”

Senior linebacker Tyus Bowser said the younger players were a bit concerned about the coaching search.

“The older guys on the team offered support and advice,” Bowser said. “We made adjustments and stayed focus. It has been a lot with the coaching changes, but I’ve enjoyed my time in Houston.

Bowser, who also played basketball at Houston, said the team heard whispers of Herman looking at the Texas job during the season.

“Of course when you hear one of your own coaches is leaving it’s going to hurt the team,” Bowser said. “The young guys coming in getting recruited by coach Herman were affected. But this team rallied together.”

Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin was once believed to be the frontrunner for the Houston job and USA Today reported on Thursday that Kiffin had won the position. For those counting, Houston has had four head coaches in the last two years and possibly five if reports about Kiffin were true.

Las Vegas Bowl executive director John Saccenti said one of the reasons Houston accepted the at-large invitation was because the game would be played on the first day of the bowl season.

“They wanted an early bowl game,” Saccenti said. “They’re going through a coaching change. We had an opening and it just kind of worked out for everyone.”

McCloskey said there are no hard feelings with Herman bolting for Texas.

He appreciated his two years with Herman, who guided the Cougars to a 13-1 season in 2015 and major victories over Oklahoma and Louisville this season.

“We had great memories with coach Herman,” McCloskey said. “He taught me how to be a better man, a better person for society.”

The Cougars can now put the coaching carousel behind them before facing the Aztecs.

Bowser’s only concern is slowing down San Diego State running back Donnel Pumphrey, who needs 108 rushing yards to become college football’s all-time leading rusher.

“He’s definitely a good player,” Bowser said. “We’ll be ready.”

Contact Gilbert Manzano at gmanzano@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0492. Follow @gmanzano24 on Twitter.