HOUSTON — No. 25 Houston enters Saturday’s game with struggling Rice in need of a win to clinch Conference USA’s West division and earn a spot in the championship game.

The Cougars were in the same position heading into this cross-town rivalry game last season, and the Owls won 56-42 to keep Houston from the title game.
That was a very different Rice team, which won 10 games for the first time since 1949 and earned its first bowl victory since the 1954 Cotton Bowl, beating Western Michigan in the Texas Bowl. This year the Owls lost their first nine games before winning their last two.
If the Cougars win and East Carolina loses, Houston will host the C-USA championship game against Southern Mississippi. If both teams win, ECU will host the Cougars.
“Everyone wanted to talk ... about what’s at stake and what’s going on,” Houston coach Kevin Sumlin said. “As a team, we talked more about what you can control, which is the game Saturday because after that you don’t know. Our focus is on winning the game.”
Also at stake in this game is the Bayou Bucket, which the Cougars lost last year for the first time since 2004.
“We have accomplished a lot of things this year that a lot of schools haven’t, but our aim is to get the Bucket back,” senior linebacker C.J. Cavness said.
Rice offensive lineman Scott Mitchell said the game “is everything for us.”
“After this, for us, we have offseason. They have a bowl game,” he said. “We don’t want to have a bitter taste in our mouth going in to the offseason. We want to have a three-game winning streak going in to the offseason for next year and have things to look forward to.”
The Cougars are almost 30-point favorites this time around. Houston has the nation’s top passing game and the Owls are the second-worst in the country in defending the pass. Rice is allowing more than 40 points a game, which is among the nation’s worst, and the Cougars are third in scoring and averaging more than 42 points a contest.
Keeping up with Houston’s high-powered scoring attack will be tough for the Owls, who are managing less than 19 points a game. Rice will look to freshman running back Charles Ross to try to slow down the game and limit Houston’s possessions. Ross leads C-USA freshman backs with nine touchdowns rushing and is averaging 4.4 yards a carry.
Case Keenum became Houston’s all-time leader in career touchdown passes with 94 last Saturday when he threw five in just over two quarters before sitting down in a blowout over Memphis.
“I think (Keenum’s) the best player in college football this year,” Rice coach David Bailiff said. “He’s had an amazing season and you have to figure out a way to slow him down and hope you get some takeaways. It’s going to take the offense to absolutely be at its best. We can’t have a lot of three and outs and give them opportunities to move the ball.”