Tony Levine looks out at the University of Houston crowd still milling about a Reliant Stadium end zone and breaks into a mini stump speech. With the first regular season win of his head coaching career in his pocket, Levine is in the moment.

He's already handed off the Bayou Bucket trophy to his seniors — and they'll run back and forth across one end zone, carrying the tangible spoils of a 35-14 victory over Rice as he talks.

"We played with energy," Levine says into the microphone, standing on a makeshift stage set up around the 20-yard line. "We played with emotion."

Hey when you think about it, Tony Levine is undefeated when there's a trophy on the line (his other win came in the TicketCity Bowl last January, which brought another run with some heavy hardware). Of course, UH's coach is also 0-3 in games when trophies are not handed out.

"It's extremely exciting," Levine continues. "There is no other rivalry like this in the country."

Sometimes it's good to live in a bubble. Levine is talking about the fact that Houston-Rice is a true city game, with the schools separated by a mere seven miles. He'll bring up sometimes running into Rice coach Dave Bailiff at the gas station at 5:30 a.m. in the morning when he's driving into work from Missouri City to drive home that point in his press conference later.

Still, in another way, a more legitimate college football way, Levine's claim is almost laughable. And Houston's coach has to know that.

Cougars-Owls is about as far removed as you can get from a big-time college football event. Dressing it up and putting into the Houston Texans' 70,000-plus seat home doesn't change that. The Bayou Bucket is run as professionally and first class as anything the Texans are involved in. But that cannot change the truth that there is currently no buzz around UH's program.

The buzz has fled to that other program in Texas, the one led by a familiar face.

While Houston celebrates a small-time win in a Reliant Stadium that never seemed more cavernous (the top two levels are completely empty of fans), its old coach Kevin Sumlin basks in major league SEC glory. Texas A&M is suddenly a marquee viewing attraction, hanging 51 straight points on Arkansas, boasting a redshirt freshman quarterback who is breaking all kinds of records (try an A&M record 453 passing yards, 104 more rushing yards and four touchdowns overall for Johnny Manziel).

Sound familiar? It should to Cougars fans. This is what Kevin Sumlin does. His teams create excitement and always seem to find themselves in bold headlines.

All this sanctimonious talk from University of Texas and SEC devotees about the Aggies being overmatched in the SEC seems sort of silly now. Sumlin's team can play. And it's going to make some noise in the SEC West in year one.

As for a Tony Levine team?

Well, the Coogs do eventually get rolling against Rice, scoring 28 points in the final 32:54 of the game. It's still not the 73 points Case Keenum could put up on the Owls. Or the 58 A&M posts on another SEC team.

But as Levine loves to remind, this UH squad is in many ways younger than young.

"I'm going to enjoy the next two months, watching this football team grow up in front of our eyes," Levine says.

Maybe. But it's a bad Saturday to be ordinary in college football.

With West Virginia and Baylor combining for 133 points in a Big 12 game, with Texas A&M dropping a 48-point whopping on its SEC doubters, beating Rice by 21 doesn't do much to move the needle.

The closed roof of Reliant doesn't just block out the rain on this Saturday. It shields everyone from a larger, harsh reality as well.

Houston isn't exactly spreading fear through the college football world. A 1-3 Rice team went into this game expecting to shoot down the Cougars.

"We were counting on this win," Owls defensive end Cody Bauer says.

It's Not 2011

Ninety minutes till kickoff and Reliant Stadium is something of a ghost town. The roads are clear, parking has been downgraded to $10 (from four or five times that for a Texans game) on close side lots and barely a creature (or fan) is stirring.

Part of it has to do with the weather, but a lot of it has to do with the teams and their combined 1-6 start.

Oh, how far and how fast UH has fallen. Last fall with Keenum at the controls and Sumlin on the sideline, the Cougars stood tall as one of the biggest sports stories in the entire city of Houston in recent memory. ESPN's College GameDay, the New York Times and ABC all wanted a piece of the team.

Can you imagine this game last year with the record-setting Keenum and an undefeated Houston team rolling into Reliant? It'd would have been a hot ticket.

This year . . . it's a giveaway ticket.

Which doesn't mean there isn't passion among those in the building.

Mayor Annise Parker, proud Rice graduate, takes the field before the game and delivers a Bayou Bucket proclamation. UH president Renu Khator looks as confident and comfortable as ever in her red Cougars jersey.

On a day when Rice fumbles away its first possession and Houston takes that gift and moves exactly three yards before missing a 46-yard field goal, you almost have to be a forward-thinking, ever-spinning politician to see the promise of the future.

At one point in the second quarter, the Cougars offense commits illegal procedure and false start penalties back-to-back. One of the most impressive plays of the first half is a 62-yard punt from UH's Richie Leone.

West Virginia v. Baylor this is not.

Houston and Levine had a chance to build on the crossover excitement of last year when this season started. But that's gone now. Instead, Houston is almost starting back over from scratch.

That may not be fair. But it's the reality for any non-major conference program trying to climb into the big time.

None of this eliminates the joy of the win for the players or takes away from UH tailback Charles Sims' seizing the stage (205 total yards on 28 touches).

"We have a goal and we need to be able to accomplish that goal," Cougars quarterback David Piland says with another big attempt (43 passes), big stats (361 yards) day in UH's offense in the books.

Levine needs to think bigger though. He hasn't walked into a sleeping giant Texas A&M program like Sumlin. He has a long way to go to bring the buzz back. Going into a watered-down Big East will not provide anything close to instant salvation.

No, Levine has to learn how to create his own buzz. You know, like that other guy.