Coming into this college football season, no one even imagined that Rice University and coach Dave Bailiff could put together a better season than the University of Houston and Kevin Sumlin. That would be like expectingSoul Kitchento beat Harry Potter at the box office.

But with the dust settling on both the Owls' and Cougars' seasons, that's exactly what happened.

Sure, Houston (5-7) finished with one more win than Rice (4-8), but taken in terms of expectations, talent and money pumped into the programs, there is no doubt that Bailiff's bunch wins out. And it's really not even that close.

The Owls did more with less, showed more grit than a Houston program that pictures itself as a national player, played better in the clutch and even beat the Cougars head to head. While Houston ended its season on a four-game losing streak — with only one Bowl Championship Series opponent, and a not very good one at that, among those four games — Rice managed to win two straight, including Saturday's come-from-behind victory against UAB, and finish a respectable 3-3 over its final six games.

Sure, Houston played a tougher schedule because (the Cougars are supposed to be worthy of playing a tougher schedule and this slate wasn't even exactly worthy of a Top 25 contender). Sure, the season-ending injuries to lifeline quarterback Case Keenum and his backup Cotton Turner on that disastrous Southern California trip would have changed any program's season.

But the truth is that with more than enough time to do it, Sumlin and the Cougars never effectively adjusted, never came close to righting themselves to the new reality. Instead, Sumlin had the fourth quarterback he played this season (David Piland) throw 61 passes in Lubbock Saturday night. Sumlin stubbornly stuck to his Case plan even though Piland showed long before those three interceptions against Texas Tech that he wasn't close to ready to have games put on his arm.

Bailiff, on the other hand, kept the Owls from folding after a 1-5 start, developed a new weapon in freshman running back Jeremy Eddington late in the season, realized that Michigan transfer Sam McGuffie isn't an every-down workhouse, found ways for a team without a ton of talent to improve.

Sumlin didn't forget how to coach overnight. He's still big time while Bailiff is a small fish. Houston is still fortunate to have him. But to say this wasn't Sumlin's finest hour is putting it mildly.

When the coach reexamines this season, he needs to take a long look at his own stubbornness, the sense of arrogance that sometimes seems to pervade the Cougars program (the type of thing that allowed Rice to stun Houston 34-31 in the first place). That's what you do when you've clearly been bested by a crosstown inferior.