Houston football made a major statement to the Group of Five with a dominant 45-18 win over Arizona to move to 2-0.

The Cougars struggled in Week 1 against Rice, but came out to a much quicker start against former head coach Kevin Sumlin. Houston scored the first 38 points of the game, and pulled quarterback D’Eriq King soon after the half.

Here are three takeaways from the Cougars’ dominant win over the Wildcats on Saturday afternoon.

Better signs

It was concerning to see the way Houston opened against Rice last week. The Cougars fell into a 24-7 deficit against a program that barely beat Prairie View A&M a week earlier. Things looked much more comfortable in Week 2 of the Kendal Briles experiment.

Houston posted 551 total and just under seven yards per play. Those numbers were even better in the first half, before the offense switched into conservative mode. As the offense gets more comfortable, the numbers could become even better.

Dominant defense

Houston has consistently remained one of the most underrated defenses in college football. That continued with a tremendous performance against dynamic Arizona quarterback Khalil Tate.

Tate had just 147 passing yards and two interceptions at the half. He finished with 341 yards, but most came in garbage time. Arizona offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone inexplicably declined to run him once again. Human bowling ball Ed Oliver finished with only five tackles, but his four quarterback hurries helped open things up for the rest of the line. The Cougars finished with seven tackles for loss. Again, the Wildcats tried to pour it on in the second half, but it was well after the game was in hand. 

Emergent running game

Houston quarterback D’Eriq King is a proven commodity, but the running game continues to get better. Against a Power Five defensive front, Houston accumulated 297 yards and two touchdowns on 7.4 team yards per carry.

Highly-touted running back transfer Terence Williams made his imprint on the game. The Baylor transfer rushed for 1,000 yards in 2016, and dominated against Arizona. He accumulated 65 yards on just 12 carries. Patrick Carr also added 62 yards on just eight carries. Briles would be smart to just lead on that part of his game.