Key Coogs: 1 Piland Cosh

After a month of counting down from number 25 all the way down to today's number one, hopefully you have gotten a sense of which players will play key roles in the upcoming season for the Houston Cougars. We began our Key Coogs series, which has been sponsored by our friends over at Chastang Ford who are Key Coogs themselves, with the goal of getting everyone prepared for today…the day the players report for the Cougars' pre-season camp.

Along the way we have taken a closer look at players from the offense and the defense and even a special teams standout in senior punter Richie Leone. Today in our final installment of the series, we take a look at two players who share the top spot as the most important player for the success of the Cougars in 2013. Some will say it is taking the cheap way out to put two out at number one, but truth be told only one of these guys will ever be on the field at any given time.

Junior quarterback David Piland and junior quarterback Billy Cosh share the top spot because one of them will be the starting quarterback for the Cougars during the upcoming season. Both players bring qualities and both have questions as to their ability to fill the most crucial role on the team.

Piland returns with the experience of starting 18 games for the Cougars with a redshirt season sandwiched in the middle of them. Cosh comes in after leading his team to a NJCAA National Championship Game appearance. Both players have physical tools to be the starter this season but one will have to prove it more clearly in the first two weeks of camp, the time frame head coach Tony Levine has set to decide on who the starter will be.

Depending on how pre-season camp goes, there is still a chance that the quarterback named the starter for the Cougars opener against Southern on August 30 may not be the same quarterback that will be the starter in week four, five, six or beyond. The player who will be the starter will have to perform at a higher level that any of the signal callers did last season.

The duo will have a solid offensive line in front of them but will have talented yet inexperienced skill players around them. Similar to last season the quarterback will have to depend on the skill players around him for the offense to be successful.

In the end it really is two close to call at this point. On Saturday though, both players will take the field for the first practice with a lot of eyes on them. The pressure may ease some once the regular season comes as these two will have every throw scrutinized by the staff in an effort to pick the right player to lead the team in 2013.

CougarsDen will be on hand all camp and will be the place to go to get the latest on the spirited quarterback battle as well as others that will determine starters as well as backups.