Houston coach Kevin Sumlin couldn’t watch last week’s SMU-Marshall game.

He had friends over at his house, watching football, and one of his guests kept checking the score of the SMU-Marshall game on the home computer.

“At one point I said I didn’t want to know until it was over,” Sumlin said.

Earlier in the day, Houston had defeated Memphis 55-14 and the Cougars needed an SMU loss to move back into first place after losing the top spot a week earlier.

Sumlin and his team got their wish when Marshall held on to a 34-31 win after recovering an SMU onside kick with 40 seconds remaining in the game.

But now that Houston is back in first place, Sumlin said the focus is to stay there. The Cougars have one game against Rice remaining. Win and they play in the Conference USA title game. Lose, and all SMU needs to do is win to be the West representative.

“How we approach things hasn’t changed from last week,” Sumlin said. “The situation’s changed, but we still need to win. There’s a lot more at stake here this week just because it’s a rivalry game, we’re playing for the bucket trophy and Rice has the bucket.”

Playing Rice, a team with just two wins this season, shouldn’t be that daunting, but the fact that the Cougars have lost to weaker teams already this season is somewhat worrisome. Houston’s loss to UTEP would be the perfect example. The Cougars jumped out to an early lead, relaxed, and UTEP pull out one of the biggest wins in their program’s history and broke the Cougars perfect season. The Miners have won just three games all season.

Rice has won its last two games -- Tulane and UTEP -- but before that stretch, the Owls had lost by an average of 27.5 points per game.

Last season, Rice defeated Houston 56-42 last season to deny Houston a shot at the conference championship. However, that game featured four touchdowns by tight end James Casey, who is now in the NFL, and five touchdown passes by quarterback Chase Clement, who graduated.

Sumlin said he’s put an emphasis on the rivalry game, not winning the divisional title. He said if they win the game, the rest will take care of itself.

“It’s a rivalry game,” Sumlin said. “It enough for us to be worried about what goes on week-to-week beyond worrying about what everybody’s trying to tell us where we are and what could happen. All we’re worried about is the bucket. All we’re trying to do is get the bucket back.”