first, many forget that the cougs red-shirted damn near every starter they could the year before joining the swc so they brought in a very talented and very mature team
second, houston recruited areas that most of the swc avoided such as east texas and the inner cities. the interesting thing is that ou recruited in those areas as well and had a similar run of success
houston can be competitive, but they are facing some issues, a big one is dana's offense, and remember that uh took some flack in how dana was hired.
In the late '60s and early '70s, UH was accused of signing academically unqualified athletes, and not just in football. What was happening was that UH was much more accepting of black athletes, particularly from the "freedom of choice" high schools in East Texas that happened to be all black, and the traditionally black high schools in the Houston area (and I suppose other big cities in Texas).
When Houston came into the Southwest Conference, everyone in the conference (probably excluding Rice) ran to the NCAA minimum academic standards for recruit eligibility. AND, federal pressure (and in some situations litigation) shut down "freedom of choice" public schools all over East Texas-- Tyler, Lufkin, Marshall, etc.-- resulting in more public high schools in those towns that were actually bi-racial.
It seems to me that over the next few years (late '70s and forward, maybe) everyone in the SWC started doing better signing black athletes, and UH's advantage, real or perceived, to the extent it was based on putting black athletes on their teams dwindled. Particularly after Yeoman and basketball coach Guy V. Lewis retired.
My apologies for hijacking this thread. I'll post no more of this ^^^ sort of stuff here.