North Texas (2-3, 1-0 Conference USA) lost their first home game of the season to Houston (2-3, 0-1 American Athletic Conference) with the Cougars’ missing key seniors in quarterback D’Eriq King and wideout Keith Corbin, who both elected to redshirt this season.
“I wish we could have performed better for [the home crowd] tonight,” head coach Seth Littrell said. “Losing is always a tough pill to swallow, especially with some of the catastrophic mistakes that we had tonight. There’s plenty of blame to go around the room, we got to do better on all three phases. We can’t make the mistakes that we did tonight and expect to beat a really good football team like that.”
Houston sophomore quarterback Clayton Tune started in place of King and lead the Cougars down the field to set up a 68-yard touchdown run from senior running back Patrick Carr. The Mean Green registered 57 yards of total offense in the first quarter and fell into a 14-0 hole as Houston scored off of Tune’s 12-yard touchdown pass to senior wideout Courtney Lark.
North Texas kicked two field goals in the first half as sophomore kicker Ethan Mooney completed two attempts from 41 and 46 yards out.
“We started fast offensively when we started getting down the field,” Littrell said. “Defensively, we got to do a better job of getting off the field on third downs.”
The Mean Green allowed two special teams touchdowns on a kick and punt return in the second half, along with two more rushing scores by Carr. North Texas tried to decrease their deficit with senior quarterback Mason Fine throwing two touchdown passes to redshirt freshman receiver Jyaire Shorter and redshirt junior tight end Jason Pirtle. Despite outproducing Houston in total yardage (456 to 359), the Mean Green couldn’t overcome the Cougars.
Sophomore running back Tre Siggers accumulated a team-high 14 carries, 83 yards and a rushing touchdown. Fine threw the ball 55 times, completing 35 of his passes for 353 yards and two touchdowns.
“It came down to just shooting ourselves in the foot and not making the routine play or committing a penalty,” Fine said. “You know, it just takes one person, it just seemed like every play there was one guy that maybe didn’t get the signal or just busted.”
North Texas gave up 235 rushing yards and with three rushing scores to the Cougars’ offense. For Tune, it was the third start of his career and he ended the night completing 16 out of his 20 pass attempts for 124 yards and one touchdown.
“[Tune] did a great job this game,” senior safety Khairi Muhammad said. “He was a field general. He came in and was very composed, he led his team to a victory so I tip my hat off to him.”
UP NEXT: North Texas (2-3, C-USA 1-0) will head into their bye week and host Middle Tennesee (1-3, 0-0 C-USA) on Oct. 19th at Apogee Stadium at 3 p.m.
Featured Image: Redshirt junior defensive lineman Caleb Colvin looks to the sideline before the snap at the game against Houston at Apogee Stadium on Sept. 28, 2019. Image by Jordan Collard