Both Texas Tech football head coach Joey McGuire and UT-San Antonio football head coach Jeff Traylor were on the cover of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football during this summer, and now they both have playing the Houston Cougars in an overtime game in common as well.
Traylor and UTSA played Houston close last week, falling 37-35 in three overtimes.
Unlike Traylor, however, McGuire was able to get the job done, as he and the Red Raiders took down No. 25 Houston 33-30 in two overtimes Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Texas Tech (2-0) was up 17-3 at the half but let Houston (1-1) score 17 unanswered points and had to kick a field goal to tie it at 20-20.
Sophomore quarterback Donovan Smith threw three interceptions, but he had multiple big runs including the game-winning touchdown, and he also threw for 351 yards and two touchdowns. He even converted a 4th and 20 with a pass to freshman receiver Jerand Bradley.
It is the first ranked win for Tech since they defeated Oklahoma State in Lubbock in 2019.
Tech now has five straight wins over Houston, and they’ll get to play a lot more of each other in the future as Houston will be in the Big 12 starting next season.
Recap
The first half Tech offense wasn’t great, but two big touchdowns with a lot of yards after the catch from sophomore Nehemiah Martinez and junior Myles Price gave the Red Raiders a 17-3 lead.
Martinez, a backup wide receiver from Lubbock Cooper High School, said that touchdown really meant a lot to him as his grandfather recently died, and his birthday would have been yesterday.
Price was not in the game early, allowing Martinez to get some snaps, but then when Price came in, he made an impact with that touchdown.
After a great defensive performance in the first half, Texas Tech let junior receiver Nathaniel Dell catch a 63-yard bomb from Clayton Tune to get inside the Tech 5, and Houston punched it in two plays later.
Senior Reggie Pearson caught an interception for Texas Tech, but Houston’s Jayce Rogers did one better just a few plays later as he caught an interception and returned it for a Houston touchdown to tie the game at 17 early in the fourth quarter.
Two missed field goals from the Red Raiders loomed large as later, Smith threw his second interception into double coverage and to Houston safety Gervarrius Owens, who returned the ball to the Tech 21-yard-line and set up a Houston 36-yard field goal to take their first lead of the game with 37 seconds to go.
The Tech offense drove down the field and set up a field goal of their own, however, as Trey Wolff kicked a 47-yard field goal to tie the game at 20-20 and force overtime.
After Houston scored a touchdown, Texas Tech was faced with a 4th and 20.
Smith rolled out and somehow, he found Bradley for the first down and let junior running back Tahj Brooks run it in to tie the game at 27-27, and then they won it 33-30 with Smith keeping it and running it up the middle to the endzone in the second overtime.
Smith said that when negative plays happen, such as the interceptions, he leans on his Christian faith and is getting better at learning to “let go and let God.”
“I feel like, if it was a situation where we were freaking out, I was freaking out, my team was freaking out,” Smith said, “we wouldn’t have the outcome [the win] right now.”
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Senior left guard Weston Wright left the game and did not return due to an injury. McGuire said it looked like something with the ankle, but he did not ask exactly what it was.
McGuire said Price’s back tightened up on him, so that’s why he was not in the game as much and why Martinez was able to get snaps and score Tech’s first touchdown.
McGuire said there’s definitely some tape to look at on special teams because of some of the problems throughout the game, not just the kicking but also the punt coverage.
Thoughts
Well, the defense truly allowed just 13 points in regulation considering one touchdown was a pick-six, and although there were some chunk plays, the secondary played a cleaner game than they did against Murray State. The two field goals had more to do with where Houston got to start the drive rather than the defensive performance.
The aggressiveness worked really well against Houston, although you can pretty easily question why there wasn’t an even bigger focus on Dell, who carried the offense with seven catches for 120 yards.
Tech’s defense also got two turnovers, falling just one short of the three turnovers for “Take Three University” that McGuire and the team have talked about.
Texas Tech’s offensive line is not coming together the way this team would like it to. Tech ran for just 2.7 yards per rush and allowed five sacks and 13 tackles for loss. It’s hard to win a game like that, which is also why the defense deserves a lot of credit for this win.
Smith will be the starter and should be, but it’s fair to ask how long of a leash he will get. McGuire said that he wanted to keep Smith in through the interceptions and offensive woes, and it paid off as he converted that 4th and 20 and scored the game-winning touchdown. The other thing is, we’ve seen senior Tyler Shough be inconsistent early last year before breaking his collarbone and also at Oregon, which is why he transferred to Tech in the first place. Shough should be out 3-6 weeks after falling on his shoulder during last week’s game against Murray State.
Smith should grow a lot from finding a way to win this game, and ultimately, I think he’s the guy going forward unless Shough comes back early. This is still a team that should land right in the 6-6 to 5-7 range, and they made sure to have a great chance at 6-6 by winning this game.
Up Next
The Red Raiders will have an even tougher test against North Carolina State on the road in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 7 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. local time) next Saturday. Tech will be back home Sept. 24 for what could be the last Big 12 game against the University of Texas.
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