Houston Remains Hot After a 52-27 Win Over Error Prone East Carolina
Houston moved to bowl eligibllity at 6-3 and improved to 4-2 in AAC play after a 52-27 romp over mistake prone ECU Saturday afternoon in TDECU Stadium. D’Eriq King threw for 330 yards and three touchdowns in his debut at quarterback as the starter.
Linnell Bonner had seven catches and a touchdown at wide receiver for the Cougars against ever increasingly soft ECU secondary coverage as the game went on.
ECU(2-7/1-4 AAC) put up 504 yards of total offense on 98 plays, but they were largely ineffective in the red zone where they made several errors that cost the Pirates touchdowns and potential momentum in the first half and then later in the game.
The Pirates all told coughed up three fumbles to go along with an interception despite Gardner Minshew’s 463 yards on 52 of 68 passing with one touchdown in relief of Thomas Sirk. It was the Pirates’ seventh loss of the season.
“Unfortunately turnovers and giving up big plays hurt us,” Scottie Montgomery said after the game, “I thought Gardner did a really, really good job of distributing the football. We knew that he would start playing better. He was a lot more calm. This was the type of game where we worked hard to try to put together a good plan for these guys and we thought we had it. We turned the ball over which was unfortunate and then we had some ill advised penalties today.”
Probably the biggest key to the loss besides turnovers and penalties was ECU's inability to maintain solid secondary coverage after getting off to what appeared to be a pretty good start.
“We’ve got to find a way to do a better job covering. That’s for sure. We didn’t cover very well at all throughout the game and we turned the ball over on some stuff that just can’t happen,” said Montgomery, “We learned some things about some of our younger players today but we’re not quite where we need to be.”
The bad news started for the Pirates early when the news was announced less than an hour before kickoff that starting left tackle Messiah Rice had already been dismissed from the program for a violation of athletics department policy.
Then Houston wore out the right side of the ECU defense on an eleven play, seventy-five yard opening drive. A two-yard D’Eriq King touchdown scamper gave the Cougars an early 7-0 lead.
Terrell Williams’ conference leading fourth interception of the year for Houston led to a 22-yard Duke Catalon touchdown run up the middle. The seven second drive gave Houston a quick 14-0 lead midway into the first period.
The Cougars then scored their third touchdown of the day when King engineered a eight play eighty-one yard drive culminating in a five-yard Courtney Lark slant pass reception for a touchdown that found the Cougars up 21-0.
ECU had to settle for a 22-yard Jake Verity field goal to make it 21-3 when the Pirates were unable to score a touchdown from inside the five yard line midway through the second quarter.
Two long Houston passes later, the Cougars capitalized again when Mulbah Car pounded it in from one yard out to give the Houston a commanding 28-3 lead.
With five minutes to go before halftime, Trevon Brown’s 34-yard touchdown catch on a pass from Gardner Minshew gave ECU their first touchdown of the day in a 28-10 ballgame.
The Pirates opened the second half with an impressive fourteen play 75-yard drive that was capped by a Trevon Brown’s second touchdown of the day from nine yards out. But Steven Dunbar matched it, scoring on a slant pass from King for Houston on the first play of the ensuing drive for a 75-yard touchdown and a commanding 35-17 lead. It was Dunbar’s longest catch of his career.
ECU squandered another seemingly sure scoring opportunity later in the quarter after a late hit on Houston near the goal line put the Pirates in a position to score in the red zone. But a subsequent holding call was followed by a fumbled Minshew pitch was recovered by Houston. Then a 62-yard Linnell Bonner Houston wide open touchdown grab that made it 42-17 Cougars and the rout was on.
Houston put ten more points on the board on a 44-yard Caden Novikoff field goal and a Brand McDowell 74-yard interception return for a touchdown that made it 52-17. Placekicker Jake Verity answered for ECU with a 52-yard field goal after an ECU touchdown was erased from the scoreboard due to the Pirates’ second line up infraction of the game.
Minshew’s third touchdown of the day was caught by Quay Johnson on an 18-yard scoring strike to complete the scoring at 52-27 with 2:48 to play.
