Texas Tech football: Hidden moments from the victory over Houston

Houston delay of game on 4th-and-1 at Tech 49

For college football coaches, it is the unforced errors from their team that turns their hair gray.  While Houston head coach, Dana Holgorsen doesn’t have much hair left, what little he has turned a little saltier when his team was hit with a critical delay of game penalty when lined up to go for it on 4th-and-1 at the Tech 49 early in the 4th quarter.

Of course, Holgorsen set the tone early in the game by going for it on fourth down three times in the first two drives of the game.  All three attempts saw Houston need just one yard to gain and all three were converted by the offense.

So Tech fans had to be a little nervous when Houston lined up to go for it again on 4th down at the Tech 49 with 10:27 to play in the fourth quarter trailing just 24-21.  Thankfully, Tune didn’t pay close attention to the play clock and it wound up costing his team five yards.

As a result, Holgorsen decided to punt.  But that strategy didn’t do his team much good as the ball was kicked into the endzone resulting in only a net gain of 29 yards for the Cougars.

What was important about this Houston possession is that it was the only one of the second half that picked up any momentum.  Prior to this drive, the Cougars had gained only one first down in the second half.

But before facing this important 4th down, they had picked up two more and had moved from their own 19 to the Tech 49.  What’s more, keep in mind that this was the drive that directly followed Jonathan Garibay’s FG to give Tech its first lead of the night.

Thus, this was a monumental opportunity for Houston to take back control of the game.  However, they were unable to and the reason their drive stalled out was because no one on their side of the equation kept an eye on the play clock.