Texas Tech football: RBs, O-line deserve game balls for victory over Cougars

Texas Tech is finally on the board with a win over an FBS program in 2023.  Saturday’s 48-28 triumph over Houston was a much-needed result for a program that had lost three one-score affairs in games against FBS teams thus far.  Let’s hand out some imaginary game balls to those who helped lead the way.

WR Loic Fouonji helped Texas Tech in multiple ways

Securing the program’s sixth-consecutive win over the Cougars, Tech has tightened the all-time series to 18-16-1 in favor of Houston.  However, since 1991, eleven of the last twelve games in this in-state series have gone the way of the Red Raiders.

"“Man, we needed that,” Joey McGuire said following the game.  “I was really proud of the team, you know, when everybody got [into the locker room], the first thing I did was call [Associate Head Coach and Special Teams Coordinator] Kenny Perry up and let him celebrate this with the team.”"

Perry, a long-time college assistant, is a former Houston player and graduate assistant and his special teams were a huge factor in helping the Red Raiders beat his alma mater.  Tech’s Drae McCray returned a kickoff for a TD and Loic Fouonji blocked a punt and gathered it to return it for a score as two of Tech’s five first-half scores came in the kicking game.

"“Those were huge plays in the game, especially in a first half that we weren’t playing great at times on defense,” McGuire said."

What’s interesting is that Fouonji, a senior wide receiver from Midland, has actually become more of a factor in the kicking game recently than he has been in the passing game.  With a kickoff return TD off of an onside attempt in last season’s Texas Bowl win over Ole Miss, he’s got one more special teams touchdown than he has receiving touchdowns in his last five games.

Of course, that lone TD reception also took place on Saturday afternoon just prior to Fouonji’s punt block.  The 25-yard reception from Behren Morton was Fouonji’s first TD grab since October 22 of last year against West Virginia, a span of ten games without a TD for the former 4-star signee out of Midland.

Tech needed someone to step up at outside receiver given that Jordan Brown, who had supplanted Fouonji as the starter opposite of Jerand Bradley, was sidelined with an injury.  What’s more, Bradley himself was a non-factor with just one reception for five yards.

Perhaps this performance will help get Fouonji back to playing at a high level.  After he had a respectable 34-catch, 451-yard, 3-TD season last fall, he was expected to step forward as a consistent presence for Tech this year.  Instead, he had all but disappeared from the offense catching only one pass for 20 yards in the first four games.

Fouonji needed a revival of sorts after being essentially relegated to third-string on the depth chart with the return of Coy Eakin from injury last week.  That’s what he may have had on Saturday as he made a huge impact in two phases of the game with his second two-TD game as a Red Raider.