HOUSTON — HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Behren Morton threw for 345 yards and a touchdown, J\u2019Koby Williams ran for two scores and No. 11 Texas Tech improved to 5-0 with a 35-11 victory over previously unbeaten Houston on Saturday night. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time the Red Raiders have won their first five games since opening the 2013 season 7-0 and is the eighth 5-0 start in school history. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like we could have scored more points than we did,\u201d coach Joey McGuire said. \u201cBut at the end of the day there were teams that went on the road that were expected to win and didn\u2019t. There were teams that went on the road that were in fights like this and couldn\u2019t handle the adversity and our team handled the adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas Tech (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) has dominated through its first five games, winning each contest by at least 24 points and outscoring opponents 243-56. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re holding each other accountable to play at a really high level,” McGuire said.<\/p>\n
Conner Weigman threw for 71 yards with an interception in the first half for Houston (4-1, 1-1) before going to the locker room late in the second quarter with an apparent injury and not returning.<\/p>\n
Coach Willie Fritz didn’t provide specifics on Weigman’s injury and said he’s waiting on more information on his condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to go down and talk to the trainers and find out\u2026 I just didn\u2019t feel like he could stay in there and play,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cI\u2019m going to talk to them and the docs and get a prognosis of exactly where he\u2019s at right now.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Red Raiders were up by six late in the first quarter after three field goals when Morton found Cameron Dickey on a short pass and he juked two defenders and ran untouched for a 69-yard touchdown. The 2-point conversion failed to leave Tech up 15-3.<\/p>\n
Jacob Rodriguez intercepted Weigman’s and returned it to the Houston 25 early in the second quarter. Texas Tech cashed in five plays later when Williams scored on a 5-yard run that made it 22-3.<\/p>\n
Caleb Johnson had a season-high 114 yards receiving on seven catches for Texas Tech and Coy Eakin added 10 receptions for 81 yards. Williams had 107 yards rushing and Dickey ran for 98 yards on 21 carries as Texas Tech piled up 552 yards. <\/p>\n
Despite their perfect start, Morton believes the team can still play much better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a next level that no one has seen,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Zeon Chriss-Gremillion took over after Weigman exited and scrambled for 11 yards on his first play before throwing a 64-yard touchdown pass to Amare Thomas on his second about 90 seconds before halftime. He connected with Stephon Johnson on the 2-point conversion to cut the lead to 25-11.<\/p>\n
Chriss-Gremillion threw for 93 yards with an interception and led the Cougars with 59 yards rushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to play a lot better than that offensively,” Fritz said. \u201cWe put a few things together but we were just not able to sustain drives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas Tech missed a field goal at the end of the second quarter before hitting one from 29 yards in the third to push the lead to 28-11. <\/p>\n
The Red Raiders missed a field goal from 53 yards later in the third before the second TD by Williams early in the fourth on a 1-yard run left Texas Tech up 35-11.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech: The Red Raiders should move up at least a couple of spots in the poll after losses by No. 7 Penn State and ninth-ranked Texas on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Houston: The Cougars have certainly improved from last year\u2019s 4-8 squad but must limit their mistakes if they hope to build on their strong start to the season.<\/p>\n
Along with his interception, Rodriguez had two tackles for losses and two pass breakups. He credited Texas Tech’s defensive line for his success. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody up front made it easy,\u201d he said. \u201cCreating all the lanes I was able to run through to make plays.\u201d <\/p>\n
Morton was impressed with the number of Texas Tech fans at the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt never felt like it was an away game tonight,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was awesome.\u201d <\/p>\n
McGuire agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur players were just blown away by the support,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was incredible. A great environment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas Tech: Hosts Kansas next Saturday night. <\/p>\n
Houston: At Oklahoma State next Saturday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Behren Morton threw for 345 yards and a touchdown, J\u2019Koby Williams ran for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[144285,347,1428,1369,1318,4345,62,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-279141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-144285","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115320709699867424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}