The Houston Cougars nearly pulled off an upset against the Texas Longhorns on Saturday. If the Coogs were to defeat the Longhorns, it would have been their first AP Top 10 victory since 2016.
However, the matchup was not smooth sailing for Houston at the beginning of the game. The Longhorns claimed a 21-0 lead over the Cougars by the time the clock hit 12 in the second quarter.
“The way things were looking right here, I was thinking, ‘Dang, is this thing gonna be 82-0?” the Houston Cougars' head coach Dana Holgorsen said. “We had to change some things up. This was not a good matchup for us. If we had played the defense we played last week against West Virginia against these guys, it would have been 82-0.”
The Cougars were familiar with coming back from multi-touchdown deficits. In Week 2, Houston caught up from a 28-0 score to ultimately force overtime play.
A main reason for Houston's comeback was because of the Cougars' quarterback Donovan Smith. He totaled 378 passing yards and three touchdowns by the end of the matchup.
“‘Unflappable’ is the perfect word for that,” Holgorsen said of Smith. “He does not panic. He’s rational on the headsets. He knows his good, he knows his bad, he knows he can settle in and get it going. That gives us confidence in play calls...He can handle this.”
Holding the second-largest crowd, TDECU Stadium erupted with energy all game.
“It just felt like a party out there at that point in the game,” Smith said. “Everybody enjoying their time, everybody having fun. That’s kind of how it was throughout the whole game until that last moment.”
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