Saturday NCAA Football Recap
Longhorns barely get a clutch win, A&M fights on and Houston loses again
Nov 11, 2018, 12:37 pm
Kellen Mond and the Aggies got a needed win. Cooper Neill/Getty Images
What a wild week in the Lone Star State. Here’s how it all went down:
Temple 59, Houston 49
Ryquell Armstead ran for 210 yards on 30 carries and scored six touchdowns, propelling the Temple to a dominant 59-49 victory over the Houston Cougars on Saturday night. Houston quarterback D’Eriq King was 28 of 46 passing for 322 yards, five touchdowns and one interception. Star defensive tackle Ed Oliver missed his third game for the Cougars due to a lingering knee injury.
Texas 41, Texas Tech 34
Star quarterback Sam Ehlinger completed 30-of-34 passes for 312 yards and four touchdowns, including the game-winning 29-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey with 21 seconds left, leading the fifteenth-ranked Longhorns to a wild 41-34 victory over Texas Tech on Saturday night. "Nobody on the team wants anybody other than No. 11 behind center in situations like that,” Texas coach Tom Herman said. “They believe in him. He was calm, cool and collected. He was aggressive, but not reckless." Since throwing two picks in the season opener against Maryland, Ehlinger has now thrown a Big 12 record 280 consecutive passes without a pick, breaking the standard previously set by former West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith. With two games left to determine who plays for the Big 12 championship, the Longhorns face No. 23 Iowa State, the team they are tied with for third place, next week.
Texas A&M 38, Mississippi 24
Sophomore quarterback Kellen Mond had a decent first half against Mississippi on Saturday night, but after turning the ball over on A&M’s first two drives of the second half, Coach Jimbo Fisher considered making a quarterback change. "When you're the quarterback you're going to have those moments of should I take him out? Should I not take him out? (But I) have faith in him," Fisher said. "He deserved the chance to go back in because I knew the look in his eye and the competitor he was." Mond finished with 19-of-28 passing for 236 yards and three touchdowns, leading the Aggies to a 38-24 victory over Mississippi. Quarterback Jordan Ta’amu finished 22-for-35 passing with 373 yards and one touchdown for the Rebels. This loss marks the third straight conference defeat for the Ole’ Miss. The Rebels have two games remaining and are going to have to figure out a way to win a conference game if they hope to become bowl eligible.
Iowa State 28, Baylor 14
Quarterback Brock Purdy threw for 230 yards, one touchdown and ran for another score as No. 23 Iowa State beat Baylor 28-14 on Saturday for a fifth-straight Big 12 win in the same season for the first time. "There's still a lot of work to be done. We're still a young football team," Iowa State coach Matt Campbell said. "I think what's exciting is that I sit here right now knowing that our best is still out there." Iowa’s star running back David Montgomery had 53 yards on 11 carries but was ejected early in the third quarter, along with Baylor linebacker Greg Robert, after the two began fighting each other. "David is a leader, so the last thing that I would say that David Montgomery had anything to do with was starting any controversy," Campbell said. "It certainly looked like it was a secondary action." A win for Baylor in either of its final two games would send the Bears to a bowl game. Iowa State faces No. 15 Texas in Austin next week.
West Virginia 47, TCU 10
After a scoreless first quarter, No. 7 West Virginia scored three touchdowns in a 3:25 span late in the second, catapulting the Mountaineers to a 47-10 victory over the Horned Frogs on Saturday. Quarterback Will Grier was 25 of 39 passing for 343 yards and touchdown passes of 32, 8 and 4 yards. "Morale's good. Confidence is good. Work ethic is good. It's why we're winning," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "You're only as good as your next one, so these guys have to continue doing that." TCU was held to a season-low 222 yards on offense and is in jeopardy of missing a bowl if they do not find a way to win each of their final two games.
LSU 24, Arkansas 17
One week after being shut out in a 29-0 loss to Alabama, the ninth-ranked Tigers bounced back in Week 11 and rolled to a 24-17 victory over Arkansas on Saturday night. Leading the charge against the Razorbacks was LSU quarterback Joe Burrow. Burrow was 15-of-21 passing with 195 yards and one touchdown. Sophomore receiver Justin Jefferson put on a stellar performance for the Tigers with 117 yards and one score on six receptions. This loss marks the eighth loss of the last nine games for the Razorbacks under first-year coach Chad Morris.
Appalachian State 38, Texas State 7
Sophomore quarterback Zac Thomas completed 25-of-36 passes for 247 yards and two touchdowns for the Mountaineers as they cruised to a 38-7 victory over Texas State on Saturday.
Louisiana Tech 28, Rice 13
J’Mar Smith finished 21-for-34 passing with 314 yards and one touchdown for the Bulldogs as Louisiana Tech handed Rice its 10th straight loss on Saturday night. This was also the 13th straight conference loss for the Owls.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
Sengun has 32 points and 14 rebounds as the Rockets beat the Grizzlies
Jan 10, 2025, 2:32 pm
Everyone raved about the leadership of second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud this week as the Houston Texans prepared for their wild-card playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Everyone, that is, except the man himself.
“I don’t think I’m a great (leader),” Stroud said sheepishly. “I don’t know. That’s probably a bad thing to say about yourself, but I don’t think I’m all that when it comes to leading. I just try to be myself.”
But the 23-year-old Stroud simply being himself is exactly what makes him the undisputed leader of this team.
“C.J. is authentic, he’s real,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “It’s not only here, it’s in the locker room around the guys and that’s what leadership is to me. As you evolve as a leader, you just be authentic to yourself. You don’t have to make up anything or make up a speech or make up something to say to guys. C.J. is being C.J.”
Sixth-year offensive lineman Tytus Howard said he knew early on that Stroud would be special.
“He has that aura about him that when he speaks, everybody listens,” he said.
Stroud has helped the Texans win the AFC South and reach the playoffs for a second straight season after they had combined for just 11 wins in the three years before he was drafted second overall.
He was named AP Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, when Houston beat the Browns in the first round before falling to the Ravens in the divisional round.
His stats haven’t been as good as they were in his fabulous rookie season when he threw just five interceptions. But he has put together another strong season in Year 2 despite missing top receiver Nico Collins for five games early and losing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell to season-ending injuries in the second half of the season. He also started every game despite being sacked a whopping 52 times.
“He’s taken some crazy shots,” Howard said. “But even if he’s getting sacked and stuff like that, he just never lets that get to him. He just continues to fight through it, and it basically uplifts the entire offense.”
He also finds ways to encourage the team off the field and works to build chemistry through team get-togethers. He often invites the guys over to his house for dinner or to watch games. Recently, he rented out a movie theater for a private screening of “Gladiator II.”
“He’s like, ‘I want the guys to come in and bond together because this thing builds off the field and on the field,’” Howard said. “So, we need to be closer.”
Another thing that makes Stroud an effective leader is that his teammates know that he truly cares about them as people and not just players. That was evident in the loss to the Chiefs when Dell was seriously injured. Stroud openly wept as Dell was tended to on the field and remained distraught after he was carted off.
“It was good for people to see me in that light and knowing that there is still a human factor to me,” he said. "And I think that was good for people to see that we’re just normal people at the end of the day.”
Stroud said some of the leaders who molded him were his father, his coaches in high school and college, and more recently Ryans.
His coach said Stroud has been able to lead the team effectively early in his career because he knows there are others he can lean on if he needs help.
“Understanding that it’s not all on him as a leader, it’s all of our guys just buying in, doing what they have to do,” Ryans said. “But also, C.J. understanding a lot of guys are looking up to him on the team and he takes that role seriously. But it’s not a heavy weight for him because we have other leaders, as well, around him.”
Stroud considers himself stubborn and though some consider that a bad quality, he thinks it’s helped him be a better leader. He's had the trait as long as he can remember.
“That kind of carried into the sport,” he said. “Even as a kid, my mom used to always say how stubborn I was and just having a standard is how I hear it. It’s stubborn (but) I just have a standard on how I like things to be done and how I hold myself is a standard.”
And, to be clear, he doesn’t consider himself a bad leader, but he did enjoy hearing that others on the team consider him a great one.
“I just don’t look at myself in that light of just I’m all-world at that,” he said. “But I try my best to lead by example and it’s cool because I don’t ask guys and to hear what they have to say about that is kind of cool.”
Though he doesn’t consider himself a great leader, Stroud does have strong feelings about what constitutes one. And he’s hoping that he’ll be able to do that for his team Saturday to help the Texans to a victory, which would make him the sixth quarterback in NFL history to start and win a playoff game in both of his first two seasons.
“That would be making everybody around you better,” he said of great leaders. “Kind of like a point guard on the offense, the quarterback on the football team, the pitcher on a baseball team — just making everybody around you better.”