Fast Start Lifts Houston Past ECU

Saturday, October 13

Greenville, N.C.

7:00 P.M.

East Carolina University

2-4 , 0-3

Houston

5-1 , 2-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Houston

ECU

October 14, 2018 | Football

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Final Stats (PDF) l ECU Notes (PDF) l Quotes (PDF)

GREENVILLE, N.C. - After a second-straight decisive loss in which his offense sputtered for the better part of three quarters, ECU Head Coach Scottie Montgomery hinted – quite strongly in fact – that a change may be in store at quarterback.

The Pirates tumbled to high-powered Houston 42-20 on an ideal fall evening in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, falling behind 14-0 early and 42-6 late while seeing a string of quarters without a touchdown against American Athletic Conference opponents extended to 10.

However, those remaining in the crowd saw freshman quarterback Holton Ahlers enter as the third man in an ongoing quarterback shuffle spark two scoring drives.

"I thought that Holton came in at the end of the game and gave us a tremendous boost," Montgomery said. "That's something that will not go unnoticed. … I think we've got some major, major challenges offensively that we need to address. Some of them were addressed in the latter part of the game."

Ahlers, who had completed just 2 of 10 passes in limited opportunities this season, connected on 11 of 18 passes for 137 yards and a touchdown – a 13-yarder to Trevon Brown. He also led the Pirates in rushing with 45 yards on five carries, including a 1-yard touchdown run.

Starter Reid Herring completed 26 of 42 passes for 229 yards with a pair of interceptions. He also coughed up a fumble on a sack by Ed Oliver that was returned for a touchdown.

Kingsley Ifedi appeared briefly in the second half, completing his first pass but finishing 1 of 3 for eight yards with an interception.

Brown posted his top performance of the season by recording his seventh career 100-yard receiving outing with 153 yards on a game-high 13 receptions.

Montgomery did not commit to Ahlers starting next week, but stressed the Pirates need more production.

"We'll determine that later, but it's time that we have to really not look at opening it up but look at production and look at what's going on in football games," he said. "We've got to have a boost right now offensively. Offensively I'm not satisfied whatsoever with what we're doing. … I did think in the latter part of the game with Holton he gave us at least a little bit of a boost."

Ahlers took a couple of possessions to settle in. After a two straight three-and-out series, he led a 96-yard scoring drive that featured five passes of 10-plus yards and a 19-yard scramble. He capped the drive with a 13-yard toss to Trevon Brown, who finished with a career-high 13 catches for yards. The final drive covered 62 yards in eight plays.

"I just thought we brought the offense a little bit more to him," Montgomery said. "… The first drive in there he got his confidence off a little bit, and I wanted to stay with him. I thought he did a good job bouncing back."

Before Ahlers entered, the Pirates (2-4, 0-3 AAC) had been held to minus-16 yards rushing. They finished with 41 on the ground but outgained Houston (5-1, 2-0) overall 415-406, holding a 91-74 advantage in plays from scrimmage. The Cougars, among the nation's top offenses at 50.0 points and 582.2 yards per game, had gained at least 477 yards in every game this season.

ECU failed to force a turnover but forced Houston into 10 punts. The Cougars, after converting their first three third downs, converted just 1 one of their next 11. They also were penalized 12 times for 115 yards.

ECU racked up 10 tackles for loss – the sixth straight game with at least seven – led by Nate Harvey with 3.5.

"We played well enough, in my opinion, to win on defense," Montgomery said. "We forced them into punting the ball 10 times in that game. They were 4-of-14 on third down conversions. All the things we wanted to get accomplished … I think it just came down to just a complete offensive inefficiency in some different situations."

Much of that came in the first half for the second straight week. The Pirates trailed Temple 35-3 at the half last week on the way to a 49-6 loss.

ECU started with a pair of three-and-out series and quickly trailed 14-0.

"I spoke about it early in the week. It was important for us to start fast," Montgomery said. "I was most disappointed in the early part of the game. We did have a script that we had ran a couple of times to get ready and get a good start to this game. … Even though we had that script against everything that we could possibly see, we still had mental errors. So that means somewhere in there I didn't do a good enough job of coaching every single position out there through every single one of those plays because we still had mental errors."

A 38-yard strike from junior quarterback D'Eriq King to junior wide receiver Courtney Lark put the Cougars up 7-0, then King sprinted 8 yards for a 14-0 lead. Jake Verity booted a 32-yard field goal to get the Pirates on the board before King hooked up with Romello Brooker for a 21-3 lead. Verity hooked a 49-yard attempt at the end of the half, ending a string of 11 consecutive field goals made for the junior but added a 33-yarder in the third period.

The Cougars' defense, which recorded 12 tackles for loss picked up a sputtering Houston offense in the third. On third-and-10 from the ECU 23, Ed Oliver barreled in and buried Herring near the 8, forcing a fumble that Emeke Egbule picked up and carried in for a 28-6 lead. Egbule also accounted for one of Houston's three interceptions.

Oliver, a junior who has already said he will enter the NFL draft after this year, was a constant disruption and finished with five tackles for loss, a sack, a quarterback hurry and a forced fumble.

"We double-teamed him, we tripled him," Montgomery said. "It's frustrating because he was a dominant player. We knew that he was a dominant player, and we couldn't get him stopped, and we prepared to get him stopped. What he did was he caused so much stress on the run game, even trying to get it to the boundary. He caused us problems all night."

Houston added touchdowns on an 8-yard run from Mulbah Car and a 25-yard double pass from Bryson Smith to Keith Corbin to lead 42-6 before Ahlers provided a glimmer of hope for next week.

-Mike Grizzard