SAN ANTONIO — Folks say, remember the Alamo, but East Carolina would just as soon forget the Alamodome.
Texas-San Antonio is invincible against conference competition in the indoor structure. The Roadrunners won their 25th in a row against Conference USA and American Conference teams on the artificial turf of their home facility, 58-24.
While the Alamo was a prolonged battle, the contest Saturday was over quickly as UTSA had a 31-0 lead before the teams had gone to halftime.
A 4-game winning streak became history for the Pirates (7-4, 5-2 AC) and also gone is the potential to play for the league championship.
When ECU did generate some offense, it was a classic case of too little, too late.
“I told the players in the locker room, they whipped our butts and that’s on me,” said ECU coach Blake Harrell on the Pirates radio network. “I’ve got to make sure our team is prepared.
“It was a lot of little things. Maybe it was a hangover from last week (31-27 win over Memphis). Maybe we weren’t locked in enough. Whatever it was, we’ve got to get it fixed.”
ECU stalled out on the first possession of the game and the Roadrunners drove 70 yards to score on an 11-yard pass from Owen McCown to A.J. Wilson with 10:18 left in the first quarter.
UTSA was 8 for 8 on scoring in trips to the red zone with five TDs and three field goals.
David Amador II had a 45-yard scoring reception from McCown early in the second quarter for a 21-0 lead. A 21-yard pick six by Shad Banks Jr. accounted for the Roadrunners’ last TD with 10:41 to go.
McCown completed 24 of 33 for 248 yards with five touchdowns to compensate for the absence of leading rusher Robert Henry.
UTSA led, 458-401, in total yards. The Roadrunners (6-5, 4-3 AC) became bowl eligible.
The Pirates got on the board on a 32-yard field goal by Nick Mazzie with 44 seconds left in the half. ECU trailed, 34-3, at the break.
Katin Houser completed 18 of 22 for 241 yards with TDs to Anthony Smith for 50 yards and Jayvontay Conner (1 yard).
Smith had eight catches for 143 yards.
Marlon Gunn Jr. had a 50-yard touchdown run for the Pirates early in the fourth quarter.
Houser didn’t buy the mystique of the Alamodome.
“Lack of execution,” said the ECU quarterback. “It’s easy to blame the dome and the fans, but … we didn’t do enough on offense to score enough points.
“I didn’t feel like we had enough energy to start the game and throughout the whole game, I just felt like we were kind of flat. We’ve just got to go and roll.”
Safety Ja’Marley Riddle was in on seven tackles with four solo stops.
“We’ve got to dust off this one and get ready for next week,” Riddle said.
The Pirates close the regular season at Florida Atlantic (4-7, 3-4) on Saturday at noon (ESPN+).
Give UTSA credit, they know how to protect their house. This was a total beat down. ECU played without energy or urgency. The Pirates were totally undisciplined, having penalty after penalty. There isn’t a single item that you could point out which would have changed this game. The Pirates would be smart to burn every copy of the UTSA game, and move on to FAU. 8-4 will get the Pirates a decent bowl game. That’s plenty to play for.
ECU was far less prepared and hungry than their opponent.
The coup de grâce of the night was when Blake Harrell morphed into Mike Houston and mailed in the game with under a minute left in the 1st half on a 4th and 2 in the red zone, down by 4 scores, and pathetically took the field goal. Karma came seconds later, when ECU gave the 3 points right back after getting burned on a fake knee by UTSA, leading to a UTSA fg.
The entire program, especially the coaching the staff, should be forced to watch an ESPN+ replay of this game, and be forced especially to listen to the repeated commentary of how the UTSA coach had his team dialed in not just to beat ECU, but to take ECU to the woodshed after their loss in Greenville last year; in essence, they said he’d told them he wanted to embarrass ECU. Mission accomplished.
I agree ECU laid an egg. No energy. Got out Coached.. Their defense knew everything we were doing.. we looked bad..
I will say the main reason UTSA is undefeated at home is because the Tex’s UTSA refs “cheat their asses off” ( against Tulane also) .. In their first 2 possessions they were holding and mugging our guys and the refs didn’t call it… Then on our 2nd or 3rd possession, they knocked our tightend on the ground , pass interference 101.. they also called targeting on our guy when we stopped them on 3rd down , which was not targeting, watch SEC football. The SEC refs had calls just the opposite on the same day .. Was not targeting.
With that said , we “did not ” deserve to win . But I hope the coaches and the American conference, do something about the refs blatant cheating at UTSA in the future..
Go damn pirates ! ☠️ Wes