Tune joins 10,000-yard club
Senior throws four TD passes in win while becoming third Cougar to reach career milestone
On the sideline with less than a minute before halftime, Clayton Tune looked at the TDECU Stadium video board as he was recognized for a career milestone.
Tune became just the third 10,000-yard passer in school history as the University of Houston beat South Florida 42-27 on Saturday for its third straight win.
“It’s really special,” Tune said after the Cougars’ offense continued to roll with a season-high 490 yards. “I didn’t even really know. I kind of had an idea I was closing in, but I didn’t know how close I was. I try not to look at numbers and stats. Whenever they did that on the big screen during the game, it kind of caught me off guard.”
Tune continued his hot stretch, going 31-of-37 for a season-high 380 yards and four touchdowns. He surpassed 10,000 career yards on a 12-yard touchdown to Peyton Sawyer with 55 seconds left in the first half.
A four-year starter, Tune joins Case Keenum (19,217), the NCAA’s alltime passing leader, and Kevin Kolb (12,964) as UH quarterbacks to reach the milestone. After the game, coach Dana Holgorsen presented Tune with a game ball.
“I’ve coached a few good ones,” Holgorsen said. “He’s in that same conversation. He’s playing well and getting some credit he deserves.”
Since losing to Tulane in overtime to open American Athletic Conference play, UH has rallied from 19 points down in the fourth quarter to beat Memphis and posted double-digit wins over Navy and USF. At 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the AAC, UH is one victory away from bowl eligibility and remains in the conference race.
The turnaround can be traced to improvement on offense, with the Cougars averaging 37.6 points during the current winning streak while posting their two highest yardage totals of the season in the past three games.
“It all started with the Memphis game,” Tune said. “I feel like that was a huge confidence boost for us because we felt like we hadn’t been playing to our standards up to that point. Being able to find a way to win that game at the end was huge for our momentum as an offense. We just continue to build on it.”
Two of Tune’s touchdown passes went to his favorite target, Nathaniel “Tank” Dell, who had nine catches for 112 yards. In his past three games, Tune has completed 71 percent of his passes for 1,007 yards and 12 touchdowns with only one interception.
Dell has 10 touchdowns this season, joining Patrick Edwards and Elmo Wright as the only UH receivers to have multiple seasons with 10 or more TDs.
“He knows how many yards he’s got during the game, which is kind of funny,” Tune said. “He was at 99 and said, ‘Come on, I need one catch, give me one catch.’ I was joking, ‘You’re staying at 99.’ ”
Tune called Saturday’s game “as clean as we’ve played all year.”
The Cougars committed one turnover — a fourthdown fumble by backup quarterback Lucas Coley — and committed 10 penalties for 95 yards. The offense was able to finish drives, with six of the team’s eight full possessions resulting in touchdowns.
Backup running back Stacy Sneed accounted for touchdown runs of 8 and 12 yards, the first two of his career, and KeSean Carter had seven catches for 102 yards and a touchdown.
“We were coming off two wins; we were coming off our best performance and coming back home,” Holgorsen said. “That’s typically when you have tendency to relax a little bit. I don’t think we’re a team that plays very good when we relax a little bit. We fight a little bit better, play a little bit better when our backs are against the wall.”
USF running back Brian Battie, who had two 100yard kickoff returns in the 2021 meeting, gashed the Cougars with 87 of his game-high 106 yards and touchdown runs of 13 and 20 yards in the first quarter. A groin injury limited him to six carries the rest of the game.
Sophomore quarterback Katravis Marsh, making his third career start for the Bulls, was 24of-34 for 275 yards with a touchdown and was sacked three times.
With the game tied at 14, USF missed a 38-yard field goal try in the second quarter, and the Cougars made the Bulls (1-7, 0-4 AAC) pay with a 52-yard TD strike from Tune to Dell.
Michel Dukes’ 1-yard TD run with 7:14 left in the third quarter pulled the Bulls within 28-21. UH answered with Sneed’s 12yard run and a 28-yard catch by Carter on a fleaflicker to push the lead to 42-21.
UH had two fourthdown defensive stops in the fourth quarter on sacks by Chidozie Nwankwo and Latrell Bankston.
“We came to the sideline and made some adjustments and cleaned up the run,” said safety Thabo Mwaniki, who had a career-high 12 tackles. “That’s why it looked like that. Every week we just try and get better.”
Another victory formation to close out the game — another postgame celebration in the locker room. And the Cougars even found time to celebrate Dell’s 23rd birthday.
“We picked him up in there and sang to him,” Mwaniki said. “He was up in the air.”