Nothing seemed to go UTSA’s way in their homecoming matchup against Louisiana Tech on Saturday evening. The Roadrunners couldn’t get anything going on offense and fell to the LA Tech Bulldogs by a lopsided score of 31-3.

The loss snaps UTSA’s three-game win streak and moves their overall record to 3-4. While they are still 2-1 in conference, they have another tough conference game next week on the road against Southern Mississippi.

While there were many things that went wrong for UTSA, here are the three biggest factors that contributed to the big conference loss.

Abandoned the run game

UTSA running backs B.J Daniels and Jalen Rhodes combined for a measly 19 yards in the loss. Most of UTSA’s rushing yards came by way of quarterback Cordale Grundy, as he scrambled for 60 yards on 11 rush attempts.

It seemed that once UTSA fell behind, they resorted to almost exclusively throwing the ball. The Roadrunner offense had 40 pass attempts compared to only 23 rushing attempts. However, despite the 40 pass attempts, UTSA still only threw for 201 yards. They averaged only 5.0 yards per pass. This is the fourth time this season UTSA has failed to total at least 100 rushing yards. The one dimensional offense hurt them, especially in the second half.

Time of possession

Louisiana Tech won the time of possession battle by nearly 11 minutes. The Bulldogs possessed the ball for 35:13, compared to UTSA’s 24:47. By doing this, LA Tech was able to keep the UTSA defense on the field for long periods of time.

The Bulldogs had four drives that were eight plays or longer, including a 15 play, 73-yard drive in the fourth quarter that ate up over eight minutes of clock. Nine of UTSA’s drives were five plays or fewer. The defense was gassed after having to be on the field so much.

Failure to defend the pass

UTSA’s secondary stepped up in recent weeks, but they were put to the test by veteran Louisiana Tech quarterback J’mar Smith. Smith went 25-of-36 for 309 yards and connected with nine different receivers in the victory. UTSA did keep the interception streak going when Cassius Grady came up with an interception in the second half, but the 300-plus passing yards they allowed proved to be too much to overcome.

The UTSA secondary allowed 8.4 yards per pass and even gave up a 67-yard touchdown pass to George Scott in the second half. The defensive play of the front seven was once again stellar, as they held LA Tech to only 75 rushing yards and 2.0 yards a carry. However, LA Tech was able to find almost all of their success through the air.

UTSA will face off against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles next week and try to improve their conference record to 3-1.