HOUSTON — The Houston Texans’ ineptitude in the first half became an epidemic in Thursday night’s game against the visiting Indianapolis Colts.

After the first quarter, the Texans trailed 24-0, on pace for a prime-time snore — a 96-0 loss while being outgained 872-8.

That scurry around the country was viewers finding their remotes to change the channel to something more interesting, which would have been just about anything at all.

Those who did, can’t be blamed, but they did miss a little bit of drama.

“It looked like it was going to be about 50-0,” coach Bill O’Brien said.

The Texans made an amazing recovery, pulling within 24-14 in the second quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the Colts led 33-28. The Texans had the ball two times in the last five minutes, but receiver Andre Johnson fumbled at the Indianapolis 41 and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick fumbled at his 22.

The Texans lost for the third time in four games, dropping to 3-3 and out of first place in the AFC South for the first time this season.

The Texans have been behind in the first half in five of their six games. In the short week between an overtime loss at Dallas and the Colts’ game, the offense worked on getting off to a fast start, but it backfired.

“That’s terrible,” O’Brien said about the 24-point deficit in the first 15 minutes. “We can’t allow that to happen. We talk about that all week, and that starts with coaching. We haven’t started well yet. That’s one of the things we’ve got to figure out.”

The Texans’ offensive line got manhandled in the first quarter and for most of the game on pass protection. Arian Foster didn’t get untracked until the second quarter.

Fitzpatrick has been terrible early but has recovered even though he’s been under almost constant pressure. The Colts blitzed Fitzpatrick more than any defense this season, and the pass protectors did a poor job of picking it up.

The defense contributed to the poor start. Luck threw for 240 yards and two touchdowns in the first half.

“I believe the team was ready to play,” O’Brien said. “I know how it started out there, (but) we were ready to play. They played better. We couldn’t get a first down. Our defense was on the field too much. They made some plays.

“We fought back to get in the game. We let them get ahead too much — 24-0 is hard to overcome. Our guys were energetic the whole night. We’ve got a bunch of guys who fight, tough guys who’ve played a lot of football in this league, a lot of veterans, so everybody was ready to play. Maybe it didn’t look that way, but they fought back to get in the game.”

Ultimately, it was just another close loss, their second in five days. The Texans lost 20-17 in overtime at Dallas and then lost by five against the Colts. They’ve got extra time to prepare for their Oct. 20 Monday night game at Pittsburgh.