Home cooking can go a long way to providing comfort on the football field, and that was the case Wednesday night for Miami Dolphins rookie quarterback Ryan Tannehill in a 30-13 loss that closed the preseason.

The Big Spring, Texas native had an extra skip to his step and a purpose to his throws in the short time he ran the Miami offense at Cowboys Stadium. When he left the game for good late in the first quarter after his second series, Tannehill had completed 5-of-7 passes for 36 yards and given his team a 3-0 lead.

Since the starters tend to play little if at all in the fourth preseason game, Tannehill had to make do with basically the backup offensive line except for right tackle Jonathan Martin. Regular starters Jake Long, Richie Incognito, Mike Pouncey and Artis Hicks all did not play, along with running back Reggie Bush, wide receiver Davone Bess and tight end Anthony Fasano.

Tannehill’s first play of the game was good for a 12-yard completion to Marlon Moore, but his next two passes hit the ground, with the last one intended for Legedu Naanee right on the mark. Cowboys linebacker Orie Lemon right hit Naanee when the ball arrived, forcing a punt by Brandon Fields.

After the defense forced a Dallas punt, Tannehill caught fire and drove the Dolphins 73 yards on 10 plays, leading to Dan Carpenter’s 21-yard field goal. He completed passes of 10 and 9 yards to Naanee and floated a perfect pass to tight end Charles Clay for a nice 6-yard gain. He was hit late by Dallas’ Mario Butler, drawing a 15-yard penalty and Miami got the ball at the Dallas 30. Thomas showed off his speed with a 19-yard run to the right side down to the 11 but on the next run he was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by Josh Brant at the 10.

On 2nd-and-9 with plenty of time, Tannehill waited for Marcus Thigpen to come open over the middle and hit him for a 7-yard gain to the 3. His potential touchdown pass to Naanee in the left corner of the end zone on the next play was broken up by Teddy Williams, managed to avoid a pass interference penalty.

Williams was stripped of the ball on the ensuing kickoff after getting crushed by Marlon Moore and Carpenter showed his toughness by diving onto the ground and recovering the loose ball. He wrestled it away from a Dallas player at the Cowboys’ 33, which led to his 53-yard field goal to make it 6-0.

Third-string quarterback Pat Devlin had another solid outing, completing 7-of-12 passes for 63 yards and a 72.6 passer rating. He engineered a 14-play, 89-yard drive culminating with Lamar Miller’s 1-yard touchdown run. That was Miami’s only trip into the end zone.

Philbin Speaks: “The confidence I gain is when I watch guys practice and perform well. I thought we’ve been a good team in practice, we haven’t transferred that to the game on a consistent basis and we still haven’t and that’s a concern, absolutely.” – on his team going winless in the preseason and only scoring four touchdowns

“All we have is what we can go off of on the tape, both in practice and the games. Again, we obviously would have liked to have performed better this evening. We didn’t so we just have to look at the film; all of the film we have since training camp began and some of these guys have been with us since April 10th.” – on how tough these final evaluations before final cuts are going to be

“At points in time in the preseason they played better in games than some of the first-team guys did, so I wouldn’t say I’m displeased with those guys. We’ll look at what we have and what’s available and see where the best fit is.” – on the play of the second and third-teamers

“I thought we had shown a little bit of improvement on defense obviously in the third game and we haven’t turned the ball over that much. Obviously, you can’t give away a touchdown to the opposition but we’re going to go back to work on Friday, we’re going to get this thing straightened out, we’re going to fix it and we’re going to take a look at the tape and make some adjustments and go from there.” – on what positives he can take out of the preseason

From The Locker Room: “It felt good to get out there and to be in a place that I’ve been before obviously is a little nice. I thought we moved the ball early. We’ve just got to capitalize when we get down in the red zone. You can’t stall out on the 3-yardline. When you get that deep in the red zone you’ve got to take advantage of it and you’ve got to put seven points on the board.” – quarterback Ryan Tannehill on his performance in front of friends and family

“Uh, never. I honestly don’t know. I can’t think of one. I don’t think I’ve ever come up with a fumble to tell you the honest truth. The ball was right in front of me so your natural instinct is to jump on it, and then I laid on the bottom as everyone dog-piled on top of me. It’s kind of a big blur but I think we (the Cowboys player) got there at the same time and touched it at the same time.” – kicker Dan Carpenter on his fumble recovery after Marlon Moore jarred it loose on the kickoff

“I just wanted to go out there and play my hardest and do whatever it took to try and get this ‘W.’ Unfortunately, we fell short of the ‘W,’ but for the body of work tonight it feels good, but you never know what the coaches are thinking. We’ll see what happens Friday and hope for the best. For me and Ryan to hit on that opening pass, it definitely was a confidence booster. I’m just trying to get Ryan to trust me with deep routes and everything that comes with playing receiver so I’ll be more of a reliable receiver for him and for this team.” – wide receiver Marlon Moore on how his performance in the game will impact his chances of making the final 53-man roster

“We have a lot of work to do. We’ve done a lot of good things but obviously there are some things that we need to work on and that’s what we’re going to do. I mean we transitioned from a 3-4 to a 4-3 and we need to pick it up a little bit quicker.” – defensive end Ryan Baker on where the defense is after four preseason games

Next: The Dolphins return to Texas to open the regular season against the Houston Texans on September 9th at Reliant Stadium.