Analysis: Five takeaways from 2019

Skipper · December 2, 2019

December 02

00:22 2019

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1. Mason Fine is the greatest offensive player in school history

There’s no point in debating it. Fine not only sits as the greatest offensive player in school history, he’s short of only one player in my book: Mean Joe Green. Fine’s stats and accolades speak for themselves. He’s top five if not number one, in most major quarterback career, season and single-game statistics in program history and has received conference and national recognition since his freshman year.

He led North Texas to three-straight bowl games, threw together multiple game-winning drives and brought the Mean Green into serious contention for the C-USA title. The kid wore a dinosaur costume to a post-game press conference, it’s impossible to hate him.

While Fine’s presence at North Texas will most definitely be missed, I’m confident in his status amongst the program’s greats and excited to see what his next steps are.

2. The defense missed last year’s seniors but showed flashes

Asking a defense to replace three-fourths of its secondary and its two best linebackers seems very over the top, yet, it’s the name of the game for most of college football. On defense more so than offense, seniority reigns and that rang true for the Mean Green last season. After replacing 18 years of experience on one side of the ball, North Texas came into 2019 with a lot of inexperience and youth. This showed as the defense gave up 390 points (32.5 per game) compared to 314 (24.15 per game) in 2018. The Mean Green dropped from 18 interceptions to four in a single offseason.

Despite the numbers not looking great, the defensive played some really good games. Holding any team to three points while your offense puts up 45 on them is impressive, regardless of who’s playing. That’s what this defense did to Texas-San Antonio. The other standout game was the season finale against Alabama-Birmingham. A team that averaged 25.1 points per game came to Apogee and put up 26. Did the Blazers beat their average? Yes. Should that be considered a win for a defense that allowed 30-plus points in six of their 12 games? Also yes.

Hope isn’t lost. This defense has a lot of youth and that youth got a lot of playing time this year. That playing time will benefit this defense throughout the next two years, despite losing major defensive pieces this offseason including defensive end Ladarius Hamilton and safety Khairi Muhammad.

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