ESPN Insider report on Belt

jgb0607 · October 27, 2004

By Kevin Acee
Special to ESPN.com

A bunch of young players – among them, a freshman and two sophomores on the
offensive line – have had to learn on the fly for North Texas this season.
None was more surprised to contribute so mightily nor has been more surprising
than true freshman running back Jamario Thomas.
"I was looking forward to redshirting in a way, but in a way I wasn't," Thomas
said this week.
It's good he wasn't set on easing into college football. Because when the Mean
Green lost Patrick Cobbs, the nation's leading rusher in 2003, in the second
game of the season, the hopes of a run-first offense were thrust onto Thomas.
Jamario's Mean Ground Game
DATEOPPATTYDS
9/4 at Texas 2 -1
9/11 Florida Atlantic DNP --
9/18 at Colorado 32 247
9/25 at Baylor 10 58
10/2 MTSU 36 179
10/9 at Utah State 38 256
10/23 N.M. State 33 258
He made his first collegiate start Sept. 18 against Colorado and rushed for 247
yards, the most against the Buffaloes in six years and two yards shy of the
conference record.
"Before that game, coach (Darrell) Dickey told me I was going to do good,"
Thomas said. "I didn't have that much confidence in myself, but after hearing
coach Dickey say that I started to."
Thomas has broken the Sun Belt Conference record for rushing yards in a game –
twice.
This past week against New Mexico State, he rushed for 258 yards. His 256 yards
Oct. 9 at Utah State was the old record. Counting his 247 at Colorado, Thomas
has three of the top four rushing marks in Sun Belt history (since 2001).
"It's been crazy," said Thomas, a young man of few words.
Thomas is now the nation's leading rusher, with 166.2 yards a game.
He fell just three yards short of becoming the first player in Division I-A
history to rush for 1,000 yards in the first six games of his freshman year.
This week, he will become just the fourth freshman to reach the mark in seven
games.
With another 200-yard effort, he would join Ron Dayne and Herschel Walker as the
only freshmen to rush for at least 200 yards in four games.
Cobbs, whose 249 yards in a game last October has fallen from No. 1 to No. 3 in
the conference's annals, is expected to return next season. For now, he serves
as mentor to Thomas.
"He's a good guy," Thomas said. "He's helping me a lot in everything. … I'm
working on a lot of stuff right now."
Thomas is understandably not as football savvy as Cobbs. He needs to improve his
pass blocking, and he sometimes makes mistakes trying to get through the line.
(Obviously, he's doing well enough, thanks to a tremendous initial burst.)
"So far he's shown he's pretty durable," Dickey said of the 5-foot-11, 195-pound
Thomas, who has carried the ball at least 32 times in four of the past five
games. "He's handled the load that's been placed upon him very well. He's still
learning our offense, still learning how to go about things here at North Texas.
"He's understanding it's not all about carrying the ball, although when he is
carrying the ball he's doing a good job."
Winning ways
It seemed like every play there was at least one guy who needed to be told what
to do next time (or rather, what mistake not to repeat next time).
Mostly, getting things right was a matter of whipping those kids into shape.
Once that happened, North Texas went back to doing what it does best: winning
games in the Sun Belt Conference.
"We've just picked the intensity up as the weeks have gone on," Mean Green
quarterback Scott Hall said. "After we were 0-4, you could tell we just needed
that first win. We have a lot of young guys. They needed to see what it feels
like to win and what it takes to win.
"The effort off the field has gotten better and continued to get better every
week. Nobody wants to go back to what it feels like to lose."
The Green's 36-26 victory against New Mexico State last week pushed their Sun
Belt winning streak to 21 games, second longest in the nation.
Hall knows what the rest of the conference was thinking when his team opened up
0-4.
"They were licking their chops," he said with a laugh.
Besides a game against Florida Atlantic, North Texas basically opened up with a
Big 12 schedule, losing to Texas, Colorado and Baylor.
"The first four games, against tough opposition, really prepared us for what was
to come," Hall said. "The Sun Belt is good competition. But it's not like
playing three Big 12 teams back to back."
On the rise
If there is a team that can stop North Texas, it might be the last Sun Belt team
to beat the Mean Green.
We'll find out this Saturday, when Louisiana-Monroe visits Denton.
Not since losing to Monroe in its first Sun Belt game on Oct. 6, 2001, has North
Texas lost to a conference team. Meanwhile, Monroe has gone 5-14 in conference
play the past three years.
This season, the two teams are riding a similar rhythm into this week's meeting.
Both started 0-4 before winning their past three games.
"The difference is North Texas is going for its fourth Sun Belt conference title
in a row and we're just trying to get ourselves out of the basement," said
Monroe assistant head coach Bob Leahy. "We've got a big mountain to climb."
Not quite there
Arkansas State scored 17 unanswered points after being down 27-7 against
Louisiana-Lafayette. What will be remembered of the 27-24 loss is a blocked
field goal returned for a touchdown in the first quarter.
That kick would have given the Indians a 3-0 lead. It was necessitated when two
false start penalties moved ASU from the Lafayette 3-yard line to the 13.
The Indians have had many such gaffes – big and small – that have been the
difference between being the upstart they are and a serious contender.
They have been penalized 70 times, turned the ball over 24 times and made just 6
of 13 field-goal attempts.
Troy meets world
How does Troy show so well in non-conference play – beating Marshall and
Missouri, and playing South Carolina and Louisiana State close – yet already
find itself out of the Sun Belt race?
"I don't think there's anything to (the idea) we play down or play up to our
competition," Trojans coach Larry Blakeney said. "That is a theory. Our guys
have played well in some venues like South Carolina and LSU, and we still lost
both those games.
"We have not played as well in some instances on the road in the Sun Belt. It's
a mystery of some sorts. It boils down to how we match up. If you had the
answers to all that, you'd probably be a millionaire."
Troy had a late touchdown called back on a suspect illegal shift call and lost
24-20 at LSU this past Saturday. They lost 17-7 at South Carolina last month.
Blakeney acknowledges conference losses at New Mexico State and Arkansas State
have more than likely already made the Trojans Sun Belt also-rans.
Revenge, not served cold
Middle Tennessee coach Andy McCollum figures it's safe he won't see eight inches
of snow on the field Saturday when his team hosts Utah State on Saturday.
That was the conditions in Logan last year, and McCollum's Blue Raiders went on
to fall behind 35-0 and lose 41-20.
"I've never played in eight inches of snow in my life," said MT defensive
lineman Jerry Vanderpool. "And I've never lost like that in my life. … We got
embarrassed there, and it's something no one on this team has forgotten."
Kevin Acee covers college football for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

TIgreen01 · October 27, 2004

Isn't posting stuff like this illegal?.....

Green92 · October 27, 2004

We need a link.

good_ken · October 27, 2004

Yeah, Cerebrus and Harry will re-post the rules on stuff like that about every other week. I think continually ignoring them has thoroughly defeated them. I bet some of the stuff we pull on this board really suck the life force out of them.