Big NT Love

H-towngreen · September 12, 2005

Just found this from collegefootballnews.com giving us some big props. I visit this site daily and it seems as though they show us some pretty good love most the time.

Five Thoughts

Week 2

By Mark Risley

4. While the majority of the college football world was engrossed in the epic battle in Columbus, OH (and the vast overflow entranced in the first half of the eventual LSU/ASU roller-coaster ride in Tempe, AZ), there was a heckuva game being staged in the Sun Belt Conference. Yeah, yeah. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? You certainly couldn’t imagine anyone outside of Denton, TX and/or Murfreesboro, TN straying from their local ABC affiliates (although, a shot of Jack & a pint of Shiner Bock says that even the folks in those two towns demoted the Sun Belt to second fiddle this past Saturday evening), but having four TV’s has its advantages. In case you missed it, though, the evil empire of the Sun Belt, North Texas, was about to be vanquished by a fleet of Blue Raiders from Middle Tennessee State. MTSU was up 7-0 and about to march into the end-zone for another six pack, which would have likely been the end of UNT’s offensively-challenged chances of winning this game. Instead, UNT’s rising star LB Maurice Holman stepped in front of an intended TD pass from MTSU’s oft-accurate Clint Marks just in front of the goal line, and galloped 99 yards for the equalizing tally. Sure, the game was still very much in doubt at that point, but it may as well have ended with that very play. As usual (at least, for the past four seasons), the Mean Green defense took over & that was that – UNT 14, MTSU 7. Sure, UNT may still lose a Sun Belt game this season, but it’s unlikely that MTSU will be able to overtake UNT for the conference crown. This is what college football is all about – an elimination game in the second week of September. If you think the Ohio State-Texas outcome was a deflating blow to Tressel & Co., then you can imagine, in a conference where only one bowl berth is guaranteed, how much air was taken out of the bubble on the campus of MTSU. One day very soon, Andy McCollum & his Blue Raiders squad will get over the Denton hump, but that “blue dawn” will have to wait for yet another year. In the meantime, the broken levees may have forced the Sun Belt headquarters to jump tracks from its comfortable Crescent City environment, but the song remains the same: North Texas is still the team to beat in the Sun Belt.