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Game Story

Thunderstruck

Tulsa steamrolls Mean Green in 54-2 shellacking

09:30 AM CDT on Sunday, September 18, 2005

By Brett Vito / Staff Writer

North Texas coach Darrell Dickey tried every trick at his disposal to spark the Mean Green’s offense in its home opener against Tulsa on Saturday night at Fouts Field.

Dickey changed quarterbacks and gave running backs Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas every chance he could to run the ball.

None of those players could get UNT on track in a 54-2 loss in front of a crowd of 23,112. UNT (1-1) finished with 129 yards of total offense and failed to reach the end zone against Tulsa, which rattled off 54 unanswered points after falling behind 2-0 in the early going.

“That was not anything close to what we hoped for or thought would happen,” Dickey said. “You have to give Tulsa credit. They had a good game plan and executed. We were our own worst enemy.”

The loss marked the second consecutive game UNT has struggled to get its offense in order. The Mean Green won their season opener over Middle Tennessee last week 14-7, but only scored one offensive touchdown.

UNT’s inability to run the ball was particularly frustrating for Dickey. Minnesota’s Laurence Moroney and Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson both rushed for more than 200 yards against Tulsa (1-2) earlier this season.

UNT, which features the last two national rushing champions in Cobbs and Thomas, finished with just 70 rushing yards. Cobbs entered the game with 2,999 career rushing yards and was within striking distance of Ja’Quay Wilburn’s school rushing record of 3,120 yards.

Cobbs finished with 100 yards and fell short of the mark, despite averaging 5.9 yards a carry. Thomas carried the ball just seven times for 13 yards.

“When we ran the ball we got the yards we needed,” Cobbs said. “We passed and got ourselves in trouble and penalties got us in trouble. We just dug ourselves a hole.”

UNT’s quarterbacks floundered when called on to help the Mean Green rally.

The Mean Green lost Scott Hall, a four-year starter at quarterback, at the end of last season and are relying on a pair of inexperienced quarterbacks in redshirt freshman Daniel Meager and freshman Matt Phillips.

Meager played throughout the Mean Green’s game against Middle Tennessee and started again against Tulsa. Phillips saw the first action of his college career when he came on in relief of Meager for a pair of series in the first half.

Meager completed just 9 of 21 passes for 63 yards with two interceptions. Phillips completed his only pass of the game, but UNT lost 4 yards on the play.

“We just couldn’t get anything going,” Meager said. “We would have one big play and then we would hit a brick wall and couldn’t push past.”

UNT’s struggles came after an early Tulsa mistake gave the Mean Green an early lead. Tulsa deep snapper Drew Logo sent the ball sailing over the head of punter Kris Kindred, who kicked the ball out of the back of the end zone for a safety to give UNT a 2-0 lead.

Tulsa responded with 54 unanswered points. Quarterback Paul Smith threw for 189 yards and two touchdowns while running back Brandon Diles added 128 yards and another score.

“We didn’t suck it up and play, like we did against Middle Tennessee,” UNT linebacker Phillip Graves said of UNT’s defense. “We didn’t overcome.”

Russ Goodall Column

North Texas offense is offensive in home opener

09:28 AM CDT on Sunday, September 18, 2005

Thank goodness for the fireworks North Texas provided the fans that stayed after the final gun sounded at Fouts Field. Without those, there would have been no explosives at all for the Mean Green.

Three and out. Three and out. Three and out.

Those are the words that best describe the offensive performance of North Texas in its first home game of the season, and that ineptitude led to a 54-2 win for Tulsa.

“It’s hard being out there a lot of the time, but that is why we condition the way we condition so we are ready to face a situation like this,” UNT linebacker Phillip Graves said.

You can only ask your defense to do so much for you — at some point the offense has to pull its weight.

And on Saturday, the Mean Green offense didn’t even come close to doing that.

Quarterback Daniel Meager looked more like a true freshman than a redshirt freshman. He completed just nine passes and threw two interceptions.

Matt Phillips wasn’t any better, completing just one pass on one attempt, but it went for a 4-yard loss.

But the play of the UNT QBs was just half the problem.

The Mean Green offensive line was worse than average. It was down right offensive.

Despite a couple of big runs for Patrick Cobbs, the offensive line didn’t open any holes in the running game and on most occasions didn’t give Meager enough time to even set up in the pocket.

“When we ran the ball, we got the yards we needed,” Cobbs said. “We passed and got ourselves in trouble. Penalties got us in trouble. We dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t get out of it.”

Although UNT was penalized 12 times for 111 yards, Cobbs finished with 100 yards rushing — 34 of those yards coming on one run. On the other hand, Jamario Thomas finished with just 13 yards rushing.

“Seeing [Minnesota’s Laurence] Maroney and [Oklahoma’s Adrian] Peterson in our first two games prepared us for Thomas and Cobbs,” Tulsa head coach Steve Kragthorpe said. “We wanted to contain them and force the young quarterback to make plays.”

Tulsa did just that, and Meager wasn’t able to make those plays.

The Mean Green had 15 drives in the game. They punted 10 times, turned the ball over three times, gave up a safety and had the final drive stopped by the end of the game.

In those 10 punts, UNT went three-and-out five times and was picked off on the fourth play of another drive.

With that kind of play, what could be expected from the defense?

“Our defense, the first quarter and a half, played pretty good,” UNT head coach Darrell Dickey said. “Then, in the second quarter they were on the short end of the field a couple of times and gave up a couple of plays. … In the second half, once we weren’t able to get anything going offensively, our defense started taking a few more chances. That made us vulnerable to some other plays.”

A week after turning a possible loss into a win at Middle Tennessee, the UNT defense had its moments early. But the unit spent too much time on the field in the second, third and fourth quarters.

Give them a bit of credit, they did score the Mean Green’s only points of the night.

But the “bend but don’t break” defense that helped propel them last week, helped them for the first 15 minutes against the Golden Hurricane.

After that, it was like opening the floodgates.

“We were dominated, period, in all areas and coaching, too,” Dickey said. “The other team totally out-played us and out-coached us.”

UNT has a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball.

But, despite the score, the offense deserves a lot of the blame.

In hindsight, maybe rescheduling the LSU game for later in the season, wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Especially after Tulsa hangs 54 on you in your own house.

RUSS GOODALL can be reached at 940-566-6871. His e-mail address is rgoodall@dentonrc.com.