UNT Feels Better About Its Offense

[MeanGreen61]

Brett Vito: UNT feeling better about its offense

08:22 AM CST on Monday, October 31, 2005

For the last two weeks, North Texas has repeated the same mantra. It popped up after a 40-14 loss to Louisiana Tech last week and again following a 56-3 shellacking Saturday night at the hands of LSU.

As strange as it sounds, UNT wholeheartedly believes it is making progress offensively.

“We came out and established the run and were able to be successful in the passing game,” UNT wide receiver Johnny Quinn said of the Mean Green’s performance against the Tigers. “The score does not reflect it, but offensively we improved.”

For the Mean Green’s sake, Quinn had better be right. UNT still has conference title aspirations. Those hopes rest with an offense that has struggled most of the season, despite a load of talent that includes a pair of national rushing champions in Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas, not to mention Quinn, maybe the best receiver in the Sun Belt.

So far, those players have only been able to help UNT show small signs of improvement. If the Mean Green don’t speed up the process, at least a little, those strides won’t be enough.

UNT rushed for 105 yards against an LSU team that was ranked No. 13th nationally against the run with an average of 96.5 yards surrendered a game.

The Mean Green squandered nearly every scoring opportunity those rushing yards provided against LSU. UNT had a field goal blocked and failed to punch the ball in from LSU’s 1-yard line.

UNT has the talent to do better than 9.0 points a game it is averaging, but has continued to sputter.

With the end of the season in sight, UNT coach Darrell Dickey knows the Mean Green need to find a rhythm. Preferably now.

“We are still a work in progress,” Dickey said. “We are still not even close to where we need to be. We have four games left, that’s what I told the players, and we are going to have to make some drastic improvement very quickly for us to be able to get done what we need to get done.”

UNT has no time left to continue its slow crawl back to being an effective offensive team —not if the Mean Green want to keep their hopes of winning a fifth straight Sun Belt title alive. Despite its recent struggles, UNT still has just one loss in Sun Belt play in what is turning out to be a poor year for the league.

Troy lost to Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday, leaving Louisiana-Monroe (3-0), Arkansas State (3-1) and UNT (2-1) as the only teams in the conference without at least two losses in league play.

The question is whether UNT has what it takes to get on track in time offensively to emerge from that group and earn a New Orleans Bowl bid. The Mean Green were behind when two-a-days started due to the departure of projected starting quarterback Joey Byerly because of academic issues, but has had all of two-a-days and more than a half a season’s worth of practices to recover.

That time hasn’t helped the Mean Green much. UNT came into its game against LSU ranked No. 115th nationally in scoring.

The Mean Green have reached the 14-point barrier only once since linebacker Maurice Holman returned an interception 99 yards against Middle Tennessee to spark UNT to a 14-7 win in its season opener.

UNT’s coaches and players say they have seen progress since then. So far that progress hasn’t shown up on the scoreboard, which is the only place it really matters.

Fortunately for the Mean Green, the rest of the Sun Belt hasn’t fared much better. UNT’s destiny is still in its hands.

Win out and Mean Green can do no worse than tie for the Sun Belt title and become bowl eligible at 6-5.

The Mean Green have the potential to break out and convert on that opportunity. The question is whether UNT can come out of its offensive funk that has been, well, offensive, beginning with a home game Saturday against Louisiana-Lafayette.

“We moved the ball against the No. 7 team in the nation and that is a plus,” Quinn said. “But the score got out of control. We can’t do that going back into conference play.”

Not if the Mean Green wants to end up as conference champions yet again.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com .