Dodge: Unt Has No Quarterback Controversy

MeanGreen61 · October 1, 2007

Brett Vito: Dodge: UNT has no QB controversy

08:48 AM CDT on Monday, October 1, 2007

Brett Vito

To review, here is what we know about North Texas:

The Mean Green is 0-4, has two quarterbacks who play and no quarterback controversy in sight.

At least that was the party line after UNT played Daniel Meager and Giovanni Vizza in its 66-7 landslide loss to Arkansas on Saturday.

Meager started for the fourth straight game, gave way to Vizza in the second quarter as part of a planned switch, came back in the third quarter and was replaced again in the fourth quarter.

“We told both Giovanni and Daniel that we would play Giovanni the second quarter. We just wanted to evaluate him,” Dodge said in the post-game postmortem. “We thought he did some good things. Daniel played again in the third quarter. We are not going to get into a merry-go-round. We are just trying to evaluate our young one when we get a chance to.”

There is a feeling in football that if a team has two quarterbacks, it really doesn’t have one at all.

One has to wonder if that isn’t the case at this point for UNT.

Meager has done some wonderful things this season after making the adjustment to the spread passing game following three years learning to drive the bus in former head coach Darrell Dickey’s run-first scheme. He threw for a school record 601 yards in a loss to SMU and 301 in a loss to Florida Atlantic.

He has also thrown eight interceptions and made a host of critical mistakes.

Meager is the starter, but it isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement when the head coach gives the entire second quarter to a freshman to get a better idea of what he can do in the fourth game of the season.

The door is obviously open for Vizza, who had done just enough to keep it open without walking through. The former San Antonio Alamo Heights standout led UNT to a touchdown in its season opener against Oklahoma and led the Mean Green to its only points against Arkansas, capping an 80-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run.

The only problem is Vizza is making just enough mistakes to keep him from claiming the starting job.

Vizza had his second interception returned for a touchdown this season when Jerrell Norton added insult to injury by returning an ill-advised pass 100 yards for a touchdown in the final minute of Saturday’s game. Oklahoma defensive back Nic Harris returned another pass from Vizza for a touchdown.

Vizza completed just 8-of-26 passes for 118 yards and wasn’t made available for comment after the game.

Meager made an appearance at the post-game presser and said rotating didn’t affect him. This is something Meager is used to, having gone through the same process for the last two seasons.

There have been great moments for Meager during that time, but Saturday’s game was not one of them. Meager completed just 7-of-15 passes for 71 yards and was sacked twice.

It was a performance that will only keep the calls for Vizza coming among UNT’s fans.

“We just didn’t execute. They are a good team,” Meager said of Arkansas. “When you play teams like them, you have to be sharp.”

Meager wasn’t as sharp as he was in games earlier this season. Vizza was better, but not by much on a night when the Mean Green rolled both players in and out without much success.

A lot of the credit for that performance goes to Arkansas, which came in desperate for a win after losing its first two Southeastern Conference games.

UNT needed something positive from its game against Arkansas just as badly, but didn’t get it, despite trying both of its options at quarterback on a night when the evaluation continued.

Just don’t call it a quarterback controversy.

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

newuntfan07 · October 1, 2007

Vizza threw the out route on that interception. The ball was thrown right over the pylon. DB made a great jump but I wonder if the intended target ran the correct route. Only the offensive coaches know if that was his fault or not. From the video screen, it looked like their was some miscommunicaton. I believe at that time we had all freshman in the game. So who knows.

I do know that GV moves the ball and stands awfully tall in the pocket for such a young man (kid). He gets little reps and might be trying to do too much. I agree, with a previous post, he has only seen OU and that was four weeks ago.

Dodge doesn't need a QB controversy. I don't think we have one. It is fairly apparent who should start the rest of the way. Vizza needs to go because the Sun Belt conference is out of the question this season.

You wonder if Vizza was Riley, if things would be different at this time. I think Meager is a nice QB but just doesn't pack the punch that the freshman does. Vizza is very exciting to watch and he does play with his heart and lays it out there. I watched him on the sidelines, he is a motivator. we have no one else out there trying to pump anyone else up. He came in down 35 or 42 to zero and he acts like it is 0-0.

Edited October 1, 2007 by newuntfan07