Derek Thompson passes bowl test

[Harry]

When Derek Thompson got the opportunity to make school history, the senior quarterback put his passes on the money.

The Glen Rose High School grad led his University of North Texas Mean Green to a 36-14 triumph over UNLV in the Heart of Dallas Bowl Jan. 1. On their way to a 9-4 record, the Mean Green grabbed their first bowl win since 2002 in their first bowl appearance since 2004.

“That’s absolutely one of our best games and we put everything together in the second half,” Thompson said. “It’s only the third time in school history we’ve won a bowl game, so it’s a great highlight to end my career with. It’s special to be one of those three teams – we’ll be remembered forever. Our head coach Dan McCarney kept saying ‘be remembered – put your name in stone.’”

Thompson completed 21 of 30 passes for 256 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions to garner MVP honors.

“You start to notice more things you can exploit in their defense when you prepare for so long,” he said. “I wanted to go out with a bang, so I made sure in practice that I did everything I could to help prepare this team. My offensive linemen, my receivers and my running backs made my job easy.

“All I had to do was get them the ball and let them work. I may have been MVP, but I had a lot of help.”

The quarterback felt good about the preparation coaches and players alike invested into the Heart of Texas Bowl.

“We had several weeks to prepare for UNLV, and anytime college coaches have that much time to prepare they’re going to go nuts and have a pretty good game plan going in,” Thompson said. “We have a pretty big senior class that wasn’t going to be denied and we played well to come out with the victory.”

read more: http://www.yourglenrosetx.com/sports/article_a166a0b9-25b9-5531-a370-8f21fcc4d623.html

[FirefightnRick]

Nice article, thanks for posting.

Rick

[Cooley]

Saw the replay of the game yesterday. They put up a graphic that stated that he had 14 TDs on the season and 13 Int's. That can't be correct, right?

[BillySee58]

Saw the replay of the game yesterday. They put up a graphic that stated that he had 14 TDs on the season and 13 Int's. That can't be correct, right?

Why can't that be correct? Those were his stats coming in. Counting the bowl game he finished with 16 tds and 13 ints. Edited January 3, 2014 by BillySee58

[UNT90]

They also said 6 were not his fault (wrong route ran, tipped balls, etc...)