North Texas football: Mean Green dominate Southern Miss in complete team win

By John Hamilton

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DENTON -- Minutes after North Texas finished off a 30-7 win over Southern Miss, UNT coach Seth Littrell walked into the locker room and addressed his team.

Littrell went through the usual game notes after a hard-fought, gritty victory over arguably the Group of Five’s best defense. He then congratulated his team for reaching bowl eligibility in just seven games.

“They just kind of looked at me,” Littrell said. “No one really clapped or anything.”

There’s a reason for that. Everyone knew they were going to make a bowl game. Everyone expected UNT – a program with just a handful of bowl appearances in program history – to make a bowl game. The only other stretch with multiple bowl appearances was from 2001 to 2004 under Darrell Dickey.

“We’ve always had high standards and high goals,” Littrell said. “Getting bowl eligible wasn’t one of our high goals or anything like that. To be honest with you, someone congratulated me on becoming bowl eligible and I hadn’t really thought about it.”

There aren’t many teams that test your mettle quite like Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles came into the game ranked No. 8 nationally in total defense and giving up just 18.5 points per game. Even against No. 10 Auburn, USM allowed just 24 points and 341 total yards.

The Mean Green sure didn't get any extra help from Mother Earth. Storming pushed warmups back 40 minutes, decimated the home crowd and kept the ball wet. That can be a disaster against a well-coached defense. 

UNT’s criminally underrated defense took the team on the other sideline as a challenge. A week after an emotional letdown against UTEP down the stretch, the Mean Green came up with one of the biggest performances of defensive coordinator Troy Reffett's tenure.

“We all met as a defense after the UTEP game and talked, no coaches or anybody” linebacker E.J. Ejiya said. “Everyone expressed their feelings about what happened against UTEP. We came and decided that we have to get back to the defense we truly are.”

Apparently, that defense is really dang good. The Mean Green held Southern Miss to just seven points. Even those seven points were on a bruising 44-yard breakaway touchdown. Credit Southern Miss receiver Quez Watkins for making a play.

But other than that, the Mean Green defense stole the day. Ejiya and defensive lineman LaDarius Hamilton each posted a pair of sacks. The Mean Green posted 14 tackles for loss and four sacks. North Texas held the Golden Eagles to just 3.6 sack-adjusted yards per carry.

Taylor Robinson nabbed an interception off talented quarterback Jack Abraham. Khairi Muhammad pulled the ball right out of a running backs hands for another turnover. It was a dominant performance in every sense of the word.

Just two years ago, the Mean Green defense ranked among the worst in college football. A year before, it was even worse. Littrell grinned when asked if the defense has changed significantly since he arrived on campus in 2016.

“You tell me,” Littrell said. “It looks a lot different, huh?”

Of course, the UNT offense doesn’t take a back seat to anyone. Southern Miss had not allowed more than 22 points this season, and that was in a 40-22 win over Rice. The Mean Green exploded for 30 thanks to some timely scores down the stretch.

Superstar quarterback Mason Fine broke Mitch Maher’s completion record early in the second quarter, and that was just the start. He completed 24-of-38 passes for 292 yards and a touchdown against the vaunted Golden Eagles defense.

Running backs Nic Smith and DeAndre Torrey also managed to find some running room. The pair combined for 135 rushing yards on just 24 carries. Torrey also added his second three-touchdown game of the season.

This was not UNT’s best performance of the season. Honestly, it wasn’t that close. It was an ugly, rain-soaked cage match between two teams that refused to give in.

“It takes pressure off our offense that we don’t have to score every time,” Fine said of the defensive performance. “We want to score every time, but they take the pressure off.”

UNT has scored 40-plus points and won with offense multiple times this season. A special teams play swung the game against Arkansas. Now, the defense has won a game for this hungry North Texas squad. The ability to win in different ways is what makes an elite team.

But even after starting 6-1 for the first time since 1988 – when the program was in Division I-AA – the Mean Green aren’t close to satisfied.

“We’ve set our eyes on something bigger than that,” Ejiya said. “We have our eyes on a ring. Bowl eligibility is amazing, but we’ve got a bigger picture.”

Things don't get any easier in Conference USA play. The Mean Green are in search of their first conference title since they were a member of the Sun Belt in 2004. Next Saturday, UNT faces the team that sits atop the Conference USA West Division: UAB. The Mean Green can't afford another loss if they want to play for the conference. 

UNT travels to Birmingham, Ala., to play UAB at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 20. The game will be broadcast live on beIN Sports. 

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