This is Homecoming Week and Rice is in town for a matchup. For a long time Rice played in the Southwest Conference, and has history with Texas, A&M, Texas Tech and the rest. In my early sports consciousness they never really occupied the same level as North Texas.
I remember the 2008 game — I had to work the Saturday of the game so I was checking my phone for updates. We allowed 40+ at halftime and I could not believe this was possible. A low for the program. A couple of seasons later in Todd Dodge’s final season, Nathan Tune led the offense to a 31-26 lead before Rice drove to take a one-point lead early in the fourth. MGN was present to see the ill-fated last two drives and Nathan Tune injury that took his season, and Todd Dodge’s last hope1
Beating Rice in 2013 was cathartic in so many ways. They had been such a good program (relatively) in recent years and getting the double-goal line stand on Halloween that night was huge. It is THE game for so many of that time.
North Texas lost twice as McCarney lost his touch, but in 2016 had an epic comeback to force OT and won in the extra period for Seth Littrell and Mason Fine’s first win. (see first picture).
Since then, North Texas has mostly handed the series fairly easily. There was a bad loss in 2019 (NT finished 4-8 that year) but there have been blowouts in our favor since.
