Quick Reaction: North Texas 51-0 Lamar

First shutout since 2003 vs Troy

Denton, Texas was rainy, and DATCU was difficult to reach by car. The hype for this season was built upon a QB who had only played one game in high school or college since his JV B team high school appearance. The defense is Morris’ second coordinator. The opponent was — and we mean this with the most respect — a pretty mid-level FCS program.

You can be forgiven if the excitement level was low going in. It is okay if you feel hyped after a tremendous opening day performance from North Texas. Drew Mestemaker threw for 329 yards and three scores on just 24/32 passing in a little over two quarters of “work.” The Eric Morris offense was as expected, but with the added advantage of looking mistake-free and solid for the first time in a long time. If Drew Mestemaker and the first teamers wanted to put up 100 they could have. Easily.

The real story was the defense. What can be learned from a game against Lamar? Well we discussed in the previews that in recent program history 30 sacks is a bench mark we haven’t reached since the Murphy twins were here. Last year’s defense allowed 20 points to FCS SFA. They “held” toothless Wyoming to 17 points. Tonight? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Lamar didn’t even get a long broken play. It was a complete domination of a 3-year starter of a solid Southland Conference program.

Some quick observations as we celebrate a 51-0 blowout.

1. Drew Mestemaker Looked Comfortable

Even the most generous (serious) prognosticator thought Mestemaker would make some freshman-like mistakes. He has so few reps as the number-one guy that it seemed inevitable. After all, against Texas State he turned the ball over a couple of times and took a couple of bad sacks. Stone Earle and Chandler Morris made mistakes in their North Texas openers. Surely Drew wouldn’t be immune?

Well, he made everything look easy. He tossed the ball around on deep corners, crossers, deep digs, and even showed off some tough on some fades. New targets Simeon Evans and Cam Dorner looked dangerous. “Old” targets Wyatt Young and Miles Coleman looked even more dangerous. Mestemaker distributed the ball well and we can chalk up the drops, and mistakes to just some early first-game rust.

2. The Defense The Defense The Defense

We won’t know if this defense is the real deal until we get some real 85-scholarship opposition to measure against, but you can learn some things. Football is about details, and no more so than on the defensive side of the ball. One mistake allows a first down, a touchdown, or loses a game. That North Texas didn’t allow a field goal, and held Lamar to under-100 yards for most of the game (finished at 119) is telling. Details. It was 44-0 and NT was quickly reacting to a shovel-pass fake. They were contesting balls.

At the end of the first half, with a big lead, Wesloski gets a sack, forces the fumble by stripping the ball, jumps on it in the end-zone. It is detailed work, fighting to the last moment and taking everything from the offense and leaving nothing.

The defensive numbers:

119 total yards
88 pass yards allowed
31 rush yards allowed
3/13 3rd down defense
8 first downs
2.2 average yards per play
3 sacks
2 turnovers (int, fumble - 10 points off turnovers)

Lamar’s average 3rd down to go was 9.3 yards. They had 3 3-and-outs, and no 10+ minute or 5+ minute drives. Complete domination.

Guys who stood out: Ethan Day, seeming everywhere on the first couple of drives. Wesloski, who looked like a man-possessed. Whitter, whose speed was disruptive.

3. Run Game Probably Needs Work But Was Good

We said we wanted sacks, turnovers, and that the offense would largely take care of itself but that improving short-yardage effectiveness would be key. Mostly that meant getting better with short-yardage running.

NT treated this game as something of an audition for the five backs they have to establish themselves. Starter McGill looked poor, and only managed a yard on six totes. Sibley had the best per-carry average, and Becks got the most carries. For me, I enjoyed watching Hawkins the most, but he looked like he tried to bounce the ball out too quickly.

All in all, no one was great and in an ideal situation we would have seen something like 200 yards rushing with at least one guy getting close to 80 yards.

In the most important moments, NT was able to run the ball in from the 1 with Sibley, and the threat of the run allowed Mestemaker to walk in for the first score of the game. Give the run game a solid C+. You want more bang for 41 carries but there were 3 scores, and the squad got the important yards.

4. 51-0

Lots of teams can beat an overmatched opponent (and some lose, ahem Army) but the score in this game reflects a quality game played. North Texas didn’t just rely on big-plays to move the ball and score — like a series of long bombs that hid an otherwise weak offense (ahem, Littrell years) but showed they could move the ball and execute. Yes, they also showed some big-play ability.

Defensively, they didn’t simply wear down a tired offensive line and grab some cheap sacks against the backups when the game was put-away. No, they got first half turnovers and killed the game before it had a chance to begin.

The defense forced 4-straight punts by the middle of the second quarter — and no drive was longer than 6-plays. Lamar was in a 0-27 hole when Trey Fields grabbed an interception. NT got a field goal, just enough kill the game. Lamar had enough fight to try to push the ball down the field when Wesloski got his sack/fumble. From then on it was just a matter of seeing the game out.

Drew M and the offense added a quick 14 more points and from then on it was definitely over. NT had killed the will of Lamar, which in and of itself is very impressive.

Having experienced two seasons’ worth of humiliation that saw the defense bruised and battered nearly every game in some new and horrible fashion it was nice to see it flipped. The defense is Mean again.

Let me note here, in case you were thinking “Well, last year didn’t we only allow 14 to Army, and 17 to Wyoming, and 14 to Temple the year before?”

This is true, but Army’s 14 were 82% of the scoring on that day (we had 3) and they had a dominating 293 yards rushing. Stephen F Austin (FCS) scored 20 at DATCU, and had 248 yards of offense to boot. In 2023, Temple only scored 14, but put up 347 yards of offense, including 242 on the ground.

This was the first shutout in 22 years. You can be impressed even if it was “just” Lamar.

For comparison against recent FCS teams:

• 2024 SFA 432 yards against 3.5 ypp allowed 20 points allowed

• 2023 ACU 432 yards allowed, 5.5 ypp, 31 points allowed

• 2022 Texas Southern 458 allowed, 6.0 ypp, 27 points allowed

• 2021 NWST 418, 5.6, 14 pp

• 2025 Lamar 119, 2.2, 0

Wow, one of those really stands out, folks.

Next up: Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, who lost 23-6 to Michigan State.