North Texas 20 Florida Atlantic 14 9.29.12

North Texas went to Boca and snatched a victory away from what could have been the jaws of defeat. It was not pretty. It wasn’t anything to be crazy proud of. It was just a win. That is all that matters. Seriously, look at “lowly” UTSA out there in the WAC. They whooped up on a terrible New Mexico State team to get to 5-0 entering into their trip to Houston to take on Rice in two weeks (after a bye). Nevermind that they played a couple of Who teams and two n00b squads too.

You think recruits and casual fans care about schedule strength? Nope. They care about tweets from the likes of Pre Snap Read and the like. No one is giving us love for taking on a much tougher schedule and fairing well against it except die-hards on gomeangreen.com.

Going into our very own Houston game, we look uncertain. Perhaps we should have spent four weeks beating up on terrible squads instead of going against BCS contenders. Right now Derek Thompson looks nothing like the confident quarterback that went out against LSU. He looks like he can’t hit wide-open guys running down the field. The offense has regressed to one-wideout, two-tight end formations. This may please the old school fan base but when every other squad in the nation is lining up with two and thee wideout sets? Well, lets just say we don’t look appealing. Add to that the fact that we aren’t exactly Wisconsin out there. Check that. We look like 2012 ‘Sconsin instead of the 2000-2011 Badgers who would run no matter what.

Florida Atlantic, stealing Troy’s gameplan, sat on the run and dared our Fearless Leader QB to throw on them. Well, he did, just as he did against the Trojans this time with slightly more success. He completed 60% of his passes, but perhaps more important to the win was Zach Olen. He hit all of his field goals including three to make one. What do I mean? Well he made three field goals in a row but two were taken off the board because of roughing penalties. (FAU was a generous host.)

I wouldn’t be unreasonable to think last week’s game should have ended similarly. Everyone screamed and yelled about Zach and Derek last week (myself included, and rightfully so). Tonight, in Old People Land, the squad did enough to win. On a day where Geno Smith and Nick Florence played real life NCAA 13, we weren’t going to get much mention for getting a regular blowout over FAU. A win counts much more than any moral victory and gets better with age. There are no pollsters to impress, nor were there any TV watchers that will remember this game. All that will persevere is the result. That is to say that no one will care that Derek’s 251 yards were hard to get, nor will they care that Antoinne Jimmerson was our leading rusher with 25 yards on 12 carries.

Nope.

It will be on to Houston next week to take on a team that is reeling save for a win over a bad Rice squad. The Coogs still have name caché, despite their current predicament. Early on there was no reason to think we could hang with the Sun Belt and teams like Houston. The defense has been shown a truckload of promise despite concerns about the secondary. Zac Whitfield is availing himself well for a freshman former-running back. Unfortunately, the offense is becoming a two-trick pony. Run until there are negative plays and loft deep balls to Brelan Chancellor and Ivan Delgado. These aren’t bad ideas, but this combo has only been good for an average of 19 ppg. That won’t cut it folks. Louisiana-Monroe went out and put up 63 today. Louisiana Lafayette had 49 and Middle Tennessee had 48 against Georgia Tech.

That’s right. The little old Sun Belt is looking looking pretty damn formidable. Our offense is looking pretty damn pedestrian.

I don’t mean to be a killjoy. I’m happy about the win. I predicted it, even. That said, I really would like to see the offense put a complete game together. You know, one where the offense has 500+ yards and 40+ points.

Does that make me an ungrateful fan who can’t appreciate how hard this game is?

I guess.

I think that just makes me a fan.

Go Mean Green.