UT-Arlingon 97 North Texas 64: Beatdown

That was the worst loss in Johnny Jones history. What happened? Lot’s of things. We could break it down and analyze the exact scenarios that led to getting down by forty effing points in the first half. Lots of turnovers and poor shooting.

That wasn’t what did it. This squad just got punched in the mouth and took a whole half before recovering enough to do something about it. They never were going to beat UTA by more than ten points if they didn’t dig such a large hole that once they got down there was no chance to make it back.

Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes you just come out flat and circumstances are right for wildfire of terrible play. A perfect storm of things contributed to that. Chris Jones and Jordan Williams tweeted post-loss that they were as stunned as we fans were at the loss.

Do you believe them?

Well, don’t you have to? I mean, if you write them off as say, whiners and lames who don’t show up and give it their all don’t you pretty much resign yourself to a terrible basketball season? You simply cannot give up at this point.

Thankfully, our brains are wired to justify and make excuses for ourselves and those close to us. In this case it is healthy and justified.

Still, I fully recognize the need for THIS team to not suck. There is a lot of pressure on them because North Texas is seemingly teetering on being relegated. Though there is no formal relegation, some people have a feeling that in the struggle for power that is modern college football, our poor attendance due to poor performance (so goes the reasoning) will place the school in the ranks of the Bowl-less. We will be doomed to battle Sam Houston State for supremacy of the niche blog.

Much of the power structure cannot be changed. We don’t have many alumni in the State Legislature or on the boards of huge corporations. We cannot sway the powerful to get us sweet conference deals. That is fine. All we can do is make good decisions and let that pay off for us down the road.

I’m cool with biding our time. That requires patience. Especially in the case of the Huge Loss. It was a terribly embarrassing one. Thankfully, we have the opportunity to recover. There is plenty of time.