North Texas Handles Business, Wins 30-7 over Southern Miss

North Texas took care of business at home against a game Southern Miss team in Denton.

North Texas’ Mason Fine lost the yardage “battle” to USM’ Jack Abraham, but won the game with interception-free football and some game-management that will be ignored by the box score.

Fine threw for 292 and a score on 24 of 38 passing, and mixed in some spin moves, some scrambles, to keep his offense moving despite an inconsistent day.

The North Texas run game made an appearance again, with DeAndre Torry turning in his second-career NT 3-TD game on 17 carries for 95 yards. Thirty-four of those yards and one of the scores came on a 34-yard exclamation point with under a minute.

Here is a Torrey TD from earlier in the game.

DeAndre Torrey bursts into the endzone for another @MeanGreenFB TD!

We've got a 9-point game heading into the 4th. pic.twitter.com/HZ9H0Misuk

— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) October 13, 2018

Jack Abraham had a nice day throwing with 318 n 29/42 and a score to Quez Watkins from 44 yards out in which Quez out ran the entire secondary.

Who else but QUEZ WATKINS⁉️@SouthernMissFB doesn’t stay down for long! pic.twitter.com/VXpZd8TO6u

— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) October 13, 2018

Watkins and fellow wideout Jordan Mitchell each had over 100 yards receiving. The last time NT allowed an opponent to have two 100+ yard receivers was in the New Orleans Bowl last year.

Mitchell put up 135 yards on 12 carries and 15 targets.

Through the third quarter the total yardage was nearly the same — 310 for USM to NT’s 344 total. USM was moving the ball but could not score. A missed FG and a turnover deep in NT territory ended two promising drives.

That could have been the reason Southern Miss head coach Jay Hopson put Kwadra Griggs in the game for a drive. At that point NT had just extended the lead to 23-7, and there was plenty of time left. Griggs finished 1 of 2 for -1 yards and a two-yard loss running.

Jack Abraham was intercepted once and USM turned the ball over three times. North Texas extended their national lead in interceptions with a Taylor Robinson pick that was badly overthrown by Abraham.

Up next for NT: A huge matchup between NT 6-1, (2-1) and UAB 5-1 (3-0) in Birmingham next week. This game will decide the fate of the West for the rest of the season. UAB is playing its best football of the year.