By Steve Habel/Associate Editor
AUSTIN — The brisk warm breeze felt in Austin and across the Lone Star State on Saturday evening might have been a collective exhale from the Longhorn faithful as Texas easily beat North Texas 38-7 before a crowd of 93,201 fans at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
With the win, the Charlie Strong era on the 40 Acres began [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] on a mostly positive note as the Longhorns manhandled an overwhelmed North Texas team thanks to a dominating defensive performance and opportunistic plays from Texas’ bevy of talented offensive performers.
If beating the Mean Green could be considered an off-Broadway debut for the 2014 Longhorns, Texas did just about all it needed to do to earn rave reviews.
“It was a great team victory,” said Strong afterward, when he almost broke a smile. “We just dominated on defense and made some plays that we needed to to score on offense. From day one nine months ago when we started this process it’s been all about making improvement every day and in every way. We did that tonight and it feels good to get the win.”
Texas (1-0) allowed North Texas just 94 total yards of offense and only 15 passing yards. The Mean Green were anything but in never gaining more than eight yards on any single play – North Texas had three eight yard runs in the game while its longest pass completion came in at just seven yards.
“When you take away explosive plays from a team you take away their heart,” Texas senior cornerback Quandre Diggs said. “We went right after North Texas and made sure they never got a chance to get anything going in this game.”
Texas is now 102-17-3 in season-opening games and has won its past 15 season openers. UT has never lost to North Texas and has now outscored the Mean Green 186-14 in the past five games.
The Longhorns racked up four interceptions, all by players – Jordan Hicks, Dylan Haines, Demarco Cobbs and Adrian Colbert – who had never picked off a pass before. Those interceptions were aided by a blitzing Texas defense that sacked the Mean Green’s two quarterbacks four times and constantly provided a disruptive force.
“We knew they were going to blitz us, but we didn’t know they were going to blitz us like they did,” North Texas quarterback Josh Greer said. “They blitzed us on 26 of the 28 plays we ran in the first half. That made us throw the ball early, and sometimes that backfired on us.”
It took the Horns until their fourth possession of the game to break through, as they took advantage of a dubious personal foul call on North Texas to keep a drive alive before marching to 1-yard scoring plunge by Malcolm Brown that gave them a 7-0 lead with 4:06 to play in the first quarter.
Key on the drive as well was a 27-yard Ash to John Harris pass on a scramble off a broken play that put the Horns into the red zone and converted a third down.
Texas expanded its advantage to 14-0 just under six minutes into the second quarter when Brown scored again, this time on a 3-yard run after a 28-yard catch and run by Harris to set the table. The first career interception by Hicks gave the Horns the ball at the UNT 31 and paved the way for the touchdown.
The Horns’ other running back, Johnathan Gray, did most of the heavy lifting on another march in the waning minutes of the first half, dashing off left tackle for 42 yards to the UNT 3 before failing to get into the end zone on three tries. Ash eventually rambled around right end on a bootleg and dove across the goal line to push the UT advantage to 21-0.
Texas outgained North Texas 190-31 in the first half, including a 108-4 discrepancy in passing. The Horns intercepted the two North Texas quarterbacks three times in the first 29 minutes of the game, and the defense’s domination set the table for a feeding frenzy in the second half.
Ash found Harris again on an 8-yard touchdown pass to punctuate the Horns’ opening drive of the second half that pushed the Texas lead to 28-0. Brown was a key cog in the drive, carrying four times for 38 yards.
Harris caught seven passes in the game, two more than he did in all of 2013.
Texas lost its chance at a shutout midway through the fourth quarter when Ash fumbled an exchange from backup center Jake Raulerson in his own end zone and the loose ball was pounced on by North Texas’ James Jones.
The Horns responded with a Nick Rose 34-yard field goal and Cobbs’ interception and 28-yard return for a touchdown.
Texas ended up with a 353-94 advantage in total offense.
“We tackled well and stayed intense throughout the game,” Strong said. “We are gonna enjoy this win tonight and go to work tomorrow on BYU. We will take every game one at a time, then look at the next one and the next one. But I’m happy to get this one behind us and to know a little more about what we have to work with.”
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