Former Lake Dallas standout Graysen Schantz hits North Texas quarterback Andrew McNulty in the Owls win over the Mean Green on Saturday. (Associated Press)
UNT only holds press conferences during football season on Mondays of game weeks. Thus there’s nothing to report right now on the UNT football front.
With that being said, I did have my weekly column in the paper today and talked about how UNT really misses the solid, steady — and yes, above average — play of former quarterback Derek Thompson.
It’s been a talking point all season. And since it can sometimes be tough to come up with a column topic that both one that elicits a response and opinions without burning bridges, I went ahead and wrote it.
This is the last time we will make the point that Thompson was an above average quarterback in C-USA and a really good player for UNT, but I will admit it has been entertaining to watch people back track.
For those of you keeping score, we have gone from:
– UNT won’t miss Thompson. Josh Greer or Dajon Williams will be better … BETTER … to …
– Well, Ok, maybe they won’t be better, but at least as good.
– Check that, maybe UNT won’t be as good this year at quarterback, but eight to 10. EIGHT TO 10. That would be Thompson’s touchdowns to interceptions in conference play last season. It’s become the mantra of the other side of the argument and the point people make while trying to say that Thompson was below average. That isn’t all that great, but continually pointing to that one stat kind of glosses over the fact that Thompson ranked third in C-USA in passing efficiency on the entire season (133.6) and seventh in conference play (126.0), third in completion percentage in league play (61.5), third in passing yards on the season (2,896) and fifth in conference play (1,620).
Now, I’m not all that good at math, but there were 14 teams in C-USA last year. Any way one looks at it, Thompson was better than average last season. Considering UNT currently ranks 10th out of 13 teams in C-USA in passing offense (184.1 yards a game) and 11th in passing efficiency (114.0), above average, which is what Thompson was, looks pretty darn good right now.
That’s my point. Now that I’ve made it, I’ll let it rest.
And in other news …
Shout out to @RiceFootball1 one of our top five plays of the week. See them all here (VIDEO) http://t.co/rw5bhUICZR #CUSA20
— C-USA Football (@CUSAFB) October 27, 2014
Ryan Pollard’s interception return for a touchdown was one of Conference USA’s top five plays of the week. I bring it up because it looks like Pollard read that play all the way and read Andrew McNulty.
Karla Pineda was named the Conference USA offensive player of the week in soccer, while Jackie Kerestine was named the defensive player of the week. UNT knocked off Old Dominion on Sunday to capture at least a share of the conference title. UNT can win it outright with a win or tie against Western Kentucky on Friday.
We pointed out not too long ago that UNT picked up a surprisingly high rating for its game against Southern Miss that was broadcast locally. Barry Horn has put up his weekly look at the numbers. Preliminary numbers had UNT-Rice rated last among the eight games of local interest Horn listed this week.