Green Gang Blog

By Steven Bartolotta, September 22, 2009, 1:29 p.m. 

October 13, 2001. It was an ordinary Saturday, nothing really special about it by most standards. It was a little cool and breezy but by the end of the day the fortunes of two football programs would be changed while the birth of a new rivalry occurred.

Middle Tennessee at North Texas.  5-0 vs. 0-5. The Mean Green was down in the dumps. I know I was. It was my first season working in the athletic department and all I could think about was "Man I hope Middle doesn't come in here and hang half a hundred on us in the first half."

I thought they would by the time the game was over.  0-5 was rock bottom and North Texas did more than just scrape it, they were glued to it heading into the game.  The Mean Green was averaging 11 points a game and just lost to lowly, I mean lowly ULM on the road in front of about 71 people (I counted).

Meanwhile MTSU was still in its infant stages of D-I and talk about riding high. They opened the year out by beating Vanderbilt on the road, just hung 70 points on Idaho, and were averaging a mere 45 points a game.  Hicks 4 Heisman was in full swing and the Blue Raiders were the crown jewel in the first year of the fledging Sun Belt Conference. MTSU was even garnering votes in the Top 25.

Until it happened. North Texas did the unthinkable. They walked on the moon, they discovered plutonium by accident, they slayed the beast and beat MTSU 24-21.

The game started with a bang right out of the gate as north Texas scored the first 14 points of the game. A Ja'Mel Branch TD run followed by a Randy Gardner TD catch made it 14-0 early in the 2^nd quarter.

What's going on here? Did these teams switch jerseys before the game? Did Wes Counts forget that if you spend more than 15 minutes in a Fouts Field locker room you need a radiation suit?

This won't last I thought. Just a fluke, MTSU's vaunted offense will get rolling and they did. Sort of. A TD cut the Mean Green led in half to 14-7 but North Texas ended the lead right before the half with a George Marshall TD with 39 seconds left. 21-7 NT.

It still won't last I thought. MTSU came out rolling with another TD to Kendall Newson and it was 21-14. Okay, now the Mean Green is going to fold, I've seen the script to this drama.

Didn't happen. A 42-yard FG by Jason Ball made it 24-14 in the 4^th quarter. Could this really be happening I said?

George and Hank, god bless them they are out of their minds to keep talking about an upset of this magnitude I mumbled.

A Reshard Lee TD run made a three-point game at 24-21 with six minutes to play.  North Texas was clinging to the lead. They went three and out and were forced to punt from the 19 yard line. That's when Jason Ball uncorked the punt of his life and the infamous words of "Blow George Blow" were heard from the booth.

Ball's punt, with a fierce wind at his back, started out as shank, a large groan went up. But it bounced around the 40 yard line and didn't stop rolling until it reached the MTSU 2 yard line 79 yards later. 

The football gods must be happy we finally got those soccer lines off of the Fouts Field turf to give us a bounce like that.  The Mean Green defense did the rest as Darrell Daniels sacked Counts and the game was in the books. The goal post was brought down. For some reason the entire goal posts never made it down that day, but one of the posts did, and that is all that mattered.

In an instant, the North Texas program had life while the Middle Tennessee team just got sucker punched. The Mean Green went onto the capture a share of the league title and earned the New Orleans Bowl berth by virtue of that early October win. MTSU got to sit at home and watch them.

North Texas won 25 more games after that one in league play before finally losing. The Mean Green went to four bowl games in a row. MTSU went four straight seasons without a winning record.

These two programs are radically different from that moment in time. North Texas is looking to regain its lost glory. MTSU is looking for respect.  

11,621 people were officially there. By my unofficial count it's closer to 50,000 these days. It's days like these that make college football matter to so many.  

No matter how many people were actually there, October 13, 2001 is a date both of these programs will certainly remember.