NCAA: Little North Texas' bowl berth is 'caws for celebration Article written by: Steven Schindler A couple of weekends ago I was all tucked in on a sultry south Texas winter night, absorbed in the latest best-selling Osama bin Laden biography, when the air was shattered with a louder than usual phone ring. It was Steven Jr. screaming at my ear in a much louder than usual voice from his rumbling frat house 300 miles away at the University of North Texas. "We're going to a bowl, Dad!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Can you believe it? After 42 years, North Texas is going to a bowl! 'Caw!" He was beside himself. I was deaf. And by the sounds of it he was in the midst of generations of frat brothers all screaming their guts out at the chapter big screen as their "Screaming Eagles" trounced Idaho 50-27. The victory meant they were going to a bowl. 'Caw! (That's screaming eagle talk! 'Caw!) Ok, hold it a minute, I'm reminded we can't call them "Screaming Eagles" anymore. Recently the University of North Texas was told they couldn't be the "Screaming Eagles". Eagles in the wild were complaining because their proud heritage was being tarnished. There would be no more eagle 'caws in Denton, Texas. And it was only a couple of years before that a major sports magazine declared Denton the worst sports town in the country. Little UNT hadn't exactly thrived in the NCAA sports arena and nobody in his right mind envisioned 2001 being any different. But there's an old Texas saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute." In a sudden outburst of Texas meteorological insanity the new and improved North Texas "Mean Green" find themselves riding an improbable 5-0 win streak in Sun Belt Conference play. After starting their season 0 and 5, UNT (5-6, 5-1 Sun Belt) is unbelievably destined to face Colorado State ( 6-5, 5-2 Mountain West) in the inaugural "New Orleans Bowl" to be played in the Louisiana Superdome December 18. Goodbye 42 years of misery and shame! Hello big time college football bowling in the biggest party city in America! How could this be? Have the gridiron gods gone mad? What kind of Halloween trick-or-treat is this? Smelly feet? What? 'Caw! Fortunately for North Texas, the NCAA put their stamp of approval on allowing the Mean Green to participate in the New Orleans Bowl in spite of their losing record this season. By losing to Troy State 18-16 to close out their year UNT technically did not qualify for bowl participation with only 5 wins. But because they won their coneference the NCAA will allow the school to have their party on Bourbon Street. When Last North Texas even sniffed a bowl, the "Lean Green" dropped the first ever Salad Bowl in '48 to Nevada 13-7 and didn't fare any better in their second and last bowl appearance 42 years ago, losing to New Mexico State 28-8 in the 1959 Sun Bowl. North Texas's green had lost its mean! About the only glimmer of hope anyone in these parts had since was the brief appearance of gridiron defensive superstar Joe Greene back in the '60's. A then nationally respected "Mean Green" defense brought pride and national recognition to North Texas faithful before "Mean Joe" moved on to terrorize the NFL in a long, glorious career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. UNT then spent years loitering in the shadows of Division I-A NCAA athletics. Flaunting the ghost of "Mean Joe" they courted the Southwest Conference for a chance at playing with neighborhood big boys like Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor, only to be continuously spurned as an unworthy suitor. All that was left the "Screamless Eagles" was the bland taste of life as a 1-A independent, then as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, then as a demoted I-AA program, then as part of the dearly departed Big West football conference and now a member of the newly created I-A Sun Belt Conference. Legend is told amongst the aluminum benches of the slightly larger than high school-sized Fouts field in Denton, that the one thing UNT football does best is groom kickers for the pros. Nobody quite knows where they learned to do that, but hey, its something to hang your hat on, right? Caw! But suddenly this is a different year. After winning a total of five games the previous two seasons; piling up five losses and then reeling off five unlikely victories this season, North Texas is going bowling. "This was the last thing you would think could happen", said UNT quarterback Scott Hall. "But it happened. We hung with it. It's funny what determination will do." Coach Darrell Dickey took over the UNT program in 1998 with a bent towards old-fashioned football values and a plan to try and sign the best players in Texas. In '98 UNT placed second in the Big West Conference, its best finish in 5 years in the league. In '99 Dickey's Mean Green beat a couple of bowl bound teams. In 2000…"We were just three minutes away from winning six games...That's not to say we should have won those games, but we were nearly able to that with a very young team." Dickey said. This season North Texas joined the Sun Belt Conference. After three years of active recruitment of Texas football talent Dickey started the year with nine of his '99 recruits claiming starting jobs in just their third season. Seven of his recruits from last year are either slated as starters or have already made starts. "The biggest strength that we have is that for the first time since I've been here we have an experienced player at each position.," Dickey said. "In past years we've had to deal with a lot of on-the-job training." Dickey's plan seems to be working. Sophomore quarterback Scott Hall started 9 games as a freshman running UNT's option-oriented, I-formation offense and is showing greater confidence and leadership with every game. The team replaced departed all-time leading rusher, Ja'Quay Wilburn, with this season's 1,000-yard rusher Kevin Gilbreath. After scoring only 46 points in its first five games UNT's improving offense scored 69 points in its next two contests. The fireworks continued through the final 2001 home game at Fouts Field with a solid 42-17 trouncing of Louisiana Lafayette. In their last victory in the Kibbie Dome UNT whacked Idaho 50-27 in a lopsided affair. Lest anyone forgets to remind you, the "Mean Green" defense lives again. All-America candidate senior linebacker Brad Kassell has formed a formidable barrier in tandem with star sophomore linebacker Cody Spencer. The North Texas defense has not allowed a 100-yard rusher thus far this season and has become a difficult unit to score on. This defense showed its "Mean" streak in the Idaho game forcing three third quarter fumbles that Scott Hall's offense converted into a 16-point burst over a 43-second span that put them ahead for good and clinched their first conference crown and longest winning streak since 1994. Steadily improving offensive and defensive play combined with the steady quality play of punter/place-kicker Jason Ball (remember, they're really good at developing these guys!) UNT developed into a team to be reckoned with the final half of the season. All of this sudden success plays right into the hands of new North Texas Athletic Director Rick Villarreal. In order to sell his aggressive $95 million five-year athletics improvement plan to the 100,000 some-odd UNT alumni in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, Villarreal was in dire need of something to cheer about. With this year's women's soccer regular season championship and the football squad taking the inaugural conference title, it should make Villarreal's job a bit easier reconnecting with UNT's alumni base and thus securing the necessary funding to update the school's athletic facilities. The 'caw of the 97th ranked eagles can be heard in Denton again. The mean is back in their green and little University of North Texas is back. It's been a long time coming and for all UNT fans its certainly 'caws for a celebration that may last for weeks, months, years! The "Mean Green" are going to a bowl! 'Caw! Home | Jim Rome Show | The Last Word | Gloss | Jim Rome World Tour Jungle Store | The Polls | Inside Jim Rome | The Clones | Jungle Chat Site Created by © Copyright 2001 Content provided by independent writers. The views expressed on this site are not necessarily the views shared by Myndgruve and Jim Rome. Moreover, these views are only opinions for the purpose of entertainment.