The North Texas Mean Green never attained 10 wins in a season as a member of the FBS.
Equipped with their first AP Poll ranking since 1959, that all changed Saturday night at Rice Stadium. The Mean Green overcame an early 14-0 deficit, lighting up the scoreboard for 42 unanswered points to ultimately decimate Rice, 56-24. North Texas secured that elusive 10th win to inch closer to its first-ever American Conference Championship Game appearance.
“We put it all together, and we played really good team
football for a 13 to 14-minute stretch,” North Texas head coach Eric Morris said. “It was a 42-0 run. We settled in nicely. It’s a real resilient group that they have, and getting to 10 wins, I think it’s special. The true last one was in the 40s and we’re just grateful we have an opportunity to get number 11.”
North Texas racked up 640 yards in the five-touchdown victory, and its FBS-best scoring offense generated 50 points for the sixth time this season. The team generated touchdowns on eight of its 10 full possessions — never requiring as many as four minutes for a single drive. In the process, the Mean Green’s skill positions stars stuffed the stat sheet to a jaw-dropping extent.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who entered the matchup as the nation’s fifth-leading passer collected 469 passing yards on a 19-of-23 showing, delivering three touchdowns through the air and one on the ground in one of many stellar showings in his first year as a starter. It marked Mestemaker’s second 450-yard performance, fifth-straight start completing at least 72 percent of passes, and ninth start without an interception this season.
“He executes their offense at a high level,” Rice head coach Scott Abell said of Mestemaker. “He’s made very few mistakes on the year, he doesn’t force it, and he spreads it around. Every quarterback has their favorite target, but he takes what they give him. He hits his underneath checkdowns. He hits a couple over the top. That’s a credit to him, his staff — they’re very well prepared.”
Meanwhile, true freshman Caleb Hawkins amassed 97 rushing yards and punched in three touchdowns in the offensive clinic — exchanging his cleats for a new pair after slipping in the early going. The true freshman produced his fourth game with at least three touchdowns this season, totaling 12 scores across his last three outings. Hawkins is now up to 22 total touchdowns in his first year out of high school — 19 rushing and 3 receiving — as a virtual lock for the Freshman All-American team.
Mestemaker and Hawkins are no strangers to posting astronomical numbers, but the most impressive record-breaking performance of the night belong to wide receiver Wyatt Young. Young reset the 2025 single-season FBS record with 295 receiving yards, besting TCU wide receiver Eric McAlister’s 254 posted on SMU in September. The receiver also set the all-time American Conference record in the process. Young only needed eight receptions to attain his 295, kick-starting the game by corralling 74 and 84-yard touchdowns on his first two catches from Mestemaker.
“It’s a surreal feeling,” Young said. “I’m blessed to be in this position. Today, me and Drew were just clicking. Nothing more to it than that. We had a great week of practice, and I don’t know — we were just tearing it up.”
Prior to the Mestemaker, Hawkins, and Young show, Rice’s option attack took over in the first quarter, rapidly putting North Texas on notice. The Owls kicked off the in-state matchup with two long drives, generating a 14-0 lead over the ranked Mean Green. Quarterback Chase Jenkins faked a handoff into a speed option, sprinting in an 18-yard touchdown. Then on the ensuing drive, Rice ran a similar concept in the red zone. This time after faking the handoff, Jenkins added a wrinkle and pitched the ball to slot receiver Aaron Turner, who reached the front right corner of the end zone from 12 yards out. Turner accrued team-highs with 78 rushing yards and 58 receiving yards, scoring a touchdown in both facets, to complete his best game as an Owl.
“We continue to try to heavily involve guys like Aaron Turner in our offense,” Abell said. “First year, sometimes you can’t dictate that in an option scheme. We didn’t always execute our blocking on the perimeter, and this week we did a better job of that. That’s a compliment to the guys around him.”
Neither team turned it over in an offensive-centric game, but North Texas’ defense stepped up shortly afterward with regular stops. The turning point transpired when the Mean Green sniffed out a 4th and 1 D’Andre Hardeman Jr. run early in the second quarter, subsequently proceeding to force four consecutive Rice punts. Outside linebacker Ethan Wesloski thrived against Rice’s option offense with 17 tackles, contributing 1.5 of the team’s eight tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
“We started really slow on defense,” Wesloski said. “We didn’t change anything schematically. What we did do was we sat down as a defense and said, ‘This game’s gonna get away from us if we don’t change what we do.’ They weren’t doing anything we didn’t practice. We just had to settle down, lock in, and execute our plays. Guys were in position, but we just weren’t executing our plays.”
Rice (5-6, 2-5 American), in front of one of its most electrifying home atmospheres in recent memory — assisted by a free beer giveaway for students (1,246 Busch Lights distributed) — could not secure bowl eligibility on senior day. Now the Owls must upset South Florida in Tampa next Saturday in order to produce their second 6-win campaign since 2014. Abell alluded to the fact that North Texas was in a similar position just one year ago fighting for a sixth win to conclude the regular season, and Rice aims to follow that trajectory.
“When you build something, it doesn’t happen over night,” Abell said. “I think our guys have done an incredible job this year. I’m proud of the steps we’ve taken for the program so far this year with the opportunity to get win six, which would speak volumes for this program and how young we are. You look at (North Texas), and where they were fighting for that bowl opportunity not too long ago, and now they’re already here… I want our guys to learn from it and understand at the same time, our expectations are, ‘How do we climb to that?’”
North Texas (10-1, 6-1 American) is one stride closer to the American Conference Championship Game and College Football Playoff. The Mean Green secure a spot in the title game by triumphing over Temple next Saturday, as they look to build upon their winningest season in school history.
“Just win for us. That’s been our motto all year long,” Morris said. “We’ve never got ahead of ourselves. We’ve never talked one time about conference championships until tonight, because if we win this one, we’re gonna have a chance to play for it.”
