In Denton, Texas former Washington State offensive coordinator Eric Morris, the current head coach at North Texas, and his Mean Green would go on to dominate the Cougars Saturday. The Mean Green would  force five turnovers in the game and limit the Cougars to just two scores in their first road game of the season moving to 2-1 on the young season. 

“It’s unacceptable. That’s a lot of errors and we need to clean it up…” said WSU head coach Jimmy Rogers after the defeat to North Texas. 

North Texas would strike first and strike often against the Cougars, beating them 59-10. That is the most points WSU has given up in a game since 2019. The Mean Green’s first drive was capped off by a seven-yard touchdown run from running back Mckenzie McGill II. Jack Ellison, a walk-on, started for WSU at linebacker with Anthony Palano missing the game due to injury. 

“He’s out. I’m hoping to get him back. I don’t know if that will be the case though.” said Rogers 

The domination continued their next drive after Jaxon Potter threw his first interception of the season. On the next play, North Texas running back Jayden Becks ran for a 12-yard score. Just like that the Mean Green were up 14-0 with just over 7:30 left in the first quarter. They would go on to score six touchdowns on eight of their drives in the first half.

“Its just hard to respond in those situations and we gotta grow from that from how this feels and how it stings and move forward.” said Rogers.

The Cougars ensuing drive looked promising but sputtered in the red zone after three straight incompletions from Jaxon Potter. Jack Stevens ended off the drive with a 26-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 11. The Cougars struggled to get anything going and would not score again until the fourth quarter. 

With just over eight minutes left in the first half, disaster struck when running back Kirby Vorhees fumbled and the ball was recovered by North Texas on the WSU 19-yard line. They would capitalize off the turnover and a pass interference call in the endzone on safety Tucker Large and increase the lead even further. 

Just after the two-minute timeout Potter threw his third interception of the game, this one was returned 43 yards to the WSU 12-yard line. That was Potter’s last play of the game. North Texas scored on the next play when quarterback Drew Mestemaker rolled out to the right and found Landon Sides for the touchdown. 

Julian Dugger came back in at quarterback the next drive. On the second play of the drive Dugger fumbled the handoff with North Texas recovering it for their fifth turnover. North Texas scored on a 14-yard run from Jayden Becks, his second of the game.

Going into halftime, WSU trailed North Texas 42-3, with the offense not being able to get anything going against the Mean Green defense that forced five turnovers and limited the offense to just 177 total yards. On the other side of the ball, the WSU defense had given up just 185 total yards but could not keep North Texas out of the endzone. 

Coming out of halftime, Julian Dugger would remain in at quarterback for the first drive, to then be replaced by Zevi Eckhaus. North Texas would be held to just a field goal which was a relief after the offensive onslaught in the first half. WSU would pull most of its starters on defense and North Texas would respond by scoring its seventh touchdown of the game.
“I don’t think you can flush things like this. You gotta learn from it, we gotta grow…” said Rogers. 

Starting the fourth quarter, most of the crowd had left as would the North Texas starters on offense.  Mestemaker would end with 211 passing yards with four touchdowns. Running backs McGill II and Becks would combine for three rushing touchdowns. 

With just under two minutes left in the game, Eckhaus ran in for a two-yard touchdown. Eckhaus finished with 72 passing yards and one touchdown on the ground. Jaxon Potter ended the day with 139 passing yards and three interceptions on 16 completions in 23 attempts.

Next week the Cougars will return to Pullman to take on the University of Washington in the 117th edition of the Apple Cup. The game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. PST Saturday, Sept 20 in Martin Stadium.