DENTON, Texas (AP) — Byrum Brown threw three touchdown passes and ran for two more scores, Jhalyn Shuler returned a fumble 34 yards for South Florida’s fourth TD in span of 4 1/2 minutes and the No. 24 Bulls beat North Texas 63-36 on Friday night, handing the Mean Green their first loss this season.
The Bulls (5-1, 2-0 American) tied it at 21 with 2 seconds left before halftime when Brown threw a 2-yard TD pass to Jonathan Echols to capitalize on a muffed punt. They added three quick scores after halftime.
"We came out of the half just rocking, and that's offense and defense," USF coach Alex Golesh said. "Defensively, to cause four turnovers against a really good offense, against a really good quarterback that hasn't turned it over, I thought really intentional by what our guys practiced, what our guys' mindset was going into the game."
North Texas (5-1, 1-1) hadn’t gone this deep into a season without a loss since a 5-0 start in 1959, which was nine years before “Mean” Joe Greene was a unanimous All-American at the school.
"I’ll beat myself up for a long time over this one, just because it was such a great opportunity for our fans, our program, our university, on national TV," Mean Green third-year coach Eric Morris said.
South Florida went ahead to stay with some trickery right after halftime, on receiver Christian Neptune’s 29-yard TD pass to Keshaun Singleton after first taking a handoff on a sweep. The Bulls’ third interception in the game then set up Sam Franklin’s 11-yard TD with 12:35 left in the third quarter, a minute before the big return by Shuler for a 42-21 lead.
UNT redshirt freshman quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who never started a varsity game in high school, was 30-of-46 passing for 326 yards and two touchdowns, while also running for a score. He had thrown 11 TD passes without an interception in the first five games before the three picks by the Bulls.
South Florida outgained UNT 580 total yards to 423. Brown completed 22 of 28 passes for 245 yards, and ran 21 times for 82 yards.
"Mistakes and turnovers by me. But clean those up and should be more than 60 (points), should be 70-plus every game," Brown said.
The takeaway
South Florida: The fast-paced Bulls have scored 229 points in their past four games (57.3 per game) this season, and have 267 points (53.4 ppg) in their last five conference games going back to last season. It was the second Friday night in a row the Bulls lost two fumbles and threw an interception before halftime and still won by a lopsided score — they beat Charlotte 54-26 last week.
"Things like that, when you’re playing high-level football are going to cost you," Golsesh said. "And the crazy thing is, for the last two weeks, it hasn’t in terms of the wins and losses."
While again having to overcome some early sloppy play, USF finished strong and should remain in the Top 25 next week.
North Texas: In the most-hyped game in school history and with an announced sellout crowd of 31,386, though the stands emptied in fourth quarter, the Mean Green made a bunch of uncharacteristic mistakes. They finished with five turnovers overall, and that doesn’t included the muffed punt right before halftime. UNT came into game with only three turnovers total, and a plus-1.6 turnover margin that was bettered only by Alabama.
"I love the way that we created eight turnovers in these us two weeks to create an eight extra possessions," Golesh said.
Up next
South Florida: Hosts Florida Atlantic on Oct. 18.
North Texas: Hosts UTSA on Oct. 18.
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