It’s been 35 days since North Texas last played and 21 days since Rice last played. Both teams made their long-awaited returns to the gridiron at Apogee Stadium this Saturday. The rust was evident early within the Mean Green, trailing 10-0 in the opening minutes. But North Texas (3-3, 2-2 C-USA) piled on 27 unanswered points and controlled the second half to hand Rice (1-2, 1-2 C-USA) a 27-17 loss.
“It felt like a game one all over again,” Rice head coach Mike Bloomgren said. “You’d love to say, ‘Well, we had three weeks in between games and that’s hard,’ but they had five weeks they overcame.