Troy hopes to have North Texas seeing red

DENTON, Texas — Chris Jamison is one of a select group of Troy Trojans that remembers the last trip Troy made to Denton, Texas.

North Texas was on top of the Sun Belt world, having won 26 straight conference games and four straight league titles.

Troy was a newcomer, in its second year in the Sun Belt and looking to make a splash. The Trojans won that game 13-10 in 2005, when Jamison was a starter at left guard as a redshirt freshman. It was on ESPN2 on a Tuesday night, so the rest of the world saw what Troy was all about.

“We wanted to show the Sun Belt what we could do because nobody else could beat them,” Jamison said. “We thought we had smooth sailing from there. It didn’t work out, but we were real happy after the game.”

A game ball was presented to Dr. James Whiteside after the game because star linebacker Leverne Johnson was able to recover quicker than expected from a broken leg.

Johnson had four tackles in the game as the Trojans held UNT’s vaunted rushing attack to 3.2 yards per carry. That backfield featured Patrick Cobbs, who is now with the Miami Dolphins and a teammate of former Troy safety Brannon Condren, who had 12 tackles in that game.

“Some of the best players I’ve ever played with were on that team — Bernard (Davis), Leverne (Johnson, (David) Tramble, Torre (Lankford), (Johnny) Faulk, (Adrian) Ghent,” linebacker Bear Woods said.

But that didn’t translate to success. Troy was on top of the world after its win, but it turns out it was just two bad teams fighting it out. Troy went 4-7 that year; UNT went 2-9.

Troy makes its return to Fouts Field in Denton today at 6 p.m. The two teams have gone in opposite directions since, as Troy has won or shared two straight conference titles and at 3-0 in the league, is looking for a third.

UNT hired Todd Dodge as head coach last year, but the program has sputtered, going 2-17 in his tenure. The Mean Green and Washington are the only winless teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

North Texas is giving up 50.9 points per game. Three teams have scored 74 or more in the two years of Dodge’s tenure. UNT’s last home game was a 59-31 loss to UL-Lafayette.

“(ULL) struggled putting drives together, but they hit big plays,” Troy offensive coordinator Neal Brown said.  “That’s one thing that’s consistent throughout all the games is that they’ve given up big plays, so we’ll try to figure out where we can hit them on that.”