North Texas 2025 Season Rewatch: Mean Green Beats UAB, and It Was Ugly

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GAME 1 | GAME 2 | GAME 3 | GAME 4 | GAME 5 | GAME 6 | GAME 7 | GAME 8 | GAME 9

Game 10 of North Texas’ 2025 season was ugly … for UAB, at least.

North Texas beat the Blazers 53-24 in Birmingham, as the Mean Green moved to 9-1 on the season.

In preparation for Oklahoma State’s 2026 season, we’re going back and watching North Texas’ 2025 season. Here are some takeaways from this game against UAB.

It Was Over Instantly

Here’s how this game started:

Caleb Hawkins touchdown
UAB turnover
Caleb Hawkins touchdown
UAB turnover
Caleb Hawkins touchdown

It was 21-0 with 3:11 to play in the first quarter. UAB wasn’t ever actually in this game.

That start meant the Blazers were already in go-for-it mode, and on their third series, they kept the offense on the field on fourth down deep in UNT territory. But Saadiq Clements (now a Cowboy defensive lineman) got a tackle for loss to end that drive.

Then on North Texas’ first play of its fourth drive, Mestemaker hit Wyatt Young with a beautiful pass for a gain of 61 yards before Hawkins scored his fourth TD of the game on the next play. It was 28-0 with 11:07 left in the first half.

Friday Night Lights reference: Eric Taylor would’ve forfeit at half time.

Good Day for the Trio

Drew Mestemaker, Caleb Hawkins and Wyatt Young all shined in this one.

Hawkins earns Player of the Game honors considering he scored five touchdowns and ran for 189 yards. For the most part, he wasn’t having long gashing runs but rather putting drives away inside the 10-yard line. But he ripped off a 51-yard run in the fourth quarter to get that yardage total to look as good as his TD total. He also had a 21-yard catch and run.

Young caught eight passes for 143 yards and a touchdown. The score came on a well-designed play in the third quarter from 7 yards out.

His biggest play was that aforementioned fourth drive. It was officially a 61-yard gain, but I broke down the math on where Mestemaker threw it to where Young caught it, and that ball was in the air for 57 yards and landed right in Young’s breadbasket.

Young has had at least 100 receiving yards in three of UNT’s past four games. And (spoiler alert) he is about to have his best game of the season.

Mestemaker was 18-for-25 for 298 yards and two scores. After throwing for 608 yards two games ago, Mestemaker has almost seemed like he’s in cruise control (not in a bad way) these past two games with other guys making plays around him.

No Mercy

There were a few borderline running up the score moments in this one.

The first came when UNT scored to go up 44-18 with 3:26 left in the third when Morris and Co. elected to go for 2. Not only did they go for 2, but a false start moved the ball back and they still went for it — and got it to make it 46-18.

My best guess here is you go for 2 to go back up four touchdowns, but with about a quarter to play and the fact that UAB hadn’t scored four touchdowns all day to that point, I think the lead was probably safe.

Then with three minutes left in the game, Mestemaker hit Cameron Dorner for a 30-yard TD pass to make it 53-24, capping off a 99-yard touchdown drive. Ouch. Sweep the leg.

Other Notes

• North Texas wore all whites in this game. All of their unis are honestly pretty slick, but these were even moreso.

• Morris isn’t new to massive roster overhauls. According to the broadcast, UNT had 68 newcomers last season.

• It was another solid day for UNT-turned-OSU defenders:

Evan Jackson (S) — 9 tackles
Quinton Hammonds (S) — 7 tackles, 1 TFL
Ethan Wesloski (LB) — 6 tackles, 1 forced fumble
Keviyan Huddleston (DE) — 5 tackles, 2 TFLs, 1 sack
Kollin Lewis (CB) — 4 tackles
Saadiq Clements — 4 tackles, 1.5 TFLs, 0.5 sacks

• Brandon Hawkins Jr. scored UAB’s first touchdown. That means someone with the last name Hawkins scored this game’s first five touchdowns. Gotta be a record.

• Mestemaker took a big hit on a scramble. He got up. The defender did not. I’m glad the guy was alright, but it was sort of funny as he tried celebrating from a knee while Mestemaker walked away.

• It was another big turnover day for the Mean Green. UNT picked off three passes, forced a fumble and got two stops on fourth down.