North Texas 2025 Season Rewatch: Mean Green Defense Overwhelms Washington State in Week 3

GAME 1 | GAME 2

Game 3 of North Texas’ 2025 season was the Mean Green’s second blowout win of the year.

North Texas hosted Pac-12 foe Washington State in Denton and proceeded to throttle the Cougars essentially from the opening kickoff, with the game mercifully ending 59-10 in UNT’s favor.

Here is what stood out as I continue my rewatch of North Texas’ 2025 season in preparation for Oklahoma State’s 2026 season.

Turnover City

Skyler Cassity’s group had its best performance of the young season in this one, forcing five first-half turnovers as part of this route.

Two of those turnovers were secured by player now at Oklahoma State, with safety Evan Jackson and corner Kollin Lewis both picking off passes.

Jackson nearly housed his, returning it 60 yards before being brought down.

Lewis nearly had an interception on the play before he actually had one, with the one he was able to hold on to being a finger-tip grab.

A cool part with turnovers for UNT last season is that once the player with the INT or fumble recovery gets back to the sideline, he gets draped in a green championship belt before clanging two drinks together Stone Cold Steve Austin style while standing on the bench. Here’s Stone Cold Kollin Lewis:

Outside of the turnovers, there was some good open-field tackling going on from Quinton Hammonds and Lewis.

It was 42-3 at halftime.

UNT held Wazzu to 211 yards of total offense for the game. Only 64 of those yards came on the ground, with the Cougars running for a measly 2.3 yards per carry. Washington State didn’t score a touchdown in this game until there was 1:57 to play and starters were long gone.

Here is a look at stat lines for players now on OSU’s roster:

Quinton Hammonds (S) — seven tackles, one TFL
Evan Jackson (S) — four tackles, one INT
Fatafehi Vailea II (DT) — two tackles
Kollin Lewis (CB) — two tackles, one TFL, one INT
Keviyan Huddleston (DE) — two tackles, two sacks
Ethan Wesloski (LB) — one tackle
Saadiq Clements (DT) — one tackle

The Caleb Hawkins Train Gets Rolling

It remains funny that this season is going to end with Caleb Hawkins being the national leader in touchdowns because he, again, wasn’t a big piece of this game until late.

He finished the game having played 15 snaps, carrying eight times for 50 yards and scoring his first touchdown.

It all came late. UNT’s first drive of the fourth quarter was the Caleb Hawkins show. He carried six times for 44 yards and that score while also catching two passes for another 19 yards.

This is the game before the game for Hawkins, as he’s about to truly breakout against Army, but he made the most of this garbage-time opportunity here.

Mestemaking It Look Easy

Drew Mestemaker’s line: 24-for-29, 211 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions.

That’ll play.

Through three games in his first full season as a starting quarterback, Mestemaker has thrown for 764 yards, nine touchdowns and no picks. And two of these games have been absolute thumpings, where Mestemaker hasn’t had to play much in the second half.

I’m not exactly sure how to put this, but how he hits guys in the back of the end zone raises my eyebrows almost every time.

He had a couple of those in this game, hitting tight end Tre Williams III in the back corner of the end zone before this ridiculous play where he rolled to his right and threw across his body, hitting Landon Sides.

Through three games, I’m not breaking any news here when I say Mestemaker has looked incredible.

Other Notes

• It’s not like this Wazzu team was horrible either. The Cougars finished the season 7-6, nearly beating No. 4 Ole Miss in Oxford, losing 24-21. The next week, Wazzu dropped a close one to No. 18 Virginia, 22-20.

UNT won its first three games by a combined score of 149-40. Those three opponents went a combined 25-12 while not playing North Texas last year.

• Sort of a small world thing going on with this game. Follow along.

Eric Morris had two stints on Washington State’s staff. He now coaches at OSU.

Jimmy Rogers was Washington State’s coach a year after taking South Dakota State to Stillwater in 2024.

Rogers is now the head coach at Iowa State. Morris is now at Oklahoma State. The two will meet again this season in Ames.

• The tight end might be all the way back in Stillwater. All three of these guys are tight ends:

The guy on the far side (Brandon Young) went in motion toward the other two. Mestemaker called for the snap when Young got close to his position-mates and quickly threw to Young with the other two being his lead blockers for a touchdown. Fun play, and fun use of tight ends.