MANHATTAN, Kan. -- After a breakout season offensively in 2007, a change at defensive coordinator and a year in head coach Todd Dodge’s spread offense, North Texas had every reason to believe it was in line to take a step forward in its season-opener against Kansas State.

The Mean Green is still waiting on that performance despite the small steps forward it took in a 45-6 beating at the hands of the Wildcats on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

The Wildcats stifled UNT’s spread offense and became the latest Big 12 team to give the Mean Green fits in a season-opening game.

UNT has opened the season against a Big 12 opponent in seven of the last 10 seasons and has been outscored 329-33 while dropping all seven games.

“It was disappointing,” Dodge said. “We expected to play much better from a production standpoint. … It’s one of those things that we are going to look at as they were in the right place defensively and made plays and there were times that we didn’t make plays.”

Some of the Mean Green’s costliest mistakes came in the opening moments of the first half, setting the tone for the night.

UNT went three-and-out on its first possession and punted the ball away to Kansas State wide receiver Deon Murphy, who returned a 30-yard kick from Truman Spencer back to UNT’s 8-yard line. A holding penalty pushed the ball to the 4, setting up a Keithen Valentine touchdown run on the Wildcats’ first play from scrimmage.

Kansas State pushed its lead to 28-0 by the end of an opening half it dominated.

Wildcats quarterback Josh Freeman was particularly effective, throwing for 146 yards and two touchdowns on 12-of-15 passing. The junior’s most impressive play of the half came when he hit Brandon Banks for a 30-yard touchdown while scrambling toward the sideline.

“Freeman is a tremendous player,” Dodge said. “Josh looked like a three-year starter. He is obviously a gifted with size, strength and a rocket for a right arm. There is not a throw he can’t make.”

Kansas State pushed its lead to 42-0 in the third quarter before pulling Freeman and most of its other offensive starters that gave the Mean Green problems all night.

Freeman finished with 232 passing yards for the Wildcats, while Valentine had 65 rushing yards against a UNT defense that was playing its first game under Gary DeLoach, who returned to Denton in the offseason for a second stint as the Mean Green’s defensive coordinator.

UNT couldn’t keep the Wildcats in check defensively or keep up offensively in its first game after a 2007 campaign that saw the Mean Green set a school record for total offense with 4,901 yards despite facing a Wildcats defense that allowed an average of 49.5 points a game during a four-game losing streak to end last season.

The Wildcats limited UNT quarterback Giovanni Vizza, who led all true freshmen at the NCAA’s Bowl Subdivision level last season with 2,388 passing yards, to 100 yards through the air.

“We got off to a slow start and didn’t execute early,” Vizza said. “The drives we did execute on, we didn’t finish.”

Cam Montgomery rushed for 62 yards for the Mean Green, while fellow running back Micah Mosley added 56.

One of the few highlights of the night for UNT came when Vizza threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Alex Lott. That lone score was little comfort for UNT after a tough opener.

“I feel like we got some payoff for our hard work,” Montgomery said. “This was a learning experience. We played hard. Some things just didn’t go our way. There are some things we can take from this.  We will come together.”

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.