North Texas unveiled prized recruit Riley Dodge on Saturday in its game against Tulsa.

It turned out to be a rough debut for the son of UNT’s head coach and the rest of the Mean Green in its home opener against Tulsa at Fouts Field.

Tulsa’s high-powered offense overran the Mean Green in the first half and the Golden Hurricane cruised the rest of way in a 56-26 win.

Dodge, a former all-state quarterback at Southlake Carroll, made a few big plays for the Mean Green while playing slot receiver, but couldn’t prevent UNT from falling to 0-2 on the season.

“It’s very disappointing,” UNT head coach Todd Dodge said. “We are going to get things going right around here. It felt right going in. We felt like we had the attention of our team. I am disappointed, our team is and our staff is that we didn’t play any better.”

UNT turned to several of its true freshmen for a spark and to fill in for a host of players who did not play due to injuries against Tulsa (2-0), including slot receiver Brock Stickler.

Todd Dodge moved another slot receiver, B.J. Lewis, to defense and used his son Riley to fill the void on offense.

Riley Dodge was expected to redshirt this season while sophomore Giovanni Vizza handled the quarterback duties. Todd Dodge said that his son would continue to work at slot receiver and some at quarterback, but said that Vizza is his quarterback.

“I wanted to come in and help,” Riley Dodge said. “My role was being the fifth receiver. I had been working up to it the whole week.”

Riley Dodge came into the game in the first quarter at wide receiver and set up UNT’s only touchdown of the first half when he took a pitch on a reverse and raced 27 yards to the Tulsa 2-yard line.

Freshman running back Lance Dunbar finished the drive from there, darting in from 2 yards out to cut UNT’s early deficit to 14-7.

That was one of the few highlights for the Mean Green offensively while the outcome of the game was still in question.

Tulsa ripped off 28 straight points in the second quarter to take a 42-7 lead and control of the game.

“We gave up too many big plays,” UNT linebacker Tobe Nwigwe said. “It wasn’t what they were doing to us. It was what we were doing to ourselves. We lost a little bit of focus in the first half.”

That type of lapse is just what UNT couldn’t afford to do against Tulsa’s high-powered offense.

The Golden Hurricane came into its game against the Mean Green having scored at least 40 points in six of its last seven games dating to last season.

Tulsa needed just one half to reach that total against the Mean Green. Tulsa scored on six of its seven possessions in the first half while racking up 300 yards of total offense. Golden Hurricane quarterback David Johnson was particularly effective, picking apart UNT’s defensive secondary. Johnson finished with 418 passing yards and six touchdowns. He connected with eight wide receivers.

UNT came back late in the second half, when Giovanni Vizza threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Casey Fitzgerald and a 6-yard strike to Breece Johnson. Vizza finished with 247 passing yards to lead the Mean Green.

UNT’s production in the second half was a marked improvement from the opening week of the season, when the Mean Green managed just one touchdown in a 45-6 loss to Kansas State.

UNT saw its play in the second half as a step forward, one it wished it could have taken in the first half when the outcome of the game was still in question.

“We talked about playing with heart and pride at halftime,” Todd Dodge said. “The sad part is that we should have done that at the beginning of the game. It’s my job as the head football coach to figure that out. I still have some high aspirations for this team. I talked to our team about playing to our potential and we are not right now.”

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