Brett Vito

There was a time not too long ago when the best approach to take on a Monday when talking about North Texas was to be the voice of reason.

It seemed best to call for calm and to follow the advice of New York Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez, who once said, “There is no reason to panic.”

After Saturday’s game against Rice, I am starting to wonder if that is true any longer for the Mean Green faithful.

UNT did not just perform poorly against the Owls. The Mean Green was horrible.

UNT gave up a whopping 77 points and fell just short of the school record of 79 it surrendered last year against Oklahoma. UNT turned the ball over six times and inspired Rice head coach David Bailiff to apologize to Mean Green head coach Todd Dodge for running up the score.

And that was after Bailiff tried to run out the clock in the fourth quarter, when Rice didn’t score.

The Mean Green is bad. That’s all there is to say at this point.

When the NCAA released its statistics on Sunday, UNT ranked last nationally in scoring defense with an average of 54.8 points allowed a game. It trails Idaho, which ranks one spot ahead of the Mean Green, by 7.8 points a game.

“It’s very alarming,” Dodge said. “If I had any answers, I would give them to you and give them to my football team first. We are all we have. They are our players and we are their coaches. We have to come together as a team.”

Washington and Army are the only other NCAA Bowl Subdivision teams left in the country other than UNT (0-4) that have yet to win a game, and the Black Knights were actually competitive against Texas A&M before falling 21-17.

UNT hasn’t come within 30 points of anyone in its first four games.

Sometime today, ESPN college football editor David Duffey could very well elevate the Mean Green to No. 1 in his weekly “Bottom 10,” a humorous column that rates the worst college football programs in America.

The time for looking at the bright side has long since passed as UNT heads into its Sun Belt Conference opener against Florida International on Saturday at Fouts Field.

UNT needs to beat the Golden Panthers for a myriad of reasons, perhaps the most important being that the beginning of conference play offers the Mean Green perhaps its last glimmer of hope to turn its season around.

FIU has just one win on the season and ranks with Western Kentucky as the teams the Mean Green seems most likely to be able to compete with the rest of the season. The game is also at home, where UNT has picked up its only wins under Dodge, who is now 2-14 with the Mean Green.

“We have a week to get better,” UNT linebacker Tobe Nwigwe said after the Mean Green’s loss to Rice. “We are better than the scoreboard indicated. There is no doubt in my mind about that.”

One has to admire Nwigwe’s confidence and determination, but if UNT is ever going to prove that it is better than what it has shown so far this season, now is the time.

Now more than ever, it seems like do-or-die time for UNT.

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