DENTON, Texas -- Within every house of worship there are two kinds of parishioners -- the regulars there every week, and those that only darken the doorway on Christmas Eve and Easter. So it is in on Sunday morning as it is on Saturday afternoons -- or Friday night, as it was in North Texas's case.
"Right now we're ranked No. 3 in our conference, but that don't matter," one ROTC member told another as they walked into DATCU Stadium ahead of me. "We're trying to make the playoffs. The national playoffs."
The undefeated Mean Green hosted 24th-ranked South Florida in the first sellout in the 15-year history of DATCU Stadium. A program record 31,386 came out, and with them came first-world worries: worse-than-usual pregame traffic, mile-long beer lines. And an overarching urgency to capitalize a moment decades in the making.
"There's a lot of work that happens to get to this point," Dillon Lovelace, one of North Texas's most important boosters, told me. "A lot of unheralded effort. It's cool to see the community and the fans come out."
Hank Dickenson has called more than 1,000 North Texas football and basketball games since 1995. He's seen conference championships and an NCAA Tournament win and... lots of losses before half-empty-at-best crowds.
"I honestly mean this -- and I don't work in the department anymore but I'm still close to a lot of people that do -- it would mean so much for people that grind so hard all the time to get the break they deserve," he told me before the game. "We don't have the resources and built-in crowds every week; at North Texas, you really have to hustle. Everything's out there for them. I'm more nervous for the North Texas program than I am anybody else."
Spoiler alert: North Texas did not capitalize on the moment.
The Mean Green forced three first-quarter turnovers, but mustered only seven points off of them. Drew Mestemaker, who hadn't been intercepted all season, tossed his first pick of the season at the USF 10-yard line with North Texas looking to add to a 7-0 lead. He added two more in the two ensuing quarters, and his teammates contributed a muffed punt at the UNT 17-yard line inside the final minute of the first half, and a fumble that the Bulls returned for a touchdown.
North Texas was a downed punt away from taking a 21-14 lead to the locker room. Three turnovers later, they trailed 42-21 at the 11:35 mark of the third quarter.
The moment may or may not have been too big for the Mean Green -- Mestemaker arguing with officials after a targeting flag was picked up following his third interception was not the type of composure you'd like to see from your quarterback -- but South Florida was. Too big, and to strong and fast as well. Turns out, there was a reason USF won at the Swamp and was ranked in the Top 25. South Florida finished with 580 yards of offense -- 274 passing on 9.4 per attempt; 306 rushing -- and more was available to the Bulls if they needed it.
"Anytime you think you're going to play a Top 25 team, turn it over six times and come away victorious, you have issues," UNT head coach Eric Morris said. "The middle eight was as bad as it's ever been. The secret sauce we've had to win football games was not there tonight.
"I'll beat myself up for a long time over this one just because it was such a great opportunity for our fans and our university. We had a stretch there at the end of the first half to capture the momentum, and we did just the opposite."
An estimated 3,500 stayed to the end of South Florida's 63-36 drubbing. Children chased each other with discarded Boomsticks through vacant rows as the Bulls and Mean Green played out the string of an outcome long ago decided.
The magic and the mundane on Friday night is that it was merely a regular season game. UTSA will be in Denton next week and, in the context of UNT's season, that game is just as important as this one, if not more so. It remains to be seen if the Easter and Christmas Eve crowd will return to DATCU Stadium, but the faithful will be back, pining for another moment as big as the one they just had.