The Homecoming Crowds were small as North Texas took on Florida International University in conference action the past Saturday evening. The weather was perfect as one more game completed the Fouts Field Finale. The 14,718 Homecoming Fans watched another loss by North Texas dropping them to 1-6, 1-3and another season of no bowl hopes. Once again “Dodge Ball”failed to live up to expectations.

The game started out exciting as Brelan Chancellor took the kick off 73 yards taking it deep into the Golden Panthers territory and it looked like the Eagles would break FIU'sr ecord of not have anyone score a touchdown on them in the first quarter this season. However, they held forcing North Texas to settlef or a Zach Olen 33 yard field goal giving North Texas their only leadof the game 3-0.

There were some bright spots for North Texas as a fourth-quarter fake punt to Craig Robertson resulted in a64 yard touchdown run. Unfortunately, only a couple of thousand fans got the see one of the few exciting moments in the game because the rest were already home.

Probably the third exciting moment in the game for North Texas was with a couple of minutes left in the game, was when Offensive Coordinator Mike Canales decided to put Chase Baine under center and to give the ball to Brandin Byrd. It was then Byrd got most of his snaps in the game and continued to runup the middle getting great yardage. He carried the ball ten times for 39 yards. The defense was not in the prevent defense but were upon the line. The offensive line just kept moving the defensive line backwards.

FIU keyed on Running Back Lance Dunbar out of the spread formation and held him in check. He carried the ball eleven times for 38 yards.

Another injury occurred when Will Atterberry was upended and had to be carted off the field. Trent Deans came in to fill in for Atterberry.

Baine had a decent game passing for 13completions on 28 attempts for 142 yards but was put on his back four times.

John Shorter was the defensive tackler of the game getting five solo tackles with two assists for seven total tackles. Robertson has the argument he was the defensive player of the game with four solo tackles with eight assists for a total of12 tackles.