September 27, 1997
North Texas vs. Texas A&M
Texas Stadium - Irving, Texas - Sept. 27, 1997
The 12th Man for the Aggies was Spencer Earl, from Orange, Texas.
Senior placekicker Kyle Bryant, a top candidate for the Lou Groza Award and All-America honors, made 3-of-4 field goals today, connecting on kicks of 51, 48 and 27 yards and missing a 50-yard attempt. The 51-yarder was Bryant's fifth career field goal of longer than 50 yards and was his longest since he made a 52-yarder against BYU in last year's season opener. Prior to the 50-yard miss in the first half, Bryant had made nine straight field goals dating back to last season.
Bryant is 5-of-6 on field goals this year and is 4-of-5 on kicks longer than 40 yards. He is 47-of-69 in his career, second in A&M history behind the school record of 56 by Tony Franklin in 1975-78. With 257 career points, Bryant ranks fifth in A&M history and is chasing the school record of 291 points by Franklin.
Sophomore defensive back Brandon Jennings posted his second career interception in the first half. Jennings only other pick-off came last year against Oklahoma.
Sophomore quarterback Randy McCown's short TD run in the fourth quarter was the first of his career. McCown's 17-yard run in the first half was the longest of his career and was the first of his career of longer than nine yards.
Sophomore punter Shane Lechler had seven punts for an average of 48.7 yards. Prior to today's game, he had punted only five times this season for a 44.4 average.
Late in the second quarter, the A&M defense surrendered its only touchdown this season.
Freshman defensive back Jeff Wilson posted his first career forced fumble early in the third quarter after an A&M punt, setting up the go-ahead touchdown. The fumble was recovered by freshman defensive back Michael Jameson, the first recovery of his career.
Junior running back D'Andre Hardeman scored on a 2-yard run in the third quarter and a 5-yard run in the fourth period. Hardeman has three TD runs this season and 22 in his career.
Sophomore linebacker Chris Thierry posted his fourth sack of the season in the third quarter and caused his second fumble of the year. Senior Brad Crowley recovered the fumble, the third of his career, then junior Dat Nguyen recovered the fifth fumble of his career when Crowley was stripped.
Sophomore Dante Hall rushed for 156 yards on 19 carries, his second 100-yard game of the year and the fifth of his career. Hall finished with a career-high 225 all-purpose yards (45 PR/24 KOR/156 rush). Hall has had five career 200-yard all-purpose games, including two this season.
Junior running back Sirr Parker rushed for a career-high 124 yards on 17 carries, his third career 100-yard game. His previous high was 116 on 18 carries vs. UNT last year.
Parker and Hall are the first A&M running back duo to each rush for 100 yards in the same game since Eric Bernard (115) and D'Andre Hardeman (121) did it last year against Baylor. The pair combined for 280 yards, the most by a running back duo at A&M since 1992, when Greg Hill (141) and Rodney Thomas (179) combined for 320 yards against Texas Tech.
In three games this season, A&M has out-scored its opponents by a whopping 161-16, the second most points ever scored by the Aggies in three consecutive games. In 1917, A&M out-scored its first three opponents 184-0 en route to an 8-0 record.
DEFENSIVE LINEMAN BRAD CROWLEY: "We played a good game today. We were pretty aggressive in the first half but things didn't go all that well for us. We made some adjustments at halftime that worked for us. I think North Texas just gave up. I thought it was a great win for us. Everyone learned a lot, especially to keep fighting and not give up. We were able to get them to the breaking point, they broke and we ran away with the game."
RUNNING BACK DANTE HALL: "This is the type of game we were expecting. And I think it was the type of game we needed. We had played two blowouts and really weren't getting good looks. So, it was good to play in a tough game like this before we play Colorado. I can't wait to play Colorado."
HEAD COACH R.C. SLOCUM: "We've got a lot of respect for North Texas. They are a talented team and they played very hard. We came out in the first half and made some mistakes but I thought we kept playing hard and corrected those mistakes in the second half. We came out and took control in the second half and showed a great deal of character. I thought it was important to have a game such as this where we faced a little adversity before we go play Colorado. I thought our running backs ran extremely hard all day."