Easton Messer Made North Texas Earn Its 48-41 Escape

Third-and-14 did not end one Florida Atlantic drive. Fourth-and-5 did not end another. Easton Messer turned both situations into second-quarter touchdowns Thursday at DATCU Stadium, forcing North Texas to find another answer each time. The Mean Green won 48-41, but Messer’s work explains why that much scoring never purchased much comfort.

Messer finished with 16 receptions for 189 yards and three touchdowns. Those numbers would be impressive in any game. Here, they explain the shape of the game. FAU quarterback Caden Veltkamp threw for 452 yards and five touchdowns, and Messer was the most persistent reason North Texas could not make its lead feel secure.

His first touchdown came with the score tied 10-10 in the second quarter. FAU faced third-and-14, a down that usually offers the defense a chance to force a punt or at least limit the damage. Veltkamp instead found Messer for 27 yards and a touchdown, putting the Owls ahead 17-10. One completion erased both the distance and the defensive margin built into the situation.

Messer’s second scoring catch was even more costly in terms of possession value. With FAU facing fourth-and-5 at the North Texas 12, Veltkamp connected with him for a 12-yard touchdown. The play tied the game 24-24 with 39 seconds left before halftime.

North Texas had allowed the Owls to finish a fourth-down opportunity from inside the 20, and the price was not merely three points. It was another touchdown in a game where neither offense was interested in modesty.

North Texas had the better answers on its side of the ball. Tayven Jackson completed 33 of 46 attempts, producing 404 yards and four touchdown passes without an interception. Jahiem White supplied touchdown runs of 59 yards and 1 yard, while Kyle Koch caught two scoring passes.

The Mean Green did enough offensively to move the game forward, but that is a different standard from controlling it. Against this FAU passing attack, every empty possession threatened to become a plot twist.

Peyton Taylor provided one of North Texas’s most valuable defensive plays with the Mean Green ahead 41-31. Veltkamp had taken FAU from its own 25 to the North Texas 20 when Taylor intercepted him at the North Texas 2 and returned the ball 1 yard. Taylor stopped a promising drive near the goal line, and his seven solo tackles added to a substantial night.

North Texas had created the kind of field-position swing that can settle a shootout.

It did not settle this one. North Texas punted on its next possession, and Messer answered on FAU’s following drive. The pass reached him at the North Texas 6 on a 34-yard touchdown play, cutting the deficit to 41-38 with 8:26 remaining.

The 34 yards describe the entire scoring play, not 34 yards after the catch or an assertion about its air distance. The important football point was simpler: Taylor’s interception had prevented one score, but North Texas had not converted the stop into points, and the Owls were back within three.

The Mean Green did find other interruptions. In the third quarter, Brayden Knox sacked Veltkamp for an 8-yard loss and forced a fumble recovered by C.J. Coombes at the FAU 32.

Jackson then ran 28 yards to the FAU 4 before Justin Stevenson finished the possession with a 4-yard touchdown reception. FAU also failed on fourth-and-2 at its own 41 when Veltkamp lost 7 yards. Those plays were not evidence of defensive command.

They were high-value interruptions, the sort a team needs when it cannot consistently prevent completions.

North Texas’s response to Messer’s third touchdown was the possession that kept the victory from becoming a collapse. The Mean Green traveled 74 yards in nine plays over 4 minutes, 24 seconds. Max Reese caught passes of 14 and 33 yards, including the third-and-12 completion from the North Texas 37 that reached the FAU 30.

The drive also contained a minus-2-yard Stevenson play and an incompletion, so it was not an effortless march. North Texas absorbed the setbacks and still finished, with Koch scoring from 2 yards for a 48-38 lead.

FAU reached the North Texas 25 on its final scoring drive, but Curlee Thomas IV’s 7-yard sack helped force a 43-yard field goal with 1:56 left. The Owls’ onside kick ended with North Texas retaining possession. On third-and-4, Jackson found Koch for 14 yards to the FAU 31, and two kneel-downs ended the game.

North Texas finally stopped Messer from getting another opportunity by keeping the ball after Koch’s last first down. That ending belongs in any account of the receiver’s night, too. Sixteen catches had repeatedly rescued FAU possessions. When North Texas ran out the clock, it finally found a way to leave that threat out of the next play.

Sources

North Texas: official final box score and play-by-play

ESPN: game record and event timing

North Texas: official game report