DENTON, Texas -- Jeffery Garrett struggled to find words. His stutters echoed in the hallway of the Apogee Stadium locker room once, twice, then a third time before he strung together a sentence. "We just didn't make plays."
The Ball State senior cornerback, and the rest of the football team, had just suffered a 34-27 upset loss to North Texas.
It wasn't just Garrett's defensive squad, either. Ball State's offense committed five turnovers throughout the game, including four in the first half.
The game ended 10 minutes short of a four-hour contest, and it resulted in many minor injuries for Ball State.
"At one point it felt like we had the JV team out there," Ball State head coach Pete Lembo said. "We were playing I think three freshmen and one sophomore in the secondary."
The new players in the secondary couldn't keep up with North Texas' spread offense for the full 60 minutes.
Mean Green quarterback Derek Thompson completed 31 of his 47 pass attempts in the game. He also added 72 yards on the ground.
"We knew he was a good quarterback coming in," Garrett said. "We studied him. He made plays with his feet that we didn't see on film."
One of those plays Thompson made with his feet happened with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter.
North Texas faced third down and three yards to go in Ball State's territory. Thompson began the play in the shotgun. After the snap, he surveyed the field and took off running up the middle of the Cardinals' defense.
A Ball State linebacker squared up to tackle him, but Thompson quickly slipped by. He ran the rest of the way untouched for a 26-yard, go-ahead touchdown.
In the first half, Ball State fumbled the football away three times: one each from wide receivers Jamill Smith and Willie Snead and one from running back Horactio Banks.
Quarterback Keith Wenning threw two interceptions in the game. His pick late in the second quarter snapped a streak of 150 straight passes without an interception, dating back to Nov. 6, 2012, of last season against Toledo.
His second interception came on Ball State's final offensive play of the game.
"We couldn't keep the momentum," Lembo said. "It's amazing we were in a seven-point game at the end with five turnovers."
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