University of North Texas Athletics
Green Gang: Freshman Class No. 4 In The Nation
4/8/2010 12:00:00 AM | Return to Play
By Steven Bartolotta, April 8, 2010, 3:31 p.m.
Quick question. When was the last time North Texas was ranked No. 4 in the nation in any sport? Yeah I don't know either. Well the North Texas freshman golf class, the current one playing right now, is ranked as the No. 4 freshman class by Golfstat in their Top 25 rankings of freshman classes around the nation.
That freshman class has the men's golf team ranked 69th and 70th in the nation by Golfweek and Golfstat and heading into a crucial tournament this weekend at Ohio State, and back onto the national scene for the first time since Don January & Co.
Yes, remember way back when North Texas had a world-class golf team, well those days might be on the fast track to returning.
A word of caution, these rankings are really a lot like Baseball America and their rankings of minor league farm systems in baseball. It doesn't really mean anything now, but boy could it be good in a year or two.
Golfstat ranks the current freshman classes based off a couple of different calculations, the freshman group of Rodolfo Cazaubon, Carlos Ortiz, Curtis Donahoe, and Marco Scarola are behind only UCLA, Southeastern Louisiana, and USC in the nation when it comes to freshman impact.
I guess that's okay. The Mean Green is ahead of, oh let's see, Missouri, Duke, Cal, TCU, Clemson, Texas, Arkansas, Michigan, and Florida State.....Hmmm, no SMU on that list.
Brad Stracke in less than two seasons has taken a program that smelled worse than leftover seafood sitting in your refrigerator and making it into prime rib and lobster tails.
The Mean Green's turnaround has been dramatic and Cazaubon and Ortiz have been the catalyst with a lot of help from senior leaders Dustin Thompson and Peter Fallon. Cazaubon and Ortiz are ranked 152nd and 201st in the nation respectively, that's out of roughly 2,652 golfers that qualify for the rankings.
However there is still a long, long way to go. North Texas this week has a stout test at the Robert Kepler Invitational. Eight of the 11 teams are ranked in the top 100 and of those eight in the top 100 they are all within 30-35 spots of each other in the rankings. Bottom line, this is a big measuring stick weekend for the Mean Green.
After that it's the Sun Belt Conference Championship, which is where North Texas needs to focus a lot of their attention. The drought is seven years between conference titles for the Mean Green.
Cazaubon has been playing unconscious lately with scores of 69, 69, 70, 72, and 72 in five of his last nine rounds. Ortiz meanwhile has had three straight top-10 finishes. The duo has been playing great, but Stracke has revived this team with youth and experience. Thompson has been a steadying force the entire season and Fallon equally as good.
It's still an Everest like mountain for North Texas to climb to return to the days of national titles like yesteryear, but the freshman class has a strong footing to begin that climb.
