FAYETTEVILLE — Jerell Norton saw two things when he intercepted Giovanni Vizza’s pass in the Arkansas end zone.

“I saw green and I saw red,” Norton said. “I knew I could take it all the way back.”

Norton, a sophomore cornerback, saw an open green field in front of him, not a lot of Mean Green players, and a bunch of Arkansas red jerseys to pave the way as he set a school record with a 100-yard interception return to cap the Razorbacks’ 66-7 victory over North Texas on Saturday night.

It exceeded the 99-yard return Orlando Watters had for the Razorbacks at LSU in a 42-24 victory in 1993.

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“That was for my family and for my teammates,” Norton said of his record-breaking return. “It was for all the stuff we went through at the beginning of this week.”

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Razorbacks, particularly the secondary, after the team blew fourth-quarter leads in losses to Alabama and Kentucky.

While there was no doubt Arkansas was going to hang on to its big lead against the Mean Green, defensive coordinator Reggie Herring was thankful Norton came up with a big play when it appeared North Texas was set to score a late touchdown with a first-and-goal at the Razorbacks 4 with less than a minute remaining.

The interception return was especially gratifying for Norton after he’d been called for pass interference the previous play.

“It was looking like the same old song there, they go down the field at the end,” Herring said. “It was a nice change of scenery for Jerell to make a play like that.”

Norton was among six defensive backs who started in Arkansas’ dime package against North Texas’ Spread offense along with cornerbacks Michael Grant, Matterral Richardson and Jamar Love and safeties Matt Hewitt and Kevin Woods.

“We’ve always had confidence in ourselves, but tonight we took it out to the field and executed,” said Grant, who had a thirdquarter interception to set up a touchdown. “We showed everybody what we have the ability to do.”

The Mean Green came into the game ranked fifth nationally in passing offense at 378 yards per game, and the Razorbacks ranked 97 th in passing defense at 268. 7 yards, but they held North Texas to its season-low 189 passing yards.

“We asked the guys to make some plays and knock some balls down, and I thought we got better at getting our head and eyes around,” Herring said. “It’s not perfect. We’ve still got a long ways to go. But it was a positive thing tonight.”

In the Mean Green’s other three games this season, they had 232 passing yards against Oklahoma, 601 against SMU and 322 against Florida Atlantic.

“We all stepped up after having a lot of pressure on us this week,” Hewitt said. “I feel we proved a lot of people wrong who thought we couldn’t play well in the secondary.”

On Norton’s interception return, he read the pass to North Texas wide receiver Sam Dibrell and cut in front. After taking off from the end zone, he picked up several key blocks, including ones thrown by defensive lineman Damario Ambrose, linebacker Elston Forte and cornerback Ramon Broadway.

“It’s a pursuit drill that we work on every day, and it was great execution by a lot of players blocking and giving him a wall down the field,” Herring said. “That’s something we open every practice with — an interception with all of our guys running to the end zone.”

As a senior at Cedar Hill (Texas ) High School, Norton played primarily quarterback and receiver and scored 23 touchdowns.

“I’m an offensive-minded type of guy,” he said. “When I got my hands on the ball, I was taking off.”