2023: Season Review

All gas no brakes -- a hefty season review.

We published the Season Preview on September 1, 2023. There was hope and excitement. North Texas went on to be obliterated by Cal and then fell on their face in Miami and everything after that was chasing the casuals to care about a team that could score but couldn’t defend. Judging by attendance and online discussion, that was not accomplished.

The Results:

Sep 2 Cal - L 21-58
Sep 9 at FIU - L 39-46
Sep 16 at La Tech - W 40-37
Sep 20 Abilene Christian - W 45-31

Oct 7 at Navy - L 24-27
Oct 14 Temple - W 45-14
Oct 21 at 17 Tulane - L 28-35
Oct 28 Memphis - L 42-45

Nov 4 UTSA - L 29-37
Nov 10 at 25 SMU - L 21-45
Nov 18 at Tulsa - W 35-28
Nov 25 UAB - W 45-42

Final tally: 5-7. 3-5 in the league. 0-2 against ranked teams. 0-1 against “P5” teams. 3-3 at home, 2-4 away.

NT finished 3rd in scoring offense in the AAC, but fifth in league-play at 33.6 per game. NT finished last in scoring defense, but tenth in league play. NT finished second in yards-per-play in the league at in both overall and league play. NT finished second-to-last and tenth in yards-per-play allowed, respectively.

If you haven’t been paying close attention, know that the Mean Green were good-to-great on offense and bad-to-awful defensively.

By nearly every metric you can measure, NT’s defense was poor. The old-school numbers (yards allowed, etc) and advanced numbers (success rate, etc) all point to the same thing. The pass rush wasn’t getting to the opposition enough. The front six/seven were not getting stops for losses, or stops at all really. There were far too many splash plays allowed — long runs, long passes, scores, first downs and so on.

Offensively, it was similar. NT ranked highly in a lot of big counting numbers, and the people at PFF really liked Chandler Rogers’ play. NT had a 3K, 1K, 1K season (QB yards, WR yards, RB yards) and also added 700 from Adaway. Freshman Landon Sides looks like the future as a hybrid back/pass-catcher, and a lot of skill guys are returning.

This piece is meant to be a review so we’ll do a lot of looking back, but that will inform the future. There is so much time in between seasons and a couple of transfer windows and recruiting windows and a coaching carousel that is just beginning. Just about anything could happen between now (not even in December) and kick off of the new season in September. The rough outline of things is that there are clear areas requiring improvement, but job one is to recruit your current productive players to stay and be a part of the future.