Beating Charlotte started yesterday. Friday will show us if the team, the coaches and players, were approaching this game as seriously as it needed to be. Charlotte is not a good football team, but they don’t need to be to win a game. If we have learned anything from UCLA or UAB this season, it is that no matter how bad a team looks, one change can unlock a very different, very good squad underneath.
That said, Charlotte is un-good.
A cursory look at the advanced numbers reveals a team that struggles to score, and to stop others from scoring. North Texas is favored by over 20, and that line is moving in NT’s favor.
North Texas is coming off two weeks of highly emotional football. The first was against USF. The build up to a big matchup was huge for a Friday night showdown that ended with North Texas on the wrong end of a spanking. The following week was homecoming against a rival that had won four straight. North Texas did the spanking in that one, and brushed aside UTSA 55-17.
Close watchers will note that things were not perfect. They rarely are (how human!) The offensive line is still committing too many penalties, allowing too many sacks, and right tackle Jimto Obidegwu left the game with an injury. Drew Mestemaker was missing long balls, and Tre Williams dropped another pass. Things can be better.
Defensively, Eric Morris said this week that the explosives are too much. He’s right. NT have up a 72-yarder and a 41-yarder to the UTSA running back. Army also had a couple of long plays. Of course USF ran for 172 in the second half. There are things to improve.
Offenses get better as the year progresses. They’ve gelled, found their identities, and execute as they have repetitions under their belts. North Texas’ defense has been solid, getting turnovers, and the scoring average against is 9-points improved over last season’s number.
If there is a team to improve the statistics against, it is Charlotte. The 49ers have struggled to score this season and have only surpassed 20 points twice — once against Monmouth (42) and once against USF (26!). Army held them to 7, and Temple last week allowed 14, but 7 of which came in garbage time with the lead at 42-points.
They’ve split playing time among three QBs, as they try to find the answer to the pass game. The lone bright spot has been the rush attack. By bright I mean less dim. CLT had 199 yards (on 47 carries) against Temple.
Stopping Charlotte is about staying sound. CLT has scholarship players, so everyone should be respected. The depth chart here does not look like USF’s or even UTSA’s however.
Best case scenario: North Texas gets three turnovers on the way to holding CLT to 10 or fewer points. CLT amasses less than 300 yards and less than 5 yard per play.
Worst case scenario: North Texas allows some long plays thanks to some weird run fits, or busted coverages. CLT gets to 30 points.
The other side of the ball presents a similar mismatch. If CLT holds NT to what they’ve held their opponents to this season, NT would be down just 0.22 from the season average. For context, North Texas is 4th in the league, and 32nd in the nation in yards per play. North Texas is the number one offense in the nation, at 45+ points per game. Charlotte is 3rd worst in the league, allowing 34.9 per contest. That’s good for 127th in the nation.
North Texas should be able to lean heavily on the run game, letting Caleb Hawkins and the group rack up yards. Drew Mestemaker should be able to throw to wide open targets. Watching some Charlotte film, I was aghast at how open some of these Temple guys were.
I see weird turns, and guys getting wide open. Even a bad throw found its target. Drew Mestemaker has been able to find less wide open guys with better accuracy. There should be acres of space for Wyatt Young and Cam Dorner. The depth chart also suggests Miles Coleman will be back.
I see guys getting five yard separation on a double-move.
Best case scenario: Some of the easiest yards since Lamar. A choose-your-own-touchdown kind of day.
Worst case scenario: The squad has some self-harm, some penalties, miscues (drops), and overly aggressive playcalling that leaves points on the board.
The Takeaway
The work to beat Charlotte is happening right now. We said on the podcast that the staff needs to treat the tiniest details this week as if they were preparing for Ohio State. The preparation is mental. North Texas needs to treat this game as if it were for the American title, because it is. Memphis might have played themselves out of a shot at the title by falling to UAB. Instead of a home game that might have drawn the College Game Day show, they are regulated to hosting USF amid eerie quiet.
The Mean Green have every opportunity in front of them to leapfrog a Tulane for the 2nd spot in the American, and hopefully earning a rematch against the Bulls in Tampa. That does not happen with another conference loss.1 Navy comes to Denton the following week. North Texas is in about as similar of a position as Memphis was last week, so they should learn from that mistake. The details matter, especially so against the dregs of the league because you have to self-motivate. The crowd will be dead, the atmosphere that of a glorified scrimmage, and the opponent will make it difficult to generate hype.
North Texas should be able to put 50 on this squad, and hold them to less than 10. That then, should be the goal. But you can’t go and score a 50-pointer. That is how you start making mistakes. You get to 50 by making sure the details are taken care of. Executing this play the most perfectly as it can be done right now. Make the excellent choice in each moment and it leads to yards, which lead to first downs, which lead to scores.
Similarly, on defense, not every play needs to be a hit stick highlight. Not every tackle opportunity needs to be a forced fumble. Wrap up, make the right reads, have your eyes in the right spot and punts will follow. As Charlotte starts to press, or feels the constraints put upon them, they’ll press and then turnovers are likely. That’s the idea anyway.
I wrote in the preview that this should be a blowout 40-20, but CLT is worse than I imagined they’d be and North Texas is better. So let’s go NT 52 CLT 3.
GMG
I’m being hyperbolic here, but it definitely is very less likely.
GMG!
(Am trying, hard, not to make a bawdy joke involving the usual letter abbreviation for Charlotte....or at least, to think up and save a good one for a ReVerb line call-in; wasn't able to make one for after the win against UTSA, due to a hectic schedule, but at least the duo gave UNT their flowers afterwards, twice; am still miffed, however, how bad the AP poll is: UNT should be top-25, USF should be around the 11-spot, and a couple of teams in the teens should be top-12 due to having beaten aforementioned top-12 teams who retained their top-12 grouping; a good two-or-three teams in their top-12 shouldn't even be in it, IMHO)
Nice analysis - enjoyed reading it!