Last season was the most successful season by almost every measure in North Texas footballing history. It is strange then that I spend the summer forgetting. I wanted to become a normie1, with normie footballing opinions. I didn’t watch any(more) Neal Brown WVU film, I didn’t follow the transfer portal.2 I was at a healthy remove from college football. I even made sure to avoid Stillwater, OK on the drive back to Texas.
This August, as I was talking with friends and coworkers about the college football season, we talked tailgating plans and the like. After someone brought up the Portal, I had to lock in. The little Mean Green we supported last year was nearly entirely in Orange. I fired off hot sports opinions on smaller schools still having stake in this business — else what is the point? I talked about how North Texas is coming off an 12-2 season with a Bowl Championship3 and yet it feels like none of that happened.
Its weird.
But, we will deal with it. The whole depth chart is transferred or gone. So now we adjust. We have new guys. They will carry the UNT name forward. In many ways we are simply at the extreme end of where college football always was heading, and in many ways was already. The 4-year limit was a blessing and a curse. You have your good player for a time and presumably a window. But if you had a bad recruiting class? Well you had it pass it like a kidney stone. Time was often the enemy. The portal is a monkey’s paw4 and North Texas was both blessed (a portal heavy roster won 12 games for UNT) and cursed (50 or so guys left)
Before we enjoy today’s game we have to acknowledge that college athletics is in crisis. I mean, everyone else thinks so. We can admit it. I don’t think nor want the days of freshman ineligibility or when you couldn’t buy a kid a cheeseburger to return. I do think we need some kind of system that encourages less roster churn and at least some renumeration for the programs and people investing in these teams.
For today? We have Neal Brown and he has a plan. He told the Athletic that he wants to be the premier DFW program, built on high school talent, touched with P6 returnees, and a place where guys can develop and leave for other, richer programs only after contributing to UNT success. It is a bold and reasonable plan. He begins with just about the toughest test one can conjure up, against the absolute master in plan execution in Indiana’s Curt Cignetti.
Indiana
Well, they won a national title last year as everyone’s favorite plucky ne’er-do-well. They beat teams up, had a wonderful aww-shucks kind of QB in Mendoza, and a quirky coach who seemingly never smiled. It was straight out of a movie script.
Cignetti built Indiana through the portal with the help of a large checkbook. His modus operandi is extreme attention to detail, blunt coaching feedback, and well, winning. It is what [he does]. Google [him].
Neal Brown is also a winner, but he struggled in West Virginia. He had a transitionary period, pre-portal explosion, and won games and had offenses but didn’t perform at the level that WVU wanted even if they were in a tougher league than before.
The AAC is not the Big TEN and there are obvious financial disparities. The net result is that Indiana’s roster is expensive — rumored to be somewhere between $15MM and $27MM. Cignetti has said it’s more the former than the latter.
North Texas’ budget was reportedly $5MM.
That will be evident in the top-level talent — our ones vs their ones — and the depth. Their twos and threes could probably be our ones.
It used to be that the Indianas of the world were within upset range. We beat them once upon a time in Denton, in the way that we beat Washington State. But Indiana went and leveled up and is now in a different tier. They can bully ball Ohio State and didn’t get bullied by Miami in the national title game. What can North Texas do?
North Texas
Last year the clear and obvious strength for NT was the QB and offense. We had known quantities. Our head coach could pick QBs and our RB coach (and NT legend) could find running backs. And lo and behold it came to pass that Drew Mestemaker and Caleb Hawkins were legendary. The big fix came on defense, where we finally decided we should stop people. NT had a light schedule and won 12 games.
Now? The schedule is tougher, the quantities are unknown. Neal Brown has won before — usually with good quarterback play, tough run games, and a mean defense led by a good defensive line. Has he picked those kinds of guys? I hope so.
Tayven Jackson is our QB. He beat out Ditta and local favorite Jimmerson.
Jahiem White is the big name running back. He is supported by Jayden Becks, and some other guys. The wide receiver room is deep but also no one stands out as a number one — this isn’t a bad thing as the same situation last year produced Wyatt Young, et al.
The offensive line is experienced, and big with some P-6 time under their belts. The defense is also experienced with the defensive line getting bigger, the linebacking corps getting older, and the secondary getting faster. North Texas brought in staff partly responsible for recruiting the (quality) secondary at Notre Dame and it has paid off.
The idea, then, is to run the ball and play good defense. If that sounds familiar it is because that is simply good footballing ethos. It has been the strategy of best football teams ever. Now, to be fair, it has also been the worst teams’ strategies. All plans are great until you get to execution time. There is a Mike Tyson line about this.
Can North Texas move the ball today and the rest of the season? Will Tayven Jackson use his athleticism and experience to make great decisions with the ball? Will the defense get pressure from the defensive line? Will the secondary be the playmakers we expect?
I ask the last question because a few of these recruits were known for being ball hawks, including Brandon “Mr. Pick Six” Jones from McNeese State.
Predictions
North Texas is a 40-point dog in this game for good reason — it is a team of unknowns vs the defending national champion. It is a team triple the valuation with the best coach in America vs a coach trying to figure out exactly what he has. I am dreaming and hoping for a huge upset, but I am also a realist.
The goal for this game is finding out what we can do in difficult circumstances. Who can execute when things are tough. Who can make good decisions. Who can be a playmaker. Who can be relied upon.
But for one quarter there is an opportunity to go leave a mark and let North Texas fans know we have a team to be proud of. No one really expects a win. We don’t have to win every week to feel proud of this team. We want a team that does not quit, that fights, that works and makes whoever we play very uncomfortable.
Eric Morris laid and egg vs Cal in his opening game and it took about five games into his most successful seasons before he got any real momentum back. Neal Brown is in a much tougher position but if he can impress today it will go a long way toward building the good will he will need for his job.
MGN Prediction: Indiana 50 UNT 14.
GMG
Apologies for the quiet summer. Again, MGN moved from Missouri to Central Texas and spent the first three months of that time getting settled. That involved a lot of meeting other neighbors and family and buying sofas and all kinds of things that cost me money. Also the World Cup was held here and we just had to go. That was fun.
MGN should be back to something like regular posting but we are still figuring out the schedule. It seems the children of MGN have some kind of activity every darn night of the week and MGN is shuttling here or there all the time. So it goes.
A normal person.
I was helped in this by having to move some 900-miles this summer from the midwest back to Texas.
Shoutout Dan McCarney
The classic be-careful-what-you-wish-for scenario.