Quick Reaction: North Texas 44 Wyoming 17

North Texas handles business in front of a solid crowd and is 3-1

Folks, Your Mean Green are 3-1 on the season after non-conference play. That is right about where we expected to be. In fact in the e-book I predicted as much. We didn’t anticipate Wyoming being such a pushover, but so it goes. NT doubled up the Cowboys in yardage, and held an inept passing offense to a middling day: 15/28 175 1 score.

NT held Wyoming to 4.1 yards per play, which is just lightly more than they allowed vs SFA (3.54) and the first FBS program held to around that number since Temple last year (4.34). In short, the defense stood up and played a great game. The rush defense allowed only 65 yards which is the first time they’ve kept a team under 100 since 2022 when they kept La Tech to 80, and the first time they’ve kept a team under 70 since 2021 vs FIU in November of that year. This was a good performance.

That said, Wyoming is not good. They’ve been held to sub-100 rushing against all three FBS programs this season. North Texas’s performance is impressive in that they aren’t making bad teams look good. That is a thing to care about, as last year they made a mediocre Cal and a terrible FIU look very good, among others.

1. Run Game Stepped Up

North Texas wanted to emphasize the run game and had backups to the backups in the backfield. Shane Porter, a converted WR put up 120 on 13 carries in his first start. Mac McGill came in and did the scoring for him and put up his first, second, and third career TDs on the night as he added 38 yards on just six carries.

The offensive line was creating space and the backs were running hard and with purpose. Sibley also got some carries mixed in throughout. Absent was Zach Evans but he wasn’t missed. Porter had a nice game in clean up duty vs Tech and carried that into this one.

2. Chandler Morris Looked Great

Morris struggled the last two weeks as the offensive line and his wideouts battled injury and poor play. Tonight he used his legs and his vision to find players and scoot about for some runs. He totaled only 22 yards on the ground but they were some early first down runs. His most effective plays were scrambling to buy time and find targets. He did so on the Conwright touchdown pass, and a couple of the others that set up the TD runs by McGill.

He completed 68% of his tosses and passed for 305 and no interceptions.

3. The Defense Locked It Up

We spent a lot of time on the defense this week in the MGN Film Room. The quick takeaway was “we like some things, but they were outmatched physically.” Wyoming was a solid test as they have the same kind of physicality, albeit without the track record of success. North Texas didn’t allow much more to the Wyoming squad that BYU, Idaho, or Arizona State allowed. The one busted-coverage running back leak out was poor, but overall NT got stops and forced changes of possession.

Overall

Eric Morris produced a blowout win over a poor team. That is what we expect. North Texas is 3-1 in non-conference, which meets expectation. Next week begins conference play against a Tulsa squad that NT beat in Oklahoma last year. After that it is Memphis after a bye. It is all set up for the Mean Green to impress the folks that were embarrassed after the effort in Lubbock.

Beyond that, North Texas showed a little resiliency. The squad is young — freshman receivers are all over the two-deep, and the same on the defensive secondary. It is real easy to shut up shop after a bad break — look at FSU. Eric Morris deserves criticism for the performance versus Texas Tech but also a little praise for the ability to not let a bad team get any momentum in this one.

There are nits to pick — return game, defense allowing a silly TD, and some mistakes offensively but that is the stuff head coaches thrive on. For now, we will enjoy a win and look forward to next week. GMG