Ian Campbell

I’ve noticed this trend anecdotally for many years now, especially in the McCarney and Littrell eras. Seemed we played worse after a bye. Here’s hoping we’ve overcome that and learned to use bye weeks to our advantage. It makes sense, like others have said, that an Army bye would be much needed.

We hold Army to less than 50 points and the more optimistic of us feel pretty good about it afterwards. We hold them to field goals when they need touchdowns and even get a few key 3rd and 4th down stops. Morris has a great game, lots of receivers catch balls and score points, our running backs surprise us, and Coach goes for the points when last week he would’ve taken the risk on 4th down. Nguma has his best game yet. NT- 61 Army- 46 GMG

Spruiells, Allen, and Brice all not listed for the second game in a row. Did coach mention how long this suspension would last? Or are they kicked off the team?

I am curious about Zach Evans' status. Not mentioned on the 2 deep or in the podcast. Otherwise, very useful interviews!

Those are some great questions.

Hi @Cowboy Up! Welcome! I'm really excited about this game. I think it will be a good one. I am expecting Wyoming to field a great team. North Texas has too many unknowns, but I do expect our defense to be improved to some degree (maybe not enough...). Something came up recently about the Texas Tech vs. North Texas game this year, and everyone was saying "We can't let this be another Wyoming." So props to y'all for beating Tech! Not sure we can pull something like that off... We've had issues over the years winning the games against equal or better talent and that was a main reason why we fired Seth Littrell. Coach Morris gets a pass in my mind given the weird situation he inherited, but this year, I think we are all needing to see us win games against teams that won bowl games last year. My biggest struggle with this game is that my 10 year high school reunion is that evening... Given the choice, I'll be at the game, but I need them to release the start time to know if I can somehow make both! Anyone know why there would be a hold up on announcing a start time for this one? Seems like it usually the conference game times that are TBA for us, so this feels kind of random!

I too believe we’ve got a shot to beat South Alabama, but keep in mind that they are a team that had a blowout win against Oklahoma State in Stillwater last year and had another dominating win in their bowl game. So they aren’t a pushover and losing to them is not like losing to Sun Belt teams of the past. My hope is that they are off to a shaky start in their first season under Major Applewhite and that we can play the kind of offense we did last year without skipping a bit while having a defense that is improved just enough.

I agree with you. I don’t know exactly why, but I have to admit: I think our defense is going to be very much improved, maybe even good this year. There were a lot of young players who got significant reps as freshmen and showed real flashes last year. I think that those players mixed with some very promising transfers that have a good handle on this defense will surprise a lot of people. If the defense can even be in the top 100 this year, and the offense can put the pieces together anywhere close to how we did last year (I trust that this is just going to happen under Morris and Cobbs), I think we will be ahead of where Seth had us, even before this whole NIL/transfer combo really redefined the landscape. That said, I think the defense has potential to be much better than top 100. I get it- the evidence might all point to the contrary, but I just have a feeling I can’t shake.

The word “commitment” truly means nothing anymore.

I was there (my wife was a UNT cheerleader in undergrad and now cheers at WSU while in grad school). At no point during that game did I feel like WSU should've been playing SMU as close as they were. WSU didn't take the lead until pretty close to the end, and anytime WSU had a nice score, SMU had a 3-point answer. The fact that WSU pulled it out feels pretty miraculous. The SMU defense in the first half was stout. I felt much more comfortable watching UNT against SMU than I did WSU. Either way, GMG, Go Shocks (except when they are playing the Mean Green), and hooray for another SMU loss!

Jake Shipley has played both OLB and DL. He played DL in High School and was moved to linebacker at Oregon. I'd imagine he's coming to us to play DL.

If he can stay healthy, this is why I'm excited about this pick up. Also, look at the Morris-Conwright connection! That will be great to see again!

I believe this has certainly intensified in this generation and that the impact of things like TikTok on the need for even more instant gratification has not even been fully grasped yet. That said, you can find sociologists making the exact same arguments about the baby boomer generation and every generation since in various books. American culture has been trending this way for a long time (the book “Bowling Alone” about the rapid decline of Americans who join any extracurricular groups or participate/form any lasting association written in 1999 or 2000 is a great example of this). I agree that this is adds to a mentality that can already be seen in marriages, the workplace, etc. I (some random dude who deeply loves his school and hometown) call it the “one-foot-in, one-foot-out mentality” but a Harvard grad recently gave a famous commencement speech and then wrote a book about it and called the same phenomena “infinite browsing mode.” See below- it’s really worth a watch. I think Denton somehow has a worse culture of this mentality being home to two commuter schools. I often meet people who have lived in Denton 10 years and still don’t think of themselves as “Dentonites.” They came here for school, maybe even with the idea of transferring after their basics, planned to move to somewhere with mountains or something after graduating, never got the chance, but still don’t commit to the place because they see Denton as just a stopover. The transfer portal is just a further example of this trend and shows that it is still, well, trending. It does feel like it’s ruining college football and sometimes I think I could let football go because of it, but I guess at this point I’m just trying to prove a point and fight the “one-foot-in, one-foot-out mentality.” I’m a lurker, but I’m 27 and have never missed a home UNT football game in my life. I live in Wichita, KS now and make the 5 hour drive. Some days it’s just inertia, but as others have said, players come and go, but we will be here for the school. I hope this whole portal/NIL thing settles down someday.

It's nice to see Kevin Wood's name listed. I suspect that means he is healing up faster than anticipated? Has coach made an official announcement on his health? The last one a few weeks ago didn't sound promising. If he plays against Cal, I feel a lot about this defense than I have felt this summer.

Fun to watch this video from back when people still said “crunk”… If this is the kind of energy Coach Morris still carries out to the field, I have no doubt he can rally team buy-in!