CFN's 2024 UNT Football Preview

[UNTLifer]

https://collegefootballnews.com/news/2024-north-texas-college-football-preview-key-players-game-schedule-season-predictions

Give North Texas a little time to figure it all out.

The American Athletic Conference is the new Conference USA, but it’s still a decent Group of Five league with enough good teams to make life tough. Under second-year head coach Eric Morris, North Texas will make life hard in the Year Two in the league.

The program has been a bit stuck. The promise of the back-to-back nine-win seasons of 2017 and 2018 flew out the window with inconsistencies and a painful lack of defense, but helped by the weirdness of 2020, the six bowl games in seven years - even though it lost all six - kept North Texas relevant enough to pay attention to

Edited July 10 by UNTLifer

[Jonnyeagle]

He said we just need to get to 6-6 this season.  I could see 6 wins on this schedule:

 

2024 North Texas Football Schedule

Aug 31 at South Alabama
Sept 7 Stephen F Austin
Sept 14 at Texas Tech
Sept 21 Wyoming
Sept 28 Tulsa
Oct 5 OPEN DATE
Oct 12 at Florida Atlantic
Oct 19 at Memphis
Oct 26 Tulane
Nov 2 OPEN DATE
Nov 9 Army
Nov 15 at UTSA
Nov 23 East Carolina
Nov 30 at Temple

Edited July 11 by Jonnyeagle

[untphd]

Here we go hit 6, again.

[NT80]

17 minutes ago, Jonnyeagle said:

He said we just need to get to 6-6 this season.  I could see 6 wins on this schedule:

 

2024 North Texas Football Schedule

Aug 31 at South Alabama
Sept 7 Stephen F Austin
Sept 14 at Texas Tech
Sept 21 Wyoming
Sept 28 Tulsa
Oct 5 OPEN DATE
Oct 12 at Florida Atlantic
Oct 19 at Memphis
Oct 26 Tulane
Nov 2 OPEN DATE
Nov 9 Army
Nov 15 at UTSA
Nov 23 East Carolina
Nov 30 at Temple

I think we will know after game 5 vs Tulsa what kind of season it will be.  

[UNT 90 Grad]

On 7/11/2024 at 12:13 PM, untphd said:

Here we go hit 6, again.

Time to lock the gate. 

 

[rcade]

On 7/11/2024 at 1:04 PM, Jonnyeagle said:

He said we just need to get to 6-6 this season.  I could see 6 wins on this schedule ...

Please look harder and find a seventh.

I've been trying to convince myself that Eric Morris can get us to a winning record this season.

[Matt from A700]

On 7/11/2024 at 12:22 PM, NT80 said:

I think we will know after game 5 vs Tulsa what kind of season it will be.  

How early can we get our shit together? It seems like too often we use nonconference to figure out who our QB is when we should be taking advantage of the winnable games. Last year I thought the first six were winnable coming into the season, and Cal was before they completely locked us down in the second half. This year with a serviceable defense we should have four wins by the end of the Tulsa game. But if history continues we'll f*** around and lose at South Alabama or against Wyoming.

Edited July 19 by Matt from A700

[StealthEagle84]

Aug 31 at South Alabama  -  Toss Up
Sept 7 Stephen F Austin  -  Win
Sept 14 at Texas Tech  -  L
Sept 21 Wyoming  -  Toss Up
Sept 28 Tulsa  -  W
Oct 5 OPEN DATE
Oct 12 at Florida Atlantic  -  Toss Up
Oct 19 at Memphis  -  L
Oct 26 Tulane  -  Toss Up
Nov 2 OPEN DATE
Nov 9 Army  -  Toss Up
Nov 15 at UTSA  -  Toss Up
Nov 23 East Carolina  -  W
Nov 30 at Temple  -  W

Edited July 19 by StealthEagle84

[Mean Green 93-98]

On 7/11/2024 at 12:04 PM, Jonnyeagle said:

He said we just need to get to 6-6 this season. 

 

On 7/11/2024 at 12:13 PM, untphd said:

Here we go hit 6, again.

Yeah . . . no.  Seth Littrell was fired for only hitting 6 and 7 wins his last two seasons.  Expectations with the new hire were clearly that those win totals would be improved upon.  Coach Morris might be able to keep his job one more year with a 6-win season, but his seat will be flaming hot next year.  6 wins is hardly "the step needed."

[NT93]

4 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

 

Yeah . . . no.  Seth Littrell was fired for only hitting 6 and 7 wins his last two seasons.  Expectations with the new hire were clearly that those win totals would be improved upon.  Coach Morris might be able to keep his job one more year with a 6-win season, but his seat will be flaming hot next year.  6 wins is hardly "the step needed."

Obviously last year wasn’t great, but I think it would have been even worse under the old regime.  I like Littrell and I’m thankful that he raised the bar for what is now acceptable, but I can’t help but think we would have lost to Memphis, UTSA, and Tulane by 21+ points.  Those games very likely demoralizing.  I think that we probably would have beaten FIU, but possibly lost to Tulsa and/or UAB.  
 

Yes, worse record, but more difficult schedule (especially considering the gauntlet 4 game stretch of conference) and we were competitive in all games…though the 2nd halves against Cal and SMU were bad.

[RBP79]

So far I'm not convinced we improved our coaching staff replacing Seth with Morris.

To be honest 6/7 wins for Morris is a MUST. To make me believe he is a better hire got to Hit the unimaginable regular season total of 8. 

And those who say Seth couldn't do it either this year....I guess we will never know will we......as he sits up in Norman as the OC of the Sooners counting all that greenback we paid to get rid of him...

[Mean Green 93-98]

10 minutes ago, RBP79 said:

To make me believe he is a better hire got to Hit the unimaginable regular season total of 8. 

I'm not sure 8 wins in and of itself convinces me he is a better hire, considering the outcome of last season.  If he can accomplish what eluded Seth--a conference championship or a bowl win against a decent opponent--then I'll have to acknowledge he is an improvement.

[MrAlien]

I don't normally put a lot of weight into the first game, but with this schedule, the first game is very important to how the season will go.  A win at South Alabama would lead me to believe that this is a 6 win team.  However a loss would be detrimental, and would likely lead to a 1-3 start, in which case I think you would have to make a coaching change.  

[Matt from A700]

27 minutes ago, MrAlien said:

I don't normally put a lot of weight into the first game, but with this schedule, the first game is very important to how the season will go.  A win at South Alabama would lead me to believe that this is a 6 win team.  However a loss would be detrimental, and would likely lead to a 1-3 start, in which case I think you would have to make a coaching change.  

I'd like to think in the past decade, athletics success standards have risen, but still, when have we ever let go of a coach so soon? Looking at Wikipedia, maybe some others can educate me on the ways Bob Tyler and Dennis Parker left in 1981 and 1993 after one and three seasons. But I think it'd take some disastrous 1-11 season to get rid of Eric this early. If our defense is still getting embarrassed and we start something like 1-6 or 1-7, maybe we get rid of Caponi, but do we have the money to do that either?

[MrAlien]

With the way the recruiting and transfer portal works now I dont think you can wait until the end of the season to make a coaching change.  So much unofficial recruiting happens during the season now, player can see which programs are doing well and which programs are not, you cant ride out a loosing season because you will throw away building a team for the following season. 

All that said, I do think UNT will win at South Alabama, and should be 2-0 heading into the game against Tech with a lot of momentum. 

[Ian Campbell]

6 hours ago, MrAlien said:

I don't normally put a lot of weight into the first game, but with this schedule, the first game is very important to how the season will go.  A win at South Alabama would lead me to believe that this is a 6 win team.  However a loss would be detrimental, and would likely lead to a 1-3 start, in which case I think you would have to make a coaching change.  

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.

Edited July 21 by Ian Campbell

[Side.Show.Joe]

On 7/19/2024 at 3:55 PM, StealthEagle84 said:

Aug 31 at South Alabama  -  Toss Up
Sept 7 Stephen F Austin  -  Win
Sept 14 at Texas Tech  -  L
Sept 21 Wyoming  -  Toss Up
Sept 28 Tulsa  -  W
Oct 5 OPEN DATE
Oct 12 at Florida Atlantic  -  Toss Up
Oct 19 at Memphis  -  L
Oct 26 Tulane  -  Toss Up
Nov 2 OPEN DATE
Nov 9 Army  -  Toss Up
Nov 15 at UTSA  -  Toss Up
Nov 23 East Carolina  -  W
Nov 30 at Temple  -  W

I don't view Wyoming as a toss up. Maybe on paper, but expect our high powered offense with an assist from the September heat, to pull away in the second half. If we can't beat Wyoming at home in September, it's going to a long season.

 

I think we finish 7-5 with wans against USA, SFA, Wyoming, Tulsa, Army, ECU, & Temple. I base this prediction on us fielding moderately better defense this season. I figure they can't mathematically be worse than last year.

[Matt from A700]

5 hours ago, Ian Campbell said:

but keep in mind that they are a team that had a blowout win against Oklahoma State in Stillwater last year

Then hopefully we're their 2018 LA Tech wet blanket game lol.