Recent Articles

[BobFam]

I did a quick search and found a couple of recent articles I haven't seen posted. I apologize if these have shown up before:

Beaumont Enterprise - These days, the early bird is catching the worm in recruiting

Lufkin Daily News - Penson ready for challenge at UNT

The Beaumont is impressive since it originally focused on UT and A&M.

Enjoy!

Bob

[DeepGreen]

You can also read another article in The Examiner, published in Beaumont weekly and covers SE Texas. They are reviewing all ten D1A football programs in Texas, and with Todd Dodge being a local, they are giving NT very good coverage. It was a shocker that NT was the 8th team reviewed and not the last. Hey, we're making progress! Of course the article shows that we lost in 7 overtimes to FIU.

College football preview: 2007 North Texas

By Chase Hidalgo, Sports Writer

Dodge

Former Port Arthur standout Todd Dodge leaves the high school ranks, where he had much success at Southlake Carroll, for Saturdays and the excitement of college football. Since Dodge’s hire, North Texas has changed everything from its offense to its defense and even its uniform, which will be a lighter shade of green in ’07. Dodge’s presence in Denton has restored the swagger that the Mean Green faithful once possessed, which is evident as one can feel the excitement on campus.

Offense

The main question for this North Texas team — can Dodge come in and use his spread attack to restore the Mean Green program and get them back atop the Sun Belt Conference?

Dodge has declared the race for the quarterback spot to be wide open at the beginning of fall workouts, which will leave the door open for juniors Matt Phillips, Woody Wilson, redshirt freshman Nathan Tune and true freshman Giovanni Vizza. Daniel Meager is getting most of the reps in practice and he will likely be the guy that leads Dodge’s offense, but it seems Dodge still wants to portray the fact of no job security and the best player will play. Despite his philosophy, expect Meager to be the man come September.

Former national rushing leader Jamario Thomas is back for his senior year after being haunted by injury his sophomore season and unnoticed last year due to a less than mediocre offensive line. He will have to be patient and adapt to the spread offense, but should still shine in Dodge’s system. Even though the focus of this offense is passing, 1,000 yards rushing is not out of the question for this talented back.

The main focus for this offense lies in the hands of the receivers, which will be led by senior Brandon Jackson who was UNT’s second-leading wide-out a year ago. Casey Fitzgerald and Korey Washington have shown a lot of potential in spring drills and coach’s think they will be a perfect fit for this five-wide set. Only problem with these two is the fact that neither has any experience, so if they turn out to be busts, Dodge will have to rely on six of his talented receiving recruits to pick up the slack.

The Mean Green will also have to deal with a young offensive line, which includes Robert Peachey and Matthew Menard at tackle and Kelvin Drake at center. Dodge thinks these three could be the foundation of his offense for seasons to come but will be a basic rebuilding year in the trenches.

Defense

When former head coach Darrell Dickey won four-straight Sun Belt titles with the Mean Green from 2001-04, he did so with a head-hunting defense that put fear in opposing coaches. Though the intimidation factor of those defenses have left over the last couple seasons, Dodge has still came to this new job extremely pleased with the talent he gets to work with. Ten starters return (eight leading tacklers) on this defense from a year ago with hopes that experience will pay off.

This year the defense moves back to the 4-3 system of two years ago and will be anchored by senior end Jeremiah Chapman, an all-conference pick who had 52 tackles last season and 10 of them for losses. Junior defensive tackle Joseph Miller should improve this defense while defensive end Blake Burruss and tackle Montey Stevenson look to improve on their stats from a year ago. The Mean Green defense allowed 72 yards per game less with the 3-4 defense last year than in ’05 and Dodge is hoping changing back to the 4-3 will not derail the improvement.

This defense’s major strength should be at linebacker as senior Maurice Holman returns after his second consecutive all-conference selection and was second on the team with 74 tackles last season. Germain Dawson, a junior, and senior Brandon Monroe will have the rest of the middle locked up for Dodge’s defense. Monroe will be coming off a sprained MCL, which cost him all but two games last season. Tobe Nwigwe stepped up when Monroe went down, but will take a back seat due to him not being as experienced as expected. If healthy, this group should be solid and provide confidence for Dodge that his defense can get the job done.

What star power the Mean Green lacks in the front seven should be made up in the secondary as senior safety Aaron Weathers returns along with his team leading 78 tackles from a year ago.

Sophomore Antoine Bush and senior Dominique Green will be the two guys locking up opposing receivers, while senior Roy Loren will play alongside Weathers and look to improve on his 33 stops from last year. The big problem in the past with this group is that they have the tendency to give up the big play. Hopefully new defensive coordinator Ron Mendoza can come in and correct that flaw.

Special teams

UNT will have to do a little rebuilding with the special teams unit, but with the athletes Dodge has, it shouldn’t be too bad. The best part of this unit is junior Truman Spencer and his 40.8 yards per punt from season ago returns for his final season. Spencer, a two-year starter and second-team all-conference last season, dropped 15 punts inside the 20-yard line, and if he repeats this, this defense could be putting a couple two-pointers on the board this fall.

Redshirt freshman kicker Steven Woodward out of Tulsa, Okla., spent a majority of the time grabbing pine behind Denis Hopovac. Dodge will have two players who returned kicks last year, but the problem is that they only combined to return three.

Outlook

Don’t expect this team to turn it around in one season and become the rest of the conference’s “daddy” like they were once regarded. Dodge will have some learning to do as well as his players once this season is kicked off, and I expect Bob Stoops and the Oklahoma Sooners to be his professor come September 1 when the Mean Green travels to Norman to do battle with one of the nations most feared teams. A .500-year for this squad will be nice, but when Dodge’s recruits become juniors and seniors in a couple of years, look for UNT to be a force to reckoned with.

2007 UNT schedule

Sept. 1 @ Oklahoma - UNT is 0-6 vs. OU

Sept. 8 @ SMU - UNT is 4-27-1 vs. SMU

Sept. 22 Florida Atlantic - UNT is 3-6 in last 9 home openers

Sept. 29 @ Arkansas - UNT is 4-9 vs. SEC teams

Oct. 6 @ La.-Lafayette - UNT is 4-1 in Lafayette

Oct. 13 La.-Monroe - Home team is 15-8 in series

Oct. 20 @ Troy - Troy leads 3-1

Oct. 27 Middle Tenn. - UNT is 5-1 vs. MT

Nov. 10 Navy - 1st ever meeting

Nov. 15 @ Arkansas St. - UNT has dropped last two

Nov. 24 West. Kentucky - UNT is 11-3 since ’93 in home finales

Dec. 1 @ Florida Int. - UNT lost in 7OTs last year

Examiner picks

Chase: 6-6, No bowl for Dodge yet.

Coop: 6-6, Give Dodge a few years and he’ll be moving up.

Edited August 6, 2007 by DeepGreen

[GreenBat]

"I talked to Coach Dodge at coaching school, and he said they don't want to have to play him as a true freshman," Outlaw said. "But he thinks A.J. has a chance to be big time over the next two or three years.

"I really think that if he was two-tenths of a second faster, then he'd be at Texas right now."

But North Texas is not a bad option for the former Panther. Even if it is on the same sideline with his former rival.

Is this a shot at NT or am I being too sensitive.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Dodge still wants to portray the fact of no job security and the best player will play.

He has indicated that once the season begins, this will not be the case. He made the comment that he doesn't want whoever is in at QB to be looking over his shoulder. Obviously if a change needs to be made, or if a certain freshman QB is making strides in practice throughout the season, a change will be made.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Is this a shot at NT or am I being too sensitive.

Not a deliberate shot, but certainly disrespectful. It's going to take a little time before we can earn enough respect to where it as just as much of an honor to play for North Texas as for UT.

[GMoney]

"I really think that if he was two-tenths of a second faster, then he'd be at Texas right now."

Ruined what would have been a good article. Was this line even necessary? He's not at UT, he's at NT which was the gest of the whole article. Way to screw it up.

[Eagle1855]

Not a deliberate shot, but certainly disrespectful. It's going to take a little time before we can earn enough respect to where it as just as much of an honor to play for North Texas as for UT.

its not a shot, it's a fact. UT and NT are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to prestige. I don't take it as a slight- i see it as "the way that it is", or, reality. He'd likely say the same thing if he was going to UH, UTEP or Tech. I think we're a tad sensitive...

Ruined what would have been a good article. Was this line even necessary? He's not at UT, he's at NT which was the gest of the whole article. Way to screw it up.

Its a quote from the freaking coach. what did you want the writer to do, omit it? I'm glad he left it in. I think it speaks highly to the caliber of player we're getting, which Im guessing is why the author included it. That, or he and everyone else are a part of the conspiracy to hold UNT down

Edited August 6, 2007 by Eagle1855

[foutsrouts]

Ruined what would have been a good article. Was this line even necessary? He's not at UT, he's at NT which was the gest of the whole article. Way to screw it up.

If he had gone to UT, he might have ended up rooming in the vicinity of SHSU.

[emmitt01]

Not a deliberate shot, but certainly disrespectful. It's going to take a little time before we can earn enough respect to where it as just as much of an honor to play for North Texas as for UT.

And it's not the only "shot" taken at us. Check out this line from the other article

Even a lower Division I-A school like North Texas has gotten into the act, thanks in large part to Port Arthur native and first-year coach Todd Dodge.

I wasn't aware that 1A had upper and lower divisions.

[NTPhiKap99]

The articles definitely take a couple shots at us but all in all I’m pretty happy just to be mentioned by papers across the state. As everyone knows no press is bad press and for the first time maybe ever people seem to realize we exist. I don’t care who wants to fling insults as long as they keep on writing about us. Let TD keep doing his thing and put up a few big wins and our newly found press will just get better and better.

[DeepGreen]

Given the fact that we have been on the outside of the SWC since forever and are in arguably the lowest of the low 1A conferences, cheap shots towards UNT are to be expected. Southeast Texas, specifically Beaumont/Port Arthur, is SWC/Big 12 country. It's been about aggie$ and whorns, with a smattering of raiders and cougars. We are being mentioned down here more than I can remember in the past 20+ years. Like I said, cheap shots can be expected until we prove ourselves.