Heart of Dallas Bowl: Preview, Predictions, TV info-CBSsports

[Sig381]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/24370317/heart-of-dallas-bowl-preview-predictions-tv-info

What matters: In a battle of two teams you might have thought you'd never see in a New Year's Day bowl it's North Texas (one bowl win in its history) against UNLV (first winning season since 2000). A win would help UNT match its best finish since 1978, and would also hand Dan McCarney the third bowl win of his career (2000 and 2004 while at Iowa State). The Cotton Bowl is less than 50 miles from the University of North Texas campus. UNLV would match its best season since 1984 with a victory, and would move the school to 4-0 all-time in its limited bowl history.

[MeanGreenD]

5/6 "experts" agree, MEAN GREEN!!!

[greenminer]

New twist: UNLV is 102 in the country in Red Zone offense.

[PlummMeanGreen]

No doubt one team can be better than another, but on Game Day that team better be darn sure that it is the better team....As we know from our Mean Green football history, it doesn't always play out that way. Suppose that's why they still actually tee it up and play the games?

GMG!

Edited December 11, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[houstonmeangreen]

5/6 "experts" agree, MEAN GREEN!!!

If UNT is going to win this game, they had better improve the defensive secondary, have a pass rush and please, keep the offensive pedal to the metal...no damn conservative play or they will loose to a team that puts a lot fo points on the board...just hope DT plays a great game...and please, no 4 yrd passes when it is 3rd down and 6 yds are needed...don't take this team lightly...like UTSA was. GMG

[ragpicker]

I agree, houstomeangreen. UTSA indeed. There is no reason to be conservative in this game. Pull out all the stops and have fun.

[Eastwood Eagle]

New twist: UNLV is 102 in the country in Red Zone offense.

whomp whomp whomp

[Mean Green 93-98]

We've had two bowl wins in our history, not one.

[JesseMartin]

1959 Sun Bowl, right?

[THOR]

1959 Sun Bowl, right?

optimist bowl....1940s....

[Moobs]

All of their "experts" think it will be closer than a 7 point game. Interesting...

[UNTMike81]

I was on UNLV message board and their fans are not impressed with UNLV's special teams play at all. Maybe Brelan Chancellor can do some kick off and punt return magic. I would be nice to win the special teams battle on Jan. 1, 2014.

Go Mean Green!!!!

[greenminer]

For anyone interested, ESPN3 has 4 UNLV football games available for replay:

SDSU

Air Force

Utah State

Nevada

[Stan R]

For anyone interested, ESPN3 has 4 UNLV football games available for replay:

SDSU

Air Force

Utah State

Nevada

Excellent, thanks for the heads up!

[Ben Gooding]

This is plain and simple, if North Texas plays like they did against UTSA or Tulane might as well throw in the towel now because we will get beat. If they play like they did against Rice or MTSU then I think things will take care of themselves on the field. Also, the UTSA game was the worse offensive play calling I have seen out of Canales since he took the job. He was calling plays to keep the game close and not to break it open. Granted Thompson missed on 3 deep balls that with a good throws were TD's, but the overall play calling was just vanilla in that game.

[scrappyman1]

Just win. Two returns by Chacellor for T D's.

N. T. 34- 21

[JesseMartin]

I think their defense vs. our offense isn't really much of an issue. We will score well whether our guys are on their game or not. The exciting thing will be their pretty decent offense vs. our hard-hitting defense. Special teams could certainly be the phase that swings the final score, so I'm hoping for some great action from Chancellor, but I really feel like what most of this game will hinge upon is whether Orr and Trice and Lee and the rest of the D comes out with their killer instinct kicking on all cylinders. I expect our offense to put up at least 30, but either the D has to come out strong or we need to get some points off of special teams to equalize. I hope I'm worrying for no reason but this is probably the most even matchup UNLV has faced all year, and though their red zone offense ranks very low compared to our great red zone defense, this is still a team that can put some decent numbers on the scoreboard. You know that stat that held all the way to the UTSA game, where we had scored at least 21 points in every game? And note that every time we score over 21 this season, we won. But we've only won 1 game when our opponent scored over 21 (Ball). There's a lot more that I could say in this vein but we haven't done very well overall when our defense is evenly matched against the opponent's offense (whether they were playing poorly or just up against good competition). So this could be a pretty crazy bowl game and I'm not surprised that it's being predicted to end with a win by less than a touchdown.