Stat Attack | North Texas
Louisiana Tech beat FIU and the Mean Green did not.
In the ten years that North Texas was a member of Conference USA, they never lost to Florida International. Now, only a handful of weeks after finding a new home in the American Athletic Conference, North Texas finds itself reeling.
Although to be fair to UNT, this year was expected to be a bit of a step back. There’s a new sheriff in town with head coach Eric Morris and longtime QB Austin Aune left Denton to try and make an NFL roster.
Aune’s departure led to a quarterback competition that’s still yet to be determined. In the FIU loss, QB Stone Earle led the charge in the first half, while ULM transfer Chandler Rogers was given the reigns in the second.
Rogers had the better stat line, but neither quarterback was able to inspire much confidence. Part of the reason for dismay for North Texas is that their QBs just keep completing passes to the other team:
It’s even worse when you look at the touchdown-to-interception ratios. Earle has 4 touchdowns and 4 INTs. Rogers isn’t too much better with 2 TDs alongside 1 interception thrown. Turnovers kill momentum, provide the opponent with short fields, and lead to the 0-2 record the Mean Green find themselves with.
But we can’t blame everything on the offense. Although the Mean Green rushing machine leaves a lot to be desired as well, North Texas was still able to put up 21 points against (future Atlantic Coast Conference team) California, and 39 on FIU. The real issue was that Cal scored 58 and FIU 46.
And that’s because the Mean Green may have the worst defense in college football:
That’s 131st of 131 FBS teams in yards allowed per game. They are also third worst in points allowed per game, fourth worst in rush yards allowed per game, and 24th worst in pass yards allowed per game.
Sonny Cumbie has shown that he wants to be able to establish a running game. And luckily, North Texas is exactly the kind of team that Tech can get things going against on the ground:
And “Excluding FCS Opponents” is doing a lot of work there against Tech. If we include the Northwestern State game, Tech is averaging 5.0 yards per carry. And while we usually filter out FCS schools for a reason, the North Texas run defense hasn’t looked above FCS level so far this year.
The Tech passing offense was not as dominant as we hoped against Northwestern State a week ago, but if they can stay out of their own way, the Bulldogs can put up a lot of points on the Mean Green on Saturday.
Add in the North Texas quarterback situation, a running game that returned the names but not the production, and a defeatist attitude after a loss to FIU, and the picture becomes much clearer as to why the Bulldogs are favored by a field goal.
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Nathan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.