NCAA College Football Futures Preview – North Texas Mean Green

[Shame About Ray]

NCAA College Football Futures Preview – North Texas Mean Green

North Texas is off of a brutal sports betting season that left college football betting faithful scratching there heads and they ended it a low note. In the last game of the season, the Mean Green handed Florida International their only win of the season.

Todd Dodge is now in his second season with plans of being more competitive in the Sun Belt. The defense has some work to do for those plans to come to fruition.

Offense

UNT quarterback Giovanni Vizza set school records for passing yards (2388 yards) and touchdowns (17) as a freshman. He was the biggest beneficiary of the Mean Green’s new passing offense and was named the freshman of the year in the Sun Belt Conference.

This year, though, he might have to look over his shoulder a little bit as Riley Dodge, the coach’s son, will be pushing him for playing time. Outside of the nepotism/favoritism factor, Rile Dodge was also one of the most recruited players in the nation.

Whoever is the quarterback, they’ll be leading a dangerous offense.

There are three quality wideouts in Casey Fitzgerald, Sam Dibrell and Sam Roberson. Fitzgerald is the No. 1 guy and someone needs to emerge to distract some attention away from him.

Four starters return along the offensive line, which is key since this offense spends a lot of time passing.

Defense

As good as UNT’s offense was last year, their defense was equally as bad.

The defense was the worst in the nation scoring-wise, allowing 45 points per game. Add to that the bad news that the top five tacklers are gone.

Former Mean Green defensive coordinator Gary DeLoach is back after five years at UCLA and clearly, he’s got some work to do.

The good news is that six starters are returning but the problem is along the defensive line. And as we all know, if the defensive line is shoddy, you can write off the rest of the defense.

Craig Robertson and Tobe Nwigwe are passable linebackers. The secondary is improving and is built around three-year starter, Antoine Bush. But the defensive line lost three starters.

This defense allowed more than 30 points 10 times and outside of a change at coordinator – a blast from the past – there isn’t much evidence indicating a significant improvement.

Outlook

The offense figures to be extremely potent again with the lone caveat being a quarterback controversy between last year’s starter, Giovanni Vizza and the coach’s son, Riley Dodge.

With a good group of receivers and capable runners, this will be among the best – if not the best – offense in the Sun Belt.

But the defense is under construction. The recruiting was solid this year and a supporting cast is on the way but unless DeLoach can work some magic with this defense, the Mean Green will be in the second-tier of the Sun Belt standings.

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