The Black Knights beat Air Force this past weekend to stay perfect this season, and they did it without their best player, winning by three scores. They got a great win over a perennial rival who knows them extremely well running straight Fullback Dives through most of the second half. That was awesome.
This week, the team faces a very different challenge. The North Texas Mean Green have a much better overall squad than do the Zoomies — or most of the other teams Army has faced this season. This is especially on offense. Moreover, this game renews a once-hot rivalry from an earlier time in the Monken Era. Army’s 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl win remains a personal favorite, but the reality is that the Mean Green won two of those three contests, including both regular season match-ups.
The 2017 match-up in particular offers something of a cautionary tale for the current season in that an Army Team led by a dynamic firstie quarterback lost a shootout on the road at Apogee Stadium against a North Texas team with a standout offense but not a lot of defense. Not everything has stayed the same, but there’s enough here that’s similar for Army fans to be rightly concerned.
North Texas Mean Green
North Texas started the season with an impressive-looking win over South Alabama, 52-38. They then beat FCS Stephen F. Austin, lost to Texas Tech, and beat Wyoming, Tulsa, and FAU before losing close games to perennial AAC leaders Memphis and Tulane in back-to-back weeks. Those last two losses knocked the Mean Green out of the American Conference Championship hunt, but they still have a very good team, especially on offense, plus every chance to win eight or even nine regular season games. The Mean Green haven’t played as consistently as the Black Knights this year, but they probably also would have run the table against the Army’s 2024 schedule.
We expect to see a very close game this weekend.
Offense
ESPN lists North Texas QB Chandler Morris as a junior. But Morris started his collegiate career as an Oklahoma Sooner way back in 2020. He then played with the TCU Horned Frogs from 2021 through 2023 before transferring again to North Texas for what must surely be his third attempt at a junior season here in 2024.
What does one study in their third junior year?
Whatever else he’s done, Morris has thrown the Hell out of the football. Dude has gone 224/349 passing this season for 2,873 yards (64.2%) with a whopping 26 touchdowns against just 8 interceptions and 9 sacks. He’s also run 42 times for 160 yards (3.8 yards/carry) with 4 rushing touchdowns.
However, UNT’s offense is not just Morris. The Mean Green also have three outstanding running backs — Shane Porter, Makenzie McGill II, and Damashja Harris. Collectively, these guys have 105 carries for 702 yards (7 yards/carry!) and 9 rushing touchdowns. We should note, though, that Harris has been out the last few games and isn’t expected back any time soon.
WR DT Sheffield leads the team with 51 receptions (!) for 690 yards and 10 receiving touchdowns. However, the Mean Green have three more receivers with at least 20 catches and LOTS of guys with 10-15 catches. This bunch features a bunch of guys who can catch the football.
Friends, this North Texas team boasts a fully functioning, high-powered collegiate offense that does pretty much everything well. There is a reason why this is the #2 passing team in all of college football, posting 371.6 passing yards/game. They also rush for 156 yards/game and score damned-near 41 points/game.
These guys are good. They will challenge Army’s defense at every level.
Defense
The bad news for North Texas fans is that their team allows 36.9 points/game, tying them for 128th in the FBS for points-allowed. They have college football’s 121st-ranked total defense, allowing 449 yards/game on just over 6.2 yards/play. Worse in the contest of this week’s match-up, the Mean Green boast the nation’s 104th ranked rushing defense, giving up fully 177.4 rushing yards/game on every bit of 4.7 yards/carry. Those might be tough statistics, but the Mean Green have been surprisingly good on third downs. Opponents are converting just 38.5% (68th). This team has 14 sacks on the season, so while they might get run on, they’re also getting after the quarterback in obvious passing situations.
LB Jaylen Smith leads this team with 55 tackles, 21 solo, plus 2 passes defensed and an interception. S Jayden Hill comes next with 45 tackles, 30 solo, plus a sack, 2 passes defensed, and another pick. Overall, three of this team’s top five tacklers are linebackers, and the other two are safeties. That’s about what we might expect to see from a higher-functioning defense. It fails entirely to explain why this team has given up so much run yardage this year.
North Texas’s defense has drawn kind of a tougher assignment than usual this week in that they will have spent their bye week planning for the under-center triple-option, only to then watch Army back-up QB Dewayne Coleman run 90% of last week’s offensive snaps out of the shotgun. The AFF Crew has no idea which quarterback will start for the Black Knights this week, nor how the team will run the offense if Coleman goes in there. Certainly, UNT would rather face Coleman, but he runs the offense very differently than does QB Bryson Daily, and the Mean Green have to prepare for both options.
Though we didn’t see it much in the Air Force game, Coleman is both a good bit faster than Daily and a much better passer. On the season, he’s gone 11/16 through the air (68.8%!) for 121 yards and a touchdown, and that’s with at least one dropped ball this past weekend. So while he might not pick up as many yards between the tackles, he’ll be far deadlier if he breaks into open space, and he opens up a lot more in the passing game.
This creates an obvious problem when Army is in the shotgun, but it’s also problematic out of the flexbone. FB Kanye Udoh also has lots of speed, as do SBs Tyrell Robinson and Noah Short, and both Robinson and Short can catch, too. With that in mind, expect to see the full power of the complete triple-option on display this week, whether it’s out of the shotgun or starting under-center. In fact, we might actually see more triple-option this week with Coleman than we will if Daily comes back and starts.
Special Teams
PK Kali Nguma is a perfect 41/41 on extra points this season. He’s also 9/11 on field goals with a missed chip shot and a miss from 40+ yards out. P Will Karol doesn’t necessarily get a lot of work, but he tends to average about 45 yards/punt.
Final Thoughts
Friends, this is an important game, and it’s liable to become a shootout. That’s not Army’s preferred mode of operation. The 2017 game was also a shootout, one in which the Black Knights arguably scored too quickly most times, so that they never took control of the game’s time-of-possession and therefore didn’t necessarily have any of their typical advantages late in the contest. That’s a possibility again this week, though 2024’s defense might force more stops in the red zone so long as they can avoid giving up a bunch of big plays.
Army opened as 3.5-point favorites. The betting line then slid all the way to Army (-6.5) before settling back at Army (-5.5). The Over/Under started at 65 but has since fallen to 63.5. Honestly, betting this game without knowing who’s going to start seems crazy to us, but gamblers will gamble, so…
We’re expecting ideal weather in Denton, Texas, this weekend. Highs should be in the mid- to upper-60s with plenty of sun at kickoff. The forecast calls for showers in the morning, but it should be dry by kickoff as well.
ESPN2 will broadcast this game, starting at 3:30 pm. The fact they’ve put it on one of their main networks in the Big Money slot tells you everything you need to know about how they think it might go. A lot of folks want to watch the Black Knights this season, but given the schedule that Army has played, they need to beat some better teams to solidify their reputation. North Texas absolutely qualifies, but if Army’s offense stumbles, the Black Knights will need to recover quickly.
This one matters, friends. Enjoy the game, and if you’re going to be in the stadium, get loud in support of your team.
Go Army! Beat North Texas!!!
Cover image via USMA Flickr: The Army West Point Football Team plays a tough game against North Texas during Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl, Dec. 27. (U.S. Army photo by Michelle Eberhart)
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.