UNT Looking For Rebound At Home Against Temple

DENTON – The UNT football team will look to bounce back after a close loss at Navy and earn its first win in The American when it hosts Temple on Saturday at 11 a.m. The game can be seen on ESPNU with the radio broadcast set for 97.1 The Freak/The Varsity Network.

Morris and selected players spoke to the media on Tuesday and discussed, among other things, a milestone nearing for senior wide receiver Roderic Burns, junior running back Ayo Adeyi looking to extend his streak of 100-yard performances and a defense making progress in last week's game but now set to face a completely different style of offense.

Burns Baby Burns
As a senior at Texas high school football powerhouse Houston Lamar, Roderic Burns remembers crying on National Signing Day when he had several friends signing to play college football and he had no scholarship offers.

Thanks to a high school teammate reaching out to then-UNT running backs coach Tashard Choice, Burns quickly had his foot in the door. All he needed, he thought, was a shot, and UNT gave him a chance to be a preferred walk-on.

"I had a couple of guys in front of me when I got here, but I knew I'd have a chance to make my mark," Burns said. "I knew I just needed a chance and I could earn a scholarship eventually. I just needed to show my hard work and consistency."

After redshirting in 2018, catching two passes in 2019 and 12 in 2020, Burns broke out in 2021 with over 800 yards receiving and led the team in all receiving categories. In 2022, he again led the team in receptions and yards.

Now, Burns is midway through his final college season and is just 88 yards shy of 2,000 career receiving yards.

When asked what has gotten him to this point, Morris said Burns has an effective combination of assets that make receivers great.

"His hands, and he has a great ability to catch the ball away from his body and has great body control," Morris said. "He's not the fastest guy but he takes great pride in his route running and understands how to get open versus zone and versus man. His football IQ is extremely high and when you pair that with really good hands, you can have a lot of success at that position in this offense."

Burns said he knows not every walk-on gets to this point, but he's thankful for the opportunities he's gotten.

"I'm just very blessed," Burns said. "I want to give the glory to God. He puts me in this position week in and week out. I just have to go do what I can control and try to get as many yards as I can, especially coming from where I was. I was a walk-on, not a lot of guys in my position get this chance, so it's a big honor."

Adeyi among nation's best
Junior running back Ayo Adeyi has long been a part of a stable of productive running backs at UNT, but has taken the lead over his career in Denton.

Over the past three games, Adeyi has averaged 127.7 yards per game and is averaging 8.3 yards per carry. Those marks rank 11th and third, respectively, in FBS over that span. He's just 280 yards shy of 2,000 career rushing yards.

With a 100-yard effort on Saturday against Temple, Adeyi would become the first UNT player to post four straight 100-yard games since De'Andre Torrey in 2018.

Morris said he's continuing to find ways to get Adeyi the ball in space and praised the junior's play so far this season before adding that there is still room to get even better.

"He's competitive," Morris said. "He practices extremely hard and wants the ball in his hands. For a running back, that's key. We have to clean some stuff up as far as pass protection goes and he knows that, but as someone who needs the ball 15 times a game in space with how electric he is, that continues to show up on tape."

Defense made progress, now faces different challenge
There were several positives to come out of Saturday's game at Navy from a defensive perspective.

Facing Navy's vaunted triple option attack, UNT's defense held its own and put the offense in position a couple of times to take control of the game after stopping the run had been a problem for the unit early in the season.

That progress and improvement can carry over to Saturday's game against Temple, but it will be against a team with a totally different look on offense.

The Owls (2-3, 0-2 AAC) like to air the ball out, and in last week's loss to UTSA, put up 542 yards of total offense with 472 of those coming via the arm of quarterback E.J. Warner.

Even though the look will be vastly different, Morris said having to dial in focus against Navy's intricate triple option should help this week, as well.

"This week presents a different challenge," Morris said. "They really like to air it out. They've averaged a ton of yards through the air. When you have to really dial into something like we did last week, that should be able to carry into this week as far as just reading our keys and playing fast."

Junior nose tackle Roderick Brown said he saw a lot more unselfish play after watching film from the game at Navy and more guys sticking to their individual assignment, which led to a better team effort.

"I know we're making progress," Brown said. "If you look at the stats and watch the game, our first game we made very big mistakes and the following week we made a few but we made the routine plays. Against LA Tech, they didn't do anything in the first half and we went back to our old habits and we couldn't close the game. Against Navy, we all made routine plays and no one was selfish. That showed us that if we do our job, our one-in-11, this defense can be something serious."

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Ayo Adeyi

Roderick Brown

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