UNT Hitting the Road to Face Ranked Tulane Team

DENTON – The UNT football team will look to build on the momentum gained with last week's 45-14 win over Temple as it kicks off a crucial four-game stretch with a road game against No. 23 Tulane in New Orleans on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The game can be seen on ESPN2 with the radio broadcast set for 97.1 The Freak/The Varsity Network.

Head coach Eric Morris and selected players spoke to the media on Tuesday and discussed, among other things, kicking off a pivotal four-game stretch in the schedule against a top-25 team, Oscar Adaway III coming off his best game of the season, the team's discipline and lack of penalties and the weapon that is Noah Rauschenberg.

UNT set for Top-25 matchup
The Mean Green have successful recent history when facing top-25 opponents, as they knocked off a ranked UTSA team just a couple of years ago to notch their first top-25 win in program history.

Saturday will mark the first such matchup since that 45-23 win over then-No. 15 UTSA to close out the 2021 regular season, and Morris said his players will naturally have some extra motivation to face the Green Wave.

"Our kids will be naturally more motivated," Morris said. "They're a top-25 team for a reason. They've earned that right. Over the last two years, they've played phenomenal football. They've recruited well and are really sound on both sides. They're tough on both sides of the football. We know going into it, any time you play a good team we have to minimize our mistakes and tighten everything up and dot our I's and cross our T's and make sure we can match what they're doing out there."

The matchup against Tulane will begin a four-game stretch against the four teams picked in the preseason poll atop the conference, and a sellout crowd of 30,000 is expected at Yulman Stadium.

"Everyone loves to see a sellout crowd," running back Oscar Adaway III said. "If you don't like to play in that, you shouldn't play football.

"We just have to buy in and be happy and blessed you have a chance to go against a ranked team. There's only 25 teams that are ranked and we're just happy to get a chance to go out and go play against these guys."

Senior linebacker Carson Kropp, along with Adaway, was on the team that knocked off UTSA in that last matchup against a ranked team and said he knows how good Tulane is and has a healthy respect for every opponent, but he believes his team is just as capable of winning the game Saturday.

"They have it all figured out right now," Kropp said of Tulane. "They're a good, talented team. But I think we're just as a good, so we can come out and execute our assignments and make it happen Saturday."

As for that expected sellout crowd, Kropp said he will welcome it.

"We love it, especially on the defensive side of the ball, it's huge," Kropp said. "You bring in all kinds of energy – negative or positive – and I love it. They start booing you and stuff, and I'm like 'bring it on.' It feeds the energy. I love it."

Adaway coming off season-best game
Adaway has overcome a lot of adversity in his time at UNT, facing multiple serious injuries that have cut into his playing time since he arrived as a highly touted freshman out of North Little Rock, Arkansas.

He's also watched a stacked running backs room emerge at UNT and has had to share carries with several talented backs.

On Saturday against Temple, he got his chance to shine and led the team with 94 yards on just seven carries, including a 43-yard touchdown scamper.

"It's been interesting rolling three backs," Morris said. "One week, they might be in at the right time where we have a great play call and the O-line blocks it up great and there it goes. I don't think he's more healthy now than he was two or three weeks ago, we were just able to block some stuff up front and he took advantage of them and showed off his speed.

"I hadn't seen him run like that in open field. He was one of our faster guys in that whole game on our GPS, and I was messing with him and told him it was because he had the wind behind him. He's super competitive and I love how he's focused and locked in no matter how things are going."

After Adaway led the way to 220 rushing yards last week, UNT is now the second-leading rushing team in the AAC in yards per game and first in yards per carry, and UNT is the only team in the nation with three running backs with more than 1,300 career rushing yards. Adaway is now 24th on the program's all-time career rushing list with 1,442 yards.

He said he's happy to be back in the mix and most importantly, once again healthy.

"It's been a blessing," Adaway said. "Every time I get a chance to put on my helmet with the North Texas Mean Green, I'm always happy."

UNT among nation's least penalized teams
Entering Saturday's game, the Mean Green are tied with Wake Forest for sixth in all of FBS in fewest penalties per game at 3.8.

UNT had no penalties in a close loss to Navy and had three in Saturday's win over Temple – the fourth time this season the Mean Green have had three or fewer penalties.

"Coach Kegans and the strength and conditioning staff and coach Morris - they're on top of us with everything we do," Adaway said. "Being a student in class and athlete on the field. Just being disciplined with everything in our lives. That carries over to the field."

Morris said he his staff preaching the small things and fundamentals has helped keep the penalty numbers low.

"The coaches really being able to make it an emphasis and having hands in the right places and not getting holding calls and for us to be in the right spots on defense and not get PIs and our pre-snap stuff has been phenomenal all year. We just haven't had many pre-snap penalties at all."

Rauschenberg has become invaluable weapon
Senior kicker Noah Rauschenberg came to UNT as a transfer and was a known commodity for his deep kickoffs that were rarely returned.

What wasn't a sure thing was his effectiveness on field goals and extra points.

Rauschenberg is a perfect 25-for-25 on extra points and is 9-for-11 on his field goal attempts with a long of 49 yards. He's only allowed four of his kickoffs to be returned, helping the team to allow just 9.8 yards per kickoff return.

"He's been huge," Morris said. "As a coach, it's a luxury to have a kicker like that because you don't worry about returns. There's been very few returned on us this year. You don't realize it until you don't have it. We've been able to score quite a bit this year and to be able to put it in the back every time has been awesome. The wind challenged us last week and they returned one last week and the coverage unit did a great job. Noah's been fantastic on and off the field. We wish we had him longer than a year."

Of all the kickers Morris has coached, he said there is no doubt Rauschenberg has the best leg he's had in his career so far.

"I don't even think it's close," Morris said. "If he can continue to show the consistency on extra points and field goals, he'll definitely have a chance to play at the next level just because of the strength of his leg."

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Oscar Adaway III

Carson Kropp

Noah Rauschenberg

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