Saturday, November 30
Philadelphia, PA
11 am CT
University of North Texas
at
Temple
Photo by: Zach Del Bello / Mean Green Sports
Football Set for Finale With Bowl Bid on the Line
11/26/2024 2:33:00 PM | Football
DENTON – The UNT football team will travel Philadelphia this weekend, as the Mean Green look to snap a five-game skid and earn bowl eligibility with a win over Temple in the regular-season finale at 11 a.m. The game can be seen on ESPN+ with the radio broadcast set for 97.1 The Eagle/The Varsity Network/Sirius XM Channel 383.
Head coach Eric Morris and selected players spoke to the media on Tuesday and discussed, among other things, the stakes riding on the game, a veteran quarterback making key adjustments and the need to improve on fourth down.
Bowl fate riding on Temple game
Aside from what a win for UNT would do in terms of snapping a losing streak that dates back to mid-October, it would also extend the Mean Green's season.
UNT has been sitting on five wins for a while now, and a sixth on Saturday would earn the team a bowl bid after they narrowly missed out last year in Morris' first year at the helm.
"We have to treat this like it's our Super Bowl right now," Morris said. "It's survive and advance, and if we win this one, we play on."
Junior quarterback Chandler Morris knows what's at stake and said the team has broken it down to the simplest of terms: four more quarters, one more game to play one more game.
"It all comes down to this week," he said. "Everyone in the room understands that. Our mentality is one more for one more. We have to execute these last four quarters. That's all we have guaranteed this season, especially for the seniors, and we have to go get one more game.
"Our goal is to go 1-0 this week and give us another to chance to play a game in December."
One of those seniors is cornerback Ridge Texada, who is the program's all-time leaders in pass breakups and passes defended (PBU+INTs), and could possibly be making his last appearance in a UNT uniform.
"I've definitely been thinking about it," Texada said. "I'm just trying to enjoy every moment and live in the moment and not take it for granted. I just want to go out on a high note with a win, go to a bowl and win a bowl game."
Morris learned from two rough outings
UNT's record-setting quarterback had a nice bounce back effort in last week's loss to East Carolina, when he threw three touchdown passes to no interceptions and passed for 266 yards, while adding 39 on the ground.
That came after losses to Army and UTSA, in which he threw two interceptions in each game and one touchdown total (against UTSA).
Morris said he flipped on the tape and realized he was lacking discipline, while falling victim to those teams' plan to drop more into coverage to combat the gunslinger who still ranks top-5 in all of FBS in passing touchdowns (2nd), passing yards per game (4th) and total offense (4th), among other statistical categories.
"I went out there and made some mistakes a couple of games in a row," he said. "Seeing that film and seeing people are scared of my arm, honestly, and dropping back, told me I have to be able to adjust to that and make plays otherwise."
That means checking down more often, using his legs more, and basically, just using an old football adage of taking what the defense gives him.
"Army and UTSA, when you look at the film, they were dropping a lot of people into coverage and seeing if I'm disciplined enough to throw underneath and see if we can get our run game established. I tried to force some things and got caught with it.
"It's all about protecting the football, not having turnovers and just using my legs."
Morris acknowledges need for change on fourth downs
Prior to UNT's loss to UTSA, the Mean Green were 20-for-32 on fourth-down conversion attempts – a staggering success rate, especially given the volume.
But over UNT's last two games, the Mean Green are just 1-for-9 on fourth downs, and Eric Morris said he's definitely taken notice and re-examined his aggressive approach.
UNT leads the country in fourth-down attempts and has the third most conversions in the nation but rank 80th nationally in conversion percentage, and a lot of that negative has come from the last two games.
"To be honest, I've gone for it too much," Morris said. "I have to know how we're built and not let the competitive side of things get to me. We've gone back the last few days and evaluated the play call – was it a good call or bad call? Was it a good call and the execution was bad? I know I have to do a better job of putting our defense in a better situation. The last few weeks, on fourth down, we've been pathetic. If analytics are saying something else and we feel like that's not good for our team, I have to do a better job of punting the ball and putting our defense in a better spot."
Head coach Eric Morris and selected players spoke to the media on Tuesday and discussed, among other things, the stakes riding on the game, a veteran quarterback making key adjustments and the need to improve on fourth down.
Bowl fate riding on Temple game
Aside from what a win for UNT would do in terms of snapping a losing streak that dates back to mid-October, it would also extend the Mean Green's season.
UNT has been sitting on five wins for a while now, and a sixth on Saturday would earn the team a bowl bid after they narrowly missed out last year in Morris' first year at the helm.
"We have to treat this like it's our Super Bowl right now," Morris said. "It's survive and advance, and if we win this one, we play on."
Junior quarterback Chandler Morris knows what's at stake and said the team has broken it down to the simplest of terms: four more quarters, one more game to play one more game.
"It all comes down to this week," he said. "Everyone in the room understands that. Our mentality is one more for one more. We have to execute these last four quarters. That's all we have guaranteed this season, especially for the seniors, and we have to go get one more game.
"Our goal is to go 1-0 this week and give us another to chance to play a game in December."
One of those seniors is cornerback Ridge Texada, who is the program's all-time leaders in pass breakups and passes defended (PBU+INTs), and could possibly be making his last appearance in a UNT uniform.
"I've definitely been thinking about it," Texada said. "I'm just trying to enjoy every moment and live in the moment and not take it for granted. I just want to go out on a high note with a win, go to a bowl and win a bowl game."
Morris learned from two rough outings
UNT's record-setting quarterback had a nice bounce back effort in last week's loss to East Carolina, when he threw three touchdown passes to no interceptions and passed for 266 yards, while adding 39 on the ground.
That came after losses to Army and UTSA, in which he threw two interceptions in each game and one touchdown total (against UTSA).
Morris said he flipped on the tape and realized he was lacking discipline, while falling victim to those teams' plan to drop more into coverage to combat the gunslinger who still ranks top-5 in all of FBS in passing touchdowns (2nd), passing yards per game (4th) and total offense (4th), among other statistical categories.
"I went out there and made some mistakes a couple of games in a row," he said. "Seeing that film and seeing people are scared of my arm, honestly, and dropping back, told me I have to be able to adjust to that and make plays otherwise."
That means checking down more often, using his legs more, and basically, just using an old football adage of taking what the defense gives him.
"Army and UTSA, when you look at the film, they were dropping a lot of people into coverage and seeing if I'm disciplined enough to throw underneath and see if we can get our run game established. I tried to force some things and got caught with it.
"It's all about protecting the football, not having turnovers and just using my legs."
Morris acknowledges need for change on fourth downs
Prior to UNT's loss to UTSA, the Mean Green were 20-for-32 on fourth-down conversion attempts – a staggering success rate, especially given the volume.
But over UNT's last two games, the Mean Green are just 1-for-9 on fourth downs, and Eric Morris said he's definitely taken notice and re-examined his aggressive approach.
UNT leads the country in fourth-down attempts and has the third most conversions in the nation but rank 80th nationally in conversion percentage, and a lot of that negative has come from the last two games.
"To be honest, I've gone for it too much," Morris said. "I have to know how we're built and not let the competitive side of things get to me. We've gone back the last few days and evaluated the play call – was it a good call or bad call? Was it a good call and the execution was bad? I know I have to do a better job of putting our defense in a better situation. The last few weeks, on fourth down, we've been pathetic. If analytics are saying something else and we feel like that's not good for our team, I have to do a better job of punting the ball and putting our defense in a better spot."
Players Mentioned
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