2024: Temple Preview
It is an important game for everyone
November 30 ・11am・ESPN+・MGRN・Philadelphia, PA・Lincoln Financial Field
North Texas started 5-1and is now 5-6 on the season. Five straight losses have confounded the fans. Already, one coach is without a job (Caponi) and Eric Morris is already getting hashtags on X.
Let’s be clear: when you fire a coordinator, the clock begins on your job. Morris hasn’t hired a replacement just yet, and Brian Odom wants to get that job permanently no doubt. Last week’s game vs ECU didn’t help anyone out. NT had a 21-0 lead and blew it on the way to a 28-40 loss at home on Senior Day.
So we have Eric Morris at 34-31 including 10-13 at NT against Everette Withers, 32-43 in his seventh year and 0-1 as the interim at Temple.
It is a real ESPN+ kind of game, folks. Temple is by far the worst team in the league and that creates a conundrum for the Mean Green. Winning this game is all but expected. NT is about a -9 point favorite going into this one. If you are keeping track, NT lost vs UTSA, and ECU as favorites1so none of that matters. THe offense is not clicking and the defense is still not stopping anyone. You know, classic 5-6 team stuff.
Eric Morris spent his press conference saying he was questioning his own aggression on fourth downs, his play-calls, and the execution of the offense. Against Memphis, NT had 653 yards of offense and led the game, while looking dangerous. Since then, the offense has been poor. The only man doing damage has been Shane Porter, and most of that was in the one game vs UTSA where he was the entire offense.
Chandler Morris has been seeing ghosts and some fans are blaming his shoulder — hurt vs Tulane on homecoming — but again, that is the kind of thing every team is dealing with. Getting the ball down the field into the endzone is the whole reason we hired Eric Morris. We knew that building the defense up from the Seth Littrell years was going to be a multi-year endeavor but two seasons of near-worst football on that side is difficult to stomach.
It is a pivotal game. Eric Morris can get to a bowl game, something he just missed last year. It would set up a difficult matchup but one that absolutely has to happen despite the difficulty. This game is about taking care of business, and well, that is the ultimate goal of the program: Being a team having to beat teams you should beat.
Again, we will dispense with the details of the offense-vs-defense and vice versa as it really is the same as last week. The defense grabbed some big turnovers but the offense did not click the way we expect.
Temple is the worst scoring offense in the league, and NT should be able to get stops and turnovers. They shut down Tulsa, remember. That was with Matt Caponi leading the charge.
Temple is also the second-worst scoring defense in the league, just ahead of Tulsa, and just behind NT.
The advanced numbers say NT, and so do I. In preseason I had it 35-27 NT but that sounds a little low. Realistically I think NT can get 40, and hold this squad to 10.
GMG
NT became an underdog around gametime vs UTSA.