North Texas Mean Green 2025 Football Preview, Betting Ideas

North Texas Mean Green
2024 Record: 6–7

✅ Coaching Staff:
Eric Morris enters year 3 in charge of North Texas. From a yards per game perspective, Morris has engineered the sixth and third-best offense in his first couple of years at the helm. Offense is not the issue here. Enter Skylar Cassity. The defensive coordinator hire from Sam Houston could be a massive addition. Cassity spent just one season at Sam Houston, and the team ranked 22nd in the nation in yards per game allowed, as well as 14th in the country with 16 interceptions. Cassity, like Morris, has a long history of coaching in Texas, with stops at Abilene Christian, Texas State, and Texas Tech.

✅ Morris's offense + Sam Houston D= Likely very good!

✅ The obvious things to like

Loaded QB room…on paper:
Let's start with Drew Mestemaker. The 6'4 QB preserved a redshirt last season, but in the bowl vs Texas State, put up 393 yards through the air with two TDs, tack on a 70-yard house call on the ground, and this kid could be the next electric North Texas QB.
Reese Poffenbarger is next on the list. He backed up Cam Ward at Miami last season. A former FCS All-American, what I love here is Eric Morris took Cam Ward while he coached Incarnate Word, took him with him when he left to be OC at Washington State, and was with Ward the night he was drafted #1 overall. So let's be honest, Poffenbarger must have gotten rave reviews.
Lastly, Chris Jimerson Jr, the true freshman, is coming off winning the 6A Texas state championship. He lost two games in his entire career. His numbers speak for themselves. The kid is a dual-threat electric factory!

Nice pieces on the O-line:
This unit allowed a 4th-best 16 sacks in the AAC. They return Braydon Nelson, PFF FBS All-Freshman team. Johnny Dickson III was an honorable mention all-AAC last season. Like Gabe Blair, he missed all of last season due to injury, but in 2023, he graded out as the 12th-best guard in the nation. Throw in some interesting transfers, and this line should be solid!

Seven Sam Houston transfers on defense:
You love to see a defensive coordinator be able to bring over some of his players and get that scheme dialed in as soon as possible. David Fisher is the standout, a third-team all-CUSA CB. Briceon Hayes will be an interesting one. He is an edge rusher; he graded out very high last season at Sam Houston.

✅ Continuity at some key spots, and a hot-shot coordinator on D!

❌ The obvious things to dislike

Insane quarterback-WR connection out the door:
Chandler Morris and DT Sheffield were something special a year ago. Morris led the conference, throwing for 3,774 yards and 31 TDs. Sheffield led the league with 11 TD receptions and was third with 822 yards. Eric Morris seems to be an offensive wizard. Let's see if his quarterback and receivers put up these gaudy numbers.

✅ Schedule:
North Texas certainly made a deal with the scheduling gods for '25. No Memphis or Tulane! UTSA, USF, and Navy must make the trip to Denton. While Army is the lone road game on this conference slate that looks daunting. Nothing jumps out in the non-conference either — Washington State and South Alabama come to town, while one away game to Western Michigan will be a good pulse check for both programs. That is a gift of a schedule if I’ve ever seen one.

✅ Cake-walk schedule

🔍 One player on each side to watch

Miles Coleman:
North Texas brought in the 89th-ranked recruiting class in '24. Braydon Nelson, who we mentioned earlier, was the pick of the bunch last season, but Coleman was really exciting in the bowl as well. He had 6 catches for 104 yards and a touchdown, and also put up 75 yards on Texas Tech. This kid could be fun to watch in the Morris offense.

Fatifea Vailea II:
The senior defensive lineman will be a critical cog if Cassity gets this defense sorted out. He was CUSA all-freshman team in 2022, followed it up with decent production, and tons of availability ever since. I love how he finished last season: seven tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and a forced fumble in the bowl game.

✅ Gut Feeling:
North Texas is going to be really solid this season. At least they should be. Eric Morris has brought an entertaining style of offense to North Texas; now, we will see if he can translate that into winning football. With this schedule, just making it back to a bowl feels like it would be a letdown. That game vs UTSA on October 18th could go a long way in deciding one of the representatives in the AAC title game. Morris is clearly an offensive genius; the continuity on offense, coordinator hire, and transfers will lift this team into the 8–9 win range in 2025. They'd best be improved vs the run, though. Army, Navy, and now Rice will be running the option against these boys.

✅ Things have a chance to be special in Denton for 2025.

💰 Actionable:
It has come in a smidge, but +1600 for this team to win the AAC is still juicy enough to consider. If the defense improves to average, the offense could get them to the title. Let's also be real here; that schedule is the main reason for liking this wager.

I think we also keep it simple — North Texas over 6.5 wins. The schedule is a joke, and Morris won 5 games in year 1, 6 in year 2, and now is saying "this is as excited as I've been."

Come on, coach — 7 wins is a must in '25. Let’s cash that ticket.

✅ Who doesn’t love having a couple of long-shot conference fliers?

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