North Texas vs. San Diego State
When the bowl matchups were announced, the Isleta New Mexico Bowl featuring North Texas vs. San Diego State jumped off the page immediately. The always-stout, defense-first Aztecs and the high-octane, high-scoring Mean Green are what bowl season is all about. This isn’t the type of matchup you’d be likely to see during the regular season because there’s really no upside for either team given how the Group of Five College Football Playoff berth is doled out.
But, this is a matchup tailor-made for the bowl season. At least that’s what most of us thought at first before the nature of bowl season came into play. North Texas head coach Eric Morris took the same role at Oklahoma State and the expectation was that a lot of Mean Green players would hit the transfer portal and/or opt-out of this game. As that likely reality set in, the line moved down.
As we get closer to kickoff, though, a move back towards the original line suggests that maybe San Diego State will get the best that North Texas has to offer. All we can do is hope that this battle in Albuquerque lives up to how it has been built up in the minds of college football fans and bettors.
Odds from Circa Sports as of December 24, 1:20 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
Isleta New Mexico Bowl: North Texas (-5.5, 54) vs. San Diego State
Saturday, Dec. 27, 5:45 p.m. (ESPN)
There are sometimes cruel ironies in the bowl season. One that we have in this game is that San Diego State lost on this very field to New Mexico to ruin an opportunity to play in the Mountain West Championship Game. Another is that this will be the last time that this North Texas team will be together, as many will follow Morris to Stillwater and others will seek out greener pastures in terms of their bank accounts.
Rosy intro aside, it isn’t all unicorns and rainbows for this game. Aztecs QB Jayden Denegal won’t play after having surgery and neither will SDSU’s leading receiver, Jordan Napier, who was injured in mid-November. Denegal is obviously the big one, as he had 243 of the team’s 253 pass attempts. Napier had one. Multi-time transfer Bert Emanuel Jr. was 5-of-9 for 37 yards in his limited time. Despite a talented bloodline, including his father, who was in the NFL, Emanuel has only gone 32-of-60 for 476 yards in four years of college football. He has rushed for 946 yards and 5.7 yards per carry, though.
With Emanuel’s running ability and a 1,200-yard back in Lucky Sutton, we know what the Aztecs will want to do in this game. Skylar Cassity, the first-year DC who did well for this Mean Green unit, will be tasked with coming up with a gameplan to keep Emanuel bottled up. Sutton may get his, but the QB runs are what can be the daggers. While North Texas improved greatly against the pass, they still finished outside the top 110 in yards per carry allowed.
On the plus side for interim HC Drew Svoboda (special teams coach) and the rest of the Dudes from Denton, SDSU’s DC Rob Aurich is now at Nebraska and some key players are on the fence about playing in the bowl. As much as Cassity elevated the defense, this was still an offense-first UNT team.
On the negative side for Svoboda, star RB Caleb Hawkins, who was the team’s best blocker in pass pro and ran for 1,236 yards as a freshman, probably won’t play. We’ll see if 1,200-yard receiver Wyatt Young suits up. It seems like Drew Mestemaker has made his decision to play and maybe others will follow suit, as he had a 31/7 TD/INT ratio with over 4,000 passing yards. Unfortunately, OC Jordan Davis has been a bit distracted with his new gig at East Carolina, but it’s not like he needed to tweak the offense that much heading into the bowl game.
Only Vanderbilt averaged more yards per play than North Texas. Add in Cassity’s defense, which had 25 takeaways, and you can see why the Mean Green had such a successful season.
Of course, only Ohio State, Texas Tech, and Toledo have allowed more yards per play than the Aztec defense. Make of all that what you will, as this game has a glass half-full and glass half-empty feel to it in a lot of ways.
North Texas vs. San Diego State New Mexico Bowl Prediction
San Diego State will be more comfortable with the surroundings and with playing at elevation, as they just played in Albuquerque and play there just about every other year. North Texas seems a lot more distracted, especially on the coaching side of things, where both coordinators have had to split time between this game and their next gigs, plus Morris is gone. But, the Aztecs haven’t been immune to the coaching carousel either.
Ultimately, to go from a shot at the College Football Playoff to playing in the New Mexico Bowl has probably taken a toll on the Mean Green and it’s truly fair to wonder how prepared they will be for this game.
Pick: San Diego State +5.5
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