North Texas vs. Tulane
On a weekend where Alabama plays Georgia and Indiana and Ohio State square off in a battle of unbeatens, the best game just might be North Texas vs. Tulane. While James Madison and UNLV may have a chance to represent the Group of Five in the College Football Playoff, we know that the winner of the American Conference Championship Game will be in the field of 12.
Success breeds opportunity and both Eric Morris and Jon Sumrall have seized said opportunities, as Morris is heading to Oklahoma State and Sumrall to Florida, but they will coach their respective teams in this game and the winner will remain with his program in the CFP. The loser will look back on a terrific season, but wonder what could have been.
Odds from Circa Sports as of December 2, 7:00 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits. Check out our Conference Championship Game College Football Betting Hub.
North Texas (-2.5, 66) vs. Tulane Preview
Friday, 8 p.m. ET (ABC)
Tulane has been fortunate over the last few years to have some marquee games in the college football spotlight. It started with Willie Fritz, who inherited a team with just two bowl games appearances post-Y2K, and continued with Sumrall. The Green Wave actually finished with a top-10 ranking in 2022 and won 10+ games in three of the last four seasons.
Despite an incredible amount of talent to go around in the Lone Star State, North Texas hasn’t won a conference title since 2004 as a member of the Sun Belt and only won one division title in Conference USA back in 2017. This is a program that hasn’t won a bowl game since 2013. It cannot be overstated how huge this moment is for the university and the Mean Green players and staff.
To see how far the UNT program has gone, just look at this line. The Mean Green are favored in New Orleans with a chance to go to the College Football Playoff. Defensive improvements under new coordinator Skylar Cassity have helped a ton, but this is a top-five offense in EPA/play that ranks third in Rush EPA and sixth in Pass EPA per CFB Graphs. If more traditional stats are your thing, how about North Texas ranks second in the nation behind Vanderbilt in yards per play with 7.43. They’ve gained 7.92 YPP against American Conference foes and had 8.81 YPP during an undefeated November.
Tulane can more than hold up their end offensively, racking up 6.28 YPP for the season and 6.68 YPP in conference action. But, these two teams operate very differently on offense. The Mean Green have a 1,200-yard rusher in Caleb Hawkins. Tulane’s leading rusher is QB Jake Retzlaff with 561 yards on 103 carries. North Texas has 44 rushing TD on the season, with 23 from Hawkins. Tulane has 23 rushing TD total.
Drew Mestemaker, who threw five passes before starting the First Responder Bowl last season, was a backup QB in high school who mostly played safety. After throwing for 393 yards in that bowl game loss to Texas State, Mestemaker battled with former Miami (FL) recruit Reese Poffenbarger, but won the QB competition. It was a good call, as he’s thrown for a nation-high 3,835 yards this season and has a 29/4 TD/INT ratio.
While nowhere near the runner as Retzlaff, Mestemaker gets the ball out quickly and accurately to a group of receivers averaging over 14 yards per catch. Retzlaff has thrown for 2,717 and has a 14/6 TD/INT ratio with 13 yards per grab for his pass-catchers. North Texas certainly has the more dynamic offense in this game, but Tulane’s efficiency and success rates are impressive, too.
The Green Wave also have an accurate kicker in Patrick Durkin, who is 22-of-24 in field goals and 16-of-17 from 30+, a rarity in college football these days. North Texas has only kicked 13 field goals with 12 makes this season, 10 of them from inside 30 yards. We’ll see if that becomes a factor or not in a game where both offenses should find success.
The wild card in this game is the Mean Green defense. Cassity has done an incredible job this season with a group that ranks 47th in YPP allowed, 11 spots better and 0.11 yards per play better than Tulane. Last season, North Texas was 107th in the nation in yards per play allowed.
But, Tulane has allowed 0.8 fewer yards per play in conference action, as the Mean Green took advantage of a weak non-conference slate and Tulane played three Power Four opponents in Northwestern, Duke, and Ole Miss. The data point everybody will be harping on is North Texas’ 63-36 loss to South Florida, as the Bulls were easily the best offense that UNT faced. The Bulls racked up 580 yards, 32 first downs, and 42 second-half points.
North Texas vs. Tulane Prediction
Rain is in the forecast for Friday night, so we’ll see how that alters the gameplan for these two teams, if it does at all on the turf of Yulman Stadium. Ultimately, this game comes down to red zone success for me, as I do think both teams can and will move the ball. North Texas scored a TD on 80% of their red zone trips. Tulane scored one on 56% of theirs. UNT also had the better red zone defense in conference play.
I respect the “been there, done that” angle with Tulane and the fact that they’re at home on a wet and sloppy night, but I really like Cassity and think he’ll have the plan to slow down Tulane.
Pick: North Texas -2.5
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