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Seth Littrell | North Texas Total compensation: $1,897,500 Although making nearly $2 million is nothing to sneeze at outside the world of college football, North Texas’ play on the field lately doesn’t even justify Littrell making that. Hovering around .500 with a losing record in each of the last three years would be pink-slip time for most coaches. Plus, Littrell has lost all five of his bowl games. He came into 2022 with the oldest starting quarterback in the nation with a chance to make some noise in Conference USA. Should the Mean Green fail to show significant progress, the buyout would be $1.575 million if he is relieved of his duties on Dec. 1. Follow Scooby Axson on Twitter @ScoobAxson READ MORE: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/sports/ncaaf/2022/10/13/overpaid-college-football-coaches-contracts-jimbo-fisher/8130700001/

DENTON, Texas – UNT Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker has announced promotions for Jessie Gardner and Alic’a Oliver as well as the addition of veteran administrator Stephanie McDonald to the department’s staff. “I am excited to announce these changes to our department staff,” Baker said. “Jessie and Alic’a have shown themselves to be integral to our department and I look forward to seeing their impact in their new roles. We’re also fortunate to have Stephanie joining our department. She brings a wealth of experience from roles in athletics and on campus which we will benefit from.” Gardner has been promoted into a new role as Executive Senior Associate AD/Senior Woman Administrator. She previously joined the UNT staff in September 2021 as Senior Associate AD for Leadership and Culture Development following a seven-plus year stint at Alabama. After serving for the last 18 months as Associate AD for Compliance, Oliver has been elevated to Senior Associate AD for Compliance and DEI. She has been on staff with the Mean Green since 2018 and also spent time in compliance at Tennessee and LSU. McDonald joins the UNT Athletics staff in a new position of Senior Associate AD for Administration. With more than 25 years of higher education experience, she most recently served as UNT’s Interim Associate VP for Administrative Services on campus. McDonald also held positions in college athletics for nearly 20 years including her final post as Southland Conference Associate Commissioner from 2007-17.

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Harry gets a follow-up visit with the Executive Director of the North Texas Light The Tower NIL Collective Rick Villarreal. Rick discusses the latest updates and emphasizes the importance of continuing to build momentum with the collective heading into the American Conference. Direct audio link: https://traffic.libsyn.com/gomeangreen/RV_NIL_Pt_2_mixdown.mp3 Direct link to Light The Tower Collective Site: https://www.lightthetowercollective.com/

Fan bases rarely look at their own program with rational eyes. North Texas is no different. Scour the message boards or social media and you’ll find plenty of Mean Green faithful clamoring for a change at head coach with Seth Littrell in his seventh season in charge. This despite Littrell’s success over the past six seasons. North Texas was awful before Littrell arrived prior to the 2016 season. North Texas had one bowl appearance in the previous 11 seasons and only five total from 2000 to 2015. Littrell has led the group to five in six full seasons in Denton. The Mean Green only won six or more games four times in the 16 seasons during the current century. Littrell has three in six years. North Texas is 3-3 on the season and sit atop the C-USA standings with a 2-0 record. A six-win season seems inevitable for the Mean Green, which means Littrell would be responsible for more bowl berths in seven years than North Texas received in the previous 25 seasons. North Texas hasn’t had this time of sustained success since Hayden Fry was on campus in the 1970s. North Texas will reach a bowl and finish with at least six wins. And then I guess it is on the administration and fan base to decide if it wants to walk into the AAC with its most proven coach in 50 years or start from scratch because they feel like six bowl games in seven seasons is somehow underachieving for a program that went decades without earning any type of post season success. read more: https://www.texasfootball.com/article/2022/10/08/411-from-week-5-of-the-college-football-season-texas-longhorns-favored-in-red-river-rivalry;-mad-max-duggan-takes-reigns-for-tcu?ref=article_preview_title

When Austin Aune of Argyle (Texas) was playing high school football, Joe Biden was in the White House – as Barack Obama's vice president. That was 2012, Biden is back in Washington, D.C. as president and Aune is back on the gridiron for the University of North Texas at age 29. He's believed to be the oldest Division I starting quarterback in the modern era. Once a three-star prospect at Argyle, he committed to TCU on the condition he would also be able to play baseball for the Horned Frogs. But before he took the field for Gary Patterson, Aune was drafted by the New York Yankees and spent six years chasing the MLB dream. In 2018, he gave up baseball and returned to football at the University of Arkansas before transferring to North Texas. After appearing in a handful of games over the past few seasons for the Mean Green, Aune tossed three touchdown passes as the starter as North Texas beat Florida Atlantic 45-28. He was 14 of 20 for 180 yards and three scores. Not bad for the "junior" who celebrated his 29th birthday on Sept. 6. read more: https://www.maxpreps.com/news/H_BIUHBKb0SkcPpL2P7HNQ/high-school-football-former-argyle-quarterback-austin-aune-becomes-oldest-division-i-starting-signal-caller-at-north-texas.htm?ftag=MPG-05-10aaa4j&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The Florida Atlantic University Owls (2-3, 1-0 C-USA) will take on the University of North Texas Mean Green (2-3, 1-0 C-USA) in Denton, Texas, on Saturday, Oct. 1. FAU looks to bounce back after dropping the first of their two-game road trip last week against Purdue. FAU is currently 0-2 in road games this season with losses to Ohio and Purdue. As the team resumes conference play, the hope is that the familiarity with their opponents eases the team’s road woes going forward. “We just have to go win the game,” head coach Willie Taggart said. “It’s football, no matter if it’s here in Boca or on the road, it’s a 100-yard field with hash marks and numbers and a goal-post. That’s all it comes down to. There’s no secret or anything like that, we just have to go and play winning football.” High-scoring offenses and lackluster defenses characterize both teams. Sophomore running backs Oscar Adaway III and Ayo Adeyi lead the way for North Texas, combining for 704 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns on 123 carries this season. “[Adaway and Adeyi] are big backs that can run. They’re going to commit to the run offensively… They don’t have to change up what they do because of the back that’s in the game, they continue to run their offense,” Taggart said. “You see who and what their identity is as a football team, and they’re going to try to run the football. We have to do a great job of trying to stop the run in this ball game.” read more: https://www.upressonline.com/2022/09/fau-football-owls-take-on-north-texas-as-conference-play-resumes/

Gary Patterson was busy. After leading TCU to back-to-back top-10 seasons, the head coach was constructing his masterpiece. It featured a 47-7 win at No. 6 Utah. It concluded with a Rose Bowl victory over Big Ten champion Wisconsin. It ended with the Horned Frogs ranked second in the nation, having gone undefeated for the first time in 72 years. In the midst of the coach’s magnum opus, Austin Aune caught his eye. The star quarterback at Texas’ Argyle High School — roughly 30 miles north of Fort Worth — committed to the rising program. In June 2012, as an incoming freshman, he moved into Moncrief Hall to begin summer conditioning with the team. “I had been there a day, and I went through an awful workout where they just ran us in the dirt and I was throwing up everywhere,” Aune recalled. “I was like, ‘College football is gonna be tough.’” Aune awoke the next morning, ready for Round 2. The next workout began at 10 a.m. Around 9, his phone rang. Brian Cashman waited for him to pick up. When Aune’s name wasn’t announced in the first round of the 2012 MLB Draft, he assumed his future was at TCU. One day later, the Yankees selected the standout shortstop in the second round (89th overall). The slot money for his draft position was $548,000. The Yankees offered Aune a signing bonus of $1 million. read more: https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/how-ex-yankees-prospect-became-college-footballs-oldest-qb/

It helps that MTSU has a pretty good track record in those games, too. The Blue Raiders are 9-5 all-time in their annual Blackout game, including a 34-28, rain-soaked win over Marshall in 2021. "Every day, you get accustomed to the silver helmets, the blue jerseys, the silver pants, the white pants," said wide receivers coach Shane Tucker, who won four Blackout games during his playing days as a Blue Raider. "But black, it just kind of moves you a little different." All three position coaches that played in Blackout games as players on MTSU's staff (Gilstrap, Tucker and quarterbacks coach Brent Stockstill) all pointed to how, for whatever reason, the black uniforms the team has worn over the years have often brought out the best in the players. Whether that was from just the novelty of wearing new kicks, the fact the Blackout game is always a prime-time contest, or the fact that it's usually scheduled against a pretty tough opponent. The quality of the games itself, whether it be Beyah's Hail Mary catch, Ed Batties 2015 walk-off, triple overtime touchdown against WKU (a favorite of Tucker's) or last year's six-takeaway game in the Monsoon in Murfreesboro against the Thundering Herd, certainly helps keep the game in the front of the program's eyes. "2016, we were down 27-7 on a really good LA Tech team with some NFL teams," Brent Stockstill recalled, remembering the 34-31 comeback win he helped engineer over the Bulldogs. "In 2018 (a 25-24 win over Lane Kiffin's FAU), we had a two-point conversion to win it at the buzzer. It's just a cool atmosphere to create with everybody involved." Gilstrap, who made his collegiate debut in 2009's Blackout game against Memphis, forcing and recovering a fumble on a second quarter kickoff that led to MTSU's second touchdown in the Blue Raiders 31-14 win, noted that the Blackout games also serve as one of the longest running institutional memories from players in his era to the ones currently on the roster. "I was here when Coach Stock surprised us with black socks," Gilstrap said. "I remember when we played North Texas at home Coach Stock pulled out a black helmet. The game's changed! It comes from the foundation that Coach Stock laid and the guys that I played with, the foundation that they laid here." This week, that foundation is laid just a little bit thicker, as the defending C-USA Champion, UTSA, heads into Murfreesboro for a Friday night kickoff as MTSU returns home after, perhaps, the biggest win in program history over then-No. 25 Miami. The coaches, Gilstrap notes, don't need to hype up their guys any further about the importance of this game. They fully understand not only the in-season meaning of the game, but the meaning it has for the campus and the program. Read more: https://goblueraiders.com/news/2022/9/28/football-it-comes-from-the-foundation-former-mtsu-players-turned-coaches-take-pride-in-annual-blackout

I didn't get to watch the game but I understand he suffered a nasty shoulder injury this past weekend in his game against Texas A&M Kingsville. I pulled this from the game story: LINK: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/javelinas-hand-hounds-43-10-035900768.html

The Florida Atlantic Owls and North Texas Mean Green meet Saturday in week 5 college football action at Apogee Stadium. The Florida Atlantic Owls look to get back to a .500 record. The North Texas Mean Green also look to get to a 3-3 record. The Florida Atlantic Owls have lost 7 of their last 8 road games. N’Kosi Perry is completing 58.2 percent of his passes for 1,217 yards, 13 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. LaJohntay Wester and Jahmal Edrine have combined for 574 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns, while Je’Quan Burton has 12 receptions. The Florida Atlantic Owls ground game is averaging 215 yards per contest, and Larry McCammon leads the way with 433 yards and 2 touchdowns. Defensively, FAU is allowing 26.2 points and 401.6 yards per game. Eddie Williams leads the Florida Atlantic Owls with 51 tackles, Jayden Williams has 2 sacks and Dwight Toombs has 2 interceptions. The Florida Atlantic Owls are coming off a competitive game against Purdue they could have easily won, and now 2 of their 3 losses have been decided by 3 or fewer points. The North Texas Mean Green haven’t been nearly as competitive through 5 games, and they’re 122nd in total defense, 118th in rush defense and 119th in scoring defense. FAU should be a confident team based on last week and should have a field day on the offensive side here. I’ll gladly lay the field goal with the Owls on the road. Randy Chambers's Free Pick: Florida Atlantic Owls -3 read more: https://sportschatplace.com/cfb-picks/2022/09/26/north-texas-vs-florida-atlantic-10-1-22-college-football-picks-predictions-odds/