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A quarterback named Cash really should play for the Mean Green, shouldn’t he? That’ll be the case soon enough, as China Spring’s Cash McCollum made his commitment to North Texas on Friday. McCollum led the Cougars to their second straight Class 4A state championship last season as a junior, in his first season in the program after transferring from Wimberley. He passed for 3,201 yards and 37 touchdowns against 10 interceptions, while rushing for 454 yards and six touchdowns. He was the District 5-4A Div. I Offensive MVP, the Super Centex Offensive Player of the Year and a finalist for the Mr. Texas Football Award. McCollum (6-4, 213) also held offers from Tulsa, Arkansas State and Sam Houston State, among others. read more: https://wacotrib.com/sports/high-school/football/china-springs-mccollum-announces-commitment-to-north-texas/article_d84cc408-2283-11ee-9ed0-4b9ff1797033.html

Cornerback Kemon Hall was undrafted out of North Texas in 2019. He signed with the Chargers and played with the team through the preseason before going on the practice squad early in the regular season. After being released by Los Angeles, Hall bounced around the league and spent time with the Vikings, Saints and Cowboys. Hall was brought back in 2021. In the past two seasons, Hall appeared in 18 games, combining for eight tackles and a fumble recovery. He has primarily been used as a special teamer. With such an influx of talent at the cornerback position, it isn’t a stretch to think that Hall could be on the fringe during roster cutdowns in August. He will need to produce strong showings in training camp and the preseason to warrant his continued inclusion in the Chargers organization. Contract (2023): $940,000 base salary, no prorated bonus, $940,000 cap hit. Acquired: Hall was claimed off waivers by the Chargers in 2021. LINK: https://sports.yahoo.com/chargers-2023-roster-review-cb-000055055.html

CHINA SPRING, Texas — The Mean Green is cashing in on a big-time stud under center. China Spring quarterback Cash McCollum has officially announced his commitment to the University of North Texas. After transferring from Wimberly for his junior season, McCollum led the Cougars to their second straight 4A State title in his first year with the squad. McCollum racks in a stacked resume, taking home the Offensive MVP Award, Super CenTex Offensive Player of the Year and a Mr. Texas Football finalist spot. Growing up as a coach's kid, McCollum was always around the game of football and playing in college was something he always dreamed of. "I was just around the game a lot and fell in love with the game," McCollum said. "I was a ball boy all of my life and I just looked up to those older guys. They taught me a lot on how to interact with each other and how to be on and off the field. I think growing up as a coach's kid has really helped me with that and I'm just excited to have the opportunity to play at the college level. It's just crazy. It really is a dream come true." read more: https://www.kcentv.com/article/life/people/china-spring-qb-cash-mccollum-commits-unt/500-2fc34cfb-f5b8-421b-a6ca-4b2d5c589816

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/sports/former-unt-athletic-director-excited-for-new-opportunity-with-west-virginia/3295464/

Cal is rebooting their entire offense, but they aren’t exactly given much of a chance to rest before conference play begins. Cal’s B opponent this year and their season opener is a road game against the North Texas Mean Green, a team that took them to the wire in Berkeley a half-decade ago. North Texas did employ Mike Bloesch last year as the team’s offensive coordinator (and tight end Asher Alberding came in tow as well), so the Bears should have plenty of familiarity with how these players operate. But this offense that Bloesch left behind is no joke. New coach Cal’s first coaching faceoff will be against a familiar face. After North Texas made the decision to part with Seth Littrell after a 7-6 2022 regular season, the Mean Green turned to Eric Morris, the offensive coordinator at Washington State last season. Morris is best known for coaching Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech as his offensive coordinator, as the Red Raiders spit out historic offensive numbers in Lubbock. The decision by Morris and Kliff Kingsbury to pick Mahomes as the Red Raiders starting quarterback led to Davis Webb transferring to Cal. Dominoes! Morris moved onto Incarnate Word as the head coach where he led them to two playoff appearances, including a quarterfinal bid in 2021. Morris then brought his quarterback Cam Ward to Washington State as Jake Dickert’s offensive coordinator. Although Wazzu’s offense was fairly average for most of the season (and mediocre in Pac-12 play), it did best Justin Wilcox’s Cal defense in a 28-9 loss that everyone forgot about the moment it ended. read more: https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/cal-bears-north-texas-mean-green-preview

One can never tell what the future holds but sometimes your destiny writes itself for you. And with a name like Cash Davis McCollum how could you not expect a 6-foot, 4-inch, 210-pound quarterback with a slingshot for an arm. “You know the movie ‘Bull Durham’,” explained Michael McCollum, Cash’s father and an assistant football coach at China Spring High School. “The guy’s name is Crash Davis and I wanted to name him Crash Davis, but my wife said ‘No, we can’t name him Crash.” So I said, ‘How about we take the ‘R’ out. Let’s call him Cash Davis.’” Unlike the cocky, jaded veteran catcher played by Kevin Costner, Cash’s confidence is subtle — collected. He’s cool under pressure. Read more: https://wacotrib.com/sports/high-school/cashs-on-the-money-deliveries-paying-dividends-for-china-spring/article_c1eb6a06-3ab8-11ed-b66f-3be26c8f8cbf.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

1. Willie Fritz, Tulane Tulane was one of college football's biggest surprises from the '22 season. After a 2-10 season the previous year, the Green Wave went 12-2, won the AAC title and finished No. 9 nationally after beating USC in the Cotton Bowl. Fritz has guided the program to four bowl games over the last five seasons - a significant upgrade after Tulane earned just one postseason trek from 2003-17. Whether it's the current stint in New Orleans or previous stops at Central Missouri (97-47 from 1997-09), Sam Houston (40-15 from 2010-13), or Georgia Southern (17-7 from 2014-15), Fritz is simply a winner and has a resume that places him among (if not No. 1) the best Group of 5 coaches in the nation. 2. Jeff Traylor, UTSA Of the six new programs in the American Athletic Conference for '23, the Roadrunners are easily the team most capable of making an impact right away - potentially for a berth in a New Year's Six bowl. After a successful stint as the head coach at Gilmer High School, Traylor spent time as an assistant at Texas, SMU, and Arkansas before taking over in San Antonio. In three seasons at the helm, the Roadrunners are 30-10 and posted back-to-back Conference USA titles (2021-22). read more: https://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-american-athletic-conference-college-football-coaches-2023

7.11.23 - Caesar's sportsbook has UNT +10 https://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/matchups/california-vs-north-texas/

AAC Win Totals Charlotte: 2.5 (Over -175/Under +140) East Carolina: 5.5 (Over +125/Under -150) Florida Atlantic: 7.5 (Over +100/Under -125) Memphis: 7.5 (Over -150/Under +125) Navy: 6.5 (Over +110/Under -135) North Texas: 6.5 (Over -105/Under -120) Rice: 4.5 (Over -115/Under -110) SMU: 8 (Over -165/Under +135) South Florida: 4 (Over -130/Under +105) Temple: 5 (Over -150/Under +125) Tulane: 9.5 (Over +110/Under -135) Tulsa: 4.5 (Over -120/Under -105) UAB: 5 (Over -120/Under -105) UTSA: 7.5 (Over -140/Under +115) Read more: https://fansided.com/betsided/posts/2023-aac-college-football-preview-odds-win-conference-win-totals-predictions-01h533vckq95

The University of North Texas at Dallas is excited to welcome Kelly R. Perry as the new Athletic Director as announced by University President Bob Mong. Kelly brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in both athletics and student athletes academic relationships that will surely cultivate and develop immediate improvement and success to the athletic program and university campus. Perry will be the second athletic director after inaugural Athletics Director Jack Allday announced his retirement this past spring, after being at the helm for the past 9 years. Perry was the Associate Athletic Director at Colorado State-Pueblo where she has oversight of the compliance department and internal operations of 21 sports. She also served for nine years as Associate Athletic Director over Compliance and Academics at Oklahoma City University.

North Texas Mean Green Location: Denton, Texas Enrollment: 44,336 One thing to know: Mean Green men's basketball won 18 or more games in each of the past six seasons. Connections to Wichita State: Former Shocker Tommy Newman, a member of the 1965 Final Four team, coached North Texas from 1983-86. Harry Miller coached North Texas in 1970-71 before taking the top job at Wichita State. The Mean Green played in the Missouri Valley Conference from 1957-75, where it finished with one winning season in men's basketball. North Texas won 13 MVC golf titles, which remains second in conference history behind Wichita State's 21. The Mean Green won four straight NCAA titles from 1949-52 and placed second in 1954, 1955 and 1956. LINK: https://goshockers.com/news/2023/6/27/the-roundhouse-rh-aac-newcomers-series-rice-owls.aspx

Eric Morris was officially named as the 20th head coach of UNT football on December 13, 2023. That is 29 weeks or two hundred days ago. He has yet to coach a game but that will change in a couple of months. And yet there has still been a fair amount of analysis on how Morris has fared in terms of his short tenure, with a primary focus on recruiting. While many UNT football recruiting fan heads have been spinning with the advent of NIL and the Portal, Morris has put together a solid recruiting team that has had its share of success along with a normal amount of disappointment that was to be expected this early. The real tell on how good a recruiting class can be occurs years after the class is finalized. The recruiting databases, and school offers are typically the only data points we have. The recruiting services have never invested a lot of resources into analyzing borderline 3-star recruits and so you could argue that offer lists may be even more important. One aspect that could differentiate Morris from his predecessor in Seth Littrell could be how many of these classes and players inside these classes stick and stay with the program or leave, commonly referred to in the business world as attrition. Under Littrell, it was pretty bad. Just eyeing 2022, UNT showed twelve signees and nine transfers for a total of twenty-one. Of that total, six have already headed to the exits or 30 percent. Not to mention existing players who also have exited the portal, like Jyaire Shorter and Larry Nixon That 30% seems like a lot, but in this era of portal and NIL it will become a lot more commonplace. If Morris can keep that attrition down and lower the number of players entering the portal due to NIL, it could make a big difference for the program, but UNT will need to ramp up NIL funds to aid him in that regard. GMG

On July 1, the 11-team American Athletic Conference subtracts three of its members and adds six. Overall the conference expands to 14, matching the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC as the largest conferences for the 2023 football season. Nearly half of the AAC will be comprised of former CUSA newcomers. Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA are among the six institutions making the transition, a move which has been in the works since October 2021. But how will these teams fare in year one as AAC members? When the AAC was founded from the remnants of the Big East in 2013, UCF captured the conference title in its inaugural season, fresh off a transition from the CUSA. Ten years later, could any of the six CUSA additions see similar success? Among the six rising AAC members, only two retains their head coaches from the 2022 season — Rice and UTSA. Thus, the majority of these programs are not only transitioning conferences, but breaking in a new era from a personnel standpoint as well. With reigning champion Tulane returning plenty of firepower, mixed in with lofty expectations for perennial standouts Memphis and SMU, a conference title might not be the realistic expectation for the majority of the six teams. But there is at least one bona fide contender among the newcomers. read more: https://www.underdogdynasty.com/platform/amp/2023/6/28/23752724/former-cusa-team-best-poised-aac-success-2023-charlotte-fau-north-texas-unt-rice-uab-utsa-football

At the same time, a generous collective donation still has a mirage element. It is not the price of winning. There are no on-field, on-court guarantees. It’s merely the price of short-term optimism. Filling a collective’s coffers provides a jolt of adrenaline for an athletic program, however temporary. So for the garden-variety State U. collective donor, sources say, where’s the guaranteed return on investment? If the ROI is a College Football Playoff berth, that’s one thing. If the ROI is a Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl berth, that’s quite another. Well-heeled boosters have deep pockets. But those pockets are not bottomless. Leaning so heavily on donors begs the question: Is this model sustainable? “I don’t think that the current model will exist going forward,” Bubba Cunningham, the North Carolina athletic director, told On3. “The never-ending need for more resources will continue to be. But how we go about prioritizing and how we go about asking for resources is going to have to change.” More than two-thirds of NIL transactions come from school-specific collectives. Of the more than 200 collectives, some rank-and-file Power 5 school-affiliated ones raise $3 to $5 million annually, with the most ambitious SEC entities amassing anywhere from $5 to $15 million. Here’s the buzzkill: Until CFP expansion in 2024, there are only four playoff berths and only four Final Four berths. Not every season ends with a parade, so what’s the donor benefit? read more: https://www.on3.com/nil/news/what-donor-fatigue-means-as-nil-enters-its-third-year-of-impacting-college-sports-ncaa-collectives/

OUTSTANDING NEWS> We are receiving confirmed reports that the new UNT stadium naming rights sponsor will be Denton-Area Teachers Credit Union (DATCU). This is reported to be a long term partnership that will be extremely beneficial to both parties. More to come! GMG LINK to the DATCU Story: https://www.datcu.org/More/Our-Story

Keep the other team from scoring a gajillion points. North Texas can score. The offense might take a wee step back, but it’ll still be great. Now the defense has to avoid the games when it doesn’t have anything working. The Mean Green went 7-0 when keeping teams to 28 points or fewer, and 0-7 when it allowed more. Even with the D allowed just over 30 the games were close, but all five games when allowing 41 or more were double-digit defeats. BTW, North Texas was 6-1 in 2021 when allowing 24 points or fewer, and 0-6 when giving up more. North Texas Mean Green Top Transfer, Biggest Loss QB Chandler Rogers in from ULM, LB Larry Nixon gone to Auburn. The Mean Green didn’t land a ton of sure-thing starters from the transfer portal, but it got a veteran quarterback in Rogers. In a tough situation at ULM he did what he could hitting 66% of his passes for just over 3,700 yards with 24 touchdowns and ten picks, and he can run. There were a slew of big losses, but for a defense that needs as many playmakers as possible, not having Nixon hurts. He left for Auburn after making 245 tackles with 5.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss in his four seasons. Read more: https://collegefootballnews.com/.amp/cfn/north-texas-mean-green-college-football-preview-2023-top-players-keys-what-will-happen

DENTON, Texas – After leading Louisiana Tech to the two best seasons in program history, UNT Vice President and Director of Athletics Jared Mosley has hired Amanda Stone as the new head coach for Mean Green women’s tennis. “We are excited to welcome Amanda and her family to UNT to lead our women's tennis program,” Mosley said. “Amanda has a great track record of building successful programs and she quickly rose to the top of our candidate pool. Her vision on how she wants to build this program into a championship contender as we enter the American Athletic Conference stood out to our committee. We look forward to seeing her positive impact on the lives of our student-athletes in the years ahead.” Stone, the 2023 Conference USA Coach of the Year and Wilson/ITA Southern Region Coach of the Year, comes to Denton following a record-breaking seven-year tenure as head coach at Louisiana Tech. During that time, she became the program’s all-time wins leader with an 89-69 mark in Ruston. She has a 175-89 record all-time in 11 seasons as a head coach. Under her leadership, LA Tech registered a 20-6 overall record in 2023, the second most single-season victories in school history. The Lady Techsters also best C-USA finish while advancing to the semifinals of the conference tournament for the first time ever. The program finished the season ranked No. 73 by the ITA, another first. “I am incredibly grateful and excited for the opportunity to lead Mean Green tennis,” Stone said. “My family and I are thrilled to be joining the North Texas and Denton community. I want to thank Jared Mosley and the administration for entrusting me with the tennis program. I’m excited to get to work and take Mean Green tennis to new heights.” The 2022 season was also one of the best in LA Tech history, registering the third most victories in school history with an 18-6 overall record. Included in the season was a program-setting 14-match winning streak as well as a 12-match home winning streak, which was also a record. LA Tech ended the 2022 campaign totaling 81 dual singles wins and 39 dual doubles wins, both ranking second in program history behind only the 1982 squad. Five different players reached double-digit singles victories, led by seniors Ilana Tetruashvili (17 wins) and Najah Dawson (14 wins) who were both named Second Team All-Louisiana. Dawson was also voted Louisiana Newcomer of the Year, becoming the first player in program history to receive this award. Stone reached a milestone of 150 career victories during the season as well, this after surpassing 50 total wins as LA Tech head coach in 2021 after the program produced a nine-win campaign that was anchored by All-Louisiana honorees Tetruashvili and Alexia Romero. The Claremore, Okla. native rebuilt the Lady Techsters by showing consistent improvement including double-digit victories in three of her first four seasons. Prior to Ruston, Stone recorded an 86-20 record and four straight Round of 16 appearances in the NCAA Tournament during four seasons as the head coach at Northeastern State (Okla.), a Division II program located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The two-time MIAA Coach of the Year returned the RiverHawks back to national prominence, as the team shot up the rankings all four seasons Stone served as head coach. She posted at least 20 wins in each of her four years, which included four straight trips to the NCAA Championship Round of 16. She also led NSU to three-consecutive MIAA Regular Season Championships (2014-16). Stone boasted two ITA All-Americans, one ITA Central Region Senior Player of the Year, one ITA Central Region Player to Watch, one MIAA Player of the Year, and two MIAA Freshmen of the Year during her time at Northeastern State. Of the 15 players who competed in the program since Stone took over in 2013, 14 earned All-MIAA honors at least once. Those 14 student-athletes amassed 38 all-conference accolades. She took over the reins of a program that was unranked at the time and led it to the school's first ever Top 10 ranking which came at the end of the 2016 campaign. She also built a stellar academic program with one CoSIDA Academic All-American, four CoSIDA Academic All-District honorees, eight ITA Scholar-Athletes, one MIAA Academic Excellence award winner, 10 MIAA Scholar-Athletes and 13 members of the MIAA Academic Honor Roll. Stone also spent two years at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), where she served as an assistant coach for both the men's and women's tennis programs from 2011-12. She played at Northeastern State from 2004-07, where made two national tournament appearances, attained a No. 11 national doubles ranking in 2007 and posted an undefeated singles mark her senior year. Her first collegiate stop was at Oral Roberts, where she played basketball during her freshman campaign. Stone graduated from NSU in 2007. She is married to Ross Wiersma and has one child, Thea. COACHING HISTORY 2011-12: Rochester, Assistant Coach 2013-16: Northeastern State, Head Coach (86-20 record) 2017-23: LA Tech, Head Coach (89-69 record)

NORTH TEXAS MEAN GREEN The line: 6.5 Case for the over: Eric Morris knows how to win. He turned a dreadful Incarnate Word program into an FCS contender, and he hopes to take the Mean Green to the next step. And it isn’t like he inherited a roster without success. They played for a C-USA title in 2022 and former head coach Seth Littrell had the program in a bowl game almost every season. An improved offensive attack could unlock North Texas. Transfer quarterback Chandler Rogers showed his potential in the spring game. The running back room remains a strength, as does the secondary. It is possible for North Texas to start the season 5-1 or even 6-0 with an upset over Cal in Week 1. A Week 12 constes with Tulsa is also winnable. All North Texas must do is steal one from UTSA, SMU, UAB, Memphis, or Tulane to hit the over. Case for the under: Year 1 is never easy for a head football coach. The Mean Green lost starting quarterback Austin Aune and over 200 tackles from the linebacker position. The offensive line lacks true offensive tackles and the transfer portal hurt the wide receiver and defensive end position. The defense is transitioning to an odd man front and the roster might not feature enough big bodies up front to pull it off. The second half of the schedule is a brutal run. read more: https://www.texasfootball.com/article/2023/06/14/over-or-under-the-case-for-each-g5-program-in-texas?ref=related_thumb