North Texas in AP poll and could make push to 12-team College Football Playoff as G5 rep

DENTON, Texas (AP) — While North Texas is in The Associated Press poll for the first time since 1959, the Mean Green haven’t yet cracked the College Football Playoff rankings.

But they could still make a run to being in the 12-team playoff as the highest-ranked Group of Five champion.

North Texas (9-1, 5-1 American), No. 22 in the AP poll and with the nation’s highest-scoring offense, plays Saturday at Rice and then finishes the regular season at home against Temple the day after Thanksgiving.

The only G5 team in the latest CFP rankings is conference foe Tulane (8-2, 5-1), at No. 24 in that and the AP poll. The Green Wave and Mean Green don’t have a regular-season matchup, but could meet in the championship game for the 14-team league.

“I think just us winning these two games and then potentially being able to play Tulane puts us up for a good quality win to be able to come in and sneak in the back half of it,” third-year UNT coach Eric Morris said. “To a sense, I feel like we kind of control our own destiny.”

Sun Belt-leading James Madison is 21st in the AP poll, one spot ahead of North Texas. But the Dukes, whose only game against a Power Four team was a 28-14 loss at now-unranked Louisville the first weekend in September, aren’t among the CFP’s top 25 teams.

“For us as a conference, it was good that it was Tulane as opposed to James Madison right now,” Morris said.

Fresh offense

Redshirt freshman quarterback Drew Mestemaker, the former walk-on who was never a varsity starting QB in high school, is 232-of-335 passing (69.3%) for 3,000 yards — exactly — with 23 touchdowns and only four interceptions. True freshman Caleb Hawkins has rushed for 933 yards and 16 touchdowns, nine of those coming the last two games.

The Mean Green average 45.3 points per game, and rank fifth nationally with 489.6 total yards and 307.3 passing yards. Their five 50-point games match No. 2 Indiana for the most among FBS teams, and they have set a school record scoring at least 30 points in 10 consecutives games. Their 35 rushing TDs, with four by Mestemaker, match Navy for the most nationally.

Mean Green rebound

North Texas has rebounded from its only loss, a 63-36 loss to South Florida in a much-hyped home game, with four consecutive wins by an average margin of four touchdowns.

“I think it just showed you the maturity our guys have got. We all kind of felt like we let that one get away from us,” Mestemaker said. “We kind of learned from that … taking it on the chin and just keep moving, and keep getting better.”

South Florida fell out of the CFP rankings from No. 24 after a 41-38 loss Saturday to the Navy Midshipmen, whose only conference loss is at North Texas.

In their win at UNT, the Bulls scored four touchdowns in a span of 3 1/2 minutes. They capitalized on a muffed punt with a tying touchdown only 2 seconds before halftime, then scored three quick TDs after the break, with two of those also set up by turnovers.

“There are things that we did really good in that game … and then there’s about a six-minute period in there that just, you know, it’s like a bomb went off and everything was just unraveling as fast as it could,” Morris said. “I was really proud of the way kind of we reset the next three weeks before a bye week and we went back to work. I’ve been super pleased with the way they’ve handled not only the successes, but obviously the one major failure.”

Back in ’59

At 5-0 before the South Florida game, the Mean Green were the deepest into a season without a loss since 1959. They were 7-0 then for their debut at No. 20 in the AP poll when that is how many teams were ranked. There was a four-spot jump the next week before a loss dropped them out of the rankings for 66 years, the longest drought by an FBS team.

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