North Texas and Coach Todd Dodge Have Bowl Game in Their Sights

Last season, the North Texas football program had another dismal year under head coach Todd Dodge. The team managed to literally scrap up one football victory against Western Kentucky, just narrowly avoiding a winless season. The pressure is on the program to return to its winning ways, just in time for a new football stadium set to open in 2011.

Coach Dodge is in his third year at North Texas and believes his team is capable of reaching a bowl game. That feat is by no means easy considering North Texas has just three wins in the last two seasons.

The team will be better simply because of experience, but it’s still hard to believe the team is capable of going bowling in December.

For starters, North Texas is at a disadvantage by playing in the Sun Belt Conference. The disadvantage is not because of strength of schedule but because of the overall quality of the conference.

A bowl season for North Texas means the team will probably have to win the Sun Belt conference regardless of how many wins the team achieves because the conference only has one affiliated bowl game. In the Sun Belt Conference, eight wins usually guarantees a spot at the New Orleans Bowl.

In almost every other conference, six wins will get you a bowl game.

The Sun Belt Conference does have its fair share of teams reaching six wins, but most of them are no match for the ratings and audiences of the other conferences. The conference did send two teams last year, but that was only because some teams in other conferences didn’t qualify.

The schedule for North Texas isn’t favorable either. North Texas likes to play the big schools to start the season in order to receive large amounts of money. These games almost always end up badly for North Texas, and the opposing school has their third string in by the fourth quarter.

North Texas has Alabama, Ohio, and Ball State on its non-conference schedule this year, which is better than most years, but certainly not easy. North Texas will definitely lose at Alabama, and it’s very likely they will lose the other two.

North Texas needs to use the three games to evaluate talent and positions. If the talent does well considering the circumstances it will set a good tone for the rest of the season.

North Texas is starting the year with a new quarterback and highly recruited Riley Dodge. Yes, he’s the son of coach Dodge, and someone who backed out of a commitment to the University of Texas.

The duo will have experience on their side since both used the spread offense with huge success at the high school level.

The only problem North Texas has on offense is the wide receivers. North Texas lost its top two starting receivers to graduation and has no proven replacements.

The receivers have potential, but it’s going to be extremely rough early on, especially against Alabama.

The team was also among the worst at scoring, or even making it to the red zone. North Texas committed 33 turnovers.

The offense still was able to put up some good yardage every game, however. After all, to commit that many turnovers the offense has to move down the field.

The biggest reason for the bad season was, without a doubt, the defense. North Texas finished last in the NCAA in terms of scoring defense. Teams averaged over 47 points a game against North Texas, almost four more points than the next worst team, Washington State.

With a defense like that no team has a chance to win.

One of the reasons for the bad defense was inexperience, but even then that’s a lot of points.   

Now, with experience on their side the defense looks to be better, but how much better remains uncertain.

The North Texas offensive game will probably be there once again, thus limiting the need for a great defense.

Still, a bowl eligible season is probably unrealistic at least for another year. If coach Dodge can’t get the program back on the winning track this season, then there is little doubt he will be around next year.