The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time for North Texas. The Mean Green had the weekend off, which helped give them plenty of time to prepare for Saturday’s game against Army.
“It was much needed,” said North Texas head coach Seth Littrell. “I thought we had a great week of preparation. It allowed us to have three extra days to prepare for a challenging and really quality opponent in Army.”
North Texas is coming off a 38-21 win over Marshall in Denton two weeks ago, which improved the Mean Green’s record to 3-3 on the season.
“By the end of the week there hasn’t been a game that I didn’t feel like we were going to go in there and compete and have success and win the football game,” said Littrell. “Our team, I think their expectations are growing as they gain confidence. The standard they really set is how they play. That was crucial. I haven’t come in here after one football game and questioned effort. Now that we know that’s a standard we will keep building on that.”
It will be an interesting challenge for North Texas this weekend on both sides of the ball. Army, using the triple option, is 4-2 after their 62-7 win over Lafayette where they racked up 671 yards of total offense. Meanwhile, North Texas held Marshall to just 13 yards rushing in the Mean Green’s win.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Black Knights are second in the nation in rush defense, which will be a tough test for Mean Green running back Jeffrey Wilson. The junior had 188 yards rushing and two touchdowns against Marshall. As a team, North Texas averages 265.3 yards per game on the ground.
This is the fifth time both teams will meet on the football field. The Mean Green are 0-4 in previous games against the Black Knights.
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Kick-off is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at West Point, NY.
