It’s a big day for the UNT football program. The Mean Green’s coaching staff is going under the lights at Apogee Stadium for Friday Night Lights.
One of the big selling points UNT has in football recruiting at the moment is Apogee and the progress the program has made under Dan McCarney.
McCarney brought the Friday Night Lights concept with him from Florida.
The staff invites some of the top prospects still on its board and some of the players it already has committed to a camp that lasts a couple of hours at Apogee.
UNT picked up a commitment from Boone Feldt, arguably its top signee last year, during its Friday Night Lights event. Royce LaFrance, another top prospect, attended Friday Night Lights last year. He committed to UNT, but then backed out and signed with Tulane.
In a side note, UNT will likely see LaFrance quite a bit once it makes the move to Conference USA.
Here is the quick story I wrote for today’s paper on the event: Friday Night Lights
The other news of the day that I never got around to commenting on was Oklahoma cornerback Jordon Finch transferring to UNT, where he will walk on. It sounded like bigger news when I first started chasing the story than it turned out to be. Finch never actually played for OU. I just wouldn’t discount the fact that he could end up contributing down the line. Even if it is only on special teams, there is no doubt UNT could use some help in its defensive backfield after the mass departure of the secondary after last season.
UNT also announced the times for its home games yesterday. There were no big surprises, but it did bring up the point again of how UNT’s schedule shapes up. UNT will play at home against two teams expected to finish at the top of the league this year that also so happen to be coming off bowl games in Arkansas State and Louisiana-Lafayette. UNT also gets a Troy team that is usually a Sun Belt power at home.
UNT will have a better shot at ASU and ULL since they are coming to Denton, but that also leaves the Mean Green with a lot of games it will have to win on the road to made another run at .500, especially with nonconference games at LSU, Kansas State and Houston on the slate. UNT will be huge underdogs in all three of those games.
UNT’s fate will likely rest on how it fares at Florida Atlantic, at Middle Tennessee, at Louisiana-Monroe and at Western Kentucky. which has 18 starters back from a team that won seven games.
UNT might not have to sweep those games to get to .500, but losing more than one will make the path to the first non-losing season for the Mean Green since 2004 a whole lot tougher.