The giant shadow over North Texas and Tulane is a bad look for college football | Opinion
The weather forecast for Friday night in New Orleans is perfect for a date between teams that should be celebrating their spot in a conference title game, but instead operate under the cloud of their coaches who are busy with a new job.
On Friday night in the Big Easy for the American Athletic Conference title game, it’s expected to be cold, wet and rainy. Just call it The Bummer Bowl Classic. The winner may go to the College Football Playoff, while the loser may be gutted moments after the playoff committee announces the 12 playoff teams on Sunday morning.
Student-athlete empowerment was long overdue, and the casualty of a portal/NIL world is that programs like a UNT have far more work to do just to have a special one, or two, season runs. No one at UNT thought head coach Eric Morris would stay beyond this season, but there is a layer of unmistakable sadness amid the euphoria.
Every solution always creates a problem, and, if you are North Texas, this one just feels like a cold, wet, rainy December day. It’s such a special season, and you just don’t know if it will happen again any time soon.
The Mean Green and Green Wave’s conundrum
North Texas’ game with No. 21 Tulane is exactly why playoff-bound Ole Miss told Lane Kiffin to leave for LSU immediately.
National Signing Day is Wednesday, and yet Morris and Tulane coach Jon Sumrall are supposed to sign players for their new schools, Oklahoma State and Florida, respectively, while preparing their team to win a conference title.
Both UNT and Tulane told their respective coaches they can stay on through the end of the postseason, which for the winner includes a potential playoff spot. Unlike Ole Miss, whose coach is gone to a conference rival, for UNT and Tulane keeping status quo for another month is worth the risk of conflict of interest.
No one in the AAC, or any Group of Five league, is kidding themselves about the real score in college athletics. They know the AAC is not the SEC.
“It speaks to the fact that there can be cooperation between institutions when these changes take place,” AAC commissioner Tim Pernetti said on a conference call with reporters on Monday. “You have to have maturity about these situations.”
You will notice the letters SEC are nowhere to be found in the word maturity, but are in the word adolescence.
UNT and Tulane have to try to see this through, and their best chance is to keep the band together at least through Friday night’s game.
UNT has said that Morris intends to coach the team through the end of the postseason. Intends. Do not be shocked that should UNT not make the playoff, and be relegated to a third-tier bowl scheduled on The Ocho, that Morris changes his mind and leaves for Stillwater earlier than expected.
Once he leaves, it would not be a big surprise if some of his top players, like quarterback Drew Mestemaker and running back Caleb Hawkins, “opt out” of the bowl game and follow him to his new job, too.
The Mean Green’s future
North Texas director of athletics Jared Mosley has hired former West Virginia coach Neal Brown to replace Morris.
For years and years and years, and decades, UNT was one of those jobs that people in the profession thought could be a winner. Mostly because of its location, Texas’ population growth, DFW and now the facilities, too.
Other coaches have enjoyed a good season before, most recently Seth Littrell in 2017 and ‘18. UNT has never seen anything like this. An 11-1 record, a conference title game appearance, ranked No. 20 in the nation, a program that is relevant and generating positive interest all over America.
North Texas has a shot at the playoff.
If form holds, Morris will take some of these UNT players with him to Oklahoma State. When coach Curt Cignetti left James Madison for Indiana, he took 13 players with him to Bloomington.
The challenge for Morris’ replacement will be to find the high school kid who was overlooked, like Mestemaker, and the Power Four players who aren’t playing at their current school.
Eric Morris and his players proved what is possible at North Texas., and while this historic season is not over, there is now also unmistakable sadness that hangs over it.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
