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The bye week has come and gone for the UL Ragin' Cajuns and the North Texas Mean Green, restoring both teams to near full strength and now the fans of both teams are chomping at the bit for the coin-flip.
UL
UL has a decent offense, but their ability to score is questionable. UL lacks the playmakers of a team like MTSU to whom UNT yielded 37 points.
(One can make the argument the game was played in Denton, but I'd argue that UNT played their worst quarter of the season vs. MTSU giving away 20 points in a quarter while being totally incompetent on offense, so at worst it is a wash.)
UL has a good veteran OL, a solid senior RB, and a promising QB, but the receiving corps is not reliable or explosive as MTSU's. That will hurt vs. UNT's strong pass coverage which is allowing a conference low 54 percent completion rate despite a weak pass rush.
<center> <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/269176-untull-will-lafayette-tackle-well-enough-to-beat-unt" target="_blank">The rest of the story </a>
by Tobi Writes
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While I think the top notch competition UL has faced paints a misleading picture of the competence of the Cajun offense, I have a hard time seeing UL's offense scoring more than 28-31 points at the high end—with a UNT gift TD.
UNT's defense generally plays well for three quarters of the game. There is usually a quarter where they give up 80 yard drives and generally look like last year's team.
For the rest of the game UNT's defense plays very well. They are very focused on three and outs as evidenced by the fact that they are first in the sunbelt in stopping opponents on third down, allowing successful conversions only 34 percent of the time.
UL for their part is the conference's best at converting third downs, completing just under 43 percent of their plays.
It is highly probable that UNT will force a number of UL punts. It is also very likely they will allow UL to run run the length of the field and run off two to three TDs at some point in the game.
UNT's week off
UNT spent their off week working on a number of trouble areas, the most relevant to this game being their ability to convert short yardage and long passing plays.
UNT has the talent to move people out in short yardage situations, but has opted to go with a lighter more athletic OL to better protect the brittle Riley Dodge. I think for UNT to convert short yardage situations they will need to platoon in bigger stronger linemen in for those situations.
I don't think Coach Todd Dodge has arrived at that conclusion yet, so I doubt that happens in this game. If short yardage plays amount to UNT's starting line trying to go outside vs. ULL's DL and their great linebackers, I think UNT may struggle in that regard. And I cannot see UNT's starting OL opening holes up the middle vs. ULL's front seven.
Now, the deep passing may be a factor. If UNT has made an effort to get more than Micheal Outlaw involved in deep passing attempts and the coaching staff has ironed out Riley Dodge's slow release on those plays, UNT might have a shot to complete a few 20-30 yard passes against a young and fairly ordinary UL secondary.
Ultimately I think the game boils down to whether UL is able to tackle well enough to control big plays. Todd Dodge's offense is a very low risk offense that generally doesn't attack downfield too often. Like the west coast offense, the Dodge offense throws to receivers short and hopes the receivers can evade the first tackler and go on a big run.
ULL has allowed opponents to complete an astounding 62.9 percent of their passes. UNT QB Riley Dodge has completed 65.4 percent of his passes in the UNT dinkathon offense.
UNT's offense has averaged 38 passes a game. As UL has allowed such a high completion percentage and has no pass rush, it would be very in character for Dodge to throw the ball even more this week. If UNT throws 45 passes and completes a conservative 65 percent, UL will need to not blow 29 tackles in their secondary.
For a team that misses tackles like UL, this will be a tough test.
IF UL tackles well
If UL tackles well, the mean green will not break more than one to two big plays and the odds of UNT scoring TDs drops dramatically, greatly increasing the chance of UL being able to score enough points to win.
Compounding the UL pass defense issue, UL has also allowed opponents to convert 47 percent of third-down plays. Now certainly the level of competition they have faced has swelled this number. Their run defense is better than the stats suggest. They have simply been facing bigger stronger lines..
This stat still has big ramifications.
While UNT may be fairly low in their third down completion rate at 30 percent, it should be noted that UNT has only had 17 third down conversions (third fewest in the Sunbelt), in spite having 78 first downs (middle of the pack). UNT doesn't get into a lot of third down situations.
UNT should be able to move into FG range repeatedly.
On the flipside, if UNT throws that much, UL should also be able to pick off Riley Dodge a couple of times.
If UL can do that and hold UNT to one TD and say six field goals—25 points or less, UL has a great shot to win.
IF UL misses some tackles allowing big plays
UNT is very likely to have a number of FGs in this game.
If UNT's big play guys, RBs Cam Montgomery and Lance Dunbar and WRs Darius Carey, BJ Lewis, and Jamaal Jackson get by some tacklers for breakaway TDs or escape coverage for a long TD pass, UNT's point total would likely exceed what the Ragin' Cajuns offense can generate vs. UNT's defense.
As much as I'd like to see the latter, I think UL is the more mature and focused team with the coaching staff more focused on winning now at this point.
ULL 28, UNT 22
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