There will be a Lone Star State flair on display when North Texas battles Texas State on Friday afternoon in the First Responder Bowl at Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas.
It will be the 15th rendition of the bowl and the second consecutive appearance in the game for Texas State, which beat Rice 45-21 in last year’s contest.
North Texas also has played in the bowl, losing to Army 38-31 in overtime in 2016 after beating UNLV in the 2013 season.
Both head coaches in this year’s game — Eric Morris of the Mean Green and GJ Kinne for the Bobcats — are native Texans, and more than three-fourths of the players on the combined rosters are from the Lone Star State.
In the lead-up to the game, both squads were hit hard by the transfer portal, with 11 players leaving from Texas State and 16 from North Texas.
The Mean Green (6-6) had to capture their season finale against Temple to earn the bowl appearance.
North Texas will be without quarterback Chandler Morris for the game. Morris, who earned third-team All-American Athletic Conference honors this season, bolted for Virginia after the regular season. Drew Mestemaker, who threw five passes while appearing in three games as a freshman this season, is expected to start behind center. He completed four passes for 69 yards.
Despite all the assumed familiarity between the teams because of their Texas-centric rosters and coaching staff, there’s little for the Bobcats to glean on Mestemaker when studying tape of North Texas.
“We want to find (Mestemaker) skill sets and the things he does well and really try to force-feed him some of those things,” Morris said about his quarterback. “That’s the cool thing. There’s no tape on Drew Mestemaker for anybody to go study right now.”
Kinne wants to make sure that Texas State won’t overlook the potent North Texas attack, which ranks third in the nation in total offense at 488.7 yards a game.
“Coach Morris is one of the best offensive minds in the country,” Kinne said. “… It doesn’t matter who is back there playing quarterback.”
The Bobcats (7-5) head to Dallas after winning three of their final four games, including 45-38 at South Alabama in their final regular-season contest.
Quarterback Jordan McCloud leads the Bobcats, who rank fifth in FBS in total offense at 474.3 yards per game. McCloud has passed for 2,920 yards and 29 touchdowns with 12 interceptions, and has completed 69.6 percent of his throws.
Texas State saw five starters — running back Ismail Mahdi, wide receiver Kole Wilson, defensive tackle Dominique Ratcliff, defensive end Ben Bell and cornerback Joshua Eaton — declare for the transfer portal.
“You have some of the depth pieces,” Kinne explained about the losses in the portal. “A lot of your walk-ons and a lot of guys that are looking maybe to get on scholarship somewhere. “We just did a little bit more good on good (in practice), but that’s part of it.”
–Field Level Media
