People in Dallas and Houston were excited by last season’s head coaching hires. However, while Tom Herman thrived with the Cougars in his first season, Chad Morris and the SMU Mustangs sputtered to a 2-10 record. SMU showed signs of life after a winless campaign though and that’s cause for optimism. This season the Mustangs will open College Football Week 1 against one of the two teams they defeated last year, the North Texas Mean Green.
Watch this regular season Week 1 matchup live on Saturday, September 3, 2016, at 7 p.m. ET at Apogee Stadium. This game will be broadcast on American Sports Network.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
SMU -9.5
North Texas +9.5
Over/Under 68.5
Odds Analysis
Money has been coming in on North Texas since this game went on the board. SMU opened as an 11.5-point favorite but that quickly fell to 9 before receiving some action on the home team and moving back up to 9.5. The total has bounced all over the place, getting pushed down to 64 from its opener of 66 before rising all the way up to its current total of 68.5.
Matchup to Watch
The Mustangs’ offense experienced a resurgence under Chad Morris in 2015, but the defense was absolutely abysmal. SMU allowed over 500 yards per game and was routinely run over on the ground by their opponents. This unit allowed 5.8 yards per carry and was killed in the time of possession battle, leading to it completely running out of gas in the fourth quarter.
If SMU is going to experience a turnaround in 2016, the defense will have to improve. In the Mustangs’ two wins last season, the defense was able to hold its opponents to 21 points or less. The ten losses saw the defense give up at least 38 points in each game and it’s almost impossible to win while giving up that many points.
Last Meeting
The Mustangs were pretty dominant on defense the last time these teams met. SMU allowed just 240 total yards of offense from North Texas and forced four turnovers on the evening. Neither the passing game or the running game for the Mean Green cracked 130 yards in what was the best performance that SMU’s defense put together all season.
However, looking at just the box score doesn’t show you how close this game really was. North Texas was up by a field goal heading into the fourth quarter before completely imploding in the loss. The Mean Green were finding ways to eek out yardage and that’s what they’ll have to do again.
Free ATS Pick
It’s hard to know what to expect from North Texas. The Mean Green are in a talent-rich state, but are surrounded by bigger schools that take the best local kids, and don’t have the reputation that schools like SMU and Houston have. North Texas has a new coach as well in former UNC assistant Seth Littrell and he is hoping to cash in on the craze of Texas Tech quarterbacks turned offensive coordinators by hiring Graham Harrell to run the offense. Harrell doesn’t have the personnel he wants quite yet though and will have to make due this season with the remnants of former coach Dan McCarney’s pro-style recruits.
Year Two is when a program shows whether or not it will take a step forward. The Mustangs want to put points on the board and that’s why Morris was hired to replace June Jones, to keep up that legacy of scoring a ton of points. The team struggled with the complexities of his system last year, but should have a better grasp now.
There are a lot of questions surrounding both times, but SMU seems like the better call. At the very least, you know that SMU will put points on the board and you have to just an improved defense will take care of its end of the bargain.
College Football Odds: Mustangs 41, Mean Green 20
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