North Texas Schedules Two Game Series with Houston

Current North Texas Mean Green AD and savior of the Mean Green, Wren Baker, announced last week that UNT has scheduled a home-and-home with the Houston Cougars. Our boys in Denton will host the AAC power on Sept. 28, 2019, with the Mean Green heading down I-45 to visit the Cougars in 2023.

This is a spectacular get by Baker, who has already taken great strides to earn his keep. Baker made waves about three weeks back, when the football calendar dropped two upcoming games with Army, and added FBS Independent upstart Liberty to the schedule, but this week we found out Houston would be taking that other Army spot.

This is a win-win for North Texas, not only because of the guaranteed win over Liberty (sorry, Flames), but the exposure of getting to play another Texas power at Apogee Stadium, to say nothing of the raucous local crowds and likely televised match-up.

The Cougars, meanwhile, get to take it easy on their travel schedules in years when they sorely need it. 2019 non-conference opponents for Houston include UNT, Oklahoma, and Washington State, and 2023 has them at UTSA and Kansas before the game in H-Town against the Green.

Houston was famously UNT’s first opponent at the newly-opened Apogee Stadium back on Sept. 10, 2011, defeating UNT 48-23, but that’s okay because Dan McCarney was UNT’s coach and he was terrible. The crowd of 28,075 remains the most-attended game in Apogee history.

The all-time series is currently tied 7-7, with UNT’s last win coming in 1975 under legendary coach Hayden Fry.

This is the first of a number of scheduling moves promised by the leaner and meaner North Texas Athletic Department, as games scheduled by the previous AD are finally being played and shuffled into the past. Baker is making the most of his opportunity to put his mark on the department and he’s done a great if you ask me.