At the mid-point of the 2021 college football season, the UNT Mean Green looked to be stuck in a losing streak and this season was being written off as another failed campaign. After the loss to Liberty on October 23rd, something happened to the Mean Green players and coaches; winning became the only thing acceptable and winning they did to wrap up the regular season. Head coach Seth Littrell has become a regular with post-season bowl bids and the 2021 season has turned out to be the same deal for the UNT football program. After taking over a 1-11 team, Littrell has brought the Mean Green to bowl bids including the Myrtle Beach Bowl in 2020, the New Mexico Bowl in 2018 and the New Orleans Bowl in 2017. This year carries on the UNT bowling tradition with an invitation to the Frisco Football Classic on December 23rd.
The Mean Green turned their season around from a 1-6 first half to win five games in a row culminating in beating rival UTSA 45-23. This win not only propelled North Texas to its sixth win and made them bowl eligible, it marked only the second time in program history that they beat a ranked team as the 15th ranked Roadrunners fell out of the rankings because of this loss. However, to add additional quality to this win, UTSA played for the Conference USA championship the next week and beat Western Kentucky to take the conference title and have returned to the AP top 25 rankings (currently ranked 24th.) Ironically, UTSA will also go bowling in the same town as they have been invited to play San Diego State in the Frisco Bowl (not to be confused with the Frisco Football Classic) on December 21st.
North Texas will face Miami (OH) who also finished the season at 6-6 and became bowl eligible. The Redhawks played Kent State in OT in the MAC East division title game and lost 48-47 but still retained their bowl eligibility. The mechanics for creating this additional bowl game came about at there are 82 bowl spots for FBS programs; however, 83 teams qualified this season and the NCAAA decided to create this additional bowl game to accommodate all bowl eligible teams this season. The Frisco Football Classic will also be the first time ever that Miami (OH) and UNT will match up against each other and hopes to be a potentially good game just before Christmas. UNT’s location and fan base made the school the obvious choice for this bowl game in their own backyard
