North Texas Mean Green football

The North Texas Mean Green football team represents the University of North Texas in the sport of American Football. The Mean Green compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the Sun Belt Conference. The Mean Green have attained several conference championships, including four consecutive Sun Belt Conference championships. UNT has a 51.7% winning percentage in school history, but since Hall of Fame Coach Hayden Fry left after the 1978 season, UNT's winning percentage has trended downward. From 1978 until 2005, UNT had a 41.9% winning percentage. From 1991 to 2005, the Mean Green had a 39% winning percentage. From 2005 to 2010, the team went 13-56, a 19% winning percentage.

Modern History
Though coach Hayden Fry left the school in 1978 with a 9-3 season, he also left it with a mounting athletics debts. The team was subsequently demoted to Division I-AA status by the NCAA. In 1982, the university recognized that the athletics program had a deficit of $1.6 million and voted to join the Southland Conference. The program experienced little success in subsequent years, but in 1995, a coordinated campaign by donors to purchase large blocks of seats at Fouts Field spiked the average attendance enough for the school to enter Division I-A once again in 1995.

After the school joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2001, Darrell Dickey briefly revived fortunes in Denton, winning four straight conference championships. The team played in the 2001 New Orleans Bowl despite having a losing record. After he went 2-9 and 3-9 in his eighth and ninth seasons, the athletic department fired Dickey on November 8, 2006.

The school then hired Todd Dodge, who had been offensive coordinator at UNT from 1991-1992, on December 12, 2006. Dodge had been one of the nation’s most successful high school football coaches, amassing a 98-11 record overall at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, including a 79-1 record over his last 5 years. His teams at UNT struggled to win, however, compiling a 6-37 record overall and a 3-23 record in conference play. After a 1-6 start to the 2010 season, the school fired Dodge. He was replaced by offensive coordinator Mike Canales as interim head coach. In 2011, the university hired Dan McCarney as head coach.

On May 4th, 2012, the school held a press conference announcing that they had accepted an invitation to join Conference USA beginning in the 2013 season. Florida International University, Louisiana Tech University, the University of Charlotte, and the University of Texas at San Antonio will begin play in Conference USA in 2013 as well, bringing the conference to 13 members.

Apogee Stadium
Since 2011, the Mean Green have played at Apogee Stadium, formerly named Mean Green Stadium. The stadium seats 31,000.

Fouts Field
From 1952 to 2010, the team played its home games at Fouts Field. The first game was a 55–0 win over the North Dakota Fighting Sioux in 1952. The final Mean Green game was a 41–49 loss to the Kansas State Wildcats in 2010. The Mean Green posted a final record at Fouts Field of 155–100–7. From 1971 through 2001, the Mean Green played 21 home games at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas, 32 miles away from the university's campus in Denton. The Mean Green posted a 9-12 record while playing select home games at the off-campus stadium. Only one season, 1972, saw the Mean Green play more games at Texas Stadium than their home field in Denton.

Rivalries

 * SMU Mustangs, in the Safeway Bowl
 * Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders

Retired numbers

 * 28 - Abner Haynes (1957–59)
 * 33 - Ray Renfro (1949–50)
 * 55 - Richard Gill (1968–69)
 * 75 - "Mean" Joe Greene (1966–69)

College Football Hall of Famers

 * "Mean" Joe Greene

Pro Football Hall of Famers

 * "Mean" Joe Greene

Current NFL players

 * Patrick Cobbs, Running back, New Orleans Saints
 * Brian Waters, Guard, New England Patriots

Head coaches
CW=Conference Wins, CL=Conference Losses, CT=Conference Ties, CC=Conference Championships

== Future Non-Conference Opponents ==