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North Texas Mean Green at Navy Midshipmen

·Oct 24, 2026·2:30 PM CT·CBSSN·Annapolis, MD

By JR·2 min read

North Texas(4-2)

Navy(2-4)

2:30 PM

TLDR: North Texas has been putting up numbers like a video game left on rookie mode, and on Saturday, October 24 the Mean Green take that offense east to Annapolis. Navy is 2-4 and its season is slipping, but it has yet to lose at home.

SAT 10/24, SAT OCT 24, 2:30 PM CT · Week 8 CBSSN

North Texas

(4-2)

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Navy

(2-4)

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Kickoff 58°

Unranked North Texas (4-2, 2-0 American) has been scoring at a huge clip under first-year coach Neal Brown. It travels to Navy (2-4, 1-3), which is unbeaten at home and winless on the road, with all 4 losses coming by 8 points or fewer. The game hinges on whether Navy's ball-control option can shorten the game enough to hold off an offense that has had trouble only away from Denton. No odds have been posted yet.

North Texas Mean Green

Scored 35-plus in each of the last 5 games
Hung 50 on Charlotte in latest outing
Unbeaten in American play so far
Allowed 49 in road loss at Texas State
Needed overtime to escape Tulsa by 1
Road results far shakier than home blowouts

Navy Midshipmen

Unbeaten at home: Towson and Tulsa
Beat common opponent Tulsa by 8
Every loss decided by 8 or fewer
Allowed 38 in 2 of the last 4 games
Scored 34 at UTSA and still lost
New defensive coordinators still finding answers

The Saturday matchup is a contrast in styles. North Texas, in its first year under head coach Neal Brown, has scored 44, 35, 63, 45 and 50 points across its last 5 games. Navy runs Drew Cronic's offense, which is built to keep the ball away from you, and the Mids rely on quarterback run game: Braxton Woodson ran for 200-plus yards in the opener against Towson, and Jackson Gutierrez has also taken real snaps under center. The North Texas offense can only score if it has the ball, and Navy's job is to make sure it doesn't have it very often.

There's nothing on either injury report right now, so the question is one of shape, not who's available. Navy has 2 new defensive coordinators in Eric Lewis and Ricky Brown, and that defense has had a rough month. It gave up 38 at Florida Atlantic and another 38 at UTSA, and in the UTSA game the Navy offense scored 34 and still lost. That's the version of Navy that worries you against a team averaging close to 50 points a game lately. There's no board posted for this one yet.

The split that stands out in Navy's season is home vs. road. The Midshipmen beat Towson and Tulsa at home and lost all 4 road games: by 8 at FAU, 4 at UAB, 5 at Air Force and 4 at UTSA. That's not a team getting blown out. It's a team that keeps finishing 1 possession short, and this time they're back in their own building.

North Texas has its own road question to answer. The Mean Green look very good in Denton, where they beat UNLV 44-6, Houston Christian 63-14 and Charlotte 50-10. Away from home it's been messier. Texas State put up 49 on them in a 14-point loss, and at Tulsa they needed overtime to survive 45-44. They're 2-0 in American play and have won 3 straight as of this week, with Florida Atlantic coming to Denton 5 days after this game.

Tulsa is the one opponent these two share, and it says a lot. North Texas barely got out of Tulsa with a 1-point overtime win. Navy beat the same Golden Hurricane at home by 8, thanks to a ball-control game script. The result doesn't transfer straight over, but it does suggest the Mean Green defense can be dragged into a shootout. Navy would rather not have a shootout and would take a long, grinding afternoon instead.

The forecast in Annapolis is about as clean as football weather gets: 62 degrees, mostly sunny, 3 mph wind and a 10% chance of rain. Neither offense gets an excuse from the weather. What decides this game is whether Navy's option can keep the North Texas offense on the sideline for long stretches, or whether the Mean Green's tempo turns it into the kind of track meet Navy keeps losing on the road.

North Texas Mean Green at Navy Midshipmen

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