Counting down UNT’s most important games of 2023: Opener with Cal presents opportunity

The first game of the season is an exciting time for any college football team, but it will take on added importance for North Texas this fall.

The Mean Green’s game against Cal on Sept. 2 at Apogee Stadium will mark not only the beginning of a new season. It will also mark the start of a new era.

The school hired Eric Morris as its new coach late last year and completed the jump from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference this summer.

Excitement around the program is sky high heading into the Mean Green’s game against the Golden Bears. UNT has bigger games on its 2023 slate — including showdowns with UTSA and SMU — but the opportunity a game against Cal represents is significant.

For that reason, UNT-Cal comes in at No. 3 on our rundown of the Mean Green’s biggest games this fall.

One of the selling points when UNT was raising the money to build Apogee, which opened in 2011, is that the school would be able to bring more intriguing opponents to Denton.

The payoff has come in the form of home games against Houston, Army and Indiana, the last Power Five conference team to play at Apogee in 2012.

Cal, a member of the Pac-12, will break the drought that has lasted more than a decade.

UNT has played a host of games over the years against Power Five opponents in which it stood basically no chance. The Mean Green lost at Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Texas in consecutive years beginning in 2011.

This fall’s game isn’t one of those mismatches. UNT will be an underdog, but early lines only have Cal favored by about 10 points.

UNT finished 7-7 last season after falling to UTSA in the Conference USA title game and to Boise State in the Frisco Bowl.

Cal failed to qualify for a bowl out of the tough Pac-12 after finishing 4-8. The Bears didn’t win a road game all season, dropping all five of their games away from Memorial Stadium.

Cal coach Justin Wilcox revamped the program in the offseason. He brought in former Texas State coach Jake Spavital as his new offensive coordinator and former UNT offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch as his offensive line coach/running game coordinator.

The Bears also added 20 players from the transfer portal, including Asher Alberding. The former UNT tight end followed Bloesch to Cal.

The game will give both programs a sense of where they are after massive overhauls.

UNT lost at Cal 23-17 in 2019 and will have a significant home-field advantage in the rematch. The game will kick off at 3 p.m. Odds are, it will be brutally hot.

Unless Cal constructs a huge blow dryer at one end of its practice field this summer, the Mean Green will be far more accustomed to the conditions.

Winning the first game of the Morris era, in UNT’s official debut as an American Athletic Conference team in front of a home crowd would be huge for the Mean Green.

Starting 1-0 would also make the possibility of UNT making a run at becoming bowl eligible with six wins seem a whole lot more realistic.