North Texas 2025 Season Rewatch: Caleb Hawkins Makes His Presence Known in Week 4

GAME 1 | GAME 2 | GAME 3

The Mean Green advanced to 4-0 after a weird game in West Point that featured the emergence of one of the nation’s best tailbacks.

North Texas beat Army in overtime 45-38 (OT) in Week 4 of the 2025 season to remain unbeaten in what was a fun, but odd, game.

We’re rewatching North Texas’ 2025 season in preparation for Oklahoma State’s 2026 season. Here’s what stood out about the Mean Green’s game against Army.

Welcome to the Show, Caleb Hawkins

After performing well in garbage time of North Texas’ Week 3 win, Caleb Hawkins was tasked with more responsibilities as the Mean Green traveled to New York, and boy did he make the most of it.

After carrying the ball 13 total times in the first three weeks, Hawkins carried 13 times in this game against Army and turned those totes into 99 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

He scored twice in the first quarter, as UNT raced out to a 21-0 lead. Neither of those first quarter TD runs were overly flashy, but they were an example of Hawkins’ ability to just keep churning forward.

After carrying four times in the first quarter, Hawkins got just one carry in quarters two and three, but when the game was in the balance late, Morris and Co. went back to him.

Hawkins had six carries for 50 yards in the fourth quarter, including a 21-yard touchdown run where it looked as if he was shot out of a cannon once the hole opened up.

Then he got the rock twice in overtime, with one of those carries being a game-winning, 3-yard touchdown.

A Great, Weird Game

This thing looked like another blowout early, but credit Army for finding a way back into it.

UNT was up 21-0 before Army got off the mat.

The Black Knights scored with 37 seconds left in the half to cut UNT’s lead to 28-14. North Texas nearly got into field-goal range in those final 37 seconds but couldn’t quite get the kick off as the kicking team rushed on the field with no timeouts.

Army then got the ball out of the half and scored again, cutting UNT’s lead to 28-21.

It still felt like things were in North Texas’ control.

A phantom hold call took back what would’ve been a game-icing touchdown for UNT before the Mean Green later went for it on fourth down and didn’t get it.

Then an Army player fumbled, but the ball just got out of bounds before a North Texas defender fell on it. Then Army’s quarterback threw a yolo fourth-down ball down the field that was caught and turned into a 68-yard touchdown.

It couldn’t get any worse for UNT, right? Wrong. Makenzie McGill fumbled when UNT got the ball back and tried to run out the clock, and Army was able to go down and kick a field goal to send it to OT.

North Texas resumed its dominance in the overtime period, scoring rather quickly.

It was a good OT period for UNT-turned-OSU defenders, as well.

Saadiq Clements and Ethan Wesloski made back-to-back tackles for loss to get Army behind the chains. The Army quarterback then scrambled on third down, but big defensive tackle Fatafehi Vailea II ran him down and shoved him out of bounds before the line to gain. That would be Vailea’s last contribution of the season, as he got injured on the play.

That brought up a 4th-and-5, where Army was unable to convert a pass, and the game ended.

Sure, it would’ve been nice for North Texas to navigate that game a little more cleanly, but after all that stuff didn’t go their way at the end of the fourth quarter, the Mean Green showed some resolved and left 4-0.

Other Notes

• Army beat Kansas State in Manhattan the game before this.

• Like in the last game, UNT’s defense created turnovers early with three takeaways in the first half, which helped the Mean Green open up that lead.

New Cowboys were involved in two of those turnovers, as Keviyan Huddleston fell on an errant pitch and Vailea forced a fumble. Here’s Huddleston’s Stone Cold moment:

• North Texas has started on the front foot in all of its games thus far. UNT outscored its opponents a combined 48-10 through the opening quarter of its first four games.

• Miles Coleman was Mestemaker’s primary target in this one. He finished with eight catches for 74 yards.

They kept hitting him on quick screens, like this fun one:

• Wyatt Young caught a 6-yard TD pass on a sick quick fade concept. Mestemaker put the ball right on the money.

• Neither team punted this entire game.