North Texas 2025 Season Rewatch: Mean Green Closes Season with High-Scoring New Mexico Bowl Win

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GAME 1 | GAME 2 | GAME 3 | GAME 4 | GAME 5 | GAME 6 | GAME 7 | GAME 8 | GAME 9 | GAME 10 | GAME 11 | GAME 12 | GAME 13

And now, my (re)watch has ended.

North Texas won an instant classic New Mexico Bowl against San Diego State. The 49-47 UNT win closed out what was almost certainly the best season in the Mean Green’s football history.

In preparation for Oklahoma State’s 2026 season, we’re going back and watching North Texas’ 2025 season. Here are some takeaways from this game against San Diego State.

Caleb Hawkins Dominated

After getting injured early in the conference championship game, Caleb Hawkins was back with a vengeance in this one.

He finished with 198 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries (6.4 yards per attempt), but his most eye-popping play came as a receiver.

Hawkins slipped out of the backfield late in the first quarter. Drew Mestemaker dumped the ball off to Hawkins, who proceeded to make four guys miss in a 23-yard trot to the end zone.

No stopping @CalebHawk2025

📺 @ESPNCFB #GMG🦅 pic.twitter.com/iZlGKhbJzR

— UNT Football (@MeanGreenFB) December 27, 2025

It was a pitiful tackling display, but Hawkins does that to people. According to PFF, Hawkins forced nine missed tackles as a rusher in this game and four missed tackles as a receiver. Whether it be on a rush or a reception, Hawkins forced double-digit misses in four of UNT’s games last season and he finished the year making 103 total would-be tacklers miss.

Hawkins also recovered an onside kick attempt late in this game. He was doing it all.

Big Play Evan Jackson

Safety Evan Jackson made a few highlight-worthy plays in this one.

The first came on a bone-crunching sack. Evans hid his blitz well. Here’s where he was at the snap of the ball:

And here he was shortly after the snap:

Then Jackson had a crucial interception late, with UNT up 49-40 with about three minutes to play.

Other Notes

• These teams brought 20 combined wins into this bowl game, which was tied for the most of any non-CFP bowl last season.

• New OSU defensive end Keviyan Huddleston scooped a fumble deep within UNT territory in the first half and hiked it back 46 yards the other direction. Nice high and tight ball security.

• It’s awesome that Drew Mestemaker played in this game despite it perhaps making more financial sense for him to skip it.

He was so into the game that after a late hit on one of his receivers, Mestemaker got up in the face of 6-foot-1, 295-pound defensive tackle Malachi Finau.

Mestemaker threw for 250 yards and three touchdowns in his final game with the Mean Green. He had two INTs. One came off a big tip off a receiver and the other was a bad RPO read.

• Eric Morris wasn’t with UNT for this game, as he was instead prepping for the portal in Stillwater, but interim coach Drew Svoboda, who is also at OSU now, kept the same energy as it pertains to being aggressive on fourth down.

Up 49-34 in the fourth, UNT went for it on 4th-and-2 from its own 46-yard line. Hawkins got the three yards required.

Then five plays later, it was 4th-and-4 on the San Diego State 31, and Mestemaker hit Cameron Dorner on a slant route that Dorner ran all the way to the end zone on.

• It was a classic bowl game with teams breaking out trick plays and fakes. The teams combined to go for it on fourth down 12 times, with UNT going 5-for-7 and SDSU going 3-for-5 on fourth down.

• By just about all metrics, this closed out the most successful football season in UNT’s history.

UNT finished the year 12-2, three more wins than the Mean Green ever had in a season before.