Stock Up: Eric Morris Defied All Expectations at North Texas, Imagine What He Can Do at Oklahoma State

STILLWATER — Eric Morris has North Texas on the brink of a conference championship game. A win there likely puts UNT in the driver’s seat for the College Football Playoff.

Everyone around the country is singing Morris’ praises now, for good reason, but don’t let all that excitement make you think North Texas reached its potential this season.

When, in fact, by all metrics, the Mean Green shattered them.

DraftKings had North Texas with +1200 odds to win the American Conference this season during the offseason, ranked well behind favorites Tulane (+300), Navy (+380) and UTSA (+450). Plus, Memphis, Army and South Florida also checked in ahead of North Texas.

Morris has made a habit of consistently shattering expectations during his three-year tenure at North Texas. The popular phrase is good teams win, great teams cover.

If that’s true, maybe we should call him Eric the Great, because UNT covered the spread 61.1% of the time under Morris, ranking 13th in the nation, tied with Indiana. When power conference teams cover to the extent Morris’ UNT group did, they typically cement their place atop the sport.

Editor’s note: for the chart below, we pretended the 2023 season had a 12-team playoff

North Texas has been particularly dominant against the spread this season, going 9-2 on the year. Only Texas Tech, Ohio State and Utah State have a better record against the spread, but even they fail to hold a candle to how UNT is dismantling opponents.

The Mean Green are beating the spread by an average of 9.8 points this season, behind only Indiana (10.4). To get further context for what that number means, since the 2021 season, only two other FBS teams have finished better than UNT against the spread. Last season, Arizona State beat lines by 10.9 points, while 2023 Arizona beat the spread by 11.7 points.

No team in 2021 or 2022 could match what Morris has done so far this season.

His greatest wins this season include a 49-point victory over Washington State, UNT was favored by 6.5 points, and a 38-point win over UTSA on Oct. 18 when UNT was favored by only four points.

As recently as Nov. 1, UNT beat a Navy team by 14 after kicking off as a 6.5-point favorite. The only two games UNT didn’t cover this season were a 3-point overtime win at Western Michigan, UNT was favored by 12, and a 27-point loss to South Florida as a 2.5-point favorite.

Fan Duel has North Texas listed as a 19.5-point favorite over Temple on Friday at 2:30 p.m. Fan Duel doesn’t think that’s the last win Morris will celebrate in green. UNT is favored to win the conference (-140) over Tulane (+105) and has the Mean Green favored to make the CFP bracket (-134).

However Morris finishes this season, just remember it wasn’t how most predicted, and that’s good news for an Oklahoma State team that will likely have to exceed plenty of national expectations to reach success in 2026.