It’s already been a pretty big year for the Army football program. Jeff Monken’s Black Knights beat Navy for the first time in 15 years — the culmination of a years-long, top-secret plan — to create one of the season’s enduring images. But Army also won five other games and qualified for a bowl for the first time since 2010. Now the Knights will play North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl on Tuesday.
Army vs. North Texas, 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl: Time, live stream, TV schedule, and 3 things to know
Army is coming off its biggest win in years, and now it gets its first bowl appearance in six years.
Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports
The Mean Green are playing in the Heart of Dallas for the second time in four years, having qualified for a bowl in their first year under new coach Seth Littrell. They missed bowl season every year from 2012 to 2015 and only went 5-7 this year. But they had the second-best APR score, a measure of academic progress, among 5-7 teams, so they got a bid because of a shortage of six-win bowl qualifiers. And while 5-7 is not much, it looks better in light of the Mean Green’s 1-11 mark in 2015.
How to watch, stream and listen
TV: Noon ET, Tuesday, ESPN. The announcers are Allen Bestwick, Mike Bellotti, and Kris Budden.
Radio: Army and North Texas
Online streaming: WatchESPN
Spread: Army opened as a 9.5-point favorite. The line has settled around 10.
Make friends: SB Nation’s Underdog Dynasty will have more coverage of the festivities in Dallas. Check it out.
Three big things to know
1. Army is a lot better than it used to be. And there’s more evidence than just the snapping of that 14-year dry spell against Navy. The Knights’ offense is noticeably better than it was last year, and going from 22 to 29 points per game has helped matters a ton. But the biggest transformation is Army’s defense, which had languished around 30 points per game (or worse) for years but has given up only 19 on average this year. They give up some big plays here and there, but the Knights are solid.
2. UNT might run into problems on both sides of the ball. A 5-7 Conference USA team is necessarily going to be one of the worst teams involved in bowl season. That’s not intended as a knock because the Mean Green have made genuine and significant progress this year. But there’s no real running game, a really bad passing game, and the defense doesn’t have any standout strengths, either. The Mean Green could struggle with Army’s flexbone offense, which they don’t see in C-USA.
3. This is a rematch. Many bowls seek to avoid sequels, but the Heart of Dallas has one this year. North Texas gave Army a pretty good beating in a 35-18 win at West Point on Oct. 22 in one of the Knights’ worst games of the season. But UNT is 1-4 since then, while Army is 3-2 and looking a lot better. So it’s not wholly surprising that Army is the favorite, no matter what happened two months ago.
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