North Texas will be traveling to Monroe to take on Sun Belt Conference member the University of Louisiana-Monroe (4-6, 3-3). The Warhawks are coming into the game after getting a spanking by LSU 51-0. While it seemed to be a complete annihilation of the Warhawks, first year ULM Head Football Coach Todd Berry said the stats show “it was not a 51 point game.” He stated if you look at the film and do not look at the score, ULM played LSU almost heads up. It was the turnovers which gave the Tigers a short field to score resulted in the large margin of victory.

After reviewing the tape he said "our offensive line played very physical” and “I was surprised to see how physical” the ULM offensive line played.

Talking about North Texas he felt Interim North Texas Head Football Coach Mike Canales's squad is a “very good offensive team.” He thought North Texas played hard every game and he is not expecting North Texas to let up when they play each other on Saturday.

According to the coach, Running Back Lance Dunbar is “the best running back we have faced.” In his opinion what makes Dunbar so good is Quarterback Riley Dodge. He explained his comment this way. With the type of spread offense North Texas is running they are “not looking to throw the ball.” They are running more of an “option type offense.” Because Riley is so good under center and Dunbar running the ball, North Texas runs “a lot of misdirection plays.” In addition, “they will throw some play action” passes. So defenses “can't play the play, they have to play the blocking scheme” and if they don't they are going to get burned.

Even though Dodge is playing with injuries, he is able to understand the plays and how to run the offense. “He was an All-American coming out of high school” so he smart enough and can make the right football decisions. Because he is so good, he makes it easy for Dunbar to find the holes for big gainers and is why if you watch when Dunbar has the ball “no one near him” and “he is running in space.” With the misdirection plays, defenses will follow Dodge when actually Dunbar has the ball and as a result no one is near him.

When Dodge has the ball he “is hard to tackle.” Defenses “can't single up on him” because he is strong enough to break tackles and he simply is hard to bring down. Even though Berry thought Dodge's arm strength was not as strong as it once was because of injuries he is “effective throwing the play action” passes and getting the ball to the right receivers.

Berry stated Canales “is doing a very good job in a difficult situation” and since “he has nothing to lose” he expects Canales to take a lot of more risk taking than he normally would. He used the example against Troy when North Texas had a “4th and one on their plus 30, ” the “conservative call” would be run the ball with the Dodge or Dunbar but “they used a play action pass” to the tight end for a touchdown. Since you have nothing to lose you can make that call.

He thought North Texas was getting better because the are “growing up.” The team has played together for sometime so they now know what to expect from other players on the team.

Since the difference between winning and losing games is the match-ups he was concerned about how his team is going to match up against North Texas and feels North Texas may have the better matches in some positions. He was concerned the North Texas offense may fool his defense if they bite on the wrong play.