Florida Atlantic at North Texas
Thursday, October 29, 2026
7:30 PM ET, DATCU Stadium, Denton, TX
North Texas is a 13.5-point favorite over Florida Atlantic with a total of 76.5. My play is North Texas -13.5 (-112).
Neal Brown spent Monday defending the other team’s defense. “Their defensive stats are a little misleading,” the North Texas coach said of an FAU unit that ranks 134th in total defense and 137th against the run. His argument: FAU has seen three option offenses in Army, Navy, and Rice, so the run numbers are inflated. Fair point. But I went looking for the good defense hiding under those numbers, and I couldn’t find it. That’s why I’m laying the points with the best offense in the American.
The excuse only covers half the field
Brown is right about the ground game. Army, Navy, and Rice will wreck anybody’s rushing numbers. Rice ran for 499 yards on FAU last Saturday, and quarterback Gael Ochoa had 259 of them by himself. Cut the option teams out, though, and the pass defense is still bad. FAU gives up 8.7 yards per pass attempt, 124th in FBS. It also gets home on just 4.4% of opponent dropbacks, 111th. Game on Paper’s opponent-adjusted efficiency, which grades every snap by how much it changes a team’s scoring odds, puts the Owls’ defense 136th out of 138. That’s not a run-defense problem. That’s a defense problem.
Now look at what’s coming to Denton. Brown inherited a roster with zero returning starters, one of only two in FBS, and turned it into a machine that scores 43.1 points per game. North Texas has topped 40 points four weeks running. Tayven Jackson has 18 touchdown passes against five picks, and he’s thrown for 300 yards in four of his last five starts. North Texas gains 9.2 yards per throw (11th nationally), and Jackson almost never goes down: the Mean Green give up a sack on only 2.3% of dropbacks, sixth-best in FBS. Put a clean pocket against a pass rush that can’t get there, and you get Saturday’s line at Navy: 17-for-23, 305 yards, three touchdowns. Justin Stevenson caught eight of those for 209 yards.
Then there’s Jahiem White, the West Virginia transfer who has run for at least 100 yards in four straight games and scored in all seven. He has 861 yards and 11 touchdowns, and he went for 174 at Navy. Brown has a top-10 passer and a top-10 rusher, and his school says no other FBS team can say that. FAU’s front isn’t built to handle both.
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FAU can throw it. That’s the whole plan.
Give FAU credit. Year 2 under Zach Kittley looks nothing like last season’s 4-8, and one more win makes the Owls bowl eligible. Caden Veltkamp leads the nation with 26.8 completions per game, and Easton Messer just turned in one of the wildest stat lines you’ll see: five touchdowns against Rice (two rushing, two receiving, and an 82-yard punt return). He’s the first FBS player in at least 20 years to pull that off. North Texas’s defense isn’t great, either. It allows 8.6 yards per pass attempt, so Veltkamp will move the ball.
The problem is that it’s the only thing FAU does. The Owls average 3.0 yards per carry, 133rd in the country, so everything runs through Veltkamp’s right arm. A one-dimensional offense against a pass rush that sacks quarterbacks on 7.45% of dropbacks (39th) is going to stall a few times. North Texas won’t. The ratings agree on the gap: ESPN’s FPI makes North Texas about 13.6 points better on a neutral field, before home field counts for anything. The Mean Green have won their three home games by a combined 127 points, and FAU’s two losses this year came on the road by 45 and 32.
The case against laying two touchdowns
FAU’s special teams scare me. The Owls have four return touchdowns this season (two on punts, two on kickoffs), which leads FBS, and ESPN rates North Texas’s special teams 120th. One Messer return is a seven-point swing, and that’s exactly how a 17-point game turns into a backdoor cover. Both teams are on a short week, and North Texas is just back from a trip to Annapolis. Brown has kept practices light, and his defense gave up 506 yards to Navy. There’s an early rain chance in the forecast, and the market has already moved this from 12.5 to 13.5, so the cheap number is gone. Neither team has released its availability report yet. I’d still play this at -14, and I’d pass at -15.
My projection: FAU keeps it close for a half and hits a couple of explosive plays, then Jackson and White pull away in a blackout crowd. North Texas 45, Florida Atlantic 30.
The Pick: North Texas -13.5 (-112)
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