North Texas Mean Green football The North Texas Mean Green football team represents the University of North Texas in the sport of American Football . The Mean Green compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision ( FBS ) of the National Collegiate Athletics Association ( NCAA ) and the Sun Belt Conference . The Mean Green have attained several conference championships , including four consecutive Sun Belt Conference championships . UNT has a 51 . 7 % winning percentage in school history , but since Hall of Fame Coach Hayden Fry left after the 1978 season , UNT ' s winning percentage has trended downward . From 1978 until 2005 , UNT had a 41 . 9 % winning percentage . From 1991 to 2005 , the Mean Green had a 39 % winning percentage . From 2005 to 2010 , the team went 13 - 56 , a 19 % winning percentage . Modern History . Though coach Hayden Fry left the school in 1978 with a 9 - 3 season , he also left it with a mounting athletics debts . The team was subsequently demoted to Division I - AA status by the NCAA . In 1982 , the university recognized that the athletics program had a deficit of $ 1 . 6 million and voted to join the Southland Conference . The program experienced little success in subsequent years , but in 1995 , a coordinated campaign by donors to purchase large blocks of seats at Fouts Field spiked the average attendance enough for the school to enter Division I - A once again in 1995 . After the school joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2001 , Darrell Dickey briefly revived fortunes in Denton , winning four straight conference championships . The team played in the 2001 New Orleans Bowl despite having a losing record . After he went 2 - 9 and 3 - 9 in his eighth and ninth seasons , the athletic department fired Dickey on November 8 , 2006 . The school then hired Todd Dodge , who had been offensive coordinator at UNT from 1991 - 1992 , on December 12 , 2006 . Dodge had been one of the nation ’ s most successful high school football coaches , amassing a 98 - 11 record overall at Carroll High School in Southlake , Texas , including a 79 - 1 record over his last 5 years . His teams at UNT struggled to win , however , compiling a 6 - 37 record overall and a 3 - 23 record in conference play . After a 1 - 6 start to the 2010 season , the school fired Dodge . He was replaced by offensive coordinator Mike Canales as interim head coach . In 2011 , the university hired Dan McCarney as head coach . On May 4th , 2012 , the school held a press conference announcing that they had accepted an invitation to join Conference USA beginning in the 2013 season . Florida International University , Louisiana Tech University , the University of Charlotte , and the University of Texas at San Antonio will begin play in Conference USA in 2013 as well , bringing the conference to 13 members . Home field . Apogee Stadium . Since 2011 , the Mean Green have played at Apogee Stadium , formerly named Mean Green Stadium . The stadium seats 31 , 000 . Fouts Field . From 1952 to 2010 , the team played its home games at Fouts Field . The first game was a 55 – 0 win over the North Dakota Fighting Sioux in 1952 . The final Mean Green game was a 41 – 49 loss to the Kansas State Wildcats in 2010 . The Mean Green posted a final record at Fouts Field of 155 – 100 – 7 . From 1971 through 2001 , the Mean Green played 21 home games at Texas Stadium in Irving , Texas , 32 miles away from the university ' s campus in Denton . The Mean Green posted a 9 - 12 record while playing select home games at the off - campus stadium . Only one season , 1972 , saw the Mean Green play more games at Texas Stadium than their home field in Denton .