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Why is North Texas called the Mean Green? Explaining UNT football nickname
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- Why is North Texas called the Mean Green? Explaining UNT football nickname
For all of the teams that have turned heads in the first seven weeks of the 2025 college football season, few have been as pleasantly surprising as North Texas .
After going 6-7 last year, the program's sixth-consecutive non-winning season, the Mean Green are 5-0 and receiving votes in the US LBM Coaches Poll . It marks the first time North Texas has gotten off to a 5-0 start since all the way back in 1959.
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This week, coach Eric Morris' team will firmly enter the national spotlight with a Friday, Oct. 10 home game against South Florida. With a victory against the Bulls , the Mean Green would not only achieve bowl eligibility before the midway point of October, but also would position itself as one of the favorites to win the American Conference — and, potentially, the College Football Playoff berth reserved for the highest-ranked conference champion from outside the Power Four leagues.
As North Texas finds its way on to the playoff radar, there will naturally be some questions about it. Who are some of the key players who have contributed to its success? What about Morris, its third-year coach who has the program doing things it hasn't done in generations?
Then, of course, there's the matter of its nickname.
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In a sport overrun with Tigers, Bulldogs and Wildcats, Mean Green is one of the most unique monikers in college football, one with a fascinating and murky history.
Here's what you need to know about how North Texas' nickname came to be:
Why is North Texas the Mean Green?
As with any compelling legend, there's some debate over how, exactly, North Texas' distinctive nickname was birthed.
A story from the Denton Record-Chronicle that's repurposed on North Texas' official athletic website attributes the nickname to Sidney Sue Graham, who was a longtime journalist and lifestyle editor at the newspaper.
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As the story goes, during a 1966 game between what was then known as North Texas State University and Texas Western University (now UTEP), Graham was looking to try to help rally her beloved team as it stared at a deficit.
"We were way behind and she started hollering, 'Come on green, get mean,' or 'Here we go, mean green,' or variants on that," Mark Graham, one of her three sons, told the newspaper . "Then it became popular with some of the students and some of the other fans. So it caught on."
At the time, North Texas' nickname was the Eagles , but "Mean Green" resonated in a way that even the most graceful and regal bird couldn't. North Texas' defense during that 1966 season was statistically one of the best in the country, led by future Pro Football Hall of Famer "Mean" Joe Greene (contrary to popular belief, the "Mean Green" nickname is not tied to Greene).
"She always said it was never intended to be about Joe Greene," Mark Graham said of the connection to Greene . "She would make a point of saying that Joe is not mean at all. (She'd say), 'He's a great player, but he's as nice a guy as you'd ever want to meet.' So she was sensitive about that. She felt bad that he got that nickname and that she felt like it was her fault."
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Proud of her idea, Graham spoke about the nickname with her husband, Fred, who was the university's sports information director. He inserted the moniker into a weekly news release later in the season and it started to catch on in the local media, appearing regularly in stories about the North Texas defense. By the 1968 season, it was used in reference to the whole team.
Graham's chant isn't the only origin story for the Mean Green name.
As told by Greene himself to USA TODAY's Paul Myerberg in 2015 , the name came from a North Texas basketball player, Willie Davis. During a 12-9 victory against Texas Western in 1966 — the same game Graham attended and made her now-famous chant — Davis was sitting in the North Texas student section when he began trying to lead those around him with a song: "Go mean green, you look so good to me."
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"Willie tells me they had a little too much to drink," Greene said .
Regardless of how the name was conceived, what happened next isn't up for debate.
The name remained a secondary reference for the team until 1973, when Hayden Fry was hired as North Texas' football coach and athletic director. The future Iowa coach loved the name and made it the team's primary moniker, while keeping an eagle logo as the team's main athletic mark (which remains the case today).
In 2000, when Rick Villarreal was hired as athletic director, every North Texas program, not just its football team, adopted the Mean Green name.
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North Texas schedule 2025
With Friday's game against South Florida looming, here's a look at North Texas' 2025 results and remaining schedule:
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Saturday, Aug. 30:North Texas 51, Lamar 0
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Saturday, Sept. 6:North Texas 33, Western Michigan 30 (OT)
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Saturday, Sept. 13:North Texas 59, Washington State 10
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Saturday, Sept. 20:North Texas 45, Army 38 (OT) *
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Saturday, Sept. 27:North Texas 36, South Alabama 22
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Saturday, Oct. 4:BYE
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Friday, Oct. 10:vs. South Florida *
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Saturday, Oct. 18:vs. UTSA *
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Friday, Oct. 24:at Charlotte *
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Saturday, Nov. 1:vs. Navy *
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Saturday, Nov. 8:BYE
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Saturday, Nov. 15:at UAB *
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Saturday, Nov. 22:at Rice *
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Saturday, Nov. 29:vs. Temple *
* Denotes American Conference game
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why is North Texas called the Mean Green? Explaining UNT's nickname
