NCAA history. After the loss, Dan McCarney was fired. In December of that year, North Texas hired the previous offensive coordinator at the University of North Carolina, Seth Littrell, to take over. The Mean Green improved by four wins in Littrell's first year at the helm, and despite having a 5-7 record, Academic Progress Rate scores from the previous year allowed the team to compete in the 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl after there weren't enough 6-6 programs to fill all of the bowl game slots. 2017 and 2018 proved to be two of the best consecutive seasons the program had seen since the Hayden Fry era. In 2017, North Texas finished 9-5, capturing Conference USA's West Division crown. North Texas fell to Florida Atlantic in the 2017 Conference USA Football Championship Game, and went on to lose to Troy in the 2017 New Orleans Bowl. The 2018 team shot off to a 4-0 start before somewhat faltering down the stretch, finishing the season 9-4 after a loss to Utah State in the 2018 New Mexico Bowl. Conference affiliations North Texas has been a member of eight different conferences, and has had three stints as an independent team. Independent (1913–1921) Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1922–1931) Lone Star Conference (1932–1948) Gulf Coast Conference (1949–1956) Missouri Valley Conference (1957–1974) Div. I-A Independent (1975–1981, 1995) Div. I-AA Independent (1982) Southland Conference (1983–1994) Big West Conference (1996–2000) Sun Belt Conference (2001–2012) Conference USA (2013–present) American Athletic Conference (Future) Championships Conference championships North Texas has won 25 conference champion titles. † Co-champions Division championships Joining Conference USA in 2013, brought North Texas to its first conference with divisions. Split up by eastern and western teams, the Mean Green have to compete against the western teams for a spot in the conference championship game. North Texas won its first title in 2017. † Co-champions NCAA Division I-AA playoff appearances In its time in Division I-AA (now known as the Football Championship Subdivision), the Mean Green qualified for the playoffs four times, garnering a record of 0–4. Bowl games North Texas has played in 13 NCAA-sanctioned bowl games with a record of 2–11 through the 2022 season. North Texas competed in the Optimist Bowl as its first bowl game in 1946 against Pacific. North Texas won the game 14–13, but the contest was part of a fundraiser for homeless youths in Houston, put on by Optimist International