text: After the Heart of Dallas Bowl victory, the team saw two declining years; finishing 4–8 in 2014, and a 1–11 record in 2015, which included a 66–7 loss to Portland State, the worst loss by an FBS school to an FCS program in 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.