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Geezzzzz, and he WANTS to come to NORTH TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!! Rick

Umm, no. Leavitt at USF season records: Year Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl South Florida Bulls (Division I-AA Independent) (1997–2000) 1997 South Florida 5–6 1998 South Florida 8–3 1999 South Florida 7–4 2000 South Florida 7–4 South Florida Bulls (Division I-A Independent) (2001–2002) 2001 South Florida 8–3 2002 South Florida 9–2 South Florida Bulls (Conference USA) (2003–2004) 2003 South Florida 7–4 5–3 T–3rd 2004 South Florida 4–7 3–5 T–6th South Florida Bulls (Big East Conference) (2005–2009) 2005 South Florida 6–6 4–3 T–3rd L Meineke Car Care 2006 South Florida 9–4 4–3 T–4th W Papajohns.com 2007 South Florida 9–4 4–3 T–3rd L Sun 2008 South Florida 8–5 2–5 6th W St. Petersburg 2009 South Florida 8–5 3–4 T–4th W International South Florida: 94–57 25–26

From the UNT Yahoo team report. Quote To Note: “We think that we can talk to coaches in that top echelon. If you don’t aim high, you will never get there.”—Lane Rawlins, North Texas president, to the Denton Record-Chronicle.

When the decision is made, is RV going to have white smoke come out of that chimney behind the student side at Fouts?

This is dumb. Very dumb. SMU has gotten good recruits at the same positions we have. Both schools have gotten quality players that fit their systems. We got Forrest Robinson, they got Cannen Cunningham. We got Jordan Williams, they got Jalen Jones. We got Norris and Jones, they got Ryan Manuel. At this point, I don't think either school would trade their class for the others. Everyone has plenty to be happy about.

We almost made it a whole weekend w/o a SMU thread... way to go!

If the window to my university is a brawl with FIU with an alumni color man on the broadcast throwing out ghetto slang, or being a bunch of classless morons like the ones that showed up in the Cotton Bowl and whipped Texas, then I would prefer that window be boarded up. Why can't we build a program like TCU, for example, that has done it by being successful on and off the field, and by being something the community, alumni and students can be proud of? Or how about Boise State that built their program much the same way TCU has? There's more than one way to skin a cat. Being successful doesn't mean being classless.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say today is not the day and tomorrow isn't looking good either.

I'd suggest worrying about Cliff Lee's contract in two weeks.

Please...we don't need our legitimate football conversation cluttered up talks of shades and color schemes of uniforms, flare on helmets and aesthetic decorating ideas for our new house... Oh. Crap...maybe we are all women.

*sigh* As fans of this university know, women can successfully contribute to a sports conversation without sounding like a complete moron. Phyllis George Perhaps if some men were kept from posting on message boards without thinking, the messages boards would be a community of fresh ideas, insight, and productive conversation.

The player CLOSEST to the action was the player himself. He was quoated as saying that it was no big deal. So putting football in the text of the law, every single time someone is making a tackle or blocking someone, they are committing assault. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone, it just seems that the wussification of America has trickled into college football.

If our crap sold... They'd sell it. Other than what you find in the Bookstore/Voertmans, North Texas merchandise is low quality garbage.

90, Isn't it good enough just to say that you prefer Leavitt over any other candidate at this point? Why excuse boorish behavior? The examples for coaches winning without having to resort to choking and slapping players are legion. Do you really want to stack up Leavitt's record against the records of coaches who never choked or slapped their players? I mean, drill down a little. They guy never won so much as a conference title in either Conference USA or the Big East. So, we stack him up next to those who have won titles without choking and slapping? Even taking out titles, the vast majority - and, at this point, I'd say all - win without choking or slapping. It's good enough to simply say you like Leavitt as a candidate without having to put on some charade about it being acceptable for grown men to be unable to control their emotions to the point where they assault kids in their late teens and early 20s.

Yeah -- we're horrible people for wanting the losingest coach in UNT history to be replaced. If all you care about is character building, instead of wins and losses, let's hire Mister Peppermint to coach the team.

I sure hope that SMU is not used as a barometer in guaging our recruiting success. The kids who have committed have offers from much better programs.

No kidding ? We've had the talent to compete w/ everyone in the Belt the last 4 years outside of Troy. Which is why it will not take years for a turn around. Any decent coach can come and here and start to win 5/6 games a year because we are in the by far the worst conference in all of football

To act like Bliss is analogous to Leavitt.....is ridiculous. Ridiculous beyond belief.

Jim Leavitt had a winning season in his SECOND season. Wait, in USF's SECOND season. I don't care what level he was playing, he had a winning season in the program's second year. It took him YEARS to get to the number 2 ranking in ALL of college football. After the first team meeting was held under a TREE. Dude did not have a 100 acre former golf course with state of the art facilities on it. He had a couple of single wides and a TREE. There may be some issues around the guy, but he has shown at least once that he can build a winner in a hurry. Has had two losing seasons in thirteen. If he can catch the magic again, it won't take long.

We are the Rip Van Winkle of college football.

I always figured I was in the minority on this one, but I can't stand the Black Polo - really don't enjoy seeing our coaches wear it. In fact, I wish the players didn't walk in wearing black. Either wear green warmup suits in stead of black ones, or put a suit on.

haven't seen this posted yet I figure that with the way I have seen a large proportion of you write, this website will hit a chord. Everyone who went through the Dickey era knows this website feels eerily familiar. Why would you want to go through that again? You don't even have to peruse the website just read the homepage. Pretty much sums up the Dickey era for me. I don't know what the future holds but if we have to go through that again it won't be very rosy. Maybe Leavitt has grown since USF and the incident with the player, but I wouldn't count on a changed man. All I care to remember is that Dickey had a hot streak in a talent poor Sunbelt conference that won besides its self on almost every occasion. The lack of discipline was deplorable at times (anyone who witnessed the grenade celebration can relate). Call it swagger if you are inclined to do so but you really know what it is. One of a myriad of program building traits of our next coach I will look for is accountability for ones actions on and off the field, for players and coaches alike. Sorry for the brain dump but hiring Leavitt in my estimation would be a mistake. My glass at this moment is half-empty and that might just empty it.

And as I recall, the father of former North Texas quaterback Damon West.

Apparently, having to stand in an conditioned room for a couple of hours while ur teammates beat the crap out of each other in practice is considered abuse by a very few on this board. Pretty amazing. Try to think back to how physical a game football is, and then ask yourself; how can slapping a player or putting a player in an air conditioned room be abuse when, as coaches, fans, parents, and school administrators, we ask, hell, require, these kids to take the playing field, run as fast as they can, and collide as hard as they can with a kid from another school, who has the same requirements of their Coach? I'm not very good with physics, but I would bet one collision between these players generates at least 1000 times the force generated by the slap which with Leavitt most likely hit his player. I KNOW you can't even quantify how much greater a force that collision was then the force generated by the Leach incident, because Leach NEVER TOUCHED ADAM JAMES. This is a violent game, folks. People get paralyzed in this game. They suffer year ending and career ending injuries. The players know this. Do you really think a little slap matters in the big picture? Or does it just allow you to feel better about yourself by issuing self righteous statements about "player abuse?" More to come.

One thing we're missing here.... Leavitt apparently did put his hands on one of his players. Punch, slap, whatever it was, something happened. I'm all for Leavitt as the next HC for NT, the guy is a proven winner. Let's not wash his hands of all wrong doing just yet. If he is hired here, as a supporter of NT, I would want a clear story directly from Jim.

Why do we always have to see this garbage on the board? Who gives a crap what that little school does down there in Dallas. Johnny Jones and our current seniors have already set the bar, and we look to the new kids coming in in this class and the last to keep the winning tradition going that they already started here. These kids have a great potential, great coaching, and great role models to pattern their game after and grow the program to new heights. It's going to be an exciting ride here for the next few years, if they learn to play together and work hard. Hopefully we can be talking about one of them that blossoms into NBA caliber like WKU has already done. I can't tell you how happy I am to be in the Sun Belt for hoops, because it really seems to be getting better and better.

Baylor is a rough comparison because they've got the Big 12 advantage. I don't think there's a state school I'd want to pattern ourselves after as a means of comparison. If I had to pick a program to model ourselves after, it would be Utah State or Nevada. And as far as recruiting goes, our class so far is on par with any of their results over the past 4-5 years.

It's almost as if you are making a cupboard is bare argument. How many games in the last 2 seasons have we lost through stupid penalties, special teams, or capitalizing on key drives? We have the players to play in the Sunbelt but we haven't had the coaching. Leavitt has produced with far more obstacles than both Dickey and TD have had combined. Look we aren't an all star team by no means but we do have the players to compete and win 4-6 games NEXT year.

I believe Nov 10th

Right, SMU might be a meaningful comparison for football but not basketball.

Guess he missed Brewster getting the ax at Minnesota

Seems to be a demographic-related issue.

So here is what I am getting from the board lately. = And =

I've been hearing this "sleep giant" crap since before we returned to D1A ball. Kick the giant in the nuts and wake it up.

The only thing I worry about with Leavitt is losing recruits because mommy and daddy are scared that Leavitt is going to puch out their son (people aren't always informed). Recruiters from other schools will make an issue of this. If Leavitt can explain how he will recruit against this tactic, and it is a viable explanation, then I have no problem with this issue. Don't even put the Leach incident in the same catagory as Leavitt's incident. If someone doesn't want to send their baby to UNT because Coach Leach may hurt his feelings and embarras him in front of his teammates by making him stand up for a couple of hours in an air conditioned, 400 foot room, I don't want the momma's boy, anyway. This will be a non-issue in recruiting.

Probably the most idiotic thing ever posted on this forum and that is saying a lot.

We can have his son play WR til the elder coach Fran leaves.

You are on warn status?.....at least you can be assured Leach or Leavitt aren't running this board....then anything goes!

Leavitt is a high profile coach that is available. Leach is out of our range. Unless we can generate about 3 million a year on the coaching staff he won't even consider us. Any decent coach that comes here should be able to produce in year 1. It doesn't mean we win the conference or even go to a bowl game but we should be win more than 2 or 3 games with a very decent coach and planner.

Lol, congrats.

The "perimeter scorer with size" should have been RJ McGhee. That one still stings. Still, better to find out he's not going to cut it academically after a week rather than losing him at midyear when we've been planning on his availability all year. I wish that guy could have stuck around.

Rangers aside, it was a bad week for UNT football (IMO). We had to fire another coach because we can't get past the 2-win mark. A good week in late October should be another sunbelt win; and some three star commitments. Not trying to figure out where out next stop on the coaching carousel leaves us. I am not saying that TD should have been kept; just tired of losing. Out of curiosity; how many football coaching hires does a AD get to make? TD was a a RV hire. Is this hire a must-have for RV's tenure here?

I simply pointed out four areas where I thought that Todd Dodge did a credible job. Winning is the main thing and it cost Dodge his job because he couldn't do it. But, there were other areas of building a winning program where he did quite well. Did you see any signs of an undercurrent to build a stadium before Dodge complained that he had been "promised" a new stadium before he signed on? It was my observation that nothing happened before that statement. I think that Flyer probably had more to do with the success of getting the students to agree to the athletic fee than any other individual so maybe he can clarify the timeline. I felt that he had a hard time getting higher caliber recruits with the albatross known as Fouts Field. Yes, those guilty of using drugs came from both the holdovers and Dodge's recruits. In fact, the only one who left because he wouldn't submit to a drug test was one of Dodge's recruits. The fact is drug usage is a cancer that can destroy a team and it had to be cleaned up first before a program can become successful. I don't think that there's any argument that Dodge cleaned up the APR during his time here. It's another area that continually affects the quality and depth of the squad because it makes it even harder to work with five less scholarships a year. The attendance was purely speculation on my part. Tailgating may have played a part in keeping the attendance up but not that much in my opinion. There was tailgating during the Dickey years and attendance continued to drop when the quality of the team dropped. If you believed this board there were a lot that stayed in the tailgate area and never entered the stadium, yet the attendance held steady at 18,000+. I think that it was in part because Todd did not alienate the fans and partly because we felt that he was close to turning the corner (which he never did). "Good Hire" is subjective. If he had won but had an underlying drug culture that wouldn't go to class and continued to play in a crappy stadium would you say that was a good hire?

You - "I need to take a long lunch on Friday, November 12th." Boss - "What for?" You - "I could tell you but me telling you might constitute a violation of HIPPA." Boss - "Oh, ok."

Jack, I hope you don't mind that I enlarged the letters to your thoughts. And for those who didn't realize what TDodge truly inherited his first year--you do now. GMG!

Which is fine... if we're only talking about what went on after that run, that's a fair assessment. One of the few things that really gets to me in where we live today, sports, is the belittling (even with those subtle little qualifiers) of that run. We should bask in that run as though it was the light from the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, especially with our history. And frankly, I think that someday we will - probably when those in school at that time are the old timers around here. Sometimes, timing just fails you. If that group, coming off that run, had had facilities above the level of a struggling 3A school, a university that allowed tailgating and created a strong game day atmosphere, and the promise of a shiny new stadium, I like to think we'd have "capitalized" a bit better. Do I think we'd be at the "Boise State!!!1!" level some people see as our birthright? Absolutely not. We wouldn't be winning 4 straight titles remotely regularly either... but we'd be in a hell of a lot better position in the W column. Yeah.... screw it - I'll say it.... I wish that Darrell Dickey had had HALF the advantages, facilities, and support that Todd Dodge had. It may not be a popular opinion around here, but I'd have sure as hell loved to have seen what might have happened.

Good post, although winning is what keeps coaches around. For various reasons, some TD had control over and some he didn't, he just couldn't get us on the winning track, and in the end that is what led to his firing. You could learn a thing or two about character from Dodge.

WKU and MTSU; seem to think the basketball world revolves around them. WKU definitely has the historically best bb program, while the Muts have a great WBB program. Based on their fans participation in the Belt tournament; they should also get more attention than the other Belt schools. Frankly, although much closer and having a high caliber BB team, NT's fan response has been disappointing. Much better last year, then NT first Belt tournament win in Lafayette when the NT fans were practically non-existent; but still needs to be vastly improved. All that being said, there still has to be a site that actually bids and offers something comparable to Hot Springs and apparently that has not happened. I am not as enamored as many with Hot Springs. It is a easy travel location and is small enough that it is easy to get around, but for a half a##ed bb fan like me that doesn't have a great interest in watching non-NT games; it doesn't have a lot of attractions. A Memphis, Nashville, Mobil, New Orleans and even Biloxi would be more centrally located and offer far more then Hot Springs. However, the Belt is not going to get near the focus at any of these places with the exception of Mobile, and that is not a neutral site. Hot Springs is overall a great location for NT fans and we should take advantage of it for the next three years. The weekday games are tough for most to make, but if MTSU and WKU can do it, why can't NT. We are much closer and there are potentially a lot more of us.