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I'm glad Caponi is gone. His firing is long past due. My problem is that most people knew during Morris' first year that Caponi wasn't the answer for our defense... except Morris. Morris let Caponi go into his first season at UNT without the players to run his 3-3-5 defensive scheme, and so UNT finished dead last in defense that season. Morris allowed Caponi to continue force feeding us the 3-3-5 going into year 2, and Caponi brought in a bunch of transfers, but the results have still sucked, even after we implemented more traditional schemes. And to make things worse... Morris has a habit of passing up points and going for it on 4th, which hasn't been successful against teams that can actually win games. Plus, Morris has no jumbo package for short yardage situations, which makes it easier for defenses to scheme against us on 4th down attempts. All of that to say, Morris is also a big reason why our defense sucks. Morris' decision making tends to place our defense in tough positions. Who is going to rein him in.

For years, we've been told by coaches and Athletic Directors, that every coach needs a 5 year contract. Otherwise, they can't recruit......because the kids want to know that the coach will be there for all of his/her playing career. In the day and age of The Portal....isn't the "it must be a 5 year contract" thing.....moot???

Step 5: Explain why Zach Orr is the OC

I would suspect that we've seen the end of the 3-3-5. My guess is that he will go back to the 3-4 we ran through the middle of the season. We have run some 4-2-5 in obvious passing situations. If he is a 4-man front guy, he could use that as a base. I don't really think he will do that. We have to do something to fill more gaps and get a pass rush. You can do either with the fronts we currently have, but in the 3-4 you have to be willing to shade the nose. Caponi absolutely would not do that. We NEVER slid the front or moved the nose off of a zero shade. Brown can be a much bigger factor than he has been. So can our DT's. I just hope we put our kids in a situation where they have a chance. Filling gaps on the LOS from the third level is a good way to give up 500 yards a game. Hopefully we never see that again.

Step 5: bankrupt the university

Not to make major decisions, no. However, to get a sense for how supporters are feeling…yes.

I think both EM and Mosley are feeling the backlash from everybody. There has to be someone aware of this forum under Mosley reporting back to get the pulse. I mean they’re not gonna go ask students how things are. I agree 100% about the firing, but this no way clears EM. This is still his team and his decisions that have us where we are. Keep that seat HOT!

When you lose to the community college in San Antonio, that should be an automatic firing

Considering how many on this board are longtime season ticket holders die hard fans, and the heart of this fanbase, I HOPE they are aware of this board and what's being said.

I hope EM has Colby Carthel on speed dial offering him the DC for next year. He recruits well to SFA, he could even better at UNT with its much better facilities

Until Coach Keebler learns that the offense needs to complement the defense.....I'm not sure how much is gonna change. You can't constantly be going for it on 4th down. You need to play field position. You need to learn to "tilt the field" occasionally. You need to take 3 when it's available. So not sure that firing Caponi solves all our probs.

People need to re-read this. At this point I’m of the opinion that Morris needs to go too. This firing is scapegoating a problem of his own making. We don’t play a championship calibre style of football in any of the 3 phases. Our special teams are flat out atrocious - I mentioned this early in the season as well. They just don’t get scrutinized because our focus is all on the historically disastrous defense we’ve fielded. We need to clean house. Caponi isn’t enough.

Yup. Guess the Temple AD also consults this board for advice.

"Well crap. There goes our Heisman chances."---just released statement from every member of the East Carolina offense

Pebble Earle?

IN THE PIT. Basketball deserves all the eyes and attention that football has been getting. A HIGHLY respected program across the country and continues to put quality teams on the court. Sell out DATCU? Nah, SELL OUT THE PIT! GMG.

Coach Mitchell was not only a great Coach but a great Man. It was an honor playing for his teams for 3 years. We do need to remember what he accomplished in his years at UNT in Football, and thank him for the hundreds of young athlete's he influenced in a positive manner and made them better citizens in their future.

I think this is a cop-out. He’s been doing this crap since the beginning of his tenure. The first memorable time was against Navy last year on the first drive of the game from the 1. If in the 5th game of year 1 he was already feeling like he needed to score every drive because of the defense, that's an even bigger problem. I think not having a reliable kicker or punter is the main problem. He went for the points a few times early this season and it didn't work out. Same with some punts that just don't do a good job at flipping the field. I've mentioned in other threads that special teams has also been a problem. Evans is 89th in the country in average punt yardage. We have to have a short kicker and a long kicker. Who the eff does that at this level? That's two coordinators that Morris flopped out on. I'm just waiting on us to move on from Svobada at season's end. Was looking over his profile and I didn't know but he also has Tight Ends this year. Where have the Tight Ends been lately??

I understand that his decisions to go for it on 4th down so much or not to kick FGs or play the field position game are bad decisions. Just playing Devil's advocate. Could it be that those decisions stem from a lack of confidence in the defense? It feels like he believes he has to score TDs on every possession to win because the defense will not stop anyone. So, that takes me back to he should have never kept Caponi after year one.

Two years ago we went toe-to-toe with Boise State in a bowl game. Fast forward to today and Boise State has the inside track to being in the CFP and we’re trending to a #100 ranking. We have Jared Moseley and Eric Morris to thank for that. What a disaster for UNT.

He coached under Alex Grinch, who ran a base 3-4/3-3-5 -- He's a 3-4 guy if I had to pick a scheme. But it's more "multiple" and not dogmatic.

Zach Orr is a defensive guy.

FSU is in such bad shape that a lot of students stopped going to games. They still pregame like nobody's business at the frat houses, but the crowds at Doak are thin even after they reduced seats by 20,000 this season for stadium renovation. My son goes there and I attended their home losses to Clemson and UNC. Even a P5/4/3/2 program with multiple national championships has to put a product on the field to pack the house.

I really hope our head coach and athletic director are not consulting a fan message board to determine major personnel decisions.

I really want people to read this: https://meangreensports.com/honors/north-texas-athletics-hall-of-fame/odus-mitchell/3 This man was and still is very much under appreciated here. I love the legend of Mean Joe anyone under 50 can remember seeing prime NFL Mean Joe playing. There is no Joe Greene in a North Texas uniform without Odus Mitchell. We have low expectations because with dismiss what Mitchell showed us was possible here. Heaps of excuses and disgruntled fans attacking each other on our board. Odus Mitchell is the kind of "Old Denton" I want. And MAYBE if we truly honored him properly and consistently as the MOST IMPORTANT FIGURE in Mean Green Football history we could knock off some of the negative karma. The Mean Joe Coke commercial is cute but is never something remotely associated with UNT Football without Mitchell rebuilding the program from WWII hiatus, winning, integrating CFB in Texas, and bringing Mean Joe to Denton. Hayden Fry doesn't have enough in Denton to come and rescue without Mitchell. How this program has underachieved for 20 years is an insult to his legacy imo. I wasn't alive for his tenure and likely you weren't either. But legacy is about what you can read about when there aren't cute videos!

Keeping Caponi shortened the leash on Morris. He basically wasted a full year of resources, personnel, and time by keeping a DC that should have been fired last year. Why should I trust that he can make the right decisions? Next year better be a full turn around or he needs to be gone too.

I went to the game, again we started slow and accelerated in the second quarter outscoring ACU 27-12. We let them back in it and the lead got down to three points twice. But we went on a game-sealing 11-0 run to take a 66-52 lead as Lampkin took over. One of ACU's starting bigs went out late with an apparent back injury. She's from Bixby, Oklahoma, which is where I've gotten my only speeding ticket, so maybe she deserved it. As for the arena, it shares the same name as SMU's (Moody Coliseum) and looks like a carbon copy of TCU's (albeit half the size). Recently renovated and very nice. The ACU men hosted TXST shortly after. Which we could get some better men's/women's doubleheaders and on the weekend to help boost the ladies' attendance.

AD, as in Athletic Department (ie HC Eric Morris),, not AD, as in Athletic Director... SPORTS: Mean Green Athletics Department fires defensive coordinator Matt Caponi

I want Coach Ed Gennero to run the show. Also, I hope we could find an old farm boy and a science teacher with one year of eligibility left to lead the team.

I have my doubts.

Morris is still in good shape. His team is fun to watch and he just posted one of the highest attended games in program history. He also has a chance to win a bowl game. Something that hasn’t happened here in too long. All he has to do is get the defense to slightly above average and we have a legitimate conference contender and excitement heading into next season.

Exactly what I was thinking. He is finally feeling the heat, but it is too late. He should have made changes a year ago. Morris needs to go too. It is his program and he let it get this bad. It is on him at this point.

This is a major hire for the program. No more giving GA’s their first opportunity as position coaches. We need a lead dog in the pack since we’re just chasing our tails.

This feels like Mosley forced EM's hand. I don't care who made the decision, but it needed to be made.

I’m glad the fire is getting closer to EM’s tail. This team needs to be on urgent alert. The D will be tested next Saturday for sure. Hopefully this new intensity spawns a big win over ECU. GMG

As much as I feel like we got robbed for having Caponi for two years, Temple has been robbed, conned and ripped off. Their HC is making $2.5 mil a year and he has 6 wins in 3 seasons. Talking about highway robbery. I know that has nothing to do with the Mean Green, but damn we are not the only school being kicked in the nuts financially with nothing to show for it. Okay, maybe I am just trying to make myself feel better about Caponi going past year one.

@BigWillie I got there later during the signing period, so I only saw a few obvious Mean Green fans. That included one fan who repeatedly assured me we would finish 7-5. However, I chatted with some folks and it sounded like there was a really good turnout. Apparently there was a long line of fans right at 2:00 for signatures. There was a large table area for mini helmets, and there weren't many North Texas helmets left when I bought one. That was encouraging too.

If I was Coach Hodge, I would have this blown up and posted in the locker room. I would tell the players that this is what people think of you and we need to go out and dominate every team defensively until people start putting some respect on our name. Then when people do start to put some respect on our name, we need to dominate teams some more to leave no doubt.

Some are arguing on their board about who's better between Yale and UNT. They really can't get past the UNT loss. I really want to get poporn and make an account just to let them know we've finished higher than MN in NET every year since 2020.

Thank you. Might seem crazy now with only two games left in the regular season, but no way you get rid of him at 5-1 or 5-2, and it shows a pissed off fanbase that maybe Morris does care to build a serious contender. However, if Morris's tenure ends in failure, one of the questions I will continue to ponder is "Why did we feel like we had to give an unproven position coach the largest G5 coordinator salary in the first place?"

It usually works that way. Lose to good teams and beat bad ones. I hope you stick with the team, but if it is too much torture, be like many others and give up. As a long mostly suffering fan, over fifty years, NT is my team. I didn't go to UT or A&M and couldn't care less about them and other the perennial powers. As far as your coach record comparison, Dodge was a bargain basement hire and didn't have a chance. McCarney was the first football hc that was hired with a competitive compensation package. Unfortunately, he had serious health issues and was a failure. Littrell and Morris were upgrades but certainly not proven D1 hc winners. I have not entirely given up on Morris, although the last game was a horrible coaching job. The defensive coordinator basically was fired by his defensive players. They are either/and/or not very talented or were poorly coached. Ether way the Defensive Coordinator is responsible. NT has two very winnable games left. Two wins and a good showing in any bowl would make this year at least a limited success.

Oh and don’t look now but SMU is on top of the ACC, filling their stadium in week 12 and also playing for a CFP spot. Good thing we didn’t have to play them in conference this year. We were fortunate to have the weak part of our schedule front-loaded that generated some modest excitement, but it was apparently all smoke and mirrors. On the bright side, we still have Temple to play. Yay us.

Yeah I wrote about it this afternoon. I don't know that Odom is or should be the guy going forward. He will be for the next two games (maybe three) and I expect he will be running the same things. I think he's a 3-4 guy anyway from his days at Missou etc. But it doesn't mattter so much to me.

I think that the reality is that we are just incredibly spare. I watched the NO Blwls and loved it, but absolutely nobody besides the diehards in this site ever cared. We drew flies to games at a toilet of a stadium. As FFR mentioned, we had some great wins, but we usually just UNT’d the bed in OOC play. Once we lost Scott Hall at QB, like Mason Fine or Derek Thompson, we fell apart. Our alumni don’t care because the administration has never cared about winning. They don’t have to. We get plenty of new students every year. And they are completely content with music and arts being the primary window. Heck, a solid basketball program can’t get 35-40% of its arena filled. It never changes here because it’s not meant to change or ever will. It’s why 98% of the UNT alumni base walk away.

It was a losing season. Like I said, not bad, considering UNT's lack of conference championships since Dickey left. But a 5-7 record doesn't rise to the level of "great" in my book.

I don’t like our pass protection. Chandler has too tough of a time standing in the pocket but we rarely get him in space. Sprint out passes would help a ton with that.

Yep, too little, too late. This reeks of Morris trying to save his hide. We need a thorough house cleaning.

I so want to be in person with Eric Morris and tell him exactly why he was stupid to question”where are the fans”. The fans are beaten down and don’t expect anything more than flirting with bowl eligibility at the end of the season. If we showed up for the Army game just expecting no less than 14 point from top 5 FBS offense we were let down is spectacular fashion. If we showed up to our new and most regularly played rival UTSA’s borrowed stadium ( a stadium nobody else wants) just expecting a back and forth shootout with a close finish, we got let down in spectacular fashion. Neither of the last 2 losses (of the 4 loss were streak) were even entertaining. DATCU stadium will continue to be 50% empty until they bring in TCU, SMU or any of the P4 teams in Texas or bordering states. For most of the last 20 years our program don’t give fans a reason to come unless they like are entertained by failure.