NTXCoog

Briles does not run anything like Leach. For example, note that Baylor is #2 in the nation in rushing offense right now. Briles has always had a much larger run element than Leach ever had. From 2004-2009 (easiest years for me to find), TT's top season rushing total was in 2008 with 1532 yards, 61st in the nation. Baylor had that in 5 games this year. TT had one 1000 yard rusher in that time from. TT's lowest rushing output was in 2007 with 771 yards rushing. That same year at UH, Briles had one RB rush for 1597 yards, twice as many rushing yards as the entire TT team. That UH team had 2911 yards rushing. So UH had almost quadruple the number of rushing yards of TT. Are you going to tell me UH in 2007 had an O Line 10 times better than TT's that year? Briles was running this offense in HS although he has made changes even from when he started as a college HC. That's why Kevin Kolb was able to step in as a true freshman because he'd played in the same system in high school. Briles may have picked up some stuff from Leach, but that is not Leach's offense.

Dumb question... Did you ask that the e-mails not be forwarded? If not, I don't see how you expect "privacy" and for it not to be forwarded. I know if my boss got an e-mail saying I was doing a poor job, he would forward it to me and discuss it with me. OTOH if you asked for it not to be forwarded, that's pretty lousy.

The Big 12 is quickly losing the Houston market to the SEC. There have been polls showing the Big 12 is no longer the dominant conference there. You can debate whether Houston moves the needle on that, but it is not a given that the Big 12 owns that market

Applewhite currently makes $301k at Houston

Not saying Applewhite should be a top choice, but I'm intrigued by the comments that he just runs Herman's offense. Doesn't Spavital just run Sumlin's offense? Doesn't Kendal just run Art's offense (and Montgomery before him)? When Herman was at OSU, didn't many say he just ran Urban's offense? I don't care if an OC runs the HC's offense. As long as he understands the offense and calls the plays (like Applewhite does), he's showing some skills and qualifications. The love for Kendal Briles fascinates me. Not only has he never been a HC at any level (Art had been an HC in HS), but he's only been a coordinator for 5 games. I have no doubt he understands the offense since he's played in it or coached it since middle school. But there's more to being a HC than the Xs and Os. Much of it is organizing, leading, and managing. Does he have that skill set at this point in his career? When Montgomery left for Tulsa this year, he had several years of experience as OC and co-OC. And Kendal has never coached under anyone but his dad. Does he have enough broad experience to be a HC? Most HCs have coached in several situations under multiple coaches. Is coaching solely under his dad enough experience?

One big difference between the University of Houston situation and UNT situation is at AD. Dave Maggard was hired in January 2002 to take over as UH AD. He had been AD at Cal, AD at Miami, and miscellaneous other experiences including serving on several NCAA committees and Managing Director of Sports for the 1996 Olympic Games. He's the one who brought in Briles. On top of his experience, he was also a very strong AD at UH. Like Dodge at UNT, Briles brought along several of his high school staff including Strength & Conditioning. Maggard fired Briles' S&C coach and hired his own. That made a huge difference in Briles' later teams at UH, and I think Briles learned a big lesson from it, hiring quality S&C coaches to this day. Maggard also forced out one of Briles' defensive coordinators.

While things were very bad, don't exaggerate. In our 0-11 2001 season, we averaged 21,019. That's slightly biased by a UT game, but not counting that, we averaged 18,328. 2002 was our worst attended season. We averaged 14,986.

Curious why. He's had some horrible seasons including an 0fer in his first year, but he also has 4 conference championships/co-champs. Finished ranked twice, the first 2 times in school history including a top 10 ranking. Has a 57% winning percentage there. Unless you think he's a bad guy (which is possible), he's been wildly successful for them.

O'Leary will probably be gone at the end of the year, but that was likely the case no matter what happened this season. Keep in mind he is also currently the interim AD at UCF. So he probably won't fire himself until the season is over. Before the season, he said he wanted to step down from coaching at the end of the year, but wanted to become the permanent AD

What do you get with more money? A better resume. That's it. Might not be a better coach, especially a coach on the downside of his career. If you're below market value for a coach, you'll get one of 2 things: 1) A coach without much of a track record, but could turn out to be great 2) A coach with a good track record, but one that no one is willing to pay market value for, an indicator that he's past his prime. The coaches in group 1 have a huge risk, but the possibility of a huge reward. They may turn into the next big thing, or they may totally bomb. The coaches in group 2 GENERALLY (sorry UNT fans) don't completely collapse, but they will almost never be as big as they were before. For example, Coker at UTSA will never be as good as Coker at Miami, but if he gets 3/4 of the way there, that's pretty solid for them. Maybe that's the problem for UNT. At UNT, McCarney may never be as good as he was at Iowa State, and since he wasn't that great at Iowa State, 3/4 as good isn't saying much. And while others were talking about AAC coaching salaries, don't forget that's just head coaches. Assistant salary pool is almost as important. Briles was good at UH, but Briles got MUCH better at UH when his assistants were paid better and his staff talent level improved. Same with UH's last 2 coaches. Not only did UH go cheap on Levine, the staff was even cheaper, and it showed. Now Herman isn't one of the higher paid head coaches in the AAC, but his staff pool is the highest in the G5. That gives Herman a much better chance to succeed which leads to a better salary for him, either at UH or at another school.

We're trying to do our part to keep them down. Their defensive coordinator resigned after our game with them.

I agree with this. Their roster is depleted. My question is can he break the string of SMU head coaches that haven't had another FBS college head coaching job after leaving SMU since Hayden Fry in 1972. I don't know if Herman or Morris is going to have the better head coaching career, but I laughed at all the SMU fans that said they got the better coach because they had to pay more for him. Of course they had to pay more because they have a long history of killing coaching careers. UH can pay less because 2 of our last 3 coaches were able to move on to very high paying P5 teams.

I don't know if the coach with a big time resume is the sure way to turn it around. I guess that depends on what you mean by big time resume. If you mean coaches with lots of wins as a head coach at the FBS level, I think you're going down the wrong path. Most of the coaches with those types of records that aren't in the bigger conferences or don't have a job at all are on the downside of their career. See Franchione, Coker, etc. No doubt those were some great coaches, but they're either missing the fire in their bellies or the game has passed them by. The key is getting the right up and comer that has a sufficient resume. That doesn't mean a high school coach, even a legendary one, unless they've also picked up some experience at the FBS level. It means a coordinator at a major school. If that fails, it means a head coach that has dominated at FCS level. 3 of UH's last 4 coaches fall into those categories and have been wildly successful (I guess I should hold off on praising the current coach though until he's proven more). The only one who hasn't turned out was an internal hire that was a special teams coordinator. Wrong choice. But it's not just the head coach. You have to make sure you have the budget for coordinators and position coaches, and you have to have an AD willing to force quality assistants on the head coach instead of allowing the head coach to just pick his buddies. On top of picking the wrong head coach resume with UH's Levine, we also went real cheap on assistants. The results showed. Our OC was forced to resign after his first game at UH. We had poor OCs the rest of Levine's tenure. With Briles, our AD forced out his strength & conditioning coach friend and forced out his defensive coaches. The current UH coach has a very nice assistants budget (at least for a G5 school) and a very experienced staff that will help with his new head coach transition. If you want the coaches with complete resumes, this is where you hire them. They can provide the technique and recruiting to support the head coach with the fire and passion. I think those are the keys. It's a slightly riskier path than an old ball coach with a resume, but the potential is so much higher. You just have to make sure you do the proper vetting, make sure they meet the minimum standards, and make sure you assemble a solid staff to minimize the risk of a total collapse.

RE Parking: If you're cheap like me, I recommend the free parking at the Mockingbird DART Rail Station. They have a free shuttle that drops you off right by the stadium. The shuttle is pretty efficient, but if you're not patient, it's definitely walkable, under a mile. I usually get there early and take the shuttle to the stadium when it's not too busy, then I walk back since it's a bit more congested.

Believe what you want, but Cougar King is one of the worst. He's everywhere. But if it wasn't for him, do you think most UNT fans would have an issue with UH fans? And you can say that all Houston fans have a little man complex, but look at Dallas fans, especially Cowboys fans. If there's a fanbase with more of a "my pen1s is bigger than yours" complex, I haven't seen it. It's all the way to the top with Jerry Jones. And that's coming from someone who has lived in the Dallas area 40+ years of my life.

I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with money games, but they can become a problem. I like Benson's description of it as an addiction. It's kind of like alcohol. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but if you abuse it and let it ruin your life, then it's a problem. Money games can be a great budget booster, but the budget can't be dependent on it for its primary source of income. It's almost like welfare. It can be very helpful as a temporary solution, and when mixed with taking steps to be self dependent, it can really allow you to move up. As a permanent solution though, it fails. The worst thing for the addiction aspect is when you intentionally do things that hurt the program to keep the money games similar to not taking a job because the welfare will be lost. When taking a money game as a short term solution hinders the long term development of the fanbase, that's when it becomes a problem.

Is $6million enough? How much of an increase is $6million over prior donations? Is this a one time thing or will there be comparable annual donations? I'm sure this is an improvement on prior donations, but if it is a one time thing and financial support decreases to prior levels and the political situation doesn't change e.g. not allowing an on campus stadium, I'm not sure how much of an impact this will have.

Every team has fans like this. Don't judge an entire fanbase by one poster's actions.

Buy outs rarely work that way. Either big money donors contact the AD or vice versa, and the AD says: "We want to hire a new coach, but we need xx ADDITIONAL dollars to do that." Generally you don't raid existing funds to buy out a coach. A possible exception is if there is a projected revenue decrease (reduced ticket sales, donations, etc) that exceeds the cost of the buy out.

When Art Briles became head coach at UH, he had too many high school coaches on staff, most notably Strength & Conditioning. Our AD eventually forced Briles to change up some of his staff. Getting a top notch S&C coach made a HUGE difference and now Briles always makes sure that his S&C coach is among the best.

21,030

Was that supposed to be a comprehensive list or were you just giving examples? If comprehensive, you missed Vanderbilt at Houston on 10/31.

Actually King, the focus isn't on 14-0. One of the UH hashtags is #1-0. Win at what you're doing right now. A quote from our QB: "It doesn't matter what it is, you have to be 1-0 in everything you do," Ward Jr. said. "Come out full speed, give great effort. It doesn't take any talent to give great effort. That's what he's (Coach Tom Herman) always talking about."

I think UTSA was a very special situation. A new large market with a very large stadium with, I'm guessing, nice financial deals (2-for-1s, larger than normal payouts) made possible by the large stadium and 30k-40k attendances predicted. I'm guessing this will slow down in the future. In 2016, they have AZ State at home, but in 2017, they have 3 OOC teams scheduled so far, but the only home OOC game is Southern from the FCS. Maybe they can pick up more names in the future if they keep the attendance up. I don't think that's likely. Their average is already decreasing (35k, 29k, 29k, 27k) and their median has dropped even more (less big games and less attendance at big games, so 1 or 2 outlier games won't bolster their average). Also if their losing continues like last year, it can really hit them because the excitement caused by the newness will become overshadowed by the losses.

One possible issue... The data goes back to 2000, so we don't know how much of the home field advantage might have been at Fouts. They do say they weigh the new data and new stadium data more heavily though. I wonder how they count seasons like UH's 2013 where we played at multiple locations, none of them truly a home field. "Note: All data goes back to 2000 and compares home performance to road performance relative to competition and expectations. In general, recent seasons are given more weight than seasons long ago, especially for programs that are newer to FBS football (Charlotte is not included at all since it has no FBS seasons). For teams that have new stadiums, seasons in new stadiums are given stronger consideration. The Home Field Advantage value in the charts is the expected advantage a team would gain for playing at home as compared to a neutral field against a totally average opponent if it played at a totally average pace (we use this to assess the impact of home field advantage on every play in a game)."