TIgreen01

While I can appreciate the calls for patience, I can’t excuse the 3 man fronts in extra wide splits with one linebacker within 5 yards of the LOS on obvious rushing downs. Changing schemes is not going to be pretty all the time. But for goodness sakes can we at least setup pre-snap in positions that give our guys a chance?! Don’t talk about players and tackling being a problem when we aren’t putting them in position to make even routine plays. It’s mind boggling football we’re watching right now.

"The coaching staff will continue to look for ways to make plays on defense understanding that we haven't recruited to this system yet." All I can say is Dang. I wish we wouldn't have made this 3-3-5 switch, but it looks like we're going to have to live with it through at least this season. Really wish we could figure out a way to get 4-5 linemen in on goal line situations, though.

So we’re ignoring FIU’s offensive performances in their first two games this year? They are terrible. Their terrible is much better than our new level of terrible, apparently.

Good stuff and nailed it, especially here. Morris needs to address this. What was the thinking? He’s been quoted as saying the roster was already ready for the AAC, implying he didn’t see this coming. That’s a panic inducing take after two weeks.

This was not hard to see coming. Been obvious that we were going to have problems running this scheme since it was announced. Then we added virtually nothing on the line to help, instead shedding bonafide contributors from last year who still had eligibility. Switching schemes mid season is ill advised, but now is virtually impossible as we’re short on bodies. I’m mentally prepared for a winless season.

It's all in the delivery, I guess. Watch Saban and Belichek. Masters at managing the message. They almost always talk up the competition. They never give you much about their own team. I think Seth was pretty good about this too. Obviously, you have a bunch of people here who jumped all over him for being "Mr All Three Phases" and "Coach mumbles". I couldn't care less how much detail our coach gives us in a press conference. I want him to do whatever it takes to motivate and prepare our team to win games. Look at what happened to Brian Kelly this past weekend. Exhibit A. Shut your mouth about what you're going to do. Show us on the field.

He flat out said our roster was ready to compete and win in the AAC now. Then in his post-game presser he said we aren't as far ahead as he thought. Based on that, he doesn't think the personnel is a problem or the scheme is a bad fit. Sounds like he's categorizing most of the problems as mental errors or coaching. Those are the types of things you can correct in-season. Could just be coach-speak to keep these guys playing hard. Who knows? Time will tell... One thing is for sure, he hasn't yet learned to keep his cards closer to his vest when stating preseason expectations. Given the circumstances around his hiring, he could not have come in and declared that we were a dumpster fire in need of a rebuild. However, he could have tempered expectations going into the new conference.

I guess you missed the point. Saying Littrell and DD are remembered as all time greats here isn’t revisionist positive history. It’s a fact. Not a great look that our best coaches were batting just at or below .500. Say whatever you want about Aune, but he got the invite to camp regardless of what you think or stats show. It’s not just Littrell evaluating him at that point.

Implied, players that are making an impact on their team BEFORE transferring to a new team. UNT has historically gotten only a few of those guys. My question is WHY would a kid transfer if he's already an impact player on a team? That doesn't make sense, and the first conclusion that most would draw is that he's being recruited away from that team. I get that there are exceptions, kids come back closer to home to be near sick family, etc. That just seems to be the outlier now. This new transfer portal world is being portrayed as teams actively recruiting players off of other team's rosters. Something has to be done to correct this, if it truly is the case.

What point are you trying to make? Are you absolving anyone who's ever coached there from having to take responsibility for their failure to win? Or just saying it's impossible to win there, so you can't hold that against him? If it's the latter, guess what they say about North Texas.

I think the panic part of the response on the board is trying to get out ahead of the bolded. We expected to hold steady from Littrell and improve. Instead we got dumpster fire in game 1. Yes, we need to give him, the staff and players time to respond and right the ship. However, if they do not, and they finish September winless, we need to be reconsidering that same bolded section above. That's all. We're North Texas fans. We get kicked and punched in the gut a lot. So we flinch, early and often, if we get even the slightest hint that another one is coming. Absolutely no one wants another Benford. Where we know this isn't going to work really early on, only to have to live with him for FIVE years.

Morris was a player and then a coach for them for the better part of a decade. You think he wouldn't get credit, no matter how small his role, for winning a conference championship during that span? Newsflash, it would be posted all over his bio.

Without a serious turnaround, this looks like a 0-1 win team to me. The team that showed up Saturday probably can't even beat ACU. Again, will give them the next few weeks to turn things around to the point of just playing competitive football. That would be progress from what we saw Saturday.

Littrell is going to go down as one of our best coaches, just like Dickey has. Unless Morris actually lifts us to even higher levels than Littrell reached. His first 3 seasons, while not perfect, had generated more excitement around the football program than I've ever seen in my 25 years following it. And for all the talk about him not being able to evaluate or develop QB talent people must not want to acknowledge that Fine is playing pro ball, Aune got a shot at it, invited to camps, and Bean is still playing at a Big 12 level on a team with a potent offense. I'd love to have ANY of those 3 on the roster this year. Morris needs to fix the defense and find a QB. I don't think the QB is on the roster this year, so we'll have to wait to see who he recruits for next. The defense, I just don't know what to say. I'll give him a couple weeks to get them playing better, but the decision making and roster management are seriously concerning to this point.

Definitely more cal fans than schmoo typically brings. Not more than LaTech, nutsak, or UH.

Exactly my point. These are usually the ones putting people on blast trolling message boards and calling into talk radio shows. See CougarQueen for a UH example. Or the jackwagon schmoo fans over here bragging about there 5 billionaire alums that bankroll that program.

Good post until that last paragraph. You really think that this group of fans gives less per fan than the average Texas or Alabama fan? Keep in mind, we have literally zero casual fans. Everyone here is invested I’d guess. There are just not enough of us.

Preach! Also…missed tackles were often guys diving at people or on a full sprint. Good luck with that. Rarely did I see us square up and then miss. We aren’t getting guys in realistic positions to make routine plays. We’re out of position diving at guys.

Lol. Ok.

I’m more disappointed in the defense and specifically the stubbornness to sticking with that front when it was clearly getting dominated. I expected a loss was likely. However, I also expected this staff to have us in the game. Maybe we’ll see a turnaround. Interested to see how they respond next week.

I watched most of the 4th quarter of this game, so only after Texas st scored all their points. By then Baylor was passing on every down trying to catchup, but Texas st was in a 3 man front (as you might expect) and sending extra guys to get to the qb. They looked more cohesive, and they also actually got pressure. Time will tell, as I don’t think Baylor is very good…but TxSt defense is ahead of ours.

What’s your solution?

That defense is a running team’s dream matchup. We better jump on every team early and build leads.

You guys just keep proving why smu sucks. A university that still professes itself to be Christian based, and representative of that faith, is full of alums who, in your own words, “would do unspeakable things” to get what it wants. Money and power have corrupted you. Being a Christian, I’m offended by the example that smu sets. Take “Methodist” out of your name and THEN you can act like schmucks. All that said, I don’t personally think buying your way into a conference is doing unspeakable things. Of course it makes sense to want to play in that conference. It feels unfair to us because smu already had their shot. For over half a century (or more?) you already played in the top football conference and crashed out. You haven’t done anything since. You have a glimmer of hope now because you have an extremely small number of alums with extreme amounts of wealth paying players again. That’s it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this ACC interest from dirty schmoo being less about football and more about basketball and aligning with more of the presumed elite academics in the ACC. Duke, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Miami, Notre Dame, Boston College, Virginia. Add Stanford and Cal to that and you have a pretty prestigious list of schools. SMU belongs nowhere near that list academically. With how they think of themselves, I can certainly see why they want in. Rice is a much better fit, if you ask me, but they don't seem to possess alums with the same penchant for blowing money on losing sports teams. With the basketball success they had a few years back, and by success I mean generating local interest, I can see where they may be thinking they can more easily thrust their name back into the national spotlight through basketball. Especially if they are bringing in the likes of Duke and North Carolina to Dallas every year. Not even Kansas is as big a draw as either of those school's basketball programs and it would instantly give them something the Big12 doesn't have. I hate this move intensely. It'll make it that much harder for us to gain relevance in this market.