MeanGreenHoops

Agree. Finding a coach who can both recruit and coach is a difficult thing to do. The last one we had was Dickey. But he was saddled with brutal OOC schedule that had us starting off every year 0-4, 1-3. You cannot build a fanbase that way. We have so desperately needed the school to invest in winning and they just never really have. They do it all while trying to stay in budget. The schedule that so many on here hate now actually gives us the best chance to turn this thing around since probably ever. But what would really help is if SL can recruit and coach. I mean go 3-1 in OOC and blow the teams we can beat away, then win some conference championships. If we had some Marshall type seasons, or Southern Miss a few years ago and then actually beat one of these P5's on the schedule the flying worm might finally turn.

How is it that Dodge left us in terrible shape, but yet Dodge's players gave us one of the best seasons in our history?

Both @casual fan & @UNT90 are partially right. We don't have a plan which is why even this FCS scheduling doesn't work. We still schedule the guaranteed loss so we really aren't building any early season momentum. And I mean over several years. If you're going to go for wins you have to invest money in that plan and lose the money games so that many wins happen, not just 1. Fans have proven if we win they will come see games. However, part of the bring in a Texas Tech plan is right too in that it would signal that things are different around here and make people notice (kid of like the Dodge hire did where everyone thought we were getting serious because we brought in a famous coach even though it didn't work out). People would show up for that too. But get clobbered and I believe it scares people even more than losing to "teams no one has heard of" at least in the short term. People distance themselves because they can't take the grief from friends they know that went to those schools. Regardless, the main issue that both of you are right on is that we've never had a vision for how to make the thing successful and stuck with it. It's either been, schedule tons of money games to fund the program, a plan that will never work, or this current plan which only works if we win the other 3 OOC games, which we nearly did in 2013 and the fans were there. Hopefully the new AD will know how to do it and get the support necessary to do it. If not, it will be more of the same.

Army is my favorite road game trip and it's not even close.

The wingzone is great from a uniqueness standpoint, but it was unnecessary at all from a capacity standpoint. I wouldn't fill it in or even have it at all. One of RV's mistakes was reacting always to what the fanbase here says. We wanted a 30 or some said 45K stadium. Despite the fact as @FirefightnRick said only averaged 12-14K (which is low). Even so we never had even averaged 20K fans. It was crazy. It should have been built at 25K with room to expand. There are plenty of very cool looking stadiums that don't feel small at that size. Then you would have put a premium on season tickets because of the increased demand. That Houston game itself would have sold more season tickets, because people would have bought them just to guarantee they could get into that game. He always overreacted to what was said here see Dan McCarney who fit the bill for what the majority here wanted. An experienced coach who had succeeded at a typically difficult place to succeed so it was definitely going to work here. Not so much. It some of the same stuff people are saying now about the new AD needing to either be from UNT (lunacy) or having had success at a place where it's difficult or needs to understand the unique culture at UNT. No they don't, They need to be able to turn around a flailing brand with creative and bold ideas. Anyway, back to the wingzone, we're stuck with it, and it will look cool filled up if we ever get this thing going.

Also good points. I realize it's not a popular position to say Dodge was a good hire, but he was. That hire did a lot to change the perception of the brand from which we are still reaping the rewards Imagine if we had hired Jimmy Johnson to be our head coach this year rather than Litrell. What do you think would have happened? The same kinds of things that happened when Dodge was hired, although on a more national scale. Even if Jimmy never got off his boat in Florida and showed only for games and the team was terrible for 3 straight years (Dodge) the perception of the brand would have changed. People would have jumped on board, people would have paid attention, people would have thought hey maybe NT is serious about athletics. These are all things that happened with Dodge. The fact he was terrible did not undo those perception changes. We need more thinking like that and it's what I want from our next AD.

I've been watching. Kind of forgot this forum exists. Here's the lineup I'd like to see tomorrow. Guzan Yedlin - Cameron - Brooks - Castillo Zusi - Bradley - Nagbe - Johnson Dempsey - Wood Everyone in a position they play for their club. Putting our best players in their best positions. And getting Nagbe on the field. I struggled on Zardes or Wood, and also Zusi or not. Nut this at least puts Dempsey (our biggest time player) in his best position.

I know what you mean and he was bad in the W/L but I disagree to the extent that hiring Dodge was the kind of move that we needed. In fact it may have been the best thing RV did wile he was here. Maybe you weren't there, but that hiring gave us national press. It changed the brand albeit temporarily. People in DFW especially alums began to think maybe we cared about being good. Do you remember the crowd at the 1st spring game with Dodge? It was a potentially AD direction changing move. Remember how many more people started coming to games? And this was back at Fouts. Remember how he started talking about the stadium and then the students finally voted for it. I think mostly because it seemed like the AD was serious by hiring this winning HS coach and so they supported it. I mean we all witnessed it go terribly wrong but, that hiring did many things right. Fan support, financial support, publicity, a brand improvement. Those are the types of things that no other hire has done, including Littrell. And just to say it again, his tenure was terrible as a coach, and he should have been gone sooner, but it was the right "kind" of move.

Interesting post and some good points. I'm not sure this needs to be in the DNA of the AD, but if its not it needs to be part of their plan if they get the job. We have a brand problem. The brand is weak and tarnished. You change the brand and everything else falls into place including wins. So I want the person who is hired to either have experience with that, or want to spend the money to make that the 1st thing they hire to change.

Gotta give credit to @Harry for mentioning on his pod he thought for sure we'd pick up another QB before the fall. It seemed unlikely but he was right.

Wish those September games started later.

Also, not trying to blow holes in your sunshine as it's fun to read and hope, but a lot of the reasons why you say we should hang with these teams are down to they lost this many people on offense and 1/2 their offense yada yada. But the same could be said for us. We basically lost 4-5 on the O-Line with the 1 changing positions. Starting QB, best WR plus Kidsey, We lost 3 (ish) starters on defense. Of course we know a lot about those guys and figure our losses aren't that big of deal but I'm sure the LA. Tech guys would say well they've got better players to fill in the holes than we do, and a reasonable person would probably agree. Again, not trying to be negative, because I think you're prediction is less crazy than it might seam, but as I pointed out with Army, just the record and who they lost points you make isn't enough to convince me.

Interesting post. One point on Army. They return a lot of players, and if you look at their results, they lost most games by single digits. Losses by 2, 5, 3, 6, 41, 7, 17, 3, 10, 4. They only were blown out in one by Duke. They lost by 7 at Rice. They got much better as the year went on. That game will be one of the toughest on the road this year.

Thanks for the clarification on Johnson.

Didn't we beat out Nebraska for one of those big-time LB's too? I wonder if someone at Nebraska is asking why do we keep losing out on recruits to North Texas. Maybe we should join the Big 10?

Such a good get. This is the kind of news that makes people excited about supporting the team.

Agree you don't look for someone who is a good fundraiser at a P5. What you should want is someone who can create and foster a department that relentlessly pursues a vision. We never really had a vision under the previous AD. What was it, build facilities? Your leader needs to be someone who can create a vision, and then hire smart people to execute and let them do their job.

This person doesn't need to have been involved at UNT before, but they sure better know what they are getting into. They should be creative, intelligent, and relentless. And they better have a proven record of doing things that seemed crazy but worked out. If that was starting an ice cream stand in Nova Scotia, then fine, because it will take something "different" to make the monumental turn this big ship needs.

Given it's the 1st game, If the game starts at a reasonable time of day (6pm or hopefully later), and we have maybe 18K show up, then I'll start to believe you are right that everyone has given up on the program.

Agree, if we're gonna take lumps I'd like to see it done with young players, something McCarney seemed averse to doing.

Serious question. How do we become a guys 17th offer? I mean if he's that talented shouldn't we be offering sooner than that. Wouldn't a 17th offer come normally from an Ohio State or Alabama? Do we really have a shot coming in that late. Just wondering the logic or how it really might play out in our favor.

Only thing I dislike more than hearing "Why not North Texas?" is "Only at North Texas"

Nothing ever built up during the New Orleans Bowl years because we were off to terrible starts every year. So many people complain about our OOC, but I'd be fine with 4 home games against the Denton high schools, if it got us off to a 4-0 start for a few years. Mix in a .500 record in conference and all of the sudden we are 8-4. DO that and people start to talk about it. Maybe the next year we go 9-3. Do you really think anyone besides a few on this board pay attention to who we play? I don't. I think they just see we are 1-3 again and think well maybe next year. Winning is the only thing we haven't tried around here.

Maybe you could take your own advice?

Good article. This seems like one of the West Virginia type of little speedy backs/receivers that used to drive teams nuts when they were real good. Also must say I'm surprised that this was a Mac recruit but glad we got him.