rcade

Hurley was UNT president when we returned to I-A after a campaign by donors bought enough seats at Fouts for us to meet eligibility requirements. I don't know how it can be said he had nothing to do with this move, since he could've killed the idea. I do regard him as being mostly indifferent to UNT athletics during his tenure.

I think you're trying too hard to take offense. It was a tweet, not a banner flown over the stadium. Science has shown that the average tweet is considered for 0.2 seconds of time unless it contains a photo of a hot girl or a grumpy cat.

I was the editor of The Daily in 1988 when Hurley was president and I wrote for the paper around two years. I don't recall Hurley ever trying to intimidate the student press, though I did hear sometimes that he wasn't happy about something we reported. We had a scoop on the school breaking the mandatory hazing reporting law and I had it published during homecoming to reach the widest possible audience of alumni. One of his VPs called me and the paper's faculty advisor Keith Shelton in to let us know his unhappiness that we reported it instead of working privately to fix it. I told him it would be inappropriate for a newspaper to do that. We were there to report stories, not fix problems so there was no story. I did wonder sometimes whether Richard Rafes, the school's legal counsel and a close associate of Hurley, was trying to intimidate me by badmouthing me all over campus. I kept hearing what he was telling people about me. It was harsh. After I was done with the school paper, I wrote a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story about Hurley's wife Johanna doing charity work for veterans. They liked it so much that she told me Al didn't like me before the story, but now he did. We were on good terms after that. I was fond of Big Al.

I think most fans who want RV fired would not hate a coach we liked just because RV picked him. But personally, it would make me wonder whether I was wrong to like that coach. I am ready to bail on UNT athletics if RV is not fired. The normal enthusiasm associated with hiring a new coach isn't going to be enough for me this time.

I don't think luck is a major factor. Luck balances out. There's nothing balanced about how bad we've been at hiring since RV took over.

The Denton Record-Chronicle reports that a hiring committee has been formed at UNT for selecting a head coach and will meet in the next few days. I've sent a request to the sports information department for the names of the members of the committee and any guidance they've been sent on what UNT is looking for. Does anyone know someone who has been selected for this committee?

Given the history of RV's hires, I don't trust his ability to select a coach no matter what he says about his criteria for picking one. If your friend sets you up on five blind dates and they're all disasters, how much trust do you have when he tells you the next one is hot?

Villarreal: My next coaching hire will be offensive

Andrew Smith was something special. Thanks for the reminder.

"Drive The RV Out of Town"

"He's right. Facilities matter more than wins. For as long as I'm AD, you'll get a good look at Apogee Stadium when UNT is on TV. There won't be any fans to obstruct your view of our beautiful facility." -- RV

Why is Brett Vito asking Rick Villarreal if he plans to retire? An AD job is not a lifetime sinecure. It is performance based just like a head coaching job, and if the AD does not produce there comes a day when that executive should be fired. We've reached that day. Instead of asking Villarreal the absurd question of whether he's going to fire himself, Vito and every other Mean Green beat writer should be asking President Smatresk if he's going to fire Villarreal. When I hear Villarreal dismiss the complaints as coming from a "minority," it tells me he's completely out of touch with this fan base and alumni. One more reason to show him the door.

I don't have a problem with Smatresk sending complaint letters and emails about Villarreal to him. In any big organization a letter to the president might get forwarded to the department that's responsible for the problem. If Villarreal contacted anyone who complained and is rude to that person, it's a good cause to write a new complaint to Smatresk. That would be highly unprofessional. But if he's being polite and all he does is try to justify himself and his decisions, what's the problem with hearing that? Surely most of us on GoMeanGreen could hold our own in a discussion with any UNT official on why it's time for Villarreal to go -- including Villarreal himself.

There's no grounds for a lawsuit because a letter to Smatresk was forwarded to someone else. The president of a public university is a government official. Letters and emails sent to President Smatresk about Rick Villarreal are public records, so there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. I could file an FOIA request and get a copy of every letter and email sent to Smatresk since the PSU game about Villarreal. When sending letters or emails to government officials, make sure not to include any information you want to keep private -- including your phone number and address. In February, Jeb Bush released hundreds of thousands of emails he was sent while he was Florida governor. There was a lot of personal information in this correspondence. He put them all online: http://jebbushemails.com/email/

He's from Oklahoma City and was a columnist at the Dallas Times-Herald from age 26 until the paper folded. He also was a morning drive time host on The Ticket when it launched in the 1990s.

Nice to get a little love from a national sports figure, even if it is Skip Bayless. It's funny how people say they don't know about North Texas but still manage to get in the "North Texas State" dig. Evidently they knew who we were at some point prior to 1989. Today, we're of course known best for the world's greatest coffee mug:

Coordinators jump around a lot from year to year. I could see one whose current coach is fired wanting to take a flier on UNT regardless of the head coach situation.

I didn't know Nutt lived in Dallas. Last year, he said of the SMU job, "If offered the SMU job, I would take it because I live down in this area. It's a good job." https://twitter.com/RJHawk/status/509676763908042753 So it's pretty clear he'd be interested in UNT if the school was interested in him. Given his pedigree, won-loss record and desire to be in DFW, it would be stupid not to bring him in for an interview.

FCS schools don't operate like FBS schools, because their money is so much tighter. PSU paid its coach $110,000 this year -- around one-third the pay of the worst-paying FBS school.

No. You gotta give a new coach enough contract years for players, recruits and the fan base to have confidence in him. A coach given a provisional deal like that would be at too much of a disadvantage.

I know this is just a far-fetched hypothetical discussion, but It would be stark raving mad for UNT not to hire Mack Brown if he wanted the job at our salary. Every Texas alumnus and Texas fan in this state would be interested in seeing what he did here. It would give UNT a giant footprint in Texas football for a few years. The national media would cover our program with an interest it has never had before. Casual college football fans with no UNT ties might drive up to see his Mean Green play. In a way it would be like Steve Spurrier taking over South Carolina when everyone in Florida thought he was done with coaching. The potential upside would be huge.

Kudos to RV for his role in getting the stadium built (with other leaders), but I can't agree with the other two positives helping his case for continued employment. Our conference is only a small step up from the Sun Belt. No AD in the history of I-A/FBS football ever saved his job because of performance in non-revenue sports. Especially in Texas. Football is the Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Flying Spaghetti Monster of college athletics in our state, and he's turned us into the 195th best football program in the U.S.

Because RV was able to fire the coach right after the game, doesn't that indicate all the preparations had already been done -- such as getting the president and/or board to agree to a buyout amount and the decision to fire the coach? This isn't something RV could freelance. The writing must have been on the wall before we took the field.

I think you expect too much candor from Canales, considering the position he's in. He can't say the players quit on the team. He has to motivate them. He can't hammer McCarney for coaching mistakes. He has to turn the page.

There isn't an FCS school in the country that wouldn't want to lock down a coach after he beat two FBS teams in the same season.