The Fake Lonnie Finch

I'm not a fan of the Texas game. The rest of the schedule is good, though. Many winnable games and a break from the OU/Texas/LSU games. It'll be good to get some Big Ten games, as well as some different SEC games. Love the Florida match up! Kudos to RV for getting us winnable games and good travel games. Excellent work!

Look...he ain't going back to high school. The guy has something in the bag. But, there have been many coaches who were great position coaches or coordinators who couldn't run the whole show. Running the whole show at this level is a completely different ball of wax. Dodge just can't do it. It sucks for us that our school had to be the proving ground, but I can't think of a regional school that wouldn't hire him. In fact, I'll go ahead and predict that if Dodge is fired, he'll have a job as someone's QB coach, WR coach, or offensive coordinator/co-coordinator/pass game coordinator at a BCS school. There's no shame in not being able to do the whole thing. As shown in several threads after the Army loss, there a dozens of former head coaches now assisting at FBS schools or in the NFL. Listen, being the boss is hard. At this level, it's completely different. Like, different planet different. Think about it: the guy walked away from a high school where the parents policed their kids and they were respectful. College football is different. There are so many different backgrounds and experiences in a locker room. You've got to earn the trust of those guys. They don't go for top down-type of authority. Anyone catch the comments of Bob Stoops or Mack Brown recently. Neither are thrilled with some of their schools' recently performances (yes, I know we'd trade for them...but, their level is different). Both have hammered home the fact that they've got kids on their roster who aren't working hard enough and aren't listening...and it shows up on the field. For what is expected of those squads, they've struggled against teams they'd normally blow out early. Keeping the trust and attention of a college locker room is very difficult. Dodge just couldn't do it. It's not that the players don't like him. It's just that, after being sent into battle so many times with a losing plan, carrying it out becomes burdensome. At some point, guys just think to themselves, 'Screw it. I ain't putting it all on the line anymore. There'll be someone new next year anyway.'

Newsflash - Canales will be gone with the rest of them after this season. Shelton Gandy is the one coach I'd keep out of all of them. Think of how much further down in the hole this thing would be without the JUCOs and preps Gandy has pulled out of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Really? It is that much more exciting to see us lose with a passing offense than lose with a running offense? I'd say turnovers, losses, and perpetual quarterback problems under Dodge have become boring and predictable. Here, I'll predict it now: -Our quarterbacks will throw more interceptions than touchdowns again in 2010. -We will lose at least 10 games this season again. -We will see at least two more quarterbacks this season again. We were spared of the quarterback merry-go-round in only one Dodge season, 2008. Wee, isn't this so much more fun than 2006? It's the same. Winning is winning; and, losing is losing. We could seriously finish the season 0-12, fellas. There's nothing exciting about that. A term far more appropriate than boring, predictable, or exciting is irritating. As in, how much longer will Rick Villareal let this irritating crap continue?

I have kind of a newsflash - players don't like to run plays that don't work over and over again, especially when they are losing. So, to the faction that continues to believe it's just a matter of handing the ball off to Dunbar X number of time - no matter the score - I urge you to grab the reigns of reality. If we cannot run against FAU, the players will want to coaches to try something different.

See, now, here's a fellow who isn't afraid to tell the truth.

I think with this athletic department it's the other way around - if the head coach is having health issues and losing, you fire the coach...even if he's taken to bowl games, won conference championships,etc. With Dodge, the player injuries are simply another excuse for keeping him around for another year. See the difference? The guy who has put a winning product on the field in the past gets sick, and he's out. The guy who has never fielded a winner, then has a season where many players are injured, gets to stay. This is how great programs are built. You have to completely ignore the lack of depth created by questionable recruiting, and exposed by the injuries, to really have a good understanding of why Dodge should be allowed to stay.

Tulsa with three WRs already committed. Arizona, 3. Lots of Kansas State and Arizona. What am I saying; there are tons of teams from around the country in DFW. Years ago, when Dodge was hired, I said it was foolish to think this thing could be built on DFW talent alone because so many school higher up the food chain were already picking the fruit of the vine. A school like UNT can't think too locally. We've got to get outside the box and rob guys where other schools are overlooking talent because they are spending so much time recruiting here. Shelton Gandy has done a great job in that regard. No matter how the Dodge situation turns out after the season, I hope Shelton Gandy is still here in 2011.

D-line is about the same. Secondary is young, with a key injury at CB. Our OL is also having injury issues. I don't think we can blitz as often as our DC would like to because of the situation in our secondary. It will be tough sledding for us either way.

Then we need to hire a guy with as much college and NFL coaching experience as Troy Calhoun brought to the Falcons when he was hired.

Owl guy, The other big issue is Riley's injury history. It's not good. There's a better than average chance that you will see one of our other walk-on QBs before the day is over. We had high hopes for the season. Now, we're staring down the barrel of the reality of seeing maybe four or five difference starters at QB before the season is over. It's unreal. The upside for us is that you all appear to be young, with an offense heavily invested in the Van Camp to Jean connection. I don't know how much of a fight we'll put up. But, after boldly claiming we'd beat you as recently as last week, I now fully expect us to lose by at least 17.

True. And, beyond being true, it sadly shows the state of our offense for the remainder of the year. Injuries and mistakes at QB put us behind the eight ball in this one, forcing us to give up the run. For the remainder of the season, we will not be fielding a QB that opposing defenses will have to fear. Thus, we'll see a bunch of 8 in the box facing Dunbar. Dunbar is going to get some long gains, but there will be fewer than last season. So, please, with that reality in mind: (1) Don't be upset/surprised when Dunbar doesn't go over 100 yard in games (2) Don't be upset/surprised at the offensive coordinator for not running the ball when we are down by two or more touchdowns.

Here's the full video of that sequence. The QB was trying to get to the line and spike the ball, but the special teams coach was sending in the field goal unit. A huge clusterf*ck ensued that ended up with a blocked FG that was returned for a TD and allowed Ohio State back into the game. My link

This, this, and this all day long. Look, I guess we don't know whether or not Dodge has personally contacted Fry. But, you have to wonder whether Dodge even believed he needed advice for anyone. Remember, this is a guy who in his first game apparently approved a game plan that included trying to man up on an OU team with three WRs who would soon be in the NFL (and, coincidentally, the QB and TE and some OLs from that squad are also now in the NFL). It's as though he hadn't seen a college football game in more than a decade. No cognizance at all of the impending talent difference. If there was ever a guy who believed in his own press clippings, it was Todd Dodge. How else do you explain coming on board with so few assistants with college experience? That's having no respect for what college coaches do day in and day out, year after year. There's a fine line between having confidence in your system and pure foolishness. We've seen a lot of pure foolishness. Then, he believe in his son's press clippings. I was never sold on Riley as a QB; many of you were. I took a lot of heat for saying Riley was too small and could get hurt. In the private, secret, VIP section of GMG.com, I wonder last year about whether Dodge should forget about the coaching angle and take up the dad angle on how much damage Riley was absorbing in so short a time period beginning with the broken collarbone against Abilene in his final high school game. I said then, and still say, you've got to think about the after-football life of these kids. You'd think fellow UT alum Earl Campbell would come to mind to Dodge. I guess if you want to take the long view, you could say, "Dodge was a gambler"..."High risk, high reward." But, dadgum. You'd think he'd have bent the ear of someone a little longer in the tooth once things really started going south in 2008. It's not like Darrell Dickey left us with much wiggle room to begin with on getting this thing to true respectability. What little cache he may have had, though, is now gone.

Neinas suggested "rising star" Chuck Long to San Diego State as well. There is no person who will make the decision easier. But, if this season continues to tank, we'll be in the pooper. Our 2011 roster is going to be thin enough already thanks to some awful recruiting and personnel decisions by the current fellow in charge. This thing needs a proven entity. Chuck Long was a heck of an offensive coordinator at OU. But, that didn't mean he would be a great head coach. We are in dire need. To me, a rising star is too much of a gamble at a point where we don't even have the chips to be in the game. Look, John L. Smith is the freaking Special Teams Coordinator/Outside Linebackers coach at Arkansas, for crying out loud! He wouldn't jump back in the game for a couple of hundred thousand? There are a couple of dozen guys out there like him. We need to get one. A couple of years ago, I'd have said go with a rising star. Now, I'd rather see and experience, proven entity leading this thing out of the ditch.

I'm rooting for us. But, look what we're down to. We already know Riley will turn the ball over two or three times a game, in addition to not being able to throw a straight pass longer than about 15 yards. Baine has never played. Teegarden hasn't either. So, what's the harm in throwing Dodson out there? He's not going to do any better or worse than what we have now anyway.

He looks every bit as small as Riley and Teegarden. And, it looks like the Friar offense was of the same Tight End/Fullback-averse variety our coaching staff has long favored. Could he do much worse than what we are about to witness for the rest of the year? Throw him in and see. I mean, for the sheer entertainment value of it if nothing else. My link

This thread is Exhibit A1 for why the next hire can't be a local hero or cult figure - those too close (or, too admiring) will always have an excuse to keep them when things are going poorly (for four years in a row). 88's version of this is: "Ignore what you see on the field. The players aren't dealing cocaine, robbing, raping, or pillaging. And, they are going to class as well." Oh, okay. If that's where the bar is set, I'll see you in the stands at the next Austin College game. We can enjoy the game of football together watching a fine group of law abiding young men who put studying first. And, for the next act, a professional football league comprised solely of players with no less than one graduate degree. Business owners with MBAs, attorneys, doctors, professors. Cowboys Stadium will be packed to watch that action.

Here's the problem - they tally wins and losses by the final score, not the final stats. We're 0-3 with Canales as OC. If we tank, all the coaches involved must go.

Facking Quote of the Decade!

"Yes, but...many of the posters here believe (wrongly) that people outside of Southlake believe this guy is Jesus. He wasn't Jesus at Yoe or Newman Smith...when he wasn't at a money school. Now, he's at the ultimate in non-money schools in Division I-A." -TFLF, December 12, 2006 How someone (GreenEddieNT) responded to me on that date which is now living in infamy: "Well, he's going to have to adjust to coaching at a school that isn't anywhere near the top of the heap in resources like SLC is at the high school level. Then again he almost can't help but be an improvement over a retard like DD. Heck, if we'd hired a chimpanzee from a zoo with no coaching experience(or any experience outside of his cage) it would still be an improvement over DD." TFLF, September 19, 2010: Hey, GreenEddieNT, bring on the chimpanzee for our last nine games. Maybe the chimp can get us over Darrell Dickey's three-win bar set during the 2006 season; Todd Dodge sure hasn't been able.

No Mike Leach. Never. He split the Red Raider fans and athletic department. Leach will be in the Pac-10 next season anyway.

Yeah...I'm back to reality. You know what the announcers in the Idaho game just said about Akey building Idaho: "You know, what you've got to do is find a quarterback. Then, you build it around that guy. Then...." Then, I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

Oklahoma lost a ton of people last year and still managed an 8-5 in a much tougher conference and a much tougher out of conference schedule. We've got no dadgum depth, and that's the coaching staff's fault. Just look at the QB situation: -Nathan Tune: a Darrel Dicky walk-on -Derek Thompson: a kid with offers from us and...Eastern New Mexico Those are the only two big enough to play QB at this level. The rest: -Riley Dodge: Too small to play QB at this level -Chase Baine: A walk-on without the ability to play QB at this level -Derek Teegarden: Also too small to play QB at this level, moved to WR until all of the injuries -John Dodson: Another walk-on who won't have the talent to play at this level This whole thing went wrong in Year One when Dodge screwed over Daniel Meager for the sake of playing Giovanni Vizza. Then, he brought in his son and played up the fantasy that he was a college QB, running off Vizza. This guy Todd Dodge was supposed to be some sort of QB Guru/Genius. My backside. He's no such thing. He's a high school coach that got on a win streak. And, here's the worst part for us - because he's a local hero, many of our fans and supporters won't admit his faults just because he's a "nice guy." It has made it that much harder for Rick Villareal to wake up and end this thing. Never, never, never, never, never, never again hire (1) a high school coach, or (2) a guy with a cult following! If Rick Villareal didn't start lighting up some coaches' cell phones after Riley's second play turnover, then why is he still our AD? This thing is over. Every objective person who still bothers to glance our way out of pity can see it. Just end it.

Jim Harbaugh's Stanford Cardinal are pounding Wake Forest. And, Robb Akey's Idaho Vandals are beating the snot out of UNLV; fouth quarter beginning and they are shutting out the Rebels. Look, injuries or not, Todd Dodge just didn't get it done. Those guys have already taken teams to bowl games. Idaho was no better off than we were when Akey was hired. Stanford was the joke of the Pac-10. We've gone nowhere. In fact, we may have gone backwards. We are razor thin everywhere, even after four years of Dodge's recruiting. JUCOs are providing band aids and patching holes. But, let's face it, in 2011, whomever is leading the Mean Green will truly have a bare cupboard. There won't be nine starters returning on defense like Dodge squandered in 2007. There won't be a young Kelvin Drake, Victor Gill, or Esteban Santiago, a game Daniel Meager to screw over.... I feel bad for the players who have been injured, but watching these other programs get off the ground while we spin our wheels makes me sick. FIU has lost second half leads against Rutgers and Texas A&M in the past two weeks. Dodge would have been blown out by both of those schools in the first half. That's Mario Cristobal - another fourth year coach - playing BCS schools close at home and on the road with his formerly downtrodden FIU Golden Panthers. Are they winning a ton yet? No. But, they are no longer getting blown out either. Army sure as hell wouldn't shut out FIU, Stanford, or Idaho. Anyway, just venting at the end of the day while watching Akey and Harbaugh, fourth year guys whose teams are rolling.