Greendylan

Anyone else surprised that Andrew Tucker made it all the way up into a tie with Jimmerson?

Sure, I completely agree with everything you're saying. I just think this would be a more productive discussion (as it relates to this one particular player anyway) a few weeks into the season and not as a knee-jerk reaction to an early season game.

There are a few obvious gripes that we could aim at our coaching staff, but I'm not sure this is one of them--not yet, anyway. I applaud Bogenshutz and UTSA on an impressive showing against a major opponent on the road, as they certainly represented both themselves and the conference quite well. But, it is just one game. And week one. We don't know if he will replicate those results on a regular basis, and we also don't truly know how good Arizona is. A lot of craziness happens in the first few days of college football that doesn't necessarily project how teams and/or individual players will turn out in the end. Also, in another thread we're gnashing our teeth about the Athlon ranking of QBs that has McNulty all the way down at 121, while the same list has Bogenshutz even lower at 125. My point is that we shouldn't act (after one awesome game) like our coaching staff pulled some epically bone-headed move by not recruiting the guy.

Folks, we reached 6 wins or more once in the last decade. In many of those years, we didn't even come close. I guess I just can't believe how many of you are blaming strength of schedule on our attendance woes. Wouldn't the much more likely culprit be the fact that 90% of the time in recent memory we've had bad teams--ranging from historically bad to just average bad? Would I love to have a home-and-home series with Notre Dame? Sure, and I'd be willing to pay more for season tickets to make that happen. But it won't happen. So, what we're really discussing is how we're alienating fans by bringing in Nichols State and Portland State and Liberty, etc. instead of what--a Sun Belt or MAC opponent? If it weren't for Nichols State last year, we would have had miserably poor offensive averages for the year--and most of you probably wouldn't consider Dajon a D1 quarterback. My point is this: Bring in the big name opponent by any method possible. We should have at least marquee home game per year, and that would certainly help our program in a number of ways. But, don't jettison the easy wins while we're still a program that is absolutely starved for wins in our recent history. Playing one FCS team per year is so common that we'd actually be putting ourselves at a significant disadvantage versus those teams we're competing against for bowl bids. The casual college football fan will ALWAYS believe that we have a weak strength of schedule anyway, merely by playing in a G5 conference. We can't change that--at least for the foreseeable future, but we can manipulate our schedule to help squeeze out an extra win or two each year. The benefits of surrendering that would hardly, in my estimation, outweigh the costs.

I think some people underestimate just how hard it will be to replace Jordan Taylor.

You know, 4-1 really is plausible. It wouldn't take THAT many lucky breaks to pull off. The problem is that right now I could see 1-4 as an equal plausibility.

I'm excited to see Andy Flusche as a starting DE. Did anyone else happen to notice how explosive and disruptive he looked in the Spring Game? He and Blake Bean really gave me some hope for an improved run defense.

Ding, ding, ding! We could pore over all the countless factors that give one FBS-level program natural advantages over another, but all of those really pale in comparison to these two: 1. Make a home run head coaching hire. If you really do this right, the guy you hire will bring with him a coaching staff loaded with potential so that when this home run hire leaves for more money, you'll be just fine. 2. Give the aforementioned home run head coach a winnable schedule. Even if you are lucky enough to land the home run hire, he has to string together two or three double-digit win seasons. Then, and only then (after reaping the immediate benefits of winning: breaking into the rankings, huge recruiting bump, sold-out home games), can you really start thumping your chest and challenging the big boys. If you wait until that moment in your program's development to take on those mountainous challenges--well, then you just might win one. And, winning against the big boys, folks, is how you you take your program from obscurity to relevance in the eyes of the casual college football fan who only really gives a rat's ass about the big boys.

1. McCarney tried every option he could reasonably send out on the field before finally settling on McNulty in 2014. And no, Dajon did not prove himself to be a vastly better option. In his two starts against FBS opponents, DW had QB ratings of 30.4 and 5.6. McNulty wasn't much better, but that hardly suggests nepotism or gross misjudgment. We might not want to admit it, but at the very least a reasonable argument could be made that McNulty was in fact the best option of the three last year (I'm assuming burning Connor Means's redshirt was never an option). There's a fair point to be made about our coaches' failures to recruit and develop top notch QB talent, but that's a separate issue and shouldn't be converted into needless McNulty bashing. 2. We have no idea if D. Smith is a better QB. I hope he's so obscenely bad ass that Tennessee forfeits our game and hands us a $10 million bill with D-Smith's picture printed on it. But--there's always that chance that McNulty could just beat him out fair and square.

My crazy pie-in-the-sky rules for money games: 1. No more than one per year--ever. 2. Once every three or four years we should have none. 3. NEVER play an in-state opponent that isn't willing to play a return game at Apogee. 4. If we're playing a perennial top-15 type of program, don't accept anything less than seven figures. That's it.

There are some good teams in CUSA, but no one has overwhelmingly superior talent to anyone else within the conference. If some of our skill position players perform the way I believe they can, we will have a shot at winning the division. We might not have the best shot of the bunch, but it's well within the realm of possibility. A few plays across our whole season could make the difference between 4-8 and 7-5, so we don't exactly need a Herculean effort from any one guy or McCarney to coach his way into a Grey Goose endorsement just to have a winning year.

Yes. It happened twice.

Those stats are a good measuring stick. I'll say this: I'm fairly confident (finger's crossed) that whomever we march out there can mostly match the first four categories. It's those last three (interceptions, TD/INT ratio, QB rating) that concern me. I'm going to predict that if we, as a team, finish ranked 75 or higher in those categories, then it will mean we won 6-8 games. In our offensive system, those types of stats are very much indicative of the running game's effectiveness.

You make some good points. I will point out that DT's junior year stats weren't THAT much better than AM's. Completion percentage, TD/INT ratio, and passer rating were all better for DT, but they are relatively comparable. In fact, McNulty actually fared slightly better in interceptions per pass attempt. I do agree, though, that DT had physical advantages (and more experience) that helped propel him to a significant improvement, and I don't think it would be fair to expect the same from AM. Having said that, I'm not entirely sure he has to improve that much. I've always kind of suspected that it was the improvement of the O-line and skill position players from one year to the next, more so than DT's personal improvement, that allowed him to succeed in 2013. The way the McCarney/Canales offense functions I think it tends to make QBs seem either way better or way worse than they really are.

and Michigan State at Western Michigan on 9/4

Not impressive, but the methodology used is highly suspect.

I tend to agree. I only see one "sure win" on the schedule, about five sure losses, and around six toss-ups (many of these could come down to injuries, suspensions, etc. that we can't predict now). Thus, if you split the toss-ups in half, that comes to 4-8, which is becoming an all too familiar record in recent years. Of course, there's a lot to be determined still in fall practice, so I'm not quite sure what to make of this team just yet. And--surely we're due for an upset or two, right?

I wouldn't necessarily predict a win against WKU, and yes they are a good pick to win the conference, but I still consider our odds against them better than against Iowa. McCarney has never won a road non-conference game at North Texas. Our best McCarney team couldn't beat Ohio on the road in 2013, so I doubt that our 2015 team will break through against Iowa. At home, I kind of always give us a puncher's chance.

Yeah, those numbers are rough. But, we are setting ourselves up for failure when we have seven total road games and two money games in a season. (And it's not like this is an anomaly in our FBS history.) You just can't allow that to happen when you play in a decent conference with some tough opponents. There are P5 teams out there that would be winless on the road against Iowa, Tennessee, Marshall, and Louisiana Tech next season. At some point we have got to make the decision to lose money in the short term to build a fan base and, well, a respected program for the long haul. If we keep on taking the quick, safe paycheck, then we are mortgaging our future and losing money in the end. I doubt the blame falls squarely on any one person. It could be that a more dynamic AD could have pulled off some better moves and/or successfully managed already existing contracts. I also suspect that there are some stewards of the UNT system out there who would go independent and play 12 money games a year, if they had their druthers.

Would we?

I understand this sentiment, but personally I rank scheduling criteria in this order of importance: 1. Winnable 2. Number of home games 3. Quality of home opponent If you approach scheduling in this manner, it might mean that you have to play the "Portland States of the world" once or twice a year for a few seasons, but long term I think that's a formula for success and one that will eventually increase season ticket sales and, subsequently, overall revenue. Ultimately, we could avoid paycheck games altogether, but it first would take a commitment from the AD to go into the red for a couple years while stacking up wins and building a fan base. The AD also has to have confidence in students and alumni to come through with their time and money once the wins start rolling in. Basically, it would take guts and a leap of faith, but it's that kind of risk that I think is now necessary when you're not already an established, P5 program.

I understand that 6 wins is only a modest goal and all, but does #hit6 really imply that once the Mean Green wins its sixth game of the season the players will just throw a raging party and forfeit the rest of the season? Aren't we getting a little touchy about semantics? I'm all for lofty goals, but wouldn't #hitnationalchampionship! sound a little ridiculous? For a football program that has only "hit6" once in the last decade, it's not exactly an irrelevant goal.

Those Monroe College ads are all over the subways. I had no idea they had football, though.

I would trade schedules with them in a heartbeat.

It's an odd situation next season because I would think that under normal circumstances a coach facing potentially a fourth losing season out of five would be firmly planted on the hot seat. But, given the ridiculous five home game/two money game schedule, I highly doubt the AD expects anything too much this time around.