Respectfully Darrell Dickey was one Big West season away from being fired. If the Sun Belt hadn’t fallen into his lap he’d have been gone at the end of 2001.
And yes Dickey had tough out of conference games, but he also lost to both Troy and FAU during the 26 game conference win streak (they just weren’t in our conference yet). From 2001 to 2004 he only beat 3 bowl eligible teams.
Here is a snippet from one of my prior posts on Dickey. I doubt anyone would say ULM had facilities advantages on us, even in 2001.
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From October 13, 2001 to September 10, 2005, Dickey’s teams won 26 consecutive conference games. The streak was bookended by wins over the MUTS. The week before the streak started we lost to 2-9 conference mate ULM. The game that ended the streak was a loss to 4-7 Troy. The combined record for the 26 teams run through was 99-203. If you exclude the 26 losses from NT, their combined record was 99-177. Of those 26 wins, just three came against bowl-eligible teams.
Additionally, we lost to future conference mates Troy at the end of ‘01 and FAU at the start of ‘04 which would’ve shrunken the streak to 13 games if they had been in our conference at the time.
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