Smitty

I would suggest the answer to the question posed in this thread will come this off season. If Dodge can bring in a class heavy - and I mean heavy - on linemen, then there is reason to be optimistic. UNT has got to get some beef in here to control the line of scrimmage.

Where did Tasty say he was giving up? He didn't. Most of us are not giving up, and that speaks to the passion of people like Tasty and the vast majority of this board's members. When a team is getting skinned by mediocre opponents sixteen games into a new coach's tenure, you're going to get one of two reactions: criticism or apathy. You want apathy? No one complaining? No one caring? And no one showing up? If this was June Jones and SMU, I bet you could crickets chirping at their home games. But this board has been buzzing for days. That means people still care. That's why all complaints and rants, because this school has a fan base that cares. I truly believe that. Maybe its not as big a fan base as some, but it's there. Fact is, what this program has been doing is well beyond unsatisfactory. It is abysmal, dreadful, and completely unacceptable. Todd Dodge is lucky he's a football coach, because if he were turning in these kinds of performances a year and a half into any other job (other than government work) he'd be fired. I don't think he should be fired, I think it is too early to be firing any of the coaches. I agree with you that patience is required. But I understand why that subject is being brought up. But that does not mean we are giving up. Criticism does not equal surrender. And you still don't freakin' know how to use quotation marks! Why do you keep quoting yourself? You don't quote cliches!

Whether you thought it was a good idea or not to hire a high school coach, he's the head coach. You have to give a coach, especially in a rebuilding situation, a chance to prove himself. I do not, however, think that staff changes are needed now. The assistants also have to be given a chance. Because if you have to fire three coaches within a year and a half, if the staff that he assembled is that bad, then that has to bring Dodge's overall judgment into serious question. And in that case, how long before Dodge's head is on the chopping block? Unless the team remains so utterly uncompetitive this year and next, I don't have a problem with giving Dodge and his staff four or five years to prove themselves.

Thank you to everyone. Has anyone used those phones that fold or slide open with a miniature QWERTY keyboard? I'm leaning towards the Blackberry-type device but was curious about these that look more like a regular phone but open up with a keyboard.

My wife and I are looking to get new cell phones. We've had pretty basic service and about the only extra we really need is the ability to check email. I'm open to a Blackberry or something of that variety but haven't done my research yet. Any one have any suggestions? Cell phones you really like, cell phones to stay away from, cell phones that are more trouble than they're worth? Thanks

Much too early for that.

You could try the environmental angle. Fouts is an environmental mess. How many generators do they have to use to power the place? Despite all the gloominess that everyone is feeling, UNT is going to have a football team. If we go 0-12 this year and the next, we will still have a football program. So we will be playing in a football stadium. Doesn't it make sense for that stadium to be a lot more environmentally friendly? For it to use less energy and serve multiple purposes (concerts, special events, etc)? It's a chance for students to make a difference in the environment.

I don't think most are giving up. A few might be, but I think a lot of the comments are coming from the monumental frustration built not just on last night's game, but on a 2-14 record and a lot of embarrassing scores. Rice was just the capper, a game so dreadful that it broke the dam of fan emotions. My worry is not about the board members. Most of us cheer for the Mean Green, win or lose, good weather or bad, because that's what we do. I worry about those who are not hard-core Mean Green fans coming back next week.

Just a correction, I do not think that this team does not like its coach. I do not know that, and I did not mean to suggest that. Maybe I'm overthinking the K-State episode. But I wonder if a parallel can be drawn between that event and the Dallas Mavericks, when their coach made fundamental changes in his team's gameplan in their opening round series against Golden State, despite the Mavs being the No. 1 seed and the Warriors being the No. 8 seed. It has been suggested that Avery's coaching decisions against Golden State planted seeds of doubt in the minds of his players who already had shaky psyches coming off their collapse in the finals the previous year. I can see a basic parallel between the Mavs' loss in the finals and the very rough first year that UNT endured last season. In the Mean Green's case, that situation could be amplified by how very young this team is. I don't know. I'm guess all I'm saying is there is something deeply wrong which I do not believe is due to UNT having this much less talent than the first four opponents. All of this does make me understand why Bill Snyder, when he started turning around K-State, scheduled as many games as he could against opponents at or below his team's level to get some early wins and build confidence that his team did not otherwise possess.

Is this team's talent this far below that of K-State, Tulsa, and Rice? Is this a dreadful team getting crushed by better opponents or is this a team that is imploding due to problems from within? I have no idea if those problems are preparation, schemes, lockerroom problems, game-day tactics, or what. Are the players not responding to what the coaches are trying to do, or are the coaches' strategies this inadequate? I don't know, but when a team gets embarrased in its first two games, then comes off a better performance and has an extra to prepare only to get humiliated like this, it speaks to a deeper, team-wide problem. Just wondering about an incident that Tasty has been talking about since it happened: could this team's confidence - their belief in themselves - have been badly damaged when Coach Dodge went conservative against K-State so early in the opener because "I didn’t want the game to get crazy out of hand," as he said afterward. I can't blame the players if they took Dodge's actions and comments to mean that their coach stopped believing they could win or even compete in the first quarter of the first game of the year. How must that have made the players feel? If your leader publicly suggests that you are dangerously vulnerable to getting blown out, can anyone blame you for believing him? However, I do believe that it's too early to be making coaching changes. It's too early to call the Dodge experiment a failure - although the fact that the lab just blew up doesn't bode well.

Post of the night.

I really wonder what Todd Dodge is thinking about right now. This has got to be the low point of his career, and he would not be human if he wasn't having some personal doubts. I wouldn't be surprised if some names weren't going through his head right now: Steve Spurrier - success in college, failure in the NFL, success in return to college. GA Moore - legend at 2A, failed at 5A, legend in return to 2A And of course, Gerry Faust. And let me just add that it is not time to make a change. It is not time to give up on this.

That is by far the best news of the season.

I respect what you're saying, truly. And I've said similar things in the past. But it is not too much to expect that this program, in the 16th game of the Dodge era and having had an extra week to prepare for this game, would not get humiliated by a team like Rice - good but by no means great. Giving up 77 points in three quarters and getting whipped by 57 points...it's just mind-boggling. It's a little hard tonight to find where we've made progress since that opener last year against OU.

Kind of appropriate, since this may be the funeral for their national title hopes. Although with USC and Florida losing, one loss might look pretty good at the end of the season.

...Troy has given up 42 points early in the second half to Oklahoma State tonight. No, it doesn't make me feel any better, either.

That said, I can't blame anyone for a word uttered tonight.

You can cuss 'em but you can't quit 'em. If you want a new stadium, our presence next week is more important now more than ever. Bitch and moan with the rest of us - tonight it is all justified. But be there next week. Not to support Dodge or the team, but to support this program which is in more dire need of butts in the seats than anytime I can remember.

It's hard to talk while you're committing harakiri.

"Sir, you can't let him in here. He'll see everything. He'll see the big board!" -General "Buck" Turgidson

...where do we land in ESPN's bottom 10 this week?

I hope that sunshine isn't just the eye of a hurricane.

Alien body snatching? Communist mind control? A foreign substance introduced into our precious bodily fluids?

I really want to hear what Dodge has to say after this.

There are just so many questions. You hardly know where to begin. God almighty. What in the hell has happened to this program?