untjim1995

NO doubt that UT has their hands on the timing of it, but still that buries the lead. Baylor is a cesspool right now. Everything about that school's mission is being completely undermined by their inactions toward the sexual assaults being committed by their athletes. Someone should have been fired after the Sam Owachku stuff came out last fall, but Baylor turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, just to keep Art Briles as their coach. Its sickening. I have a 5 year old daughter--I wouldn't send her anywhere near that place if she was 15 or older and considering college. They need to seriously make changes down there. As one of my buddies said about Baylor and its history of murder (Patrick Dennehy), coverup (Dave Bliss), physical assault with no suspension of any merit (LaceDarius Dunn), and now multiple sexual assaults, it won't be long until CBS' new show will be CSI:Waco...

We have ten regular season games to go and at least one CUSA Tourney game left. We are 7-14 now. I figure that three more losses would ensure a losing season and Benford will get the axe, Dodge-style in midseason once a winning season becomes mathematically impossible (unless you won like 4 games in the CUSA Tourney). I suspect he will be gone by Valentine's Day. Cannot wait to see who we hire to be our next coach...both from an excitement standpoint, as well as a RV-really-hired-this-guy? standpoint...

I'm afraid not...

I heard SMU healed one of those diabetics, though, of his issues...I'm sure it had nothing to do with University Park and Southlake being nothing like Denton, though.

By any chance, are you the son/daughter of one of the UNT 17?

Well, Littrell is showing the signs of being a brand new coach--that Kidsy was working out is just ridiculous. I hope Littrell learns from this, but that is what we have here--Smatresk and RV hired a newbie to lift up the Titanic. Can he do it? We will see, but its gonna take a while. For those people that were telling all of us that Littrell's OU and Tech ties were really going to show up around here ASAP, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly have believed that. He hasn't coached in Texas in a long time. Harrell has never coached here in this state, nor has Filani...their playing days at Tech are what we remember them by, but that doesn't mean squat on the recruiting trail if your team massively sucks when you start out on the recruiting trail. It will take time for any of those kids to want to play here. My guess is that 2016 will see some traction with HS recruits, but nothing great, so the JUCOs will get hit hard. I think its gonna be necessary, along with continuing to get transfers. HS kids don't want to come here over other schools not in the SBC or FCS. All of the losing, all of the apathy has caused this. The hope is that Littrell can coach up kids, get JUCOs and transfers to come here and contribute right away, and see if we get a win or two this year, 3 or 4 in the next year, and get to .500 or better by year 3. But the key point of your post is the circus. The current ringleader, RV, doesn't really know how to find anyone that can turn this into a winner. And his bosses only ask him to turn a profit. So instead, we get promised these great trapeze artists, but we get there and see dudes falling down into the safety nets over and over, while watching these guys that are supposed to be lion-tamers turn into glorified cage cleaners. But all the owners of the circus look at is how much money came in and how much went out the door. Instead of offering up promotions to get people here or hiring acts that people have heard of around here that might cost more, all they come back to is the rising costs of running a circus and how awesome it is that we provide a value to the customers, many of whom prefer much better entertainment options, including people who grew up working at the circus itself, never to be heard from again.

Surely you didn't think Littrell was going to come here in such a short timeframe, with no Texas HS contacts at all, having never been a head coach before, and taking over the worst program in America was going to come in here and start getting recruits to suddenly change their tune on coming to UNT, right? If this is happening when the 2016-2017 recruiting class gets finalized, then I think we can begin to look at Littrell a bit differently. And if he still cannot turn things around by 2017-2018. then we can begin to look at his posterior licking. But he is gonna need time here, folks...years. And he may not be able to do it, either. It may just be that this thing is too rotten for a new guy with no Texas ties or head coaching experience to fix in 4 years. That's entirely possible...and in the eyes of many outside of Denton, its almost entirely expected, based on our track record of suckitude since 2005. Right now, nobody outside of UNT's most diehard fans looks at this job as anything but "avoidable". If LIttrell can fix that, he's probably head coaching somewhere else by 2019. And if he can't, 2019 will probably be the year that RV has to make yet another hire for a revenue sport again...

For those that the previous staff chose not to offer, its probably because the kids made it clear that UNT wasn't in their top three choices. As a matter of fact, its probable that the offense we were running kept almost every single throwing QB in the state from considering us. That lineup of QBs we have rolled out the last two seasons has just been embarrassing for a school in Texas. If you couldn't beat out Greer or McNulty, you shouldn't be playing FBS football--because THEY shouldn't have been playing FBS football...

He's not the first college kid to get into trouble for drugs, but maybe a new scene would help him get straightened out. I don't know why I am even arguing the point, though. Its incredibly doubtful that he will even look our way.

I'd give him a chance. If he screws up, its his loss. If stays on the right path, though, you get a heckuva talent at the position on the field that we have sucked at recently.

Tulane is also a well-thought of academic university in the Deep South. New Orleans has a lot of attractiveness, as well. Willie Fritz knows what he is doing as a head coach, knowing that kids that are decent in the Southeast would pick Tulane over CUSA/SBC schools, all things being relatively equal. Fritz has done everything right on the career path. Win at FCS, win at SBC school, go to AAC job that will garner much attention if he can turn it around. Next step up is a job at a southern P5 school--I wouldn't bet against him finding one in the next 4 years, either. But, just to piss on the fire of anyone who also believes that we didn't choose Jim Harbaugh over Todd Dodge, we also didn't pick Seth Littrell over Willie Fritz. He was never going to come here for what we pay and for what he could get at schools higher up the FBS totem pole than we are. Literally, there was no chance of that ever occurring.

You know, he didn't do all that bad against that slate. We won one of them (Tech in 1999), should have won the Tech game in 2000, and played competitively at OU in 98, at A&M in 98, at Baylor in 99, and TCU in 01. Somewhere in there, I believe it was in 99, we lost at TCU 23-3. That game, we scored our FG after running a fake punt in the first half. We held LT to around 100 yards, only trailed 13-3 going into the 4th quarter, but the Dickster literally ran the ball every down, causing the UNT fans at the game to chant "Throw the Ball, Throw the Ball!!". He wouldn't though, and our defense finally gave up another 10 points and we lost a game that was entirely winnable...

Well, we were a I-A program for all of three years when Dickey took over. Obviously, the facilities and funding were piss-poor, but a lot of people figured that the university was more serious about being a big program than they were. That's why I used the term up-and-comer. In retrospect, Dickey found out that all we did by going up to I-A was using road games as a bodybag victim to pay the bills. We really would have been better off not moving up to I-A in 1995, since we put lipstick on the ugliest pig of a stadium and had no funding at all beyond what the bodybag games paid. I actually think a lot of his recruits from the wealthy suburbs came here and couldn't handle the fact that our facilities were much worse than the ones they played at in high school and that football, in general, just wasn't a big deal here at UNT like it was in their hometowns. Alamo Heights, Austin Westlake, Southlake Carroll, Kingwood--all had better facilities than we had. That's why Dodge got promised a new stadium to come here and he held the administration's feet to the fire on that subject.

Dickey did have the benefit of selling FBS playing time for a program that was selling itself as an up-and-comer in the late 90's/early 00's. Our regional competition for recruits then were NMSU, UTEP, Tulsa, La Tech, Arkansas State, and maybe a few times we fought SMU or Rice for somebody. Once we started losing, it got worse and worse, piling on the reputation for UNT Football being a lost cause. And we added in Texas State and UTSA to the mix, weakening the talent pool, as well, for us.

This. This year ahead is all about building up relationships with TX HS coaches and winning some recruiting battles for actual FBS-offered players. We have one game on our schedule that we will be favored to win--at home against FCS Bethune-Cookman. Everyone else will be favored when we play them, wherever we play them. 2016 is Seth's retrenching year. We can go 1-11 and it will still be better than last season, just because of what we have to rebuild and recreate in the locker room and on the field. This current recruiting season that is coming to an end is all about finding bodies that can help you practice and to help implement Littrell's program in each facet--classroom, locker room, weight room, and practices. If anyone turns out to be a decent player in this class, its just gravy. Don't get caught up in the w/l record this upcoming season. The focus needs to be on Littrell and staff recruit, as well as the attitude they bring to the team. A wide-open offensive game plan, even if it sees us getting pillaged during games, is still badly needed for experience for a roster built on a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust kind of offense. If we win 2 or more games this upcoming season, count our lucky stars---because that is how far down we are on this roster. We have absolutely no size or speed on defense. The QB situation may be improved with Alec Morris, but anyone from a FBS program would improve on the collection of FCS QBs we had on this roster at the end of 2015. Hopefully, the OL can adapt to this new scheme and actually provide time to throw for Morris, something they couldn't do for the spare QBs we ran out there last year. If the OL can block, the RBs and WRs we have might be able to help us score some points--something we haven't seen around these parts since Dodge.

The only head coach in the last 45 years to do anything major here was Hayden Fry--to that extent, the answers to why he was able to do that should be able to lead you into the direction of why the others have failed. First, unlike any of the others, Hayden Fry was a known commodity within Texas. He had success and had built up recruiting relationships in Texas already as a head coach. He was an innovative coach on offense, which brings people to games. He was a great communicator to the media and community groups, which brings in money. Nobody we have hired since then has met those three criteria. Jerry Moore came from Nebraska where the ran the I-formation. Bob Tyler came from Miss State. Corky Nelson was the DC for Baylor, IIRC. Dennis Parker was a HS coach. Matt Simon was the OC at New Mexico. Darrell Dickey was the OC at SMU. Todd Dodge was a HS Coach. Dan McCarney was a losing head coach from Iowa State that ran an incredibly basic offense, while also serving as the OL coach at Florida before he got hired here. And now we have Littrell, who was the playcaller at UNC. None of these hires have given Texas HS recruits, coaches, or parents a reason to rarely think of us as a primary choice unless the other offers have been underwhelming compared to us (basically FCS or other SBC-type teams). Dickey did the best at recruiting here, but it wasn't great by any imagination--he just had a way to get kids here that fit his mindset better than anyone else. His offense was no better than McCarney's was, his demeanor was even worse, and his attitude toward scheduling was pathetic--but he was still better than anyone else here as a I-A coach since Fry left. Sad, but true... Now, keep in mind, Texas State hired Franchione, who fit all of the criteria that Fry did above, yet he still failed eventually down there. But maybe that was more on Texas State than it would have been here--we will never know. But those qualities that Hayden fry had coming into the job here have never been duplicated completely by UNT when hiring a new coach. Maybe Littrell turns it all around, even though he doesn't fit that bill above, hopefully he can do it here. Lord knows he has one helluva pit to dig up from, which isn't helped by the current AD, IMO.

SMU's reputation in recruiting circles and within DFW media makes them very different from us. Whether we agree or not, SMU, because of its private status, is looked at very highly on the academic front overall.

True. I don't want Mason to be compared to McNulty at all. That's not fair to him. McNulty got to play here because his dad's buddy thought he would be a great QB for his Metamucil Offense. It turns out that he couldn't be a QB at one other FBS school in America, but got to start here because the coach liked his leadership and intangibles, neither of which led to very many wins. As a matter of face, the one of the two games we won with McNulty as the starter was against FIU in 2014--and he was so bad that the coach didn't run one pass play in the entire 4th quarter because it was obvious that he would turn it over and cost us the game. That's where the vomit reference came from...

Well, McNulty had a PWO offer from Iowa and we took a chance on him...look at how awesome he did for us!! He became a starter!! Vomit.

Just without the wins or the money...

One thing about CUSA that is nice for us is that it does give us division games with four teams that were clearly above us on the FBS totem pole: La Tech, USM, Rice, and UTEP. Obviously, UTSA wasn't, but its at least another conference game in Texas. This setup, even if it disappoints when it turned out to be different than what we thought it would be when we finally got invited, is still light years better than any conference setup we have had since the Missouri Valley of the 60s. CUSA West is not bad at all, especially if UAB get back up and rolling and stays in our division--UTSA is the only school that is a newer entrant to FBS. Its CUSA East that just sucks, once you get past Marshall, MUTS, and WKU. The F_Us, ODU, and Charlotte don't even register on anyone' radar, not that the other three teams in the East bring extra fans here when they play or attract local fans to come here, but at least they have all done something decent in football and don't sound like they are named after airports...

This may be the absolute, most perfect post ever on gmg.com...the entire program.

SMU will terminate the series when they don't need the game against us--if they are winning big, they will drop us. If they are losing games to us, they will bolt, too. The only way they keep this series going for that long is if they stay mediocre or worse, but still beat us more times than not. They know our fans will fill up Ford Stadium when we play down there, giving them a nice attendance bump, as well as a win over us to keep us from gaining any recruiting traction. If you doubt this, look at basketball. We played them periodically for years until Larry Brown got there. Now, that they are great, they have zero interest in playing us. When we were good under Johnny Jones, they stopped playing us. It was only when we sucked or were mediocre that we played them. That's how they work--always have, always will.

Don't care...RV stays in budget///UNT BOR

Yeah, he alone makes me give pause to having any excitement about Littrell. But I'm willing to give the guy a chance to see if he can do something positive here. But there is absolutely no doubt that the odds are not in the favor of turning this around anytime soon. Littrell is either gone to another school above us on the FBS totem pole or is not a head coach within 4 years here. Its that kind of hire--swing for the fences with a young guy and if he hits a HR, then he's gone from here. If he strikes out, he's gone, just like Todd Dodge. This isn't like McCarney or Dickey, where both of those guys were going to be here for years because there was no demand for them to lead a program higher up the foodchain.