untjim1995

Higher star ratings are for the top P% programs--I pay no attention to their inflated classes that are used for subscriptions to follow said P5 giant by blowing smoke up their collective asses. That said, one thing I do thing matters in recruiting rankings, in a very big way, though, is when collectively, your class(es) are low ranked against your peers. That's usually a sure sign that you are about to suck badly. And that is what we have endured, basically, under McCarney. I'm fairly certain that the Carthage WRs we have our very solid players who could probably play at any P5 school in the country--but collectively, the class they came in with was ranked dead-ass last for a reason by Rivals, when comparing it against other G5 teams. Those low-rated classes in 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011 combined to get us here, along with poor coaching schemes and an offensive gameplan that was ancient. Now, maybe that 2015 class that finished ahead of about 30 other G5 programs will be the one that Littrell leads up to a winning season in a few seasons, like Mac did with Dodge's 2009 and 2010 classes in our 2013 HoD Bowl Championship season. I don't expect anything from this upcoming class--its almost impossible to see him building up enough talent in such a short amount of time to be decently ranked, as a class, against our G5 peers. But if he can find a few pieces that are developable and can add that to classes in 2017 and beyond that are more talented than anything we have seen around here in five years, he's going to have something cooking by 2018 and 2019. And even if he leaves or gets fired, if he can duplicate recruiting classes like Dodge did, his successor will be light years ahead of where his predecessor put him today. We thought Dickey left Dodge a talent-poor roster--those leftovers for Dodge look like a diamond compared to what McCarney has left Littrell. And its all a moot point, for sure, if he cannot get a decent QB in here soon.

And if we go 3-9 or worse then, are you gonna be here casting it in a positive light, since its triple the win total of the program now? If you do, you'll have plenty of company around here. And that's fine--if that helps you want to attend games and help keep the status quo, it really doesn't matter to a lot of us who have had it with our school's acceptance of losing in revenue sports. We aren't the ones wasting dollars or time anymore--and by the looks of the attendance figures in box scores at Apogee and the Super Pit since November, it appears that there are A LOT more of folks that are taking our view than yours. But again, that's fine. I hope that you have a good time when you go to the games--it was a lot of fun to go and watch our solid basketball team play at the Pit or to see a football team that could tackle and move the ball downfield during non-mopup time. For your sake, I hope that you get some moments like that again soon. And when RV retires/dies, maybe I'll get to come back and enjoy the same good teams again...but, make no doubt about it, many of us won't step foot near either of the venues that host the Mean Green's revenue teams until he is gone. Years of mostly putrid results on the football field and basketball court by RV hires in each sport and the bigger issue of accepted losing by the BOR to the point of RV having a lifetime job have combined to reach a point that many folks cannot in good conscience support this anymore. There are other areas within the university to support--and frankly, they are way more celebrated and supported by the UNT Family than athletics has ever been.

I completely agree on your views on high school coaches having big egos and playing a very important role in their players' lives. So my question is this: how long does it take to change our school's perception with these coaches and the players and their families? In the last 11 years, these people have seen our school post 1 winning season, which covers 4 head coaches, not including Chico. In those eleven years, they have seen us post exactly one other year where we won as many as 5 games in one season. The other nine seasons in that 11-year stretch include two 4-win teams, two 3-win teams, three 2-win teams, and two 1-win teams. These people we are recruiting aren't steering players here because they don't believe in our commitment to becoming a winner--their egos want their kids to go somewhere else that isn't a perpetual loser. The younger coaches have seen us suck something fierce for the last 11 years, no matter the coach, the conference, or the stadium. When they look back at since we moved up to FBS in 1995, they have witnessed 4 winning seasons and 17 losing seasons, of which only 3 of them finished with as good as 5 wins in a season. And then there is the 1-aa debacle that older Texas HS coaches remember all to well, while the SWC was king of the state, from 1983-1994. Its my belief that Littrell has major work ahead of him on the recruiting trail. He does offer playing time at a FBS university in a Metro area and a youthful energy, but he has never dealt with going into high schools and dealing with coaches that think his program is not where they want their kids to go or families that have no interest in North Texas. If he can overcome those realities by finding diamonds in the rough and under-recruited kids and develop them into bigger and better football players, that will be very impressive. I've been told that HS coaches liked McCarney and his staff, but they knew without a doubt that their kids didn't want anything to do with playing his plodding offense and that winning at UNT is looked at as very challenging. This is what they told their kids under an experienced college coach who had skins on the wall from previous stops to regale the coaches with. How will they react to a guy who looks the part of a Texas Football Coach and runs a offense that is much more like what they run today, but is extremely green in experience? My guess is that they will eventually warm up to him and his staff, but its gonna take awhile. I think his best bet is to hit the JUCOs hard for infusion of talent at QB and on defense until he can get more HS recruits to look our way. This is what happens when your program reaches the low point of its modern history--you have no talent on the roster and you have to go recruit to get those kids here when nobody has much interest in the program. But he has the advantage of three other Texas schools in very similar situations (Texas State, UTEP, and UTSA) dealing with a lot of the same problems. To me, Littrell's top priority in 2016 needs to be in recruiting wins over those three schools. If he does that, he can get us ahead of all three of them in a fairly significant way really soon, like by the 2017 season. Once that occurs, then he can take aim at kids that are going to Rice and SMU and the other AAC and CUSA schools in the region. Its why I think 2018 will be very telling around here. He will have his players here, a much easier schedule, and have more experience as a head coach. If 2018 goes well, he's probably coaching somewhere else in 2019. If it is an average year (4-6 wins), he's probably got one more year to get things right in 2019. And if 2018 is a disaster (3 wins or less), the UNT 17 will probably buy him out like they just did McCarney.

there is not enough talent here to coach them up to win more than three games next year, in my opinion. Littrell might be an awesome coach, but it's not gonna show up in the standings next year. No QB that is remotely meant to be an FBS starter, no size on the DLine, no team defensive speed, and an inexperienced OLine that was just flat out bad last year...add in a killer schedule and a brand new coach who's gotta learn on the fly, I don't see how we get above 2-10, but that's just me. And it'll be ok, even if he goes 1-11 next year. People here want to believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, as well as believing we will quadruple our wins next year. We are the absolute worst program in America right now. As long as we don't lose to Bethune-Cookman, there is no other loss that we can suffer in 2016 that will make me believe Littrell is a failure. He's inheriting the worst collection of talent that a coach at a team in these neck of the woods could possibly inherit at this level of play. Give the man two years to get rid of the quitters on this team and the guys who cannot adapt to an offense that isn't played with a leather helmet. And then let him go out and see if he can make some inroads with Texas High School recruits, coaches, and parents to get some folks here that can play down the road for us. 2018 is when you should expect a bowl team, just get talent here and a schedule that isn't a killer for a program like ours now. Last season, it was obvious that if we couldn't beat SMU then we weren't gonna win more than a game the rest of the season, just because of the awful schedule and lack of talent. 2016 is setup to be very similar on both fronts, even though our OOC schedule is much more easier than last year's was. But our CUSA schedule will be harder, as the only two teams we can compete with are UTEP & UTSA, both of whom we play on the road. All the others are waaaayyyyyyy ahead of us right now.

Welcome to the G5 College Football World of 2015. I wouldn't hold my breath on that changing anytime soon. Or maybe you should try holding your breath for a long time--just to see if it works.

UH has some serious money donors. The SWC pedigree grew some serious alumni who still care deeply for that place with their pocketbooks, certainly more than 17 of them. We damn well know that they will fire any coach, coordinator, or AD who isn't getting the job done. UH made the club in the 70s, had some very good teams, then fell off and got drop-kicked out of the club. But their alumni still tries to get them a well-funded product, even when they are down and attendance drops significantly. They are a great model of what the CUSA Texas Public Schools need to strive to become. But UH's main problem, when it comes to athletics, is simply their location. They cannot move up the food chain any higher because their location is already deemed to be full of fans from the Big 12 and SEC school already, meaning they bring absolutely no market to the potential conferences around them. The other 3 P5s, the B1G, the Pac 12, and the ACC, all have better options to get in their leagues before UH if they just wait out the next round of realignment, when the Big XII eventually falls apart after the GOR expires, if not sooner. UT, OU, KU, and WVU will have Power Conference homes somewhere. The brothers, Tech, OSU, and KSU, probably are in somewhere, too. That leaves ISU, TCU, and Baylor on the outside, along with, you guessed it, UH still. But I think that those programs, UH included, will look at the football landscape then and will go football independent, just to stay as a possibility to get into the Power Conferences' schedules and potential bowl games, rather than just stay at the G5 level. I think a lot of G5 schools will do this, as well.

Knowing Fran, he resigned right now for one of two reasons: 1.) So that his hand-picked choice will get the job, since he is fairly well-respected in San Marcos still, or 2.) He is burning bridges on an AD or group of donors who are making his life tough and by leaving now, it screws them in recruiting this late. I'd lean toward Door #1, but Door #2 won't surprise me, either...

Yeah, Rob Evans is just going to finish out the season for Benford. He isn't a long-term option, at this point. But it has been obvious since the end of last year, when Benford was getting to stay as head coach for this next year, that Rob Evans would get the inevitable interim job once Benford officially reached the point of no return, which was when that lofty goal of a .500 season became too high of a hurdle to reach. Cannot wait to see who RV hires to take his place...and to see the final tally on the UNT 17 buyouts of RV contracts within a 1-year timeframe. Nobody will ever be able to question those 17 people on their financial commitment to keeping RV around as their friend and getting access to the team. Apparently, that cost is at least $2.5 million and rising, just from a buyout end.

Look, the team lost, but we are getting a win. Every single Benford loss is a step towards him being gone. Rob Evans, INterim UNT Coach, should get announced within the next month or so...

While they were down to their 5th string qb...in Denton

Look, the reality here is that every loss by a Tony Benford team gets us a bit closer to becoming a team not coached by Tony Benford. There's just no way we are getting anywhere near a record that could convince RV to extend him, so these next few months are just about playing out the string. I wish RV wasn't anywhere near this hire, either, unlike the Littrell one that he was somehow at least involved in and still influences now. Unlike in football, which will take years to turn around because of the lack of overall talent, the basketball program does have talent in place. A good coach could easily get this team turned back around to a winning season very quickly.

There is no way we come close to beating the line in this one. They aren't as good as they've been in the past, but they are still a solid team that plays very well at home. ass in the revenge factor of the most surprising win in the Tony Benford Era from last season at the Super Pit and you can see where this one will go. Creighton covers easily...

I feel the same way about UNT Football as I do UNT Basketball. They both suck greatly, all under the watchful eye (i.e. vision) of RV. As long as he stays, I won't attend one more game at The Super Pit or Apogee. I just cannot do it after 25 years of fandom, not to mention 15 of those years being under RV's leadership. And by the empty sections of those buildings on gameday, it appears that there are thousands more like me than there are like those still going to games here. I don't begrudge those who are going, either. If they can find enjoyment in a game in Denton these days, I'll give them all kinds of credit for doing what I can no longer come close to doing. I figure that the WKU game I went to after the Portland State Massacre was my last one for a long time to come. I, too, believe wholeheartedly that RV is the #UNTADforlife. When he retires/dies, those offices will be named after him and a statue of him will get built somewhere around the athletic center--guaranteed...

there is no doubt that they are the biggest success story in the history of the last 20 years of major college football. From where they get dropped in 1996--away from the major players in the state as a conference mate--to being in th Big Xii with most of them again is a testament to the leadership of their school. They went to their alumni and asked them if winning at football still mattered now that they weren't in the SWC anymore. They went to the civic leaders and FW and asked them if they would be interested in helping build support for the hometown team even if it meant playing schools not in the Big XII or the Power Conferences. Then they upgraded at football coach and at AD. When Eric Hyman left as AD to go to South Carolina, they hired Chris Del Conte, who made their progress continue to get stronger. Same with Gary Patterson after Dennis Franchione built them into a ranked team and left to go to Alabama. That's a school that got it. They knew that beating SMU and UH and Rice wasn't enough. They had to make themselves higher than those guys--to get to Big 12 status even if they weren't in that conference. Then, when realignment gave them the chance to get in there, they were ready to go.

yeah, that Army game at home was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me as having any hope he could turn it around here as a head coach. To me, I remember leaving to go to my car, after stealing defeat from the jaws of certain victory, and watching celebratory fireworks going off for another close UNT loss that season at home, there was no way Dodge would be back after the season. I remember calling Richard Durrett and telling him that and him clearly telling me, "Nope--Villareal has said they don't have the money to fire him with two years left on his contract." And he was exactly right, as Dodge finished off a very stellar, career-tying best 2-10 season with a loss the next week. Dodge coming back cost us an extra year of sucking when Mac got here. Thankfully, now that we have the UNT 17, Littrell's deep hole he inherited is not worse because they paid for the extension mistake by RV. It will still take years to rebuild here because of the lack of talent on the roster and the fact it was completely built on an archaic offense, but if Mac had stayed like his predecessors did, for at least two more seasons, the depth of the hole we are in might damn well be nearing the center of the earth's core...

you know, it could just be that winning at EMU just isn't possible, even if they sit in the middle of a football crazy state. The other programs in the state and in the region may just have way too many advantages over them. I have no idea if they have a decent commitment to football from an administrative level, but it doesn't look like it from the outside. Its one school that makes ours look pretty solid when it comes to football...

If you cannot improve the performance above this AD within 12 months, then the wrong hire was made--which would be very typical of this place. RV is absolutely awful as an AD at everything, except opening up tailgating and glad-handing people. If you cannot at least meet that criteria, being in the direction of athletics would seem to be a poor choice for a career. But in all honesty, RV is just the symptom of the Apathy Virus that the BOR and administration carry. If they don't care to have a winner in the two revenue sports that matter to most guys, why should anyone care, either? Which is exactly why the apathy we have here is so strong. The fans cannot change this--it has to come from the university's leadership. RV still being here as AD after 15 seasons of mostly bad performances in the revenue sports, even if he's just a puppet for the UNT 17, the BOR, Smatresk, or Lee Jackson, all it does is continue to serve as a glaring reminder to fans and the media that winning doesn't matter here--and it doesn't. The proof is in the pudding on this, at least until something changes drastically in performance on the football field or basketball court. Sadly, Littrell will see this. So will the next RV hire for the mens basketball team. Respectively, both of these hires will be the 7th cumulative regime he has watched over in these two sports...in 15 years.

Portland State trumped the Rice game...and that is saying something, as I never expected to go lower than that as a FBS program. Instead, we set the all-time futility mark as a university with a FBS team...by losing to a FCS team...at home...on Homecoming...by 59 points...and that team lost its first FCS playoff game. That is the worst loss in modern (post scholarship limit) college football history.. Rice was awful because they were the SWC dreg for most of 40 years, not to mention a terrible WAC/CUSA team, as well, until that year--us losing to them 77-20 was only because Rice stopped trying in the 4th quarter. If Bailiff had wanted to, we would have lost that game by at least 80. That UNT team was just awful, going 1-11, and it was the worst team I had ever seen us field in my life--until this year. That Dodge 1-11 team would have beaten this year's squad by 2 TDs or more, in my opinion. We have watched some god-awful football in these parts since 2005. Dickey's 2005 team lost 54-2 to Tulsa, Dodge's 77-20 loss at Rice, and McCarney's loss to FCS Portland State 66-7 are the top three worst losses I have seen us endure since we moved up to Division 1-A in 1995. They are the worst because none of the teams we lost to are even remotely close to being a P5 team. Losing 63-7 to UT, 56-3 to LSU, or 79-10 to OU all came with large checks for us to be the fatted calves being led to the slaughter. The others involved two regional opponents, two private schools in the G5 realm, and two games at home, as well as one at another G5 school in Texas.

Yeah, I know. But it just, again, proves the point of how hard it is to succeed at a place that literally is surrounded by a large majority of people, both inside and outside of the university, that flat out don't give a crap about UNT Sports. That mindset does not exist ANYWHERE else in this state for a FBS school. Frankly, its seems difficult to see how that mindset ever changes enough to make things work any differently than they have for the last 40 years. I respect that others fell and hope differently, but the history of apathy here runs VERY deep. The accepted losing and the lack of care about woeful attendance sort of proves that point.

could we possibly have a better example of why we fear for Seth Littrell and whoever takes over our hoops program in 2016? Terrible AD and we play in a town where the ISD cannot even get a simple date right with the university for what was a fairly easy field trip. Pathetic...

Littrell and Trice would have the Stoops connection, as well. He'd be a solid hire as a DB coach or ST coach.

All I know is that Pol Pot was the worst...

Awesome pickup!!

I think he's a great hire--he is a great representative of the university by his pedigree, success, and his family. But now he has to recruit kids here. Now he has to deal with the worst AD in the country who isn't going anywhere soon. Now he has to deal with apathy that has never existed at one school he has been a part of before. And now he has to deal with limited resources compared to the places he has been before. I think he is a coach who will be here for a 3 or 4 years--either as a humongous success to be hired away or as another coach who just couldn't get things going here because of the institutional issues above him and/or the job of being a head football coach at a college is just too much for him. Basically, those two reasons sum up every coach we have hired and fired since Hayden Fry left. Maybe Littrell is different and he turns this thing around faster than anyone could imagine. But a lot of us are just skeptical.