untjim1995

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.

In an ironic twist on the headline, the few remaining fans left are mostly in favor of the coming execution of Tony Benford's coaching career here at UNT, as well...

Fair enough. And you may be right about Damarcus Smith improving greatly under Littrell's guidance. I just think he has a lot to prove and that the talent that surrounds him is suspect at best. Heck, he's still a question mark here. I think the thing that worries me the most about him is that he couldn't get his academics in place to be here last spring. Once that occurred, it was beyond obvious that McCarney would never start him ahead of McNulty, which basically spared us to death. If that happens again, his career is over. In many ways, he is probably the difference between a 1-11 season and a season with 3 or more wins.

We have a coliseum that seat 10,000 people. There are 36k students who go to school here. There are 200k+ local alumni within an hour of the university. ANd hundreds of thousands of people who live close by and could feasibly go to a college game. And we have a product that filled all of 700 seats for a game between two powder puff teams.

I posted something awhile back that USM was who we need to emulate on our way back up. And that is including the very real possibility that next season involves less than 2 wins like this year did. As you mentioned, the roster, as a whole, is woefully lacking in talent. Beyond the obvious issues with having no FBS QB on the roster, the defense is small and slow, and the OL needs a lot of improvement. Mix in the sad reality that the schedule next year is still very difficult for where we are right now. More than 2 wins would be a GREAT improvement--I see us beating BC at home and I'll pick an upset win at UTSA. Everyone else is just better or wayyyyyy better than we are right now.

as in one victory...

Why can't we play Nicholls State every game going forward? In every sport... of course, Denton High could say the same thing, too.

On this, I completely agree. Same with the Florida Airport schools, too. People can handle directional schools being good, when they involve one (and only one) direction that is actually on a map. "Middle" certainly doesn't fit this definition.