untjim1995

Probably sometime next February or March is my best guess...

Known costs...what it always is here. Opportunity costs don't matter, just known costs.

Dodge's assistants left as soon as they could after this third season. IIRC, OL Coach Spencer Leftwich left just before fall camp was about to start to go to Tulsa becuase he knew what was likely to be in store. Rob Evans will either bail or he will look at this being his chance to become an interim coach that might get looked at as a potential head coach.

Fairly soon, just as we did with Todd Dodge and Vic Trilli, the AD will come and say that the line in the sand has been made clear to Tony Benford for this upcoming season and that we need to start winning. That will be code for: we cannot or will not buy him out before next year

I really, really hope that flyonthewall enjoyed this game tonight with RV and his buddies in Birmingham. Nice effort by Benford and the boys against powerhouse Rice...#isitstillajoke?

I won't hold my breath on that last part. I've followed UNT because they are mine, not for any other reason. I spent 25 seasons follwoing UNT football and basketball (1990-2014) always believeing that one day, we would step up and assume a great spot as a large, growing college athletics power in the middle of a fertile recruiting area. I truly believed it. After the HoD Bowl win and a great 2013 season, I may have been more convinced than ever of this being the point that pushed us forward, finally. Then recruiting happened...again. As if we that winning season and having McCarney's passion didn't even resonate one iota with the Texas HS kids. It led to a revival of the Dickey Monster coming out of the guy who I felt couldn't ever get down. Instead, the full beatdown of who we are and who we are thought to be by the public made me realize that hte only way to change this is to make winning your only goal in the revenue sports. And then I realized how that hasn't ever happened and that the strong majority of the UNT family aren't in agreement of that goal. So you either accept it or you leave. Few accept it around here, most abandon the ship or don't even attempt to get on it. But those are your choices. And its why we perpetually get between 5k and 15k at football games and 1-2k to mens hoops games. Within a county that has several hundred thousand people and a Metroplex with millions, of which hundreds of thousands of UNT students and alumni live in, that's what we get--unless we give them something more special to be a part of. Mostly, its been playing a big name team in Denton--see Baylor in 2003 at Fouts, or Texas Tech in 2011 at the Super Pit, but its also been playing in a bowl game in New Orleans or Dallas. But its almost as if those examples don't even resonate at all with the leaders here. If they don't care about anymore than they do, why should 99% of those who went to or graduated from North Texas at some point in their life? Its the answer to this last question that makes it quite clear that you just have two real choices--accept how it goes or just walk away. There is absolutely no pressure to win here in Denton from the media, most alumni, or the administration. For now, I just choose to accept it for what it is, but also to explain to others why I've been forced to be in this place in my UNT fandom...

I say it because it is to stop people from thinking RV is gonna ever get fired becuase of wins and losses...

Any hire cannot be deemed bad or good until you see what they have, typically over a couple of years. Every once in a while, you get a guy like Benford, who crushes the momentum of a program in a short amount of time, deeming a failure call a little more understandable early on, but usually you gotta see what 2-3 years shows us. That's how you deem someone a bad hire, assuming there are no off-field or off-court issues to deal with. Todd Dodge seemed like a great hire when we got him. Vic Trilli did, too. A lot of people liked the Tony Benford hire, just as they did the Mike Petersen hire. But in each case, after a couple of years of watching their teams, unequivocally you could deem them each bad hires. And the extra year or years they got after that have not changed that sentiment, which is why buying out a contract with two years left is smarter than doing it with just one left. The costs of the buyout for the extra year can at least get the opportunity to be made up for by bringing in someone who makes the fanbase believe that improvement is coming, creating excitement and a boost in attendance. The scary part to me about buying out Petersen is that we will do what we did when we hired Dodge, which was find the absolute cheapest option available to help mitigate the costs of the extra year of buying out Dickey's massive $275k per year contract (sarcasm inserted here...) If you are going to give Jalie Mitchell a chance, since she's an unproven assistant, at least she's one of our own, one that you can feel good about giving a chance to even if she hasn't ever been a head coach before. Its hiring an assistant or HS head coach who's not an alum from UNT to be a head coach at our university that just kills us usually. Granted, Petersen or Aston didn't fit the description, but women's hoops isn't nearly as costly as the other two revenue sports, of which we have hired a grand total of three people since 1973 who were full-time head coaches before they got here to be head coaches--Hayden Fry in 1973, Bob Tyler in 1982 and Dan McCarney in 2011. No one in mens basketball had been a full-time head coach at another college before they got here. Its why I thought Benford wasn't a great hire when we hired him. An inexperienced head coach, known as a recruiter, that is also an alum of Texas Tech--if he did well here, he'd be the head coach in Lubbock right now. If he doesn't, you're stuck with him for 4 years. Hiring anyone else might have seen them already leave, as well. But I'd have taken my chances with at least getting guys like Bob Marlin, Danny Kaspar, or Steve Shields before hiring an assistant outside the program.

I think the OOC will stay dumbed down, most likely, so getting above .500 by 4-5 games will be the ultimate goal for RV and Benford. If we are 18-14 next year, going into the CUSA Tournament, then split a couple of games to finish at 19-15, sadly, I can see Benford getting an extension of a couple of years. I think RV reeaaaaaalllyyy wants Benford to make it, just to avoid another revenue sports hire getting fired. The womens' team has 9 straight losing seasons. The men's team has fallen off sharply in the last three years. And the football team has one winning season in the last ten, which got the coach a 5-year extension. And the guy who has been in charge the whole time over the athletic department still gets extensions to stay here in his role--because he stays within budget and never publically complains about anything regarding funding.

Next year is Benford's 4th year--of a 5 year contract. He either makes RV extend him or they cut bait. No way he goes into the last year of his contract as the head coach--it will kill any chance of recruiting anyone to come here with no idea of who would be coaching here in the next season. So, its 2016 that determines Benford's fate. What is your line in the sand for him to come back? More importantly, what is the line in the sand for RV and the BOR to extend him? I truly believed that a .500 season this year, following last season's .500 record would be enough for RV to float the idea of extending him after this season, but I don't see any chance of that happening now. My line in the sand is that he gets us either the NCAA Tournament or NIT--that was the type of program he inherited, one that was on the cusp of earning postseason tournament berths. Not the CBI or CIT, either, tournaments that can be bought into by a desperate AD. For RV and the BOR, I think we have to do two things next year for him to get an extension of a couple of more years. 1.) Finish above .500 by more than 5 games after CUSA Tournament play 2.) Finish in the top half of the CUSA standings What do you guys think?

This ensures that Benford will be here for his make-it-or-break it season next year. No way we are buying off two contracts at one time, especially Benford's. Jalie Mitchell is an intriguing possibility for this job. I think that would make a lot of sense in many, many ways.

Yeah, but we are killing it in the Staying Within Our Budget Rankings!! Should be worth another year or two pretty soon for ol' RV from the BOR...

Great. And our record against them in marching band performances and in low athletic fees charged to students is 20-1 (PV A&M owns us in those, as well...) Start with the windows of the university that the BOR and the administration actually care about most, then work your way down from there. Somewhere near the bottom, you should find winning in sports that other schools in this state and in this region care about.

Its certainly not a no-confidence move, either... Generally speaking, people you aren't complelely satisfied with don't get extensions on their contracts. They like him--he is a personable guy, no question about it. He doesn't publically complain or criticize. He just keeps the company line. And he likes the paycheck and the gig--it requires less effort to be an AD here than at every single FBS school in this region of the country, maybe even the entire country. There isn't a single AD in FBS who would've kept their jobs after hiring Todd Dodge and Tony Benford. Not here, though. Instead, he got that extension AFTER those two great experiments. You can be mad at him all you want and think he should step up and the football coach needs to be less pissy about the issues he has as coach at UNT, but it doesn't change unless the BOR and administration want that to happen. And it is clear that they don't, because the UNT "family" doesn't want it either. No way that the citizenry of Denton, the faculty at UNT, or the students who love the cheaper tuition will accept a huge sea change in the way we have always run athletics for decades...it ain't happening.

Coach Mac ain't going anywhere--at the very earliest, it would be 2017, and if announces he wants to retire after 2018, his last year of his contract, he'll get to do that, too. I don't think any AD will do much better at winning in sports people care about just because the BOR and administration don't care about winning. Do I think that RV should keep his job? No I don't--his revenue sports hires/extensions have generally been atroicous. The other sports don't matter--they don't bring in revenue or publicity to the university. Even womens hoops is barely on the radar for this, but it does count. The other two sports are where you can make your money. RV has hired or extended Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, Dan McCarney, Shanice Stephens, Karen Aston, Rick Petersen, Johnny Jones, and Tony Benford. A few hits, but a lot of strikeouts. Our big donors like being close to the AD--it makes them feel like their buddies that went to Texas , A&M, Tech, etc...who have access to the ADs there. Only problem is that we don't have anywhere close to the number of big donors that they do, nor do we have enough younger donors in their 40s-60s, since we basically gave up the sport of football for the 80s and 90s. So those big donors really don't have to worry about any pressure on RV from other donors. They know the BOR doesn't care if we win or not, they just care that he keeps us in budget. RV will be here longer going forward than McCarney, Benford, and Petersen combined if he wants to. I have no doubt about this. He gets extended when we lose big time in these sports, just like Lee Jackson gets extended even with the stuff that has happened on his watch. Call it cronyism, call it prioritizing, etc...The BOR cares about music, arts, education, and keeping it all at a low cost. That has always been their mission, thru the decades--to think otherwise about it ever changing is defying all of that history, both short-term and long-term. We don't care about winning here, it just doesn't matter. We care about three things when it comes to athletics, in this order: Stay within budget, don't commit anything illegal to get in trouble, and have tailgating open to get the people who care about sports the opportunity to have a good time together. Nothing else...

Actually, the problem is that it has been quite acceptable...

UTSA absolutely owns us in every revenue sport...

I am here because they are my team, nothing more and nothing less. I have learned that to have expectations of any kind of a winner here are basically useless until the BOR makes losing unacceptable. The only thing that is unacceptable is going overbudget. SO to say that even going 0-12 in 2015 would cost McCarney his job is baseless--the coordinators might get canned, but he won't. Simlar to what has been mentioned, 2015 is a "regrouping year" to me. See if you can find players for the next few years, see if you have kids that want to get stronger and faster and better, both in the weight room and on the field. We aren't going to win more than 5 games this upcoming year, based on the schedule and the personnel we have (or don't have) right now. Seriously, I think 3-9 is probably what we see here. You have to find a QB, but McNulty is going to be that guy this year and even if he improves, he is still a senior, so you got to find someone you feel good about driving the bus in the 2016 season. The reasons we haven't a good QB is that the two main coaches in that timeframe, Dickey and McCarney, prefer a run-based offense to a throw-it around spread offense. The one coach we had that liked to throw it around, Todd Dodge, put almost nothing into offensive line strength, so Vizza, Riley, Nathan Tune, etc...got their brains beat in. Now that we are back to the bus-driver du jour offensive mindset, combined with 95% of the Texas HS teams throwing, getting a really good play-making QB isn't going to happen. Scott Halll and Derek Thompson are both going to be your standard-bearers for the QB position here when the bus driver is all that is demanded from the spot.

The leftovers in the current CUSA are Marshall, Southern Miss, UAB, Rice, and UTEP. Two of which provide no TV market, one of which is private and already has a much bigger public school in its market, one who was about to die off as a football program, and the last one is too far to the west to have gotten into the AAC. CUSA added us to replace SMU, UTSA to replace UH, La Tech to eventually replace Tulane, Charlotte and ODU to eventually replace ECU, FIU and FAU to replace UCF, MUTS to replace Memphis, and WKU repalced Tulsa. La Tech and UTSA came from the WAC that died off, ODU and Charlotte moved up from FCS, and the rest (5 teams) were from the SBC. Its much better than the old SBC we were in, but not nearly as good as we had hoped when we took SMU's spot and thought we had ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa still in the conference. I'm just forever grateful that SMU got the invite to the old Big East that is now the AAC. If they hadn't left, La Tech or UTSA would've replaced us, meaning we would have been stuck in the SBC for years to come.

I think we will be ok here. The coaching staff develops linemen better than any other position on the team. Even though last year was a disappointment, I still think we will see a decent OL, even if its new. NOw, teh DLine, that's another story...even with the experience they got last year, they are still really undersized and not that great at putting consistent pressure on the QB.

And always comes in under budget!!

Let's say that we get good QB play this year. Like as good or better than DT in 2013...what does that mean for us? Look at the schedule and you'll see that it means we might get to 5 wins at best. It means we beat SMU and Portland State for sure, then we win games against at Southern Miss, UTSA, and UTEP. Maybe we steal another one, but I don't see where we have a defense or special teams play to get us above 6 wins against the rest of our schedule: Rice, @Iowa, WKU, @ Marshall, @ La Tech, @ Tennessee, and @ MUTS. To me, good QB play gets us to 5 wins. Average play get us 3-4 wins. Bad QB play gets us 2 or less. The QB has to make up for a small defense that needs lots of improvement, as well as to deal with a brand new OL. He's gonna have to make plays happen, often on his own. With that siad, now imagein everything I just desribed needing to happen at that position, then look at McNulty as your QB. That's how I think 3-4 wins is our ceiling and should be the expectation this upcoming season. And that's actually expecting to see some improvement from McNulty. The schedule is not Helwig-brutal, but its by far the hardest we have seen in a long time around here. McCarney and company have their work cut out for them, but he knows that even a 1-11 season won't cost him his job. It would cost Chico his, but not Mac's because of the buyout.

Mostly just sad...since UTSA has surpassed us in a very short time. I cannot believe that we haven't beaten them yet.

If we are, then we aren't winning more than a game all season

FIFY