untjim1995

My point is this--even if we compete for CUSA titles (like last year), our recruiting can still suck because we may have to just depend on development here versus getting in recruits who can contribute right away at a higher level than "oh he did awesome against Nicholls State as a sophomore, so I bet he's the QB for the future here for sure." Not that you personally think that, because I know you don't, but there is just not much here on this roster that is developed talent. And we cannot take away from the fact that CUSA today is mostly the SBC 2.0. I will say this: I thought we had a fully developed and talented OLine, but they have sucked something fierce so far, in my opinion, which also hurts McCarney's coaching directly. This was supposed to be the one area he was damn near a coaching genius at, so it would attract better linemen prospects in HS. I say this because he has a lot of blame in this mess, too, not just the school and its warts that don't seem to get removed completely (or at all). But I do think that his positivity is starting to get dulled by the realities he faces here. I think the uncomfortable reality here isn't that Mac might not be there right guy here--it may be that there is no right guy who can make it succeed here for the long-term.

To me, if Dan McCarney is saying this stuff in his 4th year here, it should send a huge alarm to all of us that somehow still care about this program that there may not EVER be the right guy here...there may just be too much to overcome here to be a consistent winner at the FBS level. I know some will point to the Dickey years that we won, but we had three winning seasons in a row, and the last one in 2004, we only beat the SBC teams we played--we even lost to FAU at home when they weren't even in the conference yet that year. So, to me, the 2002 and 2003 teams, are the only time I have seen a consistent winner that was able to play with almost anybody. Other than those two years and last season, the other years have been mediocre to oh-my-gawd-this-is-how-my-alma-mater-plays-football bad. I'll always follow this program because they are mine. But I always tell my friends and co-workers that my favorite team doesn't play football at the same level as their favorite P5 program, that the field is too tilted to their advantage. My team plays at the G5 level, against teams that we should be able to compete with, UAB game this past weekend notwithstanding. But I don't believe that there is anything from the past or present that makes me believe it is anything but hard to coach here--from recruiting players, building a fanbase, and funding the program, nothing about that has been anything but difficult. And I would bet a large sum of money that Coach Mac never thought this job could prove to still be this hard after almost 4 years of being here, especially coming after a 9 win season and a bowl win in front of 40k UNT fans. Frankly, I didn't think it would be, either, which is why this all worries me as much as it now does.

To me, its because Arkansas and Louisiana are amongst quite a few southern states that have tons of talent, but that talent often times stays in state at the G5 level. And when you are the only G5 options in a state, like Arky State is in Arkansas or USM is in Mississippi, you are gonna catch some good kids. In Louisiana, where you have a few more options on the G5 side of things, you look at what ULL has done to distinguish themselves from being looked at like ULM is--they have increased funding and coaching pay bigtime, and they have seen a huge uptick in attendance. And they have won bowl games recently--not just one, but a couple of them. To me, they are like La Tech--they get solid talent there for a state that has a lot to choose from. Here in Texas, you have 7 G5 schools to recruit against. Not one of them is branded as poorly as we are with parents and Texas HS coaches. The worst of the branding is one that we really cannot get out from underneath--apathy. You can be a loser, but if you have pride amongst the alumni, student body, and local citiznery, then you can attract some quality people--both in coaches and in players. I still believe with all my heart that Coach Mac never imagined it could be this hard here to continuously sell the program--not to fans, not to recruits, not to the media, and not to the alumni. I think he felt like if Hayden could accomplish what he did here when the school and the town were much smaller, imagine what we could do TODAY if we turn this into a winner, with all of these people around here. Its gonna be like South Florida or Central Florida all over again. Well, its becoming rather apparent that this is not the same situation. The only schools that come close to mimicking our situation in terms of size, location, and dealing with larger institutions that get all of the main interest from fans and the media is San Jose State. They play in the hear of the pac-12, just as we play in the heart of the Big 12. They are outside of SF and Oakland, but not by much, but the media out there cover Stanford and Cal first, the rest of the Pac-12 second, then the rest of the P5, then you get to them. Sound familar? Its gonna take a person of McCarney's ilk to stick this out and build into a winner and somehow change the perception up here of the school. Otherwise, he's gonna do what Fry did or he's gonna end up getting fired like Dickey did--he's gonna get fed up around here and either find another job or just give up like DIckey did when he couldn't turn this gig into another one up the foodchain.

I'm right there with you UNT90--accountability has to be there for WINNING, not for cost maintenance or budget lowering. Right now, its hard to argue the fact that RV gets rewarded here for doing what the BOR wants him to do, not because of his choice of coaching hires and winning. RV has on his UNT resume, the success of the last 5 years of Johnny Jones, whom he hired, the HoD Bowl win under Coach Mac, whom he hired, and the SBC Championships under Dickey, whom he extended. But he also has Todd Dodge's tenure to fully own as his own, as well as Tony Benford's embarrassment so far. In your two money sports, at a place that is dirt poor supposedly, none of the three football coaches he has watched over have a winning record. And now his basketball coach he hired to take over for the most successful coach the school has had in decades has almost instantly napalmed the program. But he doesn't fight publicly for an increased fee for athletics and he accepts athletic budget cuts very easily, without public complaint. And he opened up tailgating!!

Basically, you just defined Denton's feelings toward UNT Football for forever...

Man, I think this is the best post I've ever read on this website. Bravo, TFLF!! Coach Mac is being candid and it hurts the feelings of many fans who are pissed that we are not very good--again. I don't blame folks for feeling mad--the truth often does that to people when we don't want to hear it. Mac really is Darrell Dickey with PR skills. HIs gameplan is about as simple as you can make it--it is completely counter to what almost everyone else in college football runs. Its like the triple option at Georgia Tech or Navy. Basically, Stanford and Arkansas are amongst the only schools who still run it up the gut on almost every down and then hit you hard on defense. Old people love this football--and I am old so I can say this. But what kind of Texas HS recruit, who plays offense in the Spread in 99% of all high schools in this state, wants to go play in a throwback (to the 70s) offense? Then ask yourself why didn't we even come close to selling out the SMU home opener? I mean we FINALLY got the team that everyone around here just absolutely loathes and wants to beat badly to come here and play--and we get an announced crowd of about 23k, which was really about 20k. We have 36k students, live in a town with 100k+ people, a county with half a million people, and an alumni base of well over 100k within an hour of this place, all following a bowl winning season and with dreaded SMU in town--and cannot even come close to surpassing the top crowd the place has ever hosted. If I were in his shoes, I'd get "candid" a helluva lot more often than he has. Basically, and this should scare the crap out of everyone that somehow still follows UNT Football after everything this school has tried to do to keep you from following it, this place is making a guy like Dan McCarney, who has the generally shown nothing but the most positive attitude about this place and his job, turn into Darrel freaking Dickey... Brett Vito once said to me, if a guy like McCarney cannot turn it around here with all of the advantages that he has over his predecessors and with all of his experience at big time places, the university is really going to have to ask themselves if this is what they want to keep doing. This is from the beat reporter for the program, the one who talks to coaches, administrators, and local citizens about UNT sports. Not to put words in his mouth, but it seems to me that he is just repeating what he has heard from those he has talked to about the program and the amount of money it is taking to fund this thing. You have to remember that a lot of people associated with UNT or who live in Denton are still not happy about Apogee at all. They think it was unnecessary and hurts the funding for the rest of the school. I, and most here on this site, think this mindset is 100% is wrong, but that thinking has always been here and is still here. That mindset about football at UNT isn't just kept in Denton, folks. It is well-known throughout the Metroplex, from media members to Texas HS football coaches to just normal football fans. To me, that is what is causing Coach Mac to lose his positivity--he cannot figure out how a seemingly perfect setup in THE hotbed of hs football in the country still doesn't resonate with 99% of the people that surround the area. I'm sure he feels like there isn't anything else he can do at this point other than just keep coaching until he either can't (health-wise) or they tell him to leave (which won't be until he has one year left on his contract). I'll say this--what happens AFTER McCarney eventually leaves, retires, or gets fired will tell you all you need to know about how much the university is on board with the football program. If its back to hiring some cheap, no-name assistant who has never been a head coach or even worse, we got back to hiring our third High School coach to take over the reigns of the team, that will be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of the fans who are somehow still here after all these years of mostly futility.

Man, these are all great, but you didn't exaggerate enough on the first line, if we lose--guaranteed lifetime contracts at a minimum for all three... Oh and my prediction: UNT--27 USM--23

I'm afraid those days are way back in the rear-view mirror. I think schools at the top end of the P5 most years can keep a younger coach around for awhile if he wants to stay--like OU has with Stoops. But even at those schools, very few have been at their school for 10 years or more. Usually, they are the ones hiring the G5 coach to try and turn around their programs...

ok

I'd bet you a lot of money that if Todd Dodge had better facilities here when he first got here, he'd have brought in even better classes, just because people had heard of his legacy at SLC--but eventually, his coaching is what killed it for him. I totally agree on Dickey--he was Debbie Downer with a McCarney gameplan. But McCarney's attitude is so upbeat and positive, you'd think it would improve the recruiting here by now. Yet when I meet or talk to high school coaches, they still act like UNT is a wasteland--that McCarney is breath of fresh air, but its almost always followed with a "you know, he has his work cut out for him there..."

The thing about a Qb like Dajon is that he has so much upside, you have to play him becuase he miles ahead of the other QBs on the roster who have proven they cannot play at this level. Maybe Dajon proves to be the same way, but he is only a freshman. You just have to try and develop him into something positive. The main problem with him, in my opinion, is that he isn't a bus driver type QB, which is what McCarney appears to want for his offense here at UNT. He used a different style at ISU with Seneca Wallace, but that was really about it in his tenure in AmeS. Dajon could really elevate this program over the next couple of years IF he gets it all together. If not, he might just be the proverbial coach-killer.

In my opinion, part of it is that it is just football. Teams get plastered sometimes. The snowball turns into an avalanche. You don't think the folks as La Tech and Southern Miss weren't saying the same things about us after we demolished both of them last year? I guess we really pounded them both on the recruiting front, right? Nope. In reality, our recruiting rankings are never as good as theirs. Why? Well, part of it is due to the fact that they are in talented hotbeds without a ton of G5 choices around them. Part of it is also having a winning tradition and several great wins over teams that people care about. Plus, they often get to show off to recruits when they host P5 schools--either at their place or close by in Shreveport like La Tech does. Nebraska and Texas A&M have played at USM. Texas A&M and Miami have played in Shreveport against La Tech in previous years. It doesn't matter if you lose those games in terms of recruiting because their parents and coaches like the fact that they can watch their kids play a big time school at or near home--they aren't losing a recruit to A&M because its already an unwinnable battle on that front. But you can beat the hell out of other G5s for recruits when you get to say that we played the Heisman Trophy winner to a near draw, like La Tech got to say a couple of years ago. I'm just saying--if the question is why has our recruiting always sucked and continues to suck, it isn't because UAB kicked our ass last week. Its because UAB has some very good talent in Alabama to choose from that is not going to Bama or Auburn, but will stay at home at UAB or Troy. Same with La Tech--kids that don't go to LSU, but stay in Louisiana are looking at LT, ULL, or Tulane. Meanwhile, we compete for recruits against former SWC mates in UH, SMU, and Rice, current CUSA teams who literally have none of the issues we carry in UTSA and UTEP. Add in the fact that all of the previous G5 teams listed, plus Tulsa, also recruit this area hard and you have all of that competition to fight against--while wearing an albatross of being a long-time loser and having major apathy among your students, alumni, and local citizenry. You can call this all excuses--and they all are just that. But they are self-inflicted wounds that were started 30+ years before we finally decided to try and stop overdosing ourselves. To me, if a guy like Dan McCarney cannot improve recruiting here, with all of that charisma and positivity he carries with him, then you have to ask yourself why recruiting never improves decidely here, when we play in the hottest of hotbeds for recruiting. It ain't all on Coach Mac, just like it wasn't on Todd Dodge, Darrell Dickey, or Matt Simon. Moving up to Division 1-A in 1995, winning SBC Championships and a NO Bowl from 2001-2005, hiring the top HS coach in the state in 2007, building a new state-of-the-art stadium in 2011, hiring a coach who has had success as an actual college head coach in 2011, and joining a better conference in 2013 has equaled an annual recruiting ranking of 90+ every year for as long as you want to look back, usually in the 100s. Classes that low have to be developed--they aren't going to be full of playmakers in their first couple of years. So all we can do is wait to see if that happens again, as it did finally in 2013. And Coach Mac has the luxury of having time to develop it all again, due to the recent extension he deservingly received after last year's HoD Bowl win.

I know that many on here don't think this, but I do think Vito is right. I think we are seeing that recruiting here is a hard sell to Texas kids. All that their Texas HS coaches and their parents ahve known about UNT Football since the 80s is that we are losers. Plus, we are the school that allowed football to drop down to i-aa for 12 years. And when we moved back up, we were in the dregs of college football for so long and played at a facility that was way worse than any 4A high school in front of very few people. Even with Apogee as our home now and having a legitimate college coach in charge, we still don't play many teams that draw big crowds. We jump and down about a 25k crowd, but we sit in the 4th largest market in the country. I realize UAB is very poor and play in a dilapidated stadium, but their fans and alumni never saw them drop down to a lower level of football. Plus, in the southern states, where college football is way bigger than pro football, and where poverty is way higher than it is in other parts of the country, a scholarship offer to a school like UAB, Troy, USM, ULaLa, etc...is going to be rewarded by the kids in that state, where options are not nearly as high as they are in Texas. To me, the easiest FBS school in the entire country to recruit against is North Texas. All we are known for is apathy, being an alternative school in many ways, looked at as a commuter school still, and are just known as the team that is a bought win against the P5 schools. I'm not even counting the P5 schools in the area. SMU and Rice sell their private education and academic standing, plus the parents know they are well-thought of by the majority of parents. If you are UTEP, UTSA, or Texas State, you are saying that we will get better support in attendance and we have better opponents that will come here and play. In the last two years alone, OU, and Tech have played in El Paso. Tech and Navy have played in San Marcos. Okie State and Arizona have played in the Alamodome. We have played Texas Southern, Idaho, Ball State, SMU, and Nicholls State in Denton. I truly believe this, but if a guy like Dan McCarney, who is amongst the most positive and upbeat people you will ever meet, and has a track record of building a winner from the ground up, cannot win recruiting battles, then you really have to ask yourself if its the staff or the university. I'm not saying his coaching isn't part of it, because that wouldn't be fair. And, yes, you can find examples of Jamario Thomas, Brandon Kennedy, Gio Vizza, Riley Dodge, and others who were highly ranked out of high school and came here as a freshman, but they are clearly the exception to the rule. Otherwise, we wouldn't have such low ranked classes no matter who is the coach. Whether it was Dickey, Dodge, or McCarney, our classes are almost always in the 100s when they get graded against others. We were always told to wait until we get a more exciting coach in here or wait until we build a winner or wait until we get a brand new stadium and join a better conference, that will change everything. I've seen us win the SBC 4 times, I've seen us hire the top HS coach in the state and watched him bring his highly ranked son here to play QB, I've seen us build a new stadium, I've seen us join a new conference, and I've seen us build back up from the ashes to win a bowl game in front of 40k fans on New Years Day. And the recruiting never changes... To me, the only way you win at this school is to have upper classmen as the majority of your starters who have been developed into something. I think about our bowl teams in 2002, 2003, and 2013. Upperclassmen at key positions for the most part. Otherwise, you go back to years like we have seen this year. Until recruits want to come here--and what QB wants to come and hand off most downs here when almost every single Texas HS runs the spread, you are just going to have develop the talent. The hardest part about that as a fan is that you get a lot of blowouts like we got this past weekend while you wait for things to get better.

I don't agree on Mac being on this list, but the others on the list are either understandable (Canales) or deserved (Jackson, RV, and Benford). That said, when have you ever seen the university fire someone before it was deemed "affordable" to do or at the appropriate time, you know, say like when there is an accounting scandal that will cost the university $75 million or so? You have a better chance of winning the lottery than to have UNT fire all of the people you listed above with the next 2-3 years.

The RIce game was our low point as a Division 1 program. We could have lost that game 100+ to 20, except Rice called off the dogs. RIce--I don't care if they won 9 games or not--should never ebat anyone in this state by that kind of score. The UAB game was terrible--no doubt about it. But we aren't in the midst of winning one game in the crappiest conference in FBS with a HS coach in charge. The only thing that Dodge's 1-11 team has on this is at QB, which is very telling right now. Everything else, no matter how bad it is right now, is still better than that team was.

To me, the recruiting issues are on the university as much as they are on him. He is fighting 11 other FBS teams in this state alone, of which only Texas State is below us conference wise. But none of them have as much to overcome with Texas HS coaches and parents as we do--we have not given any of them any reason to take us serious for decades. I think Coach Mac has finally started to get some things going in recruiting for the strength of his coaching, offensive linemen, but no QB in the state that is used to throwing the ball around in HS is going to jump and down to come play in this throwback offense. Best type of QB we can hope for is like Dajon--a hybrid, dual QB that has the ability to make the defense aware of both his running and passing. I go back to McCarney's days at Iowa State--he took 5 years to build a winner there, but really hit his stride in about year 6 and year 7 of his tenure in Ames. My guess is that we will see a nice rebound next year, assuming that Dajon can play QB at this level and actually stays in good shape. To me, that make sense when you are trying to develop a new QB and your defensive front seven isn't very experienced or strong yet. But they will get there--McCarney has proven that wherever he has coached.

sadly, it is very believable...

I'd like our chances--or just about any other G5 school in America--with Marshall's schedule this year. But I do give Marshall big time credit for something--their administration basically told the AD to make a very manageable schedule for their team and if they do what they think they could accomplish, they might just make up the revenue from a guaranteed ass-whipping to some P5 powerhouse by getting ranked and possibly earning a BCS bowl game spot. Imagine that, UNT administration and BOR!! A school that is in podunk West Virginia and is in the same conference as us has basically said, we are gonna try to make money by investing in the program and helping it to become a big winner that will get ranked, which is far from guaranteed, but the KNOWN COSTS aren't going to dictate the budgeting decisions for the best window of advertising the university has to offer to the general public and alumni base--what a crazy scheme they are trying!! Marsahll is really jeopardizing their ranking, though, on the Best College Value Rankings list...

The only game we lost that most on this board thought we would win was the La Tech game, where our Qb play was below acceptable for Denton High's JV QB. We have found a better replacement, even if he isn't as good as we want him to be right now. Everyone basically felt that we would lose to UT and IU, and many on here felt like we would actually get beat by SMU (that alone may have turned out to be the worst prediction we have ever seen on gmg.com). Now, we play teams that we are mostly level with in CUSA play. @UAB, USM, @Rice, FAU, @UTEP, FIU, @UTSA. The CBS rankings have USM @ #114, UTSA @ #109, UTEP @ #103, Rice @ #102, FAU @ #101, UAB @ #96, and FIU @ 93--we are ranked at #99. If we cannot beat 4 out of the 7 teams on this list, which also has SMU @ 125 out of 128 schools, then we have the right to gripe about the direction of the program. Otherwise, I suspect that we will end up 6-6 at the end of the year, with wins over USM, FAU, and FIU, as well at least one win on the road against UAB, RIce, UTEP, and UTSA. The best news I can offer to you all is this: In the G5, we are ranked ahead of 26 of the teams with the second youngest team in the nation, while 33 are ahead of us in a rebuilding year. With a decent 4-3 or better finish, which I expect, we will probably be higher on the G5 list at the end of the year. That is why I trust Coach Mac to continue the momentum with this program. Don't get caught up in the Criminal 5 rankings--all of them SHOULD be higher than all but 1 or 2 G5 teams ALWAYS. P5 teams like Vandy and ISU that are ranked below us on the overall rankings should just be ashamed of not using their resources very well or allowing themselves to just be a paid whore for their Criminal 5 conference.

George Dunham does more for this university everyday than anyone else in administration at UNT, in terms of promotion and connecting to alums and fans. We are so lucky to have him--same with Hank, too. Hank and his family love the Mean Green. He once told me that he and his kids bleed green--and this is a guy who graduated from Kansas, where they have plenty of tradition from their athletic programs. Their broadcasts are thoroughly enjoyable and professional. As for the guy who trolled on the Mercer thing, they have put that behind them. And putting George in as play-by-play lead at the time was still the best thing the university could've done, since his growing popularity from The Ticket was catipulting his name throughout the area as a great sports broadcaster. But I'm sure that the poster who trolled with this has never gotten a promotion over someone else that got demoted, so I'm sure there are no glass houses here at all... Finally, the Aggie broadcast is such a joke that most Aggies will tell you they cannot stand listening to Dave South call a game. From calling everyplay as "we" to making very professional calls, such as "He is a Touchdown", most younger Aggies recognize the embarrassment there. Its the older Aggies that won't ever let him go.

I'm afraid that this isn't something that is gonna change here anytime soon. We have literally changed the shade of green, the mascot, the name of the mascot, and the design on the helmet so often in the last 40 years, to get everyone on the same page is not something that UNT is capable of doing. Add in the fact that a lot of people in Denton just like the "quirkiness" of being different, seeing ten shades of green, with two different mascot names, and 6 different logos will never go away. I wish it would, but I've fully come to believe that i won't ever change.

This is Pitt's way of spiting their old rival, West Virginia. They played forever in the Backyard Brawl when both were either independent or in the Big East together. But then WVU bolted to the Big XII, which meant that Pitt refused to continue that series. Then Pitt got an ACC spot, which WVU coveted forever. Now, Pitt has decided to keep WVU down as much as they can in the region by playing their in-state rival instead. Basically, this would be like TCU and SMU refusing to play each other and one of them substituting the other one for us on their schedule, just to spite the other one.

I totally agree here. I'm not sure there's much he or anyone else can do about it, but they will try to maximize the dollars for whatever content they can provide. I'd pretty much expect that CUSA conference games on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights will become a regular, just like the MAC and the SBC do. Of course, if the G5 actually went in together--I know its a crazy thought--maybe they could actually build a better TV contract for all of them. Hell, maybe they could actually build a better set of CONFERENCES and a better playoff system than the Criminal 5 will do. Oh, never mind...

Here's a good question for all of you? Why wouldn't Kansas call Dan McCarney to be their next head coach? He would be very affordable, which they can use since they have to pay off Weis. Or why wouldn't Coach Mac go up there? He can go there with the idea of rebuilding (his specialty) and go back into a conference he is VERY familiar with. And he and KU would know this is his last stop--however long it lasts. KU fans have watched ol' man Snyder resurrect that KSU program twice and he is still coaching. It would seem like a younger version of Snyder, even with the Fry connection. McCarney's optimism and ability to connect with boosters, alumni, and recruits would be a perfect fit for them. If KU gave him what ISU did--five years to rebuild the worst FBS program in America--I'd think that it would be intriguing to both parties. And, at this point, Canales would almost certainly get RV's support and the BOR's backing to be the new head coach here, since he wouldn't cost much and he has been here for awhile now. Not saying this has a chance of happening, but it doesn't seem that far-fetched to me...

I am often confounded by our recruiting. We sit in this hotbed for recruiting with great facilities and have solid academics with favor admittance standards, yet our classes are always rated low, no matter who the coach is. I don't know if its because a lot of local high school talent just wants to go away for a true college experience further away or if our culture and losing has really soured parents and Texas High School coaches on UNT against other similar schools. I mean, McCarney is such a vibrant and passionate guy--you'd think his optimism would really rub off on the recruits and their parents and coaches. Again, it doesn't matter who the coach has been, the overall class we end up with is never highly rated, and often times, especially under Dodge, those kids we were originally excited about never even came close to playing here or contributing much. But I will say this, as small as we are right now, we looked like the freaking NFL compared to what SMU threw out there in week 2.