SleepingGiantsFan

I want to congratulate you guys on what I think was an extremely successful hiring process! I also want to congratulate you on having an athletic director not afraid to take heat for spending money to hire Chuck Neinas and not just doing things the easy way and promoting Mike Canales. And also for hiring a coach with the guts to hire a guy as one of his coordinators whom he knew many wanted to get the top job. Many head coaches are so paranoid they would be threatened by somebody like Canales. So props to McCarney on that. With apologies to FirefighterRick ( ) I'll just mention SDSU this last time. We won exactly two games two years ago. Now we're getting votes in the AP poll and Rivals has us as the 27th best team in the country. Brady Hoke gets all the credit but at least as important has been his staff as a whole, including DC Rocky Long, who Brady didn't worry some might think should be the top guy if the team struggled a bit. Seems that McCarney has the same philosophy. I'll be following your program to watch the fruits of your efforts during this process. Again, MAJOR congratulations!

I'm not being at all critical in asking this so please don't take it that way but who WOULD be "exciting" who is a legitimate candidate? No disrespect but Mike Leach can't possibly have ever been. I haven't heard Mark Stoops' name for a couple weeks which would lead me to believe that as often happens in these things, UNT (or Neinas specifically) contacted him but after learning the specifics, Stoops withdrew his name from consideration. Franchione? Leavitt maybe? Y'all can guess the reason(s) if it isn't going to be them, right? Anyway, McCarney may be an unexciting name but I think if you get him, you will be at least satisfied in hindsight since I think he will out-coach many of his peers in the Sun Belt. The key will be what kind of staff he puts together and considering his experience, my guess is it will be a good one. Edit: Well, this one earned me my first official -1. Guess it's time to leave. In all honesty, I wish you folks very good luck in the future!

Some pundits out there are idiots but Tom Dienhart isn't one of them.

Props to you for the work. Note that all seven of those guys inherited a steaming pile of dog poop. The only guy that comes to my mind who inherited a team that bad and turned things around immediately was Mike Price at UTEP and that was a unique situation. Gary Nord had redshirted everybody and their brother for two consecutive seasons in anticipation of putting it all together in 2004 but was fired before he got the chance and Price was the beneficiary of Nord's sacrifices. Unless UNT has been doing the same, it can't be expected that you guys will immediately win six more games like that - although with the horrendous job Dodge did, some instant improvement is inevitable.

That's an excellent analysis. No way is a Big Ten school which also has a brand new stadium going to have to settle for McCarney. My guess is they open up their wallet and offer Kevin Sumlin a big contract and he leaves Houston.

Saying McCarney would be a safe hire is a very good way to put it. in contrast, here's what SDSU's then athletic director told my friend was the reason he didn't hire Dennis Erickson: "Because I couldn't have controlled him." That was the hire during which SDSU used Chuck Neinas. Might Neinas lead your AD to think the same of Franchione? (BTW, I heard from another friend who heard it from the horse's mouth that Erickson could tell from his interview at SDSU that he wasn't going to be offered the job. The reason has to do with the kind of personal conduct issues that Neinas is known to be great at discovering because of all his contacts. Oh and I think ASU would hire anybody. Certainly it appears as though no ASU coach has ever had a problem getting a football player admitted. And yes, if you infer from that I don't have much respect for ASU as an academic institution, you've got it right.)

Consider this. In 2012, San Jose State will be the only one of the 16 schools which comprised the WAC in 1998 which will still be a member. Isn't that all UNT should need to know about that sinking ship?

I should add that at the time, I was unaware that Neinas claimed to be not just a headhunter, but a "representative" of coaches. If that's accurate as one publication linked here reported, he sure better not be recommending any of coaches for which he is a representative. That kind of direct conflict of interest would get him in trouble with the bar if he were an attorney so although he doesn't have to worry about losing his license since there is none in his profession, I sure have to think that McCarney is NOT a client of his, nor is Leavitt, Kragthorpe or one of the other names which has arisen.

Kragthorpe. Mason. Leavitt. McCarney. I would have expected UNT to get interest from one such coach with substantial experience at a higher level conference. Maybe two. But four? Sure looks like building that stadium has gotten the attention of more people than just me and that Missouri fan.

Mason did an excellent job at Minnesota. That despite the fact that unlike Clem Haskins, his players actually attended class. Why he fails to get another gig is beyond me.

In order not to get into hot water with the BCA, it's almost essential to have a finalist who is a member of a minority group. My comments about the article: 1. If Neinas is in fact now both a headhunter and a coaches agent, if that's not unethical, it's pretty close to it. (Sorry, Chuck, if you're reading along but I'll bet everybody on this board would feel that way.) 2. If UNT actually does have half a mil to 650 G's to pay for a coach, that's a very good thing. 3. Kragthorpe and McCarney need to get back into the head coaching ranks soon or they will never get another chance. So based on the money you supposedly have, my guess is both are within reach. 4. I've heard rumors that Bobby Petrino won big at Louisville to a certain extent that he brought in a bunch of bad character guys and that Kragthorpe was told to rid the program of such players. So that would partially explain his problems there. Still, as was discussed by several pundits, during Krgathorpe's final season it appeared as though the team had quit on him. 5. McCarney may have taken a while to get it in gear at Iowa State, but along with Baylor, that's the worst job in the Big 12. Maybe worse than Baylor in the sense that at least Waco is fairly close to a lot of DIA football talent. I've been to Ames and although it's a nice enough little town, it isn't close to anything. So I suspect if you guys hire McCarney, you're going to have some really pissed fans. However, I think that if he hired some assistants who have recruiting contacts in Texas, you could have yourself a good coach. Also, it seems to me that as long as McCarney coached at Iowa, even though they're in the Big 12 North, he may have some in-state contacts of his own. Edit: BTW, I checked and McCarney had losing seasons his first five years at ISU. However, the Cyclones then went to bowl games five out of the next seven years. That says to me that once he got his own players in there, he did an impressive job.

Thanks for that. I'm honestly trying not to. Rather, I'm trying to encourage you guys to look at all the pluses and minuses of every candidate. In other words, to not do what several of your fans appear to be doing and absolutely make up your mind about one candidate over the various others at this point. All have both benefits and detriments and really only somebody like Chuck Neinas, who has a myriad of confidential contacts from whom information can be obtained, is capable of judging the best candidate. Oh and BTW, I'm not necessarily a fan of Neinas. As an example, when it was first announced that SDSU had hired him, I was pretty skeptical. Then after Chuck Long hired Neinas' kid to be his special teams coach, I was REALLY skeptical. But I learned that Neinas didn't recommend Chuck, but rather Jimbo Fisher, and Chuck proved himself to be completely unready to be a DIA head coach. I don't know whether Fisher was ready at that time either, but Chuck did such a miserable job that I'm absolutely certain that Jimbo would have been considerably better.

My first reason is selfish. That is, I don't want additions to the MWC that I view as being next to worthless. Utah State is one such possible addition. They have a very good basketball program, but so what? Basketball almost doesn't matter in the scheme of things. I've said that football amounts to 75% of the basis of why a school should be added to a conference and men's BB means about 20% and USU football has been terrible. The Aztecs beat USU 41-7 this year in a game I attended and I can tell you the score could have been 55-0 had SDSU not muffed a punt at its seven yard line and had our coaches not run the clock out early in the fourth quarter. (TCU could have beaten Utah State, which has a good QB and not much else, 76-0 this year.) My second reason is simply envy and curiosity. First, SDSU fans have wanted to stop being the Chargers' little brother for years. That means building our own stadium to get out from under those guys. So I applaud UNT for getting that done when we can't seem to do so. (I think we have some tightwad rich - not merely wealthy - alumni who are to blame for refusing to open their wallets, but I digress.) I'm also desirous of seeing you guys actually manage to make a good hire. I'm not really being critical when I say that since SDSU made two consecutive terrible head football coach hires. You guys just made one horrific one yourselves in Todd Dodge so I sure hope your administration isn't as stupid as ours was. Time will tell. I would be inclined to be optimistic but SDSU hired Chuck Neinas and then ignored what he recommended. so I'm interested to see if your AD does the same. Anyway, I assure you I mean no harm. In fact, I wish nothing but the best for your guys.

This. And the reason is it shows a commitment to football that conferences are looking for. That would be as opposed to UNLV, which pays its head football coach far less than anybody else in the MWC, and which has fans who openly advocate dropping the sport.

There are a few uninformed posters on the MWC board who think the conference should take Utah State in order to recapture the Utah TV market with the impending exit of BYU and Utah. Problem is nobody outside Utah cares a whit about USU nor does anybody in the state except the limited population that is north of SLC. Further, BYU and Utah capture what little HS football talent there is there and USU's basketball program doesn't justify adding the additional mouth to feed. Aside from Utah State basketball, there will be no team within the WAC with any visibility outside its own geographic area once Boise, UNR, Fresno and Hawaii leave. San Jose State is close to shutting down its football program, LA Tech will probably be asked to join CUSA if the Big East poaches East Carolina and/or UCF. Bottom line is the WAC is almost dead. That's unfortunate for the MWC in the sense it limits the obvious choices for expansion. However, given your geography, it will open things up for you. I mean, in my view, UNT potentially offers far more than Utah State or New Mexico State. But to repeat, since it's all about football, particularly since you're opening a new stadium, this hire is crucial for you folks.