NT80

Interesting timing...BOR meeting today about coaching stuff....Fisher interview this weekend.....hummm?

LSU: Jimbo Fisher bio and photo Has a nice resume of offense and recruiting like we've wanted. Interesting candidate.

Men's basketball is wearing the new green this year with new unis and logo, looks very good.

Hope so. I'm just beat down with all the changing speculation and ready to get it over with....as long as it's Dodge!

If you can predict 4-5 years in the future then you should have told RV to fire DD after 2004! Nix may turn into a very good HC someday, or not, nobody knows. An assistant's job performance vs. someone already doing a HC job is the main perk I saw of Dodge over Nix. And it was RV's decision to pursue or not, not ours.

If all that happened, Harry better find extra back-up capacity for this site!

Good luck with all that. New head coaches won't hand over OC to a guy they don't know and let him make up the playbook. And I doubt TD would work under someone else's offensive scheme just to get an OC job at NT (again).

Blake mentioned here (when the site comes back up)...

Patience, you don't know who RV has contacted yet. ps - I don't know either, I just wanted to use the

Posted on Thu, Nov. 30, 2006 COLLEGE FOOTBALL INSIDER Musical coaches is just plain silly By Wendell Barnhouse Star-Telegram Staff Writer Golf has its "silly season." The Skins Game, the Father-Son Challenge, the 3-Tour Challenge, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah. At least that involves the human drama of athletic competition, contrived or not. College football has its own silly season, and it's currently in full swing (pardon the golf analogy/pun) as schools dismiss coaches or coaches resign under the threat of dismissal. The silly season events include Track The Private Jet, Speculate On The Successor, Guess The Candidates and Second-Guess The Hire. Praise or denounce Al Gore, but if not for his Internet invention, none of this would be possible. In the space of a few days, Miami (Larry Coker, gone), Arizona State (Dirk Koetter, see ya) and Alabama (Mike Shula, outta here) all posted "head football coach wanted" signs. And while those jobs became available, Iowa State (Gene Chizik, welcome) and Michigan State (Mark Dantonio, how ya doin'?) were hired. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard kept Chizik's hiring a secret until the private plane carrying the coach and his family landed in Corn Country on Monday. Not that Cyclones fans and members of the media didn't try to crack the code. There's a Web site called FlightAware that allows anyone to track flights, providing you have the aircraft's registration numbers. A private jet owned by Iowa State flew from Ames to Dallas on Saturday. And Chizik arrived in Ames on a Raytheon Hawker 800 twin-jet owned by Troy Aikman. (Inside info doesn't get any better than that.) No doubt every Alabama fan with a computer and high-speed modem has added FlightAware to their favorites. The Crimson Tide needs to hire its fifth coach of the New Millennium. This is serious stuff. That is, if you can keep from chuckling. Since Friday, when the Miami job came open, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier has one victory over Clemson and two news releases. He has had to issue "not interested" statements regarding Miami and Alabama. Denying interest, though, doesn't stop the rumor mill. An Alabama school jet supposedly was in Clemson for Saturday's South Carolina game. And Spurrier's wife has been spotted in Tuscaloosa (house hunting, of course). Shula's resignation was a Sunday Night Surprise. 'Bama fans went to bed assuming that Don's son was safe for another year. They awoke Monday morning to "Shula Fired" headlines. Moments after it became news, the fake news took over. Speculation on Shula's successor ranged from Spurrier to Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban to Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer to West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez to Louisville's Bobby Petrino. About the only coaches not on the guess list are Dennis Franchione and Mike Price. At least Michigan State can look forward to a new day with a new coach who has yet to fritter away second-half leads to Notre Dame or step on any political land mines. Michigan State's search appeared to be focused on Central Michigan coach Brian Kelly (who also appeared to be Iowa State's top target). MSU President Lou Anna Simon was a Kelly girl until the board of trustees settled on Dantonio. The divisiveness could have cost Michigan State the chance to hire either one. At Monday's news conference, Michigan State's pooh-bahs explained how they had reached a mutual happy place. After about 30 minutes, somebody remembered to introduce the new football coach. How silly was that?

Both CUSA and the WAC evaluated NT. The WAC was rumored to have offered and we turned it down unless we could bring 3 other SBC schools; CUSA offered UTEP instead of us or La Tech. More CUSA openings are expected if they lose a school(s) to the Big East. We are still working on some deficiencies like lack of baseball, football facility, attendance.

Wow, that's a change from earlier today. The UAB fan board was almost suicidal thinking they had Sullivan promoted to HC.

Some media reports appear to be almost self-promotion for the applicant, no contact from UNT but they mention the past relationship with RV...

They only focused on the B©S schools, Bama, Az. St., Miami. They also razed AD's who use search firms or headhunters to find their head coaches for them instead of finding the guy themselves. Later during the game one announcer quizzed the other on who would be CMU's opponent in the Motor City Bowl...the guy answered TBA and was supposed to know the smaller bowl matchups....the TV truck crew hinted to them it was to be Middle Tennessee, and the guy still acted like "who?".

No thanks, ask OU for references. Next.....

They will talk about current coaching vacancies and who might fit where. Also deal or no deal for college AD's?

Most media names floated have said they have NOT been contacted, and no official interviews that I've seen reported. Sullivan and Nix were contacted but was that out of courtesy or requirement as some have suggested? Chambers was rumored to have been contacted and offered but he's not worked with RV before. The silence from RV and the timing of the BOR meeting tomorrow could mean something. I know he was reading on here today and I'm sure (or hope) he knows our stance on most applicants....***hire Dodge***......

Hummm, sounds like a lot of applicant-wishing going on here. Is the media helping to float these names to drum up interest in them? "GMG's Harry also expressed interest in the job but has not heard from UNT."

More National media for Dodge...recruits watching....what more could we want than for him to be named UNT coach BEFORE he does that game...imagine the numerous UNT references on National TV!

Crowd Control Officer?

Eventually, a strip of the golf course land across from Fouts and bordering the I-35E service road between Bonnie Brae and the Radisson will be developed. It is masterplanned as commerical (restaurants, shops, etc.) and next door to the site for the new stadium.

I can find no confirmation of this from ESPN or any media outlets. Where did you hear this? In fact, the Birmingham paper says he is the top choice for the Samford HC job and on the list for UNT...... The Birmingham News Sullivan sits atop Bulldogs' short list Wednesday, November 29, 2006 MIKE PERRIN and STEVE IRVINE News staff writers UAB assistant head football coach Pat Sullivan has emerged as the top candidate for the head job at Samford University. Sullivan, 56, is atop a list of more than a dozen candidates being considered by Samford Athletics Director Bob Roller to replace Bill Gray. Roller said he had not yet conducted interviews with any potential coaches. "Pat is a unique candidate," Roller said Tuesday. "He offers a unique opportunity that's worth pursuing. We're not at all at that stage, though." Sullivan, who came to UAB in 1999, has been mentioned as a possible successor to Blazers coach Watson Brown and is also in the mix in the hunt for a new coach at North Texas. "Yes, I did talk to Samford and I'm looking forward to talking to them again," Sullivan said. The Auburn Heisman Trophy winner worked with the running backs this season for the Blazers and from 1999-2005 he was offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach. In that role, he tutored Darrell Hackney on his way to becoming one of the most prolific passers in Conference USA history. Sullivan was head coach at TCU from 1992 to'97, where he signed LaDainian Tomlinson, and was an assistant for six years at Auburn under Pat Dye. He was a finalist last year for the head coaching position at Middle Tennessee State and as quarterbacks coach at the University of Arkansas. A Birmingham native, Sullivan starred at John Carroll Catholic High School. He was a two-time All-American at Auburn and is a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame. Roller said there was no timetable for making the hire, but that the process could move quickly. He said the potential candidates range from current college head coaches to Division I-A associate head coaches to the NFL and the high school ranks. Samford is also considering Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Mike MacIntyre. MacIntyre is in his fourth year as a Cowboys' assistant. He coaches safeties for Bill Parcells and is the son of former Vanderbilt head coach George MacIntyre. The 41-year-old MacIntyre played two years at Vandy and two years at Georgia Tech, where he graduated with a business management degree. He earned a master's degree while serving as a graduate assistant at the University of Georgia. He was defensive coordinator at Davidson College in 1992.

To me a larger concern than recruiting is hiring someone that has never been a head coach at any level. Assistants don't always make the best leaders. Many new head coaches struggle to compile an effective staff then organize them, much less a playbook or system of their own. Then there's the PR factor...can they fundraise, speak to an audience or media effectively? Many assistants have never had to.

I think this very much relates to the current coaching search. This could be the "permission to hire" needed by RV if he finds the right coach for the right price (as signed off on by the BOR). If the job has to be advertised for 30 days and the BOR gives it's approval to contract stipulations then we could see some action very soon after this meeting. Could any specific names come up at this meeting?

UAB: Pat Sullivan bio and photo