BillySee58

Recruits have had access to google for almost 20 years. The point is, at the beginning of their recruitment what they know of college football is Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, USC, and the other big-time programs and players they have seen on national television over the past 5 years or so. 
At the point where we start recruiting them, we can really dictate what their image of UNT is. Sure they can look at our past records on google, but what happened under previous staffs when they were in elementary school or before is not nearly as important to the vast majority of recruits as what is going to happen when they are in college. It is up to coaches as recruiters to sell the recruits on their program and iteration of UNT football.
If the vast majority of recruits we go after are more concerned with how bad our program was before they were even paying attention, and that turns them off from our program then that's on our coaches for not being able to successfully sell the current program to them. 

I don't know why it's such a foreign concept here that a coach could be both. And for $1 million a year he should be

He has officially been removed from the roster. Was on it a couple of days ago. Looks like we're set for 2017-2018

I'd have to imagine in that scenario you pencil in Combs at the 4, Woolridge at point, and Lawson either at the 2 or 3.
After that probably between Smart and Brown to start at the 2. At the other post, I think ideally it would be Brice at center if he can realize his potential, with Arikawe probably next up and Temara as the option if those guys still aren't ready.
I'm really intrigued by Tikhonenko. Hard to find film on him but if he really is a true stretch 4 at 6'10", and he really did have offers on the table from Iowa State, Vandy, and Baylor then he could really be a star in CUSA.

This right here helps illustrate the divide in evaluating this class. What I mean by that is that we were able to bring in some good players and we have some exciting players we added.
However, the disappointing part is how poorly the coaches performed when recruiting against other FBS programs. Bringing in Darden and White was good, but we beat out Texas Southern for Darden and Grambling State for White. Two FCS programs. 
And again, of the 11 commitments we got once the dead period ended (including blueshirts), all 11 appeared to only have us and either FCS schools or  no one actively pursuing them. 
We got some promising guys and time will tell how good this class turns out. What we don't need time to tell is how successful we were recruiting against our FBS peers. That question has already been answered for this class and the results were bad.

Can you respect the sanctity of anonymous sources? Not sure how to word that without sounding like a douche, but when the man comes on here and presents us with exclusive information, the code is to take it however we want without outing his source and potentially cutting off future inside information.

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons.
When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

By my count we were at 69 on scholarship come the day of the bowl game. With 16 scholarship seniors, we're at 53 with apparently 20 spots left (5 going to guys already on the roster). That means if no one leaves, we don't add any blueshirts next fall, and we sign a full class, we're looking at 73 max next year with about 20 projected scholarship seniors.
Meanwhile we only have a combined 32 scholarship sophomores and freshmen, who will be juniors, sophomores, and redshirt freshmen next year. I think Littrell realized the grade imbalance and is choosing to ease up on the JUCO/grad transfer guys, unless they're at the right spot like QB.

I was in high school during the Dodge years. One of my teammate's older brother and a running back signed from my school under Dodge in 2008. Six of my teammates were offered by UNT with two signing here and the other ones choosing BCS/P5 offers over UNT. Two guys from my high school signed with UNT this past class.
The perception throughout my high school years for those guys was that UNT was a good opportunity to stay close to home and make a big impact, for kids who didn't have BCS/P5 offers. There was no one telling these kids to not consider UNT.
Who would've told them negative things about UNT? The coaches do their homework and look at the current situation for the recruits, and other parents don't even really know that much about all the schools that are recruiting their kids' teammates. And even if they do, they don't have the gumption to tell a kid not to consider a school who has offered them. And the actual recruits parents care enough about their kids future then to just disregard a full scholarship offer because of what they have heard or seen in the past from a school. Especially if they don't have obviously better options, like perennial top 25 teams from P5 conferences.
Good recruiters can get quality G5 recruits to come here. Period. They get to paint the picture to recruits on what UNT is.
Current recruits most likely have never heard of Dan Mccarney. Their college football exposure is Ohio State, Alabama, Florida State, Lamar Jackson, etc. They don't even have the NCAA football game anymore to goof around with teams they have never heard of. And in an era where people get to choose what, where, and when they consume media, they most likely aren't stumbling upon our game on Bein sports network. Their perception of UNT is almost exclusively what our coaches can sell to them.
This idea that our history kills our recruiting to the extent some people act like it does is ridiculous. We have had bad recruiting and bad recruiters lately. Guys like PJ Fleck and Tom Herman would've been able to get top-of-the-conference classes here, and Frank Wilson would have a class up there as well. They know how to get recruits to buy what they're selling at an elite level.
We haven't had that. That's the problem. Not some random person catching wind of us offering a kid and badmouthing us to them.

The first two things I'm looking for in a QB's film is arm strength and throwing motion. So many times I see people posting about QBs with great stats but no offers, and wondering why we or other schools aren't offering. If they're at least 6' tall, it's almost undoubtedly because they have an ugly throwing motion and/or inadequate arm strength.
Here's why throwing motion matters. With a football, if you can't consistently throw a tight spiral, that severely hurts accuracy. It is so much harder to throw a football accurately if it comes out wobbly (even just a little) than as a spiral, and if you can't throw accurately you have no shot. That's what killed Tebow. It's hard to consistently throw darts when you whip the ball down by your waist every time you throw.
If they have adequate size, throwing motion, and arm strength then they have D1 capabilities. Once that has been established I start looking for more advanced skills. Throws to wide open receivers or receivers facing the QB when the ball is thrown doesn't show me anything. Those plays might as well not be on the tape IMO.
I look for patience and feel in the pocket. Scrambling every other play on the tape is not a good look IMO, especially if the scrambling is premature. With throws I want to see the QB hitting the open windows in the zone, hitting receivers before they get out of their break, and, most impressively, throwing the ball in a spot where the adjustment the receiver has to make on the ball helps give them extra separation from the DB that they were not getting from just running the route alone. Also referred to as throwing a receiver open.
Those skills in that last paragraph are what translate to the next level and separate QBs who have similar capabilities.

Look at our all-conference players since we joined CUSA. Their offer lists aren't spectacular (except for Trice and maybe Lemon), but they had offers nonetheless. Good, solid G5/Non-AQ offer lists.
Zach Orr - Louisiana Tech, San Diego State, Tulsa, UTEP
https://rivals.com/content/prospects/24112
Aaron Bellazin - Buffalo, ULM, San Diego State, SMU, UTEP
https://rivals.com/content/prospects/64241
Mason Y'Barbo - Houston, ULM, and some FCS schools
- Can't find the Vito article from back when he committed, but that's what he had
Derek Akunne - Air Force, Colorado State, Western Kentucky
https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/28192
Cyril Lemon - FIU, Houston, La Tech, Missouri, New Mexico State, Rice
https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/52411
Marcus Trice - At least 9 P5/BCS AQ conferences 
https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/55424
James Jones - Houston, Troy, Miss. State, New Mexico
http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/player/_/id/172128/james-jones
Chancellor - No other FBS offers
https://rivals.com/content/prospects/18180
*^Also, I've said this before, but the positions that consistently are the biggest exception to this are smaller, speedy receivers, defensive backs (more often corners), and QBs. That's because these guys often don't get many, or any offers if they're undersized but that's not in their job description. If they can make people miss, get open, catch the ball, cover people, throw the ball/run an offense then they don't need to have plus-size for their position.
Anyways it just comes down to the law of averages. Individual recruits, it doesn't really matter. Over the course of an entire recruiting class and team, these guys are the ones who are much more likely to become all-conference guys than recruits with no other FBS offers.
Obviously there are other variables but, ceteris paribus, the more of these recruits you have on your roster, the more likely you are to have more all-conference guys. Or, in the case of last year, if you don't really have any of these guys as your upperclassmen, that's a good recipe for ending with no all-conference guys, which we did.

More specifically, his recruiting. Because he was the coach for all those wins at Apogee as well.
I always thought the Apogee advantage was being a bit overrated, since we were really just winning games against mediocre teams.
In 2011 we went 4-2 at home, but the the 4 teams we beat went a combined 8-40 that year (Indiana, FAU, ULM, and MTSU).
In 2012 we went 3-2 at home, with the most impressive win of the Mccarney era outside of the 2013 season, as we beat Louisiana Lafayette, who finished the season 9-4. However, our other two wins came against a 2-11 South Alabama program in their first year of FBS play, and a 2-9 FCS team in Texas Southern. We also lost at home to a 5-7 Troy team, very agonizingly.
In 2013 we were just a good team. But then in 2014 we went 4-2 with the 4 teams we beat (SMU, Nicholls State, FAU, and FIU) going a combined 8-40 again, just like in 2011. We also lost at Apogee to Southern Miss that year for their only conference win of the season.
Then last year we were just awful and finally saw the effects of filling recruiting classes with players no one else offered. 
Point being, we won a lot games we should've won. Point also being, if Mac could win the games he did at home, no reason Littrell shouldn't win much more, as well as actually being competent and having a chance on the road.

You could easily replace Mccarney with RV in that statement. I think post-mortem criticism of RV has become somewhat taboo at this point since we got our wish and apparently shouldn't complain anymore but be grateful for what he did do.
That being said, he was the ring leader when it came to complacency with results. How often did he pin attendance issues on fans and make it seem as if it were our obligation to attend games, or say nationwide attendance was down (Men's basketball) when it factually was not, and never admit that results should be better here? Or admit he had fielded an alarmingly low percentage of our graduates during his tenure as MGC members?
He also said during the recent football coaching search that a coach said something along the lines of "Coach, you guys have been getting your teeth kicked in for decades, why are they just now getting upset about it?"
Translation of RV telling that story: "You guys are wrong. I'm not doing a bad job. North Texas is traditionally bad, so why are you getting upset that we're still bad? North Texas being bad is the expectation."
We should win at North Texas. The excuse makers are (mostly) gone. This isn't a hard place to recruit to (Mac), especially not by CUSA standards. We haven't always been bad and we should expect to be good (RV), and if we aren't we should recognize that as a problem instead of being complacent.

He was a freak. He was had the most raw strength of any defensive lineman I played my senior year as a center, and we played schools like Allen and Trinity. He also was very athletic, and would chase down ball carriers who broke into the open field as hard as any defensive tackle I saw in high school.
His problem was he wasn't great with his hands and didn't have good technique. Very possibly could've been his downfall at K-State, where you need to be a good technician playing at college and BIG XII level, especially at 6' even. Should be a good fit here. Too bad it's only a year, but at least it could be a nice stop gap for English.

Another subtraction from the roster - 2015 WR signing Rodney Bendy is no longer on the roster. 
Also @NorthTexan95, a few updates to the spreadsheet, JUCO OL Signee Jalen Thomas needs to be added to the spreadsheet, OL Garrett Gunter is on scholarship, former tight end Wylie Reinhardt has been moved to offensive line, Kenny Buyers is now a receiver, JUCO QB signee Devin O'Hara is now on the roster, and as previously mentioned Jalen Montgomery is no longer on the roster.

A few roster updates. JUCO QB Devin O'Hara has been added to the roster, JUCO OL Jalen Thomas has been added to the roster (with a sweet jersey number of *), PWO Corey Mann has been added, and former tight end Wylie Reinhardt has been moved to offensive lineman.
This is interesting to me. O'Hara and Thomas were late additions who were blueshirt candidates. The fact that they are listed on the roster doesn't rule them out as blueshirts, but that theoretically means if they are then they are paying their own rent right now since they can't be put on scholarship until the beginning of fall camp.
Also seems weird that Baulkman and Mylam Peters aren't on the roster since they are supposedly in Denton. Baulkman took an official visit and was introduced as a signing of NSD, so he can't be a blueshirt. Peters I believe is a blueshirt candidate. So still too early to know what to make of everything, but just an update.

I think what gets people showing up is a sustained period of commitment towards winning. Winning every year is not always easy for mid majors/G5 schools, but at least showing you're committed towards winning is the key, and that gets students who see that to come back as alumni, knowing that the school is going to do all it can to field a winner as often as possible, just like it has done since they were in school.
Think about how many fans we have lost because of Benford. We had decent attendance his first year because of the hype of Mitchell and the team. That attendance plummeted his second year. The fans didn't want him back, and it continues to go down. Had we shown the commitment to winning and realized we didn't have the right guy, maybe there wouldn't have been a big dropoff. But rather than show the fans we are committed to winning, we keep retaining coaches long after the fans want them anymore, in hopes that the AD can say "I told you so" and hope that coach somehow turns it around. Meanwhile, people have stopped coming to the games.

It's like the "'X School' takes basketball seriously" series Tasty did. Even the top mid major programs have bad seasons from time to time. It's the schools that deem that as unacceptable who draw well. The schools that are not okay at all with losing, much less prolonged losing. Those schools get their fans to keep showing up because those fans know their AD isn't going to allow the program to stay down for long, if at all.

Here's the thing, hiring an "experienced head coach" at UNT is usually not a good idea. If a head coach is having success at another D1 then North Texas is probably not the step up they're looking for. So if we get an experienced head coach then that's probably because they were fired or weren't retained by their last school.
Tony Benford has not been a good hire, but it's not because he was a career assistant. He just wasn't a good hire. Brad Underwood was a career assistant and he's been a home-run hire for SFA. Todd Dodge was not a good hire, but it's not because he was a high school coach. He just wasn't ready to be a D1 head coach.

The answer to getting a good coach to come to UNT is not getting a guy who has "X" amount of years as a head coach, or "X" amount of experience at a school from a certain conference. It's about having an AD who is good at evaluating candidates and how well they will translate to coaching at the D1 and CUSA level.

Exactly. Although, to me, what may be an even more sad issue is that we have a lot of fans who are pretty unaware of what's going on. Who don't realize how bad our scheduling issue is. Or how bogus these excuses being made are. Or that our last 6 hires in the main sports that our fans buy season tickets for (football, mbball, wbball) are sitting at a combined 103 games under .500 (123-226) heading into tonight.
What I see 90 doing is trying to bring attention and educate a fanbase that, a large percentage of, primarily only follows UNT athletics and buys all these excuses that they hear because they don't know enough about what goes on in D1 sports outside of UNT enough to call BS.

Before Coach Mac got here, our alumni didn't even have TVs.

Fumble-rooskie to Jaskulske or GTFO