GreenCyclone

Your analysis is pretty spot on Arkstfan. By the way, congrats on the good season to date... closing out the season with a winning record would be a great step for your team. This is likely way off the general topic of this thread, but here goes... Being "dragged down by the Sun Belt" was a poor choice of words on my part. I was trying to point to the fact that playing in the Sun Belt will generate a kind of glass ceiling effect to all of its member teams as far as computer rankings are concerned. This is likely to stay in effect until at least half of the conference becomes more respectable in OoC play. Until that happens, there is a reasonable maximum ranking in the 40-50 range that any SBC team could be expected to achieve with a really excellent season (1 or 2 losses). It's only when one of the teams goes undefeated on the season (including money games, which isn't real likely to happen anytime soon) that a team will break that ceiling. Case in point, the Marshall example which many people like to cite on this board. '97 (29) 10-3 OoC wins against Army, Western Illinois '98 (49) 12-1 OoC wins against Troy, South Carolina, Wofford, Louisville '99 (11) 13-0 OoC wins against Clemson, Liberty, Temple, Brigham Young '00 (64) 8-5 OoC wins against SE Missouri State, Cincinnati They prove that you don't have to beat the big boys OoC to break through, and you don't even need to win them all; you just have to beat someone. Which you're right, UNT has not been consistently doing in the Dickey era so they're largely getting the ranking they deserve. You'll note that in 2002 & 2003, though, that they were doing that... most notably with the bowl win in 2002.

Yeah, I figured this would come up... I was obviously looking at things from purely a numbers perspective and seeing what I could do to bolster all the people that are down on Dickey. In reality, though, this is where my UNT/ISU comparison falls terribly flat. Dan McCarney, our coach, has been a tireless champion of all things Iowa State and a terrific salesman the whole time he's been there. He's always been complimentary of our fans, even when there weren't all that many in the beginning. It's one thing to play the Rodney Dangerfield card in the locker room, but you can't do that to the people who are actually supporting your program.

Whoops, forgot to really talk about the records I posted back there. As I was saying... yes, it's true that most of Dickey's wins have come against teams in the 101+ category, but well... that's who the Sun Belt is right now. You can't expect UNT to beat teams that it doesn't really play. If the Belt raises its play across the board then UNT's profile will increase, too, much like what the MAC has done over the past 4-5 years. I would agree that it would be nice if UNT increased its performance against that middle tier of teams (51-100), and they had been doing that up until this season. From 2002 to 2004, UNT was 4-4 against teams in that range... not too shabby. It all depends on what you want out of your program... if you want to go the long, hard road of building a solid program I'd say you've merely hit a slight speed bump along the way. If you're looking for instant gratification and national notoriety then the majority of you are right... you'll have to go the route of the wide open offense: Houston, Marshall, Utah, Miami (Ohio), Bowling Green, Boise State all had them at their time of prominence. You'll do well to note that not all of them are doing so hot anymore.

Hi all, You can see by my profile that I've been lurking a long time 'round these parts. I've been following the UNT program from a distance since 2001 when I adopted it as my PS2 NCAA Football team of choice. I chose the Mean Green because my brand-new girlfriend of the time (now my wife) had gone there her first two years of school, and my own school had already been taken. As an outside observer, hopefully it's all right if I offer my .02. It's true that during the Dickey era UNT has feasted primarily on teams in the lower echelon of I-A ball. To cite some numbers from Kenneth Massey's MOV ratings... (I like Massey's ratings a lot, but your mileage may vary seeing as how it's one of those durn computers that's always messing everything up.) Dickey Last 5 yrs vs. 1-10 0-7 0-5 vs. 11-25 0-3 0-2 vs. 26-50 1-8 0-4 vs. 51-100 7-21 5-11 vs. 101+ 31-14 26-6 And as a result, UNT's end of season rankings have been pretty low: '98 (112), '99 (141), '00 (151), '01 (109), '02 (54), '03 (74), '04 (93), '05 to date (171) Now here's what you need to ask yourselves... where do you feel that UNT reasonably should be on a yearly basis given that it's in the Sun Belt and will therefore be dragged down by SoS no matter what they do? I think that the 50-75 range looks like an ideal target with some variance allowed for very good and very bad years, as everyone has them. As an alum of another long-suffering football program (Iowa State), I have seen first hand what it's like on the long, hard road to respect. I was lucky enough to go to school at a time when both the football and basketball programs rose up out of their doldrums to become real players in the Big 12. For me, 7-8 wins a year, a bowl trip, and a finish in the 25-50 range is a-ok with me. So imagine my horror when we went 2-9 in 2003 after a few years of decent success. I'm here to tell you that you can bounce back from this, and Darrell Dickey can be the guy to do it. There have been times over the years that I have questioned ISU's decision to stick with our coach (who once Snyder retires will be the longest-tenured Big 12 coach), but the administration has stayed the course and has been rewarded. Yes, that 171 ranking looks bad, but UNT has been through a lot this year with injury, graduation, and especially the death of Drew Smith. Any program outside of the top 20 would have a hard time if they had to start their intended 3rd-string QB on a regular basis. If the Mean Green doesn't bounce back to the top of the Belt next year (especially if Flanigan's gone), I'll punch myself in the face. And if I have to punch myself in the face, then it just might be time to show Darrell the door. Bad years happen to good programs. Take heart, this is just one of those.