Green Dozer

Wait on what? Is this another secret secret? :ph34r: Seriously, 99, what?

Right on! And I do not think Vito gives enough scrutiny in his articles.

Given what you say, it could also be said that hiring Dodge shows RV knows nothing about football. I respectfully disagree that RV will gain any credibility or confidence from the fan base if he makes a head coaching change. You may think more of RV if he does it, but unfortunately a lot of fans, both fanatical and casual, are going to be less forgiving of his "mistake". If Dodge does not get this right soon, and RV does have to make a change, his next hire will have to be very exceptional to keep the fans outside of people on this forum on board in their support of the program.

If the football program remains in free fall, I just don't see how RV can survive the firing of Dodge. (I AM NOT SAYING AT ALL THAT I THINK HE SHOULD GO, BUT I DO NOT KNOW HOW DR. BATAILLE AND THE BOARD OF REGENTS FEEL). After all, it was his decision and I would imagine he had to convince at least a couple of the decision makers at the University that a high school coach could make it. No matter what, under the present circumstances with what we are seeing on the field and the new stadium looming, RV has some decisions tough decisions to make.

Great customer service, and true fan appreciation. That is what has kept us all hanging with the athletic program through thick and thin. They really love us! :lol:

Look at this way, we barely had a program when Todd Dodge got here. Yes, we had 4 conference championships, many agree it was in the weakest conference in Div.1 but still we won Div. 1 Championships. If we are building a program for the long term, where we have a solid program year in and year out, then I am willing to give Dodge some more time. I look at it in that we are no different than say South Florida starting its program accept we are fielding a team in our first couple of years in building a program. I don't accept losing if its just one game, but I am just trying to be positive. I think that George's post has a lot of insight, and I do think we need to be patient. We need to give the stadium a chance as a recruiting tool for at least a couple of classes. Many on this board have said this is what was needed. I think now that it looks as if it is going to happen, then we need to give man who was brought here to help us get to this position a chance. 2 seasons with what he has been asked to do is not enough. That said, our comments can be critical, and everybody in the athletic department should know we expect this pain to get us a lot of gain.

Maybe Todd Dodge and Todd Ford should give Tony Franklin a call. Says he wants to coach coaches in the spread offense. ESPN.COM ARTICLE ON TONY FRANKLIN

The sad thing is given the way we are playing, the game will be decided by 9:00. So for people who want to catch the show at the Boiler Room, they should be there in plenty of time.

I don't think RV or anybody hired Dodge for the reasons you list at the expense of losing games, and I do not think you do either. His hiring was designed to do what you said, and though not go undefeated up to now, at least win a few game and be competitive. You do have a good perspective on the present situation and the future. We did get a lot of bang for our buck with his hiring. Only Harbaugh, who is now at Stanford, or Jimbo Fisher would have created as much interest as Dodge.

Green Mean, the Ty Sports Blog would have a field day with Major Applewhite, don't you think? :lol:

Good thing Shaft doesn't live in Chicago and is a Cub's fan. With this kind of attitude, he would sure be unhappy.

The other night, when I heard Coach Dodge was going to be on KRLD, I thought of a few questions I would like to ask him, or for him to be asked. First, does he think that Div. 1 defensive coordinators have figured out how to defend his form of the spread? For example, Missouri is suppose to be similar to his, but has been handled its past two games, Tony Franklin was fired before the middle of the season at Auburn, Tech struggled against A&M....etc. I would like to know if he has thought of using a tight end, or at least change to more of what some call the hybrid spread like TX, OU, and Florida have gone to. These schools use the running game a lot more than we do. Will he replace coaches that leave for whatever reason with college experienced coaches? I know he brought in Deloach, and I have no proof, but I think his hand was forced by Rick V to hire Deloach. I think his high school success, and the accolades that came with it, have made him way over confident in his coaching ability. That is just what I pick up when I have heard him speak and interviewed. I hope that he will check his ego at the door, and not take it personally that another coach on his staff may be more experienced than him as for as coaching on the college level. Certainly from the outside, it does not appear he and Deloach have meshed. I think that he needs to let Coach Ford actually be the "offensive coordinator", and he actually be a full time head coach. When a head coach tries to keep his coordinator duties, he is not usually as successful as he could be if he delegated those duties to somebody else. I think a head coach needs to be involved in all phases of the game, and perhaps it would better improve our special teams and defense with an objective set of eyes watching practice. With him being so involved in the offense, I cannot imagine the defensive players feeling like that have as good a relationship with him as does the offense. Just my opinion. All coaches, win or lose, will best my record in football.

$$$$.....where will they come from? How are you going to buy this coach out, hire the next one at a decent salary, and start the capital campaign? Something would have to give, dollars are getting scarce for everybody. Sounds negative, but there are only so many to go around. Bower, or somebody like him, is going to want more than Dodge. Also, did not know Memphis was looking at him, but that would be a perfect fit. A lot of similarities between Memphis and Southern Miss.

Lifer, I am in agreement with you on giving Dodge a year or two more. I think Deloach is an excellent coach, but don't you think we would be bringing back the Dickey system? I don't mean offense/on the field philosophy, just the overall management of the program.

Dodge: On the job training. Would somebody please explain why this is an issue? I mean, we are talking about somebody who was a starting quarterback at the University of Texas, coached here as an assistant in '92, and coached in the highest class of Texas high school football (and won on a very consistent basis). I would understand this better if he had started quarterback at West Texas A&M, not coached any college, and was the head coach in Muleshoe. Maybe I could have bought into it half way through last season, but not now.

If both of us finish without a win, maybe we could have a playoff game in Seattle to break the tie. For a college football fan, it is suppose to be a great experience on gameday there.

Any other fan base would be foaming at the mouth, and I have not seen real venom directed at Coach Dodge, and stating that does not mean I think there should or should not be. Just because there has not been does not mean we are a happy bunch, and are not frustrated with this season. I saw another post that said we should not use the lack of a stadium/facilities as an excuse because we have won with what we had before. Yes, I agree with that to a certain extent, but things have changed in big way since we were winning without it. Now, we are actually starting a new stadium project and do have it as a recruiting tool. Also, the difference now is that the lack of a first class stadium has been made out to be one, if not the biggest reason this program is not perceived as a winner, and has difficulty recruiting top players to make it a consistent winner. The AD has said this, Dr. B and Dr. Pohl both said as much (athletics being a window to the university, etc0, the alumni have said so, a majority of voting students agreed recently, and Todd Dodge has stated it quite a few times in a public manner. Please bear with me. Now, go back to December of 2006, and we hired a coach to build a program to get help get us to a new stadium. We as a program communicated, despite the fact that we had won 4 conference championships, the program needed to be rebuilt to accomplish this and we handed the keys to him. Now, and in a lot of pain, we are only in year two. If we were to fire Coach Dodge at the end of the season, it would be a major set back to this program. It would not hurt his status at this point, I assure you. (I think it would take 4 years to really affect his reputation if he were not successful, just my uneducated guess). Casual fans and people associated with recruiting will perceive that we promised a stadium to him (maybe the word "promise" was not used, but he was told in some way we would build it), and we wanted him to build our program. Then, after two years, we let him go? I think we have lost a lot momentum in recruiting that we had gained with Coach Dodge's hiring, and hope with the new stadium project it will come back. I would think a lot of high school coaches in the state are glad to see Coach Dodge take some licks, as he certainly doled them out for several years at Southlake. Those other coaches got tired of him winning, and his program being the measuring stick. But, deep down, they want Coach Dodge, Art Briles, and Todd Graham to make it on the college level so that they can have the opportunity to move up as well. The success of these gentlemen only helps to create more opportunity for coaches at the high school level.. So my final thought, at this point is that if we fire Dodge, you can get bet those high school coaches are going to back him, and make it difficult for a new coach to recruit at a lot of the schools in Texas. They might not slam us to a recruit, but you can bet they will not be encouraging them to come here. By position, Coach Dodge opens himself up to criticism by us and we should never ever accept losing, even if he had only coached one game here. But, we made this bed for now, and unfortunately we have to lay here for a little while.

Here is a good interview that John McCaa from Channel 8 did w/ UNT's Dr. Bernard Weinstein on the economy: http://www.wfaa.com/video/uncut-index.html...94954&shu=1

Stupid question, but does UNT share in the profit or just rents/leases the property?

This is a pretty cool deal at the Pourhouse in Denton. Got a flyer in the mail that there will be social with food and drink at 5:30 on Monday Nov. 3rd. There will be remarks from Rick, Coach Jones, and Coach Stephens. It also says that Coach Dodge's show will follow at 6:30. Says to RSVP jonathan.burkett@unt.edu by October 31st. I am sure everybody will get the same thing, but thought I would post for those that might not for one reason or another.

Can the university build it and hire a management company run it, and of course make money from it? Or is that legal in Texas? Better yet, let the School of Hospitality Management do it. A professor at UNT by the name of Grant Miles said that when he attended the University of California at Bakersfield, the business school ran the city's bus company, and students (undergrad, masters, and doctoral) actually managed the company as part of their degree work.

This is new territory for our athletic department having to plan and oversee a project of this magnitude. I hope within the next 30 days, like NT80 said in another post, that Rick will host a meeting where he will lay out how all of these pieces of the puzzle will fit together. There are so many I heard this and that from all of us on the board. A lot is factual, and some is just opinion. There was a comment attributed to Dr. B that said she wanted more private donations before beginning construction. I would like that to be clarified, because the message during the campaign was that all we needed to start was a "yes" vote from the students. Though it would be great to see plans, drawings ; just a meeting to present the facts would be welcome at this point. Perhaps it could be an informational meeting, and be the start of formal fundraising for the stadium. Rick has done a good job of helping UNT get to this point, but I think it is his responsiblility to now take a tighter grip at the helm, and communicate to the alumni where we are now, where we are going, and what is needed to get there.

TRADE REC CENTER FOR A STADIUM T. Boone donated some money to the YMCA in Dallas, and made the presentation on a bike. Saw it on the news last night. I thought to myself if he would donate that kind of money to UNT, we'd give him a bike and an eliptical. Heck, he we could trade him the rec center for a the new stadium.

Time for me to shut up and put up! I have played armchair everything in my opinions, many of you have rightly pointed that out. Once again, I am going to give this thing a go. I have seen so many starts of something in our football/athletic program, only to see nothing happen. That said, I do not think Rick needs to draw a line in the sand or anything like that. The "YES" vote said it all. The students have done their part in this, and any alumni that knows about this project, knows about the voting results, and also has a shred of pride in the athletic future of this university should be saying "what can I do?". Please, I get tired of people saying I would have done this or that, but was not asked. Heck, just jump in! And to all you Mean Green fans who may feel like I have at times, both former and present, it really really is different this time!!

I heard or read somewhere that many universities stopped the practice of Midnight Madness due to some liability issues. I don't know if it were students partying to much or not, and being out so late, like that would not happen whether there was a practice or not. Used to have these on ESPN from different places when practice started. During the OU broadcast Saturday, they mentioned Kansas had a big open practice Friday night and their gymn was overflowing.