SCREAMING EAGLE-66

---NT already had black pants... just a matter of getting jerseys... probably DD had some budget money that he had not spent and decided to "spend" it before leaving.. ...sort of as a parting message perhaps...black is the color of "the end" so I guess "it is over" as far as he is concerned" ---I don't think Tech can figure out what to wear... they seem to have different combo every week since they have Black, red and white jerseys and pants. I actually dislike their current style of pants with that odd stripe.

---Prior to the announcement, North Texas had won FOUR of the previous TWENTY-ONE games and play in a conference that most claim is not that tough.. What else is there to be said??

--- In the twenty-one (21) games immediately prior to the announcement, North Texas had walked off the filed only FOUR (4) times as the winner... --- Anyone who then thinks being removed was a surprise is someone who accepts losing as normal and acceptable. --- DD did many good things but they haven't been lately and there are now no good excuses especially while playing in a conference that many on this board thinks is the weakest in D-I. Without insulting certain opponents I think most of us believe that we should be near if not over 50% every year (even with a couple of nearly impossible games) considering the talent that is out there to recruit from. **** IF there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that the assistant coaches are very key to the program. There needs to be a good collection of them to do well. DD did not change through the years that much but the assistants did and it showed. Assistants teach, motivate, and they recruit, this last group as a group was not getting it done,

---Considering Spike Dykes coached at several West Texas high Schools I suspect his son was born in West Texas and if not was raised out here.

---Parker came from a HS ? I think Corky Nelson come from Tyler..... He had Earl Campbell as a player at Tyler didn't he when he had his best years. Almost any coach would have done well with him... as one coach mentioned to me... "Earl was a man playing with a group of kids". ---Personally I see Dodge very differently.... he has had many good teams and not just based on one player. I think he would do well...... I normally I think most HS coaches don't make the transition very will... I think he would.... he has actuallly coached at a college level some and I have heard of him since he was in HS. Always he has been in winning situations. ---Spike Dykes had been a HS at Midland Lee and at Tech as an assistant one year prior to taking over TxTech, he only lasted 14 years and had a winning record with only 3 losing (barely) seasons against very good competiton . We would settle for that. He was let go after teh Techsans got tired of 6-7 wins and losing to UT and OU. In his final year he lost to us and was blown apart by UT... that did him in....Now they have the more exciting "shoot and run" era of Rick Leach... He may lose a few but they are definitely entertaining even when losing. I always thought it was usual that Spike's son stayed on Leach's staff after his father Spike was let go as head coach.

--Absolutely..... I would love to see a Slocum defense and a Leach offensive.. Tech does give up a lot of yards and points but.... you have to remember their offense scores so quickly that the defense spends a lot of time on the field..... and second..... a passing team plays longer games (time-wise)..... the clock stops every time there is an incompletion and lots of those passes result in the receiver going out of bounds which stops the clock between plays. ---That partially explains why Tech's games last so long and there are so many plays and high scores by both teams. Some of Tech's games last 4 hours.

--I live in West Texas and people out here seem to like the crazy Tech Offense (win or lose) . It reminds me a lot of the the old Oiler "Run and Shoot" by Warren Moon under Pardee (from TAMU and native of Christoval near San Angelo).

---Varsity Blues (my opinion ) was the worse football movie ever.... and I even knew a cast-member or two... totally unrealistic and made Texas HS football look terrible.. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139699/#comment

This a great site for movies... this one is "Brians Song" about a Chicago Bear football player.... good movie... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068315/ ---Brian's Song" with James Caan/Billy Dee Williams Don't care for Notre Dame but I liked "Rudy" despite that. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108002/ --Rudy--

--Fry lived in Rockwall when he coached here.... not Denton.... He may have had an apartment around Denton somewhere. ---I doubt Dodge would move if selected, after all we have students that commute that far and he might rather not be so close to campus anyway.

---Pretty much the same thing happened to Wichita State in 1970 when their plane crashed into a mountain near Loveland Pass Colo. Half of the football team was on that plane, half on another. North Texas was in the same conference with Wichita State at that time . (MVC) http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=MEMORIAL&p=/history/

----Woody Hayes (long time Ohio State coach) punched an opposing player when he went into his sideline. Besides that he was terrible.. would take the yard and down markers and bend them over his knee and throw them on the field and all sorts of things when he disagreed. He was frigging nuts. Ohio State has a history of nutty things including Clarette and tutors doing the work for students. ---Knight, considering his history should not have done it, but it was no big deal. By the way he is a Ohio State grad. ... just coached at Indiana.

This is a partial.... a yahoo site.... just change the year to check them out. also click on which offensive stat.. points, yards, etc. http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/stats/byteam...ference=I-A_all

----Expertise in one field does not mean expertise in another another. Sometimes success to go peoples head and make them think they are something they aren't. ---Ask Tom Cruise -- who thinks he is an expert on everything but never set foot in a college classroom. Sometimes I am am shocked how dumb some folks appear when they appear on Leno, Letterman or some show where they have no "script". .... reality and image doesn't fit too well.

---I expect Fran to be around another year... TAMU lost to OU and Nebraska by only one point and to Tech at the very end by 4 points on an amazing catch.. ......plus the Aggies have shown improvement this year. But who knows about the Aggies and their coaches... they have done some strange things.

--- I will not criticize Mac.... but money does not buy everything... DD has done many good things for us but when you look at his W-L record (especially the past two years) it is not especially impressive. Yes, we lost to a lot of "Quality" programs such as UT, OU, etc. but unfortunately we have lost to a lot of rather poor ones lately....... It is time to move on to someone else. We obviously would welcome Mac's support but we existed before Mac came onto the scene and we will exist long after he is gone. ---I wish DD well in the future and hope he finds something that will satisfy him. ----Coaching is not all about the head coach..... he needs to hire good assistants and be able to pay them a competitive salery or they will soon be gone. ---Selecting a head coach can be unpredictable. I have seen some great teachers that were poor administrators and some rather average teachers that were great administrators... the same is true of teh Head Caoch Postion... is it a rather complex position to find a perosn good at this postion... he needs to relate well to players, coaches, fans, recruits, and media.... and have good coaching skills.

---Went to my local college, Howard Payne, for two years. There I took about 40 hours of credit from NTSU grads... One that I had several times I consider the best prof. I ever had, another was extremely good. The fact that he went to NTSU and a HP buddy transfered to NTSU brought me here. I never regreted it. I consider UNT much better than TTU which I attended one year as a grad student. UNT gave me straight answers (unlike TTU dept. and administration especially) and UNT had profs that were interested in teaching and not just publishing or working on some project. --can't answer for every dept but that was my experience--- Have a couple of NT degrees. ---I was fortunate to have great roommates, friends, and suitemates as well, a wide variety and interesting people. Great experience..

I not not against Dodge ast the moment but college coaching is very different. High School is mostly about coaching and motivating the kids that just walk in the door. College coach is more complex..... he must be able to recruit, which also means his public relations skills need to be good. He needs to be able to sell his program to the media and attract atttention ( HS coaches just automaticly get this from local media) Spike Dykes best asset was his public relations skills and interesting quotes and was a likabale guy. his replacement Leach is pretty bad... but he is very smart and can apparently can really teach and has a very entertaining style of play. (also important, as these GMG posts attest to) Other than that is the usual skills a be a successful coach: teach, motivate, evaluate talent, and be able to run a program, hire capable assistants (very important). It is unlikely to get of these in one guy but Fry got about as close as possible close. He won a lot, was liked by players, fans and media, had an extremely interesting style of play, and could really recruit. He also grew up in West Texas which usually means he would be super competitive.

The Houston coach Briles had spent a couple of years at Texas Tech first.... Spike Dykes at Tech had been a college assistant only one season I think before being made head coach.. He had been at Midland Lee for several years. There are a few high school coaches that could succeed but not many. Dodge might be one of them, he has some college level coaching.

His son is a coach for Oakland.... the worst team in the NFL.

---I can stand losing when the other team is actually better..... I dislike losing because of stupidity including especially personal fouls etc. and plays that make no sense at all (run when the situation is (3-10+). The only way that would work is when they have no one over center and there is yards of yards of space because they are covering the obvious pass option.... that rarely happens. I did see it once in an NFL game this week when the center/guards and QB took off and made a bunch. (about 8-12 yards). ---Most games are lost because of turnovers and stupid penalities if the teams are anywhere close to each other in ability and even then the unbelievable underdog wins sometimes because of them . (Miami/Chicago or Pitts/Oakland lately) ---Isn't TO a real prize....can't catch routine balls (for a well paid receiver) and causes penalities that hurt the team.

--- I seem to be the only person on here that thinks the Law school in Dallas is a decent idea. It will connect Dallas more with North Texas... It will be in a famous building that gets a lot of attention and will be seen much more often than having it it some remote location in Denton ....... and it will be good advertisement for North Texas in general. I also think it will attract better students than a Denton site would and it would go -head to haed against SMU in Dallas eventually. --- Those who think having a law school is going to attract a ton of money are dreaming. A lot of MBA's ( corporate execs) and computer people make more money than most lawyers and we have them now. The person who said most lawyers have more loyality to their original undergrad school than their law institution ( other than just the law school) are absolutely right. .

---May not want a lot of attention from everyone, at least not every week for sure.

--- Maybe the ones that want to be totally blitzed by mid afternoon might show up at 10:00 AM !!! Otherwise the rest are still home eating their corn-flakes with a hot cup of coffee on a rather cool Saturday morning.

---Personally it is more an issue that our opponents are not Texas or regional teams. CUSA is not a lot beter than Belt nor is the WAC if you toss out Boise. Kids like to play against a few people they know for bragging purposes. --Respect... people respect SMU???. Not if they know the history of the place the past 20+ years. The Big-12 is the name conference in the area obviouslly and TCU's conf is pretty good as well, but the only advantage of CUSAover the Belt is "local" opponents. They really aren't much better now that Lousiville and some others are out of it.