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Hoping for the best but I can't help but wonder, what if this season does not turn out well for LIttrell? I always hated the way things ended up with Dickey and how he circled the wagons against the fans and started wearing the black jerseys. Hopefully he will win a lot of games and we won't see a repeat of the black jerseys again.

read more: https://www.rockmnation.com/2021/6/22/22543003/2021-football-opponent-previews-texas-a-m-aggies

Texas A&M’s new offensive coordinator might never call a play, but there’s a lot to like about Jimbo Fisher’s hire of Darrell Dickey. The 58-year-old Dickey comes from a football family. He played at Kansas State for his father, Jim Dickey. His brother, Jim Dickey Jr., was a high school football coach in Texas, including Crosby from 1994-2001. Darrell Dickey also knows the Lone Star state, having been an assistant SMU, Texas State and UTEP. He also was head coach at North Texas from 1998-2006, and he started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Texas A&M in 1985 under Jackie Sherrill. All that experience seemingly helped Dickey find his niche as the offensive coordinator at Memphis. The Tigers are 37-13 in the last four seasons under former head coach Justin Fuente and current coach Mike Norvell, a pair of offensive minds on the rise. Fuente got hired at Virginia Tech after turning Memphis around, and Norvell recently opted to stay after getting a new $13-million deal through 2022. Fuente called his own plays at Memphis, just as Norvell has, but with plenty of help from Dickey, dubbed “Norvell’s eye in the sky.” Fisher called his plays at Florida State and you’d expect him to do the same at A&M, so Dickey can become “Jimbo’s eye in the sky.” What Fisher and Dickey need to do is sign or develop the kind of quarterbacks both have worked with — Fisher had Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston and Memphis had Paxton Lynch and Riley Ferguson. read more: http://www.theeagle.com/aggie_sports/cessna-dickey-as-new-offensive-coordinator-a-solid-hire-for/article_e246dcba-df0d-11e7-9e2e-979bd60258d4.html

The boys are back in the saddle again! This show we talk about a bowl eligibility clenching win on the road against La. Tech in Ruston by a score of 24-23. UNT alums @Evan, @Harry and @BeyondTheGreen give their hot sports thoughts on the Homecoming return of Coach Darrell Dickey and the Mean Green's goal of capturing the Western Division Crown. Recruiting expert @TheReal_jayD joins us for his latest recruiting analysis and we dive into what could be a pretty exciting basketball season with fan favorite @BillySee58. Audio Link: GOMEANGREEN BARBERSHOP PODCAST #189

Darrell Dickey, the lone holdover from former coach Justin Fuente's staff, will be paid $305,000 in base salary next year after making $275,000 as the Tigers' running backs coach in 2016. Last week, athletic director Tom Bowen announced that HC Mike Norvell's contract had been extended one year through 2021. A source said Norvell made the increase in salary pool for his assistants an emphasis in contract negotiations, and did not receive a raise himself. Norvell is due to make $1.86 million in base compensation in 2017, and his salary increases by $60,000 annually. read more: http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/college/memphis-tigers/football/2017/05/19/memphis-football-assistants-darrell-dickey-ryan-silverfield-get-raises/333572001/

Memphis beats BYU in the bowl! MIAMI (AP) — They battled for 60 minutes, then again for two overtimes and literally fought after the final play. And for Memphis, the end result was a win 76 years in the making. Paxton Lynch threw four touchdown passes and rushed for three more scores, Jake Elliott kicked a 54-yard field goal to end the first extra session and Memphis wasted a pair of double-digit leads before rallying to beat BYU 55-48 in the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl on Monday. "It wasn't always pretty," Memphis coach Justin Fuente said. No, but it was memorable — largely for the right reasons, though also for a scene that got out of hand at the end. read more: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sports/national/article_36e2ea84-8aac-11e4-b866-ebecf16cd6c4.html

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An Offer is Not an Offer Until the LOI is Signed It’s an instant-information, instant-gratification recruiting world we live in, and nothing has proven to be more ambiguous than the scholarship offer. Prospects get lost in coach-speak and half-hearted overtures, oftentimes confusing interest for a concrete, all-expenses-paid invitation to join the program. In taking steps to avoid misinterpretation, assistant coaches Mark Elder and Darrell Dickey say they try to be as crystal-clear as humanly possible. “We don’t deal in committable vs. non-committable,” Elder says. “We’re not offering someone that (we wouldn’t accept) on the same day. That’s not how we do business.” Dickey, the former head coach at North Texas, says he tried to avoid casting an overly-large net knowing he had only 25 spots to fill. “There’s places out there that have 150 offers out and only so many spots,” Dickey says. “I never felt very comfortable having thousands of offers out there and then all of a sudden you’ve got to tell kids you can’t take them.” There’s an important difference, however, between rescinding an offer and a prospect being misled. Unlike in basketball, where coaches can afford to ride out an elite-level prospect’s recruitment until the end due to smaller numbers on the roster, the task for college football coaches is more complex. Every year, there’s a (usually) set number of holes to fill. If a prospect waits too long and a school takes another player at the same position, it’s not that he was lied to about having an offer — he was simply beaten to the spot. “The offer is good at that moment,” Elder says. “But it may not be good all the way up to Signing Day, because we may offer, for example, a couple of other tight ends. It’s good until we fill up at that position.” - See more at: http://athlonsports.com/college-football/13-things-you-need-know-about-college-football-recruiting#sthash.gU1xjArh.dpuf

We will have a story this Sunday on Johnny Quinn, a former UNT wide receiver who will compete in the Olympics in the bobsled. I talked to a few people who were at UNT when Quinn was on his way to becoming one of the great players in program history. A couple had a some interesting things to say … – Zach Muzzy, one of the other receivers at UNT during Quinn’s time at the school, is now the wide receivers coach at Clear Creek in Houston after spending some time on the staff at Alvin, his alma mater.

Sky Pruitt was a UNT high school signee out of Walla Walla, Washington at the defensive tackle position by then coach Darrell Dickey back in 2004. I would bet he may have been the only player UNT has ever signed out of Walla Walla! At 6-2, 295 he was a big dude and received all conference recognition for his performance in his senior year. Real nice kid, very respectful and hard working. Pruitt held a 3.5 GPA and graduated in May of 2007 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology and a minor in Business Management. A four-year letterman at defensive tackle and member of three consecutive Sun Belt Conference football championship teams, Pruitt was named as the Outstanding Male Varsity Athlete of the Year at North Texas for the 2006-2007 season. He would later go on to pursue his PhD in Kinesiology at The University of Montana and specialize in the training and rehabilitation of athletes. He is now a licensed and practicing DPT in Idaho.

Some points in another thread got me thinking about this. We've all heard that Dickey clashed with Helwig and RV over quite a few things, and the discussion about tough OOC schedules made me wonder about the HC/AD relationships. So, since I don't know exactly what they did and didn't like about each other's style or opinion of how things should be scheduled, let's look at a couple of possibilities that led me to this thought. Let's say Helwig wanted to keep putting up UT, OU, Nebraska, LSU, etc. as OOC foes and Dickey disagreed. Well, RV comes along and they're already on the schedule for a couple of years or so. Is it reasonable, prudent, or even done as a matter of business-as-usual, if a new AD agrees with the HC, to look at trying to get out of those games and replace them with ones he feels are better suited to the program in its current state? My big reason for asking is that if you are pretty much going to stay married to the OOC schedule planned years ahead regardless of coaching or AD changes, doesn't that add just another reason to our usual "well, we have to wait and see because of what he inherited" tact? And in that sense, even if coaching hires don't work out and you make a change in the AD position...wouldn't that give the AD twice as long as the HC? I mean, just for giggles, let's say this year was disastrous in both FB and BB, both coaches and RV were sent packing (okay, maybe not everybody would be giggling but you know what I mean). The new AD would inherit a football schedule that's pretty much set for about 6 years. That's the big one...so even if they got a bad hire and replaced him as HC after Mac, the FB schedule could basically cover the tenure of two 3-season coaches. As much as the "bare cupboard" argument is made, couldn't an AD make that same one for at least twice as long if they were pretty well stuck with over half a decade of someone else's scheduling? If so, and people accept the "bare cupboard" notion, wouldn't an AD's grace period be about 6 years before they could say they were "rebuilding properly"? Or could they say, "Hey, if I'm going to come in here and take over this mess, you have to let me scrap half of this schedule and do something better with it"? Obviously if that was part of their terms of hiring, the administration would choose whether or not to hire them...but would that be a reasonable demand if you thought you had a great AD hire and that's what they wanted to do?

Before coming to Lincoln, Flanigan, worked three years at Mississippi Valley State and two seasons at the high school level at Prestonwood Christian (2008) and Galveston Ball (2009). But longest tenure came when the 1992 Rider graduate spent eight seasons in Denton with the Mean Green, five as the offensive coordinator. He helped North Texas win four consecutive Sun Belt Conference championships and appear in four bowl games. “I believe the search committee did an excellent job in identifying candidates they believed possessed the knowledge and work experience best suited for our program,” Lincoln Director of Athletics Dianthia Ford-Kee said. “He has experienced winning as a student, athlete and coach. We believe he will transfer his experiences to our program and move the program forward.” After leaving Rider, Flanigan led the Mustangs to a 6-5 record, the school’s first winning season since 1986. He concluded his SMU career as the school’s career leader in total offense with 7,437 yards and is the only player in SMU history to pass for 5,500 or more yards and rush for at least 1,500 yards. “Lincoln University is getting an outstanding football coach in Ramon Flanigan,” said former UNT coach Darrell Dickey, who is now the offensive coordinator at Memphis. “He possesses all the qualities and is a man of great character and integrity. Ramon leads by example and represents himself in a first-class manner.” Lincoln competes as a Division II member of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and is coming off a 1-9 season. Flanigan replaces Olabaniji Abanishe and is the Lions’ second coach since bumping up to Division II. Read more: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2013/apr/30/flanigan-hired-as-d-ii-football-coach/

Rebuilding is something Memphis offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey knows a lot about. And for four seasons starting in 2001, New Orleans played a part in that process. Dickey coached at North Texas from 1998-2006 and led the Mean Green to historic success -- four straight Sun Belt championships (2001-2005) and a 26-game conference winning streak. What also came with that success were trips to four straight New Orleans Bowls. Dickey said he loved playing postseason football in the Big Easy. North Texas won one of those four games, beating Cincinnati, 24-19, on Dec. 17, 2002 for its first bowl win in 57 years. In 2003, the Mean Green fell to Memphis, 27-17, in the New Orleans Bowl, a bitter ending to North Texas' first nine-win season in 23 years. "People wondered if it wouldn't be a good deal to have two bowl games in one city in one year," Dickey said. "We found out New Orleans knows how to host a bowl game and do it right and be hospitable and show people a good time. "It was a great situation for the Sun Belt and our program ... Had we not had a bowl game to go to for our champion(ships), people wouldn't have known us quite as well." Dickey said that four-year stretch of championships and New Orleans Bowls at North Texas helped put Sun Belt football on the map, adding that it's advanced "a million miles" since then. Read more: http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/2012/11/memphis_offensive_coordinator.html

Fuente said several members of his staff — none he would identify publicly — turned down offers from bigger, established programs during the offseason to remain in Memphis. “We’ll (eventually) have turnover, it’s going to happen,” Fuente said. “But it is important, especially for these kids, (to have stability). They’ve been through so much. We’ve got guys that had five different position coaches in the five years they were here.” In his first season, Fuente and his staff led the Tigers to a 4-8 finish, including three straight wins to close the years. The U of M had won only five games the previous three seasons. Fuente said the continuity should come into play this fall as the Tigers try to build on the late-season momentum en route to moving from Conference USA into a Bowl Championship Series conference. “To have familiar faces and people they know genuinely caring about their well-being is important,” Fuente said. Among the returnees is offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey, a college veteran who spent nine years as head coach at North Texas State. Dickey led the Mean Green to four straight Sun Belt Conference titles from 2001-04 and understands the value of having consistency. “My experience is the longer a (coaching staff) is together, the better they learn each other,” Dickey said. “The kids also know what to expect. It is critical for a program, even a good program, to have continuity and consistency on a staff. “It’s rare. You don’t see it as much any more. People don’t understand what it does to a team when it has a new head coach or a new coordinator or a new position coach every year or other year. It’s almost like starting over because you are teaching new techniques, you’re teaching new schemes. We’re in an age where people change coaches at places like some people change underwear.” Read more: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2013/mar/02/memphis-football-staff-returns-intact/