The irony of Chad Morris, SMU and UNT

[Harry]

Has anyone thought about the irony of SMU hiring former high school coach Chad Morris and our hiring of Todd Dodge back 9 years ago?

In familiarizing myself with Morris and the direction he intends to take in the SMU rebuilding project, I took in some videos and articles around his introduction to the SMU community and the media in general.

I swear to you, you could have taken clips and sound bytes from 9 years ago when Dodge was announced as HC at UNT and matched them up exactly with the Morris talking points.

"I'm a Texas high school coach first and proud of it" or "We've had 100's of area high school coaches sending me texts" or "We open our arms to all of the high school staffs to be a part of this" or "I have an obligation to represent the Texas High School Coaches" etc etc...

Make no mistake, there is a lot in common in what SMU AD Rick Hart is trying to do now compared to what UNT AD Rick Villarreal was trying to do almost a decade ago.

And honestly, there are some differences.  Morris was a heralded college assistant at Clemson and one of the highest paid in the country.  Dodge had a quick cup of coffee as an assistant at North Texas before going back into the high school arena.  Morris is making reportedly $2+ million a year at SMU and Dodge was making $331,448 a year at UNT.  Morris has assembled a very impressive staff with college experience, including recruiting guru Van Malone as well as some young assistants he worked with at Clemson.  Dodge brought in mostly high school assistants from Southlake Carroll.

I have to say, it's hard not to be impressed with Morris.  He is an extremely passionate speaker, and by all accounts very personable and intelligent with a math degree from A&M.  He has stated very clearly that it will take all of SMU, including faculty, students and alumni to get the program where they want it to be.

But I also find it interesting that he says the reason he took the SMU job was to "get back to my roots" and it was "just a great fit"... come on Chad, SMU gave you a $1+ Million dollar raise and set up your family for life... not that he didn't already have a nice paycheck at Clemson but - let's be honest -  the money played a pretty significant role in getting him back here.  Let's just say I don't think he would be taking $331,448 a year to rebuild the Ponies.

That said, I do think Morris will do good things at SMU.  It's a good academic school that has a lot of tradition and it's sitting in huge city and plethora of good recruiting prospects.

As a UNT fan you are constantly plagued with the "what ifs".  What if we had forced Dodge to hire college assistants?  Did he stipulate that he had to remain loyal to his high school staff?  Or was our budget such that we we're ok with him bringing in guys who would not command a lot of money?  Or was it a mixture of both?  What if he had been given more direction and support from coaches with college experience who knew the ropes?

Since UNT has a 20-year or whatever contract with SMU, we will get to watch what Morris is able to accomplish on the field of play.   We will get to see how the recruiting picks up and how his uptempo offense and blitzing defense fairs as the years go by.

Other than our game with SMU, I wish their program well.  They have the same challenges all of us non p5's face. I do think Morris can do some really good things there.  But, every time I look at or hear Morris speak it will remind me of the opportunity we lost with the Todd Dodge hire.  A hire and direction which BTW many of us (including myself) were 100% behind at the time.

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Harry

[UNTexas]

Good points and it sounds familiar but I can't wait to get that first game in the rear view so I don't have to hear anymore about SMU or their new coach.

[Cougar King]

A more comparable situation to Dodge being hired at UNT is UNLV's recent hiring of Tony Sanchez.

[VideoEagle]

The biggest difference is Morris' success as an assistant at Clemson. I think if Dodge had spent more time at a FBS school as an assistant AFTER being the coach at SLC he would have been better prepared for success. If nothing else, he would not have brought an entire HS staff with him! 

[BillySee58]

Probably more similar situation to Gus Mahlzahn than Todd Dodge.

[Mean_Green09]

The biggest difference is Morris' success as an assistant at Clemson. I think if Dodge had spent more time at a FBS school as an assistant AFTER being the coach at SLC he would have been better prepared for success. If nothing else, he would not have brought an entire HS staff with him! 

Agreed. If Dodge would've been able to spend some time in the college ranks as an assistant before getting a head gig it could've worked out. He certainly would've been better prepared and hired better assistants. 

[oldguystudent]

He's gone.  We're marginally better off.  He's gone, back where he belongs positioned to purchase victories in 6A.  Harry's trolling his own board again.  

[GrandGreen]

Who knows what  Dodge wanted, but most any AD in the country would have vetoed bringing in an almost exclusively high school staff.  North Texas no matter what the budget has always managed to get assistant coaches with college experience.  Holding on to the good ones is not going to happen, but there are always plenty of coaches available at almost any salary level. 

[malonish]

[Harry]

Look I am not trying to bring salt to old wounds.  The Dodge hire was a disaster... but please understand, Morris was coaching at Lake Travis HS -- did not have NEAR the record that Dodge compiled, parlayed that into I think 1 season at Tulsa under Todd Graham (another high school coach turned college coach) and then landed at Clemson for 4 years...

I just find it interesting that SMU had June Jones a long time winning college coach with pro experience and is moving to a former high school guy with coordinator experience in college... never been a head coach.

We moved from the Dodge fiasco to a very veteran established college coach in Mac.

I do believe the former high school coach plan can work if implemented correctly and supported at a reasonable level. 

This is not all RV guys -- RV did what he could with Dodge with VERY limited funding... he was able to get Mac in with double what he was paying the Dodge staff.  That type of money makes a huge difference...

RV has taken the blame for the Dodge hire but I also think  our administration at the time deserves their share as well...

[untjim1995]

The saddest part about all of this comparison isn't Dodge's HS resume or Morris's pedigree or the salary difference between the two. Its that after Todd Dodge had gone 5-31 in three full seasons as the head coach, the university decided that buying out an extra $332k would be WORSE than bringing him back for a 4th year, which he rewarded that thought by going 1-6 before getting fired in the middle of the season. We decided that buying out an extra year of a whopping $332k contract was too expensive, which saw us go 3-9 the next season, followed up by Mac's hiring that led to a 5-7 year in his first season, which was our best record in 7 years and tied for our 4th best record at the time since we moved back to FBS in 1995.

We hired a high school coach because we wouldn't pay for an actual college coach. Then we signed him to a five year deal, but refused to fire him after a 5-31 start. And there are posters on here that actually believe we will fire McCarney before 2017, which is his 4th year out of 5 for his current contract, while making the most money as a coach in the history of the school. Whether its been Vic Trilli, Todd Dodge, or Tony Benford, we don't buy out more than a year of a contract for a major sport.

[Harry]

The saddest part about all of this comparison isn't Dodge's HS resume or Morris's pedigree or the salary difference between the two. Its that after Todd Dodge had gone 5-31 in three full seasons as the head coach, the university decided that buying out an extra $332k would be WORSE than bringing him back for a 4th year, which he rewarded that thought by going 1-6 before getting fired in the middle of the season.

Good point and I would also say, that was not on RV -- that was Dr. Bataille who made that stupid call.. I remember thinking here we are about to build this beautiful stadium and they are going to give Dodge another year (he signed a ton of jucos if you recall) and whoever ends up replacing him will have to start their rebuild in a new stadium...

Again, RV wanted to replace Dodge and wanted to up the ante in terms of bringing in a quality coaching staff.  Remember our assistant salaries were near the bottom of the BELT and every time we had an assistant who could recruit we lost him to Tulsa or whomever... what I think happened is Bataille said with the stadium and everything else, we need the money it would take to buy out Dodge to help fund the new package to attract the likes of Mac etc... so again RV gets the blame for the Dodge hire, but he should not get the blame for Dodge getting the 4th year in my opinion..

I am starting to agree with Jim's rants against  the BOR in terms of they have a LOT of power to impact athletics and hires etc.. leadership in that group could have helped us maneuver better the rough waters we were in when Dodge faltered.  No one on that board was thinking about the ramifications of opening a brand new stadium - the biggest capital expenditure in the HISTORY of the university - with a brand new coach and players from a losing regime... you reap what you sow.  Now we have yet to fill up Apogee and we have missed a huge opportunity to showcase a winning team in our stadium's inaugural year.

[untjim1995]

Good point and I would also say, that was not on RV -- that was Dr. Bataille who made that stupid call.. I remember thinking here we are about to build this beautiful stadium and they are going to give Dodge another year (he signed a ton of jucos if you recall) and whoever ends up replacing him will have to start their rebuild in a new stadium...

Again, RV wanted to replace Dodge and wanted to up the ante in terms of bringing in a quality coaching staff.  Remember our assistant salaries were near the bottom of the BELT and every time we had an assistant who could recruit we lost him to Tulsa or whomever... what I think happened is Bataille said with the stadium and everything else, we need the money it would take to buy out Dodge to help fund the new package to attract the likes of Mac etc... so again RV gets the blame for the Dodge hire, but he should not get the blame for Dodge getting the 4th year in my opinion..

I am starting to agree with Jim's rants against  the BOR in terms of they have a LOT of power to impact athletics and hires etc.. leadership in that group could have helped us maneuver better the rough waters we were in when Dodge faltered.  No one on that board was thinking about the ramifications of opening a brand new stadium - the biggest capital expenditure in the HISTORY of the university - with a brand new coach and players from a losing regime... you reap what you sow.  Now we have yet to fill up Apogee and we have missed a huge opportunity to showcase a winning team in our stadium's inaugural year.

Yep--we are trying to build up from the ashes. When you look at where we are as a program, compared to the beginning of 2010, you see us in the SBC, playing at Fouts, with Todd Dodge as the head coach. Today looks like heaven compared to that. But the problem is that we are so far behind in the terms of where a real FBS program should be right now, given our location, size, and history of the program. We literally have started trying to catch up about 35 years later than we should have...that's completely on the BOR and leadership of the university. And Tony Benford is proof positive that our view on athletics hasn't changed much...

[Travis Scott]

I disagree with you Harry in that I hope SMU has zero success after our game with them.  I openly cheer against SMU and TCU as much as I'm allowed. 

[HoustonEagle]

I think it goes further than the BOR.  The Texas legislature has always pegged UNT under the category of Education for the masses. Whatever attempt the University has made to get out from under that umbrella have always been thwarted by the state government.  The only way that will change is to have more UNT alumni in the Legislature and powerful moneyed alumni.  We have little of each.

[NTXCoog]

Who knows what  Dodge wanted, but most any AD in the country would have vetoed bringing in an almost exclusively high school staff.  North Texas no matter what the budget has always managed to get assistant coaches with college experience.  Holding on to the good ones is not going to happen, but there are always plenty of coaches available at almost any salary level. 

When Art Briles became head coach at UH, he had too many high school coaches on staff, most notably Strength & Conditioning.  Our AD eventually forced Briles to change up some of his staff.  Getting a top notch S&C coach made a HUGE difference and now Briles always makes sure that his S&C coach is among the best. 

[cogido]

Harry is RIGHT !  When does our Board of Regents (BOR) give this program the support and leadership we all hope for ?  I buy season  tickets for my family because I am an alum, but I know other brother grads in business who don't just because they don't think the  University leadership  doesn't back football or football. It's true, UNT should be the leading D-1 team in north Texas. Make calls people, don't just drink beer.

 

 

[JesseMartin]

I think it goes further than the BOR.  The Texas legislature has always pegged UNT under the category of Education for the masses. Whatever attempt the University has made to get out from under that umbrella have always been thwarted by the state government.  The only way that will change is to have more UNT alumni in the Legislature and powerful moneyed alumni.  We have little of each.

A lot of that is the alumni themselves.  Sure, some give back, like Eli Young Band, but how many of the other well-known, big-name alumni are involved enough to make a difference?  Michael Faircloth, Peter Weller, and some others are attached in name to UNT, but even with their involvement, some fiscal, some not, they don't get involved in campus politics.

As for Legislature, well, too many go off to grad school or law school elsewhere and then move out of state.  We have some pretty solid lawyers as well as people working in DC, but that doesn't help the campus situation.  And then there's the problem with the aides and others who work with Legislators; I'm not dogging our more liberal alumni (who tend to be the ones I know that are heavily involved at that level), but even with your other priorities, don't you want to convince the legislators with whom you work to get the school where you got your feet wet in terms of networking, campaigning, and other useful political tools to stop being treated like the "little sister" of the state Universities?

Really, the fracturing doesn't help either.  We can't make students feel like they're a commodity to be pushed around and then expect them to jump on board as alumni, and we also can't be getting all pissy about who is part of one segment of the student/alumni population or another.  For instance, the more liberal alumni I mentioned working in political capacities shouldn't be blown off just because they don't fit the typical Texan political mold.  Don't always focus on differences, or you're going to be powerless in situations like this where you need to have each others' backs.  Agree to disagree on non-UNT-related issues but find common ground when it comes to pushing our University to where it should be.  Don't outcast someone just because they were a Wendy Davis supporter or work for a liberal urban state legislator.  Those are the people you want to get involved in the discussion about appropriate funding levels and having our projects prioritized properly.  Whether they then try to convince the legislators of the importance of these things, or run for office soon and are in that position themselves, these are the people that we should be focusing on getting more involved in UNT-oriented education legislation.  AND it needs to be a regular, heartfelt contact.  When anyone other than me talks to them about UNT stuff, they think it's almost comical and are like, "Really?  Where has UNT been all these years?"  We need to be reaching out to every alum as often as possible unless they specifically tell us they don't want contact.  Otherwise, when they get the annual fundraising call or someone contacts the more-connected ones about supporting UNT legislation, it tells them that we only care about them when we can get something from them.

[Cr1028]

Looking back at the names going around when we hired him, (Don Carthel-fired by WTAMU in '13; Mike Schultz-asst at SWTSU-SM; Todd Dodge-HC at Westlake; Sonny Dykes-HC at Cal; Bruce Chambers-asst. AD at Arlington ISD; Pat Sullivan-resigned at Samford '14; Curtis Modkins-RB coach at Detroit Lions; Todd-Berry-ULM HC; Jerry Glanville-resigned Portland State '09)), he wasn't the worst hire we could have made. Despite Harbaugh and Jimbo being tossed around as names here, they ended up at Stanford and FSU so no, they weren't seriously coming here. Hell of a speaker and fundraiser. If I may be so bold as to say, without Dodge's help we do not get Apogee, which in turn means we do not get McCarney.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Cr1028

[foutsrouts]

I think it goes further than the BOR.  The Texas legislature has always pegged UNT under the category of Education for the masses. Whatever attempt the University has made to get out from under that umbrella have always been thwarted by the state government.  The only way that will change is to have more UNT alumni in the Legislature and powerful moneyed alumni.  We have little of each.

Those of us born before the 70's remember when all public universities in Texas were all about education for the masses, but UT made academic strides while A&M became a school for people other than "kinda strange guys." Without the big bucks upward mobility can be very difficult, which is why serious success in athletics could be so important to a university such as ours. If you can't make it with money you've got to make it with headlines, which is why I've never quite understood the indifference at the top toward athletics in Denton. Time for those at the top to finally wise up to that thought in a big way IMHO.

[Harry]

Looking back at the names going around when we hired him, (Don Carthel-fired by WTAMU in '13; Mike Schultz-asst at SWTSU-SM; Todd Dodge-HC at Westlake; Sonny Dykes-HC at Cal; Bruce Chambers-asst. AD at Arlington ISD; Pat Sullivan-resigned at Samford '14; Curtis Modkins-RB coach at Detroit Lions; Todd-Berry-ULM HC; Jerry Glanville-resigned Portland State '09)), he wasn't the worst hire we could have made. Despite Harbaugh and Jimbo being tossed around as names here, they ended up at Stanford and FSU so no, they weren't seriously coming here. Hell of a speaker and fundraiser. If I may be so bold as to say, without Dodge's help we do not get Apogee, which in turn means we do not get McCarney.

Nice recap.  You are correct -- those were the names bantied around at the time.

I remember thinking based on our budget and board, we will get another Dickey, ie unknown assistant or we could get a lower division coach like Carthel etc...

Hires are often made based with the predecessor in mind... Dickey was a boring offense conservative grind it out etc... Dodge was fast paced wide open....Mac was in the other direction but head coaching experience etc...

 

[Cerebus]

so again RV gets the blame for the Dodge hire, but he should not get the blame for Dodge getting the 4th year in my opinion..

Harry,  the AD is responsible for fundraising.  If the MGC, season ticket, and large donor numbers were so low that we could not scrounge up 300k to fire a coach that was 5-31 I do blame the AD for that.  AD's all over the country have to do that, USM had to come up with 2.1 million to buyout the last three years of Ellis Johnson's contract and they got it done.

 

[untjim1995]

Harry,  the AD is responsible for fundraising.  If the MGC, season ticket, and large donor numbers were so low that we could not scrounge up 300k to fire a coach that was 5-31 I do blame the AD for that.  AD's all over the country have to do that, USM had to come up with 2.1 million to buyout the last three years of Ellis Johnson's contract and they got it done.

 

I completely agree, but what if Gretchen Bataille and the BOR said to RV, "Absolutely no way we are using any funds for that kind of buyout"?

[Cerebus]

I completely agree, but what if Gretchen Bataille and the BOR said to RV, "Absolutely no way we are using any funds for that kind of buyout"?

What if they said "All the extra athletics money is being diverted for the super laser we are building on the moon in order to force UT to let us into the B12?"  Both are equally plausible.

If athletics could raise the money they could build, hire/fire, buy new uniforms, schedule FBS home games, etc to their hearts content.  The fact that we constantly have to find out how to get the university to underwrite as much as possible is why the above things don't happen or are constantly delayed.  Look no further than ASU to see someone who is raising money and delivering projects while the school itself deals with financial issues.

[GrandGreen]

Ultimately, everything can be blamed on the BOR or the person who appointed them.  However, I do wonder were all that extra money is supposed to come from.  

As far as RV goes, his lack of action with DD's constant put down of the program has been attributed to the BOR supporting Dickey, his hiring of Dodge and Stephenson due to Bataille, other failures to school apathy and lack of BOR support.  

By the way, I don't believe for a second that Dr. Bataille ordered RV to hire either Dodge or Stephenson.  She may have limited the amount spent or indicated she wanted a female or minority in a position, but she did not specify who. 

Everyone who works, works for someone and part of the job is to convince your superiors to support your plans.  Blaming past administrations for bad calls only highlights failure in performing the job.  

Almost all G5 programs have financial issues, and most are no better off than NT as for as organizational support.  The difference if it exists is because of many programs superior ability to acquire outside donations.  See the abysmal amounts raised by NT compared to almost any other program.