DRC Monday column: On the bright side, at least UNT has something to sell coach

Brett Vito · October 26, 2015

DRC: Villarreal, boosters deserve credit for improving what UNT has to sell. The key now is to capitalize

http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-headlines/20151025-brett-vito-on-the-bright-side-unt-has-something-to-sell-new-coach.ece

MeanGreenTexan · October 26, 2015

DRC: Villarreal, boosters deserve credit for improving what UNT has to sell. The key now is to capitalize
http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-headlines/20151025-brett-vito-on-the-bright-side-unt-has-something-to-sell-new-coach.ece

That's what you think Brett...

I've already got a gofundme page up for a "Fire the Athletics Center Janitor" banner to fly during the UTEP game.
IT's TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE!!! Literally! :zonk:

kj86 · October 26, 2015

Another jab at the little guy.

Army of Dad · October 26, 2015

Maybe Vito was told he could get a parking pass if he played nice?

Harry · October 26, 2015

Good article. The point is you can't really judge UNT's hires pre Apogee and pre Mac staff salaries. The differences between the two are night and day.

My recollection is the Dodge staff was in the bottom quarter of Sun Belt coaching salaries. I will always believe that part of the reason we had high school assistants was the fact we couldn't pay college ones.

I also believe part of the reason Dodge was given a 4th year - when it was clear he wasn't going to turn it around - was money. You save year of contract to go towards the next guy. You allow Dodge to go heavily juco in his last year which sets the program back in terms of depth. You get what you pay for.

Fast forward to 2011 and we actually gave ourselves a fighting chance in terms of what we paid to get Mac and what we paid for the assistant pool.

Rewind back to the Dickey era, and I will tell you our assistant pool dollars were a joke. Every good recruiter we had would leave for a better paying job.

So - what have we learned? Even when you build the facilities and even when you bump up the pay and pay a renown consultant to assist you with the hire -- there is no guarantee.

So you can either crawl in the corner in fetal position or try again and this time try to better your odds. You do that by learning from your past mistakes (Dodge: lack of experience, unqualified assistants, no defense - Mac: boring offense/bad recruiting/no Texas ties) and make a better choice. Right now USA today shows us to between 85-90th in salaries in the country. How about we move that to 65-70 position which puts us around a Boise State level comp? Find out from the assistants the biggest objections they faced in recruiting and see if those can be addressed internally (adding certain degree programs etc). For instance, Louisiana Tech uses a trimester program which I believe gives them a huge advantage with their transfers. Make some data driven decisions based on what the market reports.

And of course sell what you have in place. Mac did a great job with GPA's and academics which is important to recruits and their families. The school itself is rising both in enrollment and academics. The town of Denton is a big positive. Donors like Ernie Kuhne, Brint Ryan, C. Dan Smith are extremely well respected in the business community and should be involved. There are many others. You aren't just selling the coach but also his wife and kids. Put on your sales hat and roll out the red carpet!

Greenrex · October 26, 2015

Sell our greatest untapped resources: Our current student population and the population of our area alumni and the very small sampling of the support those two groups can generate during one recent winning season.
And, remind the candidate that there are two nearby small private colleges currently ranked in the top five. The combined size of TCU and Baylor is approximately 10K students less than UNT.

Cerebus · October 26, 2015

My recollection is the Dodge staff was in the bottom quarter of Sun Belt coaching salaries.

SBC Salaries:

Mario Cristobal, FIU 390k
Howard Schnellenberger, FAU 375k
Todd Dodge, NT 300k
Larry Blakeney, Troy 300k
Rick Stockstill, MTSU 300k
Charlie Weatherbie, ULM 205k
Rickey Bustle, ULL 200k
Steve Roberts, ASU 200k
Davide Elson, WKU 200k

CUSA Salaries

Rick Stockstill, MTSU 801k
David Bailiff, Rice 805k
Doc Holliday, Marshall 755k
Dan McCarney, NT 720k
Todd Monken, USM 700k
Jeff Brohm, WKU 610k
Ron Turner, FIU 605k
Brad Lambert, CHA 600k
Bobby Wilder, ODU 550k
Charlie Partridge, FAU 525k
Skip Holtz, LaTech 515k
Sean Kugler, UTEP 500k
Larry Coker, UTSA 425k

I think you can judge both hires, in relation to their conference mates, since we paid some of the leading salaries in each conference, and each school is pretty comparable (football wise) to us. No doubt both hires under performed in relation to their compensation.

For comparison Dickey made a base salary of 187k.

Mad Hatter · October 26, 2015

Although I love to see the coaches out visiting with the DFW Alumni, I really believe they should tell the new coach that if he wants to see a full stadium, and really make a change for the future of the University, he can just stay on campus and work on the students. No news to anyone here, but with a student population that could fill our stadium to capacity, you don't need to look much further for gameday support. We are turning a corner with Alumni. With a 15 year history of allowing tailgating before the games, you can start to see young alums who at least will go to the parking lot to hang out with friends, and with a decent product on the field will go inside. This segment will continue to grow. Once these alumni no longer have kids at home pulling them in different directions on Saturdays, they will come back to support the school, especially if the game day atmosphere continues to be fun.

I look forward to the day the Green Brigade is forced to sit in the endzone because the student section is packed.

We're getting close.

TheColonyEagle · October 26, 2015

And THAT is how you begin to shape the narrative. Well played UNT Athletics. (Unless I'm giving you too much credit) And yes, I guess Vito got his parking pass. Thank you Brett for telling all the fans how lucky we are to have RV and the 17. Also a perfectly timed article with the banner coming.

Basically, thank goodness he and the 17 have been here this whole time to give us all these great things.

It's painfully obvious, Rick Villarreal isn't going anywhere.

SilverEagle · October 26, 2015

I also believe part of the reason Dodge was given a 4th year - when it was clear he wasn't going to turn it around - was money. You save year of contract to go towards the next guy. You allow Dodge to go heavily juco in his last year which sets the program back in terms of depth. You get what you pay for.

Not always. Americans tend to think that throwing money at a problem is the answer to just about anything. I always believe that you get what you've carefully planned for. I also believe that it's great to work hard, but I've found that it's better to work smart. And historically we've had some of the dumbest people, not to mention some of the most arrogant people, in positions of hiring in all of college football.
And let me remind you of who was in charge of the money back in the DD and Dodge days.

I don't believe in selling our program to a coach. I believe in providing the candidate with full disclosure about our program, our facilities, and finally...our history. And then I believe in letting the candidate sell me on how he will turn things around.

Edited October 26, 2015 by SilverEagle

VideoEagle · October 26, 2015

First, don't forget Harry wrote Dodge's STAFF with in the bottom quarter, not just Dodge.

Second, one of the things that RV did get right with raising the salaries of the coaches. I remember a lot of opposition to the raise given to Dodge based on his terrible performance, but the raise was NOT based on Dodge at all. It was based on raising the overall range of what NT is willing to pay a football coach. Can you imagine going into CUSA and needing to replace Dodge while the BOR is still thinking in terms of Dodge's original salary? There would have been no possibility of them agreeing to what McCarney got paid. Likewise, the raise given to McCarney has increased the range of what NT is willing to pay McCarney's replacement.

RV has gotten a lot of things wrong, but not everything. We are in a position to be competitive within our conference because of him. As has been written before, he's done enough actual things wrong that we don't have to invent things.

untjim1995 · October 26, 2015

Although I love to see the coaches out visiting with the DFW Alumni, I really believe they should tell the new coach that if he wants to see a full stadium, and really make a change for the future of the University, he can just stay on campus and work on the students. No news to anyone here, but with a student population that could fill our stadium to capacity, you don't need to look much further for gameday support. We are turning a corner with Alumni. With a 15 year history of allowing tailgating before the games, you can start to see young alums who at least will go to the parking lot to hang out with friends, and with a decent product on the field will go inside. This segment will continue to grow. Once these alumni no longer have kids at home pulling them in different directions on Saturdays, they will come back to support the school, especially if the game day atmosphere continues to be fun.
I look forward to the day the Green Brigade is forced to sit in the endzone because the student section is packed.
We're getting close.

Really??

Harry · October 26, 2015

SBC Salaries:
Mario Cristobal, FIU 390k
Howard Schnellenberger, FAU 375k
Todd Dodge, NT 300k
Larry Blakeney, Troy 300k
Rick Stockstill, MTSU 300k
Charlie Weatherbie, ULM 205k
Rickey Bustle, ULL 200k
Steve Roberts, ASU 200k
Davide Elson, WKU 200k

CUSA Salaries
Rick Stockstill, MTSU 801k
David Bailiff, Rice 805k
Doc Holliday, Marshall 755k
Dan McCarney, NT 720k
Todd Monken, USM 700k
Jeff Brohm, WKU 610k
Ron Turner, FIU 605k
Brad Lambert, CHA 600k
Bobby Wilder, ODU 550k
Charlie Partridge, FAU 525k
Skip Holtz, LaTech 515k
Sean Kugler, UTEP 500k
Larry Coker, UTSA 425k
I think you can judge both hires, in relation to their conference mates, since we paid some of the leading salaries in each conference, and each school is pretty comparable (football wise) to us. No doubt both hires under performed in relation to their compensation.
For comparison Dickey made a base salary of 187k.

Interesting list. Not sure the year here, but I would be interested to see where Dodge was in comparison to these others in his 4th year. I am guessing this is his first based on the names?

UNT90 · October 26, 2015

DRC: Villarreal, boosters deserve credit for improving what UNT has to sell. The key now is to capitalize
http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-headlines/20151025-brett-vito-on-the-bright-side-unt-has-something-to-sell-new-coach.ece

Fair article. Building are nice, but they are empty when you continually hire coaches that don't win.

I think Vito did a good job of showing both points of view here.

The only thing he missed is that this is about so much more than losing. Scheduling, ticket office, lying to fan base, failure to fire a coach when it's clear he isn't going to be successful all come to mind.

Unfortunately, Vito can only hit the highlights with the limited word count he has.

Understandable.

Good article. The point is you can't really judge UNT's hires pre Apogee and pre Mac staff salaries. The differences between the two are night and day.
My recollection is the Dodge staff was in the bottom quarter of Sun Belt coaching salaries. I will always believe that part of the reason we had high school assistants was the fact we couldn't pay college ones.
I also believe part of the reason Dodge was given a 4th year - when it was clear he wasn't going to turn it around - was money. You save year of contract to go towards the next guy. You allow Dodge to go heavily juco in his last year which sets the program back in terms of depth. You get what you pay for.
Fast forward to 2011 and we actually gave ourselves a fighting chance in terms of what we paid to get Mac and what we paid for the assistant pool.
Rewind back to the Dickey era, and I will tell you our assistant pool dollars were a joke. Every good recruiter we had would leave for a better paying job.
So - what have we learned? Even when you build the facilities and even when you bump up the pay and pay a renown consultant to assist you with the hire -- there is no guarantee.
So you can either crawl in the corner in fetal position or try again and this time try to better your odds. You do that by learning from your past mistakes (Dodge: lack of experience, unqualified assistants, no defense - Mac: boring offense/bad recruiting/no Texas ties) and make a better choice. Right now USA today shows us to between 85-90th in salaries in the country. How about we move that to 65-70 position which puts us around a Boise State level comp? Find out from the assistants the biggest objections they faced in recruiting and see if those can be addressed internally (adding certain degree programs etc). For instance, Louisiana Tech uses a trimester program which I believe gives them a huge advantage with their transfers. Make some data driven decisions based on what the market reports.
And of course sell what you have in place. Mac did a great job with GPA's and academics which is important to recruits and their families. The school itself is rising both in enrollment and academics. The town of Denton is a big positive. Donors like Ernie Kuhne, Brint Ryan, C. Dan Smith are extremely well respected in the business community and should be involved. There are many others. You aren't just selling the coach but also his wife and kids. Put on your sales hat and roll out the red carpet!

Disagree. There are 3 major sports to judge hires in, Harry.

Have you been to La. Tech? They are about an inch above Fouts when it comes to their football stadium.

Saying RV gets a pass for the crap hires (yes, this includes McCarney, who was the crappiest of all because of what he had to work woth) in ALL REVENUE SPORTS is disengenuous, in my opinion.

BillySee58 · October 26, 2015

Fair article. Building are nice, but they are empty when you continually hire coaches that don't win.
I think Vito did a good job of showing both points of view here.
The only thing he missed is that this is about so much more than losing. Scheduling, ticket office, lying to fan base, failure to fire a coach when it's clear he isn't going to be successful all come to mind.
Unfortunately, Vito can only hit the highlights with the limited word count he has.
Understandable.
Disagree. There are 3 major sports to judge hires in, Harry.
Have you been to La. Tech? They are about an inch above Fouts when it comes to their football stadium.
Saying RV gets a pass for the crap hires (yes, this includes McCarney, who was the crappiest of all because of what he had to work woth) in ALL REVENUE SPORTS is disengenuous, in my opinion.

It's awful. I'm already seeing signs of this hiring going down the same road, with the same driver. Sad thing is, there is time to make a change. Especially when you consider all the dominoes that are going to fall with two of the premier job openings in all of college football (USC and Miami).

During this most recent summer I saw our coaching staff recruiting like a staff that was about to be fired. I feel like I'm seeing those same early stages with RV in his job, and I do think he won't be here much longer. The frustrating part is that even if he's gone by the end of the school year, that would put him in position to make the next football hire and men's basketball hire. Which would mean we would have to suffer for his awful hiring beyond his actual departure.

untjim1995 · October 26, 2015

Fair article. Building are nice, but they are empty when you continually hire coaches that don't win.
I think Vito did a good job of showing both points of view here.
The only thing he missed is that this is about so much more than losing. Scheduling, ticket office, lying to fan base, failure to fire a coach when it's clear he isn't going to be successful all come to mind.
Unfortunately, Vito can only hit the highlights with the limited word count he has.
Understandable.
Disagree. There are 3 major sports to judge hires in, Harry.
Have you been to La. Tech? They are about an inch above Fouts when it comes to their football stadium.
Saying RV gets a pass for the crap hires (yes, this includes McCarney, who was the crappiest of all because of what he had to work woth) in ALL REVENUE SPORTS is disengenuous, in my opinion.

La Tech has a mostly winning tradition, though. We don't--its literally apples vs oranges here. La Tech has a womens team that has won a national championship and played for a few more in its history. They have wins over Alabama, Michigan State, and others, as well as close games against really great teams in its past to sell recruits in Louisiana and Texas on. That includes a loss by a FG to a top 5 Texas A&M team with Johnny Football in Shreveport. And, of course, last year, they beat Illinois in the HoD Bowl.

One huge advantage that La Tech will always have is that they are the number two public school in a very talent-rich state. If a kid is a G5 talent in that state, if he wants to play at home in Louisiana, he can look at Tulane, La Tech, ULL, or ULM. Tulane's admission standards are higher, so that will always make it a little tougher for recruits, so that kind of makes La Tech your default choice after that. That's a nice position to be in a state that really produces a ton of high school talent. Kind of like Southern Miss being third in Mississippi, but also being a G5 program, as well as Arkansas State in Arkansas, your position in t e pecking order within your states should always generate a decent amount of talent to get.

We play in a state with 11 other schools. Right now, for various reasons, we are last on the totem pole for recruiting. By the time the P5 schools recruit heavily here, which include UT, A&M, Baylor, Tech, TCU, Arkansas, OU, OSU, and LSU, among others, that leaves you with the G5 talent to fight for. Take UH, SMU, Rice, UTSA, UTEP and Texas State, then add in Tulane, Tulsa, La Tech, and a few others in the SBCUSA, and that is your group you are fighting. If you cannot beat even a quarter of that group for overall recruiting, which McCarney obviously couldn't do here, you cannot be surprised to be the worst team in America right now. Our recruiting class in 2014 was dead-ass last, according to rivals--that is coming after a bowl winning season that ended at 9-4. If you can't get kids here after that, it just wasn't ever going to happen. Recruiting is certainly not an exact science or a true indicator of how things will go for your team--but when you finish at the bottom of 125+ teams in recruiting rankings, expecting anything much different than what we are seeing is just being blinded with Mean Green glasses, Portland State 's prison-raping of us on Homecoming notwithstanding...losing to a FCS team should never be expected by any FBS team, no matter where you are ranked in recruiting, but that is beside the point...

BillySee58 · October 26, 2015

Interesting list. Not sure the year here, but I would be interested to see where Dodge was in comparison to these others in his 4th year. I am guessing this is his first based on the names?

The first year is the one that matters because that's when you're offering him the job. That's when you're making the commitment to be able to offer your prospective coaches a salary towards the top of the conference. We could and we did.

UNT90 · October 26, 2015

La Tech has a mostly winning tradition, though. We don't--its literally apples vs oranges here. La Tech has a womens team that has won a national championship and played for a few more in its history. They have wins over Alabama, Michigan State, and others, as well as close games against really great teams in its past to sell recruits in Louisiana and Texas on. That includes a loss by a FG to a top 5 Texas A&M team with Johnny Football in Shreveport. And, of course, last year, they beat Illinois in the HoD Bowl.
One huge advantage that La Tech will always have is that they are the number two public school in a very talent-rich state. If a kid is a G5 talent in that state, if he wants to play at home in Louisiana, he can look at Tulane, La Tech, ULL, or ULM. Tulane's admission standards are higher, so that will always make it a little tougher for recruits, so that kind of makes La Tech your default choice after that. That's a nice position to be in a state that really produces a ton of high school talent. Kind of like Southern Miss being third in Mississippi, but also being a G5 program, as well as Arkansas State in Arkansas, your position in t e pecking order within your states should always generate a decent amount of talent to get.
We play in a state with 11 other schools. Right now, for various reasons, we are last on the totem pole for recruiting. By the time the P5 schools recruit heavily here, which include UT, A&M, Baylor, Tech, TCU, Arkansas, OU, OSU, and LSU, among others, that leaves you with the G5 talent to fight for. Take UH, SMU, Rice, UTSA, UTEP and Texas State, then add in Tulane, Tulsa, La Tech, and a few others in the SBCUSA, and that is your group you are fighting. If you cannot beat even a quarter of that group for overall recruiting, which McCarney obviously couldn't do here, you cannot be surprised to be the worst team in America right now. Our recruiting class in 2014 was dead-ass last, according to rivals--that is coming after a bowl winning season that ended at 9-4. If you can't get kids here after that, it just wasn't ever going to happen. Recruiting is certainly not an exact science or a true indicator of how things will go for your team--but when you finish at the bottom of 125+ teams in recruiting rankings, expecting anything much different than what we are seeing is just being blinded with Mean Green glasses, Portland State 's prison-raping of us on Homecoming notwithstanding...losing to a FCS team should never be expected by any FBS team, no matter where you are ranked in recruiting, but that is beside the point...

Harry said you can't judge football hires because of facilities that we didn't have. La. Tech's football stadium is barely better than Fouts. And they win.

Its much more about the AD, and coaching than anything else.

Edited October 26, 2015 by UNT90

untjim1995 · October 26, 2015

Harry said you can't judge football hires because of facilities that we didn't have. La. Tech's football stadium is barely better than Fouts. And they win.
Its much more about the AD, and coaching than anything else.

I completely agree...and its why a lot of us just can't standby and watch the university continue to condone the performance under the AD who has his job because he is well-liked by people who either don't care about athletics (BOR) or don't want to lose their inside status with a new AD.

You keep RV, you lose fans, probably forever...that is the choice. Keeping around fans of the program for decades versus #UNTADforlife...its that simple.

EagleMBA · October 26, 2015

It's awful. I'm already seeing signs of this hiring going down the same road, with the same driver. Sad thing is, there is time to make a change. Especially when you consider all the dominoes that are going to fall with two of the premier job openings in all of college football (USC and Miami).
During this most recent summer I saw our coaching staff recruiting like a staff that was about to be fired. I feel like I'm seeing those same early stages with RV in his job, and I do think he won't be here much longer. The frustrating part is that even if he's gone by the end of the school year, that would put him in position to make the next football hire and men's basketball hire. Which would mean we would have to suffer for his awful hiring beyond his actual departure.

This. My opinion is that if you are going to make the next coaching hire like a crapshoot, at least pass the dice to another shooter.

Cr1028 · October 26, 2015

SBC Salaries:
Mario Cristobal, FIU 390k
Howard Schnellenberger, FAU 375k
Todd Dodge, NT 300k
Larry Blakeney, Troy 300k
Rick Stockstill, MTSU 300k
Charlie Weatherbie, ULM 205k
Rickey Bustle, ULL 200k
Steve Roberts, ASU 200k
Davide Elson, WKU 200k

CUSA Salaries
Rick Stockstill, MTSU 801k
David Bailiff, Rice 805k
Doc Holliday, Marshall 755k
Dan McCarney, NT 720k
Todd Monken, USM 700k
Jeff Brohm, WKU 610k
Ron Turner, FIU 605k
Brad Lambert, CHA 600k
Bobby Wilder, ODU 550k
Charlie Partridge, FAU 525k
Skip Holtz, LaTech 515k
Sean Kugler, UTEP 500k
Larry Coker, UTSA 425k
I think you can judge both hires, in relation to their conference mates, since we paid some of the leading salaries in each conference, and each school is pretty comparable (football wise) to us. No doubt both hires under performed in relation to their compensation.
For comparison Dickey made a base salary of 187k.

I'm not sure the Dodge salary is accurate.

I am attaching Coach Dodge's contract for you to look at. TD Contract

There are a few interesting clauses in the contract:

- If TD were to get fired, UNT would owe him about $440,000 (2 years of base salary, including 5% increases), which comes out to about $18,000 per month (24 months of remaining contract)
- That UNT has the right to reassign TD to any position at UNT, in that case he would receive his base salary ($185,000) and benefits. However, if TD refuses to accept the reassignment, then UNT can fire him for just cause - which in that case, UNT can cease all payments to him.
- TD has to make a reasonable effort to obtain comparable employment. At that time, UNT's financial responsibility will with be reduced or cease. If TD does not notify UNT 10 days after official employment, then all financial obligations shall cease.
- If TD quits, he has to pay back 1 year of his salary to UNT.

UNTcrazy727 · October 26, 2015

Can we please stop acting like we have amazing facilities? Outside of Apogee, we don't have anything that would "Wow" recruits. Not saying we're in the bottom of G5, but we certainly aren't at the top.

BillySee58 · October 26, 2015

I'm not sure the Dodge salary is accurate.

Cerebus is factoring in guaranteed incentives into the salary of Dodge. He also did so for all the other coaches in both of his lists, so it is accurate.

Cerebus · October 26, 2015

I'm not sure the Dodge salary is accurate.

Dodge's avg base salary was ~241k but had all sort of stipends and "incentives" that de facto were automatic. For example 25K was added if we maintained NCAA certification, 30K if he performed his radio duties.. 300k was the total compensation in the year the above table was published.

Cerebus is factoring in guaranteed incentives into the salary of Dodge. He also did so for all the other coaches in both of his lists, so it is accurate.

Also, what he said.

KingDL1 · October 26, 2015

Dodge's avg base salary was ~241k but had all sort of stipends and "incentives" that de facto were automatic. For example 25K was added if we maintained NCAA certification, 30K if he performed his radio duties.. 300k was the total compensation in the year the above table was published.

Also, what he said.

Yes this^^^^

Mac's base was 600k with another automatic 125k if he was here and did the minimum so his adjusted base was 725K. But if not as in the buyout it is back to the base.

DRC Monday column: On the bright side, at least UNT has something to sell coach

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