DRC Monday column: New coach must unite fractured fan base

[southsideguy]

Maybe we be better at baseball and the football program is total disarray and looking down the road less kids are playing football, so we could add a mens soccer team also.

[rcade]

maybe it time to fold the tent and call it quits................................and drop football and add baseball.

Can you name a single college baseball player currently playing in Texas?

I want baseball at UNT, but it would hardly be a replacement for football in terms of the attention it gets in the sports world.

[southsideguy]

joe schblobnick

[GrayEagle]

Lol.

Could it be because the amount of bowl games exploded since 1982?

We moved back to FBS in 1995. RV took over in 2001. He didn't hire the coach that took us to4 of those bowls, and in fact wanted to fire him right before that run started. 

He is responsibly for one bowl win. He is also responsible for the worst loss in college football history. 

At the time time RV took over Dickey had a three-year record of 8-25.  If any of us were taking an Athletic Director's position and inherited a coach with that record and didn't put a coach on notice we shouldn't be hired in the first place.  

Although we got into the first NO Bowl with a losing record, the following three bowl appearances were solid as a result of the best recruiting class in our history.  At that, we only won one bowl during the Helwig/Dickey era...the same number that we've won since Villareal became AD.

The Portland State loss is unquestionably the worst loss in our football history and RV acted by the time the players and staff were in the locker room.  I agree that RV should be gone but I don't think that will happen until his contract is up in 2017.  Certainly not before the new hire or it would already have happened.  So, how is all of the vitriol helping?  Eighty mentions (probably more) of the same failing seems unproductive to me.  The first ten or twenty might help vent your/our feelings but this has gotten way past old.  This is pure hate.  

And no, I'm not a member of of RV's 11 or 17 or whatever the number is.  I don't even disagree that it's time for RV to go.  But, for pete's sake, let the administration (Smatresk) handle the situation.  If he doesn't understand our stance by now he never will.  

[EagleMBA]

Maybe we be better at baseball and the football program is total disarray and looking down the road less kids are playing football, so we could add a mens soccer team also.

I am not fully acquainted with the restraints presented by Title IX. In the back of my mind there is a little voice telling me that we might run afoul of that regulation if we start adding men's teams. I'm sure there is someone here that knows the rules off hand.

[97and03]

I am not fully acquainted with the restraints presented by Title IX. In the back of my mind there is a little voice telling me that we might run afoul of that regulation if we start adding men's teams. I'm sure there is someone here that knows the rules off hand.

i believe that he meant if we dropped fooseball

[UNT90]

At the time time RV took over Dickey had a three-year record of 8-25.  If any of us were taking an Athletic Director's position and inherited a coach with that record and didn't put a coach on notice we shouldn't be hired in the first place.  

Although we got into the first NO Bowl with a losing record, the following three bowl appearances were solid as a result of the best recruiting class in our history.  At that, we only won one bowl during the Helwig/Dickey era...the same number that we've won since Villareal became AD.

The Portland State loss is unquestionably the worst loss in our football history and RV acted by the time the players and staff were in the locker room.  I agree that RV should be gone but I don't think that will happen until his contract is up in 2017.  Certainly not before the new hire or it would already have happened.  So, how is all of the vitriol helping?  Eighty mentions (probably more) of the same failing seems unproductive to me.  The first ten or twenty might help vent your/our feelings but this has gotten way past old.  This is pure hate.  

And no, I'm not a member of of RV's 11 or 17 or whatever the number is.  I don't even disagree that it's time for RV to go.  But, for pete's sake, let the administration (Smatresk) handle the situation.  If he doesn't understand our stance by now he never will.  

Hate? Lol.

It's highlighting his failures, and there are MANY. And I will continue to do so as long as he is AD. 

i think you have just grown used to losing. It's one of the worst symptoms of RV's tenure.

[Aldo]

 

Would you be willing to concede that under RV we saw 2 NCAA bids under a coach he hired?

Whoops you're out of positive coaching hire rebuttals. 

[Stix]

 We need a Mean Green version of Jesus about right now.

It's more like it's 1980, we're suffering through the Mean Green version of Jimmy Carter's "malaise", and we need a Mean Green version of Ronald Reagan.

 

[rcade]

And no, I'm not a member of of RV's 11 or 17 or whatever the number is.  I don't even disagree that it's time for RV to go.  But, for pete's sake, let the administration (Smatresk) handle the situation.  If he doesn't understand our stance by now he never will.  

Until the new football coach is hired, we have a chance to convince Smatresk to fire RV, park him in a non-AD position until his contract is up or keep RV away from the hiring decision. You're asking us to give up before the fight is over.

[TIgreen01]

At the time time RV took over Dickey had a three-year record of 8-25.  If any of us were taking an Athletic Director's position and inherited a coach with that record and didn't put a coach on notice we shouldn't be hired in the first place.  

Although we got into the first NO Bowl with a losing record, the following three bowl appearances were solid as a result of the best recruiting class in our history.  At that, we only won one bowl during the Helwig/Dickey era...the same number that we've won since Villareal became AD.

The Portland State loss is unquestionably the worst loss in our football history and RV acted by the time the players and staff were in the locker room.  I agree that RV should be gone but I don't think that will happen until his contract is up in 2017.  Certainly not before the new hire or it would already have happened.  So, how is all of the vitriol helping?  Eighty mentions (probably more) of the same failing seems unproductive to me.  The first ten or twenty might help vent your/our feelings but this has gotten way past old.  This is pure hate.  

And no, I'm not a member of of RV's 11 or 17 or whatever the number is.  I don't even disagree that it's time for RV to go.  But, for pete's sake, let the administration (Smatresk) handle the situation.  If he doesn't understand our stance by now he never will.  

Well said.

We don't need football Jesus to walk through our doors.  We just need a good coach.  He doesn't have to be the second coming of Hayden Fry.  The days of a coach running all over town holding town hall meetings to "make a difference" are LONG GONE now.  All of the P5 schools send their coaches all over the place doing coaches dinners, etc.  So all that is already being done bigger and better.

We just need to make a good hire.  A guy who can evaluate CUSA level talent and gameplan against CUSA level teams.  Win some ball games, get noticed and get hired away.  Just like that, we would stop being a "graveyard".  

If we're really throwing $1.5 million at a new coach, we'll have a decent lot to choose from.

[Caw Caw]

Well said.

We don't need football Jesus to walk through our doors.  We just need a good coach.  He doesn't have to be the second coming of Hayden Fry.  The days of a coach running all over town holding town hall meetings to "make a difference" are LONG GONE now.  All of the P5 schools send their coaches all over the place doing coaches dinners, etc.  So all that is already being done bigger and better.

We just need to make a good hire.  A guy who can evaluate CUSA level talent and gameplan against CUSA level teams.  Win some ball games, get noticed and get hired away.  Just like that, we would stop being a "graveyard".  

If we're really throwing $1.5 million at a new coach, we'll have a decent lot to choose from.

Let me say the town hall days are far from over. The venue has just moved. The town hall is social media and a coach who genuinely engages in such could go a long way. It was a little irritating to see Mac's twitter was being run by a company which broadcast that it was running it. There's no connection to the future of the program that way both fans and recruits. We do need someone like that, but contemporary.

[Graddean]

The phrase "Fire RV" is thrown around a lot.  He has a contract and is entitled to substantive due process.  I don't know if his contract has any measurable such as growth of funding, etc. or not.  If not, the university would have to have given him certain goals to reach as conditions of the contract.  If he does not want to go, it takes time to build a case to terminate. Those of you that have been in supervisory positions can appreciate the situation.  Since he has a contract, this is not an "at will" job where the supervisor can terminate just because.  We can buy him out, but can the budget afford to do it on top of buying Mac out.  People on this board don't have to worry about these issues, but the President does.  If we don't trust the President to handle things then firing RV won't solve our problems: athletic or otherwise.

[rcade]

The phrase "Fire RV" is thrown around a lot.  He has a contract and is entitled to substantive due process.  I don't know if his contract has any measurable such as growth of funding, etc. or not.  If not, the university would have to have given him certain goals to reach as conditions of the contract.  If he does not want to go, it takes time to build a case to terminate.

Schools manage to fire ADs all the time. If Smatresk wanted new leadership in athletics but couldn't fire RV right away, he could do what FSU did with AD Randy Spetman in 2013. They created a new job called "senior adviser to the athletics department" and parked him there until his contract expired.

Based on this link, RV's contract expires in 15 months on Feb. 28, 2017:

http://www.gomeangreen.com/forums/topic/72839-unt-ad-rick-villarreal-contract-details-drc/

[UNT90]

If we can't afford an $800k buy out, we need to drop to FCS.

That is kinda ridiculous, especially when we are talking about bumping the HC in football to over $1 million a year. 

 

Schools manage to fire ADs all the time. If Smatresk wanted new leadership in athletics but couldn't fire RV right away, he could do what FSU did with AD Randy Spetman in 2013. They created a new job called "senior adviser to the athletics department" and parked him there until his contract expired.

Based on this link, RV's contract expires in 15 months on Feb. 28, 2017:

http://www.gomeangreen.com/forums/topic/72839-unt-ad-rick-villarreal-contract-details-drc/

it was extended to 2018. 

[Side Show Joe]

The title of the article is misleading.

The fracture within our fan base was not caused by one coaching hire, and it won't be fixed by one coaching hire. It is a result of several bad coaching hires. That's why the banner read Fire Rick Villarreal. 

If the university leadership would do its job and hire a new AD, the next head coach won't have to spend his valuable time trying to unit the Mean Green Nation. He could focus on building us a top level FBS football program.

Where is the article that takes a cold hard look at how our athletic department has fared (attendance, budget, wins/loses, facilites, season ticket numbers, supporter club development,...) over the 15 years under RV, versus the other FBS programs in Texas, and C-USA? Lets see if we (and the students) are really getting our moneys worth?

Edited November 17, 2015 by Side Show Joe

[mad dog]

We just need to make a good hire.  A guy who can evaluate CUSA level talent and gameplan against CUSA level teams.  Win some ball games, get noticed and get hired away.  Just like that, we would stop being a "graveyard".  

I like this, a lot.

[GTWT]

It's more like it's 1980, we're suffering through the Mean Green version of Jimmy Carter's "malaise", and we need a Mean Green version of Ronald Reagan.

 

So we need a head coach who believes in astrology?  He'll only play games on dates when the planets align?

[Stix]

So we need a head coach who believes in astrology?  He'll only play games on dates when the planets align?

No, we need a head coach who will stand up to the evil empire: the P5

[MeanGreenHoops]

I don't agree with this at all. We don't need a coach who will unite or ignite the fan base. Hiring Dodge was great for attendance and season tickets until about game 4 when we realized he was a disaster.  That kind of stuff doesn't last.

We need a guy who will win, regardless of if anybody has ever heard of him or not.

[untjim1995]

It's been said before that we just can't replace an AD at such a crucial time.  That's BS.  Dr. Pohl canned Helwig in November of 2000' and hired RV in March or April of '01.

I feel for any coach who comes here while this current regime is in charge.

 

Rick

Man, truer words have never been posted in that last sentence of yours, FFR. That guy might get paid awesomely well, but history under RV tells us this will not end well for him or his career as a head coach again. A coach might get over a million to come here, but the enormous pit that we are buried under right now will take time to dig out of, much less actually begin to climb any hills or mountains. The guy will have earned every cent he gets if he can even get us back to .500 in his first 3 seasons here. And then hear the AD and his supporters take all the credit...

[UNT90]

Man, truer words have never been posted in that last sentence of yours, FFR. That guy might get paid awesomely well, but history under RV tells us this will not end well for him or his career as a head coach again. A coach might get over a million to come here, but the enormous pit that we are buried under right now will take time to dig out of, much less actually begin to climb any hills or mountains. The guy will have earned every cent he gets if he can even get us back to .500 in his first 3 seasons here. And then hear the AD and his supporters take all the credit...

The problem is the culture inside the AD is such that the new coach will soon learn that ass covering and sucking up to the very limited amount of big donors is far more important than actually doing your job. That is what he will witness from his direct supervisor.

Then he will realize that he is being called on to do his job as well as the AD's. He will become discouraged and eventually give up. 

 

Edited November 19, 2015 by UNT90