How Do You Recruit to UNT?

untjim1995 · January 28, 2016

The only head coach in the last 45 years to do anything major here was Hayden Fry--to that extent, the answers to why he was able to do that should be able to lead you into the direction of why the others have failed. First, unlike any of the others, Hayden Fry was a known commodity within Texas. He had success and had built up recruiting relationships in Texas already as a head coach. He was an innovative coach on offense, which brings people to games. He was a great communicator to the media and community groups, which brings in money.

Nobody we have hired since then has met those three criteria. Jerry Moore came from Nebraska where the ran the I-formation. Bob Tyler came from Miss State. Corky Nelson was the DC for Baylor, IIRC. Dennis Parker was a HS coach. Matt Simon was the OC at New Mexico. Darrell Dickey was the OC at SMU. Todd Dodge was a HS Coach. Dan McCarney was a losing head coach from Iowa State that ran an incredibly basic offense, while also serving as the OL coach at Florida before he got hired here. And now we have Littrell, who was the playcaller at UNC. None of these hires have given Texas HS recruits, coaches, or parents a reason to rarely think of us as a primary choice unless the other offers have been underwhelming compared to us (basically FCS or other SBC-type teams). Dickey did the best at recruiting here, but it wasn't great by any imagination--he just had a way to get kids here that fit his mindset better than anyone else. His offense was no better than McCarney's was, his demeanor was even worse, and his attitude toward scheduling was pathetic--but he was still better than anyone else here as a I-A coach since Fry left. Sad, but true...

Now, keep in mind, Texas State hired Franchione, who fit all of the criteria that Fry did above, yet he still failed eventually down there. But maybe that was more on Texas State than it would have been here--we will never know. But those qualities that Hayden fry had coming into the job here have never been duplicated completely by UNT when hiring a new coach. Maybe Littrell turns it all around, even though he doesn't fit that bill above, hopefully he can do it here. Lord knows he has one helluva pit to dig up from, which isn't helped by the current AD, IMO.

bloodstunt · January 28, 2016

35 minutes ago, ChristopherRyanWilkes said:

We've been trying to tap into the DFW talent for years and the myth that there is enough talent here for everyone just hasn't turned out to be true. I think you are more likely to find an overlooked kid in Oklahoma or another surrounding state than DFW. LaTech has been successful at getting Shreveport talent after LSU gets their share. We have to wait to get our share after every P5 in the country gets their share.

No single metro area has the talent to supply the nation. But DFW is one of the most fertile and the only one UNT can have an advantage in. Going all the way back to when I was in High School I have seen many local kids that could play go off to some crappy little school in Kansas, Illinois, etc... because that was their only offers to just get disgruntled and quit football. North Texas needs to look for those kids that can play but not getting looks by the P5 schools and give them the opportunity to actually attend a real University close to home.

ChristopherRyanWilkes · January 28, 2016

1 minute ago, bloodstunt said:

No single metro area has the talent to supply the nation. But DFW is one of the most fertile and the only one UNT can have an advantage in. Going all the way back to when I was in High School I have seen many local kids that could play go off to some crappy little school in Kansas, Illinois, etc... because that was their only offers to just get disgruntled and quit football. North Texas needs to look for those kids that can play but not getting looks by the P5 schools and give them the opportunity to actually attend a real University close to home.

We have been using this strategy for years to no avail. We often are the only FBS offer to "overlooked" DFW kids in the area, that's the problem. The issue is it is pretty hard to be overlooked in DFW and much easier to be overlooked somewhere else. Especially if you are well connected to that area, like Littrell is with Oklahoma.

casual fan · January 28, 2016

Hard cold facts: 247 recruiting has UNT rated 138 behind 137 McNeese State, 136 Abilene Christian, 135 Sam Houston, and 134 Austin Peay.

Interestingly enough we are just ahead of 139 Bethune-Cookman, which we have scheduled for Sept. 10.

There's a reason to hire a head coach like Fritz (Tulane 89) or Withers (Texas State 105), because they bring a staff with them and hit the ground running.

Littrell has had to play catch up from day 1. I like the fact he has hired offensive coaches from Texas with a background in "Leach ball."

Harry · January 28, 2016

22 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Dickey has a lot less to recruit to and he managed to pull in 12 DaMN State Top 100s. At the time he did that we were in the Sun Belt, playing in Fouts, sharing the PEB weight room, had no meeting rooms big enough for the entire team to meet in, and our last winning season in the top division was the 6-5 mark IN THE 1980 SEASON.

Either Dickey was the greatest recruiter we have ever had, or the later coaches under performed.

He was hired by Helwig.

With all due respect to Cerebus and that fantastic class that Dickey pulled together, times have changed in the recruiting game a LOT.

In my sometimes foggy memory, it seems that when we landed this class, the recruiting game was run primarily by the local newspapers who covered all of the high school players and would put them in a top 100, 40 etc listing. There were also a few independent fan sites that had their lists. At that time, Rivals was just getting off their feet and were building sites around some of the top p5 programs. These newspaper lists were not often updated

I specifically recall seeing a player on the state top 100 list that had not yet committed around the time that we were landing the class that Cerebus lauds. The UNT coach said that he just was not that good a player. Somehow he made that list, perhaps a writer liked him or his coach helped it happen.

Fast forward and times have changed dramatically. Now all of the recruiting systems are being based on power schools and their offers. Cerebus is right, it is driven by the fact that the power schools have the most fans willing to pay subscription fees etc. What's interesting is that Rivals/247 etc are now being somewhat replaced by Twitter. Twitter has given the recruits their own platform to speak. I am amazed at the reach that twitter has AND the fact much of the NCAA guidelines do not seem to apply.

Case in point from today: I went to the Pearl River juco site and they are posting a picture of every kid that came on their official visit, of course wearing Pearl River uniforms. How powerful is that? How long till the other schools start doing this? Players are already announcing their final school lists and ultimate decisions on twitter as it is. And the colleges are now showing coaches out on the recruiting trail.

Back to my original point, yes that class was terrific and given the fact we had a losing record the year before it was probably one of the biggest wins Dickey had in his time here. He was young, hungry, positive and working his ass off as was the staff. The reality is though, we landed Brandon Kennedy because SMU was in the post death penalty academic microscope where he would have had to jump through many hoops to get qualified. Tulsa basically camped out at his doorstep and almost landed him but their coach at the time Ken Burns? was on the hot seat and ended up getting fired. The other p5 schools thought he was too short. Taylor Casey was a little to skinny for Baylor. Cody Spencer was supposed to go to Tech but had an academic class issue and they used up their spots. He signed with UNT late. Scott Hall was going to A&M but they straight up told him he would not be a QB there.

The other difference is that while out of state schools recruited here, it was not to the level you see today. In state, Baylor was not near the program they are now, same for Houston, TCU, and the list goes on. SMU had some of the highest academic requirements in the country so we rarely went after the same players. There wasn't as much information on every player that there is now. Heck you can watch HUDL video on guys who warm their high school bench now! Back then you could find a diamond in the rough and there was also the partial qualifier (ie Jonas Buckles) card. It's been stated before, but LaDanian Tomlinson's final 2 was TCU and North Texas!

So while that was a terrific class it is a much different time and I think it is hard to compare that against what we are dealing with now.

GrandGreen · January 28, 2016

7 hours ago, GOMG2013 said:

These recruiting sites have made all us fans think we know something about recruiting. We want kids that are rated and want to beat out other schools. I haven't met a coach or college scout that puts a lot of merit in those sites and area top 100 lists though. They mainly look at those sites to keep up with offers, but trust their own evaluation and board.

We look at it and say why aren't we going after this guy? Well a good college recruiting staff should know a lot more about a recruit before his name even hits those sites.

Schools like UNT are in a tough spot because even if they have a good read on a JR in high school, of he blows up, the big schools are coming. The recruiting sites make it even harder for small schools to hide a diamond in the rough now. Most of the G5 and low P5 scouts I have talked to would rather guys they are looking at to not even be ranked by those sites for fear of the big schools.

Pipelines are very important. To get some kids that eventually become 3 stars, you have to be on them early. The earlier and longer you showed intrest in a recruit, the better your chances of beating out a school in a bigger conference. Some kids will appreciate that you been with them the whole time.

Seems like litrells strategy is to find diamonds in the rough for now. Maybe it changes if he starts winning. He would rather find a solid unknown prospect and establish a pipeline than to get the remaining scraps in a metro area. He and his staff seem to have a lot of faith in their ability to coach and develop talent.

You have not met a coach that will admit they put any value in those lists. However, they are usually the first to tout their classes based on those same lists if highly rated.

Those recruiting lists and ratings are generally just a summarization of who is recruiting who based on what is reported. Sure coaches rather keep who they are recruiting secret to not tip off the competition. Then the obvious corollary to that is that coaching staffs do get valuable information from the sites to identifying recruiting targets.

UTSA Fan · January 28, 2016

The tone of this thread makes me more than a little concerned. ...

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

1 hour ago, Harry said:

With all due respect to Cerebus and that fantastic class that Dickey pulled together, times have changed in the recruiting game a LOT.

In my sometimes foggy memory, it seems that when we landed this class, the recruiting game was run primarily by the local newspapers who covered all of the high school players and would put them in a top 100, 40 etc listing. There were also a few independent fan sites that had their lists. At that time, Rivals was just getting off their feet and were building sites around some of the top p5 programs. These newspaper lists were not often updated

Dickey picked up at least one kid off the DaMN State Top 100 in four different years. Yes he did have one KILLER class, but he recruited well in other years also. I'm not ready to buy the argument that the DaMN didn't really have good recruits on their top 100 list because here are the guys I remember being top 100s:

Booger Kennedy
Jonas Buckles
Jamario Thomas
Randy Gardner
Taylor Casey
Cody Spencer
Roy Bishop
??? Ridgeway <-- never showed on campus

I think we would kill to get a clone of any one of those guys on campus right now. Dickey also pulled in a couple of JUCO all americans, Daniels and Mike Pruitt. He also pulled in some highly rated recruits from other states. Cobbs was a top Oklahoma recruit and he had an OSU offer. The LB Earlty out of florida was a Time Union Top 40 and had a Miami offer.

No matter how recruiting has changed, Dickey killed everyone else in conference recruiting. Yes, CUSA is full of better programs than the SBC, but we also have a new stadium, in a new conference, with a ton of other facilities.

Mean_Green09 · January 28, 2016

There is no specific strategy other than winning, building relationships, and branding. Littrell and his staff are building relationship faster and better than the previous staff. We've seen some new branding and marketing with Twitter, but more is needed. Finally we just need to win. I think if we become good in those 3 areas we will go to new heights as a program.

Harry · January 28, 2016

6 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

No matter how recruiting has changed, Dickey killed everyone else in conference recruiting. Yes, CUSA is full of better programs than the SBC, but we also have a new stadium, in a new conference, with a ton of other facilities.

On this we totally agree -- Dickey and his staff did more with less in recruiting than probably any coach in the history of North Texas. They pulled in some phenomenal players. unfortunately, they hit a dry spell, much like Mac and it ended up costing them.

I still wonder sometimes how thrilled Dickey and his staff would have been to have the facilities we have today and the budget for assistants etc. I makes me wonder what they could have done had they stayed.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

Just now, Harry said:

I still wonder sometimes how thrilled Dickey and his staff would have been to have the facilities we have today and the budget for assistants etc. I makes me wonder what they could have done had they stayed.

I think that if we had been able to pay enough to keep the staff turnover down, they never would have hit a dry spell. It's also strange to me that a guy who won four straight conference championships gets fired after a bad year and a half.

GrandGreen · January 28, 2016

9 hours ago, GOMG2013 said:

These recruiting sites have made all us fans think we know something about recruiting. We want kids that are rated and want to beat out other schools. I haven't met a coach or college scout that puts a lot of merit in those sites and area top 100 lists though. They mainly look at those sites to keep up with offers, but trust their own evaluation and board.

We look at it and say why aren't we going after this guy? Well a good college recruiting staff should know a lot more about a recruit before his name even hits those sites.

Schools like UNT are in a tough spot because even if they have a good read on a JR in high school, of he blows up, the big schools are coming. The recruiting sites make it even harder for small schools to hide a diamond in the rough now. Most of the G5 and low P5 scouts I have talked to would rather guys they are looking at to not even be ranked by those sites for fear of the big schools.

Pipelines are very important. To get some kids that eventually become 3 stars, you have to be on them early. The earlier and longer you showed intrest in a recruit, the better your chances of beating out a school in a bigger conference. Some kids will appreciate that you been with them the whole time.

Seems like litrells strategy is to find diamonds in the rough for now. Maybe it changes if he starts winning. He would rather find a solid unknown prospect and establish a pipeline than to get the remaining scraps in a metro area. He and his staff seem to have a lot of faith in their ability to coach and develop talent.

You have not met a coach that will admit they put any value in those lists. However, they are usually the first to tout their classes based on those same lists if highly rated.

Those recruiting lists and ratings are generally just a summarization of who is recruiting who based on what is reported. Sure coaches rather keep who they are recruiting secret to not tip off the competition. Then the obvious corollary to that is that coaching staffs do get valuable information from the sites to identifying recruiting targets.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

4 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Then the obvious corollary to that is that coaching staffs do get valuable information from the sites to identifying recruiting targets.

It's the other way around. The sites rank recruits based heavily on coach feedback.

GrandGreen · January 28, 2016

19 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Dickey picked up at least one kid off the DaMN State Top 100 in four different years. Yes he did have one KILLER class, but he recruited well in other years also. I'm not ready to buy the argument that the DaMN didn't really have good recruits on their top 100 list because here are the guys I remember being top 100s:

Booger Kennedy

Jonas Buckles

Jamario Thomas

Randy Gardner

Taylor Casey

Cody Spencer

Roy Bishop

??? Ridgeway <-- never showed on campus

I think we would kill to get a clone of any one of those guys on campus right now. Dickey also pulled in a couple of JUCO all americans, Daniels and Mike Pruitt. He also pulled in some highly rated recruits from other states. Cobbs was a top Oklahoma recruit and he had an OSU offer. The LB Earlty out of florida was a Time Union Top 40 and had a Miami offer.

No matter how recruiting has changed, Dickey killed everyone else in conference recruiting. Yes, CUSA is full of better programs than the SBC, but we also have a new stadium, in a new conference, with a ton of other facilities.

What you fail to mention is that Dickey's success was clearly the result of one outstanding class that was never close to being repeated. I don't know what happened that one year but the fact that Dickey never came close to equaling it, leads me to believe that it was Evans or someone else on that staff that was primarily the reason for the success. This class led to a few other top recruits joining in years after to be part of the team make up of that class.

Of the guys you cited 6 of 8 are from that class. Ridgeway was expected to be a starter his redshirt freshman year but then disappeared. Hall and Brewster were also in that class and Hall was also a state 100 recruit.

Dickey in my opinion with the exception of that one year, didn't recruit that well at NT. He did have a good ole boy charm that appealed to recruits and perhaps if he could have shut his mouth about how bad it was at NT, he might of had a lot more success.

untjim1995 · January 28, 2016

31 minutes ago, Harry said:

On this we totally agree -- Dickey and his staff did more with less in recruiting than probably any coach in the history of North Texas. They pulled in some phenomenal players. unfortunately, they hit a dry spell, much like Mac and it ended up costing them.

I still wonder sometimes how thrilled Dickey and his staff would have been to have the facilities we have today and the budget for assistants etc. I makes me wonder what they could have done had they stayed.

Dickey did have the benefit of selling FBS playing time for a program that was selling itself as an up-and-comer in the late 90's/early 00's. Our regional competition for recruits then were NMSU, UTEP, Tulsa, La Tech, Arkansas State, and maybe a few times we fought SMU or Rice for somebody. Once we started losing, it got worse and worse, piling on the reputation for UNT Football being a lost cause. And we added in Texas State and UTSA to the mix, weakening the talent pool, as well, for us.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

9 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

What you fail to mention is that Dickey's success was clearly the result of one outstanding class that was never close to being repeated.

Why do I have to keep repeating myself?

58 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Dickey picked up at least one kid off the DaMN State Top 100 in four different years.

Jamario wasn't part of that class, neither was Bishop, or Cobbs, or Early, or Pruitt. Even if you wipe out that one class he has out recruited everyone else.

Also, how did I fail to mention him having one killer class? Was it when I said this:

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

Yes he did have one KILLER class, but he recruited well in other years also.

UNT90 · January 28, 2016

57 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Dickey picked up at least one kid off the DaMN State Top 100 in four different years. Yes he did have one KILLER class, but he recruited well in other years also. I'm not ready to buy the argument that the DaMN didn't really have good recruits on their top 100 list because here are the guys I remember being top 100s:

Booger Kennedy

Jonas Buckles

Jamario Thomas

Randy Gardner

Taylor Casey

Cody Spencer

Roy Bishop

??? Ridgeway <-- never showed on campus

I think we would kill to get a clone of any one of those guys on campus right now. Dickey also pulled in a couple of JUCO all americans, Daniels and Mike Pruitt. He also pulled in some highly rated recruits from other states. Cobbs was a top Oklahoma recruit and he had an OSU offer. The LB Earlty out of florida was a Time Union Top 40 and had a Miami offer.

No matter how recruiting has changed, Dickey killed everyone else in conference recruiting. Yes, CUSA is full of better programs than the SBC, but we also have a new stadium, in a new conference, with a ton of other facilities.

We have not hired people who could recruit to North Texas, plain and simple. Dodge did ok until recruits saw his on the field product. Mac did ok the one year he had on the field success. Neither excelled in the living room.

There are a ton of excuses that can, and always are, made at UNT. The fact is S. Florida got it done with zero facilities and zero excuses. Boise St. got it done in freaking Boise, Idaho. TCU got it done playing in the shadow of the Big 12 to the point of being invited to join. They didn't make excuses.

Meanwhile at UNT, we allow an AD to give lie-filled excuses without consequences.

And we wonder why we are the worst team in and the laughing stock of FBS football.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

11 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Dickey did have the benefit of selling FBS playing time for a program that was selling itself as an up-and-comer in the late 90's/early 00's.

Up and comer? Three losing seasons and played in a stadium built when Eisenhower was in office. Man, I bet four star recruits where just lining up to play on that green painted concrete.

MeanGreen_MBA · January 28, 2016

Some good news here is the Harrell has a strong family tie into the HS football coaching world with his fathers legacy and his brother. Graham really needs to leverage that next season. This year may have been tough to pull that off. We are filling gaps with hopefuls this year, I will judge this staff starting with the next recruiting season. In the mean time.....I would suggest....no ASK that everybody on this board start looking for some positive and get behind the program....glass kind of attitude. Don't doubt for a minute that recruits, recruits parents, coaches and or friends get on these boards and read what is being said.....NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. Anybody that has been is sales....and this IS sales, know the importance of positive reviews vs negative reviews for your product....our product is a football program. Let's help the staff by talking up the program, offering constructive ideas instead of tearing down the program, staff, and leadership....just a thought here......

Silent Eagle · January 28, 2016

You want positives on this board? the majority of these posts usually make me beg for lithium.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

5 minutes ago, Silent Eagle said:

You want positives on this board? the majority of these posts usually make me beg for lithium.

Positives:

Mac isn't here anymore.
Some of the mid term signees are very promising.
Uh... they sell beer in the stadium now?

I'm not ready to panic, but I had hoped to be signing people with at least one other FBS offer. NSD is less than a week away, still time for the recruiting to get better. However I am also not ready to call unimpressive recruiting impressive.

As @BillySee58 has mentioned, one of Mac's strongest classes was his first one, where he also came in short on time. I was hoping this young staff could start getting some results right now.

untjim1995 · January 28, 2016

11 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Up and comer? Three losing seasons and played in a stadium built when Eisenhower was in office. Man, I bet four star recruits where just lining up to play on that green painted concrete.

Well, we were a I-A program for all of three years when Dickey took over. Obviously, the facilities and funding were piss-poor, but a lot of people figured that the university was more serious about being a big program than they were. That's why I used the term up-and-comer. In retrospect, Dickey found out that all we did by going up to I-A was using road games as a bodybag victim to pay the bills. We really would have been better off not moving up to I-A in 1995, since we put lipstick on the ugliest pig of a stadium and had no funding at all beyond what the bodybag games paid.

17 minutes ago, UNT90 said:

We have not hired people who could recruit to North Texas, plain and simple. Dodge did ok until recruits saw his on the field product. Mac did ok the one year he had on the field success. Neither excelled in the living room.

There are a ton of excuses that can, and always are, made at UNT. The fact is S. Florida got it done with zero facilities and zero excuses. Boise St. got it done in freaking Boise, Idaho. TCU got it done playing in the shadow of the Big 12 to the point of being invited to join. They didn't make excuses.

Meanwhile at UNT, we allow an AD to give lie-filled excuses without consequences.

And we wonder why we are the worst team in and the laughing stock of FBS football.

I actually think a lot of his recruits from the wealthy suburbs came here and couldn't handle the fact that our facilities were much worse than the ones they played at in high school and that football, in general, just wasn't a big deal here at UNT like it was in their hometowns.

Alamo Heights, Austin Westlake, Southlake Carroll, Kingwood--all had better facilities than we had. That's why Dodge got promised a new stadium to come here and he held the administration's feet to the fire on that subject.

Cerebus · January 28, 2016

7 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

In retrospect, Dickey found out that all we did by going up to I-A was using road games as a bodybag victim to pay the bills.

You speak truth right here. Everyone loves to bad mouth Dickey;s OOC schedule but just take a look at it:

98 @OU
98 Texas Tech
98 @Arizona St
98 @Texas A&M
99 @LSU
99 @Texas Tech
99 @Baylor
00 Baylor
00 @Texas Tech
00 @KSU
01 TCU
01 @OU
01 @Texas Tech

untjim1995 · January 28, 2016

Just now, Cerebus said:

You speak truth right here. Everyone loves to bad mouth Dickey;s OOC schedule but just take a look at it:

98 @OU

98 Texas Tech

98 @Arizona St

98 @Texas A&M

99 @LSU

99 @Texas Tech

99 @Baylor

00 Baylor

00 @Texas Tech

00 @KSU

01 TCU

01 @OU

01 @Texas Tech

You know, he didn't do all that bad against that slate. We won one of them (Tech in 1999), should have won the Tech game in 2000, and played competitively at OU in 98, at A&M in 98, at Baylor in 99, and TCU in 01.

Somewhere in there, I believe it was in 99, we lost at TCU 23-3. That game, we scored our FG after running a fake punt in the first half. We held LT to around 100 yards, only trailed 13-3 going into the 4th quarter, but the Dickster literally ran the ball every down, causing the UNT fans at the game to chant "Throw the Ball, Throw the Ball!!". He wouldn't though, and our defense finally gave up another 10 points and we lost a game that was entirely winnable...

GOMG2013 · January 28, 2016

31 minutes ago, UNT90 said:

There are a ton of excuses that can, and always are, made at UNT. The fact is S. Florida got it done with zero facilities and zero excuses. Boise St. got it done in freaking Boise, Idaho. TCU got it done playing in the shadow of the Big 12 to the point of being invited to join. They didn't make excuses.

The schools you listed didn't get great recruits to start the winning. They started getting better recruits AFTER they started winning. Winning is the best pitch to have. Even if you have worse facilities and you are in a lesser conference. Winning is an easy sell.

You can't compare UNT to programs that win consistently and ask, why can't we recruit like them.