Reality Check

Cerebus · September 4, 2016

We probably don't have the horses to win much this year.
Everyone probably should have seen that coming with the low scholarship numbers.
That doesn't make the SL hiring a mistake. He and his staff need time to get a couple recruiting classes signed.
Too early to give up on Alec Morris.
That doesn't mean Fine shouldn't get some playing time.
When we drop out of bowl contention Fine should get the reins.
The most important part of college football is the recruiting. This staff is going to make or break in living rooms and texts.

SMU2006 · September 4, 2016

I think that you've pretty well summed it up. SMU simply has more explosive playmakers. Courtland Sutton will be playing on Sundays. I just hope we can get him to stay for his junior year. Xavier Jones is as dynamic a running game as I've seen at SMU and he's just a sophomore. James Proche was a four star talent that had a dozen P5 offers (a redshirt freshman). If you look up and down the SMU participation chart from last night we had 20 true or redshirt freshmen get on the field (the most in a single game since 1979).

SMU signed one of the best G5 recruiting classes in the country last year with a 2-10 team. You have to sell the vision and get the recruits to buy in. This will be the formula for UNT. Go out and recruit better athletes and just let them play. It will take a year or two but you have to trust the talent evaluation of the coaching staff to go identify, recruit, and sign the kids to run the Littrell offense. If UNT can do that they will be in good shape.

untjim1995 · September 4, 2016

17 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

We probably don't have the horses to win much this year.

Everyone probably should have seen that coming with the low scholarship numbers.

That doesn't make the SL hiring a mistake. He and his staff need time to get a couple recruiting classes signed.

Too early to give up on Alec Morris.

That doesn't mean Fine shouldn't get some playing time.

When we drop out of bowl contention Fine should get the reins.

The most important part of college football is the recruiting. This staff is going to make or break in living rooms and texts.

We need every poster on this board to come to this realization

KingDL1 · September 4, 2016

We need time I agree. So many are jumping the gun.

We are not going to come out as a complete polished team, I expect we will see improvement as the season rolls forward.

Ben Gooding · September 4, 2016

32 minutes ago, SMU2006 said:

I think that you've pretty well summed it up. SMU simply has more explosive playmakers. Courtland Sutton will be playing on Sundays. I just hope we can get him to stay for his junior year. Xavier Jones is as dynamic a running game as I've seen at SMU and he's just a sophomore. James Proche was a four star talent that had a dozen P5 offers (a redshirt freshman). If you look up and down the SMU participation chart from last night we had 20 true or redshirt freshmen get on the field (the most in a single game since 1979).

SMU signed one of the best G5 recruiting classes in the country last year with a 2-10 team. You have to sell the vision and get the recruits to buy in. This will be the formula for UNT. Go out and recruit better athletes and just let them play. It will take a year or two but you have to trust the talent evaluation of the coaching staff to go identify, recruit, and sign the kids to run the Littrell offense. If UNT can do that they will be in good shape.

Not to be a dick head, but you are talking as if SMU has turned the corner or something. They are a 2-10 team. They will still be a 2-10 team until they get to 3 wins this year. Then...they're a 3-9 team. Soooo....simmer down buddy. Let Chad Morris' vision get you guys to 6-6 and a bowl game before you start throwing "tips" in UNT's direction.

SMU2006 · September 4, 2016

We have absolutely not turned the corner but if you can't see the arrow pointed straight up on SMU then you're divorced from reality. We are recruiting better than every G5 program in the country outside of Houston. SMU 2015 offense improved more in points/game than any program in the country. If we were a 2-10 team full of upperclassmen up and down the depth chart I'd be worried. We're playing more freshmen than just about every program in America. That experience and infusion of better talent will pay off big time in the next few years.

KingDL1 · September 4, 2016

1 hour ago, Ben Gooding said:

Not to be a dick head, but you are talking as if SMU has turned the corner or something. They are a 2-10 team. They will still be a 2-10 team until they get to 3 wins this year. Then...they're a 3-9 team. Soooo....simmer down buddy. Let Chad Morris' vision get you guys to 6-6 and a bowl game before you start throwing "tips" in UNT's direction.

Who cares about what SMU is? We were a 1 win team last year, in a game that just as easily could have been a loss for a no win year. Get some perspective, look for improvement from game to game. Talk about a bare cupboard, these coaches are trying to make an omelet out of broken eggs. Lets see who they can develop and make leaders of.

The shit of it is, we suck, everyone knows we suck, the coaches do, the fans do, the players do and our opponents also know it, they know our team is all new and easily disrupted and probably a somewhat shallow playbook, or at least shallow on the number of plays that we can execute well at this point. This is all about building and it takes time, the proof is what we see as the season progresses. People that think this mess is going to jump out of gates fast are kidding themselves. Sadly it is so easy to be negative and bitch at this stage , but what good is that? Those people that want to play Captain Obvious saw mistakes, well shit everyone did. Do we need 50 threads beating up a team on the bottom that has just been handed brand new coaching staff and a whole new AD? I don't think so

Odds are we will be lucky to win 2 games this year, there will be some ugly games, there will hopefully be some pleasant surprises. I want to see growth and improvement and I think we have a staff to do that. Lets see what happens as the season progresses and also as we see who this staff can recruit.

Pointing out the obvious that a team that is bad right now is bad is simply a beating.

Realistically I will be happy with improvement, I want to win two games this year one is next week, one is San Antonio. If we get to 3 wins we are in the bonus. If we go 4 or more these coaches are legends in the making.

There were positives yesterday and plenty of them. There is for the first time in a while a feeling of hope in my mind, which I have not really felt in a while.

GMG24 · September 4, 2016

10 minutes ago, KingDL1 said:

Who cares about what SMU is? We were a 1 win team last year, in a game that just as easily could have been a loss for a no win year. Get some perspective, look for improvement from game to game. Talk about a bare cupboard, these coaches are trying to make an omelet out of broken eggs. Lets see who they can develop and make leaders of.

The shit of it is, we suck, everyone knows we suck, the coaches do, the fans do, the players do and our opponents also know it, they know our team is all new and easily disrupted and probably a somewhat shallow playbook, or at least shallow on the number of plays that we can execute well at this point. This is all about building and it takes time, the proof is what we see as the season progresses. People that think this mess is going to jump out of gates fast are kidding themselves. Sadly it is so easy to be negative and bitch at this stage , but what good is that? Those people that want to play Captain Obvious saw mistakes, well shit everyone did. Do we need 50 thread beating up a team on the bottom that has just been handed brand new coaching staff and a whole new AD? I don't think so

Odds are we will be lucky to win 2 games this year, there will be some ugly games, there will hopefully be some pleasant surprises. I want to see growth and improvement and I think we have a staff to do that. Lets see what happens as the season progresses and also as we see who this staff can recruit.

Pointing out the obvious that a team that is bad right now is bad is simply a beating.

Realistically I will be happy with improvement, I want to win two games this year one is next week, one is San Antonio. If we get to 3 wins we are in the bonus. If we go 4 or more these coaches are legends in the making.

There were positives yesterday and plenty of them. There is for the first time in a while a feeling of hope in my mind, which I have not really felt in a while.

My biggest positive was the defensive turnaround from the 1st quarter disaster to the next 3 quarters. Gave up a combined 10 points rest of the game. While I realize SMU pulled starters etc we still more or less shut down their 1st offense the following two quarters. I like where we are headed and definitely know we need more time. Look for an addition to the defense in the next few days or week.

UNT Mean Green · September 4, 2016

10 minutes ago, GMG24 said:

My biggest positive was the defensive turnaround from the 1st quarter disaster to the next 3 quarters. Gave up a combined 10 points rest of the game. While I realize SMU pulled starters etc we still more or less shut down their 1st offense the following two quarters. I like where we are headed and definitely know we need more time. Look for an addition to the defense in the next few days or week.

Nice perspective here. Defense did improve a lot through the course of the game. And in reality, even in the first quarter, were burned in blitzes on the two big plays. The Hail Mary on 3rd and 45 was a darn fluke.

We need some of this new depth in the secondary (Jenkins, Baulkman, Turner) to step up and contribute. I believe that their raw athleticism will be a nice shot in the arm for this team and will improve the overall defensive speed.

Edited September 4, 2016 by UNT Mean Green

untjim1995 · September 4, 2016

38 minutes ago, SMU2006 said:

We have absolutely not turned the corner but if you can't see the arrow pointed straight up on SMU then you're divorced from reality. We are recruiting better than every G5 program in the country outside of Houston. SMU 2015 offense improved more in points/game than any program in the country. If we were a 2-10 team full of upperclassmen up and down the depth chart I'd be worried. We're playing more freshmen than just about every program in America. That experience and infusion of better talent will pay off big time in the next few years.

Just ignore him...he's one of our "special" posters on here--he doesn't live in reality.

38 minutes ago, KingDL1 said:

Who cares about what SMU is? We were a 1 win team last year, in a game that just as easily could have been a loss for a no win year. Get some perspective, look for improvement from game to game. Talk about a bare cupboard, these coaches are trying to make an omelet out of broken eggs. Lets see who they can develop and make leaders of.

The shit of it is, we suck, everyone knows we suck, the coaches do, the fans do, the players do and our opponents also know it, they know our team is all new and easily disrupted and probably a somewhat shallow playbook, or at least shallow on the number of plays that we can execute well at this point. This is all about building and it takes time, the proof is what we see as the season progresses. People that think this mess is going to jump out of gates fast are kidding themselves. Sadly it is so easy to be negative and bitch at this stage , but what good is that? Those people that want to play Captain Obvious saw mistakes, well shit everyone did. Do we need 50 threads beating up a team on the bottom that has just been handed brand new coaching staff and a whole new AD? I don't think so

Odds are we will be lucky to win 2 games this year, there will be some ugly games, there will hopefully be some pleasant surprises. I want to see growth and improvement and I think we have a staff to do that. Lets see what happens as the season progresses and also as we see who this staff can recruit.

Pointing out the obvious that a team that is bad right now is bad is simply a beating.

Realistically I will be happy with improvement, I want to win two games this year one is next week, one is San Antonio. If we get to 3 wins we are in the bonus. If we go 4 or more these coaches are legends in the making.

There were positives yesterday and plenty of them. There is for the first time in a while a feeling of hope in my mind, which I have not really felt in a while.

You could pound him with a 2x4 in the head and it still wouldn't make any sense to him. We have years of posts to back that up...

greenminer · September 4, 2016

Lets get a great NT, refine the QB play, and get someone to emerge as a consistent threat with the ball (I want to believe we already have him on the roster). That's not everything, but it's a good start.

The secondary received a ton of praise during the offseason. Obviously, they struggled yesterday. I wonder what happened.

Cerebus · September 4, 2016

2 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

Not to be a dick head

Have you ever considered just ending that stream of thought there? Instead of going ahead and doing it anyway?

Green P1 · September 4, 2016

10 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Have you ever considered just ending that stream of thought there? Instead of going ahead and doing it anyway?

Not to be a dick head... but ima dick head

Paulie Walnuts · September 4, 2016

1 hour ago, UNT Mean Green said:

Nice perspective here. Defense did improve a lot through the course of the game. And in reality, even in the first quarter, were burned in blitzes on the two big plays. The Hail Mary on 3rd and 45 was a darn fluke.

We need some of this new depth in the secondary (Jenkins, Baulkman, Turner) to step up and contribute. I believe that their raw athleticism will be a nice shot in the arm for this team and will improve the overall defensive speed.

Good points. Speaking of a "nice shot in the arm", dont forget we get our best WR back this week too.

Ben Gooding · September 4, 2016

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

Have you ever considered just ending that stream of thought there? Instead of going ahead and doing it anyway?

Nope.

Cerebus · September 4, 2016

8 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

Nope.

Well strongly consider it.

UNT Mean Green · September 4, 2016

4 hours ago, SMU2006 said:

I think that you've pretty well summed it up. SMU simply has more explosive playmakers. Courtland Sutton will be playing on Sundays. I just hope we can get him to stay for his junior year. Xavier Jones is as dynamic a running game as I've seen at SMU and he's just a sophomore. James Proche was a four star talent that had a dozen P5 offers (a redshirt freshman). If you look up and down the SMU participation chart from last night we had 20 true or redshirt freshmen get on the field (the most in a single game since 1979).

SMU signed one of the best G5 recruiting classes in the country last year with a 2-10 team. You have to sell the vision and get the recruits to buy in. This will be the formula for UNT. Go out and recruit better athletes and just let them play. It will take a year or two but you have to trust the talent evaluation of the coaching staff to go identify, recruit, and sign the kids to run the Littrell offense. If UNT can do that they will be in good shape.

Any news on Davis' injury? And Jones? That'll make SMU a different team.

GreenTexan13 · September 4, 2016

2 hours ago, KingDL1 said:

Who cares about what SMU is? We were a 1 win team last year, in a game that just as easily could have been a loss for a no win year. Get some perspective, look for improvement from game to game. Talk about a bare cupboard, these coaches are trying to make an omelet out of broken eggs. Lets see who they can develop and make leaders of.

The shit of it is, we suck, everyone knows we suck, the coaches do, the fans do, the players do and our opponents.

Sometimes I look at where we are at and can't believe the 2013 season was 3 years ago. It seems like an eternity waiting on that again.

SHOSS · September 4, 2016

Short term: this year only, since this staff is full of guys in their roles for the first time, i imagine they will likely be figuring out how to function as a staff. I HOPE they learned from some of their mistakes in their first game together. As the staff figures out how to be a d1 staff, i THINK they will improve.

Players should also show signs of improvement after getting a few more weeks under their belts.

Staff experience and continuity should help with improvement. If not, we will have to start over again in a couplenof years.

Long term: This staff should be able to improve. All of them appear to be young and hungry. If they are good at all, getting this first year under their belts SHOULD make a big difference.... if not, we will be starting over soon.

Lastly, if this staff is able to win over recruits, then in 2 years, we will see REAL improvement. If not, then we will be starting over again...

There is no quick fix from what we saw last year. There really are some interesting pieces there ... but as a program overall, you need 2 or 3 at every position to be truly good. That doesn't exist on this roster.

I still think this is going to be a 3 win team this year. It looks like smu is going to be a 5 win team to me...for what its worth...

GOMG2013 · September 4, 2016

4 hours ago, greenminer said:

The secondary received a ton of praise during the offseason. Obviously, they struggled yesterday. I wonder what happened.

I thought the move to 3-3-5 and experience would have us with a solid pass defense. If you take away the 2 biggest plays, the hail Mary and the 88 yarder vs the true freshman it would have been a decent performance. Both big plays going to Sutton, their main target. The Hail Mary was a heave for luck, but wondering why he wasn't doubled with a safety over the top.

I put a lot of the 88 yarder on the coaching staff. You have 3rd and long and a true freshman lined up on Sutton. Why was the safety coverage rolled to the other side? Had to have been a mistake.

I saw some technique issues that need to be cleaned up by the corners, like not getting their head turned around sooner to locate the ball. I was very disappointed in the play from the safeties. I thought they would be able to do much more ball hawking in a 3-3-5. It also seems like they took a step back in run support. Last year they came up and made a lot of open field tackles that they missed vs SMU.

I'm sure Matt Davis posed a big problem with his running though. I think we will see better safety play against a QB that does not pose a running threat like Matt Davis.