Do we remember last year?

KingDL1 · September 4, 2016

We had the worst loss in all of Division 1a(FBS) football to a Division 1aa(FCS) . EVER! That is the most embarrassing things I have ever seen at a UNT football game. Now North Texas has to carry that in the record books, I wonder if we can ever shed that one?

We were dangerously close to a UNT historic record also of a ZERO win season with more than one game! Talk about a game where neither team deserved the win. It looked like San Antonio and North Texas were doing all they could do to give the other team the win.

We were really bad last year, maybe the worst I have ever seen in the 36 years I have been following North Texas.

Perspective People!

What can be done with this team in one off season with all new coaching and new AD? Really what is realistic?

The New Coaching Staff and AD are a big step up, HUGE STEP UP from what we had.

The AD is like we stepped up from a Game show host to the real AD department in one summer, that is a big win to me. One that will keep my HOPE alive for a bleak season of rebuilding.

Judging this staff like they were just reloading seems to be the status for many this morning.

To me it is time to kill some of the negativity for a while, it is nothing but a beating. Give this thing some time to get rolling.

GO MEAN GREEN

Hunter Green · September 4, 2016

Agreed.

Green P1 · September 4, 2016

Last year's team would have lost that game by 30 points. They would have rolled over and quit.

GreenN'walinsVet · September 4, 2016

AMEN!!

Green Mean · September 4, 2016

Exactly....I mean

oldguystudent · September 4, 2016

This year's team beats last year's team at least 66-7. One wanted to quit, the other never gave up.

untjim1995 · September 4, 2016

Can't agree more...when you play FBS schools with a FCS roster, both in scholarships and overall talent, then add in a brand new coach who has never been a head coach before, as well as an OC who's never been one before, and then look at the complete mismatch of talent to scheme we have to deal with here, it just begs for patience, understanding, and celebrating the true wins this year--hint, they won't be on Saturdays at stadiums, they'll be in living rooms and locker rooms across the region. If we can't win those against other FBS schools for recruits, then you can bitch and moan all you want. But not because of the results on the scoreboard. Because if you do, you're showing that you have no idea how college football programs get rebuilt.

GrandGreen · September 4, 2016

Logical comments, not all that common on this board. If you are not impressed with the off the field upgrades in staff and more importantly approach; then you have not been a NT fan long.

Ben Gooding · September 5, 2016

I agree. It will take time. But at the same time I'm not going to be jolly joe after each loss because it will take time. We have to maintain a competitive edge in every loss and win. We also do HAVE to win some of these games on the schedule. Recruiting is depending on it.

KingDL1 · September 5, 2016

24 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

I agree. It will take time. But at the same time I'm not going to be jolly joe after each loss because it will take time. We have to maintain a competitive edge in every loss and win. We also do HAVE to win some of these games on the schedule. Recruiting is depending on it.

It takes time even to be competitive from where we just came. (see record loss of all time in D1a history) I think the staff can get us to the competitive edge and a winning record. Recruiting will at this point will be more to do with our coaches than are record. Wins will help, an ass whooping this year would be expected. Soon enough our record will be better.

People running around jumping the gun as pisssed off chicken littles does not help anyone. It is just a beating with no interesting information. I have new faith in UNT and I am awaiting to see what our new AD department and coaching staff do as the year progresses.

I would love to be competitive in all games, but if we could pull that off we would likely have more wins.

El Paso Eagle · September 5, 2016

Why is it that if someone is pointing out that we did not play well on Saturday some people are taking it as the are jumping off the bandwagon or not remembering last year. The truth is that on that day, in that game, versus that opponent WE did not pay well at times. Yes there were some positives but we gave up some bad plays and made our share of mistakes. Somethings you will never know until the first game (practice will never completely simulate the game).

I believe this staff will take a look at the game and see where the adjustments need to be made.Will we improve? I believe we will. Hopefully as they say the improvement between the first and the second game will be something that we can all get excited about.

FirefightnRick · September 5, 2016

Agree!

Rick

Mike Jackson · September 5, 2016

16 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Logical comments, not all that common on this board. If you are not impressed with the off the field upgrades in staff and more importantly approach; then you have not been a NT fan long.

That just means the bar is extremely low here. I hear patience preached all the time by the Mean Green faithful. Running out Darell Dickey, hiring a high school coach as your head coach, not giving Mike Canales (a coach that desperately wanted the job and the team responded too) the job in favor a coach with NO CONNECTiONS to this region of the country, and keeping RV around for years after is quite apparent that the job was too much for him used up ALL my patience. You won't get kudos from me anytime we are playing at unranked G5 team coming off 2-10 season and I am seriously considering leaving before halftime before it gets too ugly. UNT Leaders have squandered to many opportunities and has failed to take advantage of UNT's unique resources when you compare them to our rivals. South Alabama beat Mississippi State. South Alabama didn't have a program in 1995. App State took ranked SEC East favorite Tennessee to the brink and App State has barely been in FBS long enough to wake up and drink a cup of coffee. Southern Miss beat Kentucky. And people here are preaching patience. Patience is warranted when you see competitive game at home (they don't have to be wins) but if I am leaving before the 4th quarter and you aren't playing a P5 school or a highly touted G5 team that is flirting with being ranked in the top 25 there is not much to be positive about. Playing hard is the bare minimum. It's like actually writing your name on the test and attempting to answer every question, you don't get praise for that just acknowledgement.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Mike Jackson

UNT90 · September 5, 2016

26 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Why is it that if someone is pointing out that we did not play well on Saturday some people are taking it as the are jumping off the bandwagon or not remembering last year. The truth is that on that day, in that game, versus that opponent WE did not pay well at times. Yes there were some positives but we gave up some bad plays and made our share of mistakes. Somethings you will never know until the first game (practice will never completely simulate the game).

I believe this staff will take a look at the game and see where the adjustments need to be made.Will we improve? I believe we will. Hopefully as they say the improvement between the first and the second game will be something that we can all get excited about.

This. Especially with some of the insane, over the top, we are going to a bowl game preseason thoughts if some.

I believe this program is headed in the right direction and think Littrell can be successful here now that he has a real FBS AD and what appears to be a long-needed commitment to athletics by the university.

THAT is what makes me so optimistic for the long term future.

That said, we should still be able to discuss game by game problems and be disappointed in weekly outcomes. It isn't an either/or proposition.

GrandGreen · September 5, 2016

18 minutes ago, Mike Jackson said:

That just means the bar is extremely low here. I hear patience preached all the time by the Mean Green faithful. Running out Darell Dickey, hiring a high school coach as your head coach, not giving Mike Canales (a coach that desperately wanted the job and the team responded too) the job in favor a coach with NO CONNECTiONS to this region of the country, and keeping RV around for years after is quite apparent that the job was too much for him used up ALL my patience. You won't get kudos from me anytime we are playing at unranked G5 team coming off 2-10 season and I am seriously considering leaving before halftime before it gets too ugly. UNT Leaders have squandered to many opportunities and has failed to take advantage of UNT's unique resources when you compare them to our rivals. South Alabama beat Mississippi State. South Alabama didn't have a program in 1995. App State took ranked SEC East favorite Tennessee to the brink and App State has barely been in FBS long enough to wake up and drink a cup of coffee. Southern Miss beat Kentucky. And people here are preaching patience. Patience is warranted when you see competitive game at home (they don't have to be wins) but if I am leaving before the 4th quarter and you aren't playing a P5 school or a highly touted G5 team that is flirting with being ranked in the top 25 there is not much to be positive about. Playing hard is the bare minimum. It's like actually writing your name on the test and attempting to answer every question, you don't get praise for that just acknowledgement.

If you can't see the difference in the investment being made by NT now compared to the past, than you are not paying attention. Any fan for more than a few years can make long lists of mistakes NT has made in athletics. I guess from your post, that you believe it is logical and possible to turn a program around immediately based on some unknown force.

Anyone can point out schools that are doing well, however it is just as easy to point out failures from programs much more advanced than NT. I don't think anyone is giving out kudos to NT for the game Saturday.

RV should never have been AD anywhere in my opinion, but he is now gone. When you bemoan firing Dickey or not hiring Canales , you lose a lot of creditability with me. Yes, hiring Dodge was a monumental mistake; but firing Dickey was absolutely the right decision. Canales could have done better than McCarney, but so could hundreds of others.

As far as the bar being low here, how? It appears to me that for once, the powers at NT are definitely striving for better days and are certainly not happy with the status quo.

Mike Jackson · September 5, 2016

35 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

If you can't see the difference in the investment being made by NT now compared to the past, than you are not paying attention. Any fan for more than a few years can make long lists of mistakes NT has made in athletics. I guess from your post, that you believe it is logical and possible to turn a program around immediately based on some unknown force.

Anyone can point out schools that are doing well, however it is just as easy to point out failures from programs much more advanced than NT. I don't think anyone is giving out kudos to NT for the game Saturday.

RV should never have been AD anywhere in my opinion, but he is now gone. When you bemoan firing Dickey or not hiring Canales , you lose a lot of creditability with me. Yes, hiring Dodge was a monumental mistake; but firing Dickey was absolutely the right decision. Canales could have done better than McCarney, but so could hundreds of others.

As far as the bar being low here, how? It appears to me that for once, the powers at NT are definitely striving for better days and are certainly not happy with the status quo.

Firing Dickey only makes sense if you hire someone better to replace him. I am not "bemoaning" firing Dickey I am bemoaning not hiring someone better to replace him. The same principle applies when I "bemoan" Canales. You acknowledged that 100s of others would have done better than McCarney, Canales was just one of those. And who knows Canales might have done better than either of us thought if he brought in the right staff to assist him in recruiting. With crappy facilities we had when Dickey was dismissed, no hot P5 coordinator, FCS head coach, or even NFL position coach was lusting after the job here. So Dickey could have been given another season to turn it around. But move on from semi-ancient history when it comes to UNT's return to FBS. So yes they have invested more but if the W & L columns look basically the same after that increased investment that just means you are doing less with more. They were "striving" for better when they decided to build Apogee and hire McCarney (for relatively big bucks for UNT). The last time the university was "publicly happy" with the status quo was in the middle of our Sun Belt run. And even then they were planning to get resources in place to build Apogee. Sorry but I am all out of patience and kudos for investing in a program at level fitting for the flagship of a University System with 35,000+ student in a major metropolitan area. Sorry my friend that is low bar: actually "trying" at all levels of the program from financial investment, administration, game day coordination, coaching and players. It is good that they are now but they are 15 years late at least. With 15 years of actually trying adequately we should be a notch below Houston as one the more desirable G5 destinations. Not struggling to beat upstart UTSA. We are closer to being a FCS program than a program getting even slight interest from P5 conferences.

Cerebus · September 5, 2016

25 minutes ago, Mike Jackson said:

Firing Dickey only makes sense if you hire someone better to replace him.

With crappy facilities we had when Dickey was dismissed, no hot P5 coordinator, FCS head coach, or even NFL position coach was lusting after the job here. So Dickey could have been given another season to turn it around.

Dickey had two serious things affecting him. One was health, which was turning around. The other was the relationship with his boss.

Did we keep the right one?

Mike Jackson · September 5, 2016

4 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Dickey had two serious things affecting him. One was health, which was turning around. The other was the relationship with his boss.

Did we keep the right one?

I think in hindsight it is a resounding NO. RV set this program back a decade at least. Another bad Dickey year at head coach would have set us back 2 seasons maximum. But in fairness any FBS progress we made was due in large part to Dickey at the time. In professional life whether you are leader or worker bee the principle is the same. Never quit current job unless you already have a better opportunity lined up. Never fire a worker (who hasn't fired themselves with extremely poor decisions ) until you have good plan to replace what that employee provided to your team.

Cr1028 · September 5, 2016

Todd Dodge didn't win on the field but he was vital to getting Apogee and he also go the fan base excited again after being beaten into submission by 3rd and long draw plays. You talk about the utsa game and how both teams were trying to lose, do you not remember the seven overtime. FIU game? Abysmal.

Mike Jackson · September 5, 2016

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

Todd Dodge didn't win on the field but he was vital to getting Apogee and he also go the fan base excited again after being beaten into submission by 3rd and long draw plays. You talk about the utsa game and how both teams were trying to lose, do you not remember the seven overtime. FIU game? Abysmal.

How was Todd Dodge essential in getting Apogee please tell. Apogee was already in the works before he arrived. It was proposed by the Board of Regents in 2002 when the land was purchase during the middle of Darrell Dickey's Sun Belt run. And UNT may have gotten kicked out of FBS or at least the Sun Belt without Apogee or without 15-20 million dollar upgrade to Fouts Field. There is big time revisionist history when it comes to Dickey and Dodge in MGN. Dodge was a horrible hire and I called it that at the time. It might have worked if the AD insisted on Dodge putting together a staff with FBS experience from day one. But that would be intimidating to first time coach at the FBS level with a paycheck that says: "you better be good dude or you're extremely expendable". Dodge recruited better than I expected. It would be unfair not to acknowledge that. But Dickey's biggest sin is that he left with a "bad attitude" and I can't say I blame him much. He should have been given more resources to work with and recruiting assistance. But the notion that somehow Dodge was essential in getting Apogee when at the time of SGA vote to finalize the financing for the stadium with 2 wins over FBS opponents by the middle of his second year is dubious to me.

UNT 90 Grad · September 5, 2016

1 hour ago, Mike Jackson said:

How was Todd Dodge essential in getting Apogee please tell. Apogee was already in the works before he arrived. It was proposed by the Board of Regents in 2002 when the land was purchase during the middle of Darrell Dickey's Sun Belt run. And UNT may have gotten kicked out of FBS or at least the Sun Belt without Apogee or without 15-20 million dollar upgrade to Fouts Field. There is big time revisionist history when it comes to Dickey and Dodge in MGN. Dodge was a horrible hire and I called it that at the time. It might have worked if the AD insisted on Dodge putting together a staff with FBS experience from day one. But that would be intimidating to first time coach at the FBS level with a paycheck that says: "you better be good dude or you're extremely expendable". Dodge recruited better than I expected. It would be unfair not to acknowledge that. But Dickey's biggest sin is that he left with a "bad attitude" and I can't say I blame him much. He should have been given more resources to work with and recruiting assistance. But the notion that somehow Dodge was essential in getting Apogee when at the time of SGA vote to finalize the financing for the stadium with 2 wins over FBS opponents by the middle of his second year is dubious to me.

Dickey was the head coach during the campaign for the athletic village...

...but Dodge was also the head coach during the stadium specific campaign:

Cr1028 · September 5, 2016

46 minutes ago, Mike Jackson said:

How was Todd Dodge essential in getting Apogee please tell. Apogee was already in the works before he arrived. It was proposed by the Board of Regents in 2002 when the land was purchase during the middle of Darrell Dickey's Sun Belt run. And UNT may have gotten kicked out of FBS or at least the Sun Belt without Apogee or without 15-20 million dollar upgrade to Fouts Field. There is big time revisionist history when it comes to Dickey and Dodge in MGN. Dodge was a horrible hire and I called it that at the time. It might have worked if the AD insisted on Dodge putting together a staff with FBS experience from day one. But that would be intimidating to first time coach at the FBS level with a paycheck that says: "you better be good dude or you're extremely expendable". Dodge recruited better than I expected. It would be unfair not to acknowledge that. But Dickey's biggest sin is that he left with a "bad attitude" and I can't say I blame him much. He should have been given more resources to work with and recruiting assistance. But the notion that somehow Dodge was essential in getting Apogee when at the time of SGA vote to finalize the financing for the stadium with 2 wins over FBS opponents by the middle of his second year is dubious to me.

Dickey failed to get the students motivated to vote for the athletic fee. Dodge was able to get it done. I met first hand people who bought season tickets solely because of Todd Dodge and they had zero connection to the program. I understand the program may have ended for you after Dickey but please try and remember the ridiculously awful offensive performances in '05 and '06. Dickey had a good run. The sun belt caught up and he was toast.

Mike Jackson · September 5, 2016

2 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Dickey failed to get the students motivated to vote for the athletic fee. Dodge was able to get it done. I met first hand people who bought season tickets solely because of Todd Dodge and they had zero connection to the program. I understand the program may have ended for you after Dickey but please try and remember the ridiculously awful offensive performances in '05 and '06. Dickey had a good run. The sun belt caught up and he was toast.

Losing is losing whether you do it by ineffectively "Letting it Fly" or by 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Being able to speak well for a stadium push already in progress still to me does not mean much. I graduated in 2008 and as a student at that time Dodge had zero impact positive or negative on my vote. And no the program didn't end for me after Dickey but majority of what I saw after was bunch of bad decisions. We got some facilities and that is great but really it was the minimum the university had to do have any hope of being relevant at the FBS level. My tag line says it all.....

Edited September 5, 2016 by Mike Jackson