MGB: Littrell press conference notes (Goree, Robinson suspended for year)

Brett Vito · November 22, 2016

MGB:

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2016/11/littrell-press-conference-notes-goree-robinson-done-for-year.html/

greenminer · November 22, 2016

Woah!

Withers940 · November 22, 2016

@Brett Vito please tell me that someone hacked your blog and that this isnt true

KingDL1 · November 22, 2016

I like that Littrell seems no nonsense with team rules.

Cerebus · November 22, 2016

Well their names don't pop up in a search of the Denton arrest records... so that's good.

DeepGreen · November 22, 2016

"– UNT isn’t ruling out Wilson returning this week. He had knee surgery following the Mean Green’s loss to Louisiana Tech."

How is it possible for Wilson to return/play after having knee surgery? Someone with orthopedic experience please e'splain this to me.

Ben Gooding · November 22, 2016

1 hour ago, DeepGreen said:

"– UNT isn’t ruling out Wilson returning this week. He had knee surgery following the Mean Green’s loss to Louisiana Tech."

How is it possible for Wilson to return/play after having knee surgery? Someone with orthopedic experience please e'splain this to me.

It was definitely athroscopic surgery. Even then, he's out for the season. He would MAYBE be ready to play in a bowl if we had a late December game. IMO, he needs to be shutdown either way.

Travis · November 22, 2016

Do the two of them live on campus? If so possibly drugs in the halls. If they got caught with weed or something like that... They won't get turned over to police for that. But dealt with in the school and kicked out of the halls

Just pure speculation though.

NorthTexan95 · November 22, 2016

1 hour ago, DeepGreen said:

"– UNT isn’t ruling out Wilson returning this week. He had knee surgery following the Mean Green’s loss to Louisiana Tech."

How is it possible for Wilson to return/play after having knee surgery? Someone with orthopedic experience please e'splain this to me.

It all depends on what type of surgery. You could have knee surgery and play the following weekend depending on what was done. Littreal did sound like it was possible he could return ... or it could just be fodder so UTEP doesn't know for sure ... :pufff:

GOMG2013 · November 22, 2016

1 hour ago, DeepGreen said:

"– UNT isn’t ruling out Wilson returning this week. He had knee surgery following the Mean Green’s loss to Louisiana Tech."

How is it possible for Wilson to return/play after having knee surgery? Someone with orthopedic experience please e'splain this to me.

Sounds like it may just be a slight tear in the meniscus if he may come back in a few weeks. A complete tear of anything in the knee would be almost impossible to back from.

I think we may have 1 or 2 players already playing on slightly torn meniscus. They trim it and they have to deal with the swelling and play through the pain. Some get shots on game day. Considering backs do a lot of cutting, it makes it a lot harder.

GMG_Dallas · November 22, 2016

Ben Roethlisberger came back 2 or 3 weeks after knee surgery this year. Surgery was October 17th and played against the Ravens November 6th.

outoftown · November 22, 2016

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

Edited November 22, 2016 by outoftown

meangreenacct · November 23, 2016

40 minutes ago, outoftown said:

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

Disagree. Sometimes it's better to keep things private than air the dirty laundry for everyone to see.

GreenN'walinsVet · November 23, 2016

41 minutes ago, outoftown said:

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

Show me a coach that publicly reveals his players indiscretions?

Marty · November 23, 2016

both already removed from the roster:

http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/ntex-m-footbl-mtt.html

UNT Mean Green · November 23, 2016

Smart move for the head coach to set the expectations and hold players accountable.

SSP · November 23, 2016

18 minutes ago, GreenN'walinsVet said:

Show me a coach that publicly reveals his players indiscretions?

I can show you a team beat writer...? And absolutely... Good coaches don't air out their players to satisfy fans curiosity.

Hopefully, they both learn their lesson. Not being able to compete this week and in a bowl is definitely punishment.

Edited November 23, 2016 by SSP

trud1966 · November 23, 2016

2 hours ago, outoftown said:

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

The problem with a coach giving "full disclosure", is that it will breed discontent and everyone will judge on the punishment handed out...

If the violation was say. as bad as (for example) someone arrested, then people would immediately start up with "Well, is this his first offense?" or "What exactly was he arrested for? Oh c'mon, that's not THAT bad, is it????????" "Cant they just delay/defer the punishment until later????" etc etc.

It's awful timing, but I respect what Litrell is doing...

outoftown · November 23, 2016

8 minutes ago, trud1966 said:

The problem with a coach giving "full disclosure", is that it will breed discontent and everyone will judge on the punishment handed out...

If the violation was say. as bad as (for example) someone arrested, then people would immediately start up with "Well, is this his first offense?" or "What exactly was he arrested for? Oh c'mon, that's not THAT bad, is it????????" "Cant they just delay/defer the punishment until later????" etc etc.

It's awful timing, but I respect what Litrell is doing...

I get that, but the problem with keeping all the bad stuff in house, is that then you only hear about the good things and the things that are so obvious they can't be denied. We all have (or had) a friend or a family member like that. It leads any reasonable person to never really trusting anything that friend says, because you always wonder when the shoe is gonna drop and what is going wrong below the surface because you know the person would never tell you if there was an actual problem. Its like talking to a used car salesman or a politician.It can kill your enthusiasm about the good things happening. NOw don't get me wrong, I think SL has things pointed in the right directtion, but no communication is not good.

To bring it back to coaching: As long as the results are ok and we don't get into NCAA troubles etc, that is all kinda ok, so it may not look like it matters right now. But when the results stop being good, it becomes important how you communicated the bad parts of during an overall good phase. If the coach continually communicates decently openly, then you know you can tell an unfortunate circumstance from an excuse, when the time comes. When a coach only mentions things going wrong when it is convenient, it will always sound like an excuse. And that matters. Because believe me, it is harder to coach when the fans call for your job. And when they believe you are bringing excuses they are more likely to do that, than if they think you ran into unfortunate circumstances that are likely to turn around.

risinggreen · November 23, 2016

6 hours ago, Travis said:

Do the two of them live on campus? If so possibly drugs in the halls. If they got caught with weed or something like that... They won't get turned over to police for that. But dealt with in the school and kicked out of the halls

Just pure speculation though.

Pure speculation as you say, but something like that sounds reasonably believable. We're fortunate that Smiley is stepping up.

97and03 · November 23, 2016

Outoftown, you do realize that university officials are often limited by privacy laws, right?

UNTexas · November 23, 2016

7 hours ago, outoftown said:

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

The university cannot go around publicly exposing the personal details of the players to appease the public. If something came up with your work would they release it to everyone to shame you? There are privacy issues.

Want to ensure no one wants to come play for your school? Publicly shame every student athlete and make them embarrassed in front of their friends and family for infractions of team rules.

Everyone in that athletic department already knows what happened. This isn't really a national secret so I don't think the coach needs to publicly release what happened, unless it's a criminal matter, but even still he'd just have to refer questions to the investigative entity. (Baylor and Penn State could have saved a lot of heartaches had they done that.) It will come out one way or another...

Eagle-96 · November 23, 2016

It's nobody's business what team rules they broke. Plain and simple. I'm curious as is everyone else but my curiosity does not warrant answers from the staff. The most important part is that the team knows what happened and they also now know what the consequences are for those actions. THAT is what matters. Littrell preaches accountability from his players and expects self-policing from the team. Goree and Robinson broke team rules and let their teammates down because of it. It did not hurt us against USM(loss) and hopefully will not against UTEP but the reality is that their actions could have cost us a bowl game.

MeanGreenDan · November 23, 2016

On the coach's show last night, Littrell said "they won't be a part of this team going forward".

Seeing as how they were removed from the roster, which we've not seen done on other suspensions, should we take this to mean they are gone entirely, or just the season as we've been speculating?

KRAM1 · November 23, 2016

16 hours ago, outoftown said:

I don't like this. It is one thing that really annoyed me with mac, and now SL does the same. The obtuse "team rules", as in we don't want to tell you what happened and we are not willing to communicate. A lack of willingness to communicate is what got the AD into its bad situation with fans etc. It essentially says "trust us". We will see if both will come back, but if they don't I will assume it is on the coach simply because I have no better information. Had it that way with Mac, have it that way with Benford, will have it that way with SL.

Privacy laws and just plain "none of our business" create this sort of silence and the exact "whys" of this sort of thing. This is not a "lack of communication". This is "keeping it within the family" where I believe it belongs. If there is an arrest for something like we have seen in the past, well, that is public record and you can find it if you so desire. I firmly believe this in team discipline is none of my business...it is personal. It could come out from a team member or other source one of these days, but really doesn't matter. They are no longer a part of the Mean Green, and from what Coach L said last night on the radio show (at least my interpretation of his comments) we may never see them back. I hope I am wrong and that they will serve their suspensions, make whatever apologies are necessary, learn from their mistakes and return next season. Certainly remains to be seen. But the "why" I chalk up to "none of my business" and move on to support the players who are currently on the roster. Both names been removed from the roster I believe...so, could be a long farewell.