DRC Sunday column: Littrell has been great for UNT, too great to be around long

Censored by Laurie · November 20, 2017

Brett picks us to win every game save for Iowa...people complain he's too much of a cheerleader.

Brett states the obvious...possibly with more information at his disposal than the lot of you...people complain he hates UNT athletics and wants football to suck agin.

intellectual consistency is all I ask, people

TheReal_jayD · November 20, 2017

6 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

Brett states the obvious...possibly with more information at his disposal than the lot of you...people complain he hates UNT athletics and wants football to suck agin.

Debatable.

Aldo · November 20, 2017

lol the board has been having this same conversation for weeks.

I get the difference in the stage, but it's not like it's a surprise.

TheColonyEagle · November 20, 2017

4 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

Brett states the obvious...possibly with more information at his disposal than the lot of you...

So what information does he have at his disposal for this particular article?

UNT is small time and any decent coach will get out of here as fast as he can because...come on guys, it's UNT? That was made very clear. But there was nothing in the article about where he may be a fit, what programs could look at him. What programs are sniffing around. Is that the info he has? If so, I admire Vito's discipline for keeping that stuff secret and not wanting to scoop anyone. Doesn't seem like it would be good for his job though. No it wasn't about that...it was about no one will stay here any longer than they have to. It was about UNT not Seth Littrell.

I don't think it's breaking news that there are maybe just a few coaches at big programs that got their start at smaller programs. Out of all the coaches in P5 conferences...I'm gonna guess.....all of them did.

But.....this article did a good job of reminding me that UNT is still a dump...which is good because I was almost starting to think we were an up and coming program....hopefully Littrell will get what he wants and he can get all his unpacked boxes out of the living room ASAP. Maybe he won't have to sign the 3rd year of his lease on his efficiency.

Look, I don't think he's gonna retire here and become our Patterson or Bobby Bowden. And him leaving for a big job in a couple of years is actually exciting and I would be happy to see who we get in here next....he could be even better than Littrell. And of course coaches want to move up the chain. But what was the point of this article at this point in his career? The tone of it just rubbed me the wrong way. It's too early to be talking about this now....unless you want to make sure EVERYONE knows how small time UNT is...then the article makes sense. He's not going to a P5 for a couple of years so apologies to everyone that is used to seeing UNT behave a certain way....we may be around for a little longer...I know it makes everyone uncomfortable.

It's not Vito's job to be a cheerleader....but have some objectivity. Is it at the very least POSSIBLE that this could be a good job? Is it POSSIBLE that Seth Littrell would only leave for the RIGHT job and not whatever gets him out of here the quickest?

keith · November 20, 2017

3 hours ago, Censored by Laurie said:

Brett states the obvious...

Exactly...how effing hard is that to do? Hell, all he has to do is read this board and regurgitate it in a DRC artlcle. It was lazy journalism (and I use that term loosely) in my opinion. For the most part, that's something we can live with and can forgive Brett for since we've all become so used to it. For this particular "article" however, it was all about timing. Brett knew exactly what he was doing and didn't want to miss an opportunity to stick us with a knife and twist it a little.

TIgreen01 · November 20, 2017

5 hours ago, Cerebus said:

To me the writing on the wall is clear. In fact Disney would have favored adding UH to the B12, as long as the B12 members agreed to extend the current GOR at the same rate. The schools not named OU/UT were all for that. First they know the best case scenario is UT/OU sticking around and keeping revenue about the same. Second they know their TV money would collapse the second UT/OU left, and an extension of the GOR would at least put that off. The biggest news out of all that was that UT/OU refused.

So what happens when the GOR expires? OU and UT are gone. The B12 is still probably named the B12, but it is going to lose the special P5 consideration it gets for the CFP, the CFP payout, their per team media distribution is going to fall to AAC levels, and perhaps most importantly they are going to lose the special P5 rules autonomy that the NCAA granted.

Good summary of all that is going on. To me, though, I'm not so sure that it is a sure thing that UT/OU leave as soon as the GOR expires. What's stopping the tagalong B12 schools from just continuing to accept a smaller and smaller piece of the pie? They already moved to do just that a couple of years ago. Why not keep adjusting the payouts to give UT/OU a big enough share to match whatever they could make by leaving to join the SEC/Big10?

In fact, I'd be surprised to not see the same thing happen in the other P5 conferences. Being completely cut off from the ultra power school teet will be death to any of the number of tagalongs that exist in every P5 conference. They'll all make concessions to the teams that drive TV revenue the most until that model is completely squeezed dry first, before these power teams all leave to form super conferences. My $.02.

BTG_Fan1 · November 20, 2017

Someone find the company’s that have advertisements with the Denton record Chronicle and let’s boycott them, to teach BV a lesson and make him apologize for saying a fact! Whose with me?!?!? #NoMoreHonestMedia! #WeWantFakeNews!

Ben Gooding · November 20, 2017

19 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Good grief. That article was basically 5% Littrell and 95% what a joke of a little program UNT is and we should NEVER expect anyone to ever stay here more than 2 years and if any good coach gets here it is such a joke they will leave as fast as humanly possible.

What an insulting article. I hated the tone of it.

Ridiculous.

This IS Brett Vito. And has been since I have been reading his articles.

keith · November 20, 2017

34 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

This IS Brett Vito. And has been since I have been reading his articles.

Yep, Brett is #OldDenton. We can do better.

untjim1995 · November 20, 2017

20 hours ago, Cerebus said:

No. There will be less Power conferences. P5 will become P4. B12 will probably explode, shuffling will occur. Some teams that are in a power conference will no longer be. I don't think any non current P5 school will ever move up again.

Exactly.

When the networks of the Big XII paid the conference extra money so they wouldn’t have to any other G5 program move up, while not demanding an extension of the GOR for the Big XII, it told you that a P4 was just a matter of when. There are parts of the Big XII that have value to the other conferences, from being a huge name in a revenue sport, a great academic ranking for research dollars, and providing good tv markets. The Big XII has three teams that fit those criteria: UT, OU, and KU. Politics may help Tech, OSU, and KSU, while WVU May get somewhere based on geography and being a name. But ISU, TCU, and especially Baylor are $hit outta luck...

Censored by Laurie · November 21, 2017

4 hours ago, keith said:

Exactly...how effing hard is that to do? Hell, all he has to do is read this board and regurgitate it in a DRC artlcle. It was lazy journalism (and I use that term loosely) in my opinion. For the most part, that's something we can live with and can forgive Brett for since we've all become so used to it. For this particular "article" however, it was all about timing. Brett knew exactly what he was doing and didn't want to miss an opportunity to stick us with a knife and twist it a little.

this board is a tiny portion of the DRC's readership.

and I'm also pretty confused how anyone reads "our coach might/likely will get hired away" is anything but a good thing given our track record of coaches leaving for other schools with pink slips rather than compensation payments.

everybody wants to point to Gary Patterson at TCU, but their entire rise to prominence was started by Coach Fran...who stayed all of three seasons. If Seth's our coach Fran, I'm a pretty happy man.

risinggreen · November 21, 2017

On 11/19/2017 at 3:49 PM, UNTLifer said:

Just can't enjoy a win without this crap being brought up.

If Vito waves his arms around enough we will probably lose him. Thanks a lot.

NorthTexan95 · November 21, 2017

I had a great idea last night. If the new owners of the DRC want to save a little money they could fire Vito and hire the sports writer from the NT Daily that's been doing a great job lately. Vito reminds me the guy who was always picked on as a little kid so now her subtly tries to get revenge whenever he can. The DRC can do much better.

shaft · November 21, 2017

5 minutes ago, NorthTexan95 said:

Vito reminds me the guy who was always picked on as a little kid so now her subtly tries to get revenge whenever he can.

We've seen BV, of course he was a picked on as a kid.

But we shouldn't be call for someone to be fired. He's does a fine job over covering his beat. His editorials stink and I disagree with him, but he's a beat writer, so whatever.

MeanGreenZen · November 21, 2017

Lol, a four-page thread discussing the work of Brett Vito.

It is tough to be a college football beat writer.

It pays crap and you have talented people like BillySee, Aztecskin, Harry, RealJayD etc who are thinking passionately and creatively about the beat you cover, compete against you and basically do your job for free.

I would hate to have to deal with that at my job.

Poor Brett. Nobody cared about him when we were losing. Now he mails in a column that he obviously didn't think too much about and he is suddenly the third most hated guy in Mean Green Country (No. 1 is the Army player who KO'd Guyton. No. 2 is the CUSA official who overruled the targeting penalty.).

Overall, Brett does a nice job covering the beat. I'm also grateful to those other guys I mentioned who find fun and interesting angles about the team to write about.

The idea that Seth might leave if he gets too successful just isn't a good column idea. Too obvious.

A much better angle would be what Billy did exploring the history of how successful a G5 coach needs to be to move up. Or Aztecskin's column on MGN.

In fairness to Brett, I think the DRC sports staff is down to just 2 people now so he doesn't have an editor and the volume of work he puts out is staggering.

Edited November 21, 2017 by MeanGreenZen

NorthTexan95 · November 21, 2017

1 hour ago, MeanGreenZen said:

Poor Brett. Nobody cared about him when we were losing. N

Wrong.

TheWestie · November 21, 2017

Vito, stop stirring the pot:

The only job Seth wants besides the one he has right now is at Oklahoma. He's even said as much. So we can stop all this " Oh well, looks like a P5 school with a briefcase full o' cash is gonna scoop him up" talk.

Got5onIt · November 21, 2017

Brett’s been great at covering NT sports. Some of you just can’t handle the truth. SL will be gone faster than a cupcake in front of Chris Christie when a P5 school calls him and offers him $2 million a year.

97and03 · November 21, 2017

If Brett spent as much time editing as he did trolling he would be a much more effective writer.

DeepGreen · November 21, 2017

10 hours ago, Censored by Laurie said:

this board is a tiny portion of the DRC's readership.

and I'm also pretty confused how anyone reads "our coach might/likely will get hired away" is anything but a good thing given our track record of coaches leaving for other schools with pink slips rather than compensation payments.

everybody wants to point to Gary Patterson at TCU, but their entire rise to prominence was started by Coach Fran...who stayed all of three seasons. If Seth's our coach Fran, I'm a pretty happy man.

And Coach Fran will tell you that TCU was the best coaching job he’s ever had.

cdizzle86 · November 21, 2017

I'm sure Littrell will get other offers soon, but I believe in Wren to do everything in his power to keep him home. I think we're in a good position as long as we can make the numbers work.

Close to home & family
Seems he loves working for Wren & Smatresk
Young team that is already making waves
Major facility improvements & upgrades on the way

PlummMeanGreen · November 21, 2017

We beginning to remind me of a conservative political party in the USA who eats its own. (I'm Indy--not part of that 3 ring clowns circus).

Come on folks. BV is A-OK even if we don't like a theme or 2 he writes from time to time. (He just doing his job)?

And I say that before I took any of my meds & herbs this morning.😳

Wala! Just took them & I still feel the same way.

GMG!

Edited November 21, 2017 by PlummMeanGreen

Ben Gooding · November 21, 2017

13 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

We beginning to remind me of a conservative political party in the USA who eats its own. (I'm Indy--not part of that 3 ring clowns circus).

Come on folks. BV is A-OK even if we don't like a theme or 2 he writes from time to time. (He just doing his job)?

And I say that before I took any of my meds & herbs this morning.😳

Wala! Just took them & I still feel the same way.

GMG!

I think it's just his style of writing.

I am waiting for him to state that this is only our 3rd bowl appearance since 2004. INSTEAD, for good pub, he could write it as being our 3rd bowl trip in the last 5 years. It's these type of snarky shots he consistently takes.