Todd Dodge to UT

[emmitt01]

11 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Dodge has produced more NFL talent than SL as a HC .. 

Sooooooooooo would we rather have Wins and bowl games and no NFL talent, or NFL talent and losing? 

Both

SL is starting year 3.  

He already has eclipsed Dodge in the win department (actually, he was one win short of Dodge's total in ONE year)

Let's wait until his tenure is equal to Dodge to judge NFL production.

 

And let me just leave this right here...it's an exerpt from Tim McMahon's article after Dodge was fired.  

"North Texas fired head coach Todd Dodge, who had the lowest winning percentage in school history, on Wednesday morning.

Dodge, who was hired in 2006 after winning 79 of his last 80 games at Southlake Carroll High, had a 6-37 record at North Texas. The Mean Green are 1-6, ensuring that Dodge won't get to the seven-win mandate set by athletic director Rick Villarreal."

If only we were an affluent high school.

[oldguystudent]

48 minutes ago, emmitt01 said:

 

He already has eclipsed Dodge in the win department (actually, he was one win short of Dodge's total in ONE year)

Going by winning percentage, in arguably a more difficult conference, for every win Dodge produced, SL has produced 3.73 wins.  

If only counting the first two years of tenure (remembering that SL took over a 1-11 team), for every win Dodge produced in 2007-2008, SL produced 4.15 wins in 2016-2017. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by oldguystudent

[Mike Jackson]

Why this of relevance on gmg.com?  He presided over a dismal period in Mean Green Football.  He was a bad hire by a mediocre Athletic Director trying to be frugal.  We got exactly what they paid for.  Expecting him out do Dickey just because the new stadium was finalized was just stupid.  Let’s stop looking back please except when it is time to replace our head coach.  We want to learn from past mistakes.

[Cr1028]

2 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

Just an aside...after Craig Robertson made a good tackle in the Saints/Panthers game they talked about how this is his first playoff game.  Troy Aikman threw in "never even played in a bowl game in college."  

I forget, which great football mind coached him?  

Fred Bleil, Ron Mendoza, and Gary DeLoach.

1 hour ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Dodge has produced more NFL talent than SL as a HC .. 

Sooooooooooo would we rather have Wins and bowl games and no NFL talent, or NFL talent and losing? 

Robertson was a Dickey recruit. He redshirted in ‘06 while Dodge was coaching Southlake to a state title. Dodge recruited NFL talent in Orr, Dunbar, Antonio Johnson, and Brelan but Dickey recruited NFL talent in Awasome, Kennedy, Spencer, Cobbs, Quinn, and I’m sure I’m missing some. Even McCarney got Cyril Lemon and Trice in here. So every coach in recent years recruited at least one player with NFL level talent. 

It’s still too soon to know on Littrell but Guyton, Bussey, and a few others look very promising.

[HoustonEagle]

August 30	6:05 p.m.	at Kansas State*		Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium • Manhattan, KS		L 6–45	45,150[2]
09/06/2008	6:00 p.m.	Tulsa*		Fouts Field • Denton, TX	KTXA 21	L 26–56	22,785
09/13/2008	7:00 p.m.	at No. 7 LSU*		Tiger Stadium • Baton Rouge, LA	GamePlan	L 3–41	91,602
09/27/2008	4:00 p.m.	at Rice*		Rice Stadium • Houston, TX	KTXA 21	L 20-77	16,885
10/04/2008	6:00 p.m.	Florida International		Fouts Field • Denton, TX	ESPN+	L 10–42	16,781
10/11/2008	6:00 p.m.	Louisiana-Lafayette		Fouts Field • Denton, TX		L 30–59	17,106
10/18/2008	6:00 p.m.	at Louisiana-Monroe		Malone Stadium • Monroe, LA		L 23–35	10,388
10/25/2008	6:00 p.m.	Troy		Fouts Field • Denton, TX		L 17–45	18,345
11/1/2008	3:30 p.m.	at Western Kentucky*		Houchens Industries Smith Stadium • Bowling Green, KY	ESPN+	W 51–40	18,879
11/8/2008	3:00 p.m.	Florida Atlantic		Lockhart Stadium • Fort Lauderdale, FL		L 13–46	17,175
11/22/2008	2:30 p.m.	at Middle Tennessee		Johnny "Red" Floyd Stadium • Murfreesboro, TN		L 13–52	14,307
11/29/2008	1:00 p.m.	Arkansas State		Fouts Field • Denton, TX		L 28–33	9,761

 

This 2008 season should never be forgotten.  That Rice game almost finished me as a UNT fan.  A few of us were standing around outside the stadium after that game and a Rice fan goodheartedly came over and said “I want you to know that team of yours never quit out there. They will get better.”   We all looked at each and said “dear God please tell me they quit”.  It was the worst football game I was ever witness to.  Rice easily could have scored a 100 on us.  Unlike the Portland game we knew we had Dodge for at least a couple more years and things were not going to get better with the promise of a new hire.  

[UNTLifer]

4 hours ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Dodge has produced more NFL talent than SL as a HC .. 

Sooooooooooo would we rather have Wins and bowl games and no NFL talent, or NFL talent and losing? 

Good Lord.  First you criticize our recruiting because we aren't producing NFL players and now this?

[UNT90]

Standards have gotten so low around here that now Dodge is considered not so bad? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Not surprising with this “we will accept anything” rah rah board.

[Got5onIt]

Here are my 2 cents:

He sucked. Worst coach in the history of NT and maybe even one of the worst ever in FBS/Div1 football. How can anyone spin positivity about this guy? 

[Rudy]

10 hours ago, UNT90 said:

Standards have gotten so low around here that now Dodge is considered not so bad? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Not surprising with this “we will accept anything” rah rah board.

Most of us aren't saying "he wasn't so bad".

Edited January 8, 2018 by Rudy

[oldguystudent]

38 minutes ago, Got5onIt said:

Here are my 2 cents:

He sucked. Worst coach in the history of NT and maybe even one of the worst ever in FBS/Div1 football. How can anyone spin positivity about this guy? 

My best guess is some kind of convoluted cognitive dissonance.  The guy wore green. Some people hold their reverence for "The glory to the green and white" second only to their religion, and it's a close second.  Therefore, he must've been good.  

These threads come up about every six months, and no matter how much time has passed, and what things have changed in football (for the better), there are STILL holdouts who think he should be coaching here to this very day.  

I'll never understand it, but there it is. 

As I will never change those minds, so will those minds never convince me that he was anything other than an arrogant fraud. 

Agree to disagree and let's go back to fear mongering that Seth Litrell is going to SMU next season. 

[emmitt01]

10 hours ago, UNT90 said:

Standards have gotten so low around here that now Dodge is considered not so bad? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Not surprising with this “we will accept anything” rah rah board.

You have it all wrong.  The argument goes that, aside from that whole winning football games thing, he was a pretty good coach.  

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

2008 has to one of if not the worst seasons EVER..... and Dodge was in charge...  only once did the opponent score less than 35 and it was 33 in the final game of the year... he went 1-11 and nearly none of the 11 loses  were  close games with many 50 points or more allowed. ..... That  defines terrible to me.......     The  0-16  Clev. Browns did better this year than he did. They at least kept their games interesting usually. 

[oldguystudent]

1 minute ago, SCREAMING EAGLE-66 said:

2008 has to one of if not the worst seasons EVER..... and Dodge was in charge...  only once did the opponent score less than 35 and it was 33 in the final game of the year... he went 1-11 and nearly none of the 11 loses  were  close games with many 50 points or more allowed. ..... That  defines terrible to me.......     The  0-16  Clev. Browns did better this year than he did. They at least kept their games interesting usually. 

If one were to dig back into the gmg.com archives of November, 2008, one would find that we were so desperate that many wished for simply not losing as badly.  Like, go 1-11 again, that's cool, but stop doing it by going down 30+ points in the first quarter every game.  That's how bad that was. 

[aztecskin]

Todd Dodge presided over the worst years in NT history, and all things considered, he is useful as a football coach -- though not as a head coach of anything resembling a challenging scenario.

Bill Parcells tried to hire Dodge as the TE coach before he came here. Coaches obviously see his value -- and that is telling .Then again they also tried to have Briles speak at their convention this week.

Hopefully Todd got better as a coach and I wish him well at UT -- if that is true -- and hopefully he does some good things there.

The thing about coaching is that it is fairly forgiving. One question in this thread was "what do they see in him?" Well, the answer is they likely see themselves. They know they can (and probably have) have awful tenures and they all look out for each other.

Please lets not try to rewrite history of the Dodge years, though. They were not good even if there were some tiny bright spots. For all the good that having Robertson, Dunbar et al in the League do for NT, there was three or four times as bad done by losing games in such awful fashion.

[CaribbeanGreen]

Wait - what's the UT rumor? Through all the horrible flashbacks on this thread I haven't been able to find anything. 

[Mean Green 93-98]

4 hours ago, Got5onIt said:

Here are my 2 cents:

He sucked. Worst coach in the history of NT and maybe even one of the worst ever in FBS/Div1 football. How can anyone spin positivity about this guy? 

If I understand correctly, the primary point being made is that he has shown coaching acumen and success at other times than when he was HC at UNT.

[BTG_Fan1]

17 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Good Lord.  First you criticize our recruiting because we aren't producing NFL players and now this?

Not at all it was all sarcasm.. 

[unt_rocket09]

3 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

If I understand correctly, the primary point being made is that he has shown coaching acumen and success at other times than when he was HC at UNT.

You are correct 

[MeanGreenTexan]

He'd be a great QB's coach if he wanted to be one.  Heck, he might even be a great OC.   Heck, he might even be a great HC.

But his college coaching career was torpedoed by an absurd hiring in the first place... one that should have never happened, but thanks to leadership in place at the time, he was what we could "afford".

I wish the dude no ill-will.  He did all he could do here (which obviously wasn't much) given what he had.

Those were some frustrating years with him at the helm.   But what do you expect for him to do?  Step down voluntarily?

If American Airlines brought in an "ace" crop-duster pilot to fly your 737, would you be mad at the flyboy, or AA?   He's gonna give it a go to the best of his abilities, but your plane is probably going to crash.

[emmitt01]

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

He'd be a great QB's coach if he wanted to be one.  Heck, he might even be a great OC.   Heck, he might even be a great HC.

But his college coaching career was torpedoed by an absurd hiring in the first place... one that should have never happened, but thanks to leadership in place at the time, he was what we could "afford".

I wish the dude no ill-will.  He did all he could do here (which obviously wasn't much) given what he had.

Those were some frustrating years with him at the helm.   But what do you expect for him to do?  Step down voluntarily?

If American Airlines brought in an "ace" crop-duster pilot to fly your 737, would you be mad at the flyboy, or AA?   He's gonna give it a go to the best of his abilities, but your plane is probably going to crash.

As long as the crop duster doesn’t look at the 737’s control panel and arrogantly tell you “I can fly anything...my last flight crashed but the takeoff graded out extremely well!!”  At that point I stop blaming AA and blame the pilot who refuses the adapt to his level of ineptitude.

[Harry]

It wasn’t all Dodges fault.  We hired Dodge because we were woefully underpaying for the head coach and assistant positions.  We could have mandated that we wanted him to hire high level assistants but we didn’t because we knew we could pay high school assistants less.

I know for a fact that Dodge wanted to retain some of the assistants but he wasn’t allowed to.  There was a desire to clean out any remnants of the Dickey era.

The biggest problem Dodge had was just a complete naivety about coaching at the college level.  It became an us (high school coaches) against to the world type of mentality.  And as fans we had to buy into it because it was all we had.  Buy the time he adjusted and brought in a few college assistants we were getting mostly bottom feeder career journeyman types.

 

[MeanGreenTexan]

3 minutes ago, emmitt01 said:

As long as the crop duster doesn’t look at the 737’s control panel and arrogantly tell you “I can fly anything...my last flight crashed but the takeoff graded out extremely well!!”  At that point I stop blaming AA and blame the pilot who refuses the adapt to his level of ineptitude.

What do you expect him to say?  He has to be confident & tell you he knows what he's doing.   He says, "well folks, I'm a little over my head here, I'm not sure what half of these buttons are...", everyone gets off the plane (re: players) before it takes off.   

And adapt to what?   He has no clue... because the level of planes/football is entirely different.

For you sir: Imagine a small-town cop rises to become Chief of police in his town of 5000 people & he's great at it.    The next job he takes is the Dallas PD/Houston PD Chief.  He was offered the job by someone dumb enough (or cash-strapped enough) to offer it to him... why wouldn't he take it?   But he's gonna be in WAAAAY over his head, right?   He's still gonna come in confident in himself because of how great it went in his town of 5k, and will project that confidence onto everyone so they'll buy-in.   He'll be exposed in a matter of time, but if he comes in ho-hum & unsure, no one will follow him from the jump.

 

Todd Dodge was a terrible HC during his tenure here.  There's no way around that.  There's no defense for it.   He was in WAY over his head.  He tried his best, but had no clue what to do.   However, my disgust isn't aimed at him, it's aimed at those who set the budget & made the choices to hire him...  then just let the fire burn for way too long (see also: the Benford fire).

[GrandGreen]

I don't fully understand this thread, Dodge was a bad hire no question.  There was however, a lot of fans who fully supported and were excited about the hire at the time.   

Also Dodge was not hired only because he was a relatively cheap, there always candidates available for any FBS job.  They could have hired another assistant ala Dickey, Simon, Nelson, etc.   Dodge's success may have been high school based, but he had much greater name recognition than anyone NT could have hired.   

It was an ultra high risk hire, that historically had a minute change to be successful.  Strange, you would have thought NT would have learned their lesson with the Parker fiasco.   

 

[MeanGreen_MBA]

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 4:47 PM, Harry said:

It wasn’t all Dodges fault.  We hired Dodge because we were woefully underpaying for the head coach and assistant positions.  We could have mandated that we wanted him to hire high level assistants but we didn’t because we knew we could pay high school assistants less.

I know for a fact that Dodge wanted to retain some of the assistants but he wasn’t allowed to.  There was a desire to clean out any remnants of the Dickey era.

The biggest problem Dodge had was just a complete naivety about coaching at the college level.  It became an us (high school coaches) against to the world type of mentality.  And as fans we had to buy into it because it was all we had.  Buy the time he adjusted and brought in a few college assistants we were getting mostly bottom feeder career journeyman types.

 

Wasn't Dodge hired shortly after Briles was hired from Stephenville with similar success?  Hiring up-and-coming HS coaches was a thing at that time...

[MeanGreenTexan]

13 minutes ago, MeanGreen_MBA said:

Wasn't Dodge hired shortly after Briles was hired from Stephenville with similar success?  Hiring up-and-coming HS coaches was a thing at that time...

Art Briles, Todd Graham, Chad Morris, etc...  were all TX HS coaching legends that were hired as ASSISTANTS first before moving up to HC.   Todd Dodge went straight to HC.