Dickey to A & M

Cr1028 · July 21, 2018

Revisionist history. He would’ve been fired in 2001 if he hadn’t lucked into the SunBelt with the dregs of the big west and some upstarts. Look at the OOC record. Look at the record against bowl-eligible teams. He made a career out of beating sorry teams and when FAU and Troy caught up, Dickey was toast. I get that New Orleans was fun. I get that we had 7 sacks against the Longhorns in 2002 but let’s not put him up on some pedestal like he didn’t have a career coaching record where he won less than 40% of his games. Littrell is leaps and bounds better than Dickey ever was. Littrell has only coached 2 seasons and inherited a complete dumpster fire. He is still the only coach besides Hayden Fry in the last 50 years to have an overall winning record for his North Texas tenure.

Felozano · July 21, 2018

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

The m’fr was before my time but the black jersey situation happened in 2006. Our athletic director thought it would be a good idea to fire a coach midway through the season and allow him to coach out the remaining games. What could go wrong, righ? Well for the last home game the players came out and warmed up in their regular dark green jerseys and pants. When it came time for kickoff, they all came back out in what looked like junior high jerseys bought at academy. The jerseys we just plain black with white numbers. They didn’t indicate the conference or school name anywhere. That and the 7-O.T. game were all I could stomach of Darrell Dickey.

Somewhere exists a picture of Darrell Dickey in his all black “coaching funeral attire” garb.

Thanks to @rcade for still having the photo available. http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3069/fired-north-texas-coach-black-mood

Geez. Those jerseys are awful! Thank you for updating me about the Black jerseys.

emmitt01 · July 21, 2018

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

Revisionist history. He would’ve been fired in 2001 if he hadn’t lucked into the SunBelt with the dregs of the big west and some upstarts. Look at the OOC record. Look at the record against bowl-eligible teams. He made a career out of beating sorry teams and when FAU and Troy caught up, Dickey was toast. I get that New Orleans was fun. I get that we had 7 sacks against the Longhorns in 2002 but let’s not put him up on some pedestal like he didn’t have a career coaching record where he won less than 40% of his games. Littrell is leaps and bounds better than Dickey ever was. Littrell has only coached 2 seasons and inherited a complete dumpster fire. He is still the only coach besides Hayden Fry in the last 50 years to have an overall winning record for his North Texas tenure.

Speaking of “revisionist history” I like how, in your comparison between Dickey and Littrell, you conveniently forget:

- The 70+ million dollar stadium

- The game day electricity that doesn’t require bringing in a generator every Saturday

- The conference with 3 other Texas teams

- The pro- athletics president and BOR

- The competent athletic director

- The MASSIVELY increased budget for assistants

Nice job comparing apples to lawn furniture.

I’m always amused by those that piss all over 4 consecutive conference titles...since nobody did it prior, or since.

GrandGreen · July 21, 2018

4 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

I was a DD fan then. He could coach then and he can coach now. The AD and all the short sighted leadership at the University at that time are just as responsible for the Dickey's failed last season and the miserable seasons that followed. Happy for him wish it would it have worked out for him here. It will be particularly disappointing if he has a part in Texas A&M winning the SEC Championship cause that is the Texas region football fandom I dislike the most.

3 hours ago, Harry said:

People always want to remember him by his darker moments (hint: we all have them)...

But they seem to forget, the man could recruit without a pot to pi$$ in terms of facilities and asst salaries...

He could also coach and win. Troy and Arkie State have scored 3 consecutive Sun Belt conf championships but neither have one been able to get to 4. It's possible that no one will again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sun_Belt_Conference_football_champions

9 minutes ago, emmitt01 said:

Speaking of “revisionist history” I like how, in your comparison between Dickey and Littrell, you conveniently forget:

- The 70+ million dollar stadium

- The game day electricity that doesn’t require bringing in a generator every Saturday

- The conference with 3 other Texas teams

- The pro- athletics president and BOR

- The competent athletic director

- The MASSIVELY increased budget for assistants

Nice job comparing apples to lawn furniture.

I’m always amused by those that piss all over 4 consecutive conference titles...since nobody did it prior, or since.

DD was not a good recruiter other than one magic class, that was the basis for most of his success. DD was his own worst enemy, opponents easily quoted some of his statements about the state of NT's program to win recruiting battles.

I find it hard to agree with the frequent assessment that DD suffered because of lack of resources. Yes that is definitely true for most coaches at NT in the oc schedule against P5 and upper level G5's. However that ignores the fact that most of DD's success was against Belt opponents who had similar or lower football budgets.

However, I agree that many fans don't give DD enough credit for his Belt consecutive wins streak.

As far as comparing resources now and 12 years ago, it is meaningless. The true comparison is between the status of the program compared to it's peers at the different dates. NT has made massive improvements compared to their past, but much more modest gains against current peer programs.

Cr1028 · July 21, 2018

11 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

Speaking of “revisionist history” I like how, in your comparison between Dickey and Littrell, you conveniently forget:

- The 70+ million dollar stadium

- The game day electricity that doesn’t require bringing in a generator every Saturday

- The conference with 3 other Texas teams

- The pro- athletics president and BOR

- The competent athletic director

- The MASSIVELY increased budget for assistants

Nice job comparing apples to lawn furniture.

I’m always amused by those that piss all over 4 consecutive conference titles...since nobody did it prior, or since.

Yes and pee walls too, I know, I experienced them. I guess Matt Simon didn’t have the same hardships as poor Dickey. Matt Simon would’ve owned the Sun Belt even more strongly than Dickey did because he fared much better in the Big West than Dickey did. Maybe the reason nobody else has won that many consecutive conference titles is because there is supposed to be some semblance of parity amongst the schools. If your program is really that good, new teams coming into the conference (and the worst ones leaving) shouldn’t relegate you to cellar dweller. I’m sure if the Southland became an FBS conference and we got dropped into it Littrell would win 4 straight conference titlea too but it won’t ever happen because 7 team football conferences won’t ever happen again.

Yes Littrell has more tools at his disposal than Dickey but I’ve never heard Littrell y’all abojt how hard it is to recruit to NT or how he has the hardest job in America because he works here everyday either. Littrell showed he could win in spite of RV. That stadium, Dickey couldn’t get it done, Todd Dodge (and a certain board poster) got the student vote that made the stadium possible. Dickey wanted to complain and hope for the next job(that never came because he couldn’t beat anyone with a winning record). He mailed it in on recruiting after Jamario thinking he’d be gone and left us with the lowest scoring offense in all of college football for 2 years straight. What did he do the week after extending his conference game winning streak to 26 games? He came back to Fouts and got beat like a drum by Tulsa 50-2.

You have your opinion Emmitt and I have mine. In your mind we owe 4 conference championships to Darrell Dickey and in my mind we owe it to Boise leaving the Big West and the conference giving up football. We will just disagree on this one. I would say thank you to Coach Dickey for his time here during the 4 championship seasons but the other 5 seasons around those four were just dreadful. I wouldn’t hire him to be the head coach of a high school team unless it was an established program dropped into a district with nothing to compete against but brand new high schools.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Cr1028

UNT 90 Grad · July 21, 2018

4 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

The m’fr was before my time but the black jersey situation happened in 2006. Our athletic director thought it would be a good idea to fire a coach midway through the season and allow him to coach out the remaining games. What could go wrong, righ? Well for the last home game the players came out and warmed up in their regular dark green jerseys and pants. When it came time for kickoff, they all came back out in what looked like junior high jerseys bought at academy. The jerseys we just plain black with white numbers. They didn’t indicate the conference or school name anywhere. That and the 7-O.T. game were all I could stomach of Darrell Dickey.

Somewhere exists a picture of Darrell Dickey in his all black “coaching funeral attire” garb.

Thanks to @rcade for still having the photo available. http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3069/fired-north-texas-coach-black-mood

meanrob · July 21, 2018

6 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

The m’fr was before my time but the black jersey situation happened in 2006. Our athletic director thought it would be a good idea to fire a coach midway through the season and allow him to coach out the remaining games. What could go wrong, righ? Well for the last home game the players came out and warmed up in their regular dark green jerseys and pants. When it came time for kickoff, they all came back out in what looked like junior high jerseys bought at academy. The jerseys we just plain black with white numbers. They didn’t indicate the conference or school name anywhere. That and the 7-O.T. game were all I could stomach of Darrell Dickey.

Somewhere exists a picture of Darrell Dickey in his all black “coaching funeral attire” garb.

Thanks to @rcade for still having the photo available. http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3069/fired-north-texas-coach-black-mood

Could you stomach 25 straight conference wins? Four straight bowl games? Some of the best players to play at UNT? He had nothing to work with and still competed. Not sure why some people shit on the only competitive period at UNT in the last twenty years.

meanrob · July 21, 2018

3 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Yes and pee walls too, I know, I experienced them. I guess Matt Simon didn’t have the same hardships as poor Dickey. Matt Simon would’ve owned the Sun Belt even more strongly than Dickey did because he cared much better in the Big West than Dickey did. Maybe the reason nobody else has won that many consecutive conference titles is because there is supposed to be some semblance of parity amongst the schools. If your program is really that good, new teams coming into the conference (and the worst ones leaving) shouldn’t relegate you to cellar dweller. I’m sure if the Southland became an FBS conference and we got dropped into it Littrell would win 4 straight conference titlea too but it won’t ever happen because 7 team football conferences won’t ever happen again.

Yes Littrell has more tools at his disposal than Dickey but I’ve never heard Littrell y’all abojt how hard it is to recruit to NT or how he has the hardest job in America because he works here everyday either. Littrell showed he could win in spite of RV. That stadium, Dickey couldn’t get it done, Todd Dodge (and a certain board poster) got the student vote that made the stadium possible. Dickey wanted to complain and hope for the next job(that never came because he couldn’t beat anyone with a winning record). He mailed it in on recruiting after Jamario thinking he’d be gone and left us with the lowest scoring offense in all of college football for 2 years straight. What did he do the week after extending his conference game winning streak to 26 games? He came back to Fouts and got beat like a drum by Tulsa 50-2.

You have your opinion Emmitt and I have mine. In your mind we owe 4 conference championships to Darrell Dickey and in my mind we owe it to Boise leaving the Big West and the conference giving up football. We will just disagree on this one. I would say thank you to Coach Dickey for his time here during the 4 championship seasons but the other 5 seasons around those four were just dreadful. I wouldn’t hire him to be the head coach of a high school team unless it was an established program dropped into a district with nothing to compete against but brand new high schools.

Complete bullshit.

outoftown · July 21, 2018

All of his tenure was mostly before my time. And I am just amused/astonished at how strong and divergent opinions on his tenure are. I don't think that is true for any other UNT coach, good or bad.

Edited July 21, 2018 by outoftown

Silent Eagle · July 21, 2018

I thought the black jerseys were funny. It was a suck it moment like no other.

Green Lantern · July 21, 2018

36 minutes ago, Silent Eagle said:

I thought the black jerseys were funny. It was a suck it moment like no other.

Honestly that whole fiasco was just a microcosm of the day to day dysfunction in the AD at the time and lack of UNT administrative control and oversight of the program. If we wanted to fire Coach Dickey at the time (& there was definitely a case to be made that separation was in everyone’s best interest), just make the move and don’t expect him to coach out the rest of the season. Not sure what the powers that be (AD, Presidents office, BOR) expected. DD and RV out and out hated each other during the bowl years. It was no secret. Nothing good was going to come from dealing with the situation the way we did. It was so North Texas at the time. Very #OldDenton

Edited July 21, 2018 by Green Lantern

Cr1028 · July 21, 2018

7 hours ago, meanrob said:

Could you stomach 25 straight conference wins? Four straight bowl games? Some of the best players to play at UNT? He had nothing to work with and still competed. Not sure why some people shit on the only competitive period at UNT in the last twenty years.

We are competitive right now, in a better conference. If I put Idaho, NMSU, South Alabama, Georgia State and a couple other scrub teams in a conference with us then I 100% believe we could knock off 26 straight wins.

From October 13, 2001 to September 10, 2005, Dickey’s teams won 26 consecutive conference games. The streak was bookended by wins over the MUTS. The week before the streak started we lost to 2-9 conference mate ULM. The game that ended the streak was a loss to 4-7 Troy. The combined record for the 26 teams run through was 99-203. If you exclude the 26 losses from NT, their combined record was 99-177. Of those 26 wins, just three came against 6-win teams.

Additionally, we lost to future conference mates Troy at the end of ‘01 and FAU at the start of ‘04 which would’ve shrunken the streak to 13 games if they had been in our conference at the time.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Cr1028

GrandGreen · July 21, 2018

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

We are competitive right now, in a better conference. If I put Idaho, NMSU, South Alabama, Georgia State and a couple other scrub teams in a conference with us then I 100% believe we could knock off 26 straight wins.

From October 13, 2001 to September 10, 2005, Dickey’s teams won 26 consecutive conference games. The streak was bookended by wins over the MUTS. The week before the streak started we lost to 2-9 conference mate ULM. The game that ended the streak was a loss to 4-7 Troy. The combined record for the 26 teams run through was 99-203. If you exclude the 26 losses from NT, their combined record was 99-177. Of those 26 wins, just three came against 6-win teams.

I was never a DD fan when he was here, however the winning streak was great. NT didn't come close to doing it in the Southland or anywhere else. Few other programs have matched it in their history. It was a great accomplishment for DD and primarily due to that one great class that included Kennedy, Hall, Jones, Spencer, Casey, Gardner and many other of the best players has ever had.

No it is not easy for any team to get 26 straight wins in any league. Give credit were credit is due.

MeanGreenNC · July 21, 2018

11 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

DD was not a good recruiter other than one magic class, that was the basis for most of his success.   DD was his own worst enemy, opponents easily quoted some of his statements about the state of NT's program to win recruiting battles.

I find it hard to agree with the frequent assessment that DD suffered because of lack of resources. Yes that is definitely true for most coaches at NT in the oc schedule against P5 and upper level G5's. However that ignores the fact that most of DD's success was against Belt opponents who had similar or lower football budgets.

However, I agree that many fans don't give DD enough credit for his Belt consecutive wins streak.

As far as comparing resources now and 12 years ago, it is meaningless. The true comparison is between the status of the program compared to it's peers at the different dates. NT has made massive improvements compared to their past, but much more modest gains against current peer programs.

This is spot on

MeanGreenNC · July 21, 2018

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

We are competitive right now, in a better conference. If I put Idaho, NMSU, South Alabama, Georgia State and a couple other scrub teams in a conference with us then I 100% believe we could knock off 26 straight wins.

From October 13, 2001 to September 10, 2005, Dickey’s teams won 26 consecutive conference games. The streak was bookended by wins over the MUTS. The week before the streak started we lost to 2-9 conference mate ULM. The game that ended the streak was a loss to 4-7 Troy. The combined record for the 26 teams run through was 99-203. If you exclude the 26 losses from NT, their combined record was 99-177. Of those 26 wins, just three came against 6-win teams.

Additionally, we lost to future conference mates Troy at the end of ‘01 and FAU at the start of ‘04 which would’ve shrunken the streak to 13 games if they had been in our conference at the time.

Sometimes the truth hurts! I enjoyed the days of winning conference championships just like everyone else but let’s be honest Dickey was not that great of a coach at that point in time. He quickly got passed over by SBC start ups in both coaching and recruiting. It appears his time under Fuente and Mike Norvell has opened up his offensive philosophy and allowed him to move on from his “Buick” offensive days (let’s be honest the entire crowd new which running play was coming). He’s a much better coordinator and overall coach now!

UNTLifer · July 21, 2018

He was interesting. Talking to his team he created a bunker mentality and referred to the people (fans, etc...) outside the team as MF'ers. When Stebo, where is he now, put together the flag football games he would come out and was super nice. I think his relationship with RV was toxic since RV wanted to fire him after the 0-5 start and loss to ULM but the board vetoed that. He then led us to the upset of MUTS and the start of the bowl run, winning streak, etc...creating a situation where RV couldn't let him go. When things started to go south, DD went scorched earth ending with the blackout game.

I didn't like how DD and RV handled it, but it is in our past and every day I become more and more thankful for our president, BOR, Baker, his staff and Littrell and our current coaching staff.

UNT 90 Grad · July 21, 2018

3 hours ago, Green Lantern said:

Honestly that whole fiasco was just a microcosm of the day to day dysfunction in the AD at the time and lack of UNT administrative control and oversight of the program. If we wanted to fire Coach Dickey at the time (& there was definitely a case to be made that separation was in everyone’s best interest), just make the move and don’t expect him to coach out the rest of the season. Not sure what the powers that be (AD, Presidents office, BOR) expected. DD and RV out and out hated each other during the bowl years. It was no secret. Nothing good was going to come from dealing with the situation the way we did. It was so North Texas at the time. Very #OldDenton

I work with a guy who used to ref Sun Belt games (now refs AAC games). I made a comment to him last week about DD and RV not getting along. His reaction was classic. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped then he said “Boy is that ever an understatement.”

SilverEagle · July 21, 2018

I mainly blame our dysfunctional and incompetent administration for the athletic department mess that we've been in for so long. Only an incompetent administration would have allowed the dysfunctional "DD vs RV" situation to go on for as long as it did. Early on in the relationship one of them needed to be fired and the other one needed an immediate "come to Jesus" meeting. But no one took any action until the situation was intolerable.

Having said all that. How many of those four bowl games did we win? Which is why our "record" winning streak only made us king of the dipshits, in the eyes of the casual fan and fence setting students/alumni.

Corkey Nelson beat New Mexico, TCU, RICE, and Texas Tech, with fewer ships and much less money, Corkey never once said (like DD did) "at the end of the Texas game tomorrow I hope that when our president looks up at the scoreboard, he remembers how much we are getting paid to play the game",

Instead of "victory's in store what ere' the score our team will ever fight, fight, fight, fight". Dickey seemed to believe (when it came to Texas) "our team will ever quit!, quit,! Quit,! Quit!.

Got5onIt · July 22, 2018

The Buick rolls into College Station!

Good Luck to DD. Happy for him.

GTWT · July 22, 2018

20 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

We are competitive right now, in a better conference. If I put Idaho, NMSU, South Alabama, Georgia State and a couple other scrub teams in a conference with us then I 100% believe we could knock off 26 straight wins.

From October 13, 2001 to September 10, 2005, Dickey’s teams won 26 consecutive conference games. The streak was bookended by wins over the MUTS. The week before the streak started we lost to 2-9 conference mate ULM. The game that ended the streak was a loss to 4-7 Troy. The combined record for the 26 teams run through was 99-203. If you exclude the 26 losses from NT, their combined record was 99-177. Of those 26 wins, just three came against 6-win teams.

Additionally, we lost to future conference mates Troy at the end of ‘01 and FAU at the start of ‘04 which would’ve shrunken the streak to 13 games if they had been in our conference at the time.

It's been asked before by others - why would any UNT 'fan' want to denigrate our school's accomplishments? It's perverse.

Travis · July 22, 2018

On 7/22/2018 at 5:39 AM, GTWT said:

It's been asked before by others - why would any UNT 'fan' want to denigrate our school's accomplishments? It's perverse.

It’s not that we all didn’t enjoy what success we had. We just gotta put it all in perspective. I was a student during our sunbelt championship runs and loved that part of it. But I remember how frustrated I would always get and the rest of the fans with our play calling, our inability to be competitive in bigger games during this time, the constant illegal procedures, and our seemingly inability to complete little five yard out routes (when we finally actually did throw the ball).

It is easy to forget the whole picture. Many seem to wish we had Dickey because of what Coach followed after him... but regardless of picking a bad coach(es) to follow, that doesn't mean he didn't need to go.

Even some of his own players were extremely frustrated in the coaching staff for how little effort they showed in recruiting. My own roommate who played on the team had a laundry list of complaints about the guy.

What success we had- and it was nice to enjoy - still needs to be held in perspective that it was an extremely weak league and we lost against most beatable teams outside of our conference too. I think it is fair to still see it that this way and still enjoy what we did.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Travis

Cr1028 · July 22, 2018

8 hours ago, GTWT said:

It's been asked before by others - why would any UNT 'fan' want to denigrate our school's accomplishments? It's perverse.

It is never my intent to denigrate our school’s accomplishments. I would still puff my chest out to fans of another program and say we have won 4 SunBelt championships and one CUSA division title. However, when people start popping off about Dickey being a great coach, I have to point out the reality of his tenure with us. When people start saying we should’ve kept him on one minute longer than he was here, I find that ridiculous. The man had begun to sabotage his own program, our program, by the end and he 100% HAD to go. I know the Dodge years sucked and all but one of the McCarney years sucked but it led us to where we are now and I’m grateful to be here.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Cr1028

GTWT · July 22, 2018

1 hour ago, Travis said:

It’s not that we all didn’t enjoy what success we had. We just gotta put it all I perspective. I was a student during our sunbelt championship runs and loved that part of it. But I remember how frustrated I would always get and the rest of the fans with our play calling, our inability to be competitive in bigger games during this time, the constant illegal procedures, and our seemingly inability to complete little five yard out routes (when we finally actually did throw the ball).

It is easy to forget the whole picture. Many seem to wish we had Dickey because of what Coach followed after him... but regardless of picking a bad coach(es) to follow, that didn’t mean he needed to go.

Even some of his own players were extremely frustrated in the coaching staff for how little effort they showed in recruiting. My own roommate who played on the team had a laundry list of complaints about the guy.

What success we had- and it was nice to enjoy - still needs to be held in perspective that it was an extremely weak league and we lost against most beatable teams outside of our conference too. I think it is fair to still see it that this way and still enjoy what we did.

I remember after a game in Waco fans were complaining about how many 'draws' UNT ran. That was silly, I was there, our fans thought (and many still think) that every run between the tackles is a draw. Fans don't like run-first offenses. That's okay but base criticisms on a little bit of knowledge of the game.

I'm still convinced that many of the problems Dickey faced at UNT stemmed 1) from an AD who failed to support his coach and 2) from thin-skinned fans who thought their $100/year donations meant the coach should kiss their ass.

Finally, some fans criticize the program for dominating a weak conference. Brothers & sisters if you're in a weak conference you're supposed to dominate it. UNT did. I also seem to remember wins against Baylor & Tech during the Dickey years.

BIMG · July 22, 2018

During Dickey's tenure UNT had a rare nationally televised game on a weeknight. Instead of wearing a North Texas cap Dickey wore a Gallery Furniture cap. Not what I would call putting your best foot forward on the national stage.