Football and Basketball Turnarounds

BillySee58 · January 11, 2019

I made a comparison between the last seasons of each of the previous basketball and football coaches compared to the seasons that their successors are currently having.

They already have 21 more wins than the teams that preceded their first season, and almost twice as many conference wins with still 27 conference games left this regular season between both basketball teams. Football finished last in the division in 2015, and the last basketball teams of Peterson and Benford failed to reach the CUSA Tourney.

I know McCarney didn’t coach the entire 2015 season but he was still the last head coach (without the interim title) before Littrell.

THOR · January 11, 2019

good lord...

Jason Howeth · January 11, 2019

Talk about good hires. My signature is accurate on this post.

UNTFan23 · January 11, 2019

27 minutes ago, Jason Howeth said:

Talk about good hires. My signature is accurate on this post.

FWIW: Jalie is an RV hire.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 11, 2019

3 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

FWIW: Jalie is an RV hire.

Technically speaking, so is Littrell.

Wag Tag · January 11, 2019

Thanks to the Prez Smatty! Starts at the top! Golden age for UNT Athletics!

UNTFan23 · January 11, 2019

1 minute ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

Technically speaking, so is Littrell.

From what I have heard, RVs involvement was the announcement of Littrell to fanbase and that's about it.

BillySee58 · January 11, 2019

21 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

From what I have heard, RVs involvement was the announcement of Littrell to fanbase and that's about it.

Yup. RV was let go as soon as the school year ended. Smatresk knew he wouldn’t be retaining RV at that point, so there was no way he was letting a lame duck AD make the hire of the highest paid employee of the university. Smatresk has already admitted that RV wanted Meacham but it wasn’t his hire to make.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article218537150.html

Also, the Jalie hire fell right into RV’s lap. The school’s all-time leading scorer, who was brought in by a coach he didn’t hire, was ready to be a Division I head coach and wanted to come back while we had an opening. It wasn’t some under-the-radar hire that took huge amounts of research and diligence to uncover.

Edited January 11, 2019 by BillySee58

greenminer · January 11, 2019

Fastest coach to 50 wins.

All time scoring leader as a player.
4-time all-conference
Winningest senior class in school history
back-to-back WNIT appearances.

...gotta dig pretty deep to find an individual that has contributed more to this university.

MeanGreenTexan · January 11, 2019

15 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Yup. RV was let go as soon as the school year ended. Smatresk knew he wouldn’t be retaining RV at that point, so there was no way he was letting a lame duck AD make the hire of the highest paid employee of the university. Smatresk has already admitted that RV wanted Meacham but it wasn’t his hire to make.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article218537150.html

Also, the Jalie hire fell right into RV’s lap. The school’s all-time leading scorer, who was brought in by a coach he didn’t hire, was ready to be a Division I head coach and wanted to come back while we had an opening. It wasn’t some under-the-radar hire that took huge amounts of research and diligence to uncover.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:
Littrell was RV's idea. Littrell was on RV's short list ever since he was an OC at Arizona. He was RVs hire.

I'm not a fan of how Smatresk painted that picture in that article (or, at least how Engel took his words to print). What the heck would an Academic President know about Football X/Os to trump an Athletics guy for a hire of a football coach?

I have no doubt he advocated for Littrell. He's made that known. But the idea of a power struggle between two people with their heels dug in between Meacham/Littrell just did not happen. There were many other players in the saga, and many of them were ones that needed a little extra "convincing".

And he absolutely deserves credit for Jalie's hire too, no matter how easy it may have seemed to be... just like he deserves to be bagged-on for Dodge, Stephens, Benford, et al.

Make no mistake though... it always seems like when I bring this up, people think I'm adovcating for RV to still be here, when I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT. He made some catastrophic mistakes while here & it was past time to move on.

January 11, 2019

MeanGreenTexan your facts are absolutely correct but it seems some that do not know the facts only speak from rumors.

CMJ · January 12, 2019

18 hours ago, greenminer said:

Fastest coach to 50 wins.

All time scoring leader as a player.
4-time all-conference
Winningest senior class in school history
back-to-back WNIT appearances.

...gotta dig pretty deep to find an individual that has contributed more to this university.

And this is why I am so happy for her success.

emmitt01 · January 12, 2019

18 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again:
Littrell was RV's idea. Littrell was on RV's short list ever since he was an OC at Arizona. He was RVs hire.

I'm not a fan of how Smatresk painted that picture in that article (or, at least how Engel took his words to print). What the heck would an Academic President know about Football X/Os to trump an Athletics guy for a hire of a football coach?

I have no doubt he advocated for Littrell. He's made that known. But the idea of a power struggle between two people with their heels dug in between Meacham/Littrell just did not happen. There were many other players in the saga, and many of them were ones that needed a little extra "convincing".

And he absolutely deserves credit for Jalie's hire too, no matter how easy it may have seemed to be... just like he deserves to be bagged-on for Dodge, Stephens, Benford, et al.

Make no mistake though... it always seems like when I bring this up, people think I'm adovcating for RV to still be here, when I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT. He made some catastrophic mistakes while here & it was past time to move on.