What does the program need to move to the next level?

[meangreenJW]

1 hour ago, SilverEagle said:

I'll agree with this statement when I see us win games that really mean something.........on a consistent basis. 

Here is the record so far. We have yet to win a bowl game under SL. We have yet to win any regular games of great importance on a regular basis. 2017  (9-5 record) was the best example. We got curb stomped twice by FAU. And then for good measure, we got brutalized by Troy in the NO bowl. SL started off barely losing to Army in his first bowl here, and the subsequent bowl results are getting worse. 

 

2018-North Texas (CUSA)
9/1	vs.	Southern Methodist (5-7)	W	46	23
9/8	vs.	Incarnate Word (non-IA)	W	58	16
9/15	@	Arkansas (2-10)	W	44	17
9/22	@	Liberty (6-6)	W	47	7
9/29	vs.	*Louisiana Tech (8-5)	L	27	29
10/6	@	*Texas-El Paso (1-11)	W	27	24
10/13	vs.	*Southern Mississippi (6-5)	W	30	7
10/20	@	*Alabama-Birmingham (11-3)	L	21	29
10/27	vs.	*Rice (2-11)	W	41	17
11/10	@	*Old Dominion (4-8)	L	31	34
11/15	vs.	*Florida Atlantic (5-7)	W	41	38
11/24	@	*Texas-San Antonio (3-9)	W	24	21
12/15	vs.	Utah State (11-2)	L	13	52	@ Albuquerque, NM	New Mexico Bowl
		9-4-0		450	314

 

2017-North Texas (CUSA)
9/2	vs.	Lamar (non-IA)	W	59	14
9/9	@	Southern Methodist (7-6)	L	32	54
9/16	@	Iowa (8-5)	L	14	31
9/23	vs.	*Alabama-Birmingham (8-5)	W	46	43
9/30	@	*Southern Mississippi (8-5)	W	43	28
10/14	vs.	*Texas-San Antonio (6-5)	W	29	26
10/21	@	*Florida Atlantic (11-3)	L	31	69
10/28	vs.	*Old Dominion (5-7)	W	45	38
11/4	@	*Louisiana Tech (7-6)	W	24	23
11/11	vs.	*Texas-El Paso (0-12)	W	45	10
11/18	vs.	Army (10-3)	W	52	49
11/25	@	*Rice (1-11)	W	30	14
12/2	vs.	*Florida Atlantic (11-3)	L	17	41	@ Boca Raton, FL	CUSA Championship
12/16	vs.	Troy (11-2)	L	30	50	@ New Orleans, LA	New Orleans Bowl
		9-5-0		497	490

 

2016-North Texas (CUSA)
9/3	vs.	Southern Methodist (5-7)	L	21	34
9/10	vs.	Bethune-Cookman (non-IA)	W	41	20
9/17	@	Florida (9-4)	L	0	32
9/24	@	*Rice (3-9)	W	42	35
10/1	vs.	*Middle Tennessee State (8-5)	L	13	30
10/8	vs.	*Marshall (3-9)	W	38	21
10/22	@	Army (8-5)	W	35	18
10/29	@	*Texas-San Antonio (6-7)	L	17	31
11/5	vs.	*Louisiana Tech (9-5)	L	24	45
11/12	@	*Western Kentucky (11-3)	L	7	45
11/19	vs.	*Southern Mississippi (7-6)	W	29	23
11/26	@	*Texas-El Paso (4-8)	L	24	52
12/27	vs.	Army (8-5)	L	31	38	@ Dallas, TX	Heart of Dallas Bowl
		5-8-0		322	424

Agree, SL needs to win a bowl game. At the same time, you have to acknowledge that we've been to 8 bowls since our return to FBS in 95 (24 seasons). SL has taken us to 3 (roughly 40%) of them. Since our return to FBS, we've averaged a bowl every three years. Seth is 3/3. 

[greenminer]

4 hours ago, meangreenbob said:

We need a head coach that practices what he preaches. He wants recruits to make a commitment. He tells his players to make the commitment. He expects the fans to make a commitment. He expects the University to make a commitment. Well then he needs to make an honest, sincere commitment as well. He tells his players to just do their job and we will win the game. Well, we need a head coach that just does his job.  We need a head coach that’s not looking for the next best P5 job or a bigger paycheck all the while telling his players we are family or this is home. We need a head coach that truly believes in his heart the “monster” this program can be, not a head coach that just throws out fancy, catchy words or rhetoric. We need a head coach that is more focused on winning Conference Titles, Bowl games and winning games against bitter rivalries and elevating the presence of the “program” than his own personnel agenda. We need a head coach that is determined to force expansion of Apogee before he entertains the idea of ever leaving. But most of all we need a head coach that recognizes the Blessing that has been bestowed upon him right here in Denton.  That’s what we need to get to the next level. 

Very noble.  Unfortunately you've just ruled out the possibility of ever having a head football coach.

[meangreenbob]

2 minutes ago, greenminer said:

Very noble.  Unfortunately you've just ruled out the possibility of ever having a head football coach.

No,  I ruled out UNT Football ever making it to the next level. Football coaches can be found on ever street corner. Until someone comes along who’s desire to build is greater than his ego what you see today is what you will get next year and so on. 

You cannot effectively sell the program to top recruits if deep down you know you are not committed yourself.  At least no one with a conscience can.

Being 100% committed gives you the “power”to sell Big Idea’s and Big dreams and win over top recruits who want to be on the cutting edge. Who want to leave a legacy. Who want to build something. Kids that can one day look back and say, “we built those 15,000 additional seats at Apogee..” “We beat those Top 10 P5 programs.” 

[TheColonyEagle]

1 hour ago, meangreenbob said:

No,  I ruled out UNT Football ever making it to the next level. Football coaches can be found on ever street corner. Until someone comes along who’s desire to build is greater than his ego what you see today is what you will get next year and so on. 

You cannot effectively sell the program to top recruits if deep down you know you are not committed yourself.  At least no one with a conscience can.

Being 100% committed gives you the “power”to sell Big Idea’s and Big dreams and win over top recruits who want to be on the cutting edge. Who want to leave a legacy. Who want to build something. Kids that can one day look back and say, “we built those 15,000 additional seats at Apogee..” “We beat those Top 10 P5 programs.” 

I see what you're saying....and I want to believe you....but we were at UNT before Seth Littrell and we'll be here when he's gone.

I want him to get this program to the point where he IS sought after by big programs. (I still say the KState thing is crap....but I seem to be in the minority) I want him to to win. That's all I care about. I don't need Littrell falling in love with Beth Marie's ice cream. It's nice but we need him to take advantage of what has been built for him and win games. Get us ranked, get us multiple bowl wins, get us knocking the door of NY6. Then he can go to Oklahoma State, Ole Miss....whatever. We need the UNT BRAND to be what sells recruits. 

Recruits go to Boise and UCF and UH because they are now brands. They don't have the coaches now that built them into what they are now. I'll give LIttrell credit for the culture change. And that can't go unnoticed. And hey...if Littrell wants to be our Gary Patterson or Bobby Bowden...great. Get us in the annual conversation nationally. But I honestly don't care if Littrell is here in 10 years....just take advantage of this infrastructure and get us on our way. 

 

[TheColonyEagle]

To answer the original title of this thread?

We have everything we need to take it to the next level.

Only question is do we have a coach to take advantage of it, recruit to it, coach them up and win games.

This is year 4. I would say we'll know if he's the answer in the next 2 years. 

[meangreenbob]

1 hour ago, TheColonyEagle said:

I see what you're saying....and I want to believe you....but we were at UNT before Seth Littrell and we'll be here when he's gone.

I want him to get this program to the point where he IS sought after by big programs. (I still say the KState thing is crap....but I seem to be in the minority) I want him to to win. That's all I care about. I don't need Littrell falling in love with Beth Marie's ice cream. It's nice but we need him to take advantage of what has been built for him and win games. Get us ranked, get us multiple bowl wins, get us knocking the door of NY6. Then he can go to Oklahoma State, Ole Miss....whatever. We need the UNT BRAND to be what sells recruits. 

Recruits go to Boise and UCF and UH because they are now brands. They don't have the coaches now that built them into what they are now. I'll give LIttrell credit for the culture change. And that can't go unnoticed. And hey...if Littrell wants to be our Gary Patterson or Bobby Bowden...great. Get us in the annual conversation nationally. But I honestly don't care if Littrell is here in 10 years....just take advantage of this infrastructure and get us on our way. 

 

Good points. 

[PlummMeanGreen]

Easy answer➡️ More fans who don’t let the previous week’s loss have them hunting quail or deer the next home game.  

2 rainout games attendance disasters last Fall  probably made it easy for Littrell to do what he almost did with KSU.  All NCAA coaches want large audiences for their players—win, lose or (used to be) draws.

Ever seen college football fans fill a stadium with below freezing weather & snow up to their butts?  Very admirable.

GMG!

Edited October 16, 2019 by PlummMeanGreen

[Jonnyeagle]

16 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

Easy answer➡️ More fans who don’t let the previous week’s loss have them hunting quail or deer the next home game.  

2 rainout games attendance disasters last Fall  probably made it easy for Littrell to do what he almost did with KSU.  All NCAA coaches want large audiences for their players—win, lose or (used to be) draws.

Ever seen college football fans fill a stadium with below freezing weather & snow up to their butts?  Very admirable.

GMG!

Good posting.

[MeanGreen2019]

Seth is a good program builder. He knows how to build a good recruiting staff, can develop players really well, and builds a great culture for players. 
 

His main downfall seems to be game management and unwillingness to change when something continuously doesn’t work. It seems we get out-coached in-game on a regular basis. 

UNT has the ability to take that next step, but Seth isn’t leaving (unless the team rebounds magically) anytime soon. We need him to get better at in-game management. If he can do this, then we can take that next step.

[Mean Green Fan4Life]

As several have mentioned and I’ve been saying all along, we HAVE to recruit offensive and defensive linemen.  This should be our focus for any transfer portal candidates too.  We HAVE to improve our line play.  Dominate the line of scrimmage!  This is the key to not only consistently winning in CUSA but also to taking our program to the next level.  Once we have solidified our lines, skill position players will follow with future recruits and transfers.  

Edited October 16, 2019 by Mean Green Fan4Life

[meangreenbob]

4 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

To answer the original title of this thread?

We have everything we need to take it to the next level.

Only question is do we have a coach to take advantage of it, recruit to it, coach them up and win games.

This is year 4. I would say we'll know if he's the answer in the next 2 years. 

I hope so. I would like nothing more then to see Coach Littrell take this program to a monstrous level,  building the foundation on solid rock so that we are branded forever should he decide to leave. 

[TheColonyEagle]

16 hours ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

Easy answer➡️ More fans who don’t let the previous week’s loss have them hunting quail or deer the next home game.  

2 rainout games attendance disasters last Fall  probably made it easy for Littrell to do what he almost did with KSU.  All NCAA coaches want large audiences for their players—win, lose or (used to be) draws.

Ever seen college football fans fill a stadium with below freezing weather & snow up to their butts?  Very admirable.

GMG!

I hear ya Plumm.....but of the 130+ FBS Schools that probably applies to maybe 5-10 of them.

I can blame RV for this some, but I frankly got tired of the "ask not what your program can do for you, ask what you can do for your program" mentality. We can give and give...money and time....but eventually I want a return. Big time college athletics is not a charity. Most want something in return.

If I see Wren Baker get on twitter and lecture everyone about the low attendance we're going to have on Saturday after his 4th year, $2 million head coach got blown out AGAIN last week....I'm going to be disappointed.

Accountability doesn't just fall on the donors and fans. And that doesn't mean I don't love my school ....it means I want them to hold up their end of our bargain.

Just Win.

Edited October 17, 2019 by TheColonyEagle

[PlummMeanGreen]

19 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Recruits go to Boise and UCF and UH because they are now brands. They don't have the coaches now that built them into what they are now. I'll give LIttrell credit for the culture change. And that can't go unnoticed. And hey...if Littrell wants to be our Gary Patterson or Bobby Bowden...great. Get us in the annual conversation nationally. But I honestly don't care if Littrell is here in 10 years....just take advantage of this infrastructure and get us on our way. 

As G5’s Boise, UCF & UH have their brands because they have tougher OOC schedules of which those they beat in past years enabled them to get into Top 25 rankings; more so with Boise State.  The BSU Broncos are an amazing G5 football program that some of us wanted to be UNT’s model to emulate. 

➡️ Boise State’s AD apparently told their numerous HFC’s: “We are going to have name schools for much of our future OOC schedules so recruit toward those games (& then conference games will take care of themselves).”   • The OU/Boise Fiesta Bowl game years ago ranks among the favorites of many college football fans; especially those of us whose schools are in the G5.

 • Some school’s AD’s will schedule too many OOC cupcakes to give their HFC a chance to pad his W/L & move onto a bigger job.

GMG!

Edited October 17, 2019 by PlummMeanGreen

[untjim1995]

The next level has many possible meanings:

1.) Actually win CUSA West again—that seems unlikely this year, but seems realistic for the years ahead IF we can find a QB and actually care about defense. These spread offense guys rarely put any emphasis on that side of the ball. And TX HS football isn’t any different, so you have to develop this mentality and actually coach it. Only Gary Patterson in this region has shown any inkling of being able to do that and even he has seen that side of the ball drastically drop in recent seasons.

2.) Win CUSA—like above, that seems doable, but we have to get better defensively or the schools with better athletes in the east (see FAU in 2017) will continue to murder us.

3.) Move up to an Upper G5 league...AAC ain’t taking us because of SMU being here in the DFW market, so it’s the MWC, which hasn’t shown any interest in coming back to Texas yet, most likely to wait out the coming Big 12 implosion when their GOR expires and they can get some quality leftovers. Besides, our fanbase has made it VERY clear they want nothing to do with the MWC because of time zones and newspapers.

4.) Anything above this would take the NCAA losing its Power schools to a whole other organization, which is possible and scares the NCAA to death. They let them control football so they don’t lose the NCAA basketball tournaments and the College World Series, all of which pay for the organization’s costs. I doubt this changes anytime soon, though, as schools know they control that entity.

My guess is 1 and 2 are possible within the next  few years IF SL finds the right mix of recruiting, assistants, and the schedule works out. No chance for anything beyond this anytime soon, which is the hard part about being a fan here and why so many just find a nice power team to root for instead. Even with our recent success in the last few years, we are staring at mid-October homegame against a CUSA school that might bring 15k to Apogee. Nobody will ever be impressed with that kind of attendance, not conferences, not coaches, and not talented recruits. It is what it is at this point, though. You can’t make people want to like UNT football by itself—it still heavily dependant on the opponent and always has been.

[SilverEagle]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:23 AM, meangreenJW said:

Agree, SL needs to win a bowl game. At the same time, you have to acknowledge that we've been to 8 bowls since our return to FBS in 95 (24 seasons). SL has taken us to 3 (roughly 40%) of them. Since our return to FBS, we've averaged a bowl every three years. Seth is 3/3. 

.....and we lost all of them. Let me be a bit more graffic and somewhat crude. We just lost the first bowl (vs Army) under SL. In the last two,  we were bent over a chair and......well....use your imagination. And the same humiliating thing happened with our two important conference games with FAU. Come to think of it, the same thing happened with our game at UTEP right before our first Bowl invite........UTEP forgodsakes!

[Wag Tag]

Win the C-USA Champ game at the Ap to an oversold stadium against FIU! This will get us to the next level. Still a chance! GMG 

[UNT 90 Grad]

27 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

Win the C-USA Champ game at the Ap to an oversold stadium against FIU! This will get us to the next level. Still a chance! GMG 

FIU isn’t performing up to preseason expectations either.  

[Big Z]

Figure out what Appalachian State is doing...

[TheColonyEagle]

58 minutes ago, Big Z said:

Figure out what Appalachian State is doing...

They are fast becoming a Boise....coach that built it left...they just kept on trucking.

[SilverEagle]

54 minutes ago, TheColonyEagle said:

They are fast becoming a Boise....coach that built it left...they just kept on trucking.

Did you say KEEP ON TRUCKING?

Edited October 17, 2019 by SilverEagle

[CMJ]

8 hours ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

As G5’s Boise, UCF & UH have their brands because they have tougher OOC schedules of which those they beat in past years enabled them to get into Top 25 rankings; more so with Boise State.  The BSU Broncos are an amazing G5 football program that some of us wanted to be UNT’s model to emulate. 

➡️ Boise State’s AD apparently told their numerous HFC’s: “We are going to have name schools for much of our future OOC schedules so recruit toward those games (& then conference games will take care of themselves).”   • The OU/Boise Fiesta Bowl game years ago ranks among the favorites of many college football fans; especially those of us whose schools are in the G5.

 • Some school’s AD’s will schedule too many OOC cupcakes to give their HFC a chance to pad his W/L & move onto a bigger job.

GMG!

Boise State built to that level in the years preceding that largely by destroying patsies to get their rankings high enough to be considered to play in that Fiesta Bowl.  The year before they were destroyed by Georgia in Athens. 

 

If I recall that was their first really tough OOC game in their WAC run.  It's why so few gave them a shot versus OU.

 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by CMJ

[PlummMeanGreen]

5 minutes ago, CMJ said:

Boise State built to that level in the years preceding that largely by destroying patsies to get their rankings high enough to be considered to play in that Fiesta Bowl.  The year before they were destroyed by Georgia in Athens. 

 

 

If I say Black aren’t you going to always say white, Hollywood?  

How’s the politics working out in your adopted state?  Hope & no change?  What a joke.  Please never respond to anything I post again...ever.

Edited October 17, 2019 by PlummMeanGreen

[CMJ]

2 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

If I say Black aren’t you going to always say white, Hollywood?  

How’s the politics working out in your adopted state?  Hope & no change?

LOL, when was the last time I even replied to one of your posts before this?  Maybe its been recent, but I certainly don't think so.

 

 I think you mistake that I often post in the Pie (Political) forum.  I rarely do, but you might wanna go there though if you wanna discuss them.

Edited October 17, 2019 by CMJ

[UNTLifer]

@CMJ is being truthful. Boise did whip up on lower level teams for years. The Fiesta Bowl/OU game was really their true turning point. 

[CMJ]

13 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

@CMJ is being truthful. Boise did whip up on lower level teams for years. The Fiesta Bowl/OU game was really their true turning point. 

What I remember about BSU's build (2001-2006) was Fresno State was the WAC school going out and challenging everybody (beating many), but it didn't matter because Boise would beat them once league play rolled around. And then the Broncos would get noticed because they'd have sterling records, partly based on their weak OOC schedule.

 

We would debate here whether to chase the Fresno model or the Boise State model.