DRC Sunday column: Should UNT coach Seth Littrell stay or go? It's up to AD Wren Baker, who faces critical decision

[Cr1028]

23 minutes ago, TheColonyEagle said:

If he goes 8-5 and gets offered a bigger deal we have to shake his hand, thank him for what he’s done and get ready to get this program to the next level. 

I don’t disagree but this is the way we should all hope he leaves rather than using $3M that could’ve gone to other things just to pay him to go away.

[MGNation92]

16 hours ago, Cerebus said:

Some of you have no idea how a coach is hired or fired. Do the big donors want to buy him out? Then he’s gone. Otherwise he is back next year. END OF STORY. 
 

I don’t see how they want to 1) write  the big check to buy him out, and then 2) write an even bigger check to wade into this insane sellers market where at least 20 teams are fighting for limited talent. 

This year you’re going to pay BIG money to get someone who would normally be your second or even third tier candidate. 

Add to the fact that probably our biggest donor is best friends with the guy.

I still want Littrell gone personally, but if he can get a high quality QB in the portal (IE Zappe) then I'll be more excited about supporting him. We do not have a known QB on the roster that will make this a 8 win team next year. Maybe Drummond takes a second year leap, but I'm not hedging my bets on a RS Freshman. Get a guy that has 2-3 years and run with him. Somebody like Dillon Gabriel from UCF would be massive

[Wag Tag]

Stay, and find another Derek Thompson.

[MeanGreenTexan]

16 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

Answer me this:  what changed after the first half of the season when the loses piled up?  What switch was turned on for the team to reel off those five straight wins?  Whatever was said or done, this football team took note and was on fire!

The same thing that happened to kickoff LATech's nosedive after a very tough non-conference schedule (if you thought ours was tough, you should look at theirs!)...    Very encouraging news (discouraging for LATech) came down on 10/19.   Ever since then, the guys apparently decided they have something to play for.

[MeanGreenDan]

19 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

Stay, and find another Derek Thompson.

DT was a great bus driver. But if we're talking dream scenario, let's aim higher.

[Wag Tag]

Just now, MeanGreenDan said:

DT was a great bus driver. But if we're talking dream scenario, let's aim higher.

This is the type of qb  all we need. He was a bus driver, but go back and look at his stats and they are pretty impressive. If we can get better great, but at least sign a bus driver that can throw an open curl ,slant, out and every once in a while a deep ball. This offense is looking more like the UNT Bowl team establish the run!

[MeanGreenTexan]

13 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

I don’t disagree but this is the way we should all hope he leaves rather than using $3M that could’ve gone to other things just to pay him to go away.

You keep harping on this, so I guess I should too:   The buyout money is not a problem.
Under RV, it probably would have been, but it's not now.
Also, that amount has dropped now since the season is over, and Wren inserted a 'good-faith' clause over the offseason that would drop the amount even more after Littrell gets another job somewhere next season (which, of course he will).

If I'm Littrell, I'm in Wren's office today demanding to know a definitive answer.   Because he likely has an offensive coordinator job lined up at TCU if he is fired from NT.  That job might get filled if he waits around until after the bowl game to be let go.

This leaves Wren stuck between a rock & a hard place, because I think he knows in his heart of hearts that Littrell isn't the right guy to take us into the AAC, and we need a 'buffer season' next year for the new coach to get his system in place before making the jump.   But for some reason all of the praises for the success since the AAC announcement are being thrown on Littrell (instead of the players), so Wren would take a ton of flack letting him go now.

[TheColonyEagle]

37 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

Stay, and find another Derek Thompson.

Our D is improved….but it’s not THAT improved 

[97and03]

27 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

This is the type of qb  all we need. He was a bus driver, but go back and look at his stats and they are pretty impressive. If we can get better great, but at least sign a bus driver that can throw an open curl ,slant, out and every once in a while a deep ball. This offense is looking more like the UNT Bowl team establish the run!

Let’s just be clear that we mean senior year Thompson. The other years were not much better than Aune. 

[MeanGreen_MBA]

16 hours ago, Cerebus said:

I’m pretty sure the guy we wanted is now coaching at a p5 school. So we’re now onto second choices. 

Then be better talk the big donors into writing those checks, or write them himself. Otherwise it doesn’t matter. 

We switched the the offense from a spread to pass focus to a spread to run focus. We had ~40 pass attempts against latech, we had 17 against utsa, 14 against fiu. 

It was also raining for those last 2 games

[MeanGreenTexan]

1 minute ago, MeanGreen_MBA said:

It was also raining for those last 2 games

Which obviously played to our advantage, as our RBs are very, very good.
FIU wasn't gonna do anything against us anyway, but the cold rain robbed UTSA of any semblance of their normal offense since Frank Harris could barely hold onto the ball, let alone throw an accurate one.

[shaft]

Just beat a ranked team on his way to his 5th bowl.  Why is this even a topic.

 

"The Mean Green have been remarkably consistent under Littrell. They always seem to find their way into bowl games.

That’s a remarkable run of success for a program that played in a bowl game just once in the 11 seasons before his arrival."

[DentonLurker]

50 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

If I'm Littrell, I'm in Wren's office today demanding to know a definitive answer.

Unlike what message boards tend to think, good AD's communicate regularly with their coaches. I honestly think Seth already knows his fate, and I bet Seth will be the HFC at UNT next year. I don't actually think there's as much uncertainty on Bonnie Brae as there is on GMG.

[Cr1028]

56 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

You keep harping on this, so I guess I should too:   The buyout money is not a problem.

The point is, that money, whether it is a problem or not, is not in the “Seth Buyout Fund” in perpetuity. If we don’t use that money buying out our most successful coach of the last 40 years by win percentage, we can use it on something else productive athletically. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Cr1028

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

As one of the biggest "SL Out" guys here, I would be fine with SL staying if he can win the Bowl game and find a good QB to lead us next season. Thank you to Aune for what you have done this season but it feels like we are one good QB away from really taking the next step and Aune has reached his ceiling. Somehow, Littrell finally has a stout defense and has gotten momentum on his side so I am curious to see how far he can ride it and if he has really turned things around. 

[MeanGreenTexan]

4 minutes ago, DentonLurker said:

Unlike what message boards tend to think, good AD's communicate regularly with their coaches. I honestly think Seth already knows his fate, and I bet Seth will be the HFC at UNT next year. I don't actually think there's as much uncertainty on Bonnie Brae as there is on GMG.

Oh, I bet they've been talking about it, and have regular meetings.  No doubt.
However, there is no possible way Wren Baker assured Seth Littrell prior to Saturday that his job is 100% safe for 2022.  No way.
So now, every day he's still coaching North Texas is another day Sonny has to field offers for an OC role he has yet to fill (because he was probably waiting for Seth to pop on the market).  If Spavital at TXSt gets let go prior to Littrell, I bet Dykes picks him back up since Spav was his OC at Cal (now if we want to talk about a school who would have problems coughing up a buyout... TXSt is definitely one of those, so Spavital may be back in San Marcos next year regardless). 
And it's also more time for guys like Patterson, Fuente, Lebby, and yes, even Colby Carthel (Hello LATech, as he could bring his EastTX connections with him!) to interview and find jobs elsewhere.

[eppy4life]

Littrell is our guy and a year from now when we're 8-4 I'll be back on the board enjoying bringing back all the threads trashing our coach.  

[MeanGreenTexan]

6 minutes ago, UNT Texas Hooligan said:

As one of the biggest "SL Out" guys here, I would be fine with SL staying if he can win the Bowl game and find a good QB to lead us next season. Thank you to Aune for what you have done this season but it feels like we are one good QB away from really taking the next step and Aune has reached his ceiling. Somehow, Littrell finally has a stout defense and has gotten momentum on his side so I am curious to see how far he can ride it and if he has really turned things around. 

I keep seeing this argument (not just from you, Hooligan)... You would think that watching firsthand, NT's greatest QB ever fall off a cliff in his Senior season would prove you need to have a good QB coach to get the best out of a QB in Littrell's offense.   Littrell has struck out on his QBs coach for the past 3 seasons.
We have not had a QB coach worth anything since Harrell left.   We could go pull Jacob Zeno out of the portal (Would be really awesome, BTW!), and as long as Joseph is the QB coach, even he will underperform.    David Yost is sitting out there not doing anything... maybe NT could money-whip him and make him the passing-game coordinator (so Bloesch can keep his "coordinator" position).   If we could get a good QBs coach in here, even Ruder would look good!

[greenminer]

31 minutes ago, shaft said:

Just beat a ranked team on his way to his 5th bowl.  Why is this even a topic.

Just put two and two together: with a fifth bowl under his belt, SL would eclipse Dickey for number of appearances 

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

2 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I keep seeing this argument (not just from you, Hooligan)... You would think that watching firsthand, NT's greatest QB ever fall off a cliff in his Senior season would prove you need to have a good QB coach to get the best out of a QB in Littrell's offense.   Littrell has struck out on his QBs coach for the past 3 seasons.
We have not had a QB coach worth anything since Harrell left.   We could go pull Jacob Zeno out of the portal (Would be really awesome, BTW!), and as long as Joseph is the QB coach, even he will underperform.    David Yost is sitting out there not doing anything... maybe NT could money-whip him and make him the passing-game coordinator (so Bloesch can keep his "coordinator" position).   If we could get a good QBs coach in here, even Ruder would look good!

 

Valid point, in another post, I noted that one of the biggest knocks against SL is his replacement of assistant coaches. Yes, he got Bennett, but we can't count Gush and Passwaters since they were package deals with Bennett. If he could see some positive changes towards QB development, I would be all in on SL. I still have my reservations. 

[untbowler]

2 hours ago, greenminer said:

Just put two and two together: with a fifth bowl under his belt, SL would eclipse Dickey for number of appearances 

but Dickey only got into one Bowl game with a losing record, thanks to winning Conference and not due to academics or COVID

[El Paso Eagle]

2 hours ago, eppy4life said:

Littrell is our guy and a year from now when we're 8-4 I'll be back on the board enjoying bringing back all the threads trashing our coach.  

Pretty sad life you must have. If you think .500 in year 6 is OK the nothing is going to change your #OLDDENTON mindset. I guess if we have another bad year you will be leading the charge to talk about how young we are (still) and how we have had a rash of injuries. 

[NorthTexan95]

I find it kinda strange that Baker hasn't said anything officially yet.   If Baker was certain Seth was leaving or returning you'd think they would have said something by now.  

[Cerebus]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:07 AM, MeanGreenTexan said:

You keep harping on this, so I guess I should too:   The buyout money is not a problem.
Under RV, it probably would have been, but it's not now.

Of course it is.

It might not have been a problem when we were paying Dickey $120,000 a year, but it sure as hell is when we are paying $2M+ a year to the HC alone.

Do we have big donors that could pay off SL's contract, and then sign an even bigger check for a new coach with a bigger assistant pool?  YES. 

Do they want to do that?  If they don't, the AD doesn't have millions of dollars sitting around unused to do it.  Neither does the school. 

 

 

[UNTLifer]

What is the exact buyout?  His base salary is $1.35 million not $2 million.