Interesting paragraph in Athletic story on App State

Son of Spiriki · September 13, 2022

https://theathletic.com/3589746/2022/09/13/recruiting-app-state-michigan/

Emphasis mine in bold:

Quote

But you asked about Appalachian State, and here’s the best answer I can come up with. That is a program that from 1989 through 2012 had one coach in Jerry Moore who set the foundation of what it wanted to be. It has a plan, it knows what it is and it steadfastly sticks with it. That tradition carried forward to Scott Satterfield, Eli Drinkwitz and now Shawn Clark.

Who is App State? It is a team that has a system. It recruits extremely athletic players who are very fast but may not be big enough for the Power 5 level or the recruiting rankings we all love to obsess over. It develops those players into the system, has a high bar for excellence and always has a very well-coached roster. So when that team catches a highly talented roster with warts on a bad day, the Texas A&M game is the result.

They recruit a particular type of player, develop them into their system, and are well-coached.

None of these things are new to previous discussions here on GMG about how North Texas can make the magic happen, but in my experience, it sometimes helps to see someone outside of the Mean Green Bubble talk about something that maps to our struggles and a way those struggles could potentially be fixed.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that any serious discussion of establishing a system, recruiting players into that system, developing those players, and those developed players being well-coached isn't going to happen with Seth Littrell as head coach. Besides the Fine years, SL's Mean Green teams have struggled across all phases, sometimes struggling at all phases at the same time.

GMG_Dallas · September 13, 2022

This type of process requires incredible patience and discipline which we're just not wired for anymore. We want instant results or we run you out of town. I'm not familiar with his work but I looked at his record year-by-year. In '89, App State finished 9-3 and a had first round playoff exit. They wouldn't surpass 8 wins the next 4 seasons, including a 4-7 record record in '93. Many programs today likely would have cut ties then. Instead, they finally got back to 9 wins in '94 and made it past the first round for the first time of his tenure. It would take 17 seasons to win their first D1-AA championship in 2005.

Admittedly, I don't know if I have the patience for that. The biggest concern IMO is you never know you have the right guy until you accomplish your ultimate goal, whatever that is for your program, and that can be a while - nearly 2 decades apparently.

One has to wonder, would we be doing better if SL didn't know his clock is up at the end of the year, if not sooner? I doubt it but that's also where this gets tricky. You have to be patient and give somebody time to establish that program. Getting a new coach every 5-6 years doesn't allow that to happen. Too much success and your coach might get poached.

Interesting tidbit I learned reading about this guy. His first college headcoaching gig was here at North Texas. One has to wonder...

emmitt01 · September 13, 2022

53 minutes ago, Son of Spiriki said:

So when that team catches a highly talented roster with warts on a bad day, the Texas A&M game is the result.

Notice that, even when the article talks about something App State is doing well, the author has to throw in this little disclaimer to let the P5's off the hook for the loss.

LitMedallion · September 13, 2022

I would like to see howmany super seniors they have on their roster. I have suspicion that G5 teams that don't get the top level talent, nor do they lose juniors to the next level will spark up through the 2024 season. I believe that is the deadline for any player to be considered affected by the pandemic year. A school that recruits players like App State would definitely benefit from that extra year of maturity. Think of BYU and their average player being 2 years older.

Most P5 Schools need that recruit pipeline to keep moving. CUSA, Sunbelt, MWC do not. This is their one shot.

I wonder who is next on the hit list for App State.

letsgiveacheer · September 13, 2022

5 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

This type of process requires incredible patience and discipline which we're just not wired for anymore. We want instant results or we run you out of town. I'm not familiar with his work but I looked at his record year-by-year. In '89, App State finished 9-3 and a had first round playoff exit. They wouldn't surpass 8 wins the next 4 seasons, including a 4-7 record record in '93. Many programs today likely would have cut ties then. Instead, they finally got back to 9 wins in '94 and made it past the first round for the first time of his tenure. It would take 17 seasons to win their first D1-AA championship in 2005.

Admittedly, I don't know if I have the patience for that. The biggest concern IMO is you never know you have the right guy until you accomplish your ultimate goal, whatever that is for your program, and that can be a while - nearly 2 decades apparently.

One has to wonder, would we be doing better if SL didn't know his clock is up at the end of the year, if not sooner? I doubt it but that's also where this gets tricky. You have to be patient and give somebody time to establish that program. Getting a new coach every 5-6 years doesn't allow that to happen. Too much success and your coach might get poached.

Interesting tidbit I learned reading about this guy. His first college headcoaching gig was here at North Texas. One has to wonder...

Moore had only one losing season during his entire tenure at App St. That's pretty remarkable.

For some trivia, Moore is the only North Texas head coach that was not fired since Fry's departure. He left us after two seasons with a .500 record to take Tech's head job.

El Paso Eagle · September 13, 2022

It's like I said before when you have a P5 Conference team play an FCS team the announcers are usually very respectful toward the FCS team. When they play a G5 team the announcers usually try to crap all over the G5 School

GMG_Dallas · September 13, 2022

4 minutes ago, emmitt01 said:

Notice that, even when the article talks about something App State is doing well, the author has to throw in this little disclaimer to let the P5's off the hook for the loss.

The telecast and ensuing radio media coverage has all been about how TAMU is young and dumb and App State is full of 4-6 year veteran players due to the covid years. No acknowledgement that the little program in Boone, NC may just be quality. No acknowledgement that App State has been giving P5 programs fits since they made the jump to FBS.

GMG_Dallas · September 13, 2022

2 minutes ago, letsgiveacheer said:

Moore had only one losing season during his entire tenure at App St. That's pretty remarkable.

For some trivia, Moore is the only North Texas head coach that was not fired since Fry's departure. He left us after two seasons with a .500 record to take Tech's head job.

It sure is remarkable. I only detailed those first 6 years to show it wasn’t built in a day. It took 6 years to surpass the first round of their playoffs. I'm equating that to getting the elusive bowl win and how impatient we can be when we don't get what we want now. It took them 6 years for their first post-season win. Perspective.

greenminer · September 14, 2022

Historically, they seem very similar to Boise State. Not sure if their academic requirements are the same, though.

The idea of a football system, hiring new coaches from within that system, working for generations of coaches for generations of winning seasons. How about that?

NT80 · September 14, 2022

5 hours ago, letsgiveacheer said:

Moore had only one losing season during his entire tenure at App St. That's pretty remarkable.

For some trivia, Moore is the only North Texas head coach that was not fired since Fry's departure. He left us after two seasons with a .500 record to take Tech's head job.

Moore may have laid a foundation at App State but he totally destroyed in one year what Fry had built at North Texas. Fry had a multiple offense, before spread was popular. Moore came from Nebraska and wanted NT to be like Nebraska, very vanilla and run the ball. But he couldn't recruit like Nebraska. Most were very glad Tech took him off our hands. But then we ended up with even bigger disasters in Bob Tyler for a year then a demotion to 1-AA.

Mike Jackson · September 14, 2022

5 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

It sure is remarkable. I only detailed those first 6 years to show it wasn’t built in a day. It took 6 years to surpass the first round of their playoffs. I'm equating that to getting the elusive bowl win and how impatient we can be when we don't get what we want now. It took them 6 years for their first post-season win. Perspective.

I am not buying this anymore. A Bowl win requires you only to beat a mediocre team in one extra game on a neutral field. Also you can run into a team that expected to be in a better bowl game or the playoff and disappointed to play in "we created the bowl for an Espn programing slot.com" Bowl. A playoff game win on the road when you aren't a high rated seed is harder. How many other programs can start from nothing or jump up from FCS and surpass us before we stop making excuses. The athletic department wants their D1 FBS level ticket, parking, concessions, and donation money every year. I would find the absurdity of selling patience comical if it weren't pervasive and significant reason why leadership feels it can move the way it does. It is this patience attitude and acting like we are lucky to have mediocrity that makes me want to throw up when I am on this board sometimes.

Where would these programs be today if they had that "patient perspective"? (These are just at the top my head no research look them up yourselves and measure SL & UNT)

Liberty

UAB

UTSA

South Alabama

ALL of these programs have done more with less in a shorter amount of time than Mean Green Football. There is no structural systemic uniquely UNT/Denton reason why this program hasn't won their conference or bowl game in 7 years under SL. Where was all this patience and perspective when Dickey was coaching in our beloved but shamefully outdated Fouts Field?

For "perspective" Dickey 26 game conference winning streak ended October 4, 2005 and by November 8, 2006 (and about 30 days after missing a game due to a heart attack) he was fired. He was btw 33-20 in conference. I am not preaching that he shouldn't have been fired (maybe you approach him gently and ask him if he wants to finish the season honoring what he accomplished and his health issues)

There is one thing I know for certain about Mean Green Football: Until mediocrity is nauseating to virtually everyone invested Mean Green Football, medocrity or worse is what we will get. Patience and Perspective will have a program with such little fan & alumni support it won't be sustainable at the FBS level. We aren't lucky to have qualified coaches come here for a midrange G5 salary. You want top G5 Salary or even better earn it.

NorthTexasWeLove · September 14, 2022

10 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

This type of process requires incredible patience and discipline which we're just not wired for anymore. We want instant results or we run you out of town. I'm not familiar with his work but I looked at his record year-by-year. In '89, App State finished 9-3 and a had first round playoff exit. They wouldn't surpass 8 wins the next 4 seasons, including a 4-7 record record in '93. Many programs today likely would have cut ties then. Instead, they finally got back to 9 wins in '94 and made it past the first round for the first time of his tenure. It would take 17 seasons to win their first D1-AA championship in 2005.

Admittedly, I don't know if I have the patience for that. The biggest concern IMO is you never know you have the right guy until you accomplish your ultimate goal, whatever that is for your program, and that can be a while - nearly 2 decades apparently.

One has to wonder, would we be doing better if SL didn't know his clock is up at the end of the year, if not sooner? I doubt it but that's also where this gets tricky. You have to be patient and give somebody time to establish that program. Getting a new coach every 5-6 years doesn't allow that to happen. Too much success and your coach might get poached.

Interesting tidbit I learned reading about this guy. His first college headcoaching gig was here at North Texas. One has to wonder...

I think you may be examining this program in too much of a micro way. They are 616-337 as a program, and over the last 30 years they've been better. And they've proven, much how Boise has, it's not a coach thing but rather administrative commitment to excellence. And with these decades of success their fans/alums are committed to the program and has a standard.

Mike Jackson · September 14, 2022

4 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

I think you may be examining this program in too much of a micro way. They are 616-337 as a program, and over the last 30 years they've been better. And they've proven, much how Boise has, it's not a coach thing but rather administrative commitment to excellence. And with these decades of success their fans/alums are committed to the program and has a standard.

Absolutely! And I hope from now on that everyone who cares enough to talk about Mean Green Football talks with expectations of a quality G5 program. This is a quality program, with a nice stadium and facilities that we are continuously improving. We can roll back expectations and criticisms of mediocrity when they roll back the prices of parking, concessions and merchandise. I don’t see that happening.

GMG_Dallas · September 14, 2022

5 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

I think you may be examining this program in too much of a micro way. They are 616-337 as a program, and over the last 30 years they've been better. And they've proven, much how Boise has, it's not a coach thing but rather administrative commitment to excellence. And with these decades of success their fans/alums are committed to the program and has a standard.

Yeah I'm going to strongly disagree. Boise State and App State are very different. Quick research shows Boise State had a $40 million athletic budget in 2021. Couldn't find App State's for 2021 but in 2019 it was just over $27 million. This isn't about some crazy dedication to success that the alums are demanding and the school is shelling out money for. It's a poor school. They actually cut 3 sports a couple years ago to save money.

More than half their all-time wins have come since the start of Moore's tenure. Despite all his success, in 2012 he made $230,000, about half what McCarney made here that year. This isn't about the school and alums spending money à la Boise State to keep their coaches and advance the program. Moore clearly had a soft spot for App State and just never left. It also meant the fans had to be patient when the start to his tenure was iffy.

GMG_Dallas · September 14, 2022

10 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

I am not buying this anymore. A Bowl win requires you only to beat a mediocre team in one extra game on a neutral field. Also you can run into a team that expected to be in a better bowl game or the playoff and disappointed to play in "we created the bowl for an Espn programing slot.com" Bowl. A playoff game win on the road when you aren't a high rated seed is harder. How many other programs can start from nothing or jump up from FCS and surpass us before we stop making excuses. The athletic department wants their D1 FBS level ticket, parking, concessions, and donation money every year. I would find the absurdity of selling patience comical if it weren't pervasive and significant reason why leadership feels it can move the way it does. It is this patience attitude and acting like we are lucky to have mediocrity that makes me want to throw up when I am on this board sometimes.

Where would these programs be today if they had that "patient perspective"? (These are just at the top my head no research look them up yourselves and measure SL & UNT)

Liberty

UAB

UTSA

South Alabama

ALL of these programs have done more with less in a shorter amount of time than Mean Green Football. There is no structural systemic uniquely UNT/Denton reason why this program hasn't won their conference or bowl game in 7 years under SL. Where was all this patience and perspective when Dickey was coaching in our beloved but shamefully outdated Fouts Field?

For "perspective" Dickey 26 game conference winning streak ended October 4, 2005 and by November 8, 2006 (and about 30 days after missing a game due to a heart attack) he was fired. He was btw 33-20 in conference. I am not preaching that he shouldn't have been fired (maybe you approach him gently and ask him if he wants to finish the season honoring what he accomplished and his health issues)

There is one thing I know for certain about Mean Green Football: Until mediocrity is nauseating to virtually everyone invested Mean Green Football, medocrity or worse is what we will get. Patience and Perspective will have a program with such little fan & alumni support it won't be sustainable at the FBS level. We aren't lucky to have qualified coaches come here for a midrange G5 salary. You want top G5 Salary or even better earn it.

South Alabama? Really? They've never won more than 6 games in a season. UAB? That isn't some new program that came out of nowhere. They've been around since the early '90s and never had any success until Bill Clark showed up. Liberty and UTSA have looked nice so far although Liberty also competes Independent. We'll see what happens when they have a conference slate to deal with. UTSA saw one great year and handed out a 10 year extension worth $2.8 million per year. Time will tell if it works out for them.

I'm not excusing mediocrity. I'm just saying at a certain point, you've got to get a good young coach and ride with him for longer than 5 years before you decide to cut ties (unless it's blatantly obvious it won't work out). Nobody was questioning SL's extensions early on in his tenure. Hindsight is 20/20 and now it's obvious they were bad decisions. That said, would he be coaching with a bit more fire if he knew he wasn't a lame duck.

And regarding Dickey, I wasn't around at that time but I don't understand why he was ousted considering what he was doing here. I realize he had 2 bad years leading to his dismissal but that's where patience needs to come into play. The guy takes you to 3 conference championships and you can him after 2 bad years? I'd love a history lesson.

Edited September 14, 2022 by GMG_Dallas

El Paso Eagle · September 14, 2022

10 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

I am not preaching that he shouldn't have been fired (maybe you approach him gently and ask him if he wants to finish the season honoring what he accomplished and his health issues)

The only thing I might add is we do not know what was said behind the scenes. Maybe there were conversations and DD drew a line in the sand. Whatever did happen I still believe his Black Jerzy fiasco is one of the reasons he never got another HC job.

NorthTexasWeLove · September 14, 2022

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Yeah I'm going to strongly disagree. Boise State and App State are very different. Quick research shows Boise State had a $40 million athletic budget in 2021. Couldn't find App State's for 2021 but in 2019 it was just over $27 million. This isn't about some crazy dedication to success that the alums are demanding and the school is shelling out money for. It's a poor school. They actually cut 3 sports a couple years ago to save money.

More than half their all-time wins have come since the start of Moore's tenure. Despite all his success, in 2012 he made $230,000, about half what McCarney made here that year. This isn't about the school and alums spending money à la Boise State to keep their coaches and advance the program. Moore clearly had a soft spot for App State and just never left. It also meant the fans had to be patient when the start to his tenure was iffy.

As far as budgets go, you're reallu just pointing out the contrast between MWC vs SBC, not Boise vs App State. They might not be financially mutual, but they are similar in how they stand operationally.

As far as Moore and his successes, it's all relative. They were FCS just trying to find their way to a bigger stage whike still having success. And big monied salaries doesn't necessarily equate to success (see UNT). App States guy makes half the money ours does.

Edited September 14, 2022 by NorthTexasWeLove

GMG_Dallas · September 14, 2022

4 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

As far as budgets go, you're reallu just pointing out the contrast between MWC vs SBC, not Boise vs App State. They might not be financially mutual, but they are similar in how they stand operationally.

As far as Moore and his successes, it's all relative. They were FCS just trying to find their way to a bigger stage whike still having success. And big monied salaries doesn't necessarily equate to success (see UNT). App States guy makes half the money ours does.

I get all that but you can't talk about a program/alums being committed to success while also pointing to low salaries and saying that's just part of the budgets at their level. App State couldn't have money whipped Jerry Moore had a big program come knocking and he wanted to leave. Him staying there long-term has nothing to do with their "commitment" to success. He built something he liked and wanted to stay, they liked him because he won and that's it. Not some crazy dedication to winning . They got lucky, he was happy, and it's worked out for them both.