Odus Mitchell is the Standard at UNT

[Mike Jackson]

Who is the best UNT Head Football Coach in history; Odus Mitchell.  But I wager that if you ask your average UNT Alumni or Fan they would say Hayden Fry.   (God bless the spirit of Hayden Fry, his family members and friends ).   As successful as Fry was here in his short tenure let me list the things Mitchell did here that Fry didn't or didn't have the opportunity to do here because Mitchell did it first.

10 Conference Titles

Integrated UNT Football a decade before SMU.

He recruited Mean Joe Greene and the nickname Mean Green was established by team built by him.

ALL 20 years of his coaching at the college level were at UNT

Our first Bowl Win

Compiled a record of 122-85-9

The truth is Fry may likely have never have come to UNT hoping to do big things here if Mitchell hadn't built up the program.  

I think Fry looming over this program as the coaching icon (with 90% of his biggest achievements coming at other schools) is indicative of a very strange culture surrounding our program.  It is like a widow who pines and tells stories about sexy young girlfriend he had a short exciting  fling with after his wife died.  But never tells stories about his charismatic, nurturing, hard-working, loving wife of 25 years that birth and raised  5 children with him that became successful great people raising families of their own.   

Fry is a distance second to Mitchell and I wish that was well known.  He is the coaching icon here not Fry.

I would like to know your impression of the importance of Fry vs Mitchell to UNT Football before you read my post.  Also if you agree that it seems Fry looms larger over this program than Mitchell, let me know why you think it is that way.

**What triggered me today was another post mentioning Seth just passing up Fry for wins here.  It isn't just 40 wins that is impressive it is the winning percentage here.  Mitchell wouldn't be this great standard barer at 122-118 over 30+ years.  The frequency of the mentioning of Fry would make sense if that was the case.  Because that isn't greatness, it is just longevity.  Longevity is an honorable good thing but it isn't hall of Fame worthy by itself"

[DeepGreen]

Oh boy!  Here we go.

[letsgiveacheer]

Agree with all you have said. Mitchell also brought us to major college status in 1957 when we joined the MVC. 

I will add that in those pre-internet days, Mitchell was not talked about much by the time Fry came around. Rod Rust had been our coach for six years. Rust did quite well with Mitchell's recruits but once they all graduated, the wheels came off and Rust had three terrible seasons, leading to his dismissal.

On a personal note, I had the pleasure of meeting Odus Mitchell and he was very unassuming and modest. Quite a gentleman as well as a successful coach.

Edited October 26, 2022 by letsgiveacheer

[letsgiveacheer]

I'll also add I believe the reason that Fry is held to such high esteem here is that he is the only former North Texas coach that went on to be a football icon.   I can't imagine that anyone who follows college football would not know of Hayden Fry. He even had a TV show patterned after him!

Ironically, Rod Rust went on the be a NFL head coach. He did not last long, however. Maybe one season?

 

[Cr1028]

1 hour ago, letsgiveacheer said:

I'll also add I believe the reason that Fry is held to such high esteem here is that he is the only former North Texas coach that went on to be a football icon.   I can't imagine that anyone who follows college football would not know of Hayden Fry. He even had a TV show patterned after him!

Ironically, Rod Rust went on the be a NFL head coach. He did not last long, however. Maybe one season?

 

Coaches just didn’t seem to get the notoriety back then.

Of this list, I only recognize 5 names outside of Odus Mitchell. 

[SilverEagle]

1 hour ago, letsgiveacheer said:

I'll also add I believe the reason that Fry is held to such high esteem here is that he is the only former North Texas coach that went on to be a football icon.   I can't imagine that anyone who follows college football would not know of Hayden Fry. He even had a TV show patterned after him!

Ironically, Rod Rust went on the be a NFL head coach. He did not last long, however. Maybe one season?

 

One season as the HC of New England, but he had a pretty long career as a DC in the NFL and Canadian football.

[southsideguy]

So I keep seeing SL passing Fry in wins column, how many years was Fry here and how many years has SL been here?

Fry coached at NTSU from 1973-1978 his record was 40-23-3

Edited October 26, 2022 by southsideguy

[MeanGreenTexan]

23 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

So I keep seeing SL passing Fry in wins column, how many years was Fry here and how many years has SL been here.

Hayden Fry coached here for 6 seasons.   
In that time, his only losing season was his 2nd season.   This was back when there were only 11 games/yr by the way.   So Littrell, playing 12 games/yr, had 6 more cracks at getting wins than Fry did during first 6 years. 

Littrell is in his 7th season now and we've had 4 losing seasons with a possibility of 5.

[wardly]

20 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

Who is the best UNT Head Football Coach in history; Odus Mitchell.  But I wager that if you ask your average UNT Alumni or Fan they would say Hayden Fry.   (God bless the spirit of Hayden Fry, his family members and friends ).   As successful as Fry was here in his short tenure let me list the things Mitchell did here that Fry didn't or didn't have the opportunity to do here because Mitchell did it first.

10 Conference Titles

Integrated UNT Football a decade before SMU.

He recruited Mean Joe Greene and the nickname Mean Green was established by team built by him.

ALL 20 years of his coaching at the college level were at UNT

Our first Bowl Win

Compiled a record of 122-85-9

The truth is Fry may likely have never have come to UNT hoping to do big things here if Mitchell hadn't built up the program.  

I think Fry looming over this program as the coaching icon (with 90% of his biggest achievements coming at other schools) is indicative of a very strange culture surrounding our program.  It is like a widow who pines and tells stories about sexy young girlfriend he had a short exciting  fling with after his wife died.  But never tells stories about his charismatic, nurturing, hard-working, loving wife of 25 years that birth and raised  5 children with him that became successful great people raising families of their own.   

Fry is a distance second to Mitchell and I wish that was well known.  He is the coaching icon here not Fry.

I would like to know your impression of the importance of Fry vs Mitchell to UNT Football before you read my post.  Also if you agree that it seems Fry looms larger over this program than Mitchell, let me know why you think it is that way.

**What triggered me today was another post mentioning Seth just passing up Fry for wins here.  It isn't just 40 wins that is impressive it is the winning percentage here.  Mitchell wouldn't be this great standard barer at 122-118 over 30+ years.  The frequency of the mentioning of Fry would make sense if that was the case.  Because that isn't greatness, it is just longevity.  Longevity is an honorable good thing but it isn't hall of Fame worthy by itself"

Joe Green had nothing to do with the nickname " Mean Green".

[meanJewGreen]

We talk about standards but odus Mitchell was also 60 years ago. 
 

if we really want to play technicalities than technically Seth has raised the standard- minimum 6 wins at unt and a bowl bid. To do more, we have to find a bar raiser 

[Mike Jackson]

49 minutes ago, wardly said:

Joe Green had nothing to do with the nickname " Mean Green".

I did not want to confuse the ‘him' in that I was referring sentence was Odus not Joe.  

[Mean Green 93-98]

I'm not sure why this is framed as a controversial opinion.  Fans voted for Odus Mitchell over Hayden Fry as coach of the all-century team a few years ago.

[GMG_Dallas]

11 hours ago, meanJewGreen said:

We talk about standards but odus Mitchell was also 60 years ago. 
 

if we really want to play technicalities than technically Seth has raised the standard- minimum 6 wins at unt and a bowl bid. To do more, we have to find a bar raiser 

Thank you for saying it.

Our coaches may have more resources than any other UNT coach in history but the game has also changed. With the internet and social media, it's nearly impossible for an athlete to go unnoticed. Finding hidden gems at the 2a level or in the sticks is no longer about hitting the road and seeing what these small high chools have. Football on the field has also changed a ton. So have collegiate sports levels, conferences, and schedules. Go back to Odus' best season in 1959 where UNT finished 9-2. Five of the teams UNT played do not currently field a D1 FBS football team. One of those teams was the Pensacola Naval Air Station so I'm not even sure how they fielded a college football team. If you want to talk about the teams as they were in 1959, 3 of our opponents were non-major in that era. And I guess if you just want to look at records, Mitchell had 6 losing seasons in his 14.

[greenminer]

11 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

I'm not sure why this is framed as a controversial opinion.  Fans voted for Odus Mitchell over Hayden Fry as coach of the all-century team a few years ago.

 

[UNTLifer]

The field should be named after Coach Mitchell. 

[rcade]

10 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

One of those teams was the Pensacola Naval Air Station so I'm not even sure how they fielded a college football team.

At Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, the Carswell Bombers assembled a team that won a national military football championship in 1951 and 1952. They recruited their team by offering Southwest Conference athletes near graduation a chance to join the reserve and stay out of the Korean War.

UNT played Carswell in 1952 and won 28-14.

Edited October 28, 2022 by rcade

[GMG_Dallas]

1 hour ago, rcade said:

At Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, the Carswell Bombers assembled a team that won a national military football championship in 1951 and 1952. They assembled their team by offering Southwest Conference athletes near graduation a chance to join the reserve and stay out of the Korean War.

UNT played Carswell in 1952 and won 28-14.

That's great. There's no comparing football today to back then. Odus Mitchell isn't the standard.

[rcade]

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

That's great. There's no comparing football today to back then. Odus Mitchell isn't the standard.

Achievements in college football don't stop being remarkable just because the sport changed.

For instance, SMU is excellent at paying players today but nobody lets that tarnish their past achievements in that regard.

Odus was a legendary coach and fans shouldn't diminish that. Football legends are in short supply in Denton.

[Cr1028]

2 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

That's great. There's no comparing football today to back then. Odus Mitchell isn't the standard.

Well since he is the last coach to have us ranked in the AP poll, I choose to disagree. I doubt the AP would rank us if we didn’t have any worthwhile wins. He also recruited the two most legendary players in our program’s history. 

[GMG_Dallas]

45 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

Well since he is the last coach to have us ranked in the AP poll, I choose to disagree. I doubt the AP would rank us if we didn’t have any worthwhile wins. He also recruited the two most legendary players in our program’s history. 

The team with the most wins North Texas beat in 1959 was non-major Louisville who was 6-4. After that it was Wichita State and Cincinnati, each with 5 wins. Every other team North Texas beat had 3 wins or less. I wasn't there in 1959 but I'd imagine these 201 AP writers who gave their opinions on the 20 best teams were unable to watch every single college football game. They didn't have access to full game recaps like we do today. I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishments but to say he's the standard is ridiculous. His accomplishments were impressive for his era. They're not what the standard should be for UNT in 2022.

 

1 hour ago, rcade said:

Achievements in college football don't stop being remarkable just because the sport changed.

For instance, SMU is excellent at paying players today but nobody lets that tarnish their past achievements in that regard.

Odus was a legendary coach and fans shouldn't diminish that. Football legends are in short supply in Denton.

That's fine. He can remain a legendary coach in our history. That doesn't make him the standard considering what college football is today. These are two completely different things. The Lone Star Conferences NT won had 6 and 7 teams. The Gulf Coast Conferences NT won had 3 and 4 teams. The Mississippi Valleys that NT won had 4-5 teams. Sure we can acknowledge his accomplishments relative to his era but winning a 4-team conference is not exactly impressive with what UNT is facing today. Again, different eras.

Edited October 28, 2022 by GMG_Dallas

[Cr1028]

20 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

The team with the most wins North Texas beat in 1959 was non-major Louisville who was 6-4. After that it was Wichita State and Cincinnati, each with 5 wins. Every other team North Texas beat had 3 wins or less. I wasn't there in 1959 but I'd imagine these 201 AP writers who gave their opinions on the 20 best teams were unable to watch every single college football game. They didn't have access to full game recaps like we do today. I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishments but to say he's the standard is ridiculous. His accomplishments were impressive for his era. They're not what the standard should be for UNT in 2022.

 

That's fine. He can remain a legendary coach in our history. That doesn't make him the standard considering what college football is today. These are two completely different things. The Lone Star Conferences NT won had 6 and 7 teams. The Gulf Coast Conferences NT won had 3 and 4 teams. The Mississippi Valleys that NT won had 4-5 teams. Sure we can acknowledge his accomplishments relative to his era but winning a 4-team conference is not exactly impressive with what UNT is facing today. Again, different eras.

Ok then who should be touted as the standard at North Texas? Some fairy tale you’ve cooked up in your head? Odus Mitchell existed, he was real and his accomplishments were as well. He has more to stand on than any coach in our history. It is ok to wish for a new standard but he is where you begin.

https://www.tshof.org/store/p233/Odus_Mitchell.html

Edited October 28, 2022 by Cr1028

[MeanGreenTexan]

9 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

Ok then who should be touted as the standard at North Texas? Some fairy tale you’ve cooked up in your head? Odus Mitchell existed, he was real and his accomplishments were as well. He has more to stand on than any coach in our history. It is ok to wish for a new standard but he is where you begin.

https://www.tshof.org/store/p233/Odus_Mitchell.html

[untjim1995]

I wouldn’t call Odus Mitchell our “standard”…I mean he’s basically our Bill Snyder, winning here when nobody else but Fry has been able to accomplish. He must have been a damn miracle worker compared to almost everyone else after him.

I don’t know who is the “standard” here, but since 1995, SL seems to be the standard bearer for what we all hope is a baseline and not a ceiling.

[GMG_Dallas]

2 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Ok then who should be touted as the standard at North Texas? Some fairy tale you’ve cooked up in your head? Odus Mitchell existed, he was real and his accomplishments were as well. He has more to stand on than any coach in our history. It is ok to wish for a new standard but he is where you begin.

https://www.tshof.org/store/p233/Odus_Mitchell.html

Some fairy tale I've cooked up? I'm not the one claiming anybody to be "the standard." The premise of this entire thread is fraudulent because of the difference in eras. We haven't had somebody I'd  label "the standard." I just don't see how a guy winning conference championships in conferences with 3 to 7 teams counts as "the standard." Most of his teams played no more than 4 conference games. There were no divisions and no conference championship games. His conferences were smaller than division today and 1st place was the winner after 4 games. I guess by that "standard," SL has 2 (division) championships. I mean, if Mitchell's teams didn't have to play conference championship games, why should SL's teams be graded on a different standard? Mitchell can be legendary for UNT and also not to the level that we should be aspiring. If his 56-ish percent winning percentage at NT is the standard then that standard is low.

[UNTcrazy727]

22 hours ago, greenminer said:

 

Still inexcusable the school's all-time rushing leader didn't make the All-Century Team. Dunbar was screwed. 

-Also holds program record for career TDs (41)

-Only back in school history with 3 straight 1,000 yd seasons.

Edited October 28, 2022 by UNTcrazy727