What is Seth Littrell’s Legacy to You?

[MeanGreenTexan]

I’m hoping many who chime in here are able to put down the “Fire Littrell!” Drums they’ve been been banging (along with me), and reflect a little on Littrell’s contributions to Mean Green Football.

For me, his legacy is simple:  He’s the guy who raised the bar.

We were the laughing stock of FBS football (and had been for years) when he took over.

He promptly made NT a competitive football team.  
As a RB by trade, he got the best out of a fan favorite, Jeff Wilson, right away.   
He brought in a tiny Oklahoman to play QB, and boy was that guy fun!   
Guyton, Bussey, Lawrence & Darden in his Air Raid derivative made for some exciting big-time plays.   
His down-to-Earth, easygoing personality was really infectious early on, and helped bring a ton of new fans on board.   
Exciting games against LATech, Army, UAB. And who can forget ‘Peter Pan’ & that beatdown in Fayetteville, or whipping a ranked Roadrunner team in the cold rain, spoiling their perfect season?
Rare off-the-field issues were dealt-with with integrity, & he kept our program clean.

   
Look,    
We all know how it soured, & how frustrating it got for everyone involved:  The lack of postseason success, struggles in out of conference, & inexplicable losses to teams like UTEP & ODU at the worst possible times…   
But I think after a few years, I’ll look back on Littrell’s time here fondly.  Heck, I already do.

He’s leaving the UNT program in a much better state than when he found it, and for that, I’m thankful for his time here.

Best of luck to Coach Littrell in his future endeavors!

[97and03]

He raised the floor for expectations but couldn’t raise the ceiling for accomplishments. 

[KingDL1]

Mason Fine and the fake fair catch.

[Monkeypox]

He's UNT's Jason Garrett.

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

Laid a solid foundation for a new coach to build off of

[MeanGreen4Life1998]

I think he was a good guy who helped elevate UNT and put hs on the National stage a few times and I’m thankful for that. The sad part is that he couldn’t get past mediocrity which is why hes no longer the UNT HC

[Got5onIt]

Took the program to the next step, just didn’t take a big enough step. He was given all the resources to succeed but couldn’t quite make it work. That winning streak last year delayed the inevitable. 

[Pavlovs Eagle]

I took my soon to be wife to her first CFB game at the Thursday night Army game where it was a windy 35 degrees.  She hates the cold and she made it through. I figured she was for real about me at that point.  We then upgraded to Club seats the last few years and she's a regular armchair Head Coach at this point.  We'll be getting married (finally according to her) in Feb.

I have to remind her she's seen some of the best UNT football since my days at UNT in the very early 2000's.  If we don't win every game she's fired up and ready to trade-in the Mean Green for her D3 Northeast Liberal Arts college's lacrosse team.  I've almost convinced her to let us get a big ass RV and have an absurd tailgate.  She more excited about hosting a tailgate than me buying an RV.

She's excited for the AAC and now expects Neal to lure Nick Saban to the Mean Green with this coaching change.

That's a lot of what the Seth years have meant to me.

[MeanGreen22]

When Seth got here, losses were expected. Now they’re unacceptable. Many scoff at the #NewDenton but he really did change the culture around here. 

[meanJewGreen]

I grade Seth differently based on the fact that no other UNT head football coach had this kind of admin support, salary and facility investment. 

Based on this investment and expectation, and relative to the performance of his G5 peers, he underperformed. 

Seth made bowl games a bare minimum expectation- that's his legacy

 

 

 

[NorthTexasWeLove]

1. Raised expectations. Without expectations, administratively and from the fan base, might as well set the place on fire. 

2. Ran a clean program. 

[peanuts104]

33 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

He brought in a tiny Oklahoman to play QB, and boy was that guy fun!   

Calling Mason Fine "tiny" is insulting and that was Harrell's recruit. Seth wouldn't have given him a second look if it wasn't for Harrell.

[GrandGreen]

Littrell lifted NT from awful to mediocre.  He just couldn't progress from that point.

Maybe it was not his fault, but NT made substantial upgrades to the facilities during his years there and Littrell just could not get over the hump.

Sometimes it is about change more than records.   Overall, Littrell was good for NT, and he deserves credit for his contributions.

NT may progress or regress, but IMO it was time for a change.  

[RiseUNT]

He coached here.

[Tom McKrackin]

Littrell has more resources than any coach in history and most of the G5 programs.  Hate to break itbto you, hes not a good head coach.  Hes a coordinator.  He benefitted from UNT and we did not get near what we deserved.  That’s all.

[rcade]

Seth Littrell did improve the football program, but he was helped by coaching during an FBS era of enormous bowl inflation. There are 43 bowl games this year and 131 teams in the FBS, so 65 percent of teams are making a bowl game.

Littrell's teams even reached a bowl three times with losing overall records. Last year's 6-7 team wouldn't have reached a bowl without a UNT alumnus creating the game.

Take away reaching bowl games as a mark of success and Littrell's only a small improvement over his recent predecessors despite very large improvements in UNT's stadium, facilities, coach's salary and resources.

[peanuts104]

[Moobs]

My initial thought to this was: Mason!

But then I thought longer and it became pretty apparent as time went on that Mason was more of Harrell’s legacy than Seth’s. 
 

For me, he’ll probably be the guy who did a lot of good things, raised the bar, raised the floor, initially hired great assistants and unfortunately always got blown out in big games. 

[Mike Jackson]

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

He’s the guy who raised the bar.

😕 If he raised the bar it is only because the Dodge regime lowered it.  But they were low paid also.  We are not Rice, UTEP, Texas State, or ULM.  We got rid of Dickey, Dodge and Mac after 2 consecutive losing seasons.  They got rid of Seth before hitting the absolute rock bottom.  I think we saw that we aren't that far from being on par with SMU in a tangible way.  But that was from the fruition of a lot of investment and hard work done before he arrived.  

[Mike Jackson]

52 minutes ago, rcade said:

Take away reaching bowl games as a mark of success and Littrell's only a small improvement over his recent predecessors despite very large improvements in UNT's stadium, facilities, coach's salary and resources.

Ding Ding Ding objective truth right there.  Guy was a hard worker, good guy, nice family man, and I feel bad banging on him.  But gosh darn it some other people on this board make it  hard and not to bang on him.  You can't talk about raising a programs bar that has 25 conference titles (3 this century, 2 bowl game victories also) when you have NONE.  Top in all off you have 2 winning seasons out of 7.  

[UNTexas]

My fear is we will be missing 6 win seasons in the very near future once we hit the AAC. It’s absolutely ridiculous they fired him before the bowl game. North Texas makes really bad choices in sports more than they should. Minus soccer. For me it’s sad they did this the day they announced the bowl. It takes  away from the players accomplishments. 

[Mike Jackson]

6 minutes ago, UNTexas said:

My fear is we will be missing 6 win seasons in the very near future once we hit the AAC. It’s absolutely ridiculous they fired him before the bowl game. North Texas makes really bad choices in sports more than they should. Minus soccer. For me it’s sad they did this the day they announced the bowl. It takes  away from the players accomplishments. 

2023 was likely to be a 💩 regardless.  They guaranteed that by not firing him after the bowl game last year.   It was ridiculous to bring him back for 2022. 

[MeanGreenTexan]

10 hours ago, peanuts104 said:

Calling Mason Fine "tiny" is insulting and that was Harrell's recruit. Seth wouldn't have given him a second look if it wasn't for Harrell.

Lighten up Francis.   "Tiny" in this case, is more of a term of endearment.   Small guy.  Big Arm.  Bigger Heart.  Top 5 all-time favorite player of mine.  But his size is the only reason he wasn't given way more opportunities than just UNT.

And it's fairly well-documented that the "in" on Mason was Littrell's relationship with his high school coach, Matt Hennessey.

https://www.ntdaily.com/true-freshman-mason-fine-taking-the-reins-at-quarterback/

Of course, Littrell is not a QB though.  It's going to be much harder for him to assess a QB's ability... so he sent Harrell to check him out, and the rest is history.

Mason Fine was here because of Seth Littrell.   Give credit where it's due.    The boogie man is gone now, we can look back honestly now.

[MeanGreenTexan]

8 hours ago, UNTexas said:

My fear is we will be missing 6 win seasons in the very near future once we hit the AAC. It’s absolutely ridiculous they fired him before the bowl game. North Texas makes really bad choices in sports more than they should. Minus soccer. For me it’s sad they did this the day they announced the bowl. It takes  away from the players accomplishments. 

This part is definitely sad.    I don't think Smatresk wanted to announce yesterday, but it leaked, so his hand was forced.   You can't just leave an unsubstantiated rumor about the highest-profile University employee circulating for 12+ hours.

[NT93]

8 hours ago, UNTexas said:

My fear is we will be missing 6 win seasons in the very near future once we hit the AAC. It’s absolutely ridiculous they fired him before the bowl game. North Texas makes really bad choices in sports more than they should. Minus soccer. For me it’s sad they did this the day they announced the bowl. It takes  away from the players accomplishments. 

I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that most coaches who are going to be let go are shown the door before the bowl game, not after.  What’s the benefit of having him coach the bowl game?