Benford 2.0

[untjim1995]

Littrell took over the worst team in FBS and immediately made us better by seeing that Mason Fine in HS was still way better than any QB we had on the roster he inherited and who he could get as a transfer. That led to his demise, though, when he couldn’t find a replacement worth a damn. Watching UTSA zoom past us after their Benford hire sucked is just more salt in the wounds, obviously, by MGT above is right. Littrell left a team that should at least win 4 games with what he took over—and that’s being Uber conservative. Morris isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, even if we won 2 or less games, but make no mistake about it, SL left this place light years better than how he found it. He deserved to get fired, no doubt, but what he did in his first three years here is damn near miraculous to do. He has 2 of our 4 9-win seasons since Fry left after 1978…

[TIgreen01]

Littrell is going to go down as one of our best coaches, just like Dickey has.  Unless Morris actually lifts us to even higher levels than Littrell reached.  His first 3 seasons, while not perfect, had generated more excitement around the football program than I've ever seen in my 25 years following it.  And for all the talk about him not being able to evaluate or develop QB talent people must not want to acknowledge that Fine is playing pro ball, Aune got a shot at it, invited to camps, and Bean is still playing at a Big 12 level on a team with a potent offense.  I'd love to have ANY of those 3 on the roster this year.

Morris needs to fix the defense and find a QB.  I don't think the QB is on the roster this year, so we'll have to wait to see who he recruits for next.  The defense, I just don't know what to say.  I'll give him a couple weeks to get them playing better, but the decision making and roster management are seriously concerning to this point.

[Hookset]

32 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Littrell took over the worst team in FBS and immediately made us better by seeing that Mason Fine in HS was still way better than any QB we had on the roster he inherited and who he could get as a transfer. That led to his demise, though, when he couldn’t find a replacement worth a damn. Watching UTSA zoom past us after their Benford hire sucked is just more salt in the wounds, obviously, by MGT above is right. Littrell left a team that should at least win 4 games with what he took over—and that’s being Uber conservative. Morris isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, even if we won 2 or less games, but make no mistake about it, SL left this place light years better than how he found it. He deserved to get fired, no doubt, but what he did in his first three years here is damn near miraculous to do. He has 2 of our 4 9-win seasons since Fry left after 1978…

This is exactly my point. 
The team left behind does have talent. A loaded running back corps, good wide receivers, a solid offensive line. 
The defensive players to run a 4 man scheme. 
Morris saying we are going to pass 60% and run 40% is not utilizing our strength. 
Forcing defenders to play a 3 man scheme that are better equipped for a 4 man scheme is wasting their talent. 
Tell everyone we are going to hit the transfer portal hard this year and bring in players to run  a 3 man scheme. When you get those players make the switch next year. 
Lean on your running backs until you get the QB you need to “Take Flight”. 
We shouldn’t have to step back a year. We should be better than last year. Killing momentum of a team that at least made it to a conference championship is wrong.

[greenminer]

I think Morris's WSU offense was 1st in the PAC12 in red zone efficiency.

[TreeFiddy]

13 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Technically, below average. I believe his WSU offense ranked in the 80s. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken. 

 

 

and for reference:

Edited September 5, 2023 by TreeFiddy

[NorthTexasWeLove]

2 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

 

 

and for reference:

Thank you. 

[UNTLifer]

43 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

 

 

and for reference:

Again, this is one year at WSU and doesn't include his time as OC at TX Tech with Mahomes at QB.

[Hookset]

18 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Again, this is one year at WSU and doesn't include his time as OC at TX Tech with Mahomes at QB.

How many B12 Championships did he win at Tech?

Do we have the second coming of Mahomes on our roster?

Feature your teams strengths and recruit what you need/want and then switch. 

[GrandGreen]

Damn, we should be AD's somewhere.   We can fully evaluate a coach after one game.

I think everyone thought this game would be very close, instead it was a complete surrender by NT's defense.  

Morris and especially the defense looked totally unprepared.  

However, it is one game and Morris is going to be here this year and probably more to come.  

NT has an incredibly easy non-conference schedule the rest of the way.  Hopefully, a lot of football problems can be rectified and NT can actually win a few conference games.   FIU, La Tech, ACU, are all weak teams and a loss to any of them will push the panic button much more than a blowout loss to Cal did.    

 

 

[UNTLifer]

18 minutes ago, Hookset said:

How many B12 Championships did he win at Tech?

Do we have the second coming of Mahomes on our roster?

Feature your teams strengths and recruit what you need/want and then switch. 

How many Big XII Championships has Tech won?  Stupid argument.

[TIgreen01]

12 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

How many Big XII Championships has Tech won?  Stupid argument.

Morris was a player and then a coach for them for the better part of a decade.  You think he wouldn't get credit, no matter how small his role, for winning a conference championship during that span?  Newsflash, it would be posted all over his bio.  

[TIgreen01]

29 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Damn, we should be AD's somewhere.   We can fully evaluate a coach after one game.

I think everyone thought this game would be very close, instead it was a complete surrender by NT's defense.  

Morris and especially the defense looked totally unprepared.  

However, it is one game and Morris is going to be here this year and probably more to come.  

NT has an incredibly easy non-conference schedule the rest of the way.  Hopefully, a lot of football problems can be rectified and NT can actually win a few conference games.   FIU, La Tech, ACU, are all weak teams and a loss to any of them will push the panic button much more than a blowout loss to Cal did.    

I think the panic part of the response on the board is trying to get out ahead of the bolded.  We expected to hold steady from Littrell and improve.  Instead we got dumpster fire in game 1.  Yes, we need to give him, the staff and players time to respond and right the ship.  However, if they do not, and they finish September winless, we need to be reconsidering that same bolded section above.  That's all. 

We're North Texas fans.  We get kicked and punched in the gut a lot.  So we flinch, early and often, if we get even the slightest hint that another one is coming.  Absolutely no one wants another Benford.  Where we know this isn't going to work really early on, only to have to live with him for FIVE years.

Edited September 5, 2023 by TIgreen01

[UNTLifer]

3 minutes ago, TIgreen01 said:

Morris was a player and then a coach for them for the better part of a decade.  You think he wouldn't get credit, no matter how small his role, for winning a conference championship during that span?  Newsflash, it would be posted all over his bio.  

Texas Tech has won 11 conference championships in football in their history.  The last?  1994 was a co-champion under the leadership of Spike Dykes.  Prior to that, 1976.

[TIgreen01]

1 minute ago, UNTLifer said:

Texas Tech has won 11 conference championships in football in their history.  The last?  1994 was a co-champion under the leadership of Spike Dykes.  Prior to that, 1976.

What point are you trying to make?  Are you absolving anyone who's ever coached there from having to take responsibility for their failure to win?  Or just saying it's impossible to win there, so you can't hold that against him?

If it's the latter, guess what they say about North Texas.  

[keith]

So we've gone from not accepting mediocracy to excusing a blow-out loss in our home opener where we didn't look like we belonged on the same field as, it's OK, it's just one game?  

You know what they say, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.  I'm sure all the new students that showed up had heard since the start of school that "our football team sucks, but the band is great" just had that confirmed and indelibly imprinted in their minds.  Every effing time we have an opportunity to turn the corner or make a statement or just build on some minor success, we blow it.  

[Hookset]

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

How many Big XII Championships has Tech won?  Stupid argument.

Good comeback.

[Hookset]

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

Texas Tech has won 11 conference championships in football in their history.  The last?  1994 was a co-champion under the leadership of Spike Dykes.  Prior to that, 1976.

What was Morris coaching then?

Dumb answer…

[NorthTexasWeLove]

25 minutes ago, keith said:

So we've gone from not accepting mediocracy to excusing a blow-out loss in our home opener where we didn't look like we belonged on the same field as, it's OK, it's just one game?  

You know what they say, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.  I'm sure all the new students that showed up had heard since the start of school that "our football team sucks, but the band is great" just had that confirmed and indelibly imprinted in their minds.  Every effing time we have an opportunity to turn the corner or make a statement or just build on some minor success, we blow it.  

[TreeFiddy]

36 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Again, this is one year at WSU and doesn't include his time as OC at TX Tech with Mahomes at QB.

Agreed, but the response was to a question about last year's WSU offensive ranking.

 

For reference the Kliff Kingsbury offensive rankings (Kingsbury called plays) at Tech while Morris had the title of OC (not counting co-oc with Cumbie in 2013).

2014 - #8 (David Webb/Mahomes, QB)
2015 - #10 (Mahomes, QB)
2016 - #2 (Mahomes, QB)
2017 - #1 (Nic Shimonek, QB)

It is certainly possible that Morris may be a capable FBS offensive coordinator.  It is a fact that he was associated with highly productive offenses at Tech with Kingsbury running the show.

However, without Kingsbury at the helm, at the FBS level Morris has produced the #93 ranked offense in the country while OC at WSU and currently as HC is sporting the #120 (of 130) ranked offense after 1 game.  Sorry, just facts.

Unfortunately, we did not hire him as the OC.  We hired him as the HC and as a first time FBS HC in his debut game, he brought a team to the field wholly unprepared to compete.  This has to be a red flag.  

In his press conference today he tried to explain away the mistakes as little things like missed assignments, missed tackles, lining up incorrectly, incorrect reads, etc.  This all speaks to lack of preparation.  Either the coaches did a poor job of preparing their players to compete or they did a poor job of evaluating the roster they put on the field, or maybe both.  

This was not supposed to be a complete rebuild year while we wait for someone that needs time to learn how to be a FBS HC, but he did not do himself any favors after that start.

[MeanGreenTexan]

2 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Again, this is one year at WSU and doesn't include his time as OC at TX Tech with Mahomes at QB.

There has never been a time when Kliff Kingsbury did not call his own plays when he was a HC.   Morris was not some hotshot OC under Kingsbury.

Morris' only relevant experience is at UIW & WAZZU.    People are just pointing out that his time calling plays at WAZZU was not very exciting.

[UNTLifer]

33 minutes ago, Hookset said:

What was Morris coaching then?

Dumb answer…

You asked how many conference championships he won at Tech and my answer was to point out that Tech doesn't have many to celebrate in their history.  Dumb question on your point.  Then again, you appear to row in the same boat with Ben Gooding in only showing up when things aren't going as expected.

[UNTLifer]

41 minutes ago, Hookset said:

Good comeback.

Hey, it was your question.

[UNTLifer]

1 hour ago, TIgreen01 said:

What point are you trying to make?  Are you absolving anyone who's ever coached there from having to take responsibility for their failure to win?  Or just saying it's impossible to win there, so you can't hold that against him?

If it's the latter, guess what they say about North Texas.  

Would that same argument have been played if we had hired Leach when everyone was clamoring for him?

[Professor Lambeau]

2 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Damn, we should be AD's somewhere.   We can fully evaluate a coach after one game.

I think everyone thought this game would be very close, instead it was a complete surrender by NT's defense.  

Morris and especially the defense looked totally unprepared.  

However, it is one game and Morris is going to be here this year and probably more to come.  

NT has an incredibly easy non-conference schedule the rest of the way.  Hopefully, a lot of football problems can be rectified and NT can actually win a few conference games.   FIU, La Tech, ACU, are all weak teams and a loss to any of them will push the panic button much more than a blowout loss to Cal did.    

 

 

Finally, someone gets us.

[TheReal_jayD]

4 hours ago, Hookset said:

Morris saying we are going to pass 60% and run 40% is not utilizing our strength. 
 

Not being a smart a$$. But where was this said at?