Was Morris the Wrong Hire? (Spoiler.. We Don't Know)

[Cr1028]

9 minutes ago, Matt said:

I think it’ll probably be a cold day in hell before you are every truly critical of what goes on here. 

[TheReal_jayD]

7 minutes ago, Matt said:

I think it’ll probably be a cold day in hell before you are every truly critical of what goes on here. 

  You obviously don't listen or just pick and choose what you want to hear.  I was calling for Seth to be fired the last 36 months he was on the job.  He raised our program. But he hit his ceiling. But I was heavily critical of hires, recruiting and blunders along the way. Sorry I am not going to go scorched earth after 2 games. Do I think Morris is the answer? I don't know that. But there is a difference in being critical and over reacting after 2 games. Are things going the way they were planned? Hell no. 

[TheColonyEagle]

I think "fire Morris" after 2 games is a bit much. No one can truly know at this point if it was a bad hire or not. However at the same time, his first 2 games have been an absolute disaster. I don't see how anyone can look at the first 2 games an think otherwise without making excuses for him. The trick is, do we believe he can turn it around...

No one really knows.

But man on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a disaster and 10 being we'll be in a NY6 Bowl, so far he's looking like about a -2. He has what looks like a pretty big hole to dig himself out of. If we lose to LT and then get beat by ACU (very possible), we could be looking at "losing the team" territory. But regardless of the next 2 games, we should see pretty soon if the players are buying into Eric Morris.

The next 2 weeks will be telling...

[TheReal_jayD]

6 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

This bit is comical I am not going to lie. 

[Cr1028]

5 hours ago, DentonLurker said:

Huh?

There is a difference in one coach learning about a team and an entire staff.

 

5 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Even when changing an offensive or defensive philosophy/scheme?

 

4 hours ago, DentonLurker said:

Of course

What if it is more than just one new coach learning the team or the team learning them and their system?

Lets say 5 for the 2019 season including the OC. How about 4 for the 2020 season including all 3 coordinators. Or ‘21 when we had an entirely new defensive staff and new special teams coordinator? Is there no adjustment period for those?

Edited September 13, 2023 by Cr1028

[El Paso Eagle]

25 minutes ago, Matt said:

I think it’ll probably be a cold day in hell before you are every truly critical of what goes on here. 

What an idiotic comment. I know people are in a panic mode, and all of a sudden, all the experts know what is best and what should have been done, but for people to keep talking about firing him after two to three games, it's just plain stupid. We've kept other coaches for years because we don't have money to buy them out, and all of a sudden, everyone's acting like we could buy him out today if needed. What is sad and reflects on our fan base is the number of people almost seeming happy that they were right in predicting there would be problems and know what to act like that are all-knowing. The funny thing is, when fans from other schools make the same type of comments, most people talk about how crappy that school's fanbase is. Am I discouraged, yes? Am I ready to give up, no? 

[keith]

It's fun to compare our current situation to other schools, but I'm not sure how relevant it is.  I think most compare the current situation to our own recent history.  It may be too early to tell, but there has already been a lot of foreshadowing and it's starting to look like a movie we've seen many, many times before.

We are a fragile fanbase, so it only takes a small amount of poor performance to reinforce the "conventional wisdom" about our football program and destroy any interest or good will (no matter how small) that may have been established.  On the flip side, we seem to require beating up on top-25 teams before people will even begin to take moderate interest.  

This next statement may be seen as hyperbole, but this game against LaTech may turn out to be the most important game in Morris' tenure (however long it turns out to be).  He wins and looks convincing doing it and we might be able to generate some traction for the ACU game.  He loses and/or looks unprepared or completely outmatched and the season is probably over and will sink our football program to depths that are still all too fresh in our memories.  We will only sniff 20K for the homecoming game and will potentially lose a generation of students for the next 4 years or longer.  

For the sake of all things North Texas football, I hope he succeeds.  I will admit, I was not a fan of the hire and I'm still not convinced he's the guy or whatever strategy he sold Mosely is the right one for the modern college football world.  It was a massive gamble/risk, IMHO.  In order to make that risk work taking, there needs to be to potential for high rewards.  Let's hope Morris and Mosely hit it big for us as I don't think either one with get another chance if they don't.

[TheReal_jayD]

5 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

 

 

What if it is more than just one new coach learning the team or the team learning them and their system?

Lets say 5 for the 2019 season including the OC. How about 4 for the 2020 season including all 3 coordinators. Or ‘21 when had an entirely new defensive staff and new special teams coordinator? Is there no adjustment period for those?

North Texas started 1-6 in 2021 when Bennett and staff took over defense. With the only win coming from Northwestern State while giving up 46 points a game to FBS opponents. There was def an adjustment period. 

[Cr1028]

4 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

What an idiotic comment. I know people are in a panic mode, and all of a sudden, all the experts know what is best and what should have been done, but for people to keep talking about firing him after two to three games, it's just plain stupid. We've kept other coaches for years because we don't have money to buy them out, and all of a sudden, everyone's acting like we could buy him out today if needed. What is sad and reflects on our fan base is the number of people almost seeming happy that they were right in predicting there would be problems and know what to act like that are all-knowing. The funny thing is, when fans from other schools make the same type of comments, most people talk about how crappy that school's fanbase is. Am I discouraged, yes? Am I ready to give up, no? 

If he’d inherited a pile of mess like McCarney left in 2015 then we’d probably be a little more patient but this guy just lost to a program we beat the previous two seasons by a combined score of 101-21. This is not acceptable. I don’t think Littrell ever lost to FIU.

[Cr1028]

4 minutes ago, TheReal_jayD said:

North Texas started 1-6 in 2021 when Bennett and staff took over defense. With the only win coming from Northwestern State while giving up 46 points a game to FBS opponents. There was def an adjustment period. 

That’s my point, Littrell didn’t get the benefit of that adjustment period like a freshly hired coach would. 2021 was better than 2020 and 2022 was better than 2021. As long as we continued to improve (however slightly it may have been) he should have been given the opportunity to continue that improvement.

[DentonLurker]

16 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

What if it is more than just one new coach learning the team or the team learning them and their system?

Lets say 5 for the 2019 season including the OC. How about 4 for the 2020 season including all 3 coordinators. Or ‘21 when had an entirely new defensive staff and new special teams coordinator? Is there no adjustment period for those?

You and I are going to disagree. That’s okay. Yes, I do think it’s easier when the head coach, strength coach, overall culture, etc. is the same, despite a group (insert number of coaches of your choosing) of coaches being replaced.

[keith]

13 hours ago, DentonLurker said:

It depends on what happens in…say…maybe the next 10 games. I’m not ready to say what the trajectory is at this point. These players and coaches are still learning about each other. Lots of ball left to play.

There are 7 new head coaches in The American.  Players and coaches are still learning and getting to know each other all over the league.  Only 2 games in, but all of them, except one, has a win.

[DentonLurker]

30 minutes ago, keith said:

There are 7 new head coaches in The American.  Players and coaches are still learning and getting to know each other all over the league.  Only 2 games in, but all of them, except one, has a win.

And there’s a lot of nuance to each of those scenarios. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about those other coaches or programs. My ultimate point is similar to JD’s original post in that it’s still 2 games in and there’s a lot of football left to be played. I’m not going to burn the place down.

Edited September 13, 2023 by DentonLurker

[GMG_Dallas]

3 hours ago, GrayEagle said:

Not in the two games played but I will give him some credit for this recruiting class being an improvement over most of the past classes.  I believe that he has established many good connections with coaches that will help in the future if we can make winners of them.         

Added thought.  The Portal was especially unkind to continuance of what we had last year.  Maybe our worst year for losses.

SL had the number 1 CUSA class in 2021. The 3 years prior were all top 4 in CUSA. Wish we'd stop saying this class is better than most recent ones. Some players have transfered and some didn't work out but many are still here. I don't think the portal losses were as rough as is being said. We lost 3 defensive contributers and 4 on offense. I'm sure some graduated but if I recall correctly, it was mentioned on this board the reason this past class was small is because there weren't many guys graduating. All that said, are we really going to blame recruiting and the portal for losing to FIU after we beat them by 40 last year? There's no excuse for that...

[keith]

27 minutes ago, DentonLurker said:

I’m not going to burn the place down.

That's good because neither you or I or anyone on this board for that matter can burn the place down.  That role is reserved for ADs and Coaches.  

[UNTLifer]

15 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

It’s O.K. to lose our home openers every season?  Pretty low bar in my opinion.

We don't

[El Paso Eagle]

1 hour ago, keith said:

There are 7 new head coaches in The American.  Players and coaches are still learning and getting to know each other all over the league.  Only 2 games in, but all of them, except one, has a win.

Noted, but several of those wins were against low-level FCS teams

[Big Z]

I want to see how the forum is going to react if Morris goes 0-3 to two CUSA schools and a FCS school. 

What excuses are some fans going to give Morris? 

[97and03]

2 hours ago, TheReal_jayD said:

Yes I am giving it more than two weeks before I get in the fetal positions...

I am sure that was some kind of dig at my manliness or something but whatever makes you feel better about yourself. The whole fanbase (all thirty of us) has every right to be and should be furious about the first two weeks. 

[MrAlien]

Even when teams had 0-2 starts there were signs of possibilities, a good recruiting class, or young players starting to impress.  So far there has been none of that.  Where are people expecting the improvements to come from? 

[keith]

17 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Noted, but several of those wins were against low-level FCS teams

Noted and I'm old enough to remember how many on this board declared FIU to be "horrible" and pointed out that they were only able to eek out a 2-point victory over Maine who is currently 2-11 in its last 13 games.

[UNTLifer]

6 minutes ago, MrAlien said:

Even when teams had 0-2 starts there were signs of possibilities, a good recruiting class, or young players starting to impress.  So far there has been none of that.  Where are people expecting the improvements to come from? 

1.  Our recent recruiting class has some of the highest recruits we have ever had.  The current class also has highly rated players, but what we need to address are both lines.

2.  Welsoki has looked good as has Patrick Smith and a few others

[Big Z]

5 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

1.  Our recent recruiting class has some of the highest recruits we have ever had.  The current class also has highly rated players, but what we need to address are both lines.

2.  Welsoki has looked good as has Patrick Smith and a few others

That's it? 

[NT93]

11 hours ago, Big Z said:

I want to see how the forum is going to react if Morris goes 0-3 to two CUSA schools and a FCS school. 

What excuses are some fans going to give Morris? 

Is not calling for him to be fired after two games making excuses for him?  I won’t pretend to have read every post on the board, but I just haven’t seen a lot of excuses being made.  I’ve just seen a few people be level-headed and try to talk others off the ledge.

Bottom line is that nobody is happy with the first two games, and things look really bad.  BUT, no coach is ever going to be fired after a few games.  Pro, college, high school…you generally don’t fire someone after only one season unless there are other issues unrelated to football.  Not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s just the way it is.

Update: 29 NFL coaches have been fired after one season in the history of the league. I didn’t look to see the reasons.

The earliest a P5 coach has been fired for losing is Willie Taggart after 21 games at Florida St. 

That’s all I found in my two minutes of research.

Edited September 14, 2023 by NT93

[TheReal_jayD]

53 minutes ago, 97and03 said:

I am sure that was some kind of dig at my manliness or something but whatever makes you feel better about yourself. The whole fanbase (all thirty of us) has every right to be and should be furious about the first two weeks. 

I have no clue who you are. If Man or women? I know Zero about you. So I can assure you that it’s was not directed to your amount of manliness or lack there of. My comment is directed at my decision to postpone final judgement for  at least a couple weeks before I lose all faith.