Next Time…

Green Otaku · September 17

5 minutes ago, MeanMag said:

I don't understand how it was not fruitful.

In 2015 UNT was dead last in the entire FBS in offense and 5th to last in defense led by a defensive minded head coach.

Since then, Littrell and his offense gave UNT the best chances to win championships and football games, regardless of bowl game status. Two of the best seasons, record-wise, in history. It took North Texas to 6 bowl games from 2016 to 2022. Prior to that, North Texas had been to 6 bowl games since 1959. To me, that is fruitful.

UNT had a guy that ran a balanced, successful offense that transformed when Mason Fine left to add TE wrinkles. Hired an experienced defensive coordinator with former head coaching experience. Everything fans are currently asking for, I feel like. The results were not there and instead of letting him work through it, powers that be got rid of it.

The grass is always greener... but football and offenses have left the wishbone, the swinging gate, the triple option behind.

If that is the criteria for the next head coach, you may immediately eliminate some of the best options available.

Yes good offense that was cancelled out by bad defenses.

Defense by year:

2016: 96

2017: 111

2018: 43

2019: 105

2020: 126

2021: 78

2022: 110

No bowl wins, no conference championships. Stats are nice, but people don't put stats in trophy cases. Isn't that what this whole thing is about? Winning championships and creating a winning culture?

MeanMag · September 17

1 hour ago, Green Otaku said:

Yes good offense that was cancelled out by bad defenses.

Defense by year:

2016: 96

2017: 111

2018: 43

2019: 105

2020: 126

2021: 78

2022: 110

No bowl wins, no conference championships. Stats are nice, but people don't put stats in trophy cases. Isn't that what this whole thing is about? Winning championships and creating a winning culture?

You win championships by playing the stats game. On both sides of the ball. He had shots at them. More than any other time in school history aside from Dickey. I just do not want to move backward.

El Paso Eagle · September 17

On 9/14/2024 at 4:18 PM, TIgreen01 said:

I don’t know. Kinne at Texas st plays aggressive defense. Complementary defense. We simply whiffed on the Littrell firing. Once he made it past October and on to the conference championship we should’ve just kept him another year. Kinne would’ve been a much better hire but we waited too long and he was already snatched up. Maybe he was never even on our radar. All I know is that we need a coach that fields a complete team and prioritizes fundamentals over gimmicks. We don’t do the little things right and that’s adds up.

No doubt he (Kinne) is burning it up, but it's not like everyone thought at the time he was hired; he was a sure thing to do what he's done. Again, taking nothing away from his accomplishment, but people acting like they knew he was going to do this is very disingenuous.

FirefightnRick · September 17

3 hours ago, Green Otaku said:

Yes good offense that was cancelled out by bad defenses.

Defense by year:

2016: 96

2017: 111

2018: 43

2019: 105

2020: 126

2021: 78

2022: 110

No bowl wins, no conference championships. Stats are nice, but people don't put stats in trophy cases. Isn't that what this whole thing is about? Winning championships and creating a winning culture?

With his best DC, Skladany..(a.k.a The Morton’s Fisherman)… he came up 7 points short from winning a conference championship that year.

Rick

Edited September 17 by FirefightnRick

untjim1995 · September 17

6 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

With his best DC, Skladany..(a.k.a The Morton’s Fisherman)… he came up 7 points short from winning a conference championship that year.

Rick

I’ve often wondered what this place would’ve looked like if 2014 didn’t see us fall backwards to a 4-8 season. We had the momentum of McCarney turning us around and winning that HoD Bowl over UNLV. But Skladany retired, Derek Thompson graduated, and our recruiting just fell off a mountain. DMac never recovered. He started getting so frustrated about not getting any traction for recruiting and began to talk about how hard this job was. And then Portland State happened. But if he could’ve kept the momentum going in 2014, I believe things would’ve been much better for us in 2015 and he doesn’t get fired after the worst loss in modern college football history.

Green Otaku · September 17

1 hour ago, FirefightnRick said:

With his best DC, Skladany..(a.k.a The Morton’s Fisherman)… he came up 7 points short from winning a conference championship that year.

Rick

Hardest hitting defense I had ever seen. Lee and Trice I remember specifically being monsters.

Green Otaku · September 17

3 hours ago, MeanMag said:

You win championships by playing the stats game. On both sides of the ball. He had shots at them. More than any other time in school history aside from Dickey. I just do not want to move backward.

If you have enough stats go a certain way that's a trend, and SL's trend was never being able to make it over the hump. Close a few times, but couldn't put it all together. No one wants to go backwards, but that's on the AD to make the right choices.

TIgreen01 · September 17

10 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

No doubt he (Kinne) is burning it up, but it's not like everyone thought at the time he was hired; he was a sure thing to do what he's done. Again, taking nothing away from his accomplishment, but people acting like they knew he was going to do this is very disingenuous.

Admittedly, I have no idea what all goes into a football HC hiring process. I bet, though, that you can determine if you’ve got a guy who is going to prioritize one side of the ball over the other and what kind of coaches he’s going to bring with him. Maybe that’s the tough part…you don’t know exactly who he’ll bring in to coach defense or QBs until he’s actually hired. In this case, we hired Caponi pretty quick.

Rudy · September 17

15 hours ago, MeanMag said:

I don't understand how it was not fruitful.

In 2015 UNT was dead last in the entire FBS in offense and 5th to last in defense led by a defensive minded head coach.

Since then, Littrell and his offense gave UNT the best chances to win championships and football games, regardless of bowl game status. Two of the best seasons, record-wise, in history. It took North Texas to 6 bowl games from 2016 to 2022. Prior to that, North Texas had been to 6 bowl games since 1959. To me, that is fruitful.

UNT had a guy that ran a balanced, successful offense that transformed when Mason Fine left to add TE wrinkles. Hired an experienced defensive coordinator with former head coaching experience. Everything fans are currently asking for, I feel like. The results were not there and instead of letting him work through it, powers that be got rid of it.

The grass is always greener... but football and offenses have left the wishbone, the swinging gate, the triple option behind.

If that is the criteria for the next head coach, you may immediately eliminate some of the best options available.

How many conference championships, bowl wins, playoff appearances, and what is our W/L record under all these Air Raid schemes?

untjim1995 · September 17

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Kinne bring a ton of his previous team up to San Marcos when he accepted their job? Yes, they're FCS players, but the continuity he got to use at TSU has shown in the results

Morris was hired away as a coordinator, even though he had been a successful coach at UIW. He didn't have anyone to bring with him. After the first season ends and we lose everyone, he's rebuilding again with 70 something new faces. That just won't work.

UNTLifer · September 17

12 hours ago, Green Otaku said:

Hardest hitting defense I had ever seen. Lee and Trice I remember specifically being monsters.

Loved that defense, but I am going to put this duo #2 behind Jones and Buckles

FirefightnRick · September 18

On 9/17/2024 at 12:26 AM, Green Otaku said:

Hardest hitting defense I had ever seen. Lee and Trice I remember specifically being monsters.

Certainly one of the best.

I’d add the late 60’s teams, the Chuck Mills teams of the 80’s, Lacroix’s group, Gary De Loach’s teams and of course Skladany. Just about every era had its share of violent hitters. Kim Phillips, Sean Wash, Lance White. But I’ll never forget Jonas Buckles and Craig Jone, and neither will anyone who got hit by them. With the new rules in place nowadays those times are long over.

Rick

Edited September 18 by FirefightnRick

Greenrex · September 18

On 9/17/2024 at 12:25 PM, untjim1995 said:

...he's rebuilding again with 70 something new faces. That just won't work.

That's a fact and let's hope it's not repeated annually.

Kenny Wilkie · September 20

On 9/14/2024 at 12:53 PM, FirefightnRick said:

I’d like to see a defense-first minded head coach. We may not win many P4 games, but like Corky, Dickey and McCarney we’ll play well on the road most times and vie for a conference championship now and then.

Since Dodge I’ve completely had it with the Chunk & Duck-minded guys.

It’s defense first or nothing!

Rick

I've been trying to get my account activated since last weekend but I guess this board isn't accepting new members or thinks I'm a troll. So I'll respond to a few of these as a guess.

I'd love a defense-first coach but the problem is it's harder to find the best defensive players with good size than it is skill players. Part of the reason I'd almost rather find an offensive guru who can outscore most comparable teams is because I don't think we would be able to build success into the program with a D-first hire. We might be able to have more success with lesser teams, but with equal and higher level programs our D wouldn't likely wouldn't have a talent or size advantage. Even the best defensive scheme in the world can't mask size deficiencies.

Offenses like the air raid initially exposed defenses and was a talent equalizer, but now everyone knows how to defend it. A really good air raid coach (like Mike Leach, RIP) might put additional wrinkles from time to time, but most of it's success came from repetitive practice and players executing at a high level. We stand to have more success with that type of a coach than with a D-first coach IMO.

I don't think Morris is necessarily the answer but I would read that much into the loss last weekend. That Tech team has more skill position talent than all but maybe one or two teams in their league and they were going to come alive at some point. I think they're one of those teams that will get better as the season progresses. Let's see how we look against the Cowboys this weekend before jumping off the ship.

FirefightnRick · October 20

Hopefully we’ll move up in the offensive statistic rankings though. We do have that going for us.

Rick

wardly · October 20

On 9/16/2024 at 11:25 PM, untjim1995 said:

I’ve often wondered what this place would’ve looked like if 2014 didn’t see us fall backwards to a 4-8 season. We had the momentum of McCarney turning us around and winning that HoD Bowl over UNLV. But Skladany retired, Derek Thompson graduated, and our recruiting just fell off a mountain. DMac never recovered. He started getting so frustrated about not getting any traction for recruiting and began to talk about how hard this job was. And then Portland State happened. But if he could’ve kept the momentum going in 2014, I believe things would’ve been much better for us in 2015 and he doesn’t get fired after the worst loss in modern college football history.

I have slept since then but I think Dodge recruited most of the players on the 2014 team. All I ever heard from McCarney was how hard it is to recruit at North Texas. While our defense stinks, as it has done for more that this just season as well as last, our offense is fun to watch. Naturally I want to win every game but to me the Memphis game was exciting and proved , at least to me, that we are not as bad as we played against TT, and that Tech is not as good as they played against us. I feel like we can beat Tulane this Saturday.

FirefightnRick · 2024-11-23T23:57:53Z

On 9/14/2024 at 12:53 PM, FirefightnRick said:

I’d like to see a defense-first minded head coach. We may not win many P4 games, but like Corky, Dickey and McCarney we’ll play well on the road most times and vie for a conference championship now and then.

Since Dodge I’ve completely had it with the Chunk & Duck-minded guys.

It’s defense first or nothing!

Rick

STILL APPLICABLE!

Rick