Pity Party?

KAjunRaider · September 27, 2005

I'm an MT fan and we'd give our left arm to have Dickey's record the past several years.

I should stay out of it, but ya'll need to realize all the "good" that your head coach has done.

Hiring a new coach is not the answer. Yours is just fine.

Grass is not always "greener" on the other side.......

September 27, 2005

I'm an MT fan and we'd give our left arm to have Dickey's record the past several years.
I should stay out of it, but ya'll need to realize all the "good" that your head coach has done.
Hiring a new coach is not the answer. Yours is just fine.
Grass is not always "greener" on the other side.......
←

Good point. Thanks for speaking up.. The rest of the belt would love to have the four bowl games under their (ummm) belts(?).

Snap out of it people. Let's go beat Troy -- the other team without and offense this season!

medpilot21 · September 27, 2005

As much as we like the MTSU fans, and we really do, there is no need for a Blue-Raider wake-up call? We are out of it. If there is one thing this team can count on, it's the ability of the true fans and alums to bounce back. We are still behind Dickey and this team. This "venting" thing happens every year when we lose the OOC games. Dickey is a winner, and minus a few posts, most on this board know the caliber of the head coach on this team and are damn glad he is here.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. EVERYONE has a down year or two. I just figure this is one of those and wll accept that. IF we win our conference games...great. If not, we have to build this team with our young players. I can live with the hope for next season. Doesnt mean I dont want to win now, just means I'm patient with what this coaching staff is doing. Give Meager and Phillips some time to learn the ropes. Both Quinn and J-Mo will be here next season. We only get better from here on. We still have Cobbs for this year, and he is looking very good so far.

Bring on TROY and let's see what we do against a conference opponent.

GMG!!!

stebo · September 27, 2005

Thank you KAjunRaider, I appreciate the post.

MeanGreen61 · September 27, 2005

An Arkstafan post from the Sun Belt board.

THE TRUTH IS.........

I'm enjoying the heck out of the despair among UNT fans because it is so utterly stupid. I might save some of the links next time some UNT fan makes a crack about education in Arkansas.

Right now UNT has one of the youngest rosters in the Sun Belt and not so shockingly plays like it has one of the youngest rosters in the Sun Belt.

This year, Drew Smith's car wreck is taking its toll on UNT. There is no credible pass threat so everyone is loading up to stop the run. UNT has a bad completion rate, attempts far fewer passes than anyone else and has the worst average in the league of yards per attempt. Looking at the roster I don't see a great deal of experience on the offensive line. No pass threat coupled with a young line what does the educated fan expect?

The UNT plan has always been built a salty defense and an offense that doesn't get the team in trouble. I think I counted two seniors among all defensive linemen and two more among the linebackers. A fairly young defense rules out having a salty defense. In fact UNT is in the bottom 10 of the nation in pass efficiency defense and run defense.

The offense after three games has been forced to punt 27 times in three games. ULM and Troy have punted 24 times after FOUR games. ASU only 19 times in four games (actually 20 but a roughing call against FIU wiped one out).

I don't presume to evaluate recruits though the folks that do say UNT has done well. The main issue I see at UNT is that there just aren't enough upperclassmen around and adding a few jucos to round out the numbers would have seemed to have been prudent.

What really cracks me up is the whole whining about the Sun Belt dragging UNT down. I guess my memory is failing because I don't recall UNT winning 24 games in a three season span since Hayden Fry left. I also don't recall UNT ever winning 9 since he left and only other 8 win seasons were both in I-AA.

Drag UNT down? After Fry left, UNT did squat until joining the Sun Belt.

I think it would be much more fun if UNT was at the high level it had pre-Sun Belt. You remember back when UNT never won more than 3 games against I-A schools in the Big West. UNT's last two conference losses were to ULM in the Sun Belt and a 53-28 thumping at the hands of then 0-10 Arkansas State back in the good old days of the Big West before the Sun Belt dragged down UNT.

UNT was a lot more fun then.

The New Orleans Bowl wasn't an accomplishment?

Four appearances and UNT lost to Colorado State by 25, to Memphis by 10, Southern Miss by 21 and beat Cincinnati by 5. That obviously pales in comparison to the good ol days when UNT lost by 3 to Nevada, 21 to ULM, 7 to Marshall, and 4 to Boise State. UNT never managed to be one of I-AA's best 8 teams by taking a first round win.

Yeah I'd trade 2 Southland titles in 12 years in that league over 4 titles in 4 years of the Sun Belt. Dragging that butt way down.

I agree with the folks that think UNT should have joined the WAC. For a $750,000 entry UNT would have gained the chance to play for 4th place in the WAC and all expenses paid stay at home in football at the end of the year. That money wasted on facilities could have been invested in doubling travel expenses and getting attractive home games like Idaho, Utah State, San Jose State, and Nevada. Even as bad as it all is for UNT the bottom line is that if UNT remains undefeated in league play at home and can beat one of the Florida schools on the road that UNT is going to a bowl whether fans want to go or not.

Rudy · September 28, 2005

I'm an MT fan and we'd give our left arm to have Dickey's record the past several years.
I should stay out of it, but ya'll need to realize all the "good" that your head coach has done.
Hiring a new coach is not the answer. Yours is just fine.
Grass is not always "greener" on the other side.......
←

Ok, I guess we need to reiterate the position that many on this board are taking.

First, we have a less of a losing record than the rest of the SBC, so no s**t sherlock, of course you would like to have our record.

Second, If you have read the rest of the threads, you would realize that we do RECOGNIZE the good that dd has done. Many, including myself, thank him and give him credit for it.

Our problem is not the young roster, or the fact that we will probably win the the SBC with zero wins in OOC.

Our problem is the continuing lackluster performance in OOC. We don't expect to win every OOC game. Didn't expect to beat Colorado, tu, Okie, or Kansas St, but the performance, or lack thereof, and the score is what is unacceptable. This is a continuing trend of NT. Even when we had Scott, Booger, AA, etc, the results are still the same. So I don't really think you can point to the OOC suckiness as to being young.

Many have stated, that we want to raise the bar and go to the next level. And we want a coach who will take us there. If its dd fine, if not, lets find the coach who will.

Did ya get that? Let me make this clearer:

De dee dee, dee ddeeeee, deee, de dee dee deeee, de de deeee deee.

How is that?

Look, Im not trying to piss off everyone who is reading this. But many, are simply ignoring what is really being said, or taking it out of context and applying it to their own context to suit their statements.

Edited September 28, 2005 by Rudy

September 28, 2005

I appreciate the input of our conference brethren. Problem is, they apparently suffer from the same low expectations. I'd love to see stAte clobber Arkansas, and I'd love to see Middle's program and school go way up. All the things I've been saying North Texas should do, those schools should do too. If we all moved up together, that would be fantastic. However, I think North Texas has much better potential by the sheer numbers. That's why I'm so frustrated about the slooooooow progress and the many years of noooooo progress. Just because the current progress looks great compared to no progress does not mean we should not strive very hard for more.

Rudy · September 28, 2005

Thanks for reminding me AV. I want to clarify, that I feel the same way about the other SBC schools. I fear that we all are setting our expectations too low. Set a high, but achievable goal. Reach that, then set a new one and strive like you know what to get there. That is what we are trying to do, well, most of us, we are trying to set the bar higher and find a way to get there.

I do hope the SBC schools win some OOC games, then I would love to see 1 or 2 more teams get bowl invites. See, fro 3 years, we had just one bowl team, last year we had two. Now we need to keep trying to send 2, and even 3. Let's raise the bar SBC.

FirefightnRick · September 28, 2005

I couldn't figure out how to Edit my mistakes on the Belt board.

My response.

Smith's car wreck is taking it's toll no doubt, but this by far is not a young offense. We return 9 players from last season from a team that was led by the nations leading rusher. Plus, we get him and the guy before him, back.

What Offensive Coordinator would NOT like to have that problem?

Everyone who attended Two a day's knew this defense was going to be hurting. They are very young, third or fourth youngest nation wide. We all knew we were going to give up points. But offensively no one saw this coming.

From a year ago's offense, we replaced a center with a redshirt freshman, a QB with a redshirt freshman, and a tight end with a junior who played in all 12 games the year before. There are guys playing new positions, but that is nothing new for us. Matt Turney as a sophomore DT in '00 was moved to OT during the second week of two a days. He started by the third week of the season on and graded out very high several times that season, enroute to help build the O line that started all this rushing hoo ha. So guys moving around has been nothing new to expectations, until this year I suppose.

This offense returns 11 players who have 9 starts or more under their belts going back to '01, which is when Cobbs came onto the scene. Among the 11 players, they have 151 starts among them. I new we had some new people moving a bit, but other than the QB position I didn't worry going into this season.

TCU's Patterson has lost his defense from that dominating season they had back in '00,'01 or '02, can't remember the year? He lost his DC to Texas State last year and their defense ranked 99th overall in '04. But instead of trying to continue to rely on their defense, he made the transition to utilize what he had and decided the frogs would go out and OUTSCORE people. And that's exactly what he's done, all with a different QB nearly every year due to the injuries Gunn has sustained each year of his career. I know we are not at TCU's level on many counts. But with defenses keying on the RB position at NT, you would think we could come up with something better that produces more than 129 yards against Tulsa?

And of course your enjoying the bickering, you've had nothing else to be excited about the past 4 years and the fact that NT fans are dissapointed because we expected more shows we realize now how very vulnerable we are, thus opening up that long awaited chance for ASU to get that first Belt win over us. Did you expect college football fans to be happy getting 50+ hung on us two weeks in a row?

Not all NT fans are calling for DD's head and I would bet there are many more who support him than not. Most are just dissapointed to expect that we would see more with our two backs than what we have seen. DD said in this weeks press conference that, "in our system we do not solely rely on our QB play in order for us to succeed". We know this, as was the result from our conference championship with Smith, a redshirt freshman QB back in '02. Most fans thought we would see some new stuff with PC and SPJMo including having them in the backfield together, misdirections, counters, any type of different schemes from previous year to keep the defenses guessing which would take the heat off of Meager. Instead we get the same boring draws, handing off to PC 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage into an 8 or 9 man box. The same back out screen into a wall, the same streak to JQ for a jump ball. The same, taking a time out to get a play in, then getting a delay of game call immediately afterwards. It's like we didn't have August practice at all? Again, coach Dickey stated this week we are not playing very well in any aspect of the game. Fans are dissapointed. If they weren't they wouldn't be fans.

And I can understand others in the Belt are going to get their feelings hurt when the NT bickering includes statements that appear to diminish the Belt. But that is where we are at. You damn sure would be saying some of the same things if you were in our situation if you expected your program to take the next step. No one expects NT to go out and beat a K State. But we have competed against previous 4-7 Big 12 teams before and not get routed. We did expect to beat Tulsa, and we surely expected to produce more offense against the middle. Instead, with our two greatest backs we have had since the late 50's sharing the same offense, we get the same conservative offense we have seen for years that has averaged 188 yards a game so far, including a beautiful 129 yards in an ass whipping against Tulsa in front of a very good home crowd.

Most NT fans love the Belt. I certainly do at least and most appreciate WW and all that the conference has done for us. Many take it personally, and I'm sure our team does as well, that due to our pitiful OOC record we are hurting it more than we are building it. But don't get your dander up if we expect more.

Rick

Edited September 28, 2005 by FirefightnRick