My problem with Dickey

[Army of Dad]

​Denton Guyer could have won 4 straight Sunbelt titles back then.

Not a chance, Ryan High was just starting to make some noise.

[Cerebus]

Though to be fair that defense and a really really bad conference were the keys to our success.  

​

​Denton Guyer could have won 4 straight Sunbelt titles back then.

​This is bull.

One it really short sells the talent we had.  Yes, Dickey found some diamonds in the rough like Chris Hurd, who went from walk on to defensive MVP of the conference, but there is a myth that Dickey never landed highly recruited players.  BS.  Since our return to 1A/FBS Dickey by far landed the most Dallas Morning News State Top 100s:

Matt Simon had 2.  

Darrell Dickey had 8. (Brandon Kennedy, Jonas Buckles, Eddrick Gilmore, Jamario Thomas, Randy Gardner, Taylor Casey, Cody Spencer, Roy Bishop)

Dodge had 1 (Riley, at ATH, not QB)

Mac has  1 (Tee Goree)

 

Second, the SBC was terrible at the bottom (much like CUSA) but it had some decent teams at top and had quality OOC wins during our bowl years, including:

Vanderbilt, Missouri, Baylor, UCONN,  Tulsa, New Mexico, UTEP, UAB, Marshall, Hawaii, Akron, 

[Cr1028]

Harry I actually get a good laugh when people compare our current offense to Dickey's.  Compared to Dickey this is the run and shoot. 

​While that is true, the FIU game last year was a blast from the past.

[GrandGreen]

​

​This is bull.

One it really short sells the talent we had.  Yes, Dickey found some diamonds in the rough like Chris Hurd, who went from walk on to defensive MVP of the conference, but there is a myth that Dickey never landed highly recruited players.  BS.  Since our return to 1A/FBS Dickey by far landed the most Dallas Morning News State Top 100s:

Matt Simon had 2.  

Darrell Dickey had 8. (Brandon Kennedy, Jonas Buckles, Eddrick Gilmore, Jamario Thomas, Randy Gardner, Taylor Casey, Cody Spencer, Roy Bishop)

Dodge had 1 (Riley, at ATH, not QB)

Mac has  1 (Tee Goree)

 

Second, the SBC was terrible at the bottom (much like CUSA) but it had some decent teams at top and had quality OOC wins during our bowl years, including:

Vanderbilt, Missouri, Baylor, UCONN,  Tulsa, New Mexico, UTEP, UAB, Marshall, Hawaii, Akron, 

​Yes, but the problem was that most of those were landed in that one incredible recruiting class, never to be repeated by Dickey or any NT coach since.  I have often wondered what created that one year, which as I recall there were 8 state 100 players including a few that were on other lists than the DMN.  

[Cerebus]

​Yes, but the problem was that most of those were landed in that one incredible recruiting class, never to be repeated by Dickey or any NT coach since.  I have often wondered what created that one year, which as I recall there were 8 state 100 players including a few that were on other lists than the DMN.  

Dickey did have one where he landed 4 of the Top 100s, but he landed others in other years.  He also landed kids on a ton of other lists in others states.  DeSean Early was a Florida Times Union Top 40, Patrick Cobbs was a Oklahoma Top 10, Sky Pruitt was a Top 5 in his state.  We also landed a lot of JUCO talent, Mike Pruitt was rated as the #1 JUCO DT by some services.

So yes, on class was exceptional, but even if you take away that entire class Dickey  and his staff recruited rings around every other coach we have had since we came back to FBS.  If the program wouldn't have been in such terrible shape that we were paying coordinators $55K we might of kept some of those people around longer.  

 

[GrandGreen]

​

Dickey did have one where he landed 4 of the Top 100s, but he landed others in other years.  He also landed kids on a ton of other lists in others states.  DeSean Early was a Florida Times Union Top 40, Patrick Cobbs was a Oklahoma Top 10, Sky Pruitt was a Top 5 in his state.  We also landed a lot of JUCO talent, Mike Pruitt was rated as the #1 JUCO DT by some services.

So yes, on class was exceptional, but even if you take away that entire class Dickey  and his staff recruited rings around every other coach we have had since we came back to FBS.  If the program wouldn't have been in such terrible shape that we were paying coordinators $55K we might of kept some of those people around longer.  

 

A top 5 in Idaho, a state that  probably didn't have 5 d1 signees.  There were more than 4 state top 100's in that class, five are listed above: Kennedy, Buckles, Spencer, Taylor and Gardner.  There was also Chris Ridgeway, Craig Jones  and Hall which were listed as Texas top 100 in that year.   Zuniga and walk-ons Hurd and Brewster that became NT stars were also in that class.

My point is nearly all Dickey's success can be directly attributed to that 2000 class.   Again, I don't know how that year happened; but if your point is that Dickey was a strong recruiter; I vehemently disagree.   Dickey basic strategy of waiting in the wings till the big dogs got their recruit quotas, worked for a while; but other Belt and lower teams quickly caught up and passed NT's recruiting.   

Your point referring resources, is IMO only partially valid.   NT's resource position in the Belt at that time was no worse than NT's resource position is currently in CUSA.   Dickey's biggest problem was it is hard to recruit to a place that you constantly belittle.

Mac is not doing the necessary job in recruiting, but Dickey sans one magic year; didn't do any better.  Yes, he picked up some talent like the cited Thomas and Pruitt; but based on his long tenure at NT not near enough.    

 

 

 

[greenminer]

​Second, the SBC was terrible at the bottom (much like CUSA) but it had some decent teams at top and had quality OOC wins during our bowl years, including:

Vanderbilt, Missouri, Baylor, UCONN,  Tulsa, New Mexico, UTEP, UAB, Marshall, Hawaii, Akron, 

​
Just now putting two and two together: our horrible OOC record under Dickey (during the bowl years) seems to have really hurt the potential overall perception of the Belt.  With a decent list of wins like that above, you can't help but wonder if our OOC losses as conference champs over-shadowed them as the media/public focused on us.

[GrandGreen]

​Denton Guyer could have won 4 straight Sunbelt titles back then.

​Yeah, Denton Guyer would have run all over Booger Kennedy, Cody Spencer, Buckles and crew.  I wonder about people who don't recognize what little success NT has had.  Those teams were better than what NT currently fields and a couple of years IMO much better than the HOD Bowl winner.   Going one game shy of four undefeated conference years was a great accomplishment in any league. 

[untjim1995]

Those Belt teams, especially early on, just couldn't handle the pounding that our gameplan put on them. They just didn't have the size or strenght to keep up with for 60 minutes. BUt once they got there, it was over for us. What didn't help was getting blasted in OOC, while running thru the SBC like a hot knife thru butter. Not even counting 2001, since that was a losing season and the only teams we beat were SBC teams, we lost in 2002 at Texas, at TCU, and at Arizona, while beating Nicholls State and the other SBC teams, which culminated withthe NO Bowl win over Cincy. In 2003, we blasted Baylor, but they were truly pathetic as a football team that year, so most people just looked at that game, sadly, as more of how Baylor had regressed. But we lost to OU, who was #1, in a game where our defense held up much better than any other Texas team did against OU that year, where UT got beat 65-13 and A&M lost 77-0. And we got strummed by Arkansas and Air Force, before we lost our bowl game to Memphis. Then in 2004, we lost every OOC game, including at home to some outfit known as Florida Atlantic, which would soon join us in the SBC, including the blowout against Southern Miss in the NO Bowl, where we looked small and slow. Then, with all the SBC momentum still strong, we got crushed at home against Tulsa, 54-2. We had never recovered as a program from that loss, really, until the 2013 season. Teams like Troy, Arkansas State, ULL, MUTS, and ULM were all of sudden better than us, and in reality, some of those are still ahead of us today as programs.

Dickey was seen as "fools gold" outside of Denton--we just didn't want to believe it because we were winning the SBC. But he never got interviews, he never even got much interest as a head coach, which should have told us everything about his demeanor and his gameplan to other ADs. He was lucky to have survived midseason 2001, but he got fired when he should have, even if he had a heart attack that season. He didn't like the way football was being treated by the higher-ups, which I agreed with, but he also didn't like the fans much, and at a place like this, if you cannot glad-hand people and try to get them to feel good about the program, they just won't come out, even if you are winning. Dodge was good at the last part, but he couldn't gameplan for the college game at all, so now we have Mac, whose gameplan is Dickey's with a few more short passes, but for the most part has come off as very optimistic and motivating, at least until last year's Dickey-esque comments about being so tough to recruit here. But assuming that was just frustration coming out of Mac's mouth and he has not been officially beaten down by UNT's apathy, McCarney really does seem to be Dickey with people skills.

[GTWT]

I really miss the insightful, football-savvy fans of the Dickey era.  No, actually I don't.  Also,....

​Denton Guyer could have won 4 straight Sunbelt titles back then

Why would any Mean Green fan want to belittle a period of success for our school's athletic program?

 

[untjim1995]

I really miss the insightful, football-savvy fans of the Dickey era.  No, actually I don't.  Also,....

 

Why would any Mean Green fan want to belittle a period of success for our school's athletic program?

 

​If the truth is "belittling" to you, then there's not much that can be said to argue the point, which is that we were a badass against SBC teams during that timeframe because we had size and strength that our gameplan used to perfection against smaller squads. When we played teams in OOC games during that stretch, from Colorado State to Southern Miss, we won two (Baylor and Cincy) against FBS competition. We lost the rest. Its ok to look at that great run and realize that we couldn't have done it in any other league back then--its ok to recognize that minor factoid, even if it was our greatest stretch since coming back up to Division 1 in 1995.

[Cerebus]

Why would any Mean Green fan want to belittle a period of success for our school's athletic program?​

Inferiority complex.  It brings thinking like:

Oh, we were winning?  Conference must not have been any good, we're just North Texas.

We can't schedule, have low attendance,  and our booster club levels are embarrassingly low?  What can you expect, we're just North Texas.

[Cerebus]

​We lost the rest. Its ok to look at that great run and realize that we couldn't have done it in any other league back then

​We couldn't have won any other league yet we beat the CUSA champions?  I get it, that makes perfect sense.  

[untjim1995]

​We couldn't have won any other league yet we beat the CUSA champions?  I get it, that makes perfect sense.

In 2002, we beat Cincy, the ​CUSA Co-champs...a league with Co-champ #23 TCU (who we lost to in FW that year)  Louisville, Southern Miss, Tulane (when they were good), East Carolina, Memphis, Houston, UAB, and Army. And we lost to a school for the second year in a row that was basically a CUSA member in waiting, in Denton, some team called South Florida, who went 9-2 that year, including wins over Southern Miss, UH, ECU, and Memphis. So yeah, beating a league made up of Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Idaho, New Mexico State, and Middle Tennessee State back then seems a tad easier to most of us. And we lost to a school for the second year in a row that was basically a startup, in Denton, some team called South Florida.

Its ok--we owned the SBC back then. Killed everyone in it. Won a bowl game over another conference's co-champion that was a good team, too. But we weren't winning anyone else's league. At the end of that season, TCU finished #23 from CUSA. Marshall finished #24 from the MAC. Boise State finished #15 from the WAC. Colorado State won the MWC and dropped out of the rankings (barely) after losing to TCU in the Liberty Bowl. We, as champions of the Sun Belt and winners of the NO Bowl, got two votes in a coaches poll.

 

[Cerebus]

But we weren't winning anyone else's league. 

Stay tuned for untjim's next argument "North Texas was so bad in 2000-2004 that we couldn't have even won the Sun Belt!"

​

[untjim1995]

Stay tuned for untjim's next argument "North Texas was so bad in 2000-2004 that we couldn't have even won the Sun Belt!"

​

​We didn't win it in 2000.

[GreenMachine]

Inferiority complex.  It brings thinking like:

Oh, we were winning?  Conference must not have been any good, we're just North Texas.

We can't schedule, have low attendance,  and our booster club levels are embarrassingly low?  What can you expect, we're just North Texas.

Or is it having enough pride that I don't  have to puff my chest after beating ULM, ULL, MT, Troy (all ranked at the very bottom of every poll) after getting spanked in OOC?  The Sunbelt was VERY weak then, plain and simple. 

[GTWT]

But we weren't winning anyone else's league.

 

How does one do that?

Or is it having enough pride that I don't  have to puff my chest after beating ULM, ULL, MT, Troy (all ranked at the very bottom of every poll) after getting spanked in OOC?  The Sunbelt was VERY weak then, plain and simple. 

​We won the only conference we were members in during that period.  Show a little pride in your school's accomplishments.

[GreenMachine]

 

 

How does one do that?

 

​We won the only conference we were members in during that period.  Show a little pride in your school's accomplishments.

​I am proud of our business dept, engineering dept, soccer team, tennis team, and men's golf team. When the football team wins consistently, I'll be proud of them too.

[GTWT]

​I am proud of our business dept, engineering dept, soccer team, tennis team, and men's golf team. When the football team wins consistently, I'll be proud of them too.

​Maybe you should take some pride in the hard work and effort these young men are putting into representing your school.

[greenit]

Last season, the SEC had 5 of its teams rush for more yards that it passed (Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, and LSU).  The Big 12-2 only had 1 (Oklahoma).  The B1G had 5 (Ohio St, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Indiana, and Minnesota).  The ACC had 4 (Georgia Tech, Pitt, NC State, Boston College).  Pac 12 had 0.

It seems that there are still teams out there that have a run first mentality, but it is in the minority.  Big 12-2 and Pac 12 had the least.  Probably speaks to why many view those conferences as soft when compared to B1G and SEC.

Keep in mind that our current O-Coordinator was chosen as the best candidate by TDodge to run a high octane offense.  I can only hope that the Mac follows up on his 'threat' to open up the offense this year. 

[HoustonEagle]

Last season, the SEC had 5 of its teams rush for more yards that it passed (Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, and LSU).  The Big 12-2 only had 1 (Oklahoma).  The B1G had 5 (Ohio St, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Indiana, and Minnesota).  The ACC had 4 (Georgia Tech, Pitt, NC State, Boston College).  Pac 12 had 0.

It seems that there are still teams out there that have a run first mentality, but it is in the minority.  Big 12-2 and Pac 12 had the least.  Probably speaks to why many view those conferences as soft when compared to B1G and SEC.

Keep in mind that our current O-Coordinator was chosen as the best candidate by TDodge to run a high octane offense.  I can only hope that the Mac follows up on his 'threat' to open up the offense this year.

​Maybe it's a byproduct of sitting through Dickey years but I have never had an issue with our current run-pass ratio.  Our execution is another matter.