DRC Slide could be tough to recover from for NT

OldTimer · October 2, 2006

Slide could be tough to recover from for UNT

Problems may be to wide spread to fix

05:43 PM CDT on Sunday, October 1, 2006

By Brett Vito/Staff Writer

The silence that settled over Fouts Field said it all Saturday night as the final seconds ticked off the clock before halftime of North Texas’ game against Middle Tennessee.

UNT was already down 14 when Clint Marks dropped back and fired a bullet to Bobby Williams in the end zone.

And just like that, it was over.

Williams hauled the pass in for another touchdowns and the game – along with the hope that the Sun Belt Conference season would bring the Mean Green out of a spiral that is now more than a year in the making – was done.

UNT had won five straight over the Blue Raiders, the Mean Green’s bitter conference rival, before Saturday night.

Even with all the losses that have piled up over the last few months, UNT could always point to that achievement and a history of success in the Sun Belt as evidence better times might be on the way. A win over SMU in Week 2 gave the Mean Green a reason to say that the sky wasn’t falling during a 1-3 start.

After an embarrassing 35-0 loss to MTSU, there doesn’t seem to be much left to hang onto for the Mean Green as they spiral down the same path they followed last season. No real reasons to think times will get better any time soon are in sight.

The fans filing to the exits early said as much, leaving a nearly empty stadium to watch the post-game fireworks.

The Mean Green have now lost 13 of its last 15, a slide that started the week after UNT beat MTSU last season.

Pulling out of that slide will be the biggest challenge UNT coach Darrell Dickey has faced in his nine-year tenure with the Mean Green. The odds seem stacked against him with a 1-4 record and four of the final seven games on the road.

“One of the frustrating and challenging parts of coaching is to go in when things are like this and figure a way out of it and try to fix it,” Dickey said. “It’s going to take a lot of work from a lot of people. This is as much as we have struggled since I have been here. Nothing is fun right now, but hopefully the rewarding thing will be that we took this group that is as low as we can be at this point from a production standpoint and bring it out of the doldrums.”

Dickey and the Mean Green have a long way to go. There isn’t much farther UNT could possibly fall.

UNT finished in last place in the Sun Belt Conference in 2005 and is back at the bottom of the barrel again after losing its league opener to the Blue Raiders.

The Mean Green’s offense that features a former national rushing champion in Jamario Thomas and arguably one of the top five receivers in school history in Johnny Quinn is ranked dead last in Division I-A in total offense with an average of 177.4 yards a game.

Even Temple, which is ranked just ahead of the Mean Green at 118, is averaging 197.8 yards a game.

One has to wonder now if UNT is ever going to pull out of this slide. In a little over a year, the Mean Green have gone from a four-time conference champion to a team whose coach is without a doubt in the line of fire.

The reasons have been evident for weeks.

UNT had too many recruits who didn’t pan out in the past few years and left the team. The Mean Green’s offensive and defensive lines are possibly the weakest groups to play at UNT in years. The number of difference-makers on defense is startlingly low considering how many stars played for the Mean Green just a few years ago.

The Sun Belt, while still arguably the worst Division I-A conference in the country, is better than it was when UNT was dominating the league.

Those factors have stacked up against Dickey as he searches for a way to bring UNT out of its funk.

Dickey has always done his best work when his back is against the wall, rallying his team with an us-against-the -world mentality.

At this point, it’s tough to see how UNT’s staff can find a way out of what is quickly becoming a mess of a season with that familiar approach.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.

PlummMeanGreen · October 2, 2006

Vito's DRC quote:

"UNT had too many recruits who didn’t pan out in the past few years and left the team. The Mean Green’s offensive and defensive lines are possibly the weakest groups to play at UNT in years. The number of difference-makers on defense is startlingly low considering how many stars played for the Mean Green just a few years ago."

The Fry/Moore Curse!

Sadly, we are almost back at square one at UNT from the first year DD arrived on the Mean Green scene. You cannot go to 4 bowl games in a row and "NOT" recruit somebody...................unless you have other diversions, ain't trying to recruit and have a coaching staff with visions of sugar plums and the Big Time on the brain?

UNT has what I have called (forever) the Fry/Moore curse, ie, UNT head football coaches who followed those 2 NT coaches thinking a little success in Denton mean't a free ticket to the Big Time. I think that so called "curse" has now ended with DD since 4 bowl games with a 9 & 3 record in his 2'nd bowl game didn't even get him a Big Time interview. Hey folks, did you ever ask yourselves: What is wrong with that picture? I finally woke up, smelled the coffee and asked that question.

Hayden Fry and Jerry Moore, of course, were 2 Mean Green coaches who both got higher profile jobs after a few years in Denton. Few years? How about only 2 years in Denton for Jerry Moore?

We all know from our Mean Green football history book which wins Fry had that got him a Big 10 job. Probably, few of our young gun alums know too much of Jerry Moore's short 2 year stint in Denton. Well..............a 2 year .500 W/L record amazingly helped him get the Texas Tech head football coaches job. Yet...........honest to goodness..............there were few tears shed in Denton when Jerry Moore left for Lubbock as he really never did "positively" connect with our alumnus and MG fan base. He took some left-over Fry talent, was .500 in those 2 years with that talent and then got the Texas Tech job? Too many dust storms in Lubbock that year I suppose.

Jerry Moore probably did more to get the "Fry/Moore" curse started than his predecessor who at least spent 6 years at UNT.

Yet the Fry/Moore "curse" didn't stop most UNT coaches who followed those 2 from still thinking they could get a little success at UNT and then boogy down the road out of Denton to the Big Time.

But IMHO and FWIW.............I believe it would be safe to say now that success at UNT by DD (albeit in the lower profile SBC) has forever ended the Fry/Moore curse since 4 bowl games seemed to not impress the ones DD needed those trips to the Big Easy to impress the most: Texas HS blue chip prospects.

Edited October 2, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

FirefightnRick · October 2, 2006

The Mean Green’s offense that features a former national rushing champion in Jamario Thomas and arguably one of the top five receivers in school history in Johnny Quinn is ranked dead last in Division I-A in total offense with an average of 177.4 yards a game.
Even Temple, which is ranked just ahead of the Mean Green at 118, is averaging 197.8 yards a game.
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As I have stated since 1999 our offensive system does not scare anyone. We have averaged around 108th offensively for 9 years. From '01 to '04 we had De Loach's defensive system he built that ranked as high as 3rd nationally in scoring defense in '03 that made up for it. Once in a blue moon we would have a breakout game in the Belt, but the numbers speak for themselves. During the 26 game conference streak, 20 of those game were wins of 10 points or less. I can't remember exactly since the last time I looked this up but it was something like 10 of those 26 were of 3 points or less. The difference? Our defense. As it dwindled, so did our team.

Stockstill beat us with similar to the same group of kids last saturday night that fumbled and intercepted their way into a loss to us last year. MTSU is only currently playing with 60 some odd scholarships due to the NCAA infractions brought upon them from their poor APR scores. He recruited 14 this year. In 9 months time he was able to completely bypass NT offensively and defensively, which is why I'm not completely buying into the arguement that our "TALENT" is so poor.

Offensively our system has always been poor and it's come to what we have now. The belt's other coaches, including Shnellenberger have finally caught on to what Southern Miss, Memphis, Colorado St and countless OOC oppoents new all along. Be patient, don't make mistakes and don't give a bunch of freebies that cause you to lose.

In 9 months.........NINE MONTHS RS turned McCollum's kids into possible champions.

Coaching, plain and simple. Coaching.

Rick

Travis · October 2, 2006

good article.

edcollopy · October 2, 2006

good take Rick....adjustments during a game and during halftime are such a huge part of coaching. When was the last time over the last 8 years you've said to your buddies, 'Dickey made some great adjustments to stop this, that, or take advantage of something'. Never....and the guy just doesn't bring the fire to the fan base at all. That is why STEBO's mention of Glanville fires me up..the guy may be nuts but it's publicity and he can get into homes.