Dickey, you showed why you were fired...

[Green Grenade II]

What a joke of a coach. All stupid black uniforms, and stupid mistakes and lousy play calling. After watching Ohio State beat Michigan in one of the most exciting finishes ever...I tuned into our game vs Florida Atlantic. Losing 17-16 is a fitting way for Dickey to go out of Fouts Field.

I will not be making the trip to Louisiana-Monroe. That should be one hellava crowd to witness Dickey's last trip on the sideline as a North Texas coach.

Onward and Upward...bring on our New Football Coach.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

What a joke of a coach. All stupid black uniforms, and stupid mistakes and lousy play calling. After watching Ohio State beat Michigan in one of the most exciting finishes ever...I tuned into our game vs Florida Atlantic. Losing 17-16 is a fitting way for Dickey to go out of Fouts Field.

I will not be making the trip to Louisiana-Monroe. That should be one hellava crowd to witness Dickey's last trip on the sideline as a North Texas coach.

Onward and Upward...bring on our New Football Coach.

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Was that game last night with those incredibly stupid uniforms on national or regional TV for many to see? Gosh I hope not.

[rcade]

I will not be making the trip to Louisiana-Monroe. That should be one hellava crowd to witness Dickey's last trip on the sideline as a North Texas coach.

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My bet is that we've already seen Dickey's last trip on the sideline as UNT coach.

[Eagle Man]

What a joke of a coach. All stupid black uniforms, and stupid mistakes and lousy play calling. After watching Ohio State beat Michigan in one of the most exciting finishes ever...I tuned into our game vs Florida Atlantic. Losing 17-16 is a fitting way for Dickey to go out of Fouts Field.

I will not be making the trip to Louisiana-Monroe. That should be one hellava crowd to witness Dickey's last trip on the sideline as a North Texas coach.

Onward and Upward...bring on our New Football Coach.

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I don't think it has sunk in yet to most people what a vindictive individual this man is. How he manipulated those kids into mocking the very institution that allows them to attend school for free is beyond me. The season ticket holders that I sat with were appalled. One man played football for UNT back in the fifties and drives in from Bowie Texas.

I have looked at that picture of Dickey standing with his arms crossed, dressed in black in front of the tunnel and to me personally it is a scary picture.

I pray that the University of North Texas takes actions against this insolent behavior by both the players and Dickey.

No way should this kind of behavior be exonerated by allowing this man on the sideline in Monroe this Saturday.

And please, don't remove my post this time. Nothing I have said is mean or derogatory. What Darrell Dickey did to everyone this Saturday night, who loves and has supported this school and team for years and the institution that pays his bills is unforgiving and should be delt with in a quick and authoritative manner.

[VideoEagle]

Please everyone just relax. This will pass once they start announcing teams for bowl games. Meanwhile, it is just an ugly thing we will just have to live through.

Removing DD for the last game will only make the bad publicity continue. The story for every media outlet everywhere is that NT is full of a bunch of ungrateful administrators and alumni. Removing DD for the last game or somehow punishing him for the black uniforms reinforces this story.

The 2000 to 2500 people who read this board might know otherwise, but no one else does and if DD is removed for the last game, no one else ever will because "the vindictive people at NT" will be the story.

That can only hurt our chances of landing a great next head coach. Punishing DD in anyway will only hurt those chances. More importantly, it will make US, not him, look petty.

Just let it all slide and in two weeks it's all over.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Please everyone just relax. This will pass once they start announcing teams for bowl games. Meanwhile, it is just an ugly thing we will just have to live through.

Removing DD for the last game will only make the bad publicity continue. The story for every media outlet everywhere is that NT is full of a bunch of ungrateful administrators and alumni. Removing DD for the last game or somehow punishing him for the black uniforms reinforces this story.

The 2000 to 2500 people who read this board might know otherwise, but no one else does and if DD is removed for the last game, no one else ever will because "the vindictive people at NT" will be the story.

That can only hurt our chances of landing a great next head coach. Punishing DD in anyway will only hurt those chances. More importantly, it will make US, not him, look petty.

Just let it all slide and in two weeks it's all over.

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Don't be shocked if this story of the Uniforms comes out throughout this week. I can almost guarantee you The Ticket will discuss it, and then the local medias will get something out of it.

[GreenBat]

Don't forget this is the MAN, who pimped out his head to Mattress Mac on National television.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Don't forget this is the MAN, who pimped out his head to Mattress Mac on National television.

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Speaking of MM, could someone send him this link and remind him that USC has one uped his coach's streak of consecutive titles:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/

[VideoEagle]

Don't be shocked if this story of the Uniforms comes out throughout this week.  I can almost guarantee you The Ticket will discuss it, and then the local medias will get something out of it.

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What we need is something to knock it off the landscape. And NT hiring a new coach is not going to do that. But the start of bowl game announcements will. Hell, much as I hate the idea, SMU making a bowl right now would be the news story we want!

If we announced a new coach next week, the fact we fired DD after being the first coach to take us to 4 bowl games - ever - is going to be paragraph two. Paragraph three at the best.

We need bowl game announcements to distract everyone. Let those happen, then announce a coach.

Please announce it at 10:30am on a Tuesday - the slowest news day of the week! It has a chance to become the biggest local sports story of the day then. It leads the noon and 5 and had a good chance to lead the 6. If it leads noon, 5 and 6 it automatically leads the 10 as it's a big story.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Hire Todd Dodge, and you won't have to worry about there only being a 2 - 3 paragraph story. That hire will give us plenty of stories.

[VideoEagle]

Hire Todd Dodge, and you won't have to worry about there only being a 2 - 3 paragraph story.  That hire will give us plenty of stories.

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Yes, including

"North Texas compounds firing of the only coach to get them to four bowl games with the hiring of a high school coach to replace him. New coach Todd Dodge's only college experience was as the offensive coordinator previously failed head coach ... While Todd Dodge has been extremely successful in Texas high school ranks, no high school coach has ever jumped directly to a Divsion 1A college head coach position and taken that team to a bowl."

Not the headline we really want. Not the headline we want to have to recruit against, especially for a guy who has not had to actually recruit in over a decade.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Not the headline we really want. Not the headline we want to have to recruit against, especially for a guy who has not had to actually recruit in over a decade.

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Got any better suggestions VE? Good positive way of looking at the future there...I like it. You're right though, why the heck would we want to hire a high school coach?

Just so you know, Arkansas hired a high school coach, that learned half of what he knows from Dodge. When hired, the entire National media said "hiring a high school coach to be your OC in the SEC will never work". Twice this season he has been named the Coordinator of the week and the national media can't get enough of him.

True, he was hired as the OC, and Dodge would be the head guy, but UNT is in a conference far from the SEC, with teams at the bottom of the NCAA. It would take some time, and we wouldn't be bowling more than likely next season, but you would be hard pressed to find any ONE national media person, or local for that matter that would have said Arkansas would be #5 in the country, at 10 - 1 now with a "high school" coach as their OC. Besides, our next coach will be hard pressed to get us to a bowl game next year, reguardless of who it is.

Edited November 20, 2006 by GoMeanGreen1999

[VideoEagle]

Got any better suggestions VE?  Good positive way of looking at the future there...I like it.  You're right though, why the heck would we want to hire a high school coach? 

Just so you know, Arkansas hired a high school coach, that learned half of what he knows from Dodge.  When hired, the entire National media said "hiring a high school coach to be your OC in the SEC will never work".  Twice this season he has been named the Coordinator of the week and the national media can't get enough of him. 

True, he was hired as the OC, and Dodge would be the head guy, but UNT is in a conference far from the SEC, with teams at the bottom of the NCAA.  It would take some time, and we wouldn't be bowling more than likely next season, but you would be hard pressed to find any ONE national media person, or local for that matter that would have said Arkansas would be #5 in the country, at 10 - 1 now with a "high school" coach as their OC.  Besides, our next coach will be hard pressed to get us to a bowl game next year, reguardless of who it is.

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First, I think you misunderstood. I wasn't writing that no high school coach who jumped directly to a 1A head coach position ever got their team to a bowl in one year. From what I've been able to find through a limited web search is no high school coach who jumped to a 1A head coaching position has ever gotten their team to a bowl period. They are fired for not winning enough college games before they ever get a chance at a bowl. The web is not the best for searching this sort of thing, so I hope I'm worng here.

Second, OC or DC is very close to what a high school coach does. It's an Xs and Os position. A head coach is manager/cheerleader/fundraiser/recruiter. The only one of those jobs most HS coaches spend anytime on is manager. And what they are managing is like comparing a fast food restaurant to a small chain of restaurants. NT needs the cheerleader/fundraiser/recruiter NOT, not someone who has to learn on the job.

Comparing a coordinator to the head coach is like comparing a cost accountant to a corporate controller. The accountant can grow into the position of controller. But the skill set to be the cost accountant is completely different than the controller. And you would not promote a bookkeeper to the controller slot without some (often a lot of) time in the cost slot!

[FirefightnRick]

Here's someone who went bowling in their first year as head coach, only two years removed from HS.

Rick

[risinggreen]

First, I think you misunderstood. I wasn't writing that no high school coach who jumped directly to a 1A head coach position ever got their team to a bowl in one year. From what I've been able to find through a limited web search is no high school coach who jumped to a 1A head coaching position has ever gotten their team to a bowl period. They are fired for not winning enough college games before they ever get a chance at a bowl. The web is not the best for searching this sort of thing, so I hope I'm worng here.

Second, OC or DC is very close to what a high school coach does. It's an Xs and Os position. A head coach is manager/cheerleader/fundraiser/recruiter. The only one of those jobs most HS coaches spend anytime on is manager. And what they are managing is like comparing a fast food restaurant to a small chain of restaurants. NT needs the cheerleader/fundraiser/recruiter NOT, not someone who has to learn on the job.

Comparing a coordinator to the head coach is like comparing a cost accountant to a corporate controller. The accountant can grow into the position of controller. But the skill set to be the cost accountant is completely different than the controller. And you would not promote a bookkeeper to the controller slot without some (often a lot of) time in the cost slot!

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???

Somehow I think that Notre Dame has always been 1A, and the most famous high school to 1A college coach that I can think of took the Irish to bowl games in his 3rd and 4th years. His name is Gerry Faust. Dodge taking us to a bowl game would certainly not be unprecedented. Btw, when I worked in industry I went from a corporate tax manager to a corporate controller. It worked out just fine.

[foutsrouts]

???

Somehow I think that Notre Dame has always been 1A, and the most famous high school to 1A college coach that I can think of took the Irish to bowl games in his 3rd and 4th years. His name is Gerry Faust. Dodge taking us to a bowl game would certainly not be unprecedented. Btw, when I worked in industry I went from a corporate tax manager to a corporate controller. It worked out just fine.

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Yeah Faust was controversial because of VERY high expectations at ND back then, but he did take them to a couple of bowl games during his fairly brief tenure. Unlike Dodge, I don't think he had a bit of college coaching experience when he arrived in South Bend. I think TD is ready to move on up and I hope we get him.

[VideoEagle]

???

Somehow I think that Notre Dame has always been 1A, and the most famous high school to 1A college coach that I can think of took the Irish to bowl games in his 3rd and 4th years. His name is Gerry Faust. Dodge taking us to a bowl game would certainly not be unprecedented. Btw, when I worked in industry I went from a corporate tax manager to a corporate controller. It worked out just fine.

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You are correct with Gerry Faust! I stopped searching in the 80s and didn’t go back to the 70s. He is the only coach to successfully jump directly from HS to major college football head coach. It wasn’t called 1A back then as their was no 1AA yet.

Art Briles did not jump directly from high school head coach to a Division 1A head coach job. Briles spent two years with a very successful Texas Tech program leaning todays college game as an assistant. Dodge‘s last college experience was over a decade ago with under a failed college coach!

I’m all for Dodge as OC! Let him learn the job before you hand him the keys. Did anyone see that awful sales video he did? He couldn’t see water in the desert right now, but with some training I think he’ll get better.

North Texas can’t afford to have someone who needs to learn how to inspire the alumni. We don’t have time for someone to learn how to run a recruiting system. We someone who can go out in the community and get donations immediately. While I’m sure Dodge can learn how to do these things in time, neither he nor Major Applewhite have ever actually done them.

We need a head coach, not a head coach in training.

Edited November 20, 2006 by VideoEagle

[FirefightnRick]

Dodge‘s last college experience was over a decade ago with under a failed college coach!

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Dodges' offense during the '92 and '93 season averaged 28 points a game. The head coach may have been a failure but TD's offense wasn't. He coached Maher and Redwine, both in the NT HOF, I would say he's improved upon a few things since that time.

Rick

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

Comparing a coordinator to the head coach is like comparing a cost accountant to a corporate controller. The accountant can grow into the position of controller. But the skill set to be the cost accountant is completely different than the controller. And you would not promote a bookkeeper to the controller slot without some (often a lot of) time in the cost slot!

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Whoa! Wrong analogy.

If you are going to use accounting in your analogy, then it is more like the controller of a small company vs. the controller of a Fortune 500 company. The cost accountant would be more like an assistant coach, responsible for one function only, and with authority only over his group.

A coordinator is only responsible for one area of the team...offense, defense, or special teams. If he is the Offensive Coordinator he is not really concerned with what the others are doing, only the opponent. A head coach, at any level, must know the strengths and weaknesses of all positions and try to use them accordingly.

Having been a head coach is much more important to me than just having been a coordinator, even though some coordinators have little trouble adapting. Then we saw that Dickey, who had never been a head coach, had trouble learning to succeed in areas like strategy, clock management, discipline, etc.

[mwynn05]

You are correct with Gerry Faust! I stopped searching in the 80s and didn’t go back to the 70s. He is the only coach to successfully jump directly from HS to major college football head coach. It wasn’t called 1A back then as their was no 1AA yet.

Art Briles did not jump directly from high school head coach to a Division 1A head coach job. Briles spent two years with a very successful Texas Tech program leaning todays college game as an assistant. Dodge‘s last college experience was over a decade ago with under a failed college coach!

I’m all for Dodge as OC! Let him learn the job before you hand him the keys. Did anyone see that awful sales video he did? He couldn’t see water in the desert right now, but with some training I think he’ll get better.

North Texas can’t afford to have someone who needs to learn how to inspire the alumni. We don’t have time for someone to learn how to run a recruiting system. We someone who can go out in the community and get donations immediately. While I’m sure Dodge can learn how to do these things in time, neither he nor Major Applewhite have ever actually done them.

We need a head coach, not a head coach in training.

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I hate to bust your bubble and this might piss some people off but North Texas is not major college football..not even close really...and todd dodge isnt your ordinary head coach sometimes you have to take a chance

Edited November 20, 2006 by mwynn05

[MeanGreenZen]

"North Texas compounds firing of the only coach to get them to four bowl games with the hiring of a high school coach to replace him. New coach Todd Dodge's only college experience was as the offensive coordinator previously failed head coach ... While Todd Dodge has been extremely successful in Texas high school ranks, no high school coach has ever jumped directly to a Divsion 1A college head coach position and taken that team to a bowl."

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Yeah, and Jesus was just a jewish carpenter, right? You can find a way to describe anyone in unimpressive terms.

As far as no high school coach jumping directly to a Division 1A head coaching gig... have you ever heard of thinking outside the box? Or of going down the path less traveled?

UNT does not have the resources of other institutions therefore we must make riskier moves to compete against them.

How did the Mavs go from the worst franchise in sports to the NBA Finals? They built their team around a jump-shooting 7-foot European at a time when it was believed that foreign players could not dominate the NBA.

North Texas must take risks to improve its place in the Division IA hierarchy. Hiring Todd Dodge would be a calculated risk worth taking.

[VideoEagle]

Hiring Todd Dodge would be a calculated risk worth taking.

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Kind of like betting the future of the program on a spin of the roulette wheel. I know long shots do come in sometimes.

And don’t get me wrong, he might be the first guy in 30 years to successfully jump directly from high school to college. But why to the extreme risk when there are other guys out there who know the job already.

[medpilot21]

Dodges' offense during the '92 and '93 season averaged 28 points a game.    The head coach may have been a failure but TD's offense wasn't.  He coached Maher and Redwine, both in the NT HOF, I would say he's improved upon a few things since that time.

Rick

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Indeed he has.. Todd Dodge has not only polished the spread offense, but he has also improved on the QB "quick-release". THAT is why Southlake Carroll QB's dont get sacked very often... the ball is already gone when the defensive player gets back there. Both of those aspects of play are huge improvments over what NT does now. Maybe it takes Dodge two recruiting years to get the peices he wants, but I'm patient enough to wait that out. Some talent we already have... offensive "know-how"?, that's where we are lacking. Our current play-calling "Genuis" will be gone, so we have that to look forward to. I think NT football will be just fine.

The odds are still a long-shot that we could ever get Todd Dodge to come here, but he has expressed interest. RV would have to up the money and say all the right things. I trust Rick V. to do whatever it takes to make this team better. I cant think of anyone who would bring more excitement and interest to NT football than Todd Dodge. I'm sure RV has considerred every possible option.

The waiting game is on... SLC is hunting ANOTHER State Title, so it may be a week or two before RV can really go after TD.

GMG!!!

[mwynn05]

Kind of like betting the future of the program on a spin of the roulette wheel. I know long shots do come in sometimes.

And don’t get me wrong, he might be the first guy in 30 years to successfully jump directly from high school to college. But why to the extreme risk when there are other guys out there who know the job already.

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How much further can we go were at the bottom of the worst conference in America right now

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

One of the greatest coaches of all time, Paul Brown, went from Washington High School in Massillon, Ohio to Ohio State University as head coach. After becoming a legend at Miami (OH) he became the coach of the Cleveland Browns (named after him) and later Cincinnati. He was inducted into both the college Hall of Fame and the pro football Hall of Fame.

Yes, I know that was more than 60 years ago but it can and has been successful.