Who Put Together The Better Class?

emmitt01 · May 25, 2007

JJ or Todge?

Just wondering who everyone thought put together the better recruiting class. Given their team's relative needs, potential impact players, ability to translate players into conference titles and postseason berths, etc...

agw0038 · May 25, 2007

JJ or Todge?
Just wondering who everyone thought put together the better recruiting class. Given their team's relative needs, potential impact players, ability to translate players into conference titles and postseason berths, etc...

I think TD put together a pretty good class considering his lack of time. JJ, however, had the better recruiting class. We(basketball) were actually in the race to get good players and we got some. Next year, (depending on TD's success more or less), the football class will be extremely talented. And trying to as positive as possible, if JJ is able to either repeat or increase his success his class will be great.

PlummMeanGreen · May 25, 2007

I think TD put together a pretty good class considering his lack of time. JJ, however, had the better recruiting class. We(basketball) were actually in the race to get good players and we got some. Next year, (depending on TD's success more or less), the football class will be extremely talented. And trying to as positive as possible, if JJ is able to either repeat or increase his success his class will be great.

Ditto...

Can't wait to see UNT win a 1'st round game (and even beyond) in the Big Dance in my lifetime and I hope JJ is the one who pulls it off.

Todd Dodge with comparable facilities as most of the other 9 Texas D1-A football schools will (in due time) work miracles in Mean Green Country. We just need to make sure his teams play before record crowds and many things and modus operendis will have to change for that to take place. We already know where a bunch of new fans will be coming from (with their HS whose colors are also green and white).

Edited May 25, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

Charlie NT 73 · May 25, 2007

I can not make a decision on the better of the two classes-

I beleive both are outstanding classes, that reflects alot of hard work, and the value that

both Coach Jones and Coach Dodge bring to NT!

Their efforts prove that top quality athletes will go to school at NT!

The recruiting of top tier atletes will become better and better every year. Add in winning

seasons, bowl appearences/NCAA bids, throw in a new FB and Baseball

stadiums, WOW! The future of North Texas is in good hands!

DeepGreen · May 25, 2007

Todd Dodge with comparable facilities as most of the other 9 Texas D1-A football schools will (in due time) work miracles in Mean Green Country.

My fear is that TD will have success at NT within a few years. Sadly, he will be gone long before we even start a new stadium on Eagle Point.

SilverEagle · May 25, 2007

My fear is that TD will have success at NT within a few years. Sadly, he will be gone long before we even start a new stadium on Eagle Point.

It'll only be sad if we don't avail ourselves of the opportunity to increase our fan base during these positive times with TD as head coach.

RV should already be looking around for the next up-and-coming coach who has a positive attitude, a great ability to interact with the students/fans/alumni, and who puts an exciting brand of football on the field.

We tend to put too much on one guy. We need to make sure that the decision/policy makers are in place that gave us TD in the first place. As long as we have Dr. B and RV running things, we should be fine.

To illustrate my point. I had a chance to talk with a very knowledgable alum after the spring game. I asked him who's idea it was to hire Hayden Fry. He said that it was Jitter Nolan's idea. That confirmed what I always suspected. Not long after Fry left (or maybe at the same time), the "old nesters" at North Texas ran off Jitter Nolan. Shortly after that, we quickly retreated back to "old attitudes" about sports. It was only a few years after that that we moved down to 1-AA, and the "powers-that-be/old nesters" didn't seem to care.

So, it was the "decision makers" that put us behind in sports all those years. We need to be as worried about keeping Dr. B and RV as we are about keeping TD.

PlummMeanGreen · May 26, 2007

It'll only be sad if we don't avail ourselves of the opportunity to increase our fan base during these positive times with TD as head coach.
RV should already be looking around for the next up-and-coming coach who has a positive attitude, a great ability to interact with the students/fans/alumni, and who puts an exciting brand of football on the field.
We tend to put too much on one guy. We need to make sure that the decision/policy makers are in place that gave us TD in the first place. As long as we have Dr. B and RV running things, we should be fine.
To illustrate my point. I had a chance to talk with a very knowledgable alum after the spring game. I asked him who's idea it was to hire Hayden Fry. He said that it was Jitter Nolan's idea. That confirmed what I always suspected. Not long after Fry left (or maybe at the same time), the "old nesters" at North Texas ran off Jitter Nolan. Shortly after that, we quickly retreated back to "old attitudes" about sports. It was only a few years after that that we moved down to 1-AA, and the "powers-that-be/old nesters" didn't seem to care.
So, it was the "decision makers" that put us behind in sports all those years. We need to be as worried about keeping Dr. B and RV as we are about keeping TD.

Good post...

It's always been about "personalities" that turn programs around. Tim Fitzpatrick once hired by Helwig showed what he could do with all his talents and contacts. Thats why Fry had some success and this at a time when UNT didn't have near the resources we have today, such an enrollment almost twice as large as when Fry was in Denton and Denton County now closing in on 600,000 citizens. Heck, Denton County during the Fry Era was considered a rural county as I recall reading that description of it in a mid 1970's Texas Almanac.

Each & every one of us can only do so much, ie, make sure our butts are in seats for most or all games and give what our budgets allow us to give, but it is so few of our group (if any) who have access to all the ammo that our paid staffers do have at their disposal at UNT.

OUR ATTENDANCE MUST START TO GROW DRAMATICALLY............I figure we will pick up from the git-go a minimum of 2,000 +/- new fans from around the Greater Southlake area since many in that area hold Todd Dodge in such high esteem and will want to support him (probably more than UNT at the beginnning); but from many of that same group we will have "keeper fans" who will support UNT even when Todd Dodge takes another HFC's assignment in 10 or so years. :rolleyes: We should all hope we could pick up 2,000 new faces from each of these groups: City of Denton, Denton County (outside Denton city limits) and our DFW Metroplex NT Exes base. What would 6,000 new fans from those groups do for our usual annual attendance? You all know the answer to that question.

Like many of you have posted many times and in different ways but the theme always the same: We do need to strike now while the iron is hot in Mean Green Country!

Edited May 26, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

emmitt01 · May 26, 2007

Good post...
It's always been about "personalities" that turn programs around. Tim Fitzpatrick once hired by Helwig showed what he could do with all his talents and contacts. Thats why Fry had some success and this at a time when UNT didn't have near the resources we have today, such an enrollment almost twice as large as when Fry was in Denton and Denton County now closing in on 600,000 citizens. Heck, Denton County during the Fry Era was considered a rural county as I recall reading that description of it in a mid 1970's Texas Almanac.
Each & every one of us can only do so much, ie, make sure our butts are in seats for most or all games and give what our budgets allow us to give, but it is so few of our group (if any) who have access to all the ammo that our paid staffers do have at their disposal at UNT.
OUR ATTENDANCE MUST START TO GROW DRAMATICALLY............I figure we will pick up from the git-go a minimum of 2,000 +/- new fans from around the Greater Southlake area since many in that area hold Todd Dodge in such high esteem and will want to support him (probably more than UNT at the beginnning); but from many of that same group we will have "keeper fans" who will support UNT even when Todd Dodge takes another HFC's assignment in 10 or so years. We should all hope we could pick up 2,000 new faces from each of these groups: City of Denton, Denton County (outside Denton city limits) and our DFW Metroplex NT Exes base. What would 6,000 new fans from those groups do for our usual annual attendance? You all know the answer to that question.
Like many of you have posted many times and in different ways but the theme always the same: We do need to strike now while the iron is hot in Mean Green Country!

Amazing. Simply amazing. A post posing a question about recruiting classes becomes a carbon copy of 1,000 other threads about needing to grow the fan base and the shortcomings of past administrations.

May 26, 2007

On paper, this is no contest. JJ got #s 18 and 19 in Texas from one year and #40 from another. He got arguably the best point guard in Louisiana and the #14 3-point shooter in the JC ranks. Pretty remarkable considering most of the highly touted players had already committed before North Texas got to capitalize on its NCAA tournament appearance.

The football team can't match those numbers. Then again, they made not need to. They also started late but wound up with a class of solid players. Other than maybe Tomlinson, there are no projects here. While football may not have had the better class, I firmly believe that the football recruiting class will advance their team as high or higher than the basketball class will be able to.

PlummMeanGreen · May 26, 2007

Amazing. Simply amazing. A post posing a question about recruiting classes becomes a carbon copy of 1,000 other threads about needing to grow the fan base and the shortcomings of past administrations.

AND I AIN'T THROUGH, YET, ALL YOU YOUNG GUN ALUMS! :lol:

UNSOLICITED OLD MAN TALK COMIN' ATCHHA' : :rolleyes: Emmitt, wait till you & your era get closer to age 60 and when you all have well over 30 plus years of the kind of Mean Green roller-coaster ride many of us older farts have been riding. All of this under several UNT presidents as we skipped about in and out of 2 different NCAA classification levels (heaven forbid that ever happens again) with the sum total of several decades of following all this not really adding up to the kind of numbers (impressive OOC wins?) most of us had really hoped for.

Also, with those truly significant OOC (national) wins that just never seemed to ever fall in our corner such as they did for such schools as La Tech, Boise State, etc, etc, with all this specifically in football since that is my favorite sport just as basketball seems to have an fine line edge over football as yours, Emmitt); anyway, many would have hoped for much more for our alma mater of which whose growth on campus, in Denton and in Denton County just never seemed to ever manifests itself in a similar way as far as Mean Green athletics was concerned. (I won't go into the 15K per home game diatribe).

MARTYREDOM CONTINUES :unsure: ................Hellsbells, some from your era, E01, if they had to go thru what some from my era (and many before) had experienced might have to schedule intense talk it out sessions with Dr. Phil (I know, still sounding a bit, uh, "martyre'esque" with some of this); anyway, as our era and before all held onto to hope after hope after hope with each major athletic staff change of which each of those new regimes of past decades seemed to always give us................... promises, promises, promises.........of which very few were ever fulfilled.

AN EXERCISE IN FERTILITY: :blink: (Whoops! I mean't...............futility, of course). :huh:

OK, everyone that this applies, please go up to the chalkboard now & write 500 X's: :blink:

"I WILL NOT READ POSTS POSTED BY PMG."

"I WILL NOT READ POSTS POSTED BY PMG." (Don't forget the "quotation marks" either).

OK now...............you all with chalk in hand still have 498 more to go. :rolleyes:

Seriously, I guess I have to add this question: What could ever be the reason to compare 2 UNT coaches' recruiting classes; that is, comparing a class of one coach who doesn't even have 1 season under his belt as compared to another coach that has been on the UNT payroll for over a half-decade now? No biggie with that question, just curious..............that's all.

Edited May 26, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

SilverEagle · May 26, 2007

Amazing. Simply amazing. A post posing a question about recruiting classes becomes a carbon copy of 1,000 other threads about needing to grow the fan base and the shortcomings of past administrations.

Next time you might want to save yourself a little time and just send GrayEagleone a PM. He's the only one who gave a specific response.

GrandGreen · May 26, 2007

Back to the original question. If you compare directly I think JJ's class is better. But JJ is on his sixth year and his recruiting should be much better than a first year coach who was hired very late in the season. Also don't get tied up with number in state ratings, a top 10 in Louisiana is what comparable to a top 50 in Texas. Likewise a top 25 basketball player in Texas is not comparable to a top 25 football player were there are 6.5 times as many ships available. NT has signed several basketball players in the top 25 in the last decade and not anyone close to that in football.

As one that was worried about NT late start in BB recruiting, I think that JJ has done very well with what should be his best class ever. However, although I think all these players will contribute, I still remember last year's class which was also hailed as JJ's best. Neither of the two most heralded recruits Muse and Fleming ever touched the court in a game and another was damaged goods making that class very mediocre. However, I think many knew that both Muse and Fleming were risky signings, I have not heard that about any of this year's class.

Despite the ratings, I think both the football and basketball classes should prove to be as good as any in the Belt.