Playing Devil's Advocate

[emmitt01]

It seems the prevailing wisdom, even on this board, is that Todge will stick around for a few years...maybe 4 or 5...then run off to join the "big time" as OC or HC or UT or something like that. Here are a few questions I've had rattling around in my head:

1)Why is it out of the question that Todge sticks around to make this HIS program? Why couldn't he be our Joe Pa or Bobby Bowden? The conjecture is that the university will soon enough be giving him a new stadium to recruit to, he's bringing in higher quality athletes, and it's possible...yes possible...that our fan base may finally awaken and give him the kind of support we've deserved for a while. Why is it out of the realm of possibility that with the wins and increased fan support will come more money to keep his salary competitive and possibly even a better conference for him to recruit to. Honestly I've gotta think that with a CUSA slot, a new stadium and a salary in the 500-750k range he could stick around here and become our new "legend"* Those with a sports memory over 20 years old will recall when Bowden turned FSU from also ran to powerhouse. You think the "big boys" didn't come calling just a few times? And he stuck around to make himself synonomous with Seminole football.

2)When Todge walks into a recruits living room how can the following question not have come up..."Coach I'd love to play for you but will you even be around when I'm a Junior or Senior?" If he plans to jump ship soon how has he been selling NT to these early commits? Is it possible that he's been telling them "Come to Denton where we'll build something special TOGETHER."

*Please Plumm and the rest of you take your heart medication. I know this school only has room for one "legendary" coach but I think Hayden will understand.

Edited July 4, 2007 by emmitt01

[NTPhiKap99]

God I hope your right I think everyone on the board is praying you are. But conventional wisdom says he won't stay long for ever Bowden there's 100 guys who jump for money and a bigger stage.

[Green Mean]

It seems the prevailing wisdom, even on this board, is that Todge will stick around for a few years...maybe 4 or 5...then run off to join the "big time" as OC or HC or UT or something like that. Here are a few questions I've had rattling around in my head:

1)Why is it out of the question that Todge sticks around to make this HIS program? Why couldn't he be our Joe Pa or Bobby Bowden? The conjecture is that the university will soon enough be giving him a new stadium to recruit to, he's bringing in higher quality athletes, and it's possible...yes possible...that our fan base may finally awaken and give him the kind of support we've deserved for a while. Why is it out of the realm of possibility that with the wins and increased fan support will come more money to keep his salary competitive and possibly even a better conference for him to recruit to. Honestly I've gotta think that with a CUSA slot, a new stadium and a salary in the 500-750k range he could stick around here and become our new "legend"* Those with a sports memory over 20 years old will recall when Bowden turned FSU from also ran to powerhouse. You think the "big boys" didn't come calling just a few times? And he stuck around to make himself synonomous with Seminole football.

2)When Todge walks into a recruits living room how can the following question not have come up..."Coach I'd love to play for you but will you even be around when I'm a Junior or Senior?" If he plans to jump ship soon how has he been selling NT to these early commits? Is it possible that he's been telling them "Come to Denton where we'll build something special TOGETHER."

*Please Plumm and the rest of you take your heart medication. I know this school only has room for one "legendary" coach but I think Hayden will understand.

You are absolutely right Emmitt....there is a chance TD can be our Bowden, JOEPA, etc. I think that will all depend on the UNT administration and how much support they are willing to give to this program including his salary if he really is what we hope he can be. If we always look for the cheap and not decide to pay him his salary even though the school and university has strived with him then its obvious he will leave. I believe to be a big boy you gotta play like the big boys. Right now we are a very small boy and at some point we will have to make that transition and play bigger than our size and eventually we will become bigger and ultimately hopefully a consistent top 25 school. In this case its not so much what TD can do for the University....but what the University can do for TD if he really is the stud we all want and hope he is on the field every saturday.

[eulesseagle]

IMHO, Coach Dodge will be with UNT for at least 5-6 years because:

1. His daughter is in 8th grade and will most likely attend SLC until she graduates.

2. His wife attended UNT.

3. He was an assistant at UNT in the 90's.

4. Riley will be with dad as long as it takes for him to graduate even if red shirted in his freshman year.

5. If I am not mistaken his father or father-in-law is in a nursing facility in McKinney.

[good_ken]

IMHO, Coach Dodge will be with UNT for at least 5-6 years because:

1. His daughter is in 8th grade and will most likely attend SLC until she graduates.

2. His wife attended UNT.

3. He was an assistant at UNT in the 90's.

4. Riley will be with dad as long as it takes for him to graduate even if red shirted in his freshman year.

5. If I am not mistaken his father or father-in-law is in a nursing facility in McKinney.

I think that in order to keep him from running off to another school, your post tells me that we have 5-6 years to show him why he should stay. That would be filling the stadium, joining the MGC club, etc....doing our part as students / fans / alumni.

[NTPhiKap99]

IMHO, Coach Dodge will be with UNT for at least 5-6 years because:

1. His daughter is in 8th grade and will most likely attend SLC until she graduates.

2. His wife attended UNT.

3. He was an assistant at UNT in the 90's.

4. Riley will be with dad as long as it takes for him to graduate even if red shirted in his freshman year.

5. If I am not mistaken his father or father-in-law is in a nursing facility in McKinney.

Ok so we think we should beable to hold on to him for atleast 5-6 years. If Riley red-shirts that means his daughter should be a freshman during Riley senior year. Any chance she plays softball, soccer or something and if so can we make an offer NOW. If so maybe we can lock him down for 10 years and after that whats another 10-20 years.

[GreenBat]

I think that in order to keep him from running off to another school, your post tells me that we have 5-6 years to show him why he should stay. That would be filling the stadium, joining the MGC club, etc....doing our part as students / fans / alumni.

DITTO!!!!!

[GrandGreen]

I guess there is not a possibility that we could refain from posting about when we will lose TD until he at least coaches one season.

[PlummMeanGreen]

It seems the prevailing wisdom, even on this board, is that Todge will stick around for a few years...maybe 4 or 5...then run off to join the "big time" as OC or HC or UT or something like that. Here are a few questions I've had rattling around in my head:

1)Why is it out of the question that Todge sticks around to make this HIS program? Why couldn't he be our Joe Pa or Bobby Bowden? The conjecture is that the university will soon enough be giving him a new stadium to recruit to, he's bringing in higher quality athletes, and it's possible...yes possible...that our fan base may finally awaken and give him the kind of support we've deserved for a while. Why is it out of the realm of possibility that with the wins and increased fan support will come more money to keep his salary competitive and possibly even a better conference for him to recruit to. Honestly I've gotta think that with a CUSA slot, a new stadium and a salary in the 500-750k range he could stick around here and become our new "legend"* Those with a sports memory over 20 years old will recall when Bowden turned FSU from also ran to powerhouse. You think the "big boys" didn't come calling just a few times? And he stuck around to make himself synonomous with Seminole football.

2)When Todge walks into a recruits living room how can the following question not have come up..."Coach I'd love to play for you but will you even be around when I'm a Junior or Senior?" If he plans to jump ship soon how has he been selling NT to these early commits? Is it possible that he's been telling them "Come to Denton where we'll build something special TOGETHER."

*Please Plumm and the rest of you take your heart medication. I know this school only has room for one "legendary" coach but I think Hayden will understand.

Come on now, Emmitt, use that good UNT education to understand that some of us "old timers" would have loved for each & every one of Fry's successors to have raised the bar with each making it higher and making better our Mean Green football program.

FWIW................many of us on this board became Mean Green football fans because of Hayden Fry so we hardly apologize for that and for what all we witnessed first-hand--Fry Ball is still for many our golden era because of who his teams played and actually beat once in a while. We have received so little respect from Texans (and CUSA officials?) across our great state for beating schools in the SBC; really hard for some to face up to that fact, but that's how its all played out for us. Even one bowl down in Houston over-looked MG football after a 4 years in a row bowl run--talk about your major insults from some of our own here in the Lone Star State.

In fact, what lack of true D1 football facilities Fry did not have in Denton probably made his accomplishment even greater (since he "only" competed against Texas universities that "sadly enough" made ours in Denton look like a rough hewn mobile home park). We are still in facilities catch-up mode I think most would agree.

Yet we have NT Exes from times gone-by all hoping coaches who succeeded Coach Fry would improve upon his success being a major reason some of us even stuck around--non-stop bad hires and all for decades at UNT.

YET.................all one has to do is look at our school's past decades turnstile numbers to understand that it should be obvious that thousands of our fellow alums (from the Fry Era--before and after) chose not to continue with these UNT athletics roller coaster rides that we had become too accustomed , but FWIW....

.....all of us on all that heart medication want Todd Dodge to lower all our blood pressure and give us what we all really had hoped "any" of Hayden Fry's successors (maybe at least one of them?) would have given us as a higher profile and at a non-Bottom 25 college football co-existance (which is what we've been mired in for way too long for those who want to face the music with that cold harsh fact).

Todd Dodge's hiring could not have come at a better time for many of us; one of which is a poster on this forum that had been following MG football since the 1940's. DD Ball (and attitude) had all but killed his own Mean Green spirit. I am glad he and others (like myself) have had that spirit revitalized giving us a much-needed new outlook and attitude about Mean Green football because (after all) it has been a passion to many of us most our adult lives.

(Excuse me while I get the old heart monitor out now).

PS: Does the new signature statement below sound like an NT Ex & admittedly proud Fry disciple who is still stuck in some kind of time warp from an era long gone by?

GMG!

Edited July 4, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Here are my thoughts, but take them with a grain of salt:

1. I don't think Dodge will be here longer than 5 years, because I believe either one of two things will happen. The first being that he is not able to make the transition from high school to college. I don't think this will happen, but it could very easily happen since the jump is a hard jump to make. That being said, I don't think if he comes in and has tremendous success like we all hope he will, that he will be able to stay here for many reasons. I doubt very seriously that Todd Graham will be at Tulsa very long for many of the same reasons. We are not in a Power conference for starters. We don't have a stadium that will hold or for that matter get in attendence of 50,000 plus which I think is where Dodge will end up. IF, and this is an if here, if he does as well as we think he will, I believe he will eventually end up at UT his alma mater. As much as I would love for us to do this, I don't see us EVER moving up in conferences higher than about Conf. USA. I think we could be a Boise State, but look how coaches move through there. Joe Pa and Bowden are at schools that were in the larger conferences.

2. As for recruits, you can make this statement about any school. Coaches in college move from school to school every year after making promises and kids still go there.

Just my thoughts.

[Cr1028]

At some point Billy Gillespie syndrome sets in.

[foutsrouts]

I agree that it is pretty lame to talk about his departure before he has even coached one game, but I guess I'll bite since there isn't a whole lot to discuss before two a days. I personally think that we have an excelllent chance of retaining the guy for the long-term. With any success at all over the coming couple of years, I expect that he will be attracting HUGE interest from the top prospects in this state. When the new stadium rears its beautiful head, it will even add more likelihood that he will develop a high level of love for this great university. I am being called for dinner at the moment, but I also think that the SL connection will be very beneficial to the whole situation. Just think, five thousand new fans from SL that ONLY pay ten bucks a piece for five games will more than cover his current salary. Kind of makes ya think. Happy fourth!

[shutter]

This topic was the first thing out of the mouth of my Louisville neighbor, " He will be around until he gets a better offer. NT will be just a stepping stone." This frustrates me so much. There is no reason a good coach has to move on and if he does lets hope the seeds of a strong program will be planted and the expectation raised so NT can continue to progress as a huge state school should.

shut

[CaribbeanGreen]

As much as I would love for us to do this, I don't see us EVER moving up in conferences higher than about Conf. USA. I think we could be a Boise State, but look how coaches move through there. Joe Pa and Bowden are at schools that were in the larger conferences.

Over/Under on when PMG drops the hammer??? I'll set it at 40 minutes, and I'll take the under.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Over/Under on when PMG drops the hammer??? I'll set it at 40 minutes, and I'll take the under.

Name me one school that has gone from a conference like we are in now, to one of the big 6 conferences in the last 15 years? If we did, it would be great, I just don't see it ever happening...not in the college sports enviornment of today.

Edited July 5, 2007 by GoMeanGreen1999

[PlummMeanGreen]

Name me one school that has gone from a conference like we are in now, to one of the big 6 conferences in the last 15 years? If we did, it would be great, I just don't see it ever happening...not in the college sports enviornment of today.

Boise State U Really Did Us All A Huge Favor...Didn't They Make Our Own Recruiting A Tad Easier Truth Be Known?

Come on now fellow foot soldiers & grunts, how many of us ever thought that it would be a former Big West school (and conference-mate of UNT) that would be the 1'st non-BCS school to win a BCS Championship Series Bowl game (and against the OU Sooners to boot)? To do that, they had to transcend (and basically ignore) all the "they'll never be able to raise themselves up beyond the low aspiration and goals of the WAC" crowd of which that group is a dime a dozen (somewhat like some of our group). And again, they did all of the aforementioned as a member of the WAC.

FWIW.................with all our eventual ducks (facilities) in a row, I like UNT's chances of getting in a BCS Championship Series Bowl as much as Baylors, Texas Tech, SMU, UTEP, etc, etc, etc, because all we have to do is get the stadium, get our masses (regulars and border-liners) excited about sitting inside our new football palace (and watching Dodge-Ball); also, UNT probably needs to tweak our OOC schedule to get a few Top 25 schools on it in the near future (whereas we also beat a few of those OOC biggies instead of cowering down to them) and with a few more things falling in place, we can get into a BCS bowl. Seems much of this was Boise States modus operendi. After all, look at all the PAC 12 schools that Boise State beat to such a bowl first of which some of the Big 6 BCS conferences & some of their traditional llower echelon schools (like Baylor, Iowa State, Vanderbilt, etc, etc, ) may never accomplish such because of the annual toughness of their conference?

I know, all heady stuff there, but if we don't (collectively) think like this, all we will get in Denton is what we've been getting for about 3 decades now.

OK, now who wins the over/under contest?

I still defer to the new signature manifesto below.

Edited July 5, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

[NT80]

Name me one school that has gone from a conference like we are in now, to one of the big 6 conferences in the last 15 years? If we did, it would be great, I just don't see it ever happening...not in the college sports enviornment of today.

USF, went from NO football program to Big East in 9 years.

Edited July 5, 2007 by NT80

[FirefightnRick]

An even better example than Bobby Bowden of a coach staying to make his lasting mark on a program is Bob Biggs who is in his 14th season as head coach at U.C. Davis(1-AA). He's had some amazing seasons at U.C. Davis following a successful career as a player for the Aggies before going into coaching. Biggs got his 100th win in just 12 seasons. He took over for their legendary coach Jim Sochor who finished 156-41-5 in 19 seasons and is now also in the National College Football HOF.

Like Sochor, Biggs has turned down offers from the major programs before. Seems every year he's listed on someone's wish list but he seems very happy to make his mark a permanant one for the Aggies.

Rick

[Quoner]

An even better example than Bobby Bowden of a coach staying to make his lasting mark on a program is Bob Biggs who is in his 14th season as head coach at U.C. Davis(1-AA). He's had some amazing seasons at U.C. Davis following a successful career as a player for the Aggies before going into coaching. Biggs got his 100th win in just 12 seasons. He took over for their legendary coach Jim Sochor who finished 156-41-5 in 19 seasons and is now also in the National College Football HOF.

Like Sochor, Biggs has turned down offers from the major programs before. Seems every year he's listed on someone's wish list but he seems very happy to make his mark a permanant one for the Aggies.

Rick

True, and I know there are a few D2 basketball coaches who never make the jump either. You just don't see it happen with any up and coming assistants anymore. I hope we start a trend (or tradition, if you will...)

[Stan R]

USF, went from NO football program to Big East in 9 years.

DAMN! Beat me to it.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

USF, went from NO football program to Big East in 9 years.

Yip, forgot about them. So there is one.

[yyz28]

I don't understand the point of this thread.

...I'm a BELIVER. I trust in this guy and think he will turn this program around, 180.

...HOWEVER, I could be wrong. We may not want him in 5 years.

Let's wait and see what we really think of him until we see how he does.