Is This Our Worst Team Ever?

[class84]

I'll venture to say this is the worst defense I've seen in my 27 years of following the program. I'll go a little further and say that Dickey's last two teams could have beaten this one because they could stop someone every once in a while.

Historical perspective, anyone?

[Keith7]

I thought defense was supposed to be our strong point

[NCMeanGreen]

To answer your question, an emphatic HELL YES!!!

This is ridiculous!!!

We knew this was going to be a tough year for us, and TD would take a while to adjust...but this is pure crap!!!

[Green Mean]

Its only game number four and we have played OU and Arkansas....Arkansas has a couple of losses now and MANY were predicting them to be serious championship contenders this year....not to mention they have the beast in McFadden....though its tough to see games like this I think we need to hang in there and wait for a couple of years and see what happens.

Edited September 30, 2007 by Green Mean

[Travis]

I am beginning to wonder if this D-coordinator of ours should be in the college arena...

[UNT_playmaker]

I just got home for work, I take it were losing,

You know I have been so depressed all week long because a girl, especially today,

I hope this game doesnt add to my depression.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

I just got home for work, I take it were losing,

You know I have been so depressed all week long because a girl, especially today,

I hope this game doesnt add to my depression.

Well if you haven't checked the score, DON'T.

[akriesman]

Based on the results on the field......yes.

Does this degrade my belief that this team will be successful in a few years........no.

I said going into the season that the team could be 0-12. When Hal Mumme took over at NMSU, they were 0-12 in the first season. It will take a while for NT to click like they will (eventually) on offense. A few good recruiting classes will really help.

The surprising thing to me however, is that the defense is so bad right now. I admit, I did not expect that.

I think some of our coaches (especially defense) will have to adapt as well as the players.

Edited September 30, 2007 by akriesman

[Travis]

Oklahoma-UNT this year looked like the worse game ever....

So did the Texas one where we lost 65-0.

[meangreendork]

No, it's Dickey's worst team ever.

It's like this: the recruiting class that brought us the SBC rings was good, compared to what the SunBelt was and where the NCAA was. Unfortunately, while Troy, FAU and the rest recruited better players, Dickey had difficulty doing that. Right now, we're making our way through some of Dickey's less-than-outstanding recruits. Thankfully, our new coaches have already made them better, but considering the coaching they had with Dickey, Dodge has to do more to make them as great as they can be. Honestly, I think Dodge and his staff are far more capable of getting these guys to play to their potential than Dickey could.

[OldTimer]

I'll venture to say this is the worst defense I've seen in my 27 years of following the program. I'll go a little further and say that Dickey's last two teams could have beaten this one because they could stop someone every once in a while.

Historical perspective, anyone?

*************************************************************************************************

Reply:

Oh for the wisdom of youngsters who can't remember what happened when DD came to North Texas and while he was here. I can't believe the naysayers....,,,,give the coach and team a chance. Just for your historical education since you asked for it.... DD's results...(2 wining seasons in 9 years)

1st 1998 Lost the first 4 games and wound up with 3 wins and 8 losses

2nd 1999...Lost 4 of the first 5 games UNLV 3-26, LSU 0 to 52, Nevada 28 to 41, wound with with 2 wins and 9 losses

3rd 2000 Lost first 4 games before beating a AA team....NT 10-KState 55, NT 28 Ark St 53, Wound up with 3 wins and 8 losses

4th 2001 Lost first 5 games, wound up with 5 wins and 7 losses.

Last two years

2005 won 2 lost 9

2006 won 2 lost 10

Who overall won 41 games and lost 65 (with 35 wins against SBC conference teams and 2 wins against AA teams for 37 of those wins, whose record against other Div 1 schools was .....see if you can figure this one out....)

We hired a coach who has the ability to move NT up the success ladder, who has the recognition with TX HS coaches to compete for recruits and getting players from the top football schools in the nation, doubled season tickets and donations, created nation wide publicity for NT. He's been here 10 months and you expect better results against Oklahoma and Arkansas on the road? We don't need naysayer.

DD's record in 9 seasons 41 wins and 65 losses and I can guarantee you todays Sun Belt teams are 100% bettern than when the conference was first started....

As far as worst losses ever I seem to remember playing UT in 2004 and losing 65-0.

We need to recognize the positive things Dodge, his coaches and our players have shown, what they has accomplished so far and encourage our coaches and players, not crying wolf 4 games into a new coaching program. One thing I am sure of our team was fighting down to the last in this game....they didn't give up and cry surrender like it appears some posters are doing.

[Got5onIt]

Well put.

Defensive problems cannot be thrown solely on these players and this DD excuse. That is cheap BS, IMO.

[GrandGreen]

Tasty, you are absolutely right. Few if any are calling for TD's head, but to suggest that it is ok to play embarrassing football because it is your first year on the job is ridiculous. Do some not realize that TD chose to appoint two coaches who were not even head high school coaches to be his coordinators? This was a tremendous risk and certainly no-one's but TD's decision. In the long run it may turn out that this develops into a first rate staff, but it certainly open to a lot of criticism.

DD had a mediocre defense and an awful offense, TD so far as a mediocre offense and an awful defense. NT as indeed suffered from DD's haphazard indifferent recruiting, but I don't think that there is any team in the Belt that has substantially more talent. In fact, the NT defense should be one of the better Belt squads. It is strange IMO that TD's offense has performed much better than the defense when there seemed to be much better experienced talent returning on the defensive side and not nearly the radical change in schemes that the offense has enacted.

I still think there is a good chance that NT turns it around shortly, but a lost next week would be devastating.

[STE]

I don’t think this is our worst team. We very easily could be 2-2 right now.

However, it’s very discouraging to see another blow-out where we play absolutely no defense. Our defense is atrocious. I don’t know how that is going to be fixed. I hope Dodge understands that there are going to have to be some changes made on that side of the ball.

Part of the problem on offense is that Dodge is implementing a new system with many players that weren’t recruited for this style of play. The offence is much improved over last year but it’s still struggling. Some of this is Dodge’s fault because of aggressive play calling and not playing Vizza and/or JT more but most of it seems to be related to player limitations.

Having said that, I think our offense will look a lot better once we get into the bulk of Sunbelt play.

Also – I heard the post game show. Dodge sounds despondent. I actually feel bad for the guy.

[Bryan316]

Man, 4 games into a whole new coaching system and it's already the W0R5T T34M 3VAR! We got stuck playing 2 almost-always bowl-eligible teams, and we lost as we should. Yes, I'd like to see an upset, but right now we're the same boys against men that we've been for a while. If OU and Arkansas made a bunch of mistakes and early turnovers that let us run together at the beginning of the game, maybe they'd turn out a little differently. But they didn't. I don't care about 1-AA teams beating Michigan, or Boise St. pulling out all the stops to beat OU. How often does that happen? Rarely. What you see on the field is us being as competitive as we can against a team that is bigger, stronger, and faster than ours. If we played the Sisters of Mary School for the Blind, we'd run all over them like OU and Ark did to us. We were on par with SMU, but we gave them 2 opportunities they shouldn't have had. We were looking good against FAU, but Methuselah the coach dusted off his scrolls of how to stop spread offenses and adjusted. Give the coaches 2 years to get their system in place and recruit what they see they need. 2 years. If it's not better, then we can pick up our torches and pitchforks and storm the Athletics Center on a cold rainy night.

[MeanGreen61]

Well put.

Defensive problems cannot be thrown solely on these players and this DD excuse. That is cheap BS, IMO.

Absolutely correct. IMHO a lot of the fault for our defensive problems rests squarely with the defensive coaches.

[meangreendork]

Get it right, I said it was DICKEY'S worst team. Not UNT's worst team. Not Dodge's. Just Dickey's worst team. Am I blaming it on this solely? No. I already said that the new players in the system are doing well and in other threads, I've said he's also made real improvements with the players that are here. Stop acting like I just said, '"This is the worst team EVER".

What I'm saying is this:

Let's say Dickey's recruiting, on a scale of 1-100 (100 being the best), Dickey's SBC-winning team was a 70. Meanwhile, at the start of the SBC, the other teams were something like 50-70, but mostly 50-ish. We all know the SBC got better since then. FAU got better, MTSU got better, ASU got better. What didn't improve proportionately was Dickey's recruiting. Basically, the other teams got better recruits and made better products of them...they brought them up to say...70-80. Meanwhile, Dickey didn't. So in relation to Dickey's previous teams with different coaches, if Dickey had been here this year, it would be HIS worst team. Why? Because odds are, the team wouldn't improve at all on any front. At least right now, Dodge made the offense really productive. We're just waiting on the defense to catch up. Dickey's players are still here, and while they're better than they used to be, there's a lot that needs to change, and it looks like they haven't improved relative to the other SBC teams. Dodge didn't choose every single player on this squad, and it would be impractical for him to go out and find an entire new roster.

But now, Dodge is making big jumps, the same big jumps in player attitude and performance that I've been raving about. Unfortunately, we have a serious issue at defense. That's partially player fault and I think it's a big coaching fault. Give Dodge time to better mold Dickey's guys and bring in his own picks. You'll see something awesome.

It's like you think I want to fire Dodge or something.

[UNTflyer]

All I know is that it really can't get much worse. We've lost 23 of our last 28 games.

But I have faith that Dodge can turn this team around. Maybe this year in Belt play... but probably next year's conference schedule is when we're going to start seeing the ship right itself.

[SLCoutsider]

Let's hold off judgement for another week. Nobody really expected to win this game, did they? They are still 0-1 in the conference. Now we are entering the more interesting part of the schedule. Based on the performance against SMU and FAU, I think there's still a good chance to be 2-4 (2-1) after the next couple games in LA.

[redallover]

Win half of the Sun Belt games and then put the season behind you. Good things lie ahead for UNT football.

[NCMeanGreen]

Yes, I thought those were good points from Ty Willingham as well...

[PlummMeanGreen]

Reply from OldTimer from another post

Oh for the wisdom of youngsters who can't remember what happened when DD came to North Texas and while he was here. I can't believe the naysayers....,,,,give the coach and team a chance. Just for your historical education since you asked for it.... DD's results...(2 wining seasons in 9 years)

1st 1998 Lost the first 4 games and wound up with 3 wins and 8 losses

2nd 1999...Lost 4 of the first 5 games UNLV 3-26, LSU 0 to 52, Nevada 28 to 41, wound with with 2 wins and 9 losses

3rd 2000 Lost first 4 games before beating a AA team....NT 10-KState 55, NT 28 Ark St 53, Wound up with 3 wins and 8 losses

4th 2001 Lost first 5 games, wound up with 5 wins and 7 losses.

Last two years

2005 won 2 lost 9

2006 won 2 lost 10

Who overall won 41 games and lost 65 (with 35 wins against SBC conference teams and 2 wins against AA teams for 37 of those wins, whose record against other Div 1 schools was .....see if you can figure this one out....)

We hired a coach who has the ability to move NT up the success ladder, who has the recognition with TX HS coaches to compete for recruits and getting players from the top football schools in the nation, doubled season tickets and donations, created nation wide publicity for NT. He's been here 10 months and you expect better results against Oklahoma and Arkansas on the road? We don't need naysayer.

DD's record in 9 seasons 41 wins and 65 losses and I can guarantee you todays Sun Belt teams are 100% bettern than when the conference was first started....

As far as worst losses ever I seem to remember playing UT in 2004 and losing 65-0.

We need to recognize the positive things Dodge, his coaches and our players have shown, what they has accomplished so far and encourage our coaches and players, not crying wolf 4 games into a new coaching program. One thing I am sure of our team was fighting down to the last in this game....they didn't give up and cry surrender like it appears some posters are doing.

Edited September 30, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

[eulesseagle]

Old Timer & PMG excellent points.

The last thing we need from anyone is the knee jerk reaction.

Everyone should stand behind TD and his winning ways.

[Got5onIt]

Win half of the Sun Belt games and then put the season behind you. Good things lie ahead for UNT football.

I could live with this as I said a .500 season should be considered a success. However, what have you seen that gives you confidence that NT will win at least one SBC game?

[yyz28]

...I don't think anyone REALLY expected us to win... ...but to have another blowout like this, and have virtually zero defense wasn't what anyone had in mind either.

...it isn't the losing to OU and Ark that bothers so many, it is HOW we lost that is the problem.

I think most are willing to give everyone time to adjust, but how many losses created by this terrible defensive scheme do we suffer before we start to adjust?