After Seeing The Troy Game Over And Over

nautique · October 22, 2007

Dodge's comments that the defense played good enough to win is absurd. Dodge is too much of a high school coaching legend to admit it, but folks we are getting schooled. Dodge and Mendoza are getting schooled and definitely learning on the run, Everything is just flying right past them at light speed. I will not be convinced otherwise. But no one is going to admit it. Leftwich might be the senior statesman but his OL is getting their butts handed to them. I am not convinced its the players as much as I am the scheme and the soundness of our play calling when you really think about it. Instead of 4 wide, how about freaking 3 and leaving a TE to block the edge that a 215 pound safety is crushing our QB.

Dodge must learn to protect the QB with Max protect schemes. No way any QB can takes those hits and keep getting up. I admire Vizza's courgage but he got physically beat up. I will be surprised if he plays this week considering his beat down.

Why won't Mendoza play with 5 DB's against teams with so much speed, i.e. MTSU. Take out a LB and lets line up speed on speed.

We are running everything like SLC but the problem is that Dodge and Mendoza are facing coaching and talent that meets or exceeds UNT's.

This Troy game should have been in the 60 or 70's, very easily. The turnovers only made the game score closer, it didn't give a chance to win. So many of the turonvers were near or in our endzone where they were about to score.

houstonmeangreen · October 22, 2007

Dodge's comments that the defense played good enough to win is absurd. Dodge is too much of a high school coaching legend to admit it, but folks we are getting schooled. Dodge and Mendoza are getting schooled and definitely learning on the run, Everything is just flying right past them at light speed. I will not be convinced otherwise. But no one is going to admit it. Leftwich might be the senior statesman but his OL is getting their butts handed to them. I am not convinced its the players as much as I am the scheme and the soundness of our play calling when you really think about it. Instead of 4 wide, how about freaking 3 and leaving a TE to block the edge that a 215 pound safety is crushing our QB.
Dodge must learn to protect the QB with Max protect schemes. No way any QB can takes those hits and keep getting up. I admire Vizza's courgage but he got physically beat up. I will be surprised if he plays this week considering his beat down.
Why won't Mendoza play with 5 DB's against teams with so much speed, i.e. MTSU. Take out a LB and lets line up speed on speed.
We are running everything like SLC but the problem is that Dodge and Mendoza are facing coaching and talent that meets or exceeds UNT's.
This Troy game should have been in the 60 or 70's, very easily. The turnovers only made the game score closer, it didn't give a chance to win. So many of the turonvers were near or in our endzone where they were about to score.

The defense giving up 45 points after 7 TO's is telling about how bad this defense is and 7 points by the offense after 7 TO's is telling about the offense, both seem to be telling about the coaching. Dodge may be a great coach (at least in HS), but he certainly doesn't have a handle on this team.

kj86 · October 22, 2007

Dodge's comments that the defense played good enough to win is absurd. Dodge is too much of a high school coaching legend to admit it, but folks we are getting schooled. Dodge and Mendoza are getting schooled and definitely learning on the run, Everything is just flying right past them at light speed. I will not be convinced otherwise. But no one is going to admit it. Leftwich might be the senior statesman but his OL is getting their butts handed to them. I am not convinced its the players as much as I am the scheme and the soundness of our play calling when you really think about it. Instead of 4 wide, how about freaking 3 and leaving a TE to block the edge that a 215 pound safety is crushing our QB.
Dodge must learn to protect the QB with Max protect schemes. No way any QB can takes those hits and keep getting up. I admire Vizza's courgage but he got physically beat up. I will be surprised if he plays this week considering his beat down.
Why won't Mendoza play with 5 DB's against teams with so much speed, i.e. MTSU. Take out a LB and lets line up speed on speed.
We are running everything like SLC but the problem is that Dodge and Mendoza are facing coaching and talent that meets or exceeds UNT's.
This Troy game should have been in the 60 or 70's, very easily. The turnovers only made the game score closer, it didn't give a chance to win. So many of the turonvers were near or in our endzone where they were about to score.

I haven't seen the game, but I agree with your comments from an overall perspective. We should be in these games more than we are. I was not expecting too many wins this season, but I certainly didn't expect to be getting schooled week in and week out. Even I don't think Dickey left this thing in such a mess that we should be playing this poorly. So, what is it, is TD so committed to his system that he insists on sticking to it 100% in order to entrench it until he's able to get athletes that can run it effectively? Or, are he and his staff getting schooled by coaches with a better handle on how the college game is played?

There really can't be many more explanations than these. I suspect that TD is convinced that once the players "get" the system and he adds some more athletes, things will turn around. I just don't see why he can't put them in better position to stay in games until that day comes, because I think this team has some pretty good athletes already.

KingDL1 · October 22, 2007

The defense giving up 45 points after 7 TO's is telling about how bad this defense is and 7 points by the offense after 7 TO's is telling about the offense, both seem to be telling about the coaching. Dodge may be a great coach (at least in HS), but he certainly doesn't have a handle on this team.

Once again not that you want your facts straight, the kicking team gave up one of those touchdowns and another was set up by the offense on a interception that resulted with Troy on our 22 yard line.

Your are not mattress mac and still mad about DD getting fired are you?

KBJ · October 22, 2007

Once again not that you want your facts straight, the kicking team gave up one of those touchdowns and another was set up by the offense on a interception that resulted with Troy on our 22 yard line.

I agree with the above but we got the ball on turnovers inside the 35 I think 3 times and came away with 0

GabeGMG · October 22, 2007

I admire Vizza's courgage but he got physically beat up. I will be surprised if he plays this week considering his beat down.

I saw Vizza limping a bit on campus today, pretty beat up....so I agree.

KingDL1 · October 22, 2007

I agree with the above but we got the ball on turnovers inside the 35 I think 3 times and came away with 0

I just think the Defense should not be hammered on this game, the offense let them down.

Hell the offense 11 times after a change of possession failed to achieve a 1st down and turned the ball over by punting, on downs or on two occasions due to turnovers.

ntexeagle · October 22, 2007

I am no coach and the following comments may make that obvious.

I see much the same offense being run by Texas Tech and Tulsa without the use of tight ends. I see other teams running the same type offense. Missouri thought enough of the high school coach that they came to him to help them fine tune their offense. It is a proven offense with other schools, we just have to wait and let in proove itself to us.

We have linemen that were brought in to play in an offense based on the run. They are slow but they are doing their best with the tools they have been given. We are playing several red shirt freshmen that will grow into what Coach Dodge wants. We will have better talent but it will take time.

We all knew it would take time but we have to have patience. It will happen.

UNTLifer · October 23, 2007

I am no coach and the following comments may make that obvious.
I see much the same offense being run by Texas Tech and Tulsa without the use of tight ends. I see other teams running the same type offense. Missouri thought enough of the high school coach that they came to him to help them fine tune their offense. It is a proven offense with other schools, we just have to wait and let in proove itself to us.
We have linemen that were brought in to play in an offense based on the run. They are slow but they are doing their best with the tools they have been given. We are playing several red shirt freshmen that will grow into what Coach Dodge wants. We will have better talent but it will take time.
We all knew it would take time but we have to have patience. It will happen.

Stop making sense!

yyz28 · October 23, 2007

I just think the Defense should not be hammered on this game, the offense let them down.

Why are you so hell-bent on defending this defense? Dude... they gave up 35 points, by your own admission. ...after we got 7 turnovers.

Troy scored on us at WILL this weekend. What gives?

MeanGreenBuzz · October 23, 2007

Why are you so hell-bent on defending this defense? Dude... they gave up 35 points, by your own admission. ...after we got 7 turnovers.
Troy scored on us at WILL this weekend. What gives?

So what if the defense gave up 35 points? THEY GOT 7 FREAKING TURN OVERS. Thats a HUGE improvement. THe defense did play a LOT better. Had they been playing like they played against OU it would have been 79-0. If the offense could have gotten anything going or scored off any of those turn overs you might have seen a Mean Green win and Troy not even breaking 30 points for the game. This loss was not on the defense. They played better than against ULM but the offense didn't back them up. All the blame for this game should be focused on the offense. That being said, I would be willing to bet the O-line and every other player that played against this Troy D learned a lot from this game (coachs included). Troy has a top 15 D and top 25 O. They will be ranked by seasons end. Look at it this way we forced more turnovers than any other team against them and held them to less total yards than 3 BCS conference schools. I would say all in all it wasn't as bad a day as some of you are making it out to be.

Monkeypox · October 23, 2007

Why are you so hell-bent on defending this defense? Dude... they gave up 35 points, by your own admission. ...after we got 7 turnovers.
Troy scored on us at WILL this weekend. What gives?

What gives is that we would've lost even if Troy only scored 10 points, because our offense was schooled. We failed to score more than once after SEVEN turnovers. The weakest part of our team for several weeks has been offense, not defense.

yyz28 · October 23, 2007

What gives is that we would've lost even if Troy only scored 10 points, because our offense was schooled. We failed to score more than once after SEVEN turnovers. The weakest part of our team for several weeks has been offense, not defense.

I agree with "What gives is that we would've lost even if Troy only scored 10 points, because our offense was schooled. We failed to score more than once after SEVEN turnovers," but I'm having a little problem with "The weakest part of our team for several weeks has been offense, not defense" seeing as how we lost by 38 points this week. I'll even give you the 7 points off the punt return. ...so the Defense let them score 31 points. Guys, even when our Offense was "good" earlier in the year, the most we scored was... ...wait for it...

31 POINTS!!!

So, its a little hard to buy that somehow the defense was stellar this week when you look at the math. 7 turnovers, I know, I know... :rolleyes:

Why this need to point to one side of the ball or the other. Earlier in the year, the Offense was pretty good, the defense was weak. ...just because the offense is now weak, doesn't mean the defense is great.

forevereagle · October 23, 2007

Our defense was much improved this week. Our offense didn't get the job done this week.

We punted 10 times and had 205 yards.

3 of 18 on 3rd down, and 0 for 4 on 4th.

23 of 41 on passing, 56% completion rating.

We averaged 7.78 yards per completion.

Jamrio and Moseley averaged 2.4 and 0.7 yards per carry respectively. They combined for 11 carries. Our longest run of the day was 12 yards.

We were outgained by 288 yards in about 7 minutes fewer in TOP.

I'm not saying our defense was stellar, but we can not ignore a poor offensive perofrmance like this. At least the defense put us into some positions to do something with the ball. They did give up a lot of yards, but the offense sure didn't help out any by putting points on the board and developing some momentum for the defense to feed off of.

Maybe we should try looking at this as a team loss.

"Well, it's a team game, and it took the whole team to f^*$ this one up." -Matt Stone as Doug Remer in Baseketball

foutsrouts · October 23, 2007

Yeah, it was very much a team loss and that includes the coaching staff. Everyone has been ragging on the defense all season (justifiably), but maybe the offense needs to be let in on the act a bit. To me, everything looks a little telegraphed out there and I am hopeful that some adjustments are on the drawing board. I still wish Jamario could get more touches, especially in the passing game, and it would be nice if Vizza would get under center on occasion to keep the defense a little more honest. Just my humble opinion of course, but I am still more than willing to give the staff some time to get this thing going regardless of how much I hate to lose. I have no doubt that this has been a learning experience for everyone involved, and our schedule this year has probably turned out to be a little more difficult than expected. Troy has a pretty damn good team.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · October 23, 2007

Here we are again chopping each other up over bad football:

-Once again, we see the ubiquitous "If you don't like Todd Dodge, you must clamor for Darrell Dickey" as if those are the only two people on the planet who can coach at UNT. Forget that the results over the past two season have been the same. In the minds of some, you are either in one camp or the other.

Not me. I'm in the third camp, the "I don't care who the coach is, just get the players ready to win" camp. Run, pass, dance, wiggle...I could care less as long as we have more points at the end of the game than our opponent.

-Folks, those of you who watched...Troy tried like hell to either ( a ) keep us in the game, or ( b ) allow us to upset them. I mean, really, seven turnovers? I'll bet that before the game Saturday there were probably teams who hadn't forced seven turnovers all season! Three inside the 35 and no points? Are you kidding me? Either Todd Dodge and his offensive coordinator are complete idiots, or Troy has a stout defense. I'd bet it's probably more of the latter and less of the former.

-Hooray! The Return of His Players versus Players He Inherited! Woo-hoo! Grab the popcorn and settle in for this one! What an exciting intellectual showdown this promises to be...and one that is completely ignored by coaches like Bob Stoops, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Steve Kragthorpe, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. Spread offense Todd Graham at wishbone attack Rice for a single season, anyone? Bowl game? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?

CASE STUDY EXAMPLE: Do you realize that OU was ground-based for three seasons before Bob Stoops took that job, boasting 1,000 yard rushers in '96, '97, and '98? And the offensive coordinator he brought in was...Kentucky OC Mike Leach who had been following Hal Mumme around. You think OU had the personnel to run the spread in 1999 and 2000 with the players John Blake left?

On paper, no. But, Stoops and Leach didn't care. They coached what they'd inherited and had some shiny trophies to look at as a result...7-5 in 1999, 12-0 and a conference and national title in 2000. No excuses. No, "wait for new players for the system, new culture to be established, blah, blah, blah." They got the returning players from three consecutive crappy Sooner teams to buy into what they were doing. They got linemen who blocked for 1,000 yard rushers to block for an offense that jacked up 400-500 passes a season...and they did it in the span of a few months.

Perhaps Todd Dodge and staff have been less than successful at getting older guys to buy into what they have. If so, that's hardly the players' fault. He's hired to do the job with whomever is there. Part of the job is motivating the players...no matter who recruited them. If he believes in his own mind that it's okay to just wait and wait, then, as I've said before, we've just been sold the same old crap just in a different wrapper.

Anyway, take what we have and just...well, take it. We've got no other choice. But, we shouldn't fight each other over it. I suspect, when the dust settles, we're all in the third camp, the "I Don't Care, Just Win!" camp.

Hallelujah...amen....

forevereagle · October 23, 2007

I think you have some anger issues to work out.

FirefightnRick · October 23, 2007

So what if the defense gave up 35 points? THEY GOT 7 FREAKING TURN OVERS. Thats a HUGE improvement. THe defense did play a LOT better. Had they been playing like they played against OU it would have been 79-0. If the offense could have gotten anything going or scored off any of those turn overs you might have seen a Mean Green win and Troy not even breaking 30 points for the game. This loss was not on the defense. They played better than against ULM but the offense didn't back them up. All the blame for this game should be focused on the offense. That being said, I would be willing to bet the O-line and every other player that played against this Troy D learned a lot from this game (coachs included). Troy has a top 15 D and top 25 O. They will be ranked by seasons end. Look at it this way we forced more turnovers than any other team against them and held them to less total yards than 3 BCS conference schools. I would say all in all it wasn't as bad a day as some of you are making it out to be.

NO, I AM NOT THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL FOR POINTING THIS OUT:

Just to keep some facts straight.

Troy's defense is currrently ranked 69th overall giving up 397.14 yards a game.

Troy's run defense is currently ranked 109th and ....can you believe, 3 spots ahead of us giving up 213.7 yards a game.

Troy's scoring defense is currently ranked 66th giving up 27 points a game.

Troy's PASS DEFENSE is currently ranked 15th giving up 183.43 yards a game.

Rick

PHSCoach · October 23, 2007

Look out Rick next it will be the O coaches that will be wanting to look you down.........

Maybe not I think they only stand 5'9"

KingDL1 · October 24, 2007

I agree with "What gives is that we would've lost even if Troy only scored 10 points, because our offense was schooled. We failed to score more than once after SEVEN turnovers," but I'm having a little problem with "The weakest part of our team for several weeks has been offense, not defense" seeing as how we lost by 38 points this week. I'll even give you the 7 points off the punt return. ...so the Defense let them score 31 points. Guys, even when our Offense was "good" earlier in the year, the most we scored was... ...wait for it...
31 POINTS!!!
So, its a little hard to buy that somehow the defense was stellar this week when you look at the math. 7 turnovers, I know, I know...
Why this need to point to one side of the ball or the other. Earlier in the year, the Offense was pretty good, the defense was weak. ...just because the offense is now weak, doesn't mean the defense is great.

So what would you expect a decent amount of points to give up to Troy's 15th ranked offense?

You know Arkansas gave up 26, Florida gave up 31, Oklahoma St. gave up 41 to Troy.

I am not trying to talk up the Defense I am just trying to counter the arguments that are extreme. Because I expect things to get better. But people are going off half cocked all over the place without looking at the whole picture. They talk about having some of the same players from last year like that means much without knowing what is going on in practice, or not noting that our average opponent's total offense has raised 32 places out of 119/120 teams. The average total offense we faced last year was ranked 75th, this year so far this year we have faced an average total offense of 43. Troy went from a total offense ranked 77th last year to 15th this year after 7 games.

No, our defense is not good, nor the rest of the team for that mater. But hey they are rebuilding. I will expect a little more next year. I will expect a ton more improvement for the 2009 season.

GoMeanGreen1999 · October 24, 2007

No, our defense is not good, nor the rest of the team for that mater. But hey they are rebuilding. I will expect a little more next year. I will expect a ton more improvement for the 2009 season.

See this concerns me....if we are rebuilding with 9 starters returning, what will next year hold? I really dislike this "rebuilding" argument. UNTBowler made a great comparison on this board earlier this week with the situation at Alabama. It's kind of commical to me that we are losing all of our games (minus 1) and we are "rebuilding" but then other coaches seem to take over programs and win with kids geared towards the previous coach and what they are doing? Rice is a perfect example of this. Graham takes over a team that went what 1-10 with the option, and comes in and takes them to a bowl game the very next year with the spread. You can convince me that they had that much more talent than we have.

UNTFan23 · October 24, 2007

See this concerns me....if we are rebuilding with 9 starters returning, what will next year hold? I really dislike this "rebuilding" argument. UNTBowler made a great comparison on this board earlier this week with the situation at Alabama. It's kind of commical to me that we are losing all of our games (minus 1) and we are "rebuilding" but then other coaches seem to take over programs and win with kids geared towards the previous coach and what they are doing? Rice is a perfect example of this. Graham takes over a team that went what 1-10 with the option, and comes in and takes them to a bowl game the very next year with the spread. You can convince me that they had that much more talent than we have.

Come on now, GMG1999, you should know the talent difference between North Texas and Bama is an apples to watermelons comparison.

Edited October 24, 2007 by UNTFan23

GoMeanGreen1999 · October 24, 2007

Come on now, GMG1999, you should know the talent difference between North Texas and Bama is apples and watermelons.

You are correct, I do. The point UNTBowler was making though was that Saban took over a team of old guys (another words not his players) and has transformed a below average team to the top of the SEC, in arguably the toughest football conference in the NCAA. Meanwhile, our new coaching staff can barely take old players (not his players) and make them competitive in the worst conference in the NCAA. But hey, if you don't like the use of Alabama, all you have to look at is what Graham did at Rice.

MeanGreenBrigader · October 24, 2007

Here we are again chopping each other up over bad football:
-Once again, we see the ubiquitous "If you don't like Todd Dodge, you must clamor for Darrell Dickey" as if those are the only two people on the planet who can coach at UNT. Forget that the results over the past two season have been the same. In the minds of some, you are either in one camp or the other.
Not me. I'm in the third camp, the "I don't care who the coach is, just get the players ready to win" camp. Run, pass, dance, wiggle...I could care less as long as we have more points at the end of the game than our opponent.
-Folks, those of you who watched...Troy tried like hell to either ( a ) keep us in the game, or ( b ) allow us to upset them. I mean, really, seven turnovers? I'll bet that before the game Saturday there were probably teams who hadn't forced seven turnovers all season! Three inside the 35 and no points? Are you kidding me? Either Todd Dodge and his offensive coordinator are complete idiots, or Troy has a stout defense. I'd bet it's probably more of the latter and less of the former.
-Hooray! The Return of His Players versus Players He Inherited! Woo-hoo! Grab the popcorn and settle in for this one! What an exciting intellectual showdown this promises to be...and one that is completely ignored by coaches like Bob Stoops, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Steve Kragthorpe, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. Spread offense Todd Graham at wishbone attack Rice for a single season, anyone? Bowl game? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
CASE STUDY EXAMPLE: Do you realize that OU was ground-based for three seasons before Bob Stoops took that job, boasting 1,000 yard rushers in '96, '97, and '98? And the offensive coordinator he brought in was...Kentucky OC Mike Leach who had been following Hal Mumme around. You think OU had the personnel to run the spread in 1999 and 2000 with the players John Blake left?
On paper, no. But, Stoops and Leach didn't care. They coached what they'd inherited and had some shiny trophies to look at as a result...7-5 in 1999, 12-0 and a conference and national title in 2000. No excuses. No, "wait for new players for the system, new culture to be established, blah, blah, blah." They got the returning players from three consecutive crappy Sooner teams to buy into what they were doing. They got linemen who blocked for 1,000 yard rushers to block for an offense that jacked up 400-500 passes a season...and they did it in the span of a few months.
Perhaps Todd Dodge and staff have been less than successful at getting older guys to buy into what they have. If so, that's hardly the players' fault. He's hired to do the job with whomever is there. Part of the job is motivating the players...no matter who recruited them. If he believes in his own mind that it's okay to just wait and wait, then, as I've said before, we've just been sold the same old crap just in a different wrapper.
Anyway, take what we have and just...well, take it. We've got no other choice. But, we shouldn't fight each other over it. I suspect, when the dust settles, we're all in the third camp, the "I Don't Care, Just Win!" camp.
Hallelujah...amen....

Praise the Lord! Why is nobody responding to this?? This is the best argument in this entire thread! Thank you, kind sir.

College football is a results-oriented game, and I think the (horrendous) results we're seeing this year indicates that the blame should be shared. Yeah, we have our weaknesses, but the Mean Green Football program as a whole---and I'm talkin coaches, players, heck, even the ball boy---should all share the blame for this year. I refuse to use the term "rebuilding" because of SO many returners on this team, but it's fair to expect some patience from us as loyal fans. This year has been a disappointment, but TD is a winner. As a fan and TD supporter, I can't help but assume that the tide will turn...who knows? maybe even this season! What? Crazier things have happened.

I've always seen and heard the folks on ESPN taking quick jabs at the worst team in college football and found myself wondering "wow...I wonder what that's LIKE!" Well, we're pretty much there now and my fervor hasn't been shaken. And let's face it...we really have nowhere to go from here but up.

FirefightnRick · October 25, 2007

See this concerns me....if we are rebuilding with 9 starters returning, what will next year hold?

We went into this season rebuilding with 9 returning starters, and 7 or 8 others who have also started, one of which has yet to step foot onto the field although I did see him suited out against ULM.

I think we will look at rebuilding for a while. Going by the starting lineup and player participation report from the Troy game

we must replace 5 seniors going into '08 and 7 seniors in '09.

The upside to this thing is that we have Joseph Miller, Isaac Thomas and Gilmore returning next years. That's three guys who have combined for over 45 tackles so far are showing they have the ability to to disrupt. Also returning next year is Mahan, Heming, Dawson, Penson and Craig Robertson at LB. It would be really nice if we could get Toby Nwigwe back but you never know? Bush, Roman, Nurudeen, Agbbottah, and Dominique Green return at DB.

Rick

Edited October 26, 2007 by FirefightnRick