Football: Unt Spring Football Coming Up

[NT80]

Football: UNT spring football coming up

12:07 AM CST on Thursday, March 6, 2008

By Brett Vito / Staff Writer

When North Texas began spring practice a year ago, the Mean Green was essentially starting from scratch.

UNT had a new coaching staff with little knowledge of the players it would be working with, a new offense, a new defense and only a few weeks to get the whole situation ironed out before heading into the fall.

UNT will begin its second year under head coach Todd Dodge with the opening of spring practice today a whole lot further along, despite changing defensive coordinators in the offseason.

The Mean Green struggled in its first season under Dodge and finished 2-10.

"It's not even comparable from where we were last year to where we are now," Dodge said. "All of our players have been in our no-huddle offense. There is still a lot of teaching going on, but we will be doing things on Day 1 of spring practice that carried over from the end of last season. At this time last year, we were not even close to that."

The Mean Green will work out in helmets at Mean Green Athletic Center today and tomorrow to open drills that will include 15 workouts, culminating with the spring game on April 12.

UNT will be off from March 14-24 for spring break and will have scrimmages on March 28 and April 4. All workouts are open to the public.

Perhaps the biggest question facing the Mean Green heading into spring drills is how UNT's defense will adapt to playing under new coordinator Gary DeLoach. The architect of some of the Mean Green's greatest defenses during its four-year run as Sun Belt Conference champions from 2001-04 returned after spending last season coaching UCLA's defensive secondary.

DeLoach replaced Ron Mendoza after last season when the Mean Green finished last nationally in scoring defense with an average of 45.1 points allowed per game.

"Our defense is going to be different and a lot more complex," UNT defensive lineman Joseph Miller said. "There will be more calls, fronts and packages. Learning it will take time. We got our playbooks the other day and they had the wow factor to them."

UNT will base out of a 4-3 alignment just like last season, but is returning to a more familiar overall scheme.

Miller said some of the principals of UNT's defense next season will mirror what the Mean Green ran under former head coach Darrell Dickey.

"Coach Mendoza brought a defense that was different than anything we had seen," Miller said. "This defense is more traditional."

While Miller and the rest of UNT's defensive players are making the transition to a new scheme, their counterparts on offense will continue the process of fine-tuning the spread offense the Mean Green ran for the first time under Dodge last season.

Freshman Giovanni Vizza threw for 2,388 yards and 17 touchdowns last season.

"We made a lot of progress last season on offense and are trying to improve from there," UNT wide receiver Casey Fitzgerald said. "We learned our roles last season and have the offense down pat now."

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.

North Texas spring practice schedule

All practices are at 3:30 p.m. at the Mean Green Athletic Center.

March

6 -- Helmets

7 -- Helmets

10 -- Full pads

11 -- Half pads

13 -- Full pads

25 -- Full pads

27 -- Half pads

28 -- Scrimmage, Fouts Field

31 -- Half pads

April

1 -- Full pads

3 -- Half pads

4 -- Scrimmage, Fouts Field

8 -- Full pads

10 -- Helmets

12 -- Spring Game, Fouts Field, 2 p.m.

[H-towngreen]

Football: UNT spring football coming up

The Mean Green struggled in its first season under Dodge and finished 2-10.

Must he really???

Edited March 6, 2008 by H-towngreen

[Green to the Bone]

Must he really???

It would be much more positive if he could avoid mentioning the factual record and just use some euphemistic analogy. I suggest "a defensive outcome of Custeresque proportions."

[flyeater]

Must he really???

Like I said in earlier thread...

[FirefightnRick]

"Coach Mendoza brought a defense that was different than anything we had seen," Miller said.

That would be an understatement of great proportion.

Rick

Edited March 7, 2008 by FirefightnRick

[NT03]

"Coach Mendoza brought a defense that was different than anything we had seen," Miller said. "This defense is more traditional."

We had a defense last year?

Edited March 7, 2008 by NT03

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

We had a defense last year?

Darn... you beat me to it... that was exactly what I was going to post...until I scrolled down!!!