Just remember

[DallasGreen]

We won't be able to buy out mac, since we will already have quite the tab running from having bought out Benford. At the rate he is going that will happen before the season ends. No way we buy out Mac (ok unless we go like 1-11).

I'm glad someone else noticed and had the guts to say the obvious. Sat. was a very mediocre ULaLa team and to lose to UTA and AL- Huntsville is just utterly embarrassing. Tony Mitchell may be an NBA legend in his own mind, but he is the only one that believes it. This may be the most overhyped team in any UNT sport ever! Mitchell had 5 fouls and 3 points Sat., but one was a breakaway slam dunk so I guess that's suppossed to make up for zero assists and little rebounding for his size as well as zero follow ups made.

[VideoEagle]

Except at ASU (2 straight titles with 1st year College HC), ULL, WKU, NIU and the list goes on and on.

Actually, a group did an actual study about replacing coaches titled "Pushing “Reset”: The Conditional Effects of Coaching Replacements on College Football Performances." It was published in Social Sciences Quarterly this last October. Here's a link to the full study. While there are always exceptions, firing the coach doesn't usually mean quick success in the first few years.

]

Abstract

Objectives

We assess the effects of coaching replacements on college football team performance.

Methods

Using data from 1997 to 2010, we use matching techniques to compare the performance of football programs that replaced their head coach to those where the coach was retained. The analysis has two major innovations over existing literature. First, we consider how entry conditions moderate the effects of coaching replacements. Second, we examine team performance for several years following the replacement to assess its effects.

Results

We find that for particularly poorly performing teams, coach replacements have little effect on team performance as measured against comparable teams that did not replace their coach. However, for teams with middling records—that is, teams where entry conditions for a new coach appear to be more favorable—replacing the head coach appears to result in worse performance over subsequent years than comparable teams who retained their coach.

Conclusions

The findings have important implications for our understanding of how entry conditions moderate the effects of leadership succession on team performance, and suggest that the relatively common decision to fire head college football coaches for poor team performance may be ill advised.

[UNTLifer]

If you think Dodge left the cupboard bare, just wait until his players are gone. Y'Barbo, Fortenberry, A. Johnson, Feeley, Anyiam, Byrd, Chancellor, Teegarden, Miller, Prior, McCoy, Abbe, Cantly, Obi, Bellazin, Orr, Phillips, Wright, Jackson...

They won't all be gone at once. The "cupboard bare" analogy is in reference to the youth of this team due to TD's reliance on JUCO's his last couple of years.

[BillySee58]

They won't all be gone at once. The "cupboard bare" analogy is in reference to the youth of this team due to TD's reliance on JUCO's his last couple of years.

This.

[MeanGreenWithEnvy]

-snip-

To be honest, it might be the only way to improve recruiting, since its becoming obvious that getting ENOUGH major Texas HS talent here is just not that easy. His future here is dependent on having a competent QB and a better DLine. I truly believe that if Berglund can throw the football like most believe he could coming out of HS, this will change a lot for next year. I actually think next year will be a 6 win or better year--and I'm the guy who thought we would only win 3 games last year and around 4 or 5 this year, so I'm not exactly a homer. But I believe that Mac will see the fruits of his labor here, starting next year.

The least sexy thing about football is also the most important: the lines. Without an offensive line that can maintain a running game, you can't get by with an average or below average QB. Without a defensive line that can stop the run and put some pressure on the opposing QB without having to resort to run blitzes and passing blitzes, you'll never stop anyone with any regularity. I am absolutely in favor of going the JUCO route for the defensive line. Promising high school defensive lineman are some of the rarest of recruits, and very few of them end up available and/or interested in programs like ours. I'll be happier than anyone else around here if we can convert possible recruits like Romar, Vaenuku, and Thurman into actual Mean Green players, but these kids are usually the ones who end up going elsewhere. Even when you get promising HS d-linemen, they usually take a couple of years to develop into regulars. For the d-line, the JUCO route makes a whole lot of sense.

On a related note, we've seen the blueprint Mac is going to use on the offensive side of the ball: Run it. Regardless of whether or not we like this, regardless of how much of a waste of Chico's play calling it might be, this is the offensive system the Mean Green will win and lose by as long as Mac is here. I'm excited to see what the combination of Pegram and Jimerson can do behind an offensive line who will have another year of experience under their belts except for Fortenberry, who will graduate. I'll be even more excited if Berglund turns out to be even an average passing QB, someone who can make opposing defenses at least occasionally honor the play action instead of laugh themselves silly at it. A decent passing threat + an experienced line + exciting backs = an offense that can do some damage.

[FirefightnRick]

Watching our Basketball team and it's new coach right now reminds me of watching Mendoza's defense and trying to figure out what in hell he was doing the first few weeks of that first season? Then, after one of his secondary coaches suddenly resigned after a couple of games, we found out the truth....that Mendoza, probably with Dodge' blessings no doubt, held training camp without allowing tackling during 11 on 11 game situations, and the assistant wasnt going to be a part of such a debacle. Our team prepared for OU without ever going live.

As hard as that was to believe it made complete sense in what we were seeing. I'm hoping we learn some similar revelation with Benford.

Rick

Edited December 4, 2012 by FirefightnRick

[filmerj]

Why don't we just go find an up and coming assistant who is hungry and will work for cheap (now where could we find one of those? Our OC?). At least when they fail to produce we won't be held hostage.

Go ahead, -1 away. But don't delude yourself. If you weren't IN this abusive relationship you'd be yelling for the participants to get out of it.

I get what your saying but we are dealing with this situation on the basketball front, Benford the long time assistant who's been hungry for 15 years. Do you think it work differnently in football? I don't know the answer I just know the affore mentioned sitch were in hasn't shown to be a promissing way to go. Maybe a proven head coach from an fcs level, but I'm not so sure the assistant route is the way to go. Although none of it matters because nothing is going to change. We get to sit and enjoy what we got.

Edited December 4, 2012 by filmerj

[untjim1995]

The least sexy thing about football is also the most important: the lines. Without an offensive line that can maintain a running game, you can't get by with an average or below average QB. Without a defensive line that can stop the run and put some pressure on the opposing QB without having to resort to run blitzes and passing blitzes, you'll never stop anyone with any regularity. I am absolutely in favor of going the JUCO route for the defensive line. Promising high school defensive lineman are some of the rarest of recruits, and very few of them end up available and/or interested in programs like ours. I'll be happier than anyone else around here if we can convert possible recruits like Romar, Vaenuku, and Thurman into actual Mean Green players, but these kids are usually the ones who end up going elsewhere. Even when you get promising HS d-linemen, they usually take a couple of years to develop into regulars. For the d-line, the JUCO route makes a whole lot of sense.

On a related note, we've seen the blueprint Mac is going to use on the offensive side of the ball: Run it. Regardless of whether or not we like this, regardless of how much of a waste of Chico's play calling it might be, this is the offensive system the Mean Green will win and lose by as long as Mac is here. I'm excited to see what the combination of Pegram and Jimerson can do behind an offensive line who will have another year of experience under their belts except for Fortenberry, who will graduate. I'll be even more excited if Berglund turns out to be even an average passing QB, someone who can make opposing defenses at least occasionally honor the play action instead of laugh themselves silly at it. A decent passing threat + an experienced line + exciting backs = an offense that can do some damage.

I remember that when Mac had Seneca Walace and Sage Rosenfels at Iowa State, he had wide open offenses, even if they still ran the ball a lot. BTW, I still believe that running the ball should be your strength. Its just that when you have a QB who cannot be trusted to make solid throws consistently is just too much of a liability. When I think back to our "glory years in the SBC", Scott Hall might not have been able to throw it much, but when he did, he was accurate. His pass-action plays were usually very effective. Since he left, we have seen Meager, who just didn't have it (even with that amazing game at 1-11 SMU that year) as a starting QB (DT is most like Meager, I think), Vizza, who could've been great here, but his timing was messed up with Dodge's inept system, Riley, who was a gamer, but was just too small to be a QB at this level, and then DT. For every year before this one, the QB wouldn't have made any difference in us being a bowl team or not because we have had so many depth issues, but this is the year that QB play really stood out as being the difference between a bowl season and 4-8. If the DT who played at K-State had shown up for SBC play, then we would've won at least 7 games, in my opinion. That's why Berglund makes me so excited for next season. He COULD be the answer we have been looking for at that position for a long time. Imagine an offense with Jimmerson and Berglund--I think Canales would be able to get back to the wide-open play calling that we saw from him at the end of 2010 with those guys. He needs a QB that can play and a RB that can break away, like he had with Dunbar.

[meangreener]

I remember that when Mac had Seneca Walace and Sage Rosenfels at Iowa State, he had wide open offenses, even if they still ran the ball a lot. BTW, I still believe that running the ball should be your strength. Its just that when you have a QB who cannot be trusted to make solid throws consistently is just too much of a liability. When I think back to our "glory years in the SBC", Scott Hall might not have been able to throw it much, but when he did, he was accurate. His pass-action plays were usually very effective. Since he left, we have seen Meager, who just didn't have it (even with that amazing game at 1-11 SMU that year) as a starting QB (DT is most like Meager, I think), Vizza, who could've been great here, but his timing was messed up with Dodge's inept system, Riley, who was a gamer, but was just too small to be a QB at this level, and then DT. For every year before this one, the QB wouldn't have made any difference in us being a bowl team or not because we have had so many depth issues, but this is the year that QB play really stood out as being the difference between a bowl season and 4-8. If the DT who played at K-State had shown up for SBC play, then we would've won at least 7 games, in my opinion. That's why Berglund makes me so excited for next season. He COULD be the answer we have been looking for at that position for a long time. Imagine an offense with Jimmerson and Berglund--I think Canales would be able to get back to the wide-open play calling that we saw from him at the end of 2010 with those guys. He needs a QB that can play and a RB that can break away, like he had with Dunbar.

Agreed, completely.

[Monkeypox]

QB wouldn't have been a difference this year, with our current defense.

[meangreener]

QB wouldn't have been a difference this year, with our current defense.

Would have made all the difference. We end up 6-6.

[Monkeypox]

Would have made all the difference. We end up 6-6.

If the world were a closed system, maybe. But in the real world, with a defense that can't even run enough DBs out to cover and can't keep people from gashing us for 30 and 50-yd runs, then no, QB play would not be a difference. Instead, if we had better QB play, we'd be talking more about how bad our defense played, and how they were the difference between us being a bowl team and not.

[meangreendork]

Would have made all the difference. We end up 6-6.

If we got the horribly missed red-zone TDs, our record would've been 5-7, maybe 6-6. DT left more than a few points on the ground every game.

[GrandGreen]

Every wonder why those great QB's coincide with those great teams? Put Dodge, Thompson or Vizza on the teams of 2001 to 2004 and they are instantly thought of much better, put Hall on the teams of the last 8 years and he becomes an average at best QB.

Not a knock on Hall because I think he was a good fit for his teams but without Kennedy and that defense, he would not have won many games even in the Belt.

[untjim1995]

Every wonder why those great QB's coincide with those great teams? Put Dodge, Thompson or Vizza on the teams of 2001 to 2004 and they are instantly thought of much better, put Hall on the teams of the last 8 years and he becomes an average at best QB.

Not a knock on Hall because I think he was a good fit for his teams but without Kennedy and that defense, he would not have won many games even in the Belt.

I disagree a little bit. I do think that Vizza would've been awesome in those years, but Riley was always going to be too small and DT wouldn't suddenly have been more accurate. Hell, the offense this year looked exactly like Dickey's offense and DT wasn't able to take advantage of 8 men in the box. And I do think that Hall would've been solid no matter who was his coach. He had moxie and could make accurate throws. If he's on this year's team, they would've won 6 games, at least.

[RushnStudies]

QB wouldn't have been a difference this year, with our current defense.

I don't know about that. For example, Houston has traditionally had problems with defense, and look at the difference between the Houston of 2010 when Keenum was hurt compared to the Houston of 2011 with a healthy Keenum. Maybe defense wins championships, but a QB who can lead his team to outscore the opposing team (due to his own team's hole-y defense) wins games.

An improvement at QB accuracy or ability this year would have won another game or two for the MG.

[Monkeypox]

I don't know about that. For example, Houston has traditionally had problems with defense, and look at the difference between the Houston of 2010 when Keenum was hurt compared to the Houston of 2011 with a healthy Keenum. Maybe defense wins championships, but a QB who can lead his team to outscore the opposing team (due to his own team's hole-y defense) wins games.

An improvement at QB accuracy or ability this year would have won another game or two for the MG.

I watched our defense this year. Sure, teams didn't have to pull out all stops to beat us, because we couldn't score a lot of points. But we couldn't even run appropriate nickel and dime packages with personnel, and our defensive line is lacking in depth and quality. All that MORE SCORING would have brought us is back to the Dodge days. We would've lost more games 61-47 instead of 41-27.

[TIgreen01]

I disagree a little bit. I do think that Vizza would've been awesome in those years, but Riley was always going to be too small and DT wouldn't suddenly have been more accurate. Hell, the offense this year looked exactly like Dickey's offense and DT wasn't able to take advantage of 8 men in the box. And I do think that Hall would've been solid no matter who was his coach. He had moxie and could make accurate throws. If he's on this year's team, they would've won 6 games, at least.

I agree with this. Hall was able to read defenses pre-snap better than DT and was able to make it through progressions quicker because of it. He'd rarely miss seeing guys running wide open when they took advantage of coverage mistakes. Then he was as accurate a passer as we've had in the last decade. Not the strongest arm, but he'd put it out in space so the receiver could make a play on it. DT too often (either by design, or limitation) just stuck with the play/progressions as written/practiced. Every QB misses seeing guys running wide open, but it seemed like DT almost never saw them unless it was designed into the play.