Littrell post game FAU

[Venson]

1 hour ago, ItsSparky said:

The wives, the pool, the whatever, is a straight cop out. Call it how it is, the team got their ass whooped for 60 minutes. No excuses, just flat out outperformed from start to finish.... With that said, I'm eager to see the response, still so very much to play for, but this will really test this staff. I want to see if they can bounce back, prob Littrell & co biggest challenge since arriving..

They have no choice but to bounce back. I don't think they can play a worse football game the rest of the season.

[Mike Jackson]

I think all the comments about the wives' tag along trip are very mild and natural.  We aren't assigning blame to the wives trip.  However to us novices it gives the appearance that culturally our priorities are not in order and managed properly.   Like I have said before I have no problem with a late season holiday related wive's tag along trip.  But setting up a perk/tradition like that is something you do going into maybe season #3 when your coaching staff has maybe accomplished something that make them attractive to P5 programs.   Most fans in the forum don't run around in FBS coaching circles.  Regardless I think it is absolutely ridiculous to allow a "family" perk to be set around a non-holiday conference road game.  I don't care if they lost by 1 point or 30.  Moreover how about the coaching staff get a winning overall record before organizing these "perks" around games.  What do you think the U of H Cougar board sounds like after it is revealed that the 9-11 coaching staff allow a wives trip to be set up for a mid-season game against UCF that turned in a historic beat down?   But on the #OldDenton  board anyone questioning this poo-pooped on?  I think culturally we are aiming very low #OldDenton.  (Houston loses coaches all time should they set up road conference game tag along trips for family to keep their coveted coaches.  When was the last time a successful coach was hired away from UNT?  I am talking full time coaches at least nominally in charge of a position group or above that.)

All I think we are saying is that until the program starts winning at a level where just starting 3-0 in conference is not an occasion for the team to getting full of themselves.  They beat back from the dead UAB and upstart UTSA at home in miracle come back fashion, for 2 of those wins.  The losing coaching staff has no business green lighting in season road game associated "perks" like this.  If they did the same thing in season 1 shame on them.  I am guessing that last years trip was set up around the Army road game.  That is a non-conference game so I would not have a problem with it.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Forgetting all the cultural things mentioned above that people I think kid themselves when they say they don't matter, 69 points doesn't automatically make everyone think of firing the whole defensive coaching staff.   But through 20 game this defense has not been good.  Mediocre might even be generous when classifying this defense.  When will we see some big time improvement or a coaching staff move?  The last good defensive performance against FBS competition was exactly  a year ago today against Army.  And schematic wise that isn't a difficult offense to defend it just take mentally tough disciplined gap/man assignments.  With a 9-11 record so far and bottom half of CUSA recruiting class a P5 program would be foolish to steal one of our coaches.  And that is is even if we run the table after this.

[AustinFromUNT]

I would just like to point out a few things here:

We still have guys on this team who went through a 4-8 & a 1-11 season.

We still have guys here who went through the 66-7 Portland State blowout.

The guys who didn’t go through that are sophomores and freshmen (underclassmen). 

So when half of your team went 5-19 and the other half are underclassmen it’s inevitable that a game like this will happen. Does that excuse a loss like this? It absolutely does not, but it does explain it.

This team is still young and this coaching staff is still new. At the beginning of the season most people were predicting 6-6 and a lot of people were predicting a regression. After the SMU game the sky was falling and North Texas wasn’t going to win another game this season.

Loses like this hurt because we’be SEEN how good these guys can play. Do any of you legitimately believe we are and bad as we played?

Also, for those saying fire Reffett who do you think you’re going to hire half way through the season. These guys are already set in Reffett’s scheme. IF SL decides to make a DC change it will be after the season is over.

So, in conclusion, every take a deep breath, drink a beer, and chill out.

[tmjerm]

49 minutes ago, AustinFromUNT said:

I would just like to point out a few things here:

We still have guys on this team who went through a 4-8 & a 1-11 season.

We still have guys here who went through the 66-7 Portland State blowout.

The guys who didn’t go through that are sophomores and freshmen (underclassmen). 

So when half of your team went 5-19 and the other half are underclassmen it’s inevitable that a game like this will happen. Does that excuse a loss like this? It absolutely does not, but it does explain it.

This team is still young and this coaching staff is still new. At the beginning of the season most people were predicting 6-6 and a lot of people were predicting a regression. After the SMU game the sky was falling and North Texas wasn’t going to win another game this season.

Loses like this hurt because we’be SEEN how good these guys can play. Do any of you legitimately believe we are and bad as we played?

Also, for those saying fire Reffett who do you think you’re going to hire half way through the season. These guys are already set in Reffett’s scheme. IF SL decides to make a DC change it will be after the season is over.

So, in conclusion, every take a deep breath, drink a beer, and chill out.

Much different than your predictions for the game, yet you say this was inevitable? 

 

As as far as Reffett goes, there are mid season coordinator firings all the time.  You have your top defensive assistant step up as interim and carry on.  

[AustinFromUNT]

1 minute ago, tmjerm said:

Much different than your predictions for the game, yet you say this was inevitable? 

 

As as far as Reffett goes, there are mid season coordinator firings all the time.  You have your top defensive assistant step up as interim and carry on.  

Yep, I thought we would win this. However, we weren’t able to deal with the emotional high of beating our rival the previous week and prepare properly. UNT is due a bad game every year: vs Portland State in 2015 ,@ UTEP in 2016, and @ FAU in 2017. The game is over now though. All we can do is continue to support the guys. SL & the coaching staff need to look back and see what the problem was and what the best way to fix it is.

Do you truly believe a defensive assistant could do better than Reff? Also, what message does that send to the defense?

[tmjerm]

Just now, AustinFromUNT said:

Do you truly believe a defensive assistant could do better than Reff? Also, what message does that send to the defense?

At this point, yes.

 

And the message sent is “we aren’t accepting shittiness on defense.”

[Mean_Green09]

1 minute ago, AustinFromUNT said:

 

Do you truly believe a defensive assistant could do better than Reff? Also, what message does that send to the defense?

Yes. 

And it sends a message of accountability. I doubt SL does it in season bc he’s not that type of guy, but if he did it would be understandable. 

 

[Got5onIt]

Hide ya kids hide ya wife!

Edited October 22, 2017 by Got5onIt

[southsideguy]

When we lose we go crazy and look for reasons why we lost.  We even now started involving the spouses. I doubt that SL and the coaches were laying by the pool.  Their wives probably did and I have no problem with that.  SL is hard working coach and I bet he was trying to find ways to win up until game time.  We got beat badly and we need to move on to the next game.  Cant change the outcome of the FAU game now.  We can only look forward and hopefully figure out what went wrong.  

Edited October 22, 2017 by southsideguy

[Dusky]

22 minutes ago, AustinFromUNT said:

Yep, I thought we would win this. However, we weren’t able to deal with the emotional high of beating our rival the previous week and prepare properly.

Do you really believe that is why you lost? Seriously delusional.

To the post that said wouldn’t it be grand if you played FAU in the championship game, do you really think that would be a good idea? 😂

[p_phelps]

I think we fell into the hype UTSA fell into and that monster will almost always bite you. If we were to lose I'd rather them get their butts humbled so they can go back to playing like their hair's on fire. Disappointing but not all is lost, still control our destiny and need to take this is as a learning experience for the young pups.  

[trud1966]

8 hours ago, KingDL1 said:

I am sure the wife thing is not a thing at all, and should be forgotten. 

Agree.  Guys, it's VERY plausible that occasionally, wives go to a few road games (or , maybe some of them go to all road games) on their own nickel/expense, and support their husbands/team.  Why is everyone assuming the UNT AD picked up the tab for this?  If the photo showed the wives AND coaches all out for a night on the town, instead of working, then there might be concern.  But it's not....So everyone just take a breath and put the pitch forks and torches down.  We can all go raid the castle another time...

[outoftown]

This was in many ways a laydown a la UTEP last season, with the difference that this is in the middle of the season. Given a full off season they came back and were a very excited team to start the season. I think SL and the team will come back to prove that they can bounce back. If that happens, then eventually SL will be hired away (maybe not this year after all, but eventually) and some players will find their way to the NFL. If it does not happen then eventually (also not this year) SL will be fired at NT and the no NFL draft streak continues.

But ovrerall, besides all the psychology, I think SL has to look himself in the mirror and realise he needs to spend resources on recruiting better (and maybe also simply more) front seven players. More than anything we were outphsycalled from the start. Yes the team then packed it in, but the difference was big from the start.

Edited October 22, 2017 by outoftown

[djohnnie]

Anger or not, I don't think it matters. Different coaches have success with different styles. The gist of the issue here is

corrections that were not made on the field to stem the tide. That is what I have a problem with.

GMG

[untbowler]

1 hour ago, Mean_Green09 said:

Yes. 

And it sends a message of accountability. I doubt SL does it in season bc he’s not that type of guy, but if he did it would be understandable. 

 

apparently neither SL or WB believe in mid-season changes, why not? Oh yeah because we are UNT and different than the other 125 FBS teams. 

Edited October 22, 2017 by untbowler

[RBP79]

A 69 point beat down hurts. You could tell after the first quarter NT wasn't mentally in this game......this is on the coaches. 

What is disappointing is the fact they "almost" had students and fans in the DFW area buying into the program!

SL and WB must not understand the mentality of DFW football enthusiasts. "Win and we might come....lose and lose big we'll laugh at you. There is too much going on in DFW every weekend for people to want and sit and watch mediocre football. Fill up Apogee...not this year! But I'll continue to travel to Denton for this team just like I have for too many years of mediocre football. I'm a masochist I guess........

.

 

[Venson]

Okay. The sky is not falling. They had a bad game. Okay a really bad game. It happens in this game of football. Hell, I am a Steelers fan and and Big Ben threw 5 INTs and that's the most he has ever had in his career, but they bounced back the next week and beat undefeated KC in Arrowhead. The point is that if you play this game long enough you have a really bad game. Whether it was lack of emotion or energy or both it happens sometimes. All of us are armchair coaches and players right now. I am sure in our playing days whether it was elementary, middle school, high school or even college, there were a couple of days where you didn't feel it and it showed in the game. The question is if they can bounce back. I will continue to support the team because its where I went to school. Everywhere I have been when I tell people I am from Texas, they always ask who is my team? Texas or A&M? I always say neither. I tell them UNT. They ask why and I say simple. I didn't go to school at Texas or A&M. I only support my school and always will. Win or lose I will stay with them. We all sound like the Cowboys fans did in 1989 when Jimmy Johnson came in. Everyone was claiming how they were no longer Cowboys fans. As soon as Johnson righted the ship everyone jumped on board claiming that they had always been fans. My point after all this rambling is they will get this right and we need to stop being fair weather fans. We can criticize, but for God's sake the sky is not falling.

[GMG_Dallas]

3 hours ago, untbowler said:

apparently neither SL or WB believe in mid-season changes, why not? Oh yeah because we are UNT and different than the other 125 FBS teams. 

It was a bad game defensively and offensively. They scored on us at will but the offense set the tone early with turnovers (interception and fumble) as well giving them the early possessions to take such a big lead early on. We all know the best way to beat an up tempo team is to control the ball and let your defense rest. We did the exact opposite and could not have played worst on offense. I don't want to give the defense a pass but let's look at this from all angles and realise the offense helped set up the massacre.

At the end of the day, we're still 4-3. One terrible defensive performance is not enough to risk tossing the entire season by firing coaches mid-season. There's still hope for the year. Don't be foolish. Because if you fire the DC for that game you better fire somebody on the offensive side too.

Edited October 22, 2017 by GMG_Dallas
Autocorrect error

[Mike Jackson]

The Boca Beat Down gives all the fans the right to question everything that is going on in the program.  Like I will restate over and over the staff is 9-11 and 2 wins are over FCS competition.  So they are 7-11 for through their first 18 games against FBS competition.  And the majority here are poo-pooing questions about the wives’ tag along trip.  A more rabid fan base would tell the coaches all to kick rocks right about now.  If you aren’t concerned and have never been intimately involved with other successful FBS programs conducting business this way I don’t understand you.  Losing is one thing getting throughly embarrassed by a rebuilding CUSA school is totally unacceptable.   This program has very little credibility.  And if I were CFB fan with ties to this school and wanting to involved, this nonchalant attitude and down voting reasonable and mild naysaying comments would turn me off.  Nobody I invite wants to come to games.  The few alumni that support the program financially have a right to criticize.  With fan attitudes like this from the core, I am not hopeful.  How many alumni have this program lost with performance like these over the years?   Questioning is not assigning blame it a step in process to find solutions.  Maybe if we had consistently questioned passionately enough we could have gotten someone with Seth’s experience instead of Todd Dodge back when Dodge was hired as head coach.  Or gasp someone with Seth’s experience and Dodge hired as the OC.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Mike Jackson

[BTG_Fan1]

6 hours ago, ItsSparky said:

The wives, the pool, the whatever, is a straight cop out. Call it how it is, the team got their ass whooped for 60 minutes. No excuses, just flat out outperformed from start to finish.... With that said, I'm eager to see the response, still so very much to play for, but this will really test this staff. I want to see if they can bounce back, prob Littrell & co biggest challenge since arriving..

It’s not a cop out.. it shows that this team wasn’t focused. Who knows do they normally have pool parties before the game, maybe but they aren’t posting those up on social media bragging saying “NewDenton” or you don’t believe in us you get the L then go out and sh*t the bed, which is an understatement about last night. The preach Family and this the family trip but yet they will be away from their families over Thanksgiving, and hopefully the Christmas holidays but they pick a mid-oct date? 

Again, I don’t think anyone is directly blaming the Wives.. but shows and give the appearance of the distraction, and if we had won no one would have said anything. The pool party again likely isn’t directly to blame but that team did not want to play vs FAU nor did try to even convince us they wanted to play.. They had more enjoy going to the pool than they did in maybe the 2nd biggest game of the season.. 

4 hours ago, AustinFromUNT said:

I would just like to point out a few things here:

We still have guys on this team who went through a 4-8 & a 1-11 season.

We still have guys here who went through the 66-7 Portland State blowout.

The guys who didn’t go through that are sophomores and freshmen (underclassmen). 

So when half of your team went 5-19 and the other half are underclassmen it’s inevitable that a game like this will happen. Does that excuse a loss like this? It absolutely does not, but it does explain it.

This team is still young and this coaching staff is still new. At the beginning of the season most people were predicting 6-6 and a lot of people were predicting a regression. After the SMU game the sky was falling and North Texas wasn’t going to win another game this season.

Loses like this hurt because we’be SEEN how good these guys can play. Do any of you legitimately believe we are and bad as we played?

Also, for those saying fire Reffett who do you think you’re going to hire half way through the season. These guys are already set in Reffett’s scheme. IF SL decides to make a DC change it will be after the season is over.

So, in conclusion, every take a deep breath, drink a beer, and chill out.

The problem is the defense is not getting any better.. it’s actually getting worse as the season continues.. 

3 hours ago, AustinFromUNT said:

Do you truly believe a defensive assistant could do better than Reff? Also, what message does that send to the defense?

Anyone at this point is better than Reff most likely...

Reff gave up 69 to FAU, 50+ to SMU, and 40+ to UAB... that’s around 55 points given up alone in those games.. 

The point is the defense has not progressed, it has REGRESSED not by a little bit by a ALOT.. Again Brooks and McClain went from Preseason All conference picks to no one is on the bench, and the other is playing in quicksand.. 

I can understand if they did this last year and they did it ALOT last year.. UTSA, WKU, UTEP took us out to the woodshed but that was year 1 and it was all new.. 

This year the defense has nosedived and been bailed out by the offense to much.. This L to FAU isn’t just embarrassing, it’s down right disgraceful.. 

The opening BTG last year had Perry talking about how he had a job still because his guys kept fighting, last night that defense crawled and was running to find a safe-space after the first play..

3 hours ago, southsideguy said:

When we lose we go crazy and look for reasons why we lost.  We even now started involving the spouses. I doubt that SL and the coaches were laying by the pool.  Their wives probably did and I have no problem with that.  SL is hard working coach and I bet he was trying to find ways to win up until game time.  We got beat badly and we need to move on to the next game.  Cant change the outcome of the FAU game now.  We can only look forward and hopefully figure out what went wrong.  

I haven’t seen anyone directly blame the wives..,The point about the wives/player pool party is that they Team was more excited to take some social media selfies than they were to play.. Guyton said after UTSA he had work the next guy.. this was a business trip and UNT came to that business trip, one of the 2 most important of the year, and was not ready..

If you go on a business trip and you get handled like that, you think your job is going to give you a pat on the back and say hey next week? Hell no they arent

[GMG_Dallas]

5 minutes ago, Mike Jackson said:

Like I will restate over and over the staff is 9-11 and 2 wins are over FCS competition.  So they are 7-11 for through their first 18 games against FBS competition.  

Context. We were 1-11 the year before SL got here. 8 of those 11 loses our coaching staff has were in year 1 of the new regime. I'm also going to put those 2 FCS wins back in because FBS teams don't take losses out of their record when they lose to FCS teams (which seems to happen at least once a year). Let's be honest and agree that our team has made quite the turnaround since 2015. I would refrain from making these types of comments mid-way through the season because if we finish the year, say, 8-5, including our bowl game we would be .500 over two seasons since being 1-11. I think we would be pleased with that considering where we've come from. Yes, things could also go south, but it would be wise to at least be patient before we start calling out SL. Todd Monkey was 4-20 in his first two seasons at Southern Miss, went 9-5 year 3 and is now the OC and QB coach for the Buccs in the NFL. They were 0-12 the year before he got there. Again, context. 

[drex]

So the answer was to charter an airplane and fly it to Florida half empty, but by God we did not take any wives.  Unbelievable.

[p_phelps]

The loss sucks, but when you look at the game alone it's not that big of a deal. The HUGE loss is the momentum, maybe not with the players but with the fans. The occasional fan will now check out for a while. Hell I'm a die hard and now questioning if I want to stick around and go to the ODU game or take that trip I canceled to go to the UTSA game.  Had we won no question I'd be going and very excited about it. 

[Cr1028]

13 hours ago, KingDL1 said:

I like your energy but this is a common thing in the coaching world. You can bet the we that stayed at home saw more of the coaches on TV then their wives saw of them. It is more of girls trip then anything. But go off the handle if you like. 

If this is the case, send them to a different destination, send them on a bye week, or send them in the offseason. The optics are terrible and it was obvious that something was different with the staff and players last night. They were not prepared or motivated at all. They played Iowa better than FAU. Compared to other road trips, the Boca vacay thing is is the easiest target.

4 hours ago, trud1966 said:

Agree.  Guys, it's VERY plausible that occasionally, wives go to a few road games (or , maybe some of them go to all road games) on their own nickel/expense, and support their husbands/team.  Why is everyone assuming the UNT AD picked up the tab for this?  If the photo showed the wives AND coaches all out for a night on the town, instead of working, then there might be concern.  But it's not....So everyone just take a breath and put the pitch forks and torches down.  We can all go raid the castle another time...

 

[Mike Jackson]

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Context. We were 1-11 the year before SL got here. 8 of those 11 loses our coaching staff has were in year 1 of the new regime. I'm also going to put those 2 FCS wins back in because FBS teams don't take losses out of their record when they lose to FCS teams (which seems to happen at least once a year). Let's be honest and agree that our team has made quite the turnaround since 2015. I would refrain from making these types of comments mid-way through the season because if we finish the year, say, 8-5, including our bowl game we would be .500 over two seasons since being 1-11. I think we would be pleased with that considering where we've come from. Yes, things could also go south, but it would be wise to at least be patient before we start calling out SL. Todd Monkey was 4-20 in his first two seasons at Southern Miss, went 9-5 year 3 and is now the OC and QB coach for the Buccs in the NFL. They were 0-12 the year before he got there. Again, context. 

Questioning is not the same as advocating for the firing of the whole coaching staff.  However they have won nothing.  Fans around here have been waiting for this program to stack two good season together since Dickey's 2003 and 2004 seasons.   Great for USM's former coach but not very good for USM so I don't get your point.  USM regressed the next year and they have a positive football culture and history to draw upon.  It has been a culture issue in the past and I don't want that to continue.  This program cannot afford embarrassing record setting losses like this still recruit quality players consistently and draw fans.  We don't question enough around here in my opinion and that maybe part of the reason RV hung around as long as did and a high school coach was hired as our head coach.  Most alumni don't care about the details they just disregard the program as whole when they see scores like this and can you really blame them?  So caring enough to question is not a bad thing, especially if you are spending money on the program.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Mike Jackson