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I may have missed something but how do we know this?

I think we have a guy who is solid in offensive scheme and can recruit. I also think he’s shown signs of how important staff is in terms of their salaries. He’s very veiled and robotic publicly with what he says which can be frustrating as a fan but I sense his players love him. Schematically we have come a long way on offense. Dealing with losing two elite downfield receivers is tough. Also, discipline has improved a lot - not as many dumb penalties (though still too many). That said, I think we are seeing a first time head coach who had a heavy blow in having to replace GH try to navigate that while having to face probably one of his tougher decisions in what to do with Reffett (the answer is to let him go). I also think we are also dealing with a delicate team psychology in that these players/recruits have been expecting to lose their coach and that caused all sorts of disruption. Can’t blame him for entertaining the offers but there are consequences for all that. NT isn’t an overnight build. We should be farther along than we are but I’ll take the offensive output so far. The defense has been an embarrassment. I believe in Seth. He’s a tough dude who knows how to run a modern offense. Need to change defensive scheme. I also think he needs to hire some rah rah guys who connect with the players on a deeper level as I don’t see that being his greatest personal asset. Those things happen, I’m patient and hopeful we can continue making these strides.

These beauties are the only road uniform we need... and we tend to win in them.

The tackling is disgusting

This guy is currently just a DL coach on the #12 defense in the nation, but fits the criteria you're looking for.

Not a surprise. This defense is nationally and historically bad so it was a matter of time before the national media took notice. And not in a good way. What an embarrassment this season turned out to be

Coaching Staff lost since last year: Harrell, Koonz, Filani, Brown, Choice, JD Baker (QC) Replaced with: Reeder, Scott, Mayes, Jennings, Cobbs, Mangino and Petrelli My Take: Reeder is growing in to the position and hasn't been as terrible as some think considering what was lost and has been lost on the offensive side of the ball this year. I think Koonz is a very big loss and possibly Brown along with Baker who was usually working with GH and the QBs. I hated to lose Choice, but I think Cobbs has done a great job in his place. Mayes is a tough judge because our one returning TE has been injured all year. I think the jury is still out on Jennings and Scott. Don't know enough about Mangino and Petrelli's contributions. Players graduated or lost due to injury: Siggers for a couple of games, Torrey currently out, Bussey Jr. for the year, Guyton, Murray, Mayfield, Jordan Roberts, Brewer, Chumley, N. Brooks, K Hall, R Young, U. Tauaalo, Ejiya, and B. Garner. B. English never panned out due to injury and now their is the potential that our best young WR (Shorter) is out for an extended period of time. Darden has been fabulous and Lawrence his usual steady self, but our defense is missing leadership and fire. We lost a lot of leadership, had a huge turnover in our coaching staff and have lost a lot of production due to injury this year. We were probably rated too high, our expectations were elevated and now reality is setting in. Should we have lost to Charlotte? Absolutely not, and how we respond this week will tell me how SL is doing as the head coach. I believe the players respect and like playing for him, and that, along with Fine's leadership, will see us ready to go Saturday.

Is the answer Jesus?

I really do hope you are right. However, who would have thought we would blow a 28 pt halftime lead to ODU last year. This program has a history of losing to teams we should not lose to. It will just be another gut punch if a loss at home to ODU keeps the team from hitting 6. I’ll be there to see Mason’s last game. So sad the season has come to this. GMG.

The all white is just clean and awesome looking.

Had nothing to do with the way we played, but...….. YUCK! Those things were awful looking!

Next year is going to be an integral year for the development of our future defense. We will have a lot of young talent between the 2018 through 2020 classes, particularly at linebacker and in the secondary. Implementing a defense with a good d coordinator and getting them could lead to a really solid defense when those players start to make up the upperclassmen of our defense.

Pretty much agree with this. Ref's 3-3-5 relies on too much talent at individual positions for us to run right now. First of all the safeties and corners in Ref's scheme have to be legit because to effectively run it you have to be able to run man coverage. Ours can't cover man against good receivers. Secondly, the linebackers have to really fast, athletic and smart because they have to be great blitzers. No way 3 d linemen can get pressure on passing downs so they have be exceptional at being able to read, react and get to the QB or RB in runs. Third, you have to be great on the D line because occasionally you drop 7-8 in coverage and need to get some semblance of pressure with 3 d linemen. So I would argue front end, middle, back end we aren't good enough to run that scheme. Hard to see us being there next year either.

So you think UNT is historically sub par because of the comments of the .05% of alum who care and not the absolute apathy that set in into the 99.5%? I....see? Good programs, even in down and troddened years, don't lose to the likes of UNCC under a 1st year head coach from Austin Peay. It's absolutely insulting to suggest such. We have the record setting QB. We have outrecruited UNCC even in SLs first classes. We took the 2 score lead into 4th quarter. We suck/ed. And this admin keeps piling up sandbags and people are legitimately making excuses for it. It's inexcusable.

Stick with a couple of sets of uniforms, green and white, and white and green. The money savings can go towards recruiting more quality lineman.

They should be retired along with Unlucky the Squirrel. Both of them have caused nothing but bad things to happen.

*runs the scheme* *has absolutely no say in the players brought in to run HIS scheme* Makes sense.

Yep. "Customers should buy our garbage product if they want our garbage product to stop being garbage!" has always been the worst argument.

Wow. That's not the same guy I'm used to seeing during these pressers. He's usually very upbeat & positive, even after losses. He just looks/sounds defeated... for the first time.

Let the bidding wars begin. Schools with the wealthiest supporters will reap the largest benefits. This will cause an ever wider split between the haves and the "others". Fully expect to see college football split into "Super Conferences" after this. Also, expect lawsuits claiming Title 9 discrimination as the vast majority of the payments go to male athletes.

Hello NCAA FOOTBALL!!!!

I saw that halftime score on my phone and showed my son and said "Sportsline has really screwed that one up" and sent the screen shot to Harry thinking it was just a screw-up because it was so random and Portland had generally been bad. Heck they've been bad since. They won 9 that year and 11 since. Bizarre but hats off to everyone who stuck

This is EXACTLY the scenario I see coming....Not really sure how you police it. Put limits on what they can make? That won't fly... If I'm Bob's Used Cars of Tuscaloosa, I'm setting aside an "advertising budget"

Maybe We have zero details what is going to be permitted and probably won't have any details until April at the earliest. If there are arm's length transactions, there won't be much money though maybe EA brings their NCAA game back. Remember the bribery scandal was shoe companies paying assistants to land star players so those stars would wear their shoes. Presumably, Nike and Adidas, etc., can now go sign those kids when they finish their senior season of high school. If we don't have arm's length transactions then Bob's Used Cars of Tuscaloosa can give Joe Fourstar $100,000 for an ad contract if he signs with Bama.

It means that the NCAA still wants it cut. Their monopoly is getting harder to control and they want to keep their fat paychecks.

Lol. What does, "in a manner consistent with the collegiate model" mean?

Surely the Frank Wilson name was brought up as a joke. He was a rb coach before head coach. I believe he has never served on defensive side of the ball.

And RV was handicapped by Bataille who didn't want the FB coach making more money than she did. RV should have never allowed Dodge to bring his assistant HS coaches into the coordinator roles either.

I know you’re asking if he has ACTUAL knowledge of a coaching change but my point was it’s an absolute guarantee he’ll be gone. He can’t come back. Everything around this program says “we’re growing.” If we did all that and didn’t address coaching deficiencies then we’re not serious. I think we’re serious. There’s no way Reffett comes back next year because he can’t. He’s not good enough to be here in this program

Please tell me you don’t think Rice beating us in Houston 77-20 was worse than losing at home to FCS Portland State on homecoming 66-7 where our team literally quit on us in front on our fans...that Rice game was awful, but they were a bowl team and our team was TRYING. That is sad to believe, but we tried that day. We didn’t even try at home against PSU on Homecoming. That’s a whole other level of crapitude. We will never see a FBS team lose to a lower division team like that ever again...

because if he's not.....then Seth Littrell is not ready to lead a program and he will need to be next. I'm not ready to say that about Littrell yet....

Jets

Again, Gary Patterson is a master at seeing a RB in high school and envisioning him being a big time contributor on the Front Seven of his defense. Nobody else in the Southwest does it like this. He’s a throwback to when the best athletes were always placed on defense. These spread offense head coaches rarely care about defense. They defensive minded head coach may bring in an OC to implement the spread, but an offensive minded head coach rarely has any interest in emphasizing defense. Look at Leach, Briles, Sumlin, Kingsbury, Morris, Dodge, and Littrell. Not a one of them ever has had a defense to write home about. They never have defenses to win them a game. It’s always about getting a couple of stops so the offense can get the ball back to score. Maybe SL changes this all and becomes the blueprint for being a spread offense coach that also Emphasizes defense, but I’m not holding my breath. Too many examples above to change my mind on this. Add in very poor defensive coaching in Texas high school football which is now just glorified 7-on-7, and now you see why this area of the country hasn’t was jack when they face physical teams in the last decade. A&M barely competes in the SEC, the Big XII doesn’t give a rip about defenses, and the TX G5 programs usually have gotten routed when they play physical teams from outside of Texas. Add in the fact that we have been at or near the bottom of the totem pole here in Texas for recruiting and it’s not hard to see why we are where we are and to not feel real optimistic about what lies ahead. It’s not a bright picture at all...

So here’s my take on OOC play: 1.) Schedule a local series—the SMU series is great and makes for lots of good attendance. 2.) Schedule two G5’s for home and home series that will travel —one Upper G5 (like UH) and one Lower G5 (Texas State) 3.) Schedule a series with BYU. It doesn’t seem that hard. I’d almost bet you anything that BYU would Schedule a long series here just to play in Texas. Especially later in the year. 4.) If you have to schedule a body bag game, play against a team from the PAC-12, the B1G, or the ACC Northern Teams—IOW, avoid any southern teams that have lots of talent. It took Arkansas to look like a bad G5 program to finally win one of the games, as usually they have been ass-whippings. When we lose to UT, A&M, OU, LSU, usually Arkansas, etc...it’s even worse because most of our fans choose these teams as their t-shirt teams. Never should we play anyone from a P5 conference that is south of the line from Kansas to North Carolina. So basically, don’t play anyone in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, or South Carolina or south (except Vanderbilt). 5.) Never play a FCS team. There’s nothing to gain from these games. It costs money to buy them here. Nobody gives a crap about them from the fanbase you are needing to build from. They don’t help you with competing against actual FBS teams but you take on the risks of getting players hurt and possibly losing.

Wade Phillips

I want experience as a DC and possibly HC as well.

So, inversely, is the 4-3 saying 3 linemen isn’t good enough? I’m not sure that’s how this topic should be framed. The 3-3-5 is a variation of the nickel package, IIRC. Created in part to match up better with the offensive variety you see in the college and HS games. I think Urlacher was a big part of validation for this scheme, when Franchione/UNM gave his position it’s own name, the Lobo. You don’t really see it in the NFL because the speed from front to back at every part of the field neutralizes a lot of things for you. The same reason you don’t see a pure-Air Raid or true wishbone at that level. Ref has also had a hand in successful defensive outputs. Let’s not paint the guy like he has no idea what he’s doing. This is really a mixed pot of Several things, including chemistry and recruiting. however you look at it, it’s time for a change.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brunes-breakdown/id1444530094?i=1000455086624 Go give this a listen. Brune does a great breakdown of every player and really the season. This makes me really excited for basketball season!

If Shorter can’t go, I’d like to see Khatib Lyles these last four games. I’d also really like to see Jevin Murray out in pass coverage. I’m sure he’d look like a freshman in some regards, but he definitely has the coverage skills to add something of value to our secondary. I don’t think we’ll see any linemen or any linebackers who we haven’t already seen.

SMU is having the season I dreamed about us having this year

Starting with the Squirrel costume.

We’re more worried about how we look than how we play. Rick

There is nothing like funeral gray to get the team hyped up for a game.

I guess Central Arkansas, McNeese State, Incarnate Word and Lamar are all outrecruiting us since they all held Abilene Christian to fewer points than we did? Rick

This might be the dumbest thread I've seen on here in a while. The head of the defense is not responsible for the recruitment, mismanagement, and ill-preparedness of the defense? Save yourself the embarrassment and delete this thread.

I’m all on-board with any recruiting perspective, but I think we have issues beyond our Jimmies and Joe’s. Sometimes it’s just time for some new blood. It can give these guys a fresh outlook and focus. Sumlin just fired his DC yesterday, after 3 straight weekends of allowing 45 points. I actually think if you’re going to make a change mid-season, this could be a good time for us. Get the new blood a chance to prep for La Tech and show us what he can do.

Recruiting is the key. Look at the classes then look at our last class (ranked ahead of La Tech) and the current class. No comparisons! I think Reff is a good coach. We really miss EJ, as far as pressure. goes.

Why does our fan base think in this small time way? Folks......there’s other options than just those we’ve already had. We don’t have to regurgitate If and when we hire another head coach,..in any sport,... we’ll go after the best we can afford, which is more than we have ever been able to afford before. Rick

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if we aren't bowl eligible. La Tech will destroy us and after what I saw yesterday. Basically a team with no heart, urgency, or will to win, its going to get worse. UTEP's coaches will exploit our terrible defense next weekend. Even, ACU figured out our D in the end. Our special teams and o-line are bad too.