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I'm only 24 (I turn 25 in October) and I've had countless family members and friends reach out to me about the football team this year. People who I don't regularly talk ball with. I keep seeing people say "We're losing fans" or "SL is hurting the program and turning people away" For every fairweather that leaves when the going gets rough, trust me as someone who just attended the school (graduated dec 19) and lives in Denton still, people *do* care about UNT football, and as aggravating as it is to hear about the well of potential here, I think it's important we (the diehards) keep level heads. The high odds are that SL departs and Wren brings in somebody who can produce results. It just might take some time but we're going to get there and there are brighter days ahead. The program is going to be fine and those 25,000+ crowds at Apogee WILL come right back the minute we start winning again.

Hooray, another thread about this… This picture represents it

This thread should just be deleted.

This is where I am, too. Ruder has 3 years of eligibility left. Aúne takes it the rest of the year and see where Ruder is next fall. It’s time for the young receivers to show what they can do. GMG!

The connection is that this missed/blocked field goal is when the wheels began to come off.

September 29, 2018

Just stop loosing. That’s all I want, no more loosing.

I’m pretty sure that’s the point

Our failure to win is by no means a matter of lack of skill. These players are giving 100%, for the most part anyway. It falls entirely on coaches. Yes the defensive effort was valiant and guys like Torrey Ragsdale and Novil were playing great. But yet another early double digit deficit. For the eleventy billionth time. It's on Littrell and his coaches and their inability to get us prepared. Bill Clark Luke Fickell and Jeff Traylor all win games with this roster. We have the talent to compete and we aren't.

Unfortunately true. And I get it. I've only been a fan for five years. I didn't attend UNT until fall 17 so my tolerance is not built up like a lot of people's. Lol. But yeah, purely through an objective lense, I dont know how you look at WB's tenure here and complain. He did extend Littrell in summer 19 but it was after back to back nine win seasons.

I agree with you 100%, but you're never going to change the minds of some our older fans. They're always going to view the AD as cheap, underfunded, and unwilling to make changes. Even though none of that has been true under Wren's and Smatresk's leadership.

Man that's how it is across the board in college football. The reason SEC stadiums are full of 80-100,000 people week in/week out is because their opponents are the top teams in the entire sport. Western Michigan or Toledo could go 12-0 and MAYBE get 20,000. We get 20,000 just for showing up and scheduling good opponents. If we win, attendance skyrockets. Again all of this boils down to winning. Wren Baker's job is to produce winning athletic teams. During his tenure, our soccer, men's basketball, women's basketball, cross country, softball, volleyball, women's golf and men's golf teams have ALL won championships. The red flag is that football has not. And he knows it. As I said in my OP, the most likely scenario to happen out of all of this is that Littrell is relieved of his duties, possibly at the end of this season depending on how further we continue to sink. And yes, we can afford to make that move. If that happens, Wren Baker is in charge of who replaces him. He hired Grant Mac and that hire got our men's basketball team to heights it has never seen. He has overseen massive overhauls to our athletic facilities, uniforms, gameday experiences, and many more that we as fans can't take for granted. He is an EXCELLENT athletic director. SL being an overpaid, unproductive HC does not eliminate the New Denton narrative. This isn't the UNT of old and I for one choose to have faith we're going to get results and quickly the minute SL is gone.

As recently as 2019, we sold out Apogee at 2-2 with a blowout loss to SMU and a loss to Cal. Playing teams like Houston helps. Playing teams like Memphis, Baylor, and Texas Tech over the next ten years helps. Obviously we need to start winning, but I think my larger point is that WB knows his next football hire has to be a home run, and based off his excellent track record here so far there's no reason to assume it won't be until it isn't.

I like that your list has a bunch of DCs. I'm kinda leaning that way for a HC, and hiring a brilliant young offensive mind for OC with carte blanche to run his offense. Odom has enough connections to find that guy. I would throw in Barry Odom as well. He has the HC experience a lot of people want. He was able to get Missouri Ranked while HC, and his defenses are always very good. The SECWest is just a killer division that Missouri will usually be an 'also-ran' in. The fact that he could even get Mizzou to be competitive in that division is impressive. He's from Ada, OK., so Denton is pretty close to home... and he worked with Wren Baker for years, so they're already very familiar with each other. What he's done so far with Arkansas' defense is simply astonishing. They just held #7 A&M's offense to 10 points! And earlier this season, his defense held Bijan Robinson to 69 yards! So far, this season after playing 2 ranked teams, his defense is averaging 14ppg!

I certainly appreciate both your enthusiasm and optimism, but our new stadium has been open 10 years and the number of 25,000+ fans in attendance can probably be counted on one hand. The hard truth is that our football program is not fine, and with the exception of and occasional burst has never really been fine. My hope is that we hire a coach with a Texas recruiting background that can take advantage of the new bricks and sticks we have constructed the last decade and build a solid program. No more excuses.

ALL IN™

When Graham Harrell left.

The backup QBs wear red caps to in signal plays. Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

It’s a unt logo shirt. He’s the signaler for the defense so he has to stand out from the rest with the shirt.

Some of you may know I'm a fan of SEC Shorts. As of today, there is a second North Texas mention, at least to my knowledge, again at the expense of Arkansas. In this episode, Arkansas is moving out of the College Football Basement Dweller's house. It's movie night and Arkansas is nowhere to be found. He finally shows up and that's where the North Texas 44-17 win is again mentioned by UCONN. GOOGLE SEC Shorts-Arkansas moves out.

I definitely think he should be the starter during the bye week.

Love Lebby as a candidate! I agree that he should be one of our first calls. Some other names to consider: Pete Golding- DC at UTSA '16-'17 and has been the DC at Alabama since 2019. He's 37. Jeff Grimes- Career OL coach until he got the OC job at BYU. He served in that role '18-'20 and is currently the OC at Baylor. Texas guy who played offensive line at UTEP. He's 53. Mike Elko- Has served as a DC since 2009 at Wake Forest, Bowling Green, Notre Dame, and he's been at A&M since 2018. The Aggies defense has improved every year since Elko's arrival. He's making $1.8 mil/year at A&M so probably out of our price range. He's 44. Alex Grinch- Has been the DC at Oklahoma since 2019 with previous stints at Ohio St (2018), and Washington State (15-17). There's no denying the improvement the Sooners have shown on defense since Grinch's arrival. He's 40. Graham Harrell- No bio needed. He's 36.

I was there, but for some reasons those bleachers felt a lot harder than they did about 40 years ago.

Define "great." The players I have seen on the field the past 3 years are not great. In fact based upon their record they really are not very good. That's not to say that a few don't stand out above the rest , but if our recruits are so good how come they play so bad?

Maybe this guy needs a look.... John Glass' FCS program just beat Florida State, and in only 8 seasons as a head coach, he has a record of 69-22. Oh and as the OC, he inherited the head coaching job from Bill Clark when he left to coach UAB. Plus, he has never posted a losing season as a head coach in college. And in 2020 his team beat FIU. This guy knows football. https://jsugamecocksports.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/john-grass/890 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grass_(American_football)

I wonder if he could keep Bennett since he was the Pass Game Coordinator and running backs coach (and Art Briles’ son-in-law) at Baylor while Bennett was the bonafide DC. I find it odd that we keep dipping our toe in the Briles’ Baylor water but we won’t just do a cannonball into the damn thing. Let’s just do it. Let’s go all in.

When everyone else is taking transfers only, can we sign all the guys in the HS T25? #WhereElseWillTheyGo

One qualifying question. How is your mumble?

After much consideration and prayer, I'm willing to put my name into the hat for only $999,999.00 a year. I guarantee the possibility of winning 1 game a year, much like our current coach but for half the cost!

Texas State brought in all transfers last recruiting cycle - not a single HS kid, right? How's that working out for them?

SL has already went through three rounds of blaming it on assistant coaches. It now stops with him.

6 years and some are happy with moral victories and coming up just short. Against back up QBs, no less. Unbelievable. There is no more believing in this staff. Any hope for them turning this around was crushed last weekend against UAB. Satisfaction with mediocrity will keep this program stunted and bottom of the conference.

Seems to me that the coaching staff and development of players started going downhill when Littrell and his agent made a very public interview with Kansas State. I think quality assistant coaches started passing up trying to come here to coach. Which kinda makes sense if the head coach leaves, you could be looking for a new job. Sometimes stability is a strong selling point for an applicant. I do think Littrell’s desire to use UNT as a stepping stone to a “better job” truly hurt his position here and is likely beyond repair. Any thoughts???

While GH has a winning personality and brought apparently all the positive energy the SL program had, he is not the right candidate for our HC at this time. We should bring in someone with a positive W-L record at another G5 or possibly an FCS.

He's up there with Kendal for me. I think I'd rather have Kendal though. I think Lebby is headed to a low-level P5 (like Virginia/GATech) next season.

I don't think retaining Bennett is the reason I would cite for hiring Kendal Briles. It's for is brilliant offensive mind, and his ability to get guys to PLAY for him. The reasons you're citing for Carthel are precisely why they're give-up/lazy: "Oh, hey! A guy from Texas who has won at lower levels! Let's hire him and assume he'll win here too!!" I don't think Harrell is "THE" reason there was offensive production while he was here. I'm sure he's grown quite a bit while at USC, but man, I remember while he was here, not only did he struggle with halftime adjustments offensively, watching him on BTG, his demeanor did not really scream HEAD COACH. 3 I'd love to see NT look at (in order): Mike Yurcich - OKSt had some amazing offenses during his time there. Since then, he's bounced around and picked the brains of Ryan Day, Tom Herman & now, James Franklin, serving as OC at all stops. Really, it's up to him to decide if he wants to be a HC at a G5, or keep trying to get a P5 job. I would worry about another G5 school in the Rust Belt wanting him because that's where he's from. But his career path has taken him all over, with quite a bit of time down here in Big12 country. I bet he feels more than comfortable here. I think it was telling that he left Ohio State & Justin Fields to come back to Texas with Herman (he likes it down here!), but even though it didn't work out with Herman, he turned around and got another amazing opportunity to lead PSU's offense this year. Shows what the coaching community thinks of him. Barry Odom - A defensive coach. We've certainly struggled on that side of the ball for a majority of my time following North Texas (with the exceptions of Dickey's Championship defenses & defensive-minded McCarney's 2013 squad). He has HC experience, and his defense at Arkansas is playing lights-out right now. He has all of this experience, and he's only 45 yrs old. Again, it's really a question of his desire to jump back into Head Coaching. NT would give him a great opportunity. Kendal Briles - His offensive mind is just as good, maybe better, than his dad's. With his last name, we're going to have a tough time hiring him, but you'd better believe the offense would be extremely fun to watch under his guidance. His defensive coordinator hire would need to be a home run. I don't know what kinds of connections he has on that side of the ball, but at worst, we know Bennett would likely stick around if asked. I bet he wouldn't hesitate to become a HC if we offered.

It may have been the best part about Todd Dodge getting hired here--he never stopped talking about being promised a new stadium and that he expected that to happen. He constantly brought it up, which was great. I think he knew that the only chance of that ever happening was to hope that the students/alumni would force the administration's hand. I truly believe he knew that RV couldn't do it and that Gretchen Bataille wouldn't do it.

There are no threads about smuT because that game is past. We have moved on. I suggest you do the same or find you an Austin Westlake message board.

BOB is gonna ride out his time with 'Bama to parlay it into another P5 job. He's already proven he can win at a very high level in P5 while at Penn St. He'll likely get another shot at that somewhere in the next 2 seasons.

Not based on the “experts” ratings.

I think Aune needs more reps with the 1s and will return to the better version of himself we saw last year.

I’m sorry, I don’t get the connection.

Man, that was a pair of coaches that could motivate guys to swarm and hit you hard…miss those days.

Or that said loss was to a team without their starting QB…

Didnt Skladany (sp) wear a bright colored shirt on the sidelines??

With no control on dollars paid to players for "incidentals," the college game is going semi-pro.

In Year 1, even year 2, I’d understand the moral victories…in year 6? Not so much.

I guarantee Janeway couldn’t have survived being assimilated by the Borg!

It’s an online message board. You really need to lower your expectations.

Getting the doors blown off right out of the gate and making a comeback effort that falls short is NOT good football. Please don't try to make a heroic effort out of it.