[Vito Blog - End Of The Night Thoughts]

Barnum and Bailey? Isn't that how Hayden Frys' detractors described him when he was coaching at North Texas?

Cooler heads? Isn't this the same BOR that approved the TD hire?

Jim, you weren't at the game. I saw a bunch of beat up players who were out there punching to the very end. Last year they would have folded it up after the first Troy TD and walked through their dog whipping.

Speaking of beat up players. My respect for R. Dodge has gone up significantly after last night. Playing fearlessly against a bunch of semi-pro players who came after him EVERY PLAY, and there he was wearing a cast on his recently operated on left wrist.

I seem to recall that one of our favorite coaches beat Tennessee with a fourth string QB.

What I saw last night in gutsy play, smart play calling, and energy from the coaching staff, you CANNOT ASSESS in an resume and/or interview.

You should have been there Jim. It's been a long time since I've seen a North Texas team get into a genuine dog fight and not back down.

BUT, we have three more weeks and.....we'll see.

I was going to post, but this is exactly what I was going to say. Well deserved +1 Silver.

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[Is This A Big Problem?]

I find that the space is often larger than it appears...the object, sadly, not so much.

Space? Iono man... I just think space is SUPER grey.

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[Canales May Be A Good Fit]

If he goes out and beats Troy, Monroe, and MUTS, then lets talk...but all he has really done to this point is beat W. Ky...thats all.

This. Great win, but tap the brakes on coach of the future talk. At least for now.

[Does Hiring A "name" Hc]

Is every five star recruit an All-American?

But you still want them, right?

[Wac Settlement Eminent?]

I'm with SUMG on the time zone thing. Good fit for all involved, and best of luck to them.

[Dodge Reflects On Unt - Next Move]

I'd give him a beer, feed him, and thank him for his effort.

Very classy exit, coach.

This.

[Is Lane Rawlins The Wild Card?]

Yes. Although wild card connotes more of an unknown quantity, so it may be more accurate to say that his role may be the wild card, not him or his ideas.

[Mike Leach For Unt Head Coach]

WE DECIDE WHO IS INSTIGATING!

[Mike Leach For Unt Head Coach]

Seconded.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

[Jeff Bower Bio]

Bower may have magic sauce. I don't know. But I would be VERY disappointed with a 24 hour turnaround crony hire. The University of North Texas can ill afford another 4 years of fail here.

I'd much rather take an extra week or two to interview five or six quality candidates than rush into a familiar situation. Hell, pick up the phone and call the name guys - what do you have to lose? You will fail to land 100% of the candidates you don't ask. Let's kick the tires and see what we can rustle up.

[It's All About The Injuries]

Part of my job is performance measurement - figuring out what the roles and responsibilities of various operating departments are, and then determining whether or not they are fulfilling them. Whenever we start developing these measures, we must first ask the question: what is the goal of the operation? A police department's goal might be keeping the crime rate low - an accounts payable department might be getting all invoices paid within 30 days. Whatever the metric is, it must answer the question "why have a (fill in the blank) department."

You can't define success or failure without first agreeing on the task to be performed. Different people on the board believe that the job of the head football coach is anything from winning football games to developing young men into leaders. It may be either of these, both of them, or neither. I suspect that whatever the expectations of Todd Dodge are, they're spelled out in his contract. If I had a copy of the contract in front of me, I could probably tell you what he was hired to do.

If he was hired to win games, he's clearly failed in that. A 14% winning rate cannot be treated as anything but an unequivocable disaster. Now, if leadership development is a goal, then thing like graduation rates, dropout rates, and incidence of post-college incarceration may be effective measures to determine if this is being done. There may be others, like fund raising and UNT Athletics marketing; and those would have more subjective (though no less compelling) measures.

Most of the time, these measures are clearly weighted in the contract (winning games may be 50%, fund raising 25%, leadership development 25%). If they aren't, then that's probably what we should be debating.

Success or failure isn't arbitrary, but it can look that way if everyone is grading different functions.

[Coffee Nods]

Guys, do any of you remember a group called the coffee nods? that made a song about our team back in '03? They had a youtube about it and everything that was pretty sweet. Is that still around? can someone give me a link?

I still have the .mp3 somewhere. If you pm me your email, i'll send it to you if I find it.

[Will Atterberry #4 Punter In Nation]

Serious question....can he kick field goals? I wonder if he can use his skills for FG's.

Funny enough, I asked the great Brad Kadlubar that very same question back in the day. He said that the reason is that there are two very different mechanics. Not to say that a punter COULDN'T be a good kicker. Just that people usually focus on building different mechanics and timing.

[Will Atterberry #4 Punter In Nation]

I show North Texas overall as 5th nationally in raw punting yardage - this doesn't account for other teams using multiple punters, but it should be close enough to compare. The same stat sheet shows:

* Tied for 2nd in touchbacks with 5

* 59th in punting average at 41.4

* 15th in punts per game at 6.3

* 93th in net punting average with 33.97

[Interim Head Coach?]

Yes, TD is still the coach as far as I know. Some jerkwad was going with a hard count. I think most of us stayed onside though.

[Wow, Just Wow...]

If the mood weren't so somber, I might just LOL at "A ferret took up residence in my abdomen." Usually, that might be cause to giggle and perma-quote. But now is not the time. Simply not the time.

[Heartbreak]

Where do we go from here? A lot of excitement, and a lot of disappointment.

Both optimism and pessimism are fine. Just try to be civil to each other.

[Josh Rake Has Died]

Awful. Just awful. Football seems a pretty small deal right now.

[Mean Green Report]

"I told coach that if he gave me an opportunity, I would get him a sack. I asked if I could play end on one play. I went straight ahead and wasn't going to be denied." -- North Texas DL Brandon McCoy

[105.3 The Fan Bad Mouthing Unt]

I know we can't vote mods posts up or down, but +1 to you for this one.

While it is appreciated, it is probably for the best that I don't have one. It'd be so negative the server would crash.

[105.3 The Fan Bad Mouthing Unt]

If 105.3 issues a sports opinion, but no one is listening, does it still count?

[Full Neinas Report]

I really hate to do the thing, but I had a meeting this afternoon with a fairly highly placed person in the UNT power structure. It was this person's opinion that the sole reason for this report was to convince the board of regents to open up UNT's collective pocketbook for a certain high profile football coach. In essence, it is a kind of political token to be used as backup, justification, or due dilligence should the BOR go in that direction. Now I have no idea how accurate this is; it could all be an opinion. So just take it with a fairly generous helping of salt.

Now, whether this report is intended to drum up support for a big name coach or as an "in" to CUSA, the fact remains that this report is more important for political capital than any sort of true technical evaluation. It honestly doesn't matter that we've been saying the exact same things on the board for the past five years. It is not nearly so much about the CONTENT of the letter as it is about WHO is making the observations. It isn't what we want to hear, but the truth of the matter is that Chuck Neinas' voice carries political and professional weight, and ours do not.

That's just the way politics go.

[Neinas Report Likely Out Thursday]

Thoughts on the death robot:

1) As was mentioned before, the color is off. Last time I checked, the colors for this university were green and white.

2) Would it kill someone to put an interlocked NT or SOW on there somewhere?

3) I only count 30 missile slots and four autocannons. I understand that the model is probably "expandable" to 50 and 8, but come on, if we're going to build this, let's build it right.

4) Has anyone considered corporate naming rights? Would anyone really mind it being called the Mattress Mac Blockbuster Golden Chick Death-bot 9000? Why isn't the university at least entertaining this idea? I guess no one over there cares for extra money lol.

5) Finally, I got word the other day that UTSA and Texas State already had plans to build one, and their students voted in an extra $50 a credit hour to fund R&D. Yet another example of how we get passed by daily.