The Fake Lonnie Finch

Huh?

Good post, Stebo. Dickey's brought plenty of success here. I think all you've got to do is look 90 miles north of the border at what OU's going through to realize that even $3 million coaches with lots of OOC wins can have problems when he is starting young players all around. I doubt the Sooners are trying to throw their coach overboard, and we shouldn't be either. But, if we're still sitting at this point next year...that's a different story.

#2 - As far as I know, you're not a college coach so you don't have to worry about the decision of whether or not to allow a RS Freshman to call audibles. I don't have to worry about that decision either but it is my opinion that a QB (regardless of experience) should be allowed to audible out of a play...oh let's say...when it's 1st and 10 and the defense has 8-9 in the box and the play call call from the sidelines is our typical hand-off up the middle. As far as audibling relates to this thread - I think the fact that Bomar is given that responsibility tells many stories. We already know he runs a more complex offense than UNT (anyone care to debate me on that one?) and he obviously has more things to think about each play than does Meager. Knowing that the QB has the ability to change the play also allows for better communication within the huddle. For example, a receiver notices his cover man limped off the field and sees a replacement that he can beat come in, he tells the QB to keep an eye on him because he can take the back-up DB. QB changes the play, WR receiver burns the DB and they score 6. This happens all the time (not with OU) but it happens so quickly that it can't be done from the sideline. Bomar doesn't call his own audibles. OU coaches send two plays into the huddle. Bomar calls the #1 play. If he gets to the line and thinks it won't work against the defense he sees, he switches to the #2 play. He's not good at it either. He looks like a scared jack rabbit hopping up and down the line when he tries to change the play.

Agreed. The NCAA has spent time in the past thinking up ridiculous ways to penalize team for ridiculous things (not having all the socks pulled up, teams mascots, etc.). The crazy thing is that everybody admits money drives the business of college football. But, when it comes to doing common sense things like having a playoff so that championships are won on the field, the presidents fly the "but they're just students who play a game" flag. It's a fat lie. The most hypocritical thing to me is that many of these universities are run by very liberal people who have made a living supposed "sticking up for the little guy", such as former Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami, Florida. They also go to the mat claiming they want equality for everyone according to race, religion, sexual choice, etc. But, when it comes to fairness on the field, they're strangely silent. Or, they simply abandon one conference for another for the sake of TV money (Miami to the ACC). If the NFL, NBA, and other TV money-based leagues have a spending cap, you'd think a college system could, too. After all, the colleges would seem to have more of an argument for doing so - making sure academics, not athletics, were the main goal of the school. Anyway, it's a joke the way it is and probably won't ever change. In fact, the big schools are doing their dead level best to run off the non-traditional schools with attendance requirements and other assorted crap. It's sickening.

Some of the Mean Green fanbase may have been as mistaken about their team's 2005 outlook as OU fans were. Both teams were having to start a bunch of new guys on both sides of the ball - particularly at the key position of QB. I think Stoops realized you can't make a guy grow up overnight, but also that he won't grow unless he's in there, so he decided early on to stick with Bomar despite the fumbles and interceptions. We're in the same boat. Although, I don't think Meager has turned the ball over near as much as Bomar has.

Bingo.

Something has changed since 1999 - our expectation level as fans is higher.

All I said was that it can work either way. A guy can be a screamer or a monk. It doesn't matter. To me, it's more the personality of the team. Nebraska in the 1990s was all business and whipped alot of people. Bob Stoops has won three conference titles and a national title being very vocal. But, what is Bob Stoops looking at now? He's had a dozen offensive linemen quit the program in the last five years. What's the weakest part of OU's game this year - lack of blocking from the offensive line. Because so many OL's have left, Stoops is running former tight ends and defensive linemen out there and getting creamed as a result. In the pros, guys are making a living. In college, the players are still kids. Yes, they can be upbraided in practice all day long, and even during games. But, you can't be calling people out to the press. Yes, Smith ranted about his assistants, but his players also were men enough to try to take responsibility. From the Detroit Free Press yesterday: Holder Brandon Fields, on MSU having 10 players on the field for the blocked field-goal attempt that was returned for an Ohio State touchdown: "It was a little bit of chaos. I probably shouldn't have snapped it in the first place. Everything was kind of thrown out of whack." ... Fields, on whether he considered spiking the ball in the confusion: "Me, personally, I didn't think about spiking it. I waited as long as possible to allow our guys who weren't supposed to be on the field go run off. As soon as I saw the clock go down to two (seconds), then I told him to snap it." .... QB Drew Stanton, on Smith blaming the coaching staff for the loss: "There comes a certain point in time when the players have to own up and take responsibility. It comes back to us. Unless you do everything perfect. I know I didn't today."

It doesn't matter. There's more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes. All we're pointing out is that have been coaches succeed who didn't call people out in public. Also, find me a "calling out in public" coach who continually does well. You won't find as many of those types as you will of the calm ones - Mack Brown, Bill Snyder, Bobby Bowden, Tom Osborne, Joe Paterno, etc. Calling people out in public quickly wears thin on folks. You can win without ranting and raving. Besides, for all of the ranting John L. Smith did, it didn't seem to help his team to victory or light a fire under them. And, actually, he's given his players an excuse to second guess their coaches by blaming them solely for the mistake. Every team practices lining up for field goals every practice. If they are paying attention, the players know the situation and where they are supposed to be as well as the coaches. It's two way street.

Former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, anyone? He seemed to do okay without calling people out in public. In 1984, when Mack Brown was OU's offense coordinator, he was yelling at a player as they left the field at halftime. Barry Switzer pulled Mack aside and told him not to do it anymore. Switzer was as animated on the sidelines as anyone (and, like Bear Bryant, would light up a cigarette in a close game...ah, the good ol' days), but he didn't call out his own assistants or players in public.

I like the old plates better, but I'm going to get this one.

All of this useless complaining about out of conference records. Stupid. Since we returned to I-A status, we've had two coaches. Matt Simon, who couldn't scrape together a winning season at the I-A level despite playing in the useless Big West Conference, and Darrell Dickey, who has put together three consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1986-88. Also, Simon won a total of three out of conference games during his tenure: (1) 1995, Oregon State - a team that finished the year 1-10 in the midst of its 25th consecutive season without a winning record (2) 1996, Northern Illinois - a team that, like Oregon State in 1995, finished 1-10 on the way to its fifth consecutive losing season. (3) 1997, Texas Tech - a team that finished 6-5. Darrell Dickey has also posted three out of conference wins: (1) 1999, Texas Tech - a team that finished 6-5. (2) 2002, Cincinnati - a bowl game win, UNT's first ever bowl win during its first consecutive bowl appearance. Cincinnati was the Conference USA Co-Champions and playing in their third consecutive bowl and fourth in six years. (3) 2003, Baylor - a team that finished 3-9. You all say he hasn't improved out out of conference record. So what? He's not given an out of conference schedule that is winnable for this program! In the out of conference games he has won, he's beaten two teams with winning records, something not accomplished by the prior I-A coach, Matt Simon. Also, he's has won conference title and he has taken us to bowl games - four consecutive years. No prior North Texas coach ever, whether Division I-A or I-AA, has delivered four consecutive conference championships. Not when we played in the Southland Confenrence, the Missouri Valley Conference, the Gulf Coast Conference, or the Lone Star Conference. And, so, this coach, who has given us more championships than any in our history, who has given us our only bowl win in our history, who has taken us to consecutive bowl games for the first time in our history, we should throw overboard because he's got over a dozen new starters? You have all lost your minds. On two counts, you've lost it. First, teams with players this youing and inexperienced are going to make mistakes. And don't give me that bull about the OL having 40 starts among them - coming into the season Foster and Lineberry were the only linemen to start complete seasons. Each started 12 games last year - the only year they'd ever started. May had nine starts in 2003, but didn't play last year or in 2002. Brown started only four games last year. Rose was a redshirt and is playing for the first time this year. Newsflash, that's 37 career games started by five players - 24 by two of them, and none had previously started in consecutive season. So, yes, we are inexperienced on the offensive line. Second, this school does not yet have the capablility to recruiting with the big dogs. We don't have the money or facilites that most of the 25+ regional Division I-A schools in the five state area have. Sorry, we're just not there yet, so we can't just re-load after we lose so many starters. Keep putting your butts in the seats, keep writing checks to the schools and everything will continue to get better. But, to bail out on a coach willing to stick with a low budget program and building championship teams with that low budget is crazy. Just crazy. Most incredible of all is that it's the fact that Dickey has succeeded here that has made you such spoiled, whining babies! Give me a break. We've got young players, we're a former I-AA school playing in the Sun Belt Conference. This year is going to have more downs than ups. Deal with it.

The funniest part of the post is the part that says "this is not a rebuilding year." Yeah. Sure it isn't. New starting linemen, new starting QB, nine new starters on defense. Rebuilding? Nah. Every team replaces about 13 starters a year. Freaking hi-larious.

You "Fire Dickey"-types are delusional. Coaches aren't clamoring to come to North Texas. Also, any team with young players will struggle. North Texas isn't the only team in this boat, as Oklahoma, Utah, Boise State, Iowa, and others are proving. Finally, we shouldn't even be playing Texas. It's nothing more than a money game for us and a glorified scrimmage for them. It pays the bills, but does nothing to grow the football team.

Southern. Look, some people here believe that UNT is a program that should just reload after losing most of it's starters from last year. It makes no difference to them that 3/5ths of the OL is new, there's a new QB, and there are nine new starters on defense, including the entire defensive line. It does make a difference. Some also believe UNT has the facilities and pull to recruit with UT, A&M, and anyone else in the region. We don't have those facilities and won't for a while. We make do with what we have. These are the same people who are so delusional they used to spawn threads about Steve Spurrier coming here to coach. I mean, you see what mindset we're dealing with here? We win the Sun Belt four times and one New Orleans Bowl and suddenly this is a good coaching job. It's crazy, but some believe it. In short, what Darrell Dickey has done is raise their expectations. To me, that's a good thing. We should expect to do well. But, those expectations shouldn't trump reality. We're young and inexperienced at every position exept running back, linebacker, and kicker. Young, inexperienced players are going to make mistakes no matter where they play or no matter who's coaching them. Anyone check out OU this year? Iowa? Michigan? Boise State? Utah? They're all breaking in young players who are making mistakes. For some reason, those fans aren't looking to throw their coaches overboard. Some here are looking to throw out a coach or two. Their expectations are unrealistically high. The fact is that we are in a conference with many schools, like ourselves, who are just a few years removed from I-AA, and were not players in the Division I-A arms race throughout the 1990s. We've got some ground to cover before we can expect to lose the number of players we lost and not have it affect us. As bad as some may want it to be different, it's not. Darrell Dickey is the man for this job. He took this crappy program and took it a little higher. With patience from all around, he'll take it even further.

The reason I did was because the most common use of sandbagging is getting someone to believe you don't know or can't do something, then taking advantage of them because you actually do know or can do it. That's not the meaning I meant in July, and that meaning wouldn't have made sense. I posted the Websters because I figured not many people knew of the other uses of the term sandbagging.

Here's a list of teams we've played at least 20 times. Also, years are listed for spans of 10 years or greater that we played them. Finally, the last year we played them. New Mexico State - 33 games : 1951-68 : 2004 SMU - 31 games : 1931-42 : 1992 Louisiana-Monroe - 21 games : 1980-94 : 2004 UTEP - 21 games : 1951-66 : 1980 Tulsa - 20 games : 1957-70 : 2005 Memphis - 20 games : No 10 year span : 2003 Here's a list of teams we've played 10-19 times, five year consecutive game spans listed, final year played listed. TCU - 18 games : 1929-35 : 2002 Louisville - 17 games : 1961-74 : 1995 Cincinnati - 17 games : 1958-73 : 2002 Arkansas State - 14 games : 1983-90, 1999-2004 : 2004 Baylor - 13 games : No 5 year span : 2004 Houston - 12 games : 1946-51 : 1998 Nevada - 11 games : 1995-99 : 1999 Oklahoma State - 11 games : No 5 year span : 1994 Other schools we've played five years in a row: Idaho - 9 games : 1996-2004 : 2004 Louisiana-Lafayette - 9 games : 2000-04 : 2004 Louisiana Tech - 9 games : 1983-87 : 1987 Texas Tech - 8 games : 1997-2001 : 2001 Utah State - 7 games : 1996-2000 : 2004 Boise State - 6 games : 1996-2000 : 2000 Middle Tennessee State - 5 games : 2001-2005 : 2005 It seems to me the best thing to do is pick a team that is close for both sets of fans, and that has at least some history. With those two simple points, I like the idea of trying to get long term deals with Tulsa, Baylor, Houston, Texas Tech, Louisiana Tech, SMU, or TCU. Obviously, SMU and TCU are a little uppity towards us. We've got a good shot with Tulsa because of the Kragthorpe connection currently there. There has been noise about Texas Tech and Oklahoma State trying to make their game like an OU-Texas II. I doubt it will ever be built up that way. OSU has a new AD who hasn't really said much about it. But, the border battle thing works well for many programs. I think an annual UNT-Tulsa match-up would work well as a border battle set-up, as would Louisiana Tech. Anyway, just some food for thought.

The quitter leaving won't have anything to do with recruiting NEO. Dickey and his dad both have had strong Oklahoma recruiting ties. Football coaches understand that some kids get hurt, frustrated, and quit. We're talking about a junior college here, not a high school. The JUCO coaches have these guys for couple of years. Prep coaches see the kids develop for four years. It's not the same. Besides, you've got other former Golden Norse like Kevin Galbreath who had great success here to counter the experience of anyone who gets injured and decides to hang it up.

No, it's worm eating harshness.

Yes, it has several meanings. The one I have in mind is Webster's 2.b. Main Entry: sandbag Function: transitive verb 1 : to bank, stop up, or weight with sandbags 2 a : to hit or stun with or as if with a sandbag b : to treat unfairly or harshly c : to coerce by crude means <are raiding the Treasury and sandbagging the government -- C. W. Ferguson> d : to conceal or misrepresent one's true position, potential, or intent especially in order to take advantage of - sand·bag·ger noun

Attendance figures. And the fact that we're I-A and they're I-AA. The point of moving the program forward is, strangely enough, to move it forward. Reaching back to monkey with I-AA schools to the extent of "creating" a rivalry is moving backward. Texas Tech, Houston, UTEP, Tulsa, La. Tech...any other regional I-A school will do.

Who said you couldn't dissent? All I said was that if you bag on Dickey, you're a worm-eating sandbagger. Dissent all you want.

Rudy, That thread had people saying we'd go through the season with two or fewer losses. I was the one not wearing green-tinted glasses in that thread. I figured with our losses on defense, we'd be near the 50-50 mark at 5-6 or 6-5. And, yes, people who bag on Darrell Dickey after the success he's given the program are worm-eating sandbaggers. Coach, Yeah, the numbers are off, but you've got to consider that the thing was written in July. That was one of my qualifications before the predictions - having not seen fall practices and not knowing what part injuries might play throughout the season. It could be that we're as bad as the numbers indicate. Or, it could be that Tulsa and Kansas State are better than everyone thought they'd be, and Middle Tennessee wasn't. Either way, I still like the way things shape up for conference play. And, it's the conference that counts. OU's Bob Stoops said the same thing yesterday about his team's early struggles. If they turn it around and win the Big 12, they're in a BCS bowl. If we win five more of our conference games, we'll go bowling.

See, this is what I mean by student apathy. These student council geeks probably don't even know there's a distinction between I-A and I-AA. Dumb.

I joined this thing on July 6th after reading a thread about predicting the upcoming season. Back then, I predicted we'd go 1-4 out of the gate, then recover. So far, I'm pretty close: Well, I haven't been to any of the fall practices or had the time to peruse the injury list, but this is what I think on July 6, 2005 about how the Mean Green will fare during their 2005 college football season: Game One - Loss, 0-1 (0-0) Louisiana State University 39, University of North Texas 13 Game Two - Win, 1-1 (1-0) University of North Texas 28, Middle Tennessee State University 22 Game Three - Loss, 1-2 (1-0) University of Tulsa 30, University of North Texas 19 Game Four - Loss, 1-3 (1-0) Kansas State University 40, University of North Texas 20 Game Five - Loss, 1-4 (1-1) Troy State University 26, University of North Texas 23 Game Six - Win, 2-4 (2-1) University of North Texas 33, Florida International University 21 Game Seven - Loss, 2-5 (2-1) Louisiana Technical University 28, University of North Texas 27 Game Eight - Win, 3-5 (3-1) University of North Texas 28, University of Louisiana at Lafayette 21 Game Nine - Win, 4-5 (4-1) University of North Texas 28, University of Louisiana at Monroe 21 Game Ten - Win, 5-5 (5-1) University of North Texas 26, Florida Atlantic University 17 Game Eleven - Win, 6-5 (6-1) University of North Texas 29, Arkansas State University 19 I think that Troy State University will have two conference losses, so the University of North Texas will once again win the Sun Belt Conference despite what the worm-eating sandbaggers that don't like Darrell Dickey say.