GrandGreen

Joe Greene played for Rust not Fry and if you think football was cleaner in the "ole days", it is because you just were not around. As mentioned above, coaches could never get away with the stuff they used to pull. Illegal recruiting, abuse of players and little regard to academics were all issues that were much worse in the past. There were no cameras at every event and very few investigative reporters. Coaches could just about get by with anything and many did. Coaches such as Royal, Wilkerson, Bryant, etc. were legends because they won not because of great character. The powers routinely gave out 60 and 70 freshmen ships and then proceeded to run off the majority to make way for next years crop. Rules limiting number of scholarships, stating minimum academic standards, and requiring academic progress are not always effective, but it is a much better environment for players than existed decades ago.

If history means anything, NT is not going to be scared away by a little fisticuffs between a player and hc. If there is any mutual interest between Leavitt and NT then this alleged event should be investigated and NT satisfied that it is not a pertinent issue. The contract could specify immediate dismissal without compensation if something similar ever occurs. I don't see a major risk if NT does necessary due diligence.

Yes, there is usually turnover after a coaching change, but more often than not it is instigated by the coach. I would think the majority of the players look forward to a fresh start, the last three years couldn't have been that enjoyable. NT has a handful of great or potentially great players, and even if all of them decided to leave; NT is still ahead making the decision. Dodge lost a few of Dickey's recruits but most forget that over half of Parker's squad was gone soon after Simon arrived. Hopefully, NT can keep the vast majority because it is down in numbers and medical redshirts can be obtained for Tune, Byne, Johnson, Leppo, Thompson and others. This team has shown that it doesn't have a lot of quitters involved, and I doubt a new coach is going to scare any of them.

WKU and MTSU; seem to think the basketball world revolves around them. WKU definitely has the historically best bb program, while the Muts have a great WBB program. Based on their fans participation in the Belt tournament; they should also get more attention than the other Belt schools. Frankly, although much closer and having a high caliber BB team, NT's fan response has been disappointing. Much better last year, then NT first Belt tournament win in Lafayette when the NT fans were practically non-existent; but still needs to be vastly improved. All that being said, there still has to be a site that actually bids and offers something comparable to Hot Springs and apparently that has not happened. I am not as enamored as many with Hot Springs. It is a easy travel location and is small enough that it is easy to get around, but for a half a##ed bb fan like me that doesn't have a great interest in watching non-NT games; it doesn't have a lot of attractions. A Memphis, Nashville, Mobil, New Orleans and even Biloxi would be more centrally located and offer far more then Hot Springs. However, the Belt is not going to get near the focus at any of these places with the exception of Mobile, and that is not a neutral site. Hot Springs is overall a great location for NT fans and we should take advantage of it for the next three years. The weekday games are tough for most to make, but if MTSU and WKU can do it, why can't NT. We are much closer and there are potentially a lot more of us.

Does anyone really think Leach is even a remote option? Forget about the money aspect, RV couldn't control Dickey; can you imagine Leach here? It would be fun and I think he would win but highly unlikely. . Out of that group, I would go with Leavitt a proven program builder and to my knowledge never complained about USF lack of resources. Also his character questions seem to be small compared to Leach.

Frankly, based on the Dodge hire; I think RV needs all the help he can get. Having the acting president in your corner is of enormous benefit.

Traditionally, NT has always relied on recruits committing in December and January. Unfortunately, NT is doing about all it can at this time; and that is just to keep in contact with recruits. Basically, recruiting is dead until a new coaching staff is in place. Obviously, the quicker a hc is named the better that is one reason that a not currently employed coach is more desirable than one that is not available till after a bowl game.

Shows just how ignorant some of these posters are. I give DD all the credit for NT incredible run of conference wins but also all the blame for the fall of the program after that. DD apparently thought he was destined for bigger things not realizing that most programs didn't want a hc who was a public relations disaster and most of his success related to one inexplicably good recruiting class. HIs lazy recruiting and bad mouthing of the program finally cost him his job.

NT's tie with a very average UALR team about killed any chance of winning the regular season conference title.

Old article but Robinson, I think would look good in green. www.reporternews.com/news/2010/jan/24/eastlands-robinson-adding-maturity-to-his-hoops/

Well I guess I am just as worried about Matt Simon and especially the demon Dickey down the road. I would be happy if any of them succeed, Jerry Moore turned in to a good coach decades and a few schools after he left the Green. I do think that Dodge will once again be successful and I would not be surprised if it ultimately is as a FB division hc, but his time at NT had to end.

Well, I guess NT should not even try under those circumstances. Money is always an obstacle because there is always someone who can pay more, even for the richest programs. However, I don't think NT is going to worry about covering Dodge salary with so much at stake with this next hire. Likewise unless NT is mystically transported into the SEC, there are always better conference homes. Sun Belt competition isn't going to exactly scare coaches away. The lack of success at NT in football is in the past, you don't even want a coach that is concerned with that. The facts are that NT is without doubt in the best position it has ever been to move the football program forward.. Individual coaches may have interest or not, but there are only 120 hc jobs and there are going to be excellent candidates. I really like the fear that if NT does makes a good hire, he will be gone in 2 to 3 years. I guess NT should settle for someone with no upward expectations, I think most would be elated with a coach that was so successful that he was lost after two or three years.

I would think it will be a long time if ever that Dodge is back in college coaching. The perception is that he has been a complete failure at the college level, and I doubt he would even be considered for a coordinator position and I doubt he would want to be just an assistant. He can have his pick of high school jobs and with almost 2 years of pay coming, he can take his time.

You really think RV is going to go for another "out there" type candidate? I highly doubt that RV is going to hire someone else with limited college experience. Joe was a great football player and also great supporter of NT, less leave it at that. I can't imagine Greene being interested in starting a college coaching career at 60+.

There is a big difference between being able to identify talent and the ability to sign those athletes. NT by virtue of it's history, conference, and current performance is just not going to sign many identified primo athletes. There are two elements in the recruiting wars, beating out similar and sightly better competition for athletes and the ability to identify borderline prospects that there is little competition for that have fb talent. Dodge's first year recruiting was horrible in hind sight, but he signed a great number of All everything type athletes. The problem though they were good high school athletes, they didn't have college level ability. I thought Dodge second year was one of the best recruiting years NT has had, he actually signed a number of athletes that had other opportunities. The last two years, Dodge and staff have basically had to fight over the leftovers of recruits, being basically non-competitive against Texas fb competition. Note, the relatively large number of out of state players. Yes, there are a few exceptions but in general, Dodge and staff got borderline athletics and took too many chances on the academically challenged. I still do wonder why many of you continue to pound on Riley. A player that gives everything and has had a fair measure of success. He may not be strong enough to stay away from injury but the kid has a hell of a heart. Every coach makes recruiting mistakes and the lower the team is on the food chain, the more risks are usually taken. One thing that has surprised me about Dodge is his failure to recruit a number of QBs. This recruit one a year may be alright for a team with an established QB rotation, but makes no sense when the team has no established hierarchy of QB's. He has also failed more often than not, with high school receivers; a position that should be easy for him to recruit. Discussing Dodge's recruiting now is probably totally counter productive. Hopefully, NT hires a coach that can create enough excitement to quickly upgrade recruiting. You have to give Dodge and staff some credit, I think they have really worked hard at recruiting; but it hard to out recruit your record and conference. There is no reason that NT should not out recruit the other Belt teams and be able to compete with the bottom half of the Texas teams, but it is not going to be easy. You generally have to win to recruit well, and to win you have to have talent. The new coach because of the lack of depth is probably going to have to continue to hit the jucos hard and slowing reduce the reliance on transfers.

High expectations for a new coach, that will have to rebuild; have you looked at what is coming back? Recruiting this year is a disaster, a new coach and staff is not going to be able to salvage it. NT will lose a bunch of players and has little in depth. QB, offensive line and, defensive tackles are major concerns next year. Assuming Thompson fully recovers that gives you one solid QB, the offensive line must be almost completely rebuild, the wrs lose Lott, Jackson but hopefully have healthy Bynes, Strafford joining Carey, Taylor and Lewis. The defense loses it's best players Atkinsson, Jackson and Robertson. There is little depth at any position as NT pays the price of a heavy reliance of jucos. NT will have a few good players returning in Dunbar, Carey, Chancellor, and Phillips. But once again they will have no experience at QB other than Baine and maybe Dodge if he stays which is questionable. Runnning back will be a strong position, WR should be alright but the offensive line will lose three starters off what has turned out to be a weak unit. All the defensive ends will return but that unfortunately can't be considered a strong point. Linebacker should be ok with Orr, Phillips, Johnson and Herron but there is no depth. The secondary should actually be better assuming Ford and Cook return with McCord, Hill, Downing and Shorter. Next year is going to depend on players such as Cantly, Abbe, and McCoy developing and the injured players all returning. Unfortunely, I don't see much chance for good season next year no matter who the coach is. I am afraid Dodge inherited a better team than he is leaving.

Well nothing like class warfare between the few fans NT actually has. The truth at this point in time, NT does not have enough of any kind of fans to be cavalier about it. I even include the fair weather ones that like to tail gate but never bother to show up in the stadium and the ones whose main contribution is a few complaining posts on the message boards. To downplay the import of the students is stupid, they whether they like it or not are the biggest contributing group to NT athletics. Conversely, to not appreciate the few relative big financial supporters of the program is also foolish. If NT ever gets to the big time it is going to be because it finally develops a group of big contributors. Like in politics or many other things in life, money matters. I could even stand Mattress Mac has long as he was heavily supporting NT athletics. Pointing fingers for lack of support to students, Denton residents, alums and NT faculty and staff can all be unfortunately easily supported, however almost every fan comes from one or more of these groups. It is easy to support UT or now TCU, but it takes a little character to support the Green.

I see no merit in terminating Dodge before his successor has been hired. I don't see any current coach on the staff as a valid candidate, so nothing is gained by an interim coach. The problem is firmly RV's now. He is frankly lucky to still be AD after the Dodge hire and another bad decision could spell the end for him as well. RV has made some very good recent decisions in hires for the non-revenue sports and hopefully he can do the same in football. RV certainly has plenty of time to come up with a solid replacement HC.

The first half of football was the most dominating I have seen in a long while. Something like 30 yards of offense for NT versus 300 for FIU. Even with the injuries I don't understand how NT's offensive line has got this bad. There is a reason that Baine was the fourth string QB but he did about as well as anyone could with the blocking he had. Likewise the best back in the league has been totally destroyed the last two weeks as everyone keys on him. The defense after getting better has regressed. I don't think this team has given up but there is just not a lot of talent left on the field missing Thompson, Tune, Leppo, Johnson, Dodge, Stradford, Mosley, Ford, Cook, Neal, Jones, Bynes, Jackson, Brown plus others. This game was just brutal, as soon as the team gave up their always first drive td, the game was basically over despite the return by Chancellor. Good game by Chancellor, as always Robertson, and a few others but this effort joined some of Dodge's worst defeats: big loss to Rice in Houston and his first game against Oklahoma. FIU has a good team and the conference championship may will be settled when Troy and FIU play. It will be interest to see how the rest of the season progresses. With a different coaching situation you would expect that the final games could be used to build up for next year and give playing time to the players who will return, but there is no reason for Dodge to play it that way. I would like to see more of the several freshmen that have already lost their redshirts such as Abbe, Orr, Chancellor and Byrd as well as the people who should be vying for offensive line positions next year: Bean, Noble, Franklin and Adelpipe. I don't see any NT victories unless Riley Dodge returns and I am not sure that is worth the risk.

I guess I missed that quote, although I have heard Dodge state that he has not seen anything like the injury problems NT has suffered this year. ASU posters make the same claims, I took time to look through their game recaps, have you? I think the fact that 20 of their 22 starters in the first game played in the last game including their first two qbs makes it almost impossible that they had close to the injury issue as NT. From a technical standpoint I am not you can lose a starter when the player in question never started. Yes, NT lost a couple of projected starters before the season begin also, but I think Dodge would be delighted to have 20 of the 22 starters that played against Clemson available for Kansas State. No one knows what NT's record would be without the abnormal injuries but to suggest it is something teams routinely go through without dire effects is foolish.

I thank you have some valid points. Dodge is undoubtedly a much better coach than he was four years ago, and there is a good chance he might be better than the next NT coach. The problem is one of performance and perception. He has not shown he can win and the overwhelming perception among fans, the general public and recruits is that he can't coach at this level. The fact is that Dodge at this point is an albatross to the NT program. Unless he has a miracle finish, he is just not marketable to fans or recruits. Yes, there are a few that value character over wins but not enough to sell out one section of the new stadium. There are some real asses that are successful coaches because they win, but I can't think of any FB division college football coach that has had a long losing career because he is a great guy.

Geez, I heard that by ASU posters on the Belt Board, it simply is not close to being true. I looked at the starting lineup for their first game and their last game for 2009. There were two players that started the first game that did not play in the last. I can't see any circumstances were their injuries situation could even be close to what NT has went through and we are only half way through the season.

The facts are Dodge has made far too many mistakes to be retained with his record unless NT has some kind of miracle finish to this season. It is imperative that NT have some type of momentum going into the new stadium next year. Injuries have been devastating but it was Dodge's fault that NT went into the season with only two true scholarship QBs. You can make a strong case that NT would have been around the top of the Belt without the abnormal amount of injuries but I still can't see NT as anything but the ninth or tenth best team in Texas; a more meaningful comparison for the program. I think character is paramount but you must also win. I wanted DD gone even when he was winning because with his approach and attitude I didn't see him doing anything but harming NT in the long run. Dodge the opposite to Dickey in character, however has dug himself a deep hole and long lost almost of the positive benefits of being a great high school coach. Any magic the Dodge name once had in recruiting has been turned around by his college coaching record. The sad truth is that in 3 and a half years, Dodge has not shown that he can win and it is too big a risk to go forward with him. This was the year that NT should have won, the experience and talent level both will be down substantially next year and the likelihood that Dodge can turn it around is remote not to mention that the AD will lose all creditability if he retains Dodge if the aforementioned miracle finish does not occur.

The last thing NT needs is for Holmen or Edwards trying to play the wing. It is hard to believe with the current basketball recruiting going so well that last year was a disaster. Having only 11 scholarship players and 5 at the guard positions makes depth a real problem. I look for Johnson to play a lot of point guard which means that Johnson, White and Thompson will be the guards. Against some teams, I am sure that JJ will stay with Shorter and it is obvious that Williams will get a lot of time at the wing. NT just will not have that big scoring guard off the bench that has been a prime part of JJ's teams. The second front court player to pair with Odufuwa is any one's guess. Edwards was signed for this position but his 7 pt and 3 rebound juco year isn't very reassuring. A lot seem to think Holmen will fill this position, but played behind Spencer all the last part of the season. Hogans is a high energy guy but has shown little offensively and is foul prone. Knox had some early success but didn't get any minutes as the season ran on. One of these guys is going to have to get substantially better for NT to have a great year. NT has three players that are legitimate conference mvp candidates and should have a great year despite lack of guard depth and apparent front court talent. If there are no injuries, NT guards should be good and better defensively than they have been; although the lack of height may hurt. Anything happens to Odufuwa and this team is going to be in deep trouble.

www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/highschools/topstories/stories/101010dnspountcommit.17556ed89.htmlMy link Jones was mvp of his district last year and an all state player who averaged over 21 points a game. Looks like a great pickup.