FirefightnRick

Maybe he suffered from Terets Syndrome and couldn't take it anymore. While standing on the sidelines and thinking(very outloud) to himself and blurting out such statement like: "Why the @#$# are we getting penalties for delay of game after calling a time out", "Everyone knows who is getting the ball, why are we continueing to hand off to him 4 yards deep?", "There's 9 men standing within 3 yards of the line, don't hand off aga.....ARGH!!!!". "Damnit to hell, is that the only mother @#$# pass we have in the playbook, a jump ball to Quinn?!". "That's 6 times now we have thrown a flair to the back for a loss, I think they have that one figured out!" "Jeezus H....who's calling these plays!?" "NO @*#&damn it! A drink of your @#$# Diet Coke WON'T help me calm down!" ...etc..... Rick Rick

Yeah, Troy Redwine and John Love having to downfield block all the time. Can you imagine that? Well, yes, I can since that is JQ's main job description. What a waste. Rick

Still with the inexperience excuse again? BEFORE THIS SEASON STARTED OUR OFFENSIVE EXPERIENCE WAS: Jeremy Brown, OL: Started 4 games last year, played 9. Joel Foster OL: Started in all 12 games last year. Dylan Linebarry OL: Started in all 12 games last year. Jason MayOL: Started in 9 games in '03 and played in 12. Beau Davidson, TE: Started all 12 games last year. Known as the best blocking TE on the team. That's five O linemen with 49 starts combined. Every one of them has paved the way for a national rushing champion. If we cannot replenish the cupboard after only losing one TE(Blount), one O Lineman(Brewster) and the QB(Hall) after winning 4 conference championships and not do any better than average 188 yards a game, including 129 against Tulsa, then the problem goes much further than the O line. By the way, the rest of this youthfull bunch includes: Johnny Quinn, WR: Started 25 games. Led team in yards and receptions two years running, 4th leading WR in the conference last year Zach Muzzy, WR: Started 16 in games going back to '03 and played in 25. Joel Niwigwe, WR: Has 13 starts and has played in 26 games total. James Mitchell, FB: has 12 starts and has played in 25 total. Patrick Cobbs, RB: Has 18 starts and has played in 42 games total including a national rushing title. Jamario Thomas, RB: Has 10 starts and a national rushing title to go with it. Combined, this offensive team has players with 143 starts and well over 150 games of playing experience under their belts against some of the best teams in the nation. Other than we are just not playing well at all, there are no other excuses as far as I'm concerned. I do think we will see a different team against Troy. We always do. Rick

You can't beat anyone turning the ball over that much to start the game. And in the passing game that attempts to stretch a defense you would tend to turn it over more often, I would think. I would much rather diminish our chances to turn the ball over by going three and out between the tackles, punting all night long and get blown out at home. Rick

I couldn't figure out how to Edit my mistakes on the Belt board. My response. Smith's car wreck is taking it's toll no doubt, but this by far is not a young offense. We return 9 players from last season from a team that was led by the nations leading rusher. Plus, we get him and the guy before him, back. What Offensive Coordinator would NOT like to have that problem? Everyone who attended Two a day's knew this defense was going to be hurting. They are very young, third or fourth youngest nation wide. We all knew we were going to give up points. But offensively no one saw this coming. From a year ago's offense, we replaced a center with a redshirt freshman, a QB with a redshirt freshman, and a tight end with a junior who played in all 12 games the year before. There are guys playing new positions, but that is nothing new for us. Matt Turney as a sophomore DT in '00 was moved to OT during the second week of two a days. He started by the third week of the season on and graded out very high several times that season, enroute to help build the O line that started all this rushing hoo ha. So guys moving around has been nothing new to expectations, until this year I suppose. This offense returns 11 players who have 9 starts or more under their belts going back to '01, which is when Cobbs came onto the scene. Among the 11 players, they have 151 starts among them. I new we had some new people moving a bit, but other than the QB position I didn't worry going into this season. TCU's Patterson has lost his defense from that dominating season they had back in '00,'01 or '02, can't remember the year? He lost his DC to Texas State last year and their defense ranked 99th overall in '04. But instead of trying to continue to rely on their defense, he made the transition to utilize what he had and decided the frogs would go out and OUTSCORE people. And that's exactly what he's done, all with a different QB nearly every year due to the injuries Gunn has sustained each year of his career. I know we are not at TCU's level on many counts. But with defenses keying on the RB position at NT, you would think we could come up with something better that produces more than 129 yards against Tulsa? And of course your enjoying the bickering, you've had nothing else to be excited about the past 4 years and the fact that NT fans are dissapointed because we expected more shows we realize now how very vulnerable we are, thus opening up that long awaited chance for ASU to get that first Belt win over us. Did you expect college football fans to be happy getting 50+ hung on us two weeks in a row? Not all NT fans are calling for DD's head and I would bet there are many more who support him than not. Most are just dissapointed to expect that we would see more with our two backs than what we have seen. DD said in this weeks press conference that, "in our system we do not solely rely on our QB play in order for us to succeed". We know this, as was the result from our conference championship with Smith, a redshirt freshman QB back in '02. Most fans thought we would see some new stuff with PC and SPJMo including having them in the backfield together, misdirections, counters, any type of different schemes from previous year to keep the defenses guessing which would take the heat off of Meager. Instead we get the same boring draws, handing off to PC 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage into an 8 or 9 man box. The same back out screen into a wall, the same streak to JQ for a jump ball. The same, taking a time out to get a play in, then getting a delay of game call immediately afterwards. It's like we didn't have August practice at all? Again, coach Dickey stated this week we are not playing very well in any aspect of the game. Fans are dissapointed. If they weren't they wouldn't be fans. And I can understand others in the Belt are going to get their feelings hurt when the NT bickering includes statements that appear to diminish the Belt. But that is where we are at. You damn sure would be saying some of the same things if you were in our situation if you expected your program to take the next step. No one expects NT to go out and beat a K State. But we have competed against previous 4-7 Big 12 teams before and not get routed. We did expect to beat Tulsa, and we surely expected to produce more offense against the middle. Instead, with our two greatest backs we have had since the late 50's sharing the same offense, we get the same conservative offense we have seen for years that has averaged 188 yards a game so far, including a beautiful 129 yards in an ass whipping against Tulsa in front of a very good home crowd. Most NT fans love the Belt. I certainly do at least and most appreciate WW and all that the conference has done for us. Many take it personally, and I'm sure our team does as well, that due to our pitiful OOC record we are hurting it more than we are building it. But don't get your dander up if we expect more. Rick

Thanks to everyone for being patient. I think everyone will realize it was well worth the wait. I picked them up this evening at a junior high football game and I have to say, they are just as sweet as the green ones. I'm very mad at myself for not ordering one this year, considering this will be a special addition jersey because it has the Sun Belt Conference 30th anniversery logo over the left shoulder. We are so very fortunate that our program allows us to do this, very few, if any others offer this to their fanbase. I had the green ones at the tailgate party at MTSU and many of the Blue Raider fans were wanting to know "where did you get those?" I'll have the three who wanted shipment in the mail ASAP in the morning. I'll be on duty in Ft Worth Thursday if anyone wants to drive up to the firehall and pick theirs up. Otherwise I'll have the rest at the Troy game. Rick

What's Hawkins' salary? Didn't the Boise community/university give him a very large increase to stay last season? Rick

Everyone just bring torts, they can't arrest everyone. I'd like to see them hauling little kids off on ESPN. Now that's the way to market your program! Rick

Beau Davidson, our TE and Deep Snapper graduates after this year. And your counting Lineberry to graduate on time, which would means he had to of doubled up on credit hours since last Fall. So we lose three including our leading offensive producer to date, just to be conservative. Then what? Rick

By the way, is it me or am I the only one who see's the funny-as-hell irony that we are taking time to honor a team that won a game against a team it had no reason for even being in the same stadium with much less beating them, 30 years ago. All in front of a home crowd that has been sold OVER AND OVER AND OVER on the story that we can't compete against those same teams today because.... well, you can pick your own excuse. Rick

It should be a better game considering Troy will be our weakest opponent yet. If it's not, if we have another subpar yardage game and 7 points in a loss, are we to be dissapointed? Will it then, be appropiriate to start asking questions about our offense? Rick

LOL, just more enabling. We are young on Defense. We are going to give up points. No one denied that in August. We are NOT young on offense. In fact, this may be one of our deepest offenses yet. We replaced one O line veteran with a rookie. ONE. We have 4 linemen who have 40 starts among them. That's not a young O line. We replaced our QB with a rookie and replaced a tightend with a veteran. But we gained our most experienced weapon, our most top running back in history. That gives us two at that position and we have done nothing but muck it up. We basically lost in experience, 3 people on offense. I'll ask again, if we are going to suck on offense so bad every year when we have to replace 3, 4, 5 like most offenses, then something is wrong with the system in it's ability to move the ball and needs to change. And we know that isn't going to happen, which is the most frustrating thing about it. As several of our fans and Lettermen have stated to me personally and on this board. We expect progress. An offense returning this many starters averaging less than 135 yards a game is NOT PROGRESS. Rick

106 yards on 22 carries, averaged 4.4 yards a carry. Rick

I suppose Texas State needs to move up to the Big 12 considering they moved the ball at will on Texas A&Mand nearly walked out with a win last week. Come on, tell me it was a fluke. Tell me last year, without even getting the chance to have his FIRST RECRUITING SEASON(COMPLETELY MISSED IT DUE TO THEIR LATE FIRING OF MATSAKIS) that Bailiff went in to Waco with his second string QB and nearly walked out with a win, was a fluke. Corky Nelson didn't have $hit for money, recruits, facilities...a staff? and his teams competed very well with anyone and I never once heard the man tell the local/national media how his kids backs are against the wall when they signed on the dotted line. Schnellinberger still doesn't have a stadium of any kind to play in, in only his third or fourth year of existence. Same for South Florida, who's coaches were in trailers the last time we went down there and got our heads handed to us. So please tell me these guys successes against the bigger programs, programs who had/have more money, better facilities, greater fan bases were all just fluke jobs. Please tell me because I want to be an enabler too you know. Witnessing this season of piss poor offensive performance is not, for the lack of a better statement for "Us Season Ticket Holders/Long time supporters of the Mean Green"....this is not our first rodeo. Some of you enablers need to read up on your history. The rest of us, no, the MOST of US, have LIVED IT! Rick

Why North Texas isn't on there this week after completely dropping all the running back hype is a mystery to me. No one is killing the Sun Belt faster than us, so you would think we would be there this week. I'm am a bit confused as to why NMSU is on there? All they did was put up 350 yards and 10 points against the #13 ranked team in the nation. I know Cal isn't the greatest, but they aren't Tulsa either. ESPN BOTTOM 10 Rick

Welcome to the University of North Texas. Home of the famous SQUARE PEG, ROUND HOLE offense! Hey, come out this weekend and support your local SPRH! What do y'all think? Since we are into this support-at-all-cost, free for all I think we should shout it from the rooftops. Be proud of what you got, sort of thing. The "SQUARE PEG, ROUND HOLE" name say's who we are, and we're damn proud of it. Plus, it's catchy, it's marketable, it's unique and nothing describes our offense more. We could sell this. Also, another nickname with a wild west sort of flair could be: The "Hell or High Water" offense. As in, "we're gonna run the ball come hell or high water". Any other ideas out there? Rick

I'll keep most of my sick, firehall sarcasm to myself. But, tires blow out all the time as we saw twice during our trip to the middle, and speed kills. If your not going to slow down, at least put your damn seat belt on. Rick

To start the comeback in tonights win over LSU, Tennessee completed 6 passes for 40 yards to get them to the LSU endzone to set up their first points of the night. From there on, they spread out LSU and took advantage of their weaknesses in the middle. WHY THE PASS? Because the Tennessee running game, playing behind: 355lb OT, 306lb OG, 300lb C, 330lb OG, 338lb OT .....was earning them: 2.0 yards per carry, and finished with 69 total yards rushing for the game. That's an EXPERIENCED, SEC line that averages 338lbs per man. Someone tell me how in the @#$#@$ we are expect to succeed on October 29 against LSU trying to HAMMER THIS SQUARE PEG INTO THAT ROUND HOLE? Rick

Great post Rick. Rick

Said that from the looks of the crowd tonight that some of our fans have already tucked their tails and run. Said that our team is still young and learning but that the coaches saw some things on film that they can correct. Said we have to do better in the passing game if we are to have a chance to establish the run. Said Danny Meager is still the starting QB but will get Phillips more reps. I can't remember the questioned asked through an email, but it prompted DD to address the fans and how he knows we are dissapointed right now. That he does read the message boards and emails, just not as much as he would like due to time. But mentioned how great of a core fanbase we have, then mentioned those here on GoMeanGreen.com and that folks from here had a flag football game to raise money for Andrew Smith. He mentioned how much fun he had laughing at the guy(Stebo) pretending to be him coaching on the sidelines. He said he fully understands us being upset and critical. Said even to those being critical he apprreciates it because at least those are the people who care and expect to see improvement. Those are the people who are "in this fight along with us". Someone may have something else to add as I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Rick

Just by going from history with these weeknight games after the major egg we have dropped on our home openers and after the one we dropped on the 17th, 9,000 if we are lucky. Rick

Don't compare us to OU, compare us to programs more on our level who seem to still find ways to compete each year on offense. Everyone loses players. Rick

Cerebus LOL! Well, maybe that dream offense should be like what most successful Mid major and larger programs are running these days or a version similar to them. Texas Tech, Utah, Boise St, TCU, Marshall, etc. Anything in which, IF we do get behind, we still have a chance. If you listened to the coaches show last Monday and the pregame this past saturday before K State, DD told us outright that we are not a team that can be as affective and do what we do best, if we get behind such as what happened in the Tulsa game. ?????????????? Isn't that going to happen now and then? Aren't we going to get behind? So if we get behind in an OOC game, I can turn the game off then, or head for the car and so can the rest of the team? TCU was down 30 something to 19 the other day in Provo, did you see them running the ball to set up for a field position punt in the 4th? It's mind boggling. What planet am I on? And obviously some of the styles of offense like what Tech or TCU runs seems to be able to pick up fairly easy, or more easy than ours because I've never seen them produce less than 150 yards in a game, at least not to my memory but I could be wrong. Hell, Tech has had a different QB start for them every year yet they go out and put points on everyone. Even in losses, they produce yardage, move the chains and put up points. TCU too. That's all I'm asking for. A change to what wins or what gives us the best chance for a win. Obviously what we have currently isn't working and 8 years has proven such. Rick

Question: What is a better description for our offensive philosphy? Currently, we set up the pass with the run. But it's more like we set up the pass with the run run? Stupid idea I know, but as far as I can tell, Navy and Air Force are the only other teams that run as much as we do. Navy nearly beat Maryland the first week of the season amassing 343 yards and only throwing 12 times. But that's Paul Johnson's system. Johnson has never had an offense that didn't move the ball that I can remember. Air force beat Washington the first week of the season, but they had a record passing day against us last year. They can be very successful when they balance out. Given this, both Air Force and Navy are much stronger and are more established with a broader range in recruiting than we have, and even they struggle with their systems. We need to get out of the striaght on, power running game since it takes such a long time to reload each year with it. Rick

Am I alone in thinking that, if it takes so much to overcome losing 2 to 3 starters on offense, including getting to the third or fourth week of the season in order to get our running game going that, possibly there needs to be a change in our style of offense? We will lose someone every year. Every Year! How is it that W. Kentucky, Texas State, FIU, Army, NMSU and so many other offensive systems are able to get it on against larger programs in the beginning of the season and we can't. We have proved this offense is very difficult to learn and operate for 8 seasons now. And then, when it gets going, it's not all that great to begin with as evidence in 3 of the past 4 Bowl games. We need a change. Go to a system that our level of talent can learn quickly and be affective in all season long. Rick