jimbob

My guess is he is already the guy and a win at ULM will solidify it. K-State win is out of the question IMHO. I'm hearing that many of the front runners in the early stages have fallen by the wayside and that very few new ones have emerged because Canales has won some games with a less than healthy team that really loves playing for him.

NAH! Thought Leach was classless!

But Texas wants you anyway!

New coach walks into his office; old coach is clearing out his desk and he says son, if times get tough I've left you 3 letters to read that will help you get through the stress. After the 1st season, read the 1st letter and do what it tells you, after the 2nd season, read the 2nd letter and do what it tells you, after the 3rd season, read the 3rd letter and do what it tells you. Take my advice and you'll be OK. New coach says thanks Pop and thinks I'll never need the letters, I'm too good for that. 1st season goes by and its full of losses so the new coach reads the 1st letter and it says "blame your predecessor". New coach thinks, good idea and its probably right, so he blames all of the losses and his luck on a bad previous coach and runs off some of the players just to make the point. 2nd season rolls around and its another disaster, so new coach reads the 2nd letter and it says "reorganize", so the coach thinks great idea and its probably true. So, he fires a coach or two, runs off more kids and throws a witch hunt in to sweeten the deal. (Can't be his fault!) 3rd season goes by and it is also a horrible effort, so the coach drags over to the desk and pulls out the 3rd letter, he opens it up and it says "write 3 letters"!

Let's quit the "Dodge has class" thing already. Class or not, the kids did not believe in him, so who's the better judge about his class? Class means different things to different people; some is visible and some is not. Anyone can put on a show!

Riley could have easily folded personally and he could have decided not to give the program his best and no-one would have blamed him, but he did neither. Instead he is playing like the winner he is. Good football players usually choose to play and they want the ball; add a chip on their shoulder and sometimes they become Great players.

Congratulations Guys! That was Great! Compliments: This team, even with its depleted strength, is quite amazing. Fortenberry is playing great center, it was funny when the announcers said he's our 3rd string center as if to say "Poor UNT"; Riley could have easily given up on this program, but he didn't (we're lucky to have him); Kelvin Drake is out and Feeley steps in and delivers some key springing blocks; Dunbar's running better than he has all season and the Defense has learned how to bend and not break and is winning the turnover war. Critique: I gotta say the 3rd quarter play calling looked a lot like the first part of the season. There was very little creativity in the offense today. Coach C has implemented more TE activity, which is great, but we still need to mix it up a little more. There's no reason we can't go under center and run a PLAY ACTION PASS or a slant to the TE once in awhile; what happened to the shovel pass and screen and the reverse worked pretty well when we ran it. This stuff would loosen Dunbar up that much more. Also, why call a time-out to run up the middle; why change the TE chip block on their best D-lineman in the second half; that guy caused all of our 3 and outs or it seemed like it. I'm a Canales fan; just want to see him be a little more creative. That would remove any hesitation I have about him being the new HC.

You're right, I've heard them rap and they're not very good.

"Show Me" The Money!

It's Snoop Dog Fortenberry, Jay Z Kokejohn, Lil John Feeley, 50 Cent Phillips, P Diddy Franklin, Dr Dre Bean, Ludacris Gill & Kanye West Tomlinson. foshizzle!

SECOND CHANCE! He's not going to be hired as a HC for a long time if ever.

How about we hire Canales as HC and let him bring Leavitt in as an assistant? That way Leavitt gets a second chance; Canales gets a great assistant that will get promoted at some point if he's changed; and UNT can be the magnanimous benefactor. The more I read it the more I like it. If Leavitt has not or won't change, he won't take the job and our hands will be clean and we will have avoided hiring an ego maniac like Leach and Mangino.

Don't forget, Canales was hired for just this scenario. RV knew he would in all likelihood fire Dodge; Canales was available as an OC and could probably guide a program as an interim HC and if Dodge made his number he still had Canales on staff. Smart, Machiavellian AD!

I saw Mean Joe at the game. It's probably him.

The circus is for the players and it's working. You can reason all day long about why you need this kind of coach or don't need that kind of coach, but in the end it's about the players willingness to run thru walls for the HC and his ability to harness that in his game plan. I played for both kinds of coaches; great motivators and boring boneheads and the motivators win and the boneheads change jobs. With the motivators, players go to practice to see what kind of cool new stuff they're going to implement; with boneheads, players hate practice and both reactions show up in games. Funny; Dodge was supposed to be a great motivator, but I never saw that. Maybe it was that he knew his high school players since they were in the 7th grade and they couldn't wait to play for him. If we could somehow do a poll of the players, we'd find out what kind of coach they think Canales is. The poll has to include the grunts too; linemen, backups; even kickers. Maybe they can't wait to play for Canales. It's not foolproof, but its a very good indicator.

Just like all good OCs Canales knows how to recruit. His credentials are quite good and his passion is obvious. The kids in Texas that get skipped over by the big name schools will all consider UNT and the recruiter is the key to getting the good ones to attend. Lefty was in charge of Central TX and was a good recruiter, so Canales would have to deal with that drop off in production because Coach Bryan doesn't seem to have the personality it takes to recruit. The best recruiting representatives any coach has are the kids. If they say they love Canales and we're gonna kick some butt from now on, the recruits will buy that. I think the better question is what is your plan to recruit assistant coaches. Canales needs an O-line coach that has experience in a big time school (I'm told he has one). Strength & conditioning needs an upgrade and he needs to replace himself with a good OC. The whole defensive staff needs an upgrade. We don't rush the passer well; we don't cover the middle at all and we're suspect on the long ball, although last night's adjustment was pretty effective. Special teams have stepped up since mid season. So, Coach Canales; what's the plan?

3) If no to Question 1, why not? I would say there are different levels of consideration based on how many wins he achieves. 2 wins = can still be a candidate, but I'm not tremendously excited. 3 wins = strong candidate. 4 wins = frontrunner - someone else is going to have a hard time convincing me he can do better. 5 wins = hire him now, quick, before Bama cans Saban to hire him! BOOM, DONE!

One game does not a season make, but I think you got your answer on these questions.

Defense used less of the normal hit-and-hold line play and went into attack mode more often than they have in the past. The linebackers covered the middle better, we got lucky a couple of times and the D-Backs covered well. The 1st quarter was still terrible, but we didn't break and spot them 7. On offense Riley got into a very nice rhythm as the game went on, line play was very good and the receiving corp was catching the ball. Most of all, there weren't a lot of stupid mistakes like bad penalties, poor special team play, time management issues and ill advised time outs. Very up-tempo offense, which it seems is what we practiced for the last 2 weeks.

I'm told that Canales was over-ridden in his play calling quiet often by TD. We will see how Canales does on his own for the next few weeks. If he can take this beat-up team and win 2/3 games, he might be the man. The kids like the guy a lot and he runs a much more up-tempo practice. TD used to run 50-55 plays at practice in 2 hrs. Canales runs 80-85 plays in less time. The problems he'll have to overcome are; injury, especially QB, I like this kid, but he can't get rid of the ball; assistant coaches, he doesn't have any of his own and he's down a dedicated OC; pressure to win, self explanatory! I would be impressed if he didn't run the zone read all of the time, went under center more often, hit the tight end with a pass and just maybe ran a play action pass once in awhile. The defense runs an odd mixture of schemes; they are hit-&-hold on typical run plays, which is why teams gain at least 4 yards on us every run play; then they switch to an attack mode when its obviously a pass play, which opens up the short middle (we get killed on this a lot). In other words, we're predictable and our opponents almost always know what we're going to run. All they have to do is coach to it before they play us. Did anyone see the intense defensive meetings being held by Ark St between possessions. Those guys were getting a lesson on what we were going to do next. Where are our sideline meetings? I watched a high school game last night and the winning team ran a more complicated and precise offense than we do. They also changed up their defense to confuse their opponent and this was the decider in the game. I'm just sayin!

This is the most likely scenario. Leach won't come and we don't want him; Fran sucked at A&M where he had all the resources he wanted; Bower is retired and for good reason, his day in the sun was the 90s. Leavitt w/Canales sounds like a winning combination.

I don't think this will be much of a search. I think Bower is the front runner and the rest will be show. Bowden wins where he goes and not just wins. He kills! Leavitt has had some nice success at SF and Canales would like to coach with him again. But, it sounds like Bower to me. What a shame!

A "medical red shirt" is not an official NCAA term, but the term is used when a student-athlete is injured after participating in a limited amount of competition during a particular academic year and then qualifies for a Medical Hardship Waiver. Medical Hardship Waiver If a student-athlete suffers a season-ending injury or illness after competing in a limited amount of competition during a particular academic year, he/she may qualify for a medical hardship waiver which would allow him/her an additional season of competition during the five-year period of eligibility. To qualify for a medical hardship: (a) the student-athlete’s injury or illness must occur in one of the four seasons of intercollegiate competition or subsequent to the first day of classes in the student-athlete’s senior year in high school; ( the injury or illness must occur prior to the completion of the first half of the playing season that concludes with the NCAA championship in that sport and must result in incapacity to compete for the remainder of that playing season; and © the injury or illness must occur when the student-athlete has not participated in more than two contests/dates of competition or 20% of the institution’s scheduled contests/dates of competition in his/her sport (whichever number is greater).

UNT is not going to get a high profile coach to come because they don't and won't have the $. You're kidding yourselves with talk of Leach, Bowden, Fran, etc. and none of them would be worth the trouble. Virginia is the example we should follow. They took a subdivision coach that just won the national title (Richmond). I'm not saying we need a guy who won the title, but there are up-and-comers in subdivision ball. Unlike the TD experiment, we would get a proven winner at college ball and face it; the Sunbelt is like subdivision ball. A ballsy, young, football smart subdivision head coach could blow up the Sunbelt.

Coach speak or not, classy or not, keeping TD as HC puts a tremendous burden on recruiting for next year. That stadium will be cool at first, but crowds will dwindle if we can't put a quality team in it and win some games. Keeping TD is not fair to the fans or the kids playing football at UNT.