Monkeypox

A relationship with the FWST ALLOWS us to get the story there. If the relationship does not exist with the DMN, then he's obviously not going to be able to get the story there. The fact is that the metroplex papers have shown little desire in the past to put together ANY story about us. Now that we're getting increased exposure in the metroplex, people are griping about it.

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense at all. It's rather obvious that Dodge is just plain being a jerkwad. The fact that it's a pretty common practice to not discuss candidates early on has nothing to do with it.

yeah, because Denton has such high circulation and all of Vito's positive reporting over the years has led to our massive local support. it's actually, believe it or not, GOOD FOR THE PROGRAM to get these stories into the higher circulating FWST. that's better exposure for our program in the metroplex, reaching more recruits and potential fans. also, as mentioned, Vito was out of town covering basketball. so be it. and i DO believe it was the intention of the original poster to turn this into a Dodge-bashing thread. otherwise, you don't start with all the hyperbolic "holy war" BS.

Agreed.

Nice.

wow. can't argue with the move, and you know it was a tough decision for Dodge to have to make. i wish the best for Mendoza and his family, and hope he can get it together however he needs to.

The season's objective should never be anything less than winning the conference. That will probably earn you a B. If you want an A from me, you'd better have 9 wins or more, most likely. Now, there are other criteria, obviously, since this grading is certainly more subjective than one you would have in a class, and we're grading across a number of areas. So in that way, there's not a single way, for me at least, to state the objectives. I can say you can probably earn a C winning 5-6 games, but it will depend on how you score in all those other areas. And a C doesn't mean you met expectations, either. Did you lose on a hail mary? Did the team perform well overall and just not be able to close out? I mean, who can ACTUALLY grade our recruiting and "intangibles" in any objective way? So while there's easily room for that subjectivity, I don't think you can just say, "Alright, I didn't expect our team to win a single game. They won two, though, so they get an A+++." And again, my EXPECTATIONS for this team were almost met. The OBJECTIVES I had for them appeared unreachable before they ever set the field. Just because a C student gets a C, that doesn't mean they achieved the objective. The REAL objective every year is to go undefeated.

The problem with your Dickey/Dodge comparison is that the competition in the Sun Belt has gotten infinitely better since those days when we were winning it. We were not a very good team but were lucky to be in an even worse conference. Troy and FAU are way way way way way better than anything we had in the Belt back then. They beat name teams, something we never did when we were dominating the fledgling Belt. Oh, and Dickey didn't get that conference championship in his 2nd year. He won a combined 8 games his first three years, so if we're ignoring differences in competition (which seems to be the case), we can say Dodge is getting significantly less leeway. At this point, I'll say 5 wins.

I don't believe grades are relative. If you expect a kid to have trouble understanding the material, and they earn an F, you don't give them a C. At the beginning of the season, I expected 3 or 4 wins. I wasn't drinking any kool-aid. I was the one who said it would get worse before it gets better. None of that effects the grades, which are based solely on performance.

Make no mistake, grades are results-based. I still feel positive about the future of this program, but the only way that factored in was temporing grades (like that of the offense) for the youth on the field. I've never ever been graded on my POTENTIAL, or how the teacher/professor/etc. felt about my ability to make progress, or whether or not they thought I was a nice guy and deserved the benefit of the doubt. That's not the point of grades. I've also never seen someone grade the dumb kids differently than the smart kids, despite having different expectations on their performance. The criteria for grades are the same for all. And these grades, like most of those that littered my report cards, mean far less than people make them out to mean. Like everything else on the board, it's a talking point for people to succinctly describe how they felt about the season. I still believe Dodge is gonna turn this thing around. I also think it will take time. Neither of those will affect the way I grade the team.

Overall: D+ - Can't even give a C for 2 wins. Granted, I didn't expect much, but too many things went too wrong in this season to grade any higher. Offense: C+ - Backed up in the red zone way too much. WAY WAY WAY too many turnovers. Finished the season on a down note, unable to put anything together after the Navy game. Relative youth in the offense bodes well for the future. Defense: Q - Terrible. I had to make up a grade worse than F. There's nothing good to say here. Special Teams - F- Almost as bad as the defense. Bad kicking, bad coverage, bad return game, bad blocking. Intangibles - I - They get an INCOMPLETE. The only time people talk about intangibles is when you win. Recruiting - B+ - Two wins and a lot of talent coming in. Dodge's reputation works well for him here. I'd like it to be better along the lines.

Lake Travis has been around for at least 20 years.

Afterwards, he had to go VOLUNTEER as an assistant coach, got turned down for a head coaching job and had to coach in the IFL. AFTER he had built himself back up, he was able to get the head coaching job at West Texas A&M, a school 99% of the country has never heard of. Schnelly is a great coach and proven winner on the biggest stage in college football. He has facilities NAMED after him. He has DECADES more experience than LaCroix, in several different wonderful football institutions, including the NFL. And the best he could get when he came back was an upstart program at FAU. The fact that you want to compare a guy who last coached 13 years ago at a Div. 1-AA football program to him is ridiculous. A lot of players praised Dickey, too. I like to see what their opinion is on a coach, because I think it's important for chemistry and for learning, but I don't care how much they like a guy if the performance on the field is poor. I don't blame LaCroix for the overall performance of the defense. I DO blame him for the performance of the cornerbacks, which was his responsibility, regardless of what else was going on. I blame RM for the overall defensive performance, and I blame TD for hiring such an inexperienced coaching staff and for the team's overall record. I'm the customer. If the product is BAD (and it was), then I'll blame those I feel are responsible for providing that product. If people TRULY believe that Butch LaCroix is a good guy and knows what he's doing AND that he was not allowed to perform his job the way he wanted to here, then they should surely understand that this is the best possible thing for him. Perhaps he will actually get a shot somewhere to prove his worth and develop his resume and go on to bigger and better things.

I never said a person would forget all they know, so nice strawman. I said they'll lose contacts and won't be as good at it getting right back in. You can MAKE BELIEVE all you want that it's not the case, and providing one example of a guy at WTAMU and Schnellenberger, who has a metric crap-ton more skins on the wall than LaCroix, aren't going to magically convince me otherwise. You'll note also that FAU is a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG way down from Miami and OU, which only further illustrates my point. Schnellenberger didn't come back in anywhere near the same level he was at when he got out, and he had a lot more experience than LaCroix. He also was only out of it for THREE years, as he was given the task of building the FAU program in 1998 (after retiring from OU in 1995). Carthel got back in by being a VOLUNTEER assistant coach at Abilene Christian, and was initially TURNED DOWN for the job at WTAMU until the guy they hired over him failed and Carthel built his resume with a successful stint in the IFL. BOTH guys came in well beneath where they were before. I don't care if he was completely away from football or not. He wasn't COACHING. He wasn't RECRUITING.

Before I get back to the subject at hand: I agree with JohnDenver. The studios push movies to go to the broadest audience and most screens possible, which means they chop them up and get them in under PG-13. John McClain can't even say his freaking catchphrase. The girl brought a steak knife to school. She's 10, not 6. She theoretically has parents. Any of them should know it's no bueno to take a knife to school. There's rules against it, and for obvious reasons. It's dumb to bring a knife to school. This is the price. It's not gonna ruin the girl's life. Maybe it will make her and her parents smarter.

I didn't say that. All I'm saying is pointing to the experience of a guy who's been out of the game more than a decade and who was part of the staff that presided over quite possibly the worst defense in college football history as a reason to lament his loss seems pretty foolish. I've yet to see a sound, logical reason to be freaked out about this, ESPECIALLY given the argument that he was never allowed to do his job because of a coach that's still on staff. It kinda sucks, yeah, because he was one of ours and I'd like to see our guys succeed here and bring in more interest, but on the whole, I'm fairly ambivalent. FFR says not to compare it to DeLoach, but the reaction seems to be pretty similar. Would the fans of any other team in the country wail and moan this much about a defensive coach leaving after such a season? Hint: The answer is NO.

There are even more people on this board who pretend they know things they can't share on this board, for even more obvious (and SAD) reasons. I know this because I know people but I can't say how.

Yeah, it does. It has a lot to do with his abilities to recruit and coach. Take anybody who hasn't been doing something in 13 years, and their ability to do it will have been compromised. That's just reality. Deny all you want. Drink some more green Kool-Aid.

the ol' best-smelling dog turd argument. as much as i know you guys have an H-O for YARDAGE, people don't have to pass that much when they're giving you the beat down, and whenever someone needed to score on our secondary, it was there. that falls on those coaches, no matter HOW much you like them. nobody on our defensive coaching staff should be above reproach. Another Statistic = Passing EFFICIENY Defense = 104 ranking (8th in Sun Belt), 143.65 QB Rating against, 28 TDs/11 INTs. so sorry, i don't really see how people can throw a fit about this guy leaving. a guy out of football for 13 years coaches a bottom 20 pass defense and people are all upset he's leaving. i don't care why he left, it's foolish to think that more than a decade away from the game isn't a negative. i wish the guy best of luck. he's probably a nice guy, but i have seen nothing to indicate that his presence on this coaching staff was a boon. doesn't mean it wasn't. but other than, "he was a recruiting coordinator when i went to school here 14 years ago. you know, when we were Div. 1-AA," he hasn't the skins on the wall. too much green Kool-Aid because the guy was actually one of ours. that's the reality.

Exactly.

Well, no doubt it's crappy to leave a team before a bowl game and shortly after they made a large committment to you (and it IS super-crappy), unlike the Best Job Bobby: 1) Rich Rodriguez was at WVU more than ONE year. He was, in fact, there for seven, or almost twice as long as Bobby Pee-pants has been anywhere. 2) Michigan is actually a step UP the ladder from West Virginia, showing that, unlike Bobby P, Rodriguez has some stones. 3) Rich Rodriguez didn't deny deny deny deny deny lie deny up until the very last second he was hired. He scheduled a meeting with his players and broke the news to them, turned in a letter dating his last day January 3rd (meaning he MAY or MAY NOT coach in the bowl game). 4) NFL > College Oh, and, for the record, he IS getting torn up in the northeast. For why it's not really happening on a national level, it's that the NATION doesn't care about WVU as much as it does the NFL. See #4. Now, if Rodriguez had quit in 8 games into his first year at WVU after they'd given him as much money as any head coach in Div. 1 football, then you'd might have a valid comparison.

well, i guess i'll be the bad guy and just say the secondary hasn't been a strength with the guy back in football, and don't see what the big deal is. he was out of football for 13 years, came back, and our secondary has not performed well. at some point, that does have to be some of his responsibility. i know it's all RM RM RM RM RM RM RM around here, but we were terrible in the secondary. EDIT: Forgot it was his FIRST year back, my bad.

He didn't start all 4 years. He and Satterfield overlapped. No, it's not exactly a spread offense (hey, everyone, it's the new WEST COAST), but that was his FIRST QB at Appalachian State, and apparently, they've been able to throw the ball enough to win in all but one of his seasons there. There's a difference between having a running based offense and not knowing how to coach a passing game. He did a poor job here at UNT. He went to Tech and did a terrible job there. I get it. I also get that some people are just caught up in the past around here.

Todge is sticking with a defensive coordinator who just put up one of the worst seasons in college football history out of loyalty with his own *ss on the line, and you guys are worried about him leaving in one season? Interesting. I'm not worried one bit.

Well, let's see. Appalachian State All-Time Passing Leaders (Yardage) - The ones in bold were under Coach Moore. 7,759 Richie Williams 589-947 2002-05 6,533 Steve Brown 437-848 1977-80 5,427 Joe Burchette 446-796 1999-2002 5,414 D.J. Campbell 476-904 1989-92 5,141 Pat Murphy 338-694 1965-68 5,114 Randy Joyce 449-845 1981-84 3,538 Bake Baker 275-460 1994-97 3,504 Scott Satterfield 275-491 1992-95 3,212 David Reaves 254-432 1997-2000 3,170 Todd Payton 289-575 1984-87 PASS ATTEMPTS — Career 947 Richie Williams 589 comp. 2002-05 904 D.J. Campbell 476 comp. 1989-92 848 Steve Brown 437 comp. 1977-80 845 Randy Joyce 449 comp. 1981-84 796 Joe Burchette 466 comp. 1999-2002 694 Pat Murphy 338 comp. 1965-68 611 Todd Payton 308 comp. 1984-87 491 Scott Satterfield 275 comp. 1992-95 449 Stan Goodson 227 comp. 1979-82 Yes, he's certainly developed a BETTER passing game over time, but I wouldn't say it's taken him this long to learn it. DJ Campbell was his first QB there at ASU, and remains 2nd in passing attempts behind Williams.