Seth Littrell

[Venson]

59 minutes ago, drex said:

Believe me, Adler, I have done the math.  Here is the way the math plays out in Texas.  If you are a grad of Texas, TT, A&M or other power 5 schools you have the perception of a degree from there being more valuable than UNT's.  It's a false assumption, but perception is reality.  So, party on students, and get ready for your wake up call a few years down the line.

You are so right. Employers base degree merit really based on how popular the name of the school is. It doesn't make it right, but it is reality. They see you have a degree from Texas and one from UNT, they will most likely pick the Texas guy each time because they think the degree is better because of name recognition. How do schools get recognized? By sports. Then the students can't even show up to try and help boost their own stock. There is no way a school that has over 36,000 students and thousands of Alumni in the DFW Metroplex should not be filling 30,850 seat Apogee Stadium.

[BTG_Fan1]

So if UNT makes the CUSA championship game.. thoughts on SL getting another 1 year extention???

[THOR]

5 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

So if UNT makes the CUSA championship game.. thoughts on SL getting another 1 year extention???

do it and increase his buyout

[GrandGreen]

19 minutes ago, Venson said:

You are so right. Employers base degree merit really based on how popular the name of the school is. It doesn't make it right, but it is reality. They see you have a degree from Texas and one from UNT, they will most likely pick the Texas guy each time because they think the degree is better because of name recognition.\

 

Seldom happens.  It is not unusual for employers to favor candidates from their own school, however name recognition of a school is usually a meaningless factor in employee choice.   Sure all things being equal a Stanford grad is going to be chosen over a Sam Houston degree; but things are rarely equal.  

One caveat is for jobs that depend on selling employees to the public, such as consultants and lawyers were credentials are pertinent to getting business.  

[MeanGreenTexan]

Littrell not going anywhere yet.

we pay him too much to move to another G5 school & look how long it took PJ Fleck & Jeff Brown to dominate their conferences before they got some low-rung P5 opportunities.  

2-3 more seasons like this one & better & he’ll start getting looks.

[Venson]

I am going to dream here. Littrell stays at UNT and builds the program into a perennial top 25 team and UNT raises his pay to that equal to what Texas and A&M pays their coaches and UNT gets invited to Big 12 to replace Baylor after McCasland builds the basketball team into champions. Then SL goes down as one of the greatest college football coaches ever for putting UNT on the map and building an uninspired fan base into one of the best in Texas. Okay. probably won't happen, but I can dream.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Just now, Venson said:

I am going to dream here. Littrell stays at UNT and builds the program into a perennial top 25 team and UNT raises his pay to that equal to what Texas and A&M pays their coaches and UNT gets invited to Big 12 to replace Baylor after McCasland builds the basketball team into champions. Then SL goes down as one of the greatest college football coaches ever for putting UNT on the map and building an uninspired fan base into one of the best in Texas. Okay. probably won't happen, but I can dream.

That is a dream I could handle. 

GMG!

[southsideguy]

sounds like a wet dream

5 minutes ago, Venson said:

I am going to dream here. Littrell stays at UNT and builds the program into a perennial top 25 team and UNT raises his pay to that equal to what Texas and A&M pays their coaches and UNT gets invited to Big 12 to replace Baylor after McCasland builds the basketball team into champions. Then SL goes down as one of the greatest college football coaches ever for putting UNT on the map and building an uninspired fan base into one of the best in Texas. Okay. probably won't happen, but I can dream.

 

[NM Green]

This is why Wren gets paid the big bucks.  His job our effort of support.  Get creative make it happen.  Fill Apogee.

GMG

[Cr1028]

39 minutes ago, NM Green said:

This is why Wren gets paid the big bucks.  His job our effort of support.  Get creative make it happen.  Fill Apogee.

GMG

Except that Littrell's buyout goes down if Wren leaves.

[untjim1995]

21 hours ago, drex said:

Believe me, Adler, I have done the math.  Here is the way the math plays out in Texas.  If you are a grad of Texas, TT, A&M or other power 5 schools you have the perception of a degree from there being more valuable than UNT's.  It's a false assumption, but perception is reality.  So, party on students, and get ready for your wake up call a few years down the line.

It’s almost as if you’re saying that perception of degree value is tied into athletic success that promotes their universities, while adding to research and fundraising.

Only one school in this region of the country that has a FBS program doesn’t promote their university with athletics as the primary window. And that will never change because institutionally, it will never be allowed. That Music school isn’t letting go of their top dog status...and they shouldn’t. We would feel the same way about athletics here if they were the primary window.

[MeanGreenTexan]

1 minute ago, untjim1995 said:

It’s almost as if you’re saying that perception of degree value is tied into athletic success that promotes their universities, while adding to research and fundraising.

Only one school in this region of the country that has a FBS program doesn’t promote their university with athletics as the primary window. And that will never change because institutionally, it will never be allowed. That Music school isn’t letting go of their top dog status...and they shouldn’t. We would feel the same way about athletics here if they were the primary window.

As I read this bolded part, I swore you were going to cite Rice...  so I guess we were both wrong?

[Ben Gooding]

20 hours ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

So if UNT makes the CUSA championship game.. thoughts on SL getting another 1 year extention???

 I think at this point you have to re-work a huge buyout in there one way or another. Make the lower rung P5's second guess wanting to payout X amount of dollars for an inexperienced head coach and an unproven P5 head coach. If the rich 30 come knocking, no buyout will matter, but we'll get paid handsomely. EX: Colorado State's buyout of Jim McElwain to Florida was magic. 10 million dollar buyout to CSU, plus a paid game at the Swamp before 2019. Not sure if the likes of Purdue, Illinois, Wake Forest, Arizona, etc. would cough over that kind of change. 

[meangreenlax]

On 11/5/2017 at 9:13 AM, drex said:

The brutal fact is that North Texas' students/fans do not deserve Littrell, for the most part.  He has resurrected the program and no one has the time to even go to watch....only at North Texas could this happen.  Is Denton, Texas the only place in America that people do not respond to athletic achievement?  Sometimes I wonder.

Sure this argument makes sense if you ignore decades of UNT incompetence. We might as well be creating a football culture from the ground up. You have a generation that has always viewed North Texas as a football laughing stock. Students would rather go visit their friends at UT, A&M, or TCU than walk across 35 for a free game. That reality is not going to change after one winning season since 2013. Casual fans like winning teams.

[Wag Tag]

24 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

 I think at this point you have to re-work a huge buyout in there one way or another. Make the lower rung P5's second guess wanting to payout X amount of dollars for an inexperienced head coach and an unproven P5 head coach. If the rich 30 come knocking, no buyout will matter, but we'll get paid handsomely. EX: Colorado State's buyout of Jim McElwain to Florida was magic. 10 million dollar buyout to CSU, plus a paid game at the Swamp before 2019. Not sure if the likes of Purdue, Illinois, Wake Forest, Arizona, etc. would cough over that kind of change. 

Great point! Make him the highest paid but get a substantial buyout! 

[HoustonEagle]

Long time Mean Green fans have Battered Wife Syndrome for sure.   A little reality injection for this conversation.  Does our attendance suck?  Yes and No.  Compared to P5 schools  Sure our attendance sucks.  Compared to our G5 peers our attendance is middle of the pack and that is after a horrendous stretch of losing.  As I have stated before even our glory years were never all that glorious.  Also, we are paying our head coach 1 million a year and my guess is that is only going up.  That is above the mean compared to our peers.  Littrell so far has proven competence with potential upside.  Something that we have seen little of around these parts but not something that a quality AD can't replace. 

This thread is a testament to how bad things have been for UNT athletics.  

Edited November 6, 2017 by HoustonEagle

[untjim1995]

1 hour ago, meangreenlax said:

Sure this argument makes sense if you ignore decades of UNT incompetence. We might as well be creating a football culture from the ground up. You have a generation that has always viewed North Texas as a football laughing stock. Students would rather go visit their friends at UT, A&M, or TCU than walk across 35 for a free game. That reality is not going to change after one winning season since 2013. Casual fans like winning teams.

This is just beautifully done, sir...exactly true. 

What people don’t want to admit is that UNT football will never get supported here unless we win often in the seasons ahead AND compete with and defeat teams people care about. CUSA teams and FCS schools aren’t gonna do it...

[Ben Gooding]

23 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

This is just beautifully done, sir...exactly true. 

What people don’t want to admit is that UNT football will never get supported here unless we win often in the seasons ahead AND compete with and defeat teams people care about. CUSA teams and FCS schools aren’t gonna do it...

I think you're a bit wrong here, not entirely, but at least a little bit. If, big if, but if we went 6-2 consistently in conference play and split OOC games we are consistently an 8-4 squad. Eventually with this kind of consistency, you're gonna have some seasons where lighting strikes that proverbial bottle and spike upward to 10-2/11-1 kind of regular seasons. And, of course, drop 5-7/6-6 on the rarity. 

The thing about UNT as of right now, even its most diehard fans look at the ceiling of this program as 6-6. That is looked at as success and as 100% acceptable. And history says it should be looked at like that. But reality, and reality is where the casual fan lives, 6-6 is not going to give us a lot of upward patterns in media buzz, attendance, and really recruiting as well. We might swing in on some recruits and land a couple guys here and there that we would have missed on before. Attendance would show a very minuscule growth, but growth. 

Until 6-6 is accepted as the floor by everyone involved, we're swimming in a hot tub. The diehards will of course think we're in an Iron Man competition. But real fanatics don't live in what the reality is of the casual fan. I think SL set a very good baseline his first year, 5. I think that was respectable and leaves room for growth. Eventually, growth will set the expectations, but the fans have to maintain them. This means not falling in love with a coach of any sport, or an AD. Because as fast as things can be looking great, they can fall apart quicker. 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Ben Gooding

[meangreanmick]

6 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

What people don’t want to admit is that UNT football will never get supported here unless we win often in the seasons ahead AND compete with and defeat teams people care about. CUSA teams and FCS schools aren’t gonna do it...

 

I partially agree, partially disagree.  Everyone wants to (understandably) jump ahead to the future steps which is be able to compete regularly with and beat more recognized football programs.  However, its a pipe dream to think we will jump right from where we were 2 years ago to that place.  The interim is just win against someone, anyone.  I don't think we will get the intermediate increase in fan support we need to be able to support, recruit and advance the football program to be able to compete with more recognized programs until we start winning on a regular basis against programs at our level.  

Everyone wants to get way out over our ski's and go compete with P5's right now - the reality is the majority of those P5's would whip us right now.  Getting blown out on a regular basis is not how you develop more fan support and improve recruiting.  

We are taking intermediate steps - winning against some FCS and mid level D1 programs.  We haven't been able to do that since we moved to Apogee.  Do that on a regular basis and improve recruiting and fan support, then go move up a level and compete.  Maybe lets have 2 winning seasons in a row before we think we are going to go win the SEC.

 

[Christopher Walker]

2 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

It’s almost as if you’re saying that perception of degree value is tied into athletic success that promotes their universities, while adding to research and fundraising.

Only one school in this region of the country that has a FBS program doesn’t promote their university with athletics as the primary window. And that will never change because institutionally, it will never be allowed. That Music school isn’t letting go of their top dog status...and they shouldn’t. We would feel the same way about athletics here if they were the primary window.

 

2 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

As I read this bolded part, I swore you were going to cite Rice...  so I guess we were both wrong?

I too thought he meant Rice at first as otherwise it wouldn't make sense. @untjim1995, dude, you need to let this go. The College of Music receives as much support as any other of the major research colleges within the University. It's only recently starting to change, but any acclaim we have is by our own merit, not by the University elevating us as the primary window in any way, shape, or form.

[BTG_Fan1]

2 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

 I think at this point you have to re-work a huge buyout in there one way or another. Make the lower rung P5's second guess wanting to payout X amount of dollars for an inexperienced head coach and an unproven P5 head coach. If the rich 30 come knocking, no buyout will matter, but we'll get paid handsomely. EX: Colorado State's buyout of Jim McElwain to Florida was magic. 10 million dollar buyout to CSU, plus a paid game at the Swamp before 2019. Not sure if the likes of Purdue, Illinois, Wake Forest, Arizona, etc. would cough over that kind of change. 

I’m assuming we want the paid game because of a 7-digit pay day from them instead of whatever program coming to Apogee?

[Ben Gooding]

5 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

I’m assuming we want the paid game because of a 7-digit pay day from them instead of whatever program coming to Apogee?

I think with a big buyout we could try to negotiate a home and home. Florida isn't going to Colorado State, the state of Colorado, or rarely out of the state of Florida for a OOC game. CSU may have tried, but it wasn't happening. If someone comes after SL one day, we may be in position to negotiate that pending who it is. Not saying this will happen and not saying SL would take this, but I think it's only a matter of time until Iowa State becomes an available job. Iowa State pays Matt Campbell 2mil. Iowa St wouldn't touch a large buyout to hire a coach, but if they were to this would be an opponent to negotiate a home and home with. it's really just all circumstantial. 

[meangreenlax]

5 hours ago, Christopher Walker said:

 

I too thought he meant Rice at first as otherwise it wouldn't make sense. @untjim1995, dude, you need to let this go. The College of Music receives as much support as any other of the major research colleges within the University. It's only recently starting to change, but any acclaim we have is by our own merit, not by the University elevating us as the primary window in any way, shape, or form.

Having spent time in the Graduate Student Council, and interfacing with the Administration of both my department, the colleges, and the University as a whole (I graduated in 16), it's fair to say that there is a big contingent of the powers that be, who could give a fat sh** about athletics. There's no prestige attached to UNT athletics, especially football. So it makes it that much easier to argue against dedicating further resources to it. It has nothing to do with Music. It's realism from academics and administrators who see the fallacy in joining an athletics arms race like... 30 years too late.

UNT hasn't lived up to its potential in many avenues. For example, the University of Houston is younger than UNT, and beat UNT to the Tier 1 Carnegie classification. Not sure why, but it finally seems like UNT is finally starting to get serious about everything.

[MeanGreenTexan]

4 hours ago, meangreenlax said:

Having spent time in the Graduate Student Council, and interfacing with the Administration of both my department, the colleges, and the University as a whole (I graduated in 16), it's fair to say that there is a big contingent of the powers that be, who could give a fat sh** about athletics. There's no prestige attached to UNT athletics, especially football. So it makes it that much easier to argue against dedicating further resources to it. It has nothing to do with Music. It's realism from academics and administrators who see the fallacy in joining an athletics arms race like... 30 years too late.

UNT hasn't lived up to its potential in many avenues. For example, the University of Houston is younger than UNT, and beat UNT to the Tier 1 Carnegie classification. Not sure why, but it finally seems like UNT is finally starting to get serious about everything.

Smatresk appears to be a nice hire in his role, elevating the AD to a VP-level admin.  Let’s hope Chancellor Rowe can get the ball rolling even faster.

[GrandGreen]

5 hours ago, meangreenlax said:

Having spent time in the Graduate Student Council, and interfacing with the Administration of both my department, the colleges, and the University as a whole (I graduated in 16), it's fair to say that there is a big contingent of the powers that be, who could give a fat sh** about athletics. There's no prestige attached to UNT athletics, especially football. So it makes it that much easier to argue against dedicating further resources to it. It has nothing to do with Music. It's realism from academics and administrators who see the fallacy in joining an athletics arms race like... 30 years too late.

UNT hasn't lived up to its potential in many avenues. For example, the University of Houston is younger than UNT, and beat UNT to the Tier 1 Carnegie classification. Not sure why, but it finally seems like UNT is finally starting to get serious about everything.

Most academics at any school think that college athletics is a waste of focus and money.   A point that frankly is hard to argue with as the cost/benefit ratio of athletics gets more shaky every year.   

This music school obsession is a red herring that for some reason continues to be used.  The quality of the music school has absolutely nothing to do with the success of NT athletics.  If NT didn't even have a music school, it would not benefit NT athletics one iota.