Jump to content

DRC Sunday column: The one quibble UNT faithful could have with Littrell is a lack of big wins, he'll get his shot Saturday at SMU


Brett Vito

Recommended Posts

17 hours ago, Salsa_Verde said:

Army I believe was his last win against a team with a winning record. Someone check me on that though. 

Next to last. We beat Southern Miss the following year who ended up 6-5. But that's it since 2018. Littrell hasn't beaten a winning FBS team since.

This is absolutely my biggest quibble with Littrell. 2017 was his best year. 5 of his 8 FBS wins that year were against teams that ended up with a winning record. And 10 win Army was for sure the best win...probably of his time here. But the 5 losses that year weren't even competitive. Not one game. Average final score was 49-25. 

But oh man....Seth Littrell has beaten 8 FBS teams with winning records in 5 seasons.

Put it another way, going into his 6th year here, 24 of his 32 wins were against losing teams or FCS. Only 8 FBS wins were against teams with a winning record.

That's SHOCKING.

 

Edited by TheColonyEagle
  • Confused 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I say Arkansas.  I know, the Hogs were not good when we beat them but in years to come, when we look over wins, the record book simply says we beat Arkansas and they are in the SEC.  any win over any SECcteam is big.  
 

Seth still has not won a bowl game nor a conference championship.  
 

GO MEAN GREEN

  • Upvote 3
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Next to last. We beat Southern Miss the following year who ended up 6-5. But that's it since 2018. Littrell hasn't beaten a winning FBS team since.

This is absolutely my biggest quibble with Littrell. 2017 was his best year. 5 of his 8 FBS wins that year were against teams that ended up with a winning record. And 10 win Army was for sure the best win...probably of his time here. But the 5 losses that year weren't even competitive. Not one game. Average final score was 49-25. 

But oh man....Seth Littrell has beaten 8 FBS teams with winning records in 5 seasons.

Put it another way, going into his 6th year here, 24 of his 32 wins were against losing teams or FCS. Only 8 FBS wins were against teams with a winning record.

That's SHOCKING.

 

The numbers don’t lie and they speak for themselves. He has underperformed here, don’t know how anyone could argue that he hasn’t. 

  • Upvote 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, I'm bored today and I'm procrastinating house honey-dos. So some fun with numbers:

Littrell's overall record:           32-31 

Littrell's overall FBS record:   26-31

Overall record of Littrell's FBS opponents:   346-343

FBS Opponents with winning records: 30

FBS Opponents with losing records: 25

FBS Opponents with even records: 2

Record vs FBS Opponents with winning record:      8-22     Avg score: UNT 26    Opp 39

Record vs FBS Opponents with losing record:         17-8     Avg score: UNT 34   Opp 29

Record vs FBS Opponents with even record:            1-1       Avg score: UNT 39   Opp 25

Record vs FCS:                                                            6-0      Avg score: UNT 52   Opp 21

 

Home FBS Record:                         16-10

Away FBS Record:                          10-17

Neutral FBS Record:                       0-4

 

This year to come (based on last year's records):

Teams on schedule with winning record:     6

Teams on schedule with even record:          1 (Mizzouri was 5-5 last season)

Teams on schedule with losing record:        4 (of note, 3 of these 4 games are on the road, but interesting tidbit, Littrell is 7-4 on the road vs teams with losing records and FWIW, he's 5-5 at home vs teams with winning records. He's best at home vs teams with losing records at 13-4) 

Home FBS Schedule this year: Opponents records last year: 33-17. 4 winning teams and UTEP

 

Record vs Conference

AAC:       1-5

Big10:     0-1

CUSA:    21-19    

Indy:       3-0 

MWC:      0-1

Pac12:     0-1

SEC:        1-1

SunBelt:  0-2

 

                                         

Edited by TheColonyEagle
  • Upvote 3
  • Thanks 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/5/2021 at 5:55 PM, Travis said:

What is his biggest win? Army?  Certainly not Arkansas. They were terrible. What team did we beat that had the highest rating since he has been our HC?

Arkansas IMO was the most significant win overall. But I agree not the best from a “how good is the team we beat” standpoint. They were one of the worst teams we played that year. 

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is year 6 of Seth and we are right back where we were in 2016. “Hopefully we make a bowl game” status, while UTSA and SMU continue to progress as programs. 
 

I don’t care who we have, we should be competing for the Conference Championship year-in and year-out. With Seth, I think that is unlikely this year. Before I get downvoted, I was a Seth defender until last year. I hope I look like an idiot in the next few weeks.

  • Upvote 5
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Next to last. We beat Southern Miss the following year who ended up 6-5. But that's it since 2018. Littrell hasn't beaten a winning FBS team since.

This is absolutely my biggest quibble with Littrell. 2017 was his best year. 5 of his 8 FBS wins that year were against teams that ended up with a winning record. And 10 win Army was for sure the best win...probably of his time here. But the 5 losses that year weren't even competitive. Not one game. Average final score was 49-25. 

But oh man....Seth Littrell has beaten 8 FBS teams with winning records in 5 seasons.

Put it another way, going into his 6th year here, 24 of his 32 wins were against losing teams or FCS. Only 8 FBS wins were against teams with a winning record.

That's SHOCKING.

 

Does Wren Baker know this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, MeanGreen2019 said:

This is year 6 of Seth and we are right back where we were in 2016. “Hopefully we make a bowl game” status, while UTSA and SMU continue to progress as programs. 
 

I don’t care who we have, we should be competing for the Conference Championship year-in and year-out. With Seth, I think that is unlikely this year. Before I get downvoted, I was a Seth defender until last year. I hope I look like an idiot in the next few weeks.

I read this a lot on here, but reality suggests something completely different. We pay more than anyone for a head coach, but that says more about our leadership getting hood-winked after SL almost took the K-State job than anything. Since we have been in CUSA, we have finished first in CUSA West exactly once since 2013 when we arrived--and the got absolutely destroyed in the CUSA Championship game. I think we have finished second in CUSA West twice in those 9 years. 

What I have come to realize is that if we have a solid QB and OL, we can compete. If we don't have both, we can't...

  • Upvote 2
  • Eye Roll 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All of these stats are (I suppose) very impressive, but only to people who keep stats in their heads all the time, and I guess the people that determine national rankings and selections to bowl games.....and who gets fired or not.

 But let me point out something. Other than W/L records in any given year. STATS DON'T MATTER TO THE TICKET BUYING PUBLIC.  Overall records on any given year, and wins against NAME  OPPONENTS matter. IMHO, butts in the seats matter to the people who give final approval on bowl invites. AND WINNING THOSE BOWL GAMES MATTER.

Hayden Fry beat Tennessee in 75, SMU in 1977, and Oklahoma State in 1978. All of those games were remembered by most of the students/alumni/casual-fence-setting fans of that era. 

But do you know what one of his biggest accomplishments was? Beating Memphis in 1977 and 1978.  Up to that point, North Texas had never beaten Memphis. And that included the Joe Greene/Steve Ramsey/Ronnie Shanklin/Cedric Hardman years. It got my attention, but hardly anyone else noticed. Nor have they in all of these years. It's always Tennessee.

Besides winning most of their games against no-name opponents, North Texas has to win the games on it's schedule that the general-fence-setting paying public will notice......regardless of that teams W/L record on that particular year.  To the general public, Arkansas is still Arkansas, SMU is still SMU, Tech is still Tech....and so on etc.  This has to be one of the biggest motivational killers for our football teams. They can beat the crap out of most of our no-name conference and non-conference opponents, but most people outside their immediate support system really don't give a damn. BUT lose to the Portland States of the world, and that same general population almost never forgets. 

I'll take a coach who can find a way to motivate his team week in and week out over someone who puts up gaudy stats, but loses important games.....or unimportant games.

 

 

Edited by SilverEagle
  • Upvote 4
  • Eye Roll 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Please review our full Privacy Policy before using our site.