UNT hired Washington State offensive coordinator and former Incarnate Word head coach Eric Morris to take over its program on Tuesday

[97and03]

54 minutes ago, TheReal_jayD said:

GIve time guys. This hire checks ALOT of boxes. Dominated interview.

I am not super excited about this hire.  I am not sure it moves the needle much for fans. And I really wanted someone with FBS HC experience; HOWEVER, I agree that he checks a lot of boxes.

Head coaching experience (FCS), with overall winning record

Has won conference championships and won in the post season

Carried out a rebuild

Strong Texas ties

Proven coordinator experience (P5) with dynamic offenses

STRONG track record of attracting and developing QBs (Ward, Mahomes)

Young and hungry

 

My initial reaction was disappointment, but I think it is likely a solid hire.  I am going to see how he puts his staff together before I make a final judgement.   am not sure how involved he is as HC in the offense, but it could be an opportunity to hire an up-and-comer at OC (like Jones that some here wanted as HC).  I think his DC hire will be the key to his success (well, duh, obviously). If he makes a good hire at DC, I think we will be in good shape.  Still processing this, but I don't think it is an bad as some are making it out to be.  He should be able to bring in some talent to us in the AAC.

 

EDITED BECAUSE I WAS UP MY OWN ASS AND CONFUSING HBU AND UIW. But still, not a catastrophic hire. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by 97and03

[El Paso Eagle]

Just now, MeanGreenTexan said:

I didn't write that.

Sorry, I thought you were referencing someone else's comments. My bad.

[golfingomez]

wow. that was a left turn!

[gordo nation]

"He gonna help recruit that Texas talent!"

 

Oh yeah, because a lower fbs school with 19k average attendance is going to compete against Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor, TCU, SMU, Houston, and UTSA?

You people are delusional and need to look at every program in America.

 

Go try to recruit a player that's offered by any of the schools I just mentioned. They are NOT coming to UNT

[Clinetort]

19 minutes ago, gordo nation said:

We fired Littrell for this??? 

Exactly!  What a let down.

[southsideguy]

what I remember at Morris team when we played them was we could not get to the QB because Zappe had such fast release.  I don't if from his play calling or development of the QB or Zappe's ability.  I hope he can develop or qbs.  Hope he choose well on the staff and keeps Cobbs at the very least.  We may need some older guy to help balance the youth.

I don't know what to think about this hire but I am not going to slam it yet and hopefully I will say "Yeah, I knew this was the right guy from the start.  Is his start date 12/13/2022

Edited December 13, 2022 by southsideguy

[KingDL1]

2 minutes ago, 97and03 said:

I am not super excited about this hire.  I am not sure it moves the needle much for fans. And I really wanted someone with FBS HC experience; HOWEVER, I agree that he checks a lot of boxes.

Head coaching experience (FCS), with overall winning record

Has won conference championships and won in the post season

Carried out a rebuild

Strong Texas ties

Proven coordinator experience (P5) with dynamic offenses

STRONG track record of attracting and developing QBs (Ward, Zappe, Mahomes)

Young and hungry

 

My initial reaction was disappointment, but I think it is likely a solid hire.  I am going to see how he puts his staff together before I make a final judgement.  We know he can hire a good OC, as evidence by his former OC that went to WKy.  I am not sure how involved he is as HC in the offense, but it could be an opportunity to hire an up-and-comer at OC (like Jones that some here wanted as HC).  I think his DC hire will be the key to his success (well, duh, obviously). If he makes a good hire at DC, I think we will be in good shape.  Still processing this, but I don't think it is an bad as some are making it out to be.  If he can bring two high performers like Ward and Zappe to FCS, he should be able to bring in some talent to us in the AAC.

I agree, but I think it's a hell of a roll of the dice for Jared, this hire will make or break him. 

I hope this hire makes Jared look like a genius!

[MeanGreenTexan]

4 minutes ago, ExADofficeIntern said:

https://247sports.com/Season/2023-Football/TransferPortal/?institutionkey=24095
 

multiple WSU QBs in the portal as well with multiple P5 offers… let’s hope we can get some of this offensive talent

Bad news,  the likely reason most of those guys entered the portal is going to be HC here!

[MeanMag]

This hire reminds me a lot of the Littrell hire. That’s not a bad thing if he can start out from where Littrell left and create the excitement and increased production Littrell did his first 3 years.

[MeanGreenTexan]

3 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

what I remember at Morris team when we played them was we could not get to the QB because Zappe had such fast release.  I don't if from his play calling or development of the QB or Zappe's ability.  I hope he can develop or qbs.  Hope he choose well on the staff and keeps Cobbs at the very least.  We may need some older guy to help balance the youth.

I don't know what to think about this hire but I am not going to slam it yet and hopefully I will say "Yeah, I knew this was the right guy from the start.  Is his start date 12/13/2022

No man.   Wrong guy.

[tmjerm]

3 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

what I remember at Morris team when we played them was we could not get to the QB because Zappe had such fast release.  I don't if from his play calling or development of the QB or Zappe's ability.  I hope he can develop or qbs.  Hope he choose well on the staff and keeps Cobbs at the very least.  We may need some older guy to help balance the youth.

I don't know what to think about this hire but I am not going to slam it yet and hopefully I will say "Yeah, I knew this was the right guy from the start.  HIs his start date 12/13/2023

Zappe played for HBU

 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/game/_/gameId/401014987 

[p_phelps]

#rehireseth

[southsideguy]

damn I was hoping it was morris team........

[p_phelps]

I would have liked this as an OC.. I really don't care for this hire.  He better hit the ground running because his name does nothing to get transfers or recruit attention.

[Matt from A700]

2 minutes ago, 97and03 said:

My initial reaction was disappointment, but I think it is likely a solid hire.

Same feelings exactly. Was hoping for a bigger name, but he does check a lot of boxes. Hopefully he woos some players from the transfer portal. His QB at Washington State followed him from UIW. Would have liked to seen a few more years at UIW though to see him sustain the success.

His first game versus Cal will be huge. Definitely a winnable game as long as we have a serviceable QB and don't fall behind big early. The AD should be making a huge marketing push to get people back to Apogee, promote the new head coach, and the new conference. Cal doesn't have a DFW alumni group, but in Houston and Austin. But I still expect a decent opposing turnout. Doing a quick filtered LinkedIn search for people in DFW that attended Cal Berkeley, there are 2,700 results.

This is your chance to win back hundreds of students. Otherwise, if we lose, especially lose big, we will be in the same situation this year with a depleted crowd, even if the team does hover over .500.

[laxtonto]

1 minute ago, p_phelps said:

I would have liked this as an OC.. I really don't care for this hire.  He better hit the ground running because his name does nothing to get transfers or recruit attention.

So you would have have liked the current OC at a Pac12 school to become our OC better instead of our HC. Yeah, I would to, but…

[southsideguy]

but no pressure lol

 

[golfingomez]

While i like Eric Morris, and have campaigned for him, lately i've been thinking we needed a safer hire like Holtz. To reiterate, i think everybody thinks we are one or two small steps from being an 8-9 win team, consistently. 

Hopefully Morris's experience as a head coach allows him to provide those little tweaks to elevate the program.

 

I'm excited. 

[untphd]

2 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

Same feelings exactly. Was hoping for a bigger name, but he does check a lot of boxes. Hopefully he woos some players from the transfer portal. His QB at Washington State followed him from UIW. Would have liked to seen a few more years at UIW though to see him sustain the success.

His first game versus Cal will be huge. Definitely a winnable game as long as we have a serviceable QB and don't fall behind big early. The AD should be making a huge marketing push to get people back to Apogee, promote the new head coach, and the new conference. Cal doesn't have a DFW alumni group, but in Houston and Austin. But I still expect a decent opposing turnout. Doing a quick filtered LinkedIn search for people in DFW that attended Cal Berkeley, there are 2,700 results.

This is your chance to win back hundreds of students. Otherwise, if we lose, especially lose big, we will be in the same situation this year with a depleted crowd, even if the team does hover over .500.

Marketing to sellout the stadium .

[MeanGreen4Life1998]

As I said i think this is an underwhelming hire but I suppose I can see why they did it and also tells me this probably was about as good as UNT was ever gonna get. UNT fans will not be too excited as a whole so hes gonna have to really get out there and help build interest in what hes doing as well as recruit and build a staff. 

[meangreenbob]

A SOLID HIRE. THE RIGHT GUY AT THE RIGHT TIME. 

 

[meaniegreenie]

5 minutes ago, 97and03 said:

I am not super excited about this hire.  I am not sure it moves the needle much for fans. And I really wanted someone with FBS HC experience; HOWEVER, I agree that he checks a lot of boxes.

Head coaching experience (FCS), with overall winning record

Has won conference championships and won in the post season

Carried out a rebuild

Strong Texas ties

Proven coordinator experience (P5) with dynamic offenses

STRONG track record of attracting and developing QBs (Ward, Zappe, Mahomes)

Young and hungry

 

My initial reaction was disappointment, but I think it is likely a solid hire.  I am going to see how he puts his staff together before I make a final judgement.  We know he can hire a good OC, as evidence by his former OC that went to WKy.  I am not sure how involved he is as HC in the offense, but it could be an opportunity to hire an up-and-comer at OC (like Jones that some here wanted as HC).  I think his DC hire will be the key to his success (well, duh, obviously). If he makes a good hire at DC, I think we will be in good shape.  Still processing this, but I don't think it is an bad as some are making it out to be.  If he can bring two high performers like Ward and Zappe to FCS, he should be able to bring in some talent to us in the AAC.

Just imagine how great would it be in 10-12 years to have a conversation with someone about our QB situation and go: "Yeah, coach has been producing more great QBs. We had a guy a while back, Mason Fine, that was pretty good, but nothing like...."

In reality, I'll never forget how great it was to have MF around here, so I wouldn't say that, but you get the point.

[eternalmtg]

40 minutes ago, gordo nation said:

Sad day for UNT... It is embarrassing and it shows we're incapable of conducting national level searches outside of Texas. You'll hear in the next few days that he has "great connections to Texas" but many of us are too stubborn to understand that the true talent in Texas does NOT want to play at a school like UNT. You're fighting for scraps when you've got a program like UNT, and you'll see in the next few years that this hire will do absolutely nothing to push UNT forward

 

Justin Fuente was the homerun hire here but for small minded reasons, they went to their "good ol boy network" and picked someone like this. Extremely sad

If there is a transfer portal for fans, you need to jump in it. We'd support you 100%!

[NT93]

34 minutes ago, gordo nation said:

Bye

You tease.

[herewego]

Dude hasn't even changed his twitter yet.