DD Haters: What if NT wins out and heads to NO?

Got5onIt · October 31, 2005

I'm curious to see how my fellow DD "haters" feel about this. How would you feel if NT wins out and heads to the New Orleans Bowl again this year?

Green Nightmare · October 31, 2005

Not a "hater" just feel as though its time to send a message the nation and the base that we expect better

Got5onIt · October 31, 2005

Not a "hater" just feel as though its time to send a message the nation and the base that we expect better
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I'm using the word because it seems everyone who's criticized DD has been labeled a "HATER" by others. I'm no hater and think DD is great person. However, his coaching skills............

The "labelers" seem to be tilting the poll in favor of "this poll sux".

Edited October 31, 2005 by Got5onIt

ADLER · October 31, 2005

If the team again heads to New Orleans, I'll be more disappointed in whoever makes their travel arrangements than the head coach.

As far as the intent of your question, I believe that there is always a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration. Why do we succeed, why do we fail, where is the program heading, and what available options are there that would be better? Could instability and directional change hurt the program?

Making a change because some people are disappointed in the coach doesn't make sense, but neither does not making a change if there is opportunity to significantly upgrade the program.

greendog · October 31, 2005

If the team again heads to New Orleans, I'll be more disappointed in whoever makes their travel arrangements than the head coach.
As far as the intent of your question, I believe that there is always a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration. Why do we succeed, why do we fail, where is the program heading, and what available options are there that would be better? Could instability and directional change hurt the program?
Making a change because some people are disappointed in the coach doesn't make sense, but neither does not making a change if there is opportunity to significantly upgrade the program.
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I don't hate DD either. I also feel that for what we pay him he is about as good

as you can get. I know you can get a lot worse than DD for the same money.

Here is the point, as long as we are paying what we are paying and our stadium

is what it is I feel that we just grit our teeth and accept the situation for what it

is. Now, if we belly up to the bar and pay $500,000 + a year, then we have a

different senario. If and when that happens we can see this program become

the program that will be on the same par with TT. We will have a coach that

goes after players that the "big time" schools go after and he will not be afraid

of other schools seeing NT's name beside these good kids. We will begin to

beat some of the Big 12 teams and we will pass the likes of TCU, UTEP, etc.

Until then, we accept the fact that we have a pretty good coach that isn't well

rounded in PR, excitement, and confidence.

GoMeanGreen1999 · October 31, 2005

You know, some on here would probably label me a DD "hater" but I really am just to the point that, yes it is nice to win the conference, but I am ready to move past the conf. I really think that DD just figures as long as he wins the conf. then everything is fine, and to many, unfortunately, I think they feel the same.

However, that being said, what we do each year is just a repeat of the previous season. We lose all of our OOC games, then get to the Belt games, and win 95% of them, win the title, go to the bowl game with a wrong sense that we will be able to win, lose, and then go into the off season looking at what we have, all the time trying to tell ourselves that they will win an OOC game or two the next season. Then the next season comes, and we lose them all. By the mid season the question becomes "what will everyone think if we win the Belt this year?" All it is, is repetition, and until we get tired of the repition and decide we are ready to take this to the next level, we will continue to do the same thing.

If you look at teams that have gone from Doormat to success (relatively speaking) many of them had a coach that came in, go the program up to a level, then brought someone else in that had the ability to take the program to the next level. I don't know, maybe we don't have the money to go out and get a relatively good coach, but one would think with the DFW market we are in, being the third largest school in the state, that we could find one of these up and coming coaches.

Just my two cents.

NT80 · October 31, 2005

You have to look at the bigger picture. Is going 6-5 to the Cajun Bowl the ultimate goal of the season? Or, does getting blown out in OOC again (now 7-42) get factored into the success or lack of for the season? I would be happy for the players to have something positive to say about this year, but it may trap us into future futility in moving forward overall. While I would enjoy saying we are 5-time Champs of the SunBelt (as people snicker), I would rather say we have made a decision to better the football program.

UNTFan23 · October 31, 2005

Right now we are the best of the worst. Until we decide to dominate the OOC teams we're suppose to, win many of the coin flip OOC games, and defeat/scare the living daylights out of elite OOC teams on a consistent basis, we will forever stay in the sun belt and be the school yard bully.

I want us to prove to everyone that we have what it takes to move up by winning every game possible (because they all count). I don't want this "our season starts when conference play starts" BS because NT didn't start to count my grades once I started my junior/senior level classes. We need to lose this attitude like Kirstie Alley needs to lose some weight.

I also want to see a change in our offensive philosophy. We will never knock heads with the elite programs with this ultra-conservative "let's try to keep it close until the 4th and hope for the win" because we will forever get dominated and not have the mindset to stage a comeback. I want a "take no prisoners/we never let up/killer instinct" put into the team because that is how you go out there and win the big games. Too often does it seem that we have to wait until the final play before we know we have the game won. If that means we gotta hang half a hundred on every team we play, fine ... at least everyone knows without a doubt who won at the end of the game.

And before some you claim that blowing out every opponent like that is classless, putting a team away gives you a chance to develop your younger player with game time experience, something we rarely have the opportunity to do and are hurting from this season.

Anyone want to wager who all this starts with?

[/rant]

Edited October 31, 2005 by UNTFan23

PlummMeanGreen · October 31, 2005

Right now we are the best of the worst. Until we decide to dominate the OOC teams we're suppose to, win many of the coin flip OOC games, and defeat/scare the living daylights out of elite OOC teams on a consistent basis, we will forever stay in the sun belt and be the school yard bully.
I want us to prove to everyone that we have what it takes to move up by winning every game possible (because they all count). I don't want this "our season starts when conference play starts" BS because NT didn't start to count my grades once I started my junior/senior level classes. We need to lose this attitude like Kirstie Alley needs to lose some weight.
I also want to see a change in our offensive philosophy. We will never knock heads with the elite programs with this ultra-conservative "let's try to keep it close until the 4th and hope for the win" because we will forever get dominated and not have the mindset to stage a comeback. I want a "take no prisoners/we never let up/killer instinct" put into the team because that is how you go out there and win the big games. Too often does it seem that we have to wait until the final play before we know we have the game won. If that means we gotta hang half a hundred on every team we play, fine ... at least everyone knows without a doubt who won at the end of the game.
And before some you claim that blowing out every opponent like that is classless, putting a team away gives you a chance to develop your younger player with game time experience, something we rarely have the opportunity to do and are hurting from this season.
Anyone want to wager who all this starts with?
[/rant]
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And this is why I feel our new future stadium will be so important to address some of the subject areas you have listed, UNTFan23. Football is still king in Texas (sorry, round ballers) and I don't think with what NT pays its coaches now or probably even post-Darrell Dickey when he one day gets another job would ever really be enough for us to significantly raise ourselves much further than where we are now.

Now if we ever get to the point of annually being competitive with Top 10 schools is another thing, but lets start with with our mid-major OOC opponents we have for now. Again, ths is why joining the Mean Green Club is so vital for us all (at whatever level one can budget) because by doing that it actually frees up monies to do other things, one of which would be helping in getting our NT coach's their pay raises? How many assistant coaches did NT lose to other programs becaue of salaries and some of those very assistant coaches who helped DD recruit "The Class" a few years ago and that group that led the way in taking us to 4 bowl games?

At NT it needs to be the full meal deal type of thing, ie, firstly, you need an honest coach (and nobody has ever accused Darrell Dickey & his staff of writing checks to potential NT football recruits that they could not cash OR (in other words) being cruelly deceptive to high school kids during recruiting season promising them the moon); secondly, we have a booming enrollment and superb campus to recruit toward and anyone who would visit the University of North Texas today would have to be visually impaired to not see all that; and we are finally addressing our football related facility needs and have already (basically) finished 2 out of the 3 major Mean Green football oriented venues which are:

(1) The recently completed Athletic Center/Practice Fields which a 2004 NFL Pro Bowler recently toured and said was better than some in the NFL. College Football Hall of Fame/ex NT football coach Hayden Fry, ESPN play by play/NT grad Dave Barnett and ESPN color commentator Craig James also visited all that at Eagle Point Campus with Craig James calling all of that happening at the Mean Green Athletic Village, uh, "top shelf."

(2) We have a new athletic dorm with a cafeteria that has all the latest amenities that an NCAA D1-A football team needs. There are enough general NT students living at Victory Hall as to meet NCAA requirements that say you cannot have a dorm exclusive for scholarship athletes only....................AND we have a fundraising staff with a most pro-active Athletic Director at NT who as I understand it are all feverishly working to find the Big Donor(s) for our future new football stadium which will complete this trilogy of football facilties.

We can keep on polishing up and tweaking Fouts Field with cosmetic changes here and there and they are certainly needed for now, but our Mean Green football future has already all but moved across the interstate over to Eagle Point Campus . We only await a new football stadium to be attached to its already completed south end zone facility. Ain't that all going to be real nice?

GMG!

Edited October 31, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

Green Nightmare · October 31, 2005

Plumm I get tired of this argument of facilities & give us time etc.

Some of the DD apologists speak as if we are a professional sports team and are building facilities and cultivating our minor league system.

In college football its the here and now not what can we get 10 years down the road when we catch up to the big boys. Because in 10 years they will continue to widen the gap.

I'm not advocating giving up pushing for progress. I am advocating that we get someone in here that is interested in bettering the situation and realizing what they are up against and working with and to change it.

I would give DD 1 maybe 2 years and if we dont start being ultra competitive or win some OOC games then its been real. I'm not talking about taking on UT next year, but games like Tulsa etc. The OOC game need to leave me with a feelin of, man 1 or 2 plays our way and we win, so lets go get them next year. Those are not the feelings I have had the last 2 years.

DD= Buck Showalter

Hopefully our next coach is Joe Torre esque. As a Red Sox fan that pains me to type but he is damn good at what he does.

However no matter what I will still trot my happy @ss out to Fouts everychance I get and support the program

untbowler · October 31, 2005

I am not for firing DD, but if we do manage to make it to the Bowl Game and a 5th Title, there sure as hell but not be another contract extension, because that will just add to the apathy and we do not give a s**t attitude regarding OOC games and making progress with the football team.

PlummMeanGreen · October 31, 2005

Plumm I get tired of this argument of facilities & give us time etc.
Some of the DD apologists speak as if we are a professional sports team and are building facilities and cultivating our minor league system.
In college football its the here and now not what can we get 10 years down the road when we catch up to the big boys. Because in 10 years they will continue to widen the gap.
I'm not advocating giving up pushing for progress. I am advocating that we get someone in here that is interested in bettering the situation and realizing what they are up against and working with and to change it.
I would give DD 1 maybe 2 years and if we dont start being ultra competitive or win some OOC games then its been real. I'm not talking about taking on UT next year, but games like Tulsa etc. The OOC game need to leave me with a feelin of, man 1 or 2 plays our way and we win, so lets go get them next year. Those are not the feelings I have had the last 2 years.
.......................................
I am not an apologist for any NT employee (they are all big boys/girls and can vouch for themselves) and rarely have been for 30 plus years folllowing all this, but I am for any NT employee having the bare minimum luxuries of being on a even playing field when it comes to having all that he/she needs to be competitive with those we would like to see them beat annually, ie, our NO's Bowl opponents, SMU, TCU, Tulsa, etc. Yet if you don't have such facilities in today's NCAA D1-A, then you probably don't have a future in NCAA D1-A at all. Some of our non BCS foes will not be in this group if they themselves don't address their own facility needs. <>*<> We can kick the can on this till the cows come home, but funding our athletic product will always be the culprit at NT. We still have those alums who want champagne and caviour with the monies raised by the Mean Green Club just enough to buy beer (and sometimes pretzels with that beer).
WHY THE URGENCY WITH ALL THIS? Anyone else notice in NCAA D1-A how the gap between the BCS schools and non BCS is getting even wider? Do any of you remember when a few short years ago NT had a chance to recruit Texas state top 100 kids, showed up on such kids check lists and now today we (or few other non BCS schools) are rarely even mentioned on such "state" top 100 lists? It seems to be a list of nothing but BCS schools from the Big 6 BCS conferences, specifically the Big 12 in the DMN's Texas state 100 list.
What I am saying here is just how fast all this is happening in NCAA D1-A and that is why I "non stop" point out (ad nausem, I know) that if we don't take care of "ALL" our business at Eagle Point facility-wise, then we might want to just dig a big hole out there and just bury it all because I don't think a re-classification down to NCAA D1-AA for a school the size of NT is an option. It for damn $ure i$n't an option for thi$ NT alum I rest a$$ure you even with the limited fund$ thi$ $ingle income alum bring$ in. Other groups on/off campus who (basically) use NT athletics to raise their monies better hope, pray and start counting their lucky stars that NT builds this new football stadium because much of their future is tied to that more than they even seem to realize. Sometimes, it seems we have so few who can look past today, tomorrow or next week at NT it seems. Just read some of the posts on this board will prove that.
I don't know any of us 'boomers who have enjoyed getting our heads handed to us on a silver platter this Fall by schools who may not have beaten us the previous 4 years if we'd only had them on our schedule those 4 years; but that is a hypothetical that we will never really know about, now isn't it?
But come on, how many times would SMU, Tulsa and La Tech have beaten the Booger Kennedy era Mean Green football teams? I'd say SMU, Tulsa and La Tech were smart enough to know exactly when to schedule NORTH TEXAS, wouldn't you? And just maybe we weren't as wise as to when to schedule them?
But there is something we can all be sure about and that is if we don't take care of a football program in today's NCAA D1-A with us at least trying to emulate or copy what other schools in the Top 50 have facility-wise, then just what is our long range as we all try to look past our noses of this one down season to the overall Big Picture at NT?

Edited October 31, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

Green Nightmare · October 31, 2005

don't know any of us 'boomers who have enjoyed getting our heads handed to us on a silver platter this Fall by schools who may not have beaten us the previous 4 years if we'd only had them on our schedule those 4 years; but that is a hypothetical that we will never really know about, now isn't it?

Plumm I can tell you the answer to the hypothetical. Its zero to 1. The Baylor win in '03 is about it. Losses to TCU(2) So. Fla(2) Air Force, Baylor, Boise etc with "The Class".

First alot of those games were scheduled before "The Class" ever signed a LOI

Even with Boogers class we were mediocre at best in our winnable OOC games.

Also I dont think you read my post, you just came back at me with your message. You would be a good pol since it is hard for you to get off message. Nothing personal as I wish all the alums and students cared .01% as much as you do.

I am not advocating slowing down or stopping progress. DD has shown me he is not the man to take us to the next level. He is what he is. Average. The sun belt is a gift and a curse to me. It has been great winning the title and the bowl trips have helped the university and the program immensely. However my self included we get all riled up at the OOC performance but then the feelings arode and we celebrate and beat our chests at the bowl. Then all offseason predict wins against OOC oppents and then get our ass handed to us

DD like I said gets this year and next for me and then its search time.

It is urgent we get the stadium and Eagle Point done. However this continued 6-5 record with the 6 wins in the belt and OOC debacles will only accoplish a couple things. It will take wind out of the momentum over there and it will make the national media percieve us and the belt as inferior.

Edited October 31, 2005 by Green Nightmare

MeanGreen61 · October 31, 2005

And this is why I feel our new future stadium will be so important to address some of the subject areas you have listed, UNTFan23. Football is still king in Texas (sorry, round ballers) and I don't think with what NT pays its coaches now or probably even post-Darrell Dickey when he one day gets another job would ever really be enough for us to significantly raise ourselves much further than where we are now.
Now if we ever get to the point of annually being competitive with Top 10 schools is another thing, but lets start with with our mid-major OOC opponents we have for now. Again, ths is why joining the Mean Green Club is so vital for us all (at whatever level one can budget) because by doing that it actually frees up monies to do other things, one of which would be helping in getting our NT coach's their pay raises? How many assistant coaches did NT lose to other programs becaue of salaries and some of those very assistant coaches who helped DD recruit "The Class" a few years ago and that group that led the way in taking us to 4 bowl games?
At NT it needs to be the full meal deal type of thing, ie, firstly, you need an honest coach (and nobody has ever accused Darrell Dickey & his staff of writing checks to potential NT football recruits that they could not cash OR (in other words) being cruelly deceptive to high school kids during recruiting season promising them the moon); secondly, we have a booming enrollment and superb campus to recruit toward and anyone who would visit the University of North Texas today would have to be visually impaired to not see all that; and we are finally addressing our football related facility needs and have already (basically) finished 2 out of the 3 major Mean Green football oriented venues which are:
(1) The recently completed Athletic Center/Practice Fields which a 2004 NFL Pro Bowler recently toured and said was better than some in the NFL. College Football Hall of Fame/ex NT football coach Hayden Fry, ESPN play by play/NT grad Dave Barnett and ESPN color commentator Craig James also visited all that at Eagle Point Campus with Craig James calling all of that happening at the Mean Green Athletic Village, uh, "top shelf."
(2) We have a new athletic dorm with a cafeteria that has all the latest amenities that an NCAA D1-A football team needs. There are enough general NT students living at Victory Hall as to meet NCAA requirements that say you cannot have a dorm exclusive for scholarship athletes only....................AND we have a fundraising staff with a most pro-active Athletic Director at NT who as I understand it are all feverishly working to find the Big Donor(s) for our future new football stadium which will complete this trilogy of football facilties.
We can keep on polishing up and tweaking Fouts Field with cosmetic changes here and there and they are certainly needed for now, but our Mean Green football future has already all but moved across the interstate over to Eagle Point Campus . We only await a new football stadium to be attached to its already completed south end zone facility. Ain't that all going to be real nice?
GMG!
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Happy October 31st Plumm. A little somethin' for ya & he won't mess on your carpet

user posted image

PlummMeanGreen · November 1, 2005

Happy October 31st Plumm. A little somethin' for ya & he won't mess on your carpet
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And MG61, if you look real hard you can see "Trixie" just typed a "T" with his back paw to finish these 2 words:

BUILD IT!

GMG!

PS: A little orange and black lettering for Halloween for you all.

Also, I have 4 barn cats out here in the boonies that may not appreciate the cute little critter, MG61.

BTW, the "Travel" channel has some great ghost stories going on in their programming (or they did before they put the Britts on with their funky show from London).

Edited November 1, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

PlummMeanGreen · November 1, 2005

Plumm I can tell you the answer to the hypothetical. Its zero to 1. The Baylor win in '03 is about it. Losses to TCU(2) So. Fla(2) Air Force, Baylor, Boise etc with "The Class".
First alot of those games were scheduled before "The Class" ever signed a LOI
Even with Boogers class we were mediocre at best in our winnable OOC games.
Also I dont think you read my post, you just came back at me with your message. You would be a good pol since it is hard for you to get off message. Nothing personal as I wish all the alums and students cared .01% as much as you do.
I am not advocating slowing down or stopping progress. DD has shown me he is not the man to take us to the next level. He is what he is. Average. The sun belt is a gift and a curse to me. It has been great winning the title and the bowl trips have helped the university and the program immensely. However my self included we get all riled up at the OOC performance but then the feelings arode and we celebrate and beat our chests at the bowl. Then all offseason predict wins against OOC oppents and then get our ass handed to us
DD like I said gets this year and next for me and then its search time.
It is urgent we get the stadium and Eagle Point done. However this continued 6-5 record with the 6 wins in the belt and OOC debacles will only accoplish a couple things. It will take wind out of the momentum over there and it will make the national media percieve us and the belt as inferior.
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I respond to the red highlighted part:

Now Green Nighmare, did "YOU" read my post? I referred to the fact that had SMU, Tulsa and La Tech been on our schedules during the 4 year Booger Kennedy era as to how they would have fared against NT. I think Baylor actually beat SMU the year we slobber-knocked the Bears as I recall.

GMG!

And thanks for the compliment, but there are many on this board who would I would merely be in their shadows in supporting the Mean Green; now when I was in my 20's and 30's I might have kept up with some of them.

Edited November 1, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

untbowler · November 1, 2005

I don't buy the argument that SMU, Tulsa, etc... scheduled b/c they knew we would be down?????

Huh, does that mean they consider DD a piss poor recruiter or did they have a pyschic tell them that Byerly would not make his grades along with Raymond and Isaac Thomas would have heat issues.

Come on that is pretty lame excuse for anyone. We had been begging and groveling to get better match-ups and when we finally do we complain b/c we are having a down year, would we be saying this if Byerly and others got their s**t together and were on the field this year??

Let's hope DD gets the team ready for the final four games on our road to the Championships and then get ready for 2006 and win some meaningful games for once.

PlummMeanGreen · November 1, 2005

I don't buy the argument that SMU, Tulsa, etc... scheduled b/c they knew we would be down?????
Huh, does that mean they consider DD a piss poor recruiter or did they have a pyschic tell them that Byerly would not make his grades along with Raymond and Isaac Thomas would have heat issues.
Come on that is pretty lame excuse for anyone. We had been begging and groveling to get better match-ups and when we finally do we complain b/c we are having a down year, would we be saying this if Byerly and others got their s**t together and were on the field this year??
Let's hope DD gets the team ready for the final four games on our road to the Championships and then get ready for 2006 and win some meaningful games for once.
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Basically just responding to those who have suggested post-La Tech loss that we "never" had a football team of such quality that could have ever beaten an SMU, Tulsa or La Tech, that's all.

Timing is everything and right now, our timing is off at NT. As we all know, these things also go in cycles and we just have to hope that our down cycle is short-lived.

IMO, DD and staff have recruited some outstanding talent and I think most would agree with that, but I think we would also agree that they just need to recruit more of that good talent in larger numbers because that is what will make the difference on the scoreboard. Just my two cents.

GMG!