If we fired Dickey in 2001?

UNT_playmaker · October 6, 2006

Would we have won the 4 SBC titles with a different coach at the helm?

Something to ponder as a FIU loss will determine our coach's future?

NM Green · October 6, 2006

Friend, I hope Dickey's future is already determined. I would still like a change even with a win over La Tech and Bowl game. Of course that probably has a snowballs chance in heck in happening anyway, but I hope to see change even if all the cards were to fall right in the next 3 months.

GMG

NM Green · October 6, 2006

As to the Conference Champion question - I am not sure we would have won without Dickey. He was the right coach at the right time. We are at a different level with different expectations now, as we should be.

GMG

drex · October 7, 2006

The more that I look at our situation now, I think that FireFightin Rick could have coached those championship teams. The SunBelt was very weak back then. Now, they are getting a bit better and we a regressing.

PlummMeanGreen · October 7, 2006

First of all, I would think how we do against FIU should not change anyone's mind about our future one way or the other. I hope we have a bit more progressive UNT leadership now than those of our last 25 years who showed that they knew nothing about hiring coaches who would get us (somewhat) back to some of the success of the Mean Joe Greene and Hayden Fry eras had given us.

We have to stop using any SBC school's football program as our measure of success because just merely using the SBC for our baromter is the very thing that will probably have Darrell Dickey out looking for a new job soon enough.

Would not most agree that DD had no career at UNT until the fledgling SBC came along for him. It was like shooting fish in the bottom of the NCAA D1-A barrell for DD. Guess thats why he seemed to lavish praise on Wright Waters so much at those Big Easy/SBC/Love-In sessions on the, uh, Mean Green Radio Network--all 3 stations.

SBC Commissioner Wright Waters (basically) put together a consortium of schools most of whom just out of 1-AA who all said they wanted to be in 1-A but no established D1-A leagues wanted any of them (save the WAC for just 2 or 3 SBC'ers). UNT had about a 5 or 6 year head start on most of the SBC football schools once the SBC football portion of the conference formed in 2001.

IMHO, the #1 missing ingrediant of those 4 SBC championships is just how gol-darned low we were ranked at the end of bowl season as the SBC football champion among all the other 117 (then) schools in NCAA D1-A; all this, while the WAC and MAC football champions were mostly getting Top 25 billing and consideration.

Had UNT even been ranked anywhere between the Top 25 thru Top 50 during any of those 4 years I believe 2 things would be happening today:

(1) Our recruiting would have gotten even better after such rankings during that 4 bowl year run and.......

(2) No one would be posting about a need for a new head football coach at UNT who could take us to the next level, you know, Top 25 thru Top 50 at least?

Edited October 7, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

KingDL1 · October 7, 2006

The more that I look at our situation now, I think that FireFightin Rick could have coached those championship teams. The SunBelt was very weak back then. Now, they are getting a bit better and we a regressing.
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Amen

I think with any head coach in our history we would have done better, not only would we have had 5 Sun Belt titles we would have won a couple more Bowl games. Face it DD can not coach. I think DeLoach as head coach would would have taken us to the true Mid Major ranks. De Loach seemed to have real intensity.

Edited October 7, 2006 by KingDL1

the green rokemi · October 7, 2006

I think Matt Simon could have won the sunbelt easily...

KingDL1 · October 7, 2006

RV posted this in August:

Well you want leadership and I'm going to give to you. I apologize for nothing we've done over the last five years as we have made great strides in every area of the program. Our student-athletes and coaches are much better off today and our fans and alums now enjoy many of the aspects of the program not available just a few years ago (tailgating, video boards, available merchandise, a recognizable brand and national recognition, etc.) But that is in the past and I must look to the future. I understand your frustration in some areas because I share some of those same concerns. We must now be at the top in the Sun Belt across the board and be competitive and beat out of conference and regional opponents in every sport. We must now recruit the very best athletes especially in this area even though we may not get some in the end. Our coaches must exude a positive outlook as we now have a good situation and we must sell it. Nothing less can or will be accepted. I know that tennis and swimming are not important to most of you but those last two hires should speak volumes of what we now expect in all of our coaches. People who expect to win, people who recruit outstanding athletes and people who expect to be a nationally competitive and ranked program. Although they come from a Big 10 and Pac 10 program, they feel they are now in a better situation and have facilities and support systems that will allow them to field nationally competitive athletes and programs. And they go out and sell it every day. Be assured that every coach must now approach it that way as most of the deficiencies that once hindered their efforts no longer exist. If they choose not to approach it that way then they can't fit into the future of this program .
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Rick's Thread

I think RV clearly defined what he expects from his coaches, and I can't see a way in hell DD fits this definition. There is no way DD is still here after this season.

eulesseagle · October 7, 2006

Again, you have to remember that UNT is in the SBC.

Florida Atlantic has Howard Schnellenberger who has won a national championship. Look at the state of this program. He is in one of the "hotbeds" of college football. What better coach can you get than someone who has revitalized other programs across the nation?

Florida International has Don Strock, an ex NFL QB, as coach still in one of the hotbeds of college football.

Central Florida has George O'Leary another excellent coach but in C-USA.

IMHO these are three excellent coaches that just about any college football program would love to hire.

The difference is that two of the three are in the SBC and one is in CUSA.

Yea, we could name off coaches that we would like to get at UNT but still they would be in the SBC.

Not until we get into a better conference will we be able to recruit better than what we are currently doing.

Again, IMHO, the best that UNT can do in its present situation is to win 2 OOC games and come in 1st or 2nd in the belt and hope that UNT can get another offer from the WAC, MAC, MWC or CUSA.

If we do not get another invitation then UNT has, unfortunately, reached its apex in college football today.

TIgreen01 · October 7, 2006

Not until we get into a better conference will we be able to recruit better than what we are currently doing.
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Stop blaming the conference for all our problems. Boise St. started out in the same boat we were in at the exact same time and have turned their situation around with better coaching and are slowly improving their recruits. There are examples all over the country of this happening.

Also, I don't quite understand the talk about DD's staff baggin the recruiting season the year we went 9-4 and lost to Memphis in the NO Bowl....we grabbed Super Jamario in that class---did we just get lucky?

More than anything, I think that the loss of all the quality assistants we had has landed us where we are presently---and this is coming from someone who has never been all that fond of DD.

eulesseagle · October 7, 2006

TIGreen--

I appreciate your frustration but the SBC is ranked #15 amongst all D-1A and D-1AA conferences. There are three D-1AA conferences that are ranked better than the SBC in 12 D-1A conferences. You can make a point that Saragin is skewed and it probably is but that leaves the SBC at the bottom of the heap of D-1A conferences anyway.

The SBC schools have the WORST OOC record of ANY D-1A conference.

The SBC schools are lucky to have two teams at the end of the season with a winning record.

Yea, you can point to Boise State University. They chose "wisely" in their direction when they departed the Big West Conference and UNT sought to go another "regional" direction. Is the WAC a better conference, top to bottom, than the SBC??.....sure it is. You have the "powerhouse teams of Boise and Fresno and you have the weaker sisters of Utah State Univ. (an ex member of the Big West), Idaho(ex member of the BW) and San Jose State.

Yea, we were once in a conference with Louisville, Cincinnati and Memphis in the MVC. They chose to go in one direction and UNT chose to go another.

Yea, UNT turned down the WAC and we are now waiting on the perverbial "golden slipper" invitation from C-USA.

What I have seen in the ump-teen years watching NTSU/UNT play, along with S.E. et. al.......North Texas does not make wise choices athletically, overall. North Texas has made some wise coaching choices but none (hindsight) conference wise.

NT was in the MVC for years. The MVC broke up and NT went Independent....which was not a bad choice back then because many powerhouse teams were independent. Fry tried to get us into the SWC. Enough said there. Instead of staying the course in D-1A our "university fathers" dropped NT to D-1AA regional athletics. To me that was as much of a death penalty as was SMU's death penalty. NT floundered around as a independent finally getting into the B.W. until its demise and finally ended up in the SBC which was nothing more than the revitalization of the "OLD" D-1AA Southland Conference.

With all that in mind.........UNT is stuck in the worst conference....but.....it does have some excellent coaches (FIU, FAU & MTSU) but still can not improve their respective programs in OOC games but as a whole are great on beating up on the respective members of the SBC.

If DD was to depart UNT this year, next year, 2010 or whenever and NT is still in the SBC the best we could hope for would be 2 OOC wins and coming in 1st or 2nd in the SBC with ANY coach.

Edited October 7, 2006 by eulesseagle

greenjoe · October 7, 2006

When/if a new conference comes callling, think about what they will look at. Facilities, location, student population. Lots of things.

What can we, as fans do to help ? Build a new stadium ? Change our location ? Drag more high school students to our campus ?

Probably not. I can't write a check to fund the new stadium. I liek where NT is located. I'm not likely to go to "college night" at area high schools.

I choose to help by joining the Mean Green Club and buying season tickets.

I would like to think that conferences look at those kind of things. How many people are in the Mean Green Club ? How many season tix do you sell ? I bet those are questions a new coach and a new conference would ask.

You can't do everything. So do what you can do.

Join the Mean Green Club

Buy Season Tickets

GO MEAN GREEN

Edited October 7, 2006 by greenjoe