Does long-term OOC scheduling help an AD lengthen their tenure?

[JesseMartin]

Some points in another thread got me thinking about this. We've all heard that Dickey clashed with Helwig and RV over quite a few things, and the discussion about tough OOC schedules made me wonder about the HC/AD relationships.

So, since I don't know exactly what they did and didn't like about each other's style or opinion of how things should be scheduled, let's look at a couple of possibilities that led me to this thought.

Let's say Helwig wanted to keep putting up UT, OU, Nebraska, LSU, etc. as OOC foes and Dickey disagreed. Well, RV comes along and they're already on the schedule for a couple of years or so. Is it reasonable, prudent, or even done as a matter of business-as-usual, if a new AD agrees with the HC, to look at trying to get out of those games and replace them with ones he feels are better suited to the program in its current state?

My big reason for asking is that if you are pretty much going to stay married to the OOC schedule planned years ahead regardless of coaching or AD changes, doesn't that add just another reason to our usual "well, we have to wait and see because of what he inherited" tact? And in that sense, even if coaching hires don't work out and you make a change in the AD position...wouldn't that give the AD twice as long as the HC?

I mean, just for giggles, let's say this year was disastrous in both FB and BB, both coaches and RV were sent packing (okay, maybe not everybody would be giggling but you know what I mean). The new AD would inherit a football schedule that's pretty much set for about 6 years. That's the big one...so even if they got a bad hire and replaced him as HC after Mac, the FB schedule could basically cover the tenure of two 3-season coaches.

As much as the "bare cupboard" argument is made, couldn't an AD make that same one for at least twice as long if they were pretty well stuck with over half a decade of someone else's scheduling? If so, and people accept the "bare cupboard" notion, wouldn't an AD's grace period be about 6 years before they could say they were "rebuilding properly"? Or could they say, "Hey, if I'm going to come in here and take over this mess, you have to let me scrap half of this schedule and do something better with it"? Obviously if that was part of their terms of hiring, the administration would choose whether or not to hire them...but would that be a reasonable demand if you thought you had a great AD hire and that's what they wanted to do?

[PlummMeanGreen]

99.9% of the NCAA at its present highest level have season ticket sales and fund-raising toward the top of their criteria for success.

Not sure how much long term scheduling has to do with any AD's tenure. If success in doing that provides for bonuses, then the UTSA A.D. should be able to retire in the next 2 or so years based on a very impressive home schedule she has scheduled for the AlamoDome.

If our AD Rick V's staff cannot improve on season ticket sales (a la CUSA newcomer ODU's phenomena in that dept.) and fundraising, then he needs to make some drastic changes and I think most would agree with that. I want Rick V to succeed as our AD no matter whats been said by many of us in the past out of utter frustration because if he does then that means "all is well on the northern front" and our alma mater's athletic program is hopin' and rockin' because after all..........isn't what we all want for "OUR" school?

GMG!

Edited June 12, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[Greenrex]

Some points in another thread got me thinking about this. We've all heard that Dickey clashed with Helwig and RV over quite a few things, and the discussion about tough OOC schedules made me wonder about the HC/AD relationships.

So, since I don't know exactly what they did and didn't like about each other's style or opinion of how things should be scheduled, let's look at a couple of possibilities that led me to this thought.

Let's say Helwig wanted to keep putting up UT, OU, Nebraska, LSU, etc. as OOC foes and Dickey disagreed. Well, RV comes along and they're already on the schedule for a couple of years or so. Is it reasonable, prudent, or even done as a matter of business-as-usual, if a new AD agrees with the HC, to look at trying to get out of those games and replace them with ones he feels are better suited to the program in its current state?

My big reason for asking is that if you are pretty much going to stay married to the OOC schedule planned years ahead regardless of coaching or AD changes, doesn't that add just another reason to our usual "well, we have to wait and see because of what he inherited" tact? And in that sense, even if coaching hires don't work out and you make a change in the AD position...wouldn't that give the AD twice as long as the HC?

I mean, just for giggles, let's say this year was disastrous in both FB and BB, both coaches and RV were sent packing (okay, maybe not everybody would be giggling but you know what I mean). The new AD would inherit a football schedule that's pretty much set for about 6 years. That's the big one...so even if they got a bad hire and replaced him as HC after Mac, the FB schedule could basically cover the tenure of two 3-season coaches.

As much as the "bare cupboard" argument is made, couldn't an AD make that same one for at least twice as long if they were pretty well stuck with over half a decade of someone else's scheduling? If so, and people accept the "bare cupboard" notion, wouldn't an AD's grace period be about 6 years before they could say they were "rebuilding properly"? Or could they say, "Hey, if I'm going to come in here and take over this mess, you have to let me scrap half of this schedule and do something better with it"? Obviously if that was part of their terms of hiring, the administration would choose whether or not to hire them...but would that be a reasonable demand if you thought you had a great AD hire and that's what they wanted to do?

No.

[JesseMartin]

I'm with Plumm in that I want Rick to succeed...not only because it's good for our school, but I do like him (and his famous mustache). And I also don't feel the need to reinvent the wheel, so we should try some of what works with other schools instead of just assuming that games "sell themselves". This was just a variable I hadn't considered before. I don't think there's a "Politics of Sports" class offered...because if there was, I probably would have taken it

[drex]

Ads should not stay at one school too long...they become beaten down, jaded and just tired of their situation and the politics. It is better to rotate every once in awhile to get new ideas and new blood. Certainly, I do not suggest 7 ads in 10 years, which happened at North Texas in the past.

[Mo Green]

No.

Not no but hell no- plum what are you expecting after 14 years from the ad's dept?

[10Eagle10]

for those wanting a new regime, you should wish nothing but extreme success on our current AD. A powerhouse UNT is something for every alum to be proud of; AND an extremely successful department would also increase the number of suitors from bigger budget schools looking to lure our AD away. Win-win. And this is, in no way, me wishing to see RV go. It's a suggestion for those who would look forward to his exit

[untjim1995]

Our OOC scheduling has dramatically improved under RV, compared to Helwig's OOC schedules. We play 1 no-win bodybag game a year now, with an additional money game thrown in here or there during some OOC. The OOC schedules have looked much more like this year's--one bodybag game at UGA, two MAC schools, and a very winnable opponent in Idaho. When Helwig was our AD, our OOC would look like this: open at Oklahoma, play at Arkansas, home against UNLV, at TCU. You get the idea--we played two no win games with big payout, a team in TCU that only played us in a series because they needed wins, and then a return game of a series.

The thing about RV that disappoints is that the home OOC is just mediocre to just awful almost every year. The first year at Apogee is what I expected as a typical home slate in OOC every year. Its your way of rewarding the season ticket holder--give them a team that they get to see play in our new stadium. Instead, RV gave them Texas Southern last year, will give them Idaho and Ball State this year, and probably will give us SMU only in 2014. SMU and Army probably won't get matched up with anything more than a bought FCS or SBC game for the next 8 years, either. And if we still played at Fouts, I'd totally understand it. That toilet of a stadium was doing good to host spares, much less anyone that would bring out a big crowd. But we were told that Apogee would bring in more well-known teams as OOC opponents, which was also a selling point for spending $78 million dollars. Every single home OOC opponent we have scheduled all could have been hosted at Fouts. Again, we needed Apogee just to insure that we would have a football team since Fouts couldn't handle a gameday without the help of multiple generators to add energy capacity. But I suspect that our in-town, athletic-hating, Denia-living residents who continuously pound on the university for spending money on a team and a department that they despise with all their hearts will add this as Reason #1000 as to why spending these funds was wasteful and that the university's leaders must be held responsible for letting this happen. If you don't believe me, just pick a day and open up your NT Daily or DRC and read what your typical student or resident thinks about UNT Football and its costs--its amazingly short-sighted, but its very prevalent because of the anti-athletics stance that has been taken by UNT for so long. And maybe beating someone with a well-known reputation at home wouldn't change any of this thought--maybe beating a team like Missouri or Nebraska wouldn't even register much on the radar in Denton if we played and beat them at home--but I do know that it would have to bring more people to a game at Apogee (And thus to Denton) to spend money than hosting and winning a game over SMU or Army will do.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Good gosh, as long as we've been down were we not to expect the critics we get from Denton, Denia and the uttermost parts of the DFW Metroplex?

Amazing thing about sports fans is how they are like a Roman mob....just give them something positive to chew on so they can pull a 180 degree shift to being excited about something again. We saw glimpses of that green-tinted Roman Mob changing their attitudes even as a Sun Belt school with those 4 trips in a row to the Wyndam New Orleans Bowl just last decade.

We now have all the ingrediants in place (stadium, athletic center, MG Village, to bake one helluva' cake at UNT, we just have to turn the oven heat on and just win, win, win and more winning to start the final baking process.

For a pretty neat reminder of what we do have at UNT and the Mean Green Village, etc....I present....

THIS!

(click your mouse on any of the animated venues on the map to pull up a nice collage of pics)

http://www.meangreenmap.com/?DB_OEM_ID=1800

GMG!

Edited June 18, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[UNT90]

Our OOC scheduling has dramatically improved under RV, compared to Helwig's OOC schedules. We play 1 no-win bodybag game a year now, with an additional money game thrown in here or there during some OOC. The OOC schedules have looked much more like this year's--one bodybag game at UGA, two MAC schools, and a very winnable opponent in Idaho. When Helwig was our AD, our OOC would look like this: open at Oklahoma, play at Arkansas, home against UNLV, at TCU. You get the idea--we played two no win games with big payout, a team in TCU that only played us in a series because they needed wins, and then a return game of a series.

The thing about RV that disappoints is that the home OOC is just mediocre to just awful almost every year. The first year at Apogee is what I expected as a typical home slate in OOC every year. Its your way of rewarding the season ticket holder--give them a team that they get to see play in our new stadium. Instead, RV gave them Texas Southern last year, will give them Idaho and Ball State this year, and probably will give us SMU only in 2014. SMU and Army probably won't get matched up with anything more than a bought FCS or SBC game for the next 8 years, either. And if we still played at Fouts, I'd totally understand it. That toilet of a stadium was doing good to host spares, much less anyone that would bring out a big crowd. But we were told that Apogee would bring in more well-known teams as OOC opponents, which was also a selling point for spending $78 million dollars. Every single home OOC opponent we have scheduled all could have been hosted at Fouts. Again, we needed Apogee just to insure that we would have a football team since Fouts couldn't handle a gameday without the help of multiple generators to add energy capacity. But I suspect that our in-town, athletic-hating, Denia-living residents who continuously pound on the university for spending money on a team and a department that they despise with all their hearts will add this as Reason #1000 as to why spending these funds was wasteful and that the university's leaders must be held responsible for letting this happen. If you don't believe me, just pick a day and open up your NT Daily or DRC and read what your typical student or resident thinks about UNT Football and its costs--its amazingly short-sighted, but its very prevalent because of the anti-athletics stance that has been taken by UNT for so long. And maybe beating someone with a well-known reputation at home wouldn't change any of this thought--maybe beating a team like Missouri or Nebraska wouldn't even register much on the radar in Denton if we played and beat them at home--but I do know that it would have to bring more people to a game at Apogee (And thus to Denton) to spend money than hosting and winning a game over SMU or Army will do.

2 body bag games in 2015 (Tennessee and Iowa) in a 5 home game season, and still one game to fill for 2014, leaving the possibility of another 5 game home season and the addition of another body bag game (the smell of green is so much more tempting than spending money to buy a home game - a la Idaho, which we will have to do to avoid another 5 game home season).

So you may want to ease up on the whole "RV will only play one body bag game a year" thing, because that promise isn't being kept.

The thing is, it's cool to act like you hate UNT football in Denton, even among students. It's cool to down talk UNT football and make fun of the year after year of losing seasons. It's the in thing to do.

Beating a name opponent in a bowl year would go A LONG way to stopping this culture. Problem is, you stand a VERY slim chance of beating a name opponent if you play them in their stadium EVERY time you play them, which is why getting one or two to Apogee is so important.

It seems everyone else in the college football world is able to make this happen but poor ole UNT. Look at ULM and who they have gotten. Look at SMU. Same stadium size with less home fan attendance. Look who they have gotten.

Scheduling has been a massive failure. MASSIVE!

Sad thing is, with the box we are in due to terrible planning, we won't have the opportunity to correct this for the next 5 years, minimum (unless we want to spend a whole lotta money buying out road games).

Edited June 18, 2013 by UNT90

[untjim1995]

2 body bag games in 2015 (Tennessee and Iowa) in a 5 home game season, and still one game to fill for 2014, leaving the possibility of another 5 game home season and the addition of another body bag game (the smell of green is so much more tempting than spending money to buy a home game - a la Idaho, which we will have to do to avoid another 5 game home season).

So you may want to ease up on the whole "RV will only play one body bag game a year" thing, because that promise isn't being kept.

I agree with you, but you have to admit that we aren't whoring ourselves out like we did with the schedules during the Helwig years as the AD.

[emmitt01]

I agree with you, but you have to admit that we aren't whoring ourselves out like we did with the schedules during the Helwig years as the AD.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you're measuring "progress" by comparison to the worst (Helwig, Dodge, the Sun Belt, Benford) then you need a MUCH longer ruler.

[UNT90]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you're measuring "progress" by comparison to the worst (Helwig, Dodge, the Sun Belt, Benford) then you need a MUCH longer ruler.

This. We should be WAY past the Helwig/Dodge/Trilli markers in this program (well, maybe not Dodge), but we find ourselves consistently starting over ALL the time.

The stadium was supposed to make a huge difference. It hasn't, at least not in the way the AD approaches scheduling. If Houston is your be all, end all of home games, well, I guess your happy. Meanwhile, others with less continue to do more.