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Does RV need to be fired if Benford is retained and we are this bad ne


UNT90

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Wrong. You were bitching about last years schedule at this time a year ago. We ended up with 6 home games. I am not fine with what Benford is doing to the program, but made a point about how many want us to pattern our program after TCU or Boise St. while they, and many, many others excel at one sport and not the other. I don't know the financial situation of our programz overall but it is better now than ever before based on coach's salaries. Maybe the only way we can entice a coach to the program is by offering security in a 5 year deal. Either way, we get screwed if things don't work out. You have trouble with old classmates that don't support the program. RV gets that 10 fold. Events like the HOD and the festivities surrounding the bowl is our chance to get the alumni together and try to increase support. Some we get, some will never come on board, but fixing 80+ years of neglect takes time. Again, I am not happy with Benford but I am happy with the overall job RV has done. You come across as never being happy regardless of what RV does. Guess I will live with it, because, like your friend that will not change his mind about us, I do not think you will change either.

TCU and Boise State may not always excel at every major sport, but when they're good at football they're REALLY good at football. Also, they don't necessarily suck at everything else. Boise State has won over 20 games in basketball three of the last four years and went to the NCAA tournament last year. TCU is pretty damn good at baseball.

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Really? So we can be told something by the AD and then it's "not the battle to pick right now?"

I have club seats, so there is more than just ticket costs that go along with them, as you well know.

yeah, that makes more sense now. I wasn't thinking of the mandatory donation level that goes with Club Level.

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If one bowl win in a decade's time gives you cart blanch to skate on the absolute destruction of your school's other marquee program... man I want to work where some of ya'll sign the checks.

If we had fans here that actually signed the checks, would we really be in this situation?

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Dear Mr. UNT90. I am sorry that in a public forum I called you an idiot. I really mean this. I could have said everything I said in referenced post without saying "your an idiot". And you are correct. I will never give my opinion on a coach as at this institution on a fan board.

we had a losing record in basketball in year one. this is a fact. People were projecting us as a top 25 team potentially, and if we were to handle business we might actually get a beloved 12 or 13 seed in the tournament. Not only is this a fact, but there was a billboard less than a quarter mile from my store on I-35 with Tony Mitchell's picture on it. My wife and I then on our own dime flew to Kansas City, drove to Manhattan Kansas, and watched in horror as Alabama (insert city name of a prison in texas) proceeded to make us look stupid with swarming defense, precision ball movement, and kicked our ass handily. But I did not give up hope.

Then for the rest of the year I watched the "greatest recruit" in the history of our program for whatever reason walk up and down the floor is some games, show flashes in other games, but otherwise underachieve. Last year was a kick in the crotch. I sold the program to every one I know. I convinced two families to donate enough money to buy the floor seats behind the dance team, and they did. They both stuck it through this year and we had a relatively good time watching NT basketball with way lowered expectations.

So now there is this year. We scheduled an easy schedule. We had 11 ??? wins versus real d1 teams. Did we make progress? I would have to say compared to last year yes. The great program savior is playing some form of professional basketball, and I think we were better. I say that bad CUSA is better than decent Sun Belt. Is this where we want to be? NO.

Coach Benford barring some natural disaster is going to coach this team next year. That is the way it is. When he is our coach, I will support him with my time, energy, and attendance at games, just like I did Coach Dodge. You see, and this is my opinion, with my donations I am helping student athletes get an education. My donations help build facilities that are needed to help these student athletes succeed. My donations do not dictate who is coaching the team. There are people that are hired to do that. It is their responsibility to do that. When you run a business, you sometimes hire the right people, and sometimes you don't. You try to put those people in positions to be successful, but sometimes you just have to pull the plug on them.

At the time I thought Todd Dodge was a great hire. He is a good man, time just proved that he can't coach college football. Shanice Stephens was the choice at the time, the plug had to be pulled on her, we then went and got the best available womans coach in Karen Aston, only to have her hired away in one year by arguably the richest school in country. Nothing could be done about that.

My point is that Mr. Villarreal is going to do the right thing for our program. I just cannot for the life of me understand the constant negative negative negative from someone who has no idea the real inside workings of college athletics. Its our school, lift it up. Lift the kids up that are representing us. Lift the coaches us that are representing us.

I am going to be in those stands when we line up against Texas. Do I think we will win? I put it at 25%. Do I want us to win? Your damn right I do. I would like to say one time to one of those pompous orange wearing jerks. "You have a great team. I hope they play better next week."

Go Mean Green

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Dear Mr. UNT90. I am sorry that in a public forum I called you an idiot. I really mean this. I could have said everything I said in referenced post without saying "your an idiot". And you are correct. I will never give my opinion on a coach as at this institution on a fan board.

we had a losing record in basketball in year one. this is a fact. People were projecting us as a top 25 team potentially, and if we were to handle business we might actually get a beloved 12 or 13 seed in the tournament. Not only is this a fact, but there was a billboard less than a quarter mile from my store on I-35 with Tony Mitchell's picture on it. My wife and I then on our own dime flew to Kansas City, drove to Manhattan Kansas, and watched in horror as Alabama (insert city name of a prison in texas) proceeded to make us look stupid with swarming defense, precision ball movement, and kicked our ass handily. But I did not give up hope.

Then for the rest of the year I watched the "greatest recruit" in the history of our program for whatever reason walk up and down the floor is some games, show flashes in other games, but otherwise underachieve. Last year was a kick in the crotch. I sold the program to every one I know. I convinced two families to donate enough money to buy the floor seats behind the dance team, and they did. They both stuck it through this year and we had a relatively good time watching NT basketball with way lowered expectations.

So now there is this year. We scheduled an easy schedule. We had 11 ??? wins versus real d1 teams. Did we make progress? I would have to say compared to last year yes. The great program savior is playing some form of professional basketball, and I think we were better. I say that bad CUSA is better than decent Sun Belt. Is this where we want to be? NO.

Coach Benford barring some natural disaster is going to coach this team next year. That is the way it is. When he is our coach, I will support him with my time, energy, and attendance at games, just like I did Coach Dodge. You see, and this is my opinion, with my donations I am helping student athletes get an education. My donations help build facilities that are needed to help these student athletes succeed. My donations do not dictate who is coaching the team. There are people that are hired to do that. It is their responsibility to do that. When you run a business, you sometimes hire the right people, and sometimes you don't. You try to put those people in positions to be successful, but sometimes you just have to pull the plug on them.

At the time I thought Todd Dodge was a great hire. He is a good man, time just proved that he can't coach college football. Shanice Stephens was the choice at the time, the plug had to be pulled on her, we then went and got the best available womans coach in Karen Aston, only to have her hired away in one year by arguably the richest school in country. Nothing could be done about that.

My point is that Mr. Villarreal is going to do the right thing for our program. I just cannot for the life of me understand the constant negative negative negative from someone who has no idea the real inside workings of college athletics. Its our school, lift it up. Lift the kids up that are representing us. Lift the coaches us that are representing us.

I am going to be in those stands when we line up against Texas. Do I think we will win? I put it at 25%. Do I want us to win? Your damn right I do. I would like to say one time to one of those pompous orange wearing jerks. "You have a great team. I hope they play better next week."

Go Mean Green

You are right. I don't know what goes on behind closed doors in the AD, and I don't care. And you know what, I don't want to. I want to have expectations and never get too close that my judgement is clouded because of personal friendships.

I could care less about being called a jerk (I'm pretty sure you called me this and not an idiot, but either way no biggie). Truth be told, I can be a jerk, so no harm, no foul. What does bother me is you choose to blame the only 5 star player ever to attend this university for a lack of effort, suggesting that was our undoing last season. This is the same thing I have heard from others close to the AD. Hell, it's the same thing RV basically said on a podcast with Harry.

What worries me is that this group will continue to close their eyes and lie to themselves, telling themselves "just wait till Carrington Ward and Greg Wesley play next year," while conveniently ignoring the fact that Benford HAD AN NBA TALENT on his roster and screwed it up.

You want to blame Mitchell for last year, yet you seem to lack the basic understanding that motivation IS the coach's responsibility. You also completely dismiss the dismal performance of Benford recruited bigs this year. Was that their fault, too?

Keep your eyes closed all you want, but you shouldn't be able to ignore the rapidly declining attendance numbers and the view of the crowd from your seats. Maybe some want to keep UNT athletics a club. Hell, I don't know. But I think they should recognize that this isn't working. I think they should have recognized at the end of last year that the massive first year failure when expectations were high and knowledgable basketball people said we had the talent to make some noise only to have a 1st year head coach lay the terd of all terds directly on our program, that Benford would never be forgiven by many of the fan base. And that it was an experiment that should have been quickly ended.

But they chose to lie to themselves and double, no, triple, down.

You should know this is a pretty good concensus for those outside the AD inner circle. Please don't believe me, just look at all the empty seats next year.

Edited by UNT90
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"Coach Benford barring some natural disaster is going to coach this team next year. That is the way it is."

This means we are either broke or are exercising horrible, horrible judgment. Either way, it's depressing as hell. I'm starting to understand why so many NT alumni have just given up on athletics over the decades.

"They both stuck it through this year and we had a relatively good time watching NT basketball with way lowered expectations."

"Lowered expectations" appears to be the only prescription for the Benford blues. Some fans (such as most on this site) can enjoy the Mean Green whenever, wherever. I'm proud to say that I'm in this group. The vast majority of NT students and alumni, however, just go back to watching Big XII teams when it looks like we're not taking things seriously. That is the way it is.

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"Coach Benford barring some natural disaster is going to coach this team next year. That is the way it is."

This means we are either broke or are exercising horrible, horrible judgment. Either way, it's depressing as hell. I'm starting to understand why so many NT alumni have just given up on athletics over the decades.

"They both stuck it through this year and we had a relatively good time watching NT basketball with way lowered expectations."

"Lowered expectations" appears to be the only prescription for the Benford blues. Some fans (such as most on this site) can enjoy the Mean Green whenever, wherever. I'm proud to say that I'm in this group. The vast majority of NT students and alumni, however, just go back to watching Big XII teams when it looks like we're not taking things seriously. That is the way it is.

Yep

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Dear Mr. UNT90. I am sorry that in a public forum I called you an idiot. I really mean this. I could have said everything I said in referenced post without saying "your an idiot". And you are correct. I will never give my opinion on a coach as at this institution on a fan board.

we had a losing record in basketball in year one. this is a fact. People were projecting us as a top 25 team potentially, and if we were to handle business we might actually get a beloved 12 or 13 seed in the tournament. Not only is this a fact, but there was a billboard less than a quarter mile from my store on I-35 with Tony Mitchell's picture on it. My wife and I then on our own dime flew to Kansas City, drove to Manhattan Kansas, and watched in horror as Alabama (insert city name of a prison in texas) proceeded to make us look stupid with swarming defense, precision ball movement, and kicked our ass handily. But I did not give up hope.

Then for the rest of the year I watched the "greatest recruit" in the history of our program for whatever reason walk up and down the floor is some games, show flashes in other games, but otherwise underachieve. Last year was a kick in the crotch. I sold the program to every one I know. I convinced two families to donate enough money to buy the floor seats behind the dance team, and they did. They both stuck it through this year and we had a relatively good time watching NT basketball with way lowered expectations.

So now there is this year. We scheduled an easy schedule. We had 11 ??? wins versus real d1 teams. Did we make progress? I would have to say compared to last year yes. The great program savior is playing some form of professional basketball, and I think we were better. I say that bad CUSA is better than decent Sun Belt. Is this where we want to be? NO.

Coach Benford barring some natural disaster is going to coach this team next year. That is the way it is. When he is our coach, I will support him with my time, energy, and attendance at games, just like I did Coach Dodge. You see, and this is my opinion, with my donations I am helping student athletes get an education. My donations help build facilities that are needed to help these student athletes succeed. My donations do not dictate who is coaching the team. There are people that are hired to do that. It is their responsibility to do that. When you run a business, you sometimes hire the right people, and sometimes you don't. You try to put those people in positions to be successful, but sometimes you just have to pull the plug on them.

At the time I thought Todd Dodge was a great hire. He is a good man, time just proved that he can't coach college football. Shanice Stephens was the choice at the time, the plug had to be pulled on her, we then went and got the best available womans coach in Karen Aston, only to have her hired away in one year by arguably the richest school in country. Nothing could be done about that.

My point is that Mr. Villarreal is going to do the right thing for our program. I just cannot for the life of me understand the constant negative negative negative from someone who has no idea the real inside workings of college athletics. Its our school, lift it up. Lift the kids up that are representing us. Lift the coaches us that are representing us.

I am going to be in those stands when we line up against Texas. Do I think we will win? I put it at 25%. Do I want us to win? Your damn right I do. I would like to say one time to one of those pompous orange wearing jerks. "You have a great team. I hope they play better next week."

Go Mean Green

I don't know you and vice versa. But this post says a lot about your character, flyonthewall. I, too, have had instances where I said things in haste that I regretted. Taking the time to walk those comments back, even as hard as it can be for our pride sometimes, is very telling. I bet its why you have a successful business.

I agree on everything you say in this post, except for kinda blaming Mitchell, although I felt the exact same way you did about his lack of trying under Benford versus JJ, but losing does that people, both in sports and in life. We want our athletes to have the Michael Jordan attitude when it comes to losing, that you hate it so much that you just won't ever allow yourself or your teammates to get mired in it. But, truthfully, as we witness with the Cowboys every year in December, used to see with the Mavs in playoff time, and now see in the Rangers in September, once losing in the clutch time starts, its awfully hard to stop. And this is with paid pro athletes, not scholarship college kids. They hear the media ask them over and over about losing in the clutch times, even when it was in the past and your record YTD is really good. The fans respond with the negativity and the atheltes and the coaches feel that extra pressure, which leads to teh Cowboys sucking every December, the Rangers falling apart in September, and when the Mavs would have a great team int he regular season, only to get bounced in the first round by some team that really wasn't as good as them. It takes a very special team that gets over that hump (See Mavs of 2011). Otherwise, you get the Cowboys of the last 8 years or so and the Rangers of the last few years.

UNT will always have a harder road to pave, just because of the culture and history here, which is not good. So when winning actually shows up, as it did with Fry in the 70s, Dickey in the early 00s, and JJs teams in the last 5 years of his tenure, the hardcore UNT fans are fired up because they feel like this is FINALLY our time, especially as we watch other lukewarm-at-best fans get interested in our team instead of name your AQ school that has not ties to them. But once losing comes back into the fold, at a place like UNT, it isn't a slow fade, its been a cliff dive. And the players know it, especially a guy like Tony Mitchell that knew that playing out the string was better for him since he was going to get paid soon. Again, that falls on the coach and the AD to fight that off, but it becomes harder as you go from 4000 people watching your SBC game to having 2000 watching your SBC game. Losing does that--and as previously stated, the AD and the BOR need to address this quickly or it becomes an avalanche here in Denton because of that culture and history we carry with us. Its not hard to blame college kids for giving less than the effort they should, but we know that pro players do it everyday, and they are supposedly more mature since they are older. I just find that when the AD of your school blames the kids for a huge dropoff instead of his hire, which was approved by the BOR, that he has a year to be proven right or else that AD should have major responsibility for blaming the kids instead of his hire. This year, the record may have improved, but anyone wathcing knows that the team's performance isn't inspiring anyone to back Benford any further. That falls at the feet of the AD at almost every other school in America, unless they don't care about that sport or are trying to save money. Neither option tells your fanbase anything good. BTW, our friends in College Station are dealing with this now, with the obvious retainment of Billy Kennedy as their head BB coach, despite coaching them from being a regular in the NCAA Tournament down to being a dying program in a bad basketball league. And they have no excuse with all the money that they have in Aggieland for accepting this. And it will hurt their program significantly. But, again, they will always have money to go buy a decent head coach when they are ready, which we don't have. It stinks when you realistically expect more for your school's revenue teams than they are willing to do to make that happen.

You mentioned Todd Dodge in your earlier post, so I want to say something there about him. I, too, felt he was a great hire at the time. You have someone who was affordable for our situation (with Fouts as your stadium, you had very limited resources), had great name recognition, had coached here before, and had lots of in-roads with Texas HS coaches. Plus, he was a great guy for the alumni to be around and get in front of a TV, unlike his predecessor. But, just like with Vic Trilli, who was everything that Dodge was with the fans and with the media, once it was obvious that this was just not gonna work, you have to pull the trigger and move on. Not doing that, in both cases, cost us so much more than the buyouts of that extra year ended up costing the bottom line. As a successful businessman, you know that sometimes ventures or purchases just don't work out. It stinks, too. No one likes it when it happens. But you move on as fast as possible. You don't tell your business partners or shareholders that we will just have to keep that manufacturing equipment for another few years, even though we have lost several contracts and potential new business because its not any good. If you do that, you are rightfully setting yourself up to be fired or to suffer greatly. That is where I am with Tony Benford. Look, if he has to come back, I get it--I understand the financial realities here, too. But if I am the AD, I am making it really well known that if he cannot get significant improvement this next year--as in top 4 in the league--we will cut bait this year. I don't go on to various media outlets and make it sound like we are improving and you are happy. I'm saying,"Although I see improvement, we are far from being where we need to be and where we were. I accept the blame for this and I know that Coach Benford knows that we expect to get back up to where we were very soon." The fanbase would do backflips to hear this from the AD. And, I suspect, that a man of your character and work ethic, would love to hear that, too.

We all on gmg.com that regularly post want the same thing--for UNT to be the best it can be in sports. We want to brag to our friends that actually went to UT, A&M, Tech, OU, and the others who get our alums as fans because we haven't shown a consistent plan for actually caring about revenue sports fully. The HoD Bowl was a great experience for us. The UT opener will be a better opportunity for us in a game against an AQ power than we have probably ever had to at least be competitive and we know what that means for us. But when D-II Alabama-Huntsville beats you, when you have to struggle to beat Northwood or Wayland Baptist at home in Year 2, and when you have to realize that a good SFA team has gotten to the point where they can come to Denton and beat you by 30+ points in front of as many fans rooting for them as are there to root for the home team (not LaTech, not UTEP, not Rice...Stephen Freaking Austin), you have to realize that this operation is in dire danger of causing severe complications that cannot or are not going to be recoverable. And, again, most of us on gmg.com, whether we are new or old, are in agreement that we definitely don't want that to happen again to one of our teams.

Edited by untjim1995
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  • 11 months later...

I don't think RV is even on the hot seat right now. Football & basketball would have to put in similar performances next year for him to see his job security come into question, IMO. Now, I'm not saying he shouldn't be on the hot seat. His handling of men's & women's basketball the last few years has been nothing short of embarrassing...

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I don't think RV is even on the hot seat right now. Football & basketball would have to put in similar performances next year for him to see his job security come into question, IMO. Now, I'm not saying he shouldn't be on the hot seat. His handling of men's & women's basketball the last few years has been nothing short of embarrassing...

And this is why UNT athletics has been awful for years with no end in sight. It's just not important to the BOR.

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UNT90, honest question. So, is it RV, the BOR or a combination of the two?

If it's a combination of the two I wonder how he could come close to trusting the administration to make "the right hire."

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UNT90, honest question. So, is it RV, the BOR or a combination of the two?

When someone is allowed to underachieve as long as RV has been, it's obviously a problem above him. Most likely apathy.

But that doesn't, or at least shouldn't, excuse your AD from doing his job.

I'm hoping we see some changes to the BOR with the new governor in place. Will it matter? Probably not.

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I am not ready to show RV the door and believe he bought himself extra years with the donations he has secured and the facilities that have been built on his watch. I would bet he is here until baseball is added and then he is done.

His hiring has been problematic, but most people, media included, were on board when Dodge and Benford were hired. I don't like the 5 year deals we hand out, but maybe security makes up for what we can't offer in dollars with these new coaches. Unfortunately, these hires didn't pan out. I think Mac was the right hire and am still on board with him, but it is time for Benford to go.

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His hiring has been problematic, but most people, media included, were on board when Dodge and Benford were hired.

What? That's like, hypothetically speaking, if we were to hire Jalie Mitchell to be out next women's coach. And, in this hypothetical, she did not work out and turned out to not be a good head coach. And then we fire her and people were to sit there and say "well, the media thought it was a good hire, so RV gets a pass," or "well it seemed like a good hire since she was such a great player and assistant coach, so RV gets a pass."

Any hire will have something on their résumé that can be highly acclaimed by the media. In the end, actual results are all that matter.

Edited by BillySee58
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What? That's like, hypothetically speaking, if we were to hire Jalie Mitchell to be out next women's coach. And, in this hypothetical, she did not work out and turned out to not be a good head coach. And then we fire her and people were to sit there and say "well, the media thought it was a good hire, so RV gets a pass," or "well it seemed like a good hire since she was such a great player and assistant coach, so RV gets a pass."

Any hire will have something on their résumé that can be highly acclaimed by the media. In the end, actual results are all that matter.

I mean... surely you couldn't expect an AD to hire coaches at a higher level than "well... the media and fans thought it might work." It's not like he's being paid a handsome sum to be better at hiring coaches than the media or fans... right?

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If it's a combination of the two I wonder how he could come close to trusting the administration to make "the right hire."

I don't. That's the reason it took me so long to finally decide whether I wanted RV to stay or not. That's why I've posted on here to be careful what you ask for, because there is absolutely no promises that the BOR hires anyone much better.

But it's come to the point that I'm more than willing to take that chance. I hesitate to say this, but I really don't see how a worse job could be done than has been done in the last 3 years.

But we are UNT. Where there's a lack of will, there's a way.

Edited by UNT90
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I don't. That's the reason it took me so long to finally decide whether I wanted RV to stay or not. That's why I've posted on here to be careful what you ask for, because there is absolutely no promises that the BOR hires anyone much better.

But it's come to the point that I'm more than willing to take that chance. I hesitate to say this, but I really don't see how a worse job could be done than has been done in the last 3 years.

But we are UNT. Where there's a lack of will, there's a way.

Pretty sure the BOR is more of a "rubber stamp" instead of a hiring committee.

The University President would more-likely play a much, much more important role in who the Athletic Director hire would be.

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The University President would more-likely play a much, much more important role in who the Athletic Director hire would be.

For verification on that, ask Ms. "There's already too much literature by dead straight white men" about her opinions on football coaches making more than university presidents.

As to this constant "FIRE RV!" stuff, I recall that by mid-2009, I despised Todd Dodge so much that he could've moved UNT up to the NFL and won the Super Bowl with free BJs in the stands and in-home strippers with happy endings for those watching at home, and I still would've found fault with him. Sometimes we cross that precipice, from which there is no return.

There is no argument to be made. Nothing will please the disgruntled fan base. Nothing. They have made their opinion, and they will stick with it until change someday does come or they keel over in defiance.

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