(06-02-2013 06:36 PM)MG61 Wrote: (06-02-2013 06:30 PM)Cnelson203 Wrote: Cool Video. Serious question. What happened to North Texas over the past several years? It wasn't that long ago that it seems that every time i saw a score involving North Texas, they were clobbering someone and mopping up their conference. Then the faucet was turned off. Was it bad coaching hires? (As Marshall fan, I can sure understand that problem!) Do NT fans feel that the Mean Green will develop a stonger program in the next couple of years? Is your administration fully behind rebuilding? (Seems so, with that dynamite stadium!)
Perhaps next year, we will see a Battle of the Green. Should be fun. Best of luck to you all this season.
Todd Dodge was a disastrous coaching hire that virtually dismantled our program in his 4 year tenure. We've been 5-7 and 4-8 with Coach Mac, but he's got the program back on the right track.
there is way more to it than that cheap cop out
1. 2004 was a LONG time ago which was the last time north Texas had a winning season
2. north Texas had two terrible losing seasons under DD before they fired him and hired Todge
3. I am not sure going from 5-7 to 4-8 the next year is really pointing to being on the right track especially moving into CUSA and when 2011 had no D1-AA teams to pad the 5-7 while 2012 had a D1-AA team to pad that 4-8
4. the truth of the matter is north Texas state sat around and did nothing under a plethora of apathetic academic administrations to invest in their athletics programs and when the time finally came and they had 3 winning seasons under DD they were ill prepared to do ANYTHING to capitalize upon that
Norval Pohl had taken over for a 20 year do nothing idiot named al hurley in 2000 and Dr. Pohl had so much to to and get done on the academic side that was a total wreck that even though he supported athletics he did not have the time or the resources to commit to that and while he was liked as an individual by most, the faculty in particular were set in their ways of easy tenure and then a lifetime of riding the pine and when Dr. Pohl tried to change that he was met with serious resistance especially since he had been an underling in the previous administration instead of an outsider coming in to make changes that were seriously needed
right when north Texas state was rolling in 2004 Dr. Pohl realized he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was not going to make headway against a tide of academic apathy and faculty resistance to change so he stepped down
Rick V (sexytime) the athletics director had already been burned by al hurley the idiot when he was hired and allowed to step up very publicly and state that athletics was going to raise unprecedented money and then in private al pulled the plug and killed that idea for good and then RV ad also gotten crosswise with Darrell Dickey when DD was in his losing streak before ther3 three year win streak and RV was not allowed to fire DD even though everyone knew he wanted to....the BOR for the university had a strong personal friend of DD on it and they did not really care about athletics all that much as well so RV was told he was not allowed to fire DD
the three year winning streak happened....north Texas state as stated above was not prepared to take advantage of any of that and DD grew tired of trying to win with crap facilities and crap support and became very vocal about north Texas having crappy facilities and fair weather fans that did not really support the program other than showing up when there was some winning and then bitching very vocally when there was losing
Dr. B was hired for the new university president, she was a mid level administrator in the UNC system and had only been the acting president of a small arts component of the UNC system and had never lead a major university.....DD had a heart attack...the losing streak started again....Dr. B allowed RV to can DD and then there was a very prompt realization that north Texas state could not afford a decent coach because they were paying off DD, had next to no athletics budget, and the new president was again putting out academic fires and getting cross wise with the idiot chancellor of the "system" named lee the buffoon jackson.......so Todge was viewed as a lifeline to the dallas recruiting area and as a coach that other Texas HS football coaches would respect and send recruits to.....Todge was given free reign to bring in his own staff.....he brought in crap for the most part....as it turned out many Texas HS school coaches saw him as arrogant and someone they did not really want to support or send recruits to and no pipeline to dallas or any part of Texas was established and north Texas state started to really get their asses handed to them
along the way north Texas started to again go very public with the talk of athletics getting support again from the university and investing in athletics and facilities.....hey held a student vote on a stadium fee and it FAILED in a major way...at the same time Todge had been promised a stadium and had been telling recruits they would be finishing their last year or two years at north Texas state in a new facility and Todge started to go public with the fact that he had been promised a new stadium so north Texas had to get another stadium vote going and this time it passed....by then it was clear Todge was in over his head, his staff was in deeper over their heads and there was some turnover in the staff.....north Texas did not have the cash to buy him out or let him go ad he was kept around for a 4th year and things just were ugly by them
along the way with that Dr. B finally got crosswise enough with lee the buffoon and she was fired and affable retired guy V. Lane Rawlins was brought in as a one year sit in president while north Texas state did a massive national, international, global, world wide, and universal search for the next president.....then about 9 months later with no candidates announced or really ever mentioned it was announced that affable retired guy VLR was going to take over as the president and how great is that!!!!
Chuck Neinas of Chuck Neinas fame was hired to do a through report on the north Texas state athletics program and it came in with the ground breaking news that the facilities were crap, there was not a lot of winning, and that if north Texas could find a way to get in a better conference that would be a good good!!
he also stated that the new stadium would be nice and could help things
DMac was brought in after a pretty decent search....he was pretty much an unknown to most recruits in Texas....he is miles away from the sling it around offense of Todge and he brought in all of his own peeps except he kept the OC that is a sling it around guy and let go of the DC that had been getting the D turned around and that had been at north Texas state before with some decent D...so it was a total rebuild
while VLR is also somewhat athletics friendly he is really more athletics tolerant, but he does not like athletics and coaches and the like to make more money than the university president or for athletics to carry the spot light of the school....as seen with his handling of Mike Price while he was at WSU.....so really north Texas was investing in facilities, there was some improvement in budget especially with the student fee, but there were still restrictions from the top down and much of the student fee is eaten up by stadium debt service and even though it can be raised 10% a year that is not happening because the university has a "cheap" mantra to uphold (and they excel at that, but not in a good way)
and now VLR is stepping down after 4 years aw well and another global universal national and international manhunt will be performed for the next guy that will probably be found occupying a cubical somewhere in the administration building currently
so that winning was a LONG time ago, the university had ZERO plan to capitalize on it, it was fleeting at best, and there was a great deal of university academic administration issues both dealing with faculty and dealing with the chancellor and that resulted in the inability to really form a plan for athletics and even when a plan was formed to actually be able to execute that plan with any degree of effectiveness
and more than likely with the way things are going that will probably continue for some time longer
5. edited to add one other thing....along the way TCU started to really set a standard as a non-AQ team, SMU brought in JJ, UH and then Baylor hired Briles, UH scored with Sumlin, and UTSA and Texas state moved up to D1-A so there are now 12 teams in Texas for north Texas to recruit against as a long term bottom of the barrel team
so really apathy at the worst times and inability to even make a positive move when the sun was shining while other things were happening all around them
