Goodbye Matt Caponi

North Texas fires the defensive coordinator

At 2:57pm this afternoon, I received the press release from North Texas stating that Eric Morris dismissed Matt Caponi.

"I’m grateful to Coach Caponi for his commitment and contributions to our program and student-athletes over the past two seasons," Morris said. "However, we believe a change on defense is needed at this point to help the team make a strong push toward earning a bowl game berth. I appreciate Coach Odom stepping up to take on this responsibility, and I’m confident he’ll have our players well-prepared for Saturday."

A couple of weeks ago Eric Morris was asked if the anti-Caponi sentiment was reaching him. He said ‘no’ and that it was a part of coaching and that he knew how hard Caponi and the coaches were working.

Compare that to the sideways looks Morris was giving Caponi early in the season. There was a moment where Caponi was telling Morris “good timeout” and Morris kind of looked at him like ‘uh, yeah’. I am obviously just reading into it more than I should. Eric Morris has had Caponi as a direct report for two seasons. That he made the decision to part ways after a 681 yard, 48-point effort for UTSA says something and we do not know what, exactly.

Why, did Morris wait for this game? After the Tulane loss, wherein the rush defense was bullied throughout the afternoon for 297 yards rushing, before a bye week was the perfect time to make a defensive coordinator change. Army was a unique kind of scenario and we all praised the effort of the defense even if the squad didn’t get enough penetration or disruptive plays to stop the Black Knights. This week the staff made the decision to go back to the 3 High defense. We discussed that in the season preview. I don’t love it, but I understand it. However, my main complaint is that this league is not a pass-heavy Air Raid conference.

2024 Season Preview: Let's Talk About That Defense

Tulane, Army, Navy, UTSA, Memphis, and Rice all love to run the ball as the primary method. NT was optimizing for stopping a pass-heavy game with the run slowed down. I mean, that’s why you line up with five defensive backs, right? You want to keep things in front of you and fly up to slow the run. Memphis uses this defense with mixed results (they also allowed 40+ and lost in San Antonio).

All told, Matt Caponi presided over the worst ranked defense in the nation in 2023 by yards allowed per game (461.7). That team was 125/133 in yards per play (6.53). North Texas was routinely allowing squads to get better than their average. California obliterated the defense for 600+ yards and demoralized the fan base in the first game. They followed that up by allowing a terrible FIU squad to walk up and down the field the next week. This season was about getting better through personnel, and while there were signs of improvement it was not enough. When NT needed to get stops they could sometimes step up, but the aggregate showed a youthful squad being confused and out-schemed, out-muscled and out-ran. A very mediocre UTSA squad put up 681 yards and 48 points. The 3-high got pressure sometimes but overall UTSA’s QB McCown never looked uncomfortable. The coverage changes were not confusing to the QB, and he picked apart the defense easily.

Is it all Caponi’s fault? No, but it was his responsibility. He was the highest paid G5 assistant and produced the worst results. This year NT “improved” to 126 in YPG (458.1) and 112th (6.22) in yards per play. An improvement? Yes. A significant one that brings wins? No.

The NT defensive coordinator job is not an easy one. Head Coach Eric Morris spends most of the game thinking of the offense and I’m sure after sharing a bottle of whiskey with Caponi you could get a few sideways stories about how the über-aggressive play calls put the defense in some awkward positions. That acknowledged, the job was always going to be just that. Morris never hid his intentions or how he wanted to run things. He wants to be aggressive, on the front foot and to have a defense that gives him the ball back often.

Firing an assistant coach is the right and privilege of the head coach, but one that also uses up some goodwill. Everyone on the message boards and social media wanted to see Caponi gone after last year and finally swinging the axe on him just grants Morris a temporary reprieve. Eventually the spotlight will shine brightly on Eric Morris and he will have to answer for his hirings and firings.

For the squad, the good news is that the defense is likely to get better simply for having so much youth on the squad. MGN wrote and podcasted (this morning!) about the thinking that Caponi was struggling simply for having so much youth on his side of the ball. The best players defensively were upperclassman, and with about eight regulars that were underclassmen it stood to reason that the defense would be iffy.

That said, the outbursts caught on camera probably didn’t help. Caponi was resorting to a level of frustration — “It is third and five!” he was caught shouting on camera vs Army. We said on the podcast that the time for coaching is in the week before the game, and no amount of yelling is going to help anyone do anything better save for a limited set of circumstances.

In steps Brian Odom, younger brother of UNLV head coach Barry Odom, and yet another member of OU’s 2000 National Championship team¹ and a former running back. He was a member of Lincoln Riley’s OU and USC staffs under Alex Grinch. Grinch is a former four-time Broyles nominee for his work under Air Raid coaches as the defensive coordinator. Grinch flamed out as Riley’s DC at USC, however, and Odom with him.

Odom ran a 3-4 defense under Grinch and at other spots. It is late in the season to change anything drastically, so expect some more of the same 3-4 mixed with some 3-3-5 looks. The real change will be in play-calls and game-preparation. Beyond that we will have to look at the offseason for changes. Odom ran USC’s defense as an interim guy as well after Grinch was fired.

Matt Caponi can probably point to a couple of things that were not his fault directly, but so can pretty much any coach that is let go. Here’s hoping he goes on to good things, as he is by all accounts a solid coach. He simply did not get it done in Denton.

1. Seth Littrell was famously a guy from that squad.