Run the dang ball, control the clock, stop the opponent from doing the same with their RB/QB, and IF the team is to be beaten, let it come from deep 50/50 balls, because the football-logic of RBs/QBs being able to beat cornerbacks, regardless of a corner-blitz/safety-blitz, tends to be more correct than incorrect. Outside of Sanders/Reed/etc., the primary TALENT on defense is at-or-near the LOS, which is where the game of football at any level (no matter how perverted the NFL has become) begins and ends. Start building a team from the LOS and build outward. When UNT ran the ball with LanceDunbar/the-trio-behind-Aune, and with MasonFine's legs, they would win games. When they cannot run the ball outside of a freakish ShanePorter/McGill TD here and there, and all-but-have to pass nearly every play, which is riskier than running, of course, they tend to, well, lose four-straight nationally-televised games in a row that they shouldn't have. There was/is someone on GoMeanGreen's forums that had/has the signature/profile quote as "UNT runs the ball, to set up the run" that was based off of a quote by a former HC. If anything, that philosophy hits closer to home and should ring more true for this viewer's personal vision of "The Mean Green" than a pure, west-coast air-raid offense and/or defense more times than not. JMHO, that's all. To sum up muh three rather-loquacious posts below here: mimic The Dallas Cowboys when they were/are successful, more times than not, over the past however many years/decades by running the ball and controlling the clock, only needing to throw the ball to at least one superstar WR/TE, or both, as needed to keep defenses honest. Don't run the ball to keep them honest, throw the ball to keep them honest! Run anywhere between 51%-to-65% more than throwing the ball, and get pressure on defense with a stud linebacking corps and this team would/could/should/WILL win title after title!
Addendum: As a Dallas Cowboys fan, when did Dallas do well? When they ran the ball more than they passed and controlled the clock and their D-Line and LB-corps were stacked, because the LB is the RB of the defense, thus, its "bell-cow". In 2009, they had a great season, they ran the ball and had a defense. In 2014, they had a great season that should've ended with a Super Bowl victory and ring for TonyRomo and company, but the referees didn't allow that to happen by saying a catch wasn't a catch in Green Bay, only to years later say it actually was a catch and TonyRomo is, unfortunately, taken out by the Seattle Seahawks in the preseason. The point is is that, the goal is (IMHO) for the opponent's QB to be dared to beat the team deep with long 50/50 balls (which were, for YEARS, the Achilles-Heel to The Dallas Cowboys for not having a secondary since Coach Prime was in cleats), but when Dallas got pressure on defense, they tended to win more than they lost! The only, glaring, exception to the rule of pressure was EliManning, a HOFer who beat TomBrady twice, even when he was undefeated, because EliManning at his best was nearly unsackable, BUT it took this viewer years to figure out that he was the "exception that proves the rule", and that hanging back almost every play is only going to allow runningbacks to post career days, even mobile-QBs as well. In 2016, Dallas overperformed everyone's expectations in the wake of TonyRomo retiring from said freak-injury and with a QB who could, at least back then, RUN THE BALL HIMSELF (something of which DakPrescott has shied away from since his leg-injury a couple of seasons ago that he NEEDS to start doing again), and a freakishly good RB, before ZekeElliot's knees were run-off. When SeanLee, and/or LeightonVanderEsch, and/or MicahParsons were HEALTHY, they were nearly-unstoppable and Dallas would usually win. When Dallas couldn't run the ball and control the clock, and their defense was injured, primarily at LB, and other teams COULD run the ball and control the clock, they would usually lose. An easy schedule is not the primary reason Army is undefeated to this point, it's because running the ball and controlling the clock is a recipe for success, especially if the opposing team cannot do that, even if they wanted to, because they're all-but-FORCED to throw the ball deep!
(One could also say, from a more offensively-minded perspective as this user actually has, that the game of football begins, and ends, at the LOS and when JerryJones built/rebuilt "The Great Wall of Dallas" with TyroneSmith, TravisFrederick, and ZachMartin, that they could beat anyone, just as TonyRomo had the ability to beat anyone)
Alumnus ZachOrr's Baltimore Ravens are consistently good-to-great, at least during he regular season and/or for part of the playoffs, year-after-year-after-YEAR because Baltimore RUNS THE BALL, with BOTH their RB AND QB, and plays defense and gets pressure. Period. Baltimore has not had an actual WR in.......this viewer doesn't know how long, if ever, as their primary target is a TE the past handful of years!
Sidenote: This user really wants to thank yuh on a great write-up, particular the part about differentiating between being "at-fault" and having "responsibility" to answer for, as well for mentioning the OU Natty team in 2000.
As for the prior, it instantly evoked a memory of "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country", in which "Captain-and-former-Admiral James Tiberius Kirk" had to assume responsibility for the actions of his crew that he commands in a "monkey-trial", of sorts, which was downstream of an attempted coup staged by a faction of neocon warhawk Federation and Klingon officers.
As for the latter story, this is actually something that was talked about on at least one prior Solid Verbal episode and on their Patreon comment board when an OU fan was asking about the pin-pointing and ranking the problems OU was having early in the year and this user's response to them.
As Mean Green fans, there seems to be a parallel between the DanMcCarney-era and the SethLittrell-OU-era: BOTH coaches were apart of, either as an assistant coach or player, a previous National Championship team that could not be denied their due in 2000 and in 2008, for OU and Florida, respectively. One could also say the same for fellow Florida assistant coach CharlieStrong, famously pictured with DanMcCarney in both Florida gear and in opposing gear before the UNT-UT game nine years ago.
It seems that, whilst nepotism and meritocracies will never, ever be rid of one another (at least without an omnipotent, centralized nanny-State, which is not the answer per an AIER article, years ago, on the topic of true-meritocracies not existing), these particular head coaching cases REEK of nepotism, and, invariably, all three coaches wound up crippling the teams that they were hired onto because of it!
The Mean Green, infamously, quit on DanMcCarney in 2015 in front of this very poster at the stadium that fateful day against FCS Portland State.
CharlieStrong crippled The Texas Longhorns, despite being a media-darling for the DEI-freaks all talking about how he's the one college football coach they wouldn't want to pick a fight with, with his various rituals (like forcing the team, involuntarily, to wear suits-and-ties to and from games before changing into their gear, even in the elements and heat and humidity, which just smells of trying to overcompensate for something), play-calling, and player-coddling, not knowing who to start and how to use their two starting quarterbacks those two-or-three years.
SethLittrell was hired by a fellow OU alumnus, despite being a linebacker, as a presumed "offensive guru" because of lucking into one of the top, if not the best -- at least successful -- quarterbacks in UNT history....the future High Chief of the Cherokee Nation, MasonFine.
The year is not 2000 nor 2008 in 2015, 2016 through 2022, 2023, nor 2024. The game itself has changed (or at least, has bobbed-and-weaved from time-to-time and is currently in a post-RG3 RPO world in which a mobile-QB is all-but-required), and being more "sports-entertainment" than ever before, like the NFL and boxing, both of which are almost as rigged as WWE (even the UFC isn't far behind in this regard with how some of the judges score fights and hate wrestling these past few years) and "defense", in the way their forefathers knew it, has, at least for the time being, gone the way of the dinosaur: extinct and/or in the hollow-Earth away from prying eyes. The focus, now, is to control the clock and get as many points as possible, WITHOUT gassing one's defense that the referees and organization committees have already crippled in the name of TV ratings and viewership, because, as the old adage goes: "Offense puts butts in seats, but defense wins championships". The trick, today, is having BOTH, because fighters today are as complete in all, or many, fields as possible, the teams that can, and do, win Natties are complete in almost every aspect of the game as well.
The days of being good, or great, at one thing are gone in most places.
Just look at the most successful coaches and teams over the past fifty years in NFL and college football: Who were those coaches and teams? Ones that, primarily, focused on the defense and came from a defensive-minded coaching mentality. When the number one offense and the number one defense faced one another in the Super Bowl, who won? JohnHarbaugh's Baltimore Ravens. Do people come to see the San Fran 49s and Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers play? Yes. Do people go and see USC and Colorado play? Yes. Do these teams win championship titles because of their lack of defense? No, because of their lack of defense. Where does UNT stand in this regard? Where did the UNT defense rank in their more successful seasons, early in the 2000s, in 2013, in 2017-and-2018, and -- if one squints closely enough -- in 2021 and 2022 under PhilBennett? This institution had MEAN-JOE-GREENE and they were good in the late-60s....because they had a DEFENSE! Same as in the late '80s for a cup of coffee. Defense wins championships (and this user says this all as a wannabe-runningback in love with offense as well)!
Who's really at-fault here is PhilBennett's wife, though! She told him if she didn't see him next to her when she woke up in the morning, that he wouldn't see her next to him when he woke up in the morning and she's gonna see another man next to her. One can only guess what would The Mean Green Football Team have looked like over the past year-and-a-half had PB not retired.....
Thanks for the write up. I’m curious to see how the defense changes.
Run the dang ball, control the clock, stop the opponent from doing the same with their RB/QB, and IF the team is to be beaten, let it come from deep 50/50 balls, because the football-logic of RBs/QBs being able to beat cornerbacks, regardless of a corner-blitz/safety-blitz, tends to be more correct than incorrect. Outside of Sanders/Reed/etc., the primary TALENT on defense is at-or-near the LOS, which is where the game of football at any level (no matter how perverted the NFL has become) begins and ends. Start building a team from the LOS and build outward. When UNT ran the ball with LanceDunbar/the-trio-behind-Aune, and with MasonFine's legs, they would win games. When they cannot run the ball outside of a freakish ShanePorter/McGill TD here and there, and all-but-have to pass nearly every play, which is riskier than running, of course, they tend to, well, lose four-straight nationally-televised games in a row that they shouldn't have. There was/is someone on GoMeanGreen's forums that had/has the signature/profile quote as "UNT runs the ball, to set up the run" that was based off of a quote by a former HC. If anything, that philosophy hits closer to home and should ring more true for this viewer's personal vision of "The Mean Green" than a pure, west-coast air-raid offense and/or defense more times than not. JMHO, that's all. To sum up muh three rather-loquacious posts below here: mimic The Dallas Cowboys when they were/are successful, more times than not, over the past however many years/decades by running the ball and controlling the clock, only needing to throw the ball to at least one superstar WR/TE, or both, as needed to keep defenses honest. Don't run the ball to keep them honest, throw the ball to keep them honest! Run anywhere between 51%-to-65% more than throwing the ball, and get pressure on defense with a stud linebacking corps and this team would/could/should/WILL win title after title!
[Made a ReVerb just a bit ago; hope it makes the next one-or-two Solid Verbal shows]
"THIS WINTER, FORGET DEI-DOROTHY, WHAT'S REALLY "WICKED" IS....
DING-DONG, MATTCAPON-I-IS-GONE!!!"
DING-DONG, MATTCAPON-I-IS-GONE!!!
Back to the yellow-brick-road for The Mean Green, OFF TO SEE A BOWL WIN!!!
IT'S SCRAPPING TIME!!!
Addendum: As a Dallas Cowboys fan, when did Dallas do well? When they ran the ball more than they passed and controlled the clock and their D-Line and LB-corps were stacked, because the LB is the RB of the defense, thus, its "bell-cow". In 2009, they had a great season, they ran the ball and had a defense. In 2014, they had a great season that should've ended with a Super Bowl victory and ring for TonyRomo and company, but the referees didn't allow that to happen by saying a catch wasn't a catch in Green Bay, only to years later say it actually was a catch and TonyRomo is, unfortunately, taken out by the Seattle Seahawks in the preseason. The point is is that, the goal is (IMHO) for the opponent's QB to be dared to beat the team deep with long 50/50 balls (which were, for YEARS, the Achilles-Heel to The Dallas Cowboys for not having a secondary since Coach Prime was in cleats), but when Dallas got pressure on defense, they tended to win more than they lost! The only, glaring, exception to the rule of pressure was EliManning, a HOFer who beat TomBrady twice, even when he was undefeated, because EliManning at his best was nearly unsackable, BUT it took this viewer years to figure out that he was the "exception that proves the rule", and that hanging back almost every play is only going to allow runningbacks to post career days, even mobile-QBs as well. In 2016, Dallas overperformed everyone's expectations in the wake of TonyRomo retiring from said freak-injury and with a QB who could, at least back then, RUN THE BALL HIMSELF (something of which DakPrescott has shied away from since his leg-injury a couple of seasons ago that he NEEDS to start doing again), and a freakishly good RB, before ZekeElliot's knees were run-off. When SeanLee, and/or LeightonVanderEsch, and/or MicahParsons were HEALTHY, they were nearly-unstoppable and Dallas would usually win. When Dallas couldn't run the ball and control the clock, and their defense was injured, primarily at LB, and other teams COULD run the ball and control the clock, they would usually lose. An easy schedule is not the primary reason Army is undefeated to this point, it's because running the ball and controlling the clock is a recipe for success, especially if the opposing team cannot do that, even if they wanted to, because they're all-but-FORCED to throw the ball deep!
(One could also say, from a more offensively-minded perspective as this user actually has, that the game of football begins, and ends, at the LOS and when JerryJones built/rebuilt "The Great Wall of Dallas" with TyroneSmith, TravisFrederick, and ZachMartin, that they could beat anyone, just as TonyRomo had the ability to beat anyone)
Alumnus ZachOrr's Baltimore Ravens are consistently good-to-great, at least during he regular season and/or for part of the playoffs, year-after-year-after-YEAR because Baltimore RUNS THE BALL, with BOTH their RB AND QB, and plays defense and gets pressure. Period. Baltimore has not had an actual WR in.......this viewer doesn't know how long, if ever, as their primary target is a TE the past handful of years!
Sidenote: This user really wants to thank yuh on a great write-up, particular the part about differentiating between being "at-fault" and having "responsibility" to answer for, as well for mentioning the OU Natty team in 2000.
As for the prior, it instantly evoked a memory of "Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country", in which "Captain-and-former-Admiral James Tiberius Kirk" had to assume responsibility for the actions of his crew that he commands in a "monkey-trial", of sorts, which was downstream of an attempted coup staged by a faction of neocon warhawk Federation and Klingon officers.
As for the latter story, this is actually something that was talked about on at least one prior Solid Verbal episode and on their Patreon comment board when an OU fan was asking about the pin-pointing and ranking the problems OU was having early in the year and this user's response to them.
As Mean Green fans, there seems to be a parallel between the DanMcCarney-era and the SethLittrell-OU-era: BOTH coaches were apart of, either as an assistant coach or player, a previous National Championship team that could not be denied their due in 2000 and in 2008, for OU and Florida, respectively. One could also say the same for fellow Florida assistant coach CharlieStrong, famously pictured with DanMcCarney in both Florida gear and in opposing gear before the UNT-UT game nine years ago.
It seems that, whilst nepotism and meritocracies will never, ever be rid of one another (at least without an omnipotent, centralized nanny-State, which is not the answer per an AIER article, years ago, on the topic of true-meritocracies not existing), these particular head coaching cases REEK of nepotism, and, invariably, all three coaches wound up crippling the teams that they were hired onto because of it!
The Mean Green, infamously, quit on DanMcCarney in 2015 in front of this very poster at the stadium that fateful day against FCS Portland State.
CharlieStrong crippled The Texas Longhorns, despite being a media-darling for the DEI-freaks all talking about how he's the one college football coach they wouldn't want to pick a fight with, with his various rituals (like forcing the team, involuntarily, to wear suits-and-ties to and from games before changing into their gear, even in the elements and heat and humidity, which just smells of trying to overcompensate for something), play-calling, and player-coddling, not knowing who to start and how to use their two starting quarterbacks those two-or-three years.
SethLittrell was hired by a fellow OU alumnus, despite being a linebacker, as a presumed "offensive guru" because of lucking into one of the top, if not the best -- at least successful -- quarterbacks in UNT history....the future High Chief of the Cherokee Nation, MasonFine.
The year is not 2000 nor 2008 in 2015, 2016 through 2022, 2023, nor 2024. The game itself has changed (or at least, has bobbed-and-weaved from time-to-time and is currently in a post-RG3 RPO world in which a mobile-QB is all-but-required), and being more "sports-entertainment" than ever before, like the NFL and boxing, both of which are almost as rigged as WWE (even the UFC isn't far behind in this regard with how some of the judges score fights and hate wrestling these past few years) and "defense", in the way their forefathers knew it, has, at least for the time being, gone the way of the dinosaur: extinct and/or in the hollow-Earth away from prying eyes. The focus, now, is to control the clock and get as many points as possible, WITHOUT gassing one's defense that the referees and organization committees have already crippled in the name of TV ratings and viewership, because, as the old adage goes: "Offense puts butts in seats, but defense wins championships". The trick, today, is having BOTH, because fighters today are as complete in all, or many, fields as possible, the teams that can, and do, win Natties are complete in almost every aspect of the game as well.
The days of being good, or great, at one thing are gone in most places.
Just look at the most successful coaches and teams over the past fifty years in NFL and college football: Who were those coaches and teams? Ones that, primarily, focused on the defense and came from a defensive-minded coaching mentality. When the number one offense and the number one defense faced one another in the Super Bowl, who won? JohnHarbaugh's Baltimore Ravens. Do people come to see the San Fran 49s and Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers play? Yes. Do people go and see USC and Colorado play? Yes. Do these teams win championship titles because of their lack of defense? No, because of their lack of defense. Where does UNT stand in this regard? Where did the UNT defense rank in their more successful seasons, early in the 2000s, in 2013, in 2017-and-2018, and -- if one squints closely enough -- in 2021 and 2022 under PhilBennett? This institution had MEAN-JOE-GREENE and they were good in the late-60s....because they had a DEFENSE! Same as in the late '80s for a cup of coffee. Defense wins championships (and this user says this all as a wannabe-runningback in love with offense as well)!
Who's really at-fault here is PhilBennett's wife, though! She told him if she didn't see him next to her when she woke up in the morning, that he wouldn't see her next to him when he woke up in the morning and she's gonna see another man next to her. One can only guess what would The Mean Green Football Team have looked like over the past year-and-a-half had PB not retired.....