Whither Goes The Program?

I wrote a good portion of this about a week ago. It seems I’ve found the perfect ending with news coming out that Dan McCarney was fired. So here it is. Just insert the past tense where you see future tense in regards to his job.

To say Head Coach Dan McCarney is on the hot seat — at least with fans — is an understatement. Twitter is ablaze with HSOs on the poor performance. Were little old NT a more prestigious program like Austin’s burnt orange troop, we would be seeing more media coverage of this dumpster fire.

As it is, Mac’s supporters are referencing the Bowl Game win ¹ as a shield against the mounting evidence that he is maybe not the guy to lead this program into the future. He has overseen some of the most disappointing performances in school history in the two seasons since then. He certainly has time to turn this around. Nope!

Replacement Options

A number of fans have already begun succession planning. Of course any option would have to include a change at the AD level. If we get a replacement coach . . .

I don’t think you need Texas ties. Todd Dodge didn’t do amazing recruiting with his superb Texas ties.²

If you can sell your vision — with both the product (on field success) and the promise (persuasion) — then we should be able to get some guys in here. U of NT is in the Metroplex, and Denton is basically Austin circa 1977 ³ it has big city and small town vibes, lots of opportunity, a big network of alumni, and is in a transportation hub. As long as we have half-way decent support for the coach, said coach should be able to compete for conference titles every four years at the very minimum.

Baylor was an awful sell until Briles brought some winning ways to effing Waco.

As long as we are derpy-derping in our athletic department, we won’t be able to get the coaches that can do the above and we’ll be stuck complaining about which coach can get them in here.

It is not like we can’t get talent to this team. I mean, we have had a handful of NFL caliber players pass through here and there have been a good number of all-conference players.

We just have not enough good players in the right positions (ahem QB) and not enough playing together (now, last year, 2012, 2011).

Getting Abbe, Byrd, Chance et al was great, but they weren’t first-year game-changing players. They progressed into fourth-and-fifth year all-conference playmakers. When I said with decent support we should expect a conference title run every four years this is what I meant.

If Danny Mac were on schedule this would be something like a 2012, where we lose to the good teams but beat the teams in our wheelhouse. That means SMU, give Rice a better game, and definitely do not go down 35-0 at Southern Miss. [Edit: add the awful, completely embarrassing 66-7 loss to FCS Portland State to this list]

He obviously whiffed awfully on succeeding Derek Thompson and has been scrambling since. That said, he has still brought in Willy Ivery, Jeffery Wilson, Ced Ferndandes ( he looked really good in the games he played), Brandon Garner, etc. These guys have talent, and they can be part of winning teams.

We can, and have, gotten talent here. We don’t absolutely need a guy with Texas ties as long as he can do some half-way decent recruiting. What we need — absolutely —  is a guy that can develop talent. Or else it won’t matter how many stars were by their name when they signed in February. Like this year.