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The dominoes are beginning to fall in the college football coaching world.  The meri-go-round will commence this month as teams scramble to find the next coach for their program.  It seems like it gets earlier and earlier every year.  With the firing of Tommy Bowden and Clemson in mid season, it may have.  Gone to is Tommy Tuberville’s Offensive Coordinator Tony Franklin from Auburn.  Some think that good ole double T is next.

To add to the chaos, when a team hires a new coach, that leaves a vacancy as well.  Therefore, there will be multiple vacancies available at season’s end.  Washington canned Tyornne Willingham after four seasons.  Phillip Fulmer announced the other day that he was stepping down at Tennessee after the year is over.  And on it goes.  Ron Prince at Kansas State, out.  Akron coach Lee Owens, out.  According to Football Rumor Mill, coaches at Syracuse, San Diego State, Idaho and UTEP are rumored on the hot seat.

Of course, there are names flying all over the place including former Oakland Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin.  TCU fans will have to endure the Gary Patterson rumors as his team may be two wins from a possible BCS Bowl bid.  It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

How does the North Texas Mean Green turn around its football team?  If I knew the answer to that, then Athletic Director Rick Villarreal would be hiring me in December to replace Head Coach Todd Dodge.  So, I decided to check the stats for the year to see what I could find out.  I knew that UNT had been running the ball pretty well, therefore, I thought I would see things such as poor Red Zone conversion, poor third down conversions, etc.  I am a big believer in teams needing to run the ball and stop the run to be successful, or at the least, a championship team.  What I found were five areas of major differentiation between UNT and their opponents.

1.  Endzone woes
UNT is actually better than their opponents in the red zone, but where they are losing the battle is getting into the end zone.  While in the Red Zone, UNT gets into the end zone a paltry 57% of the time while their opponents are getting into the end zone 70% of the time while in the Red Zone.  Further, 90% of their opponents’ scores are touchdowns while 57% of the Mean Green scores are touchdowns.  That’s pretty tough when you consider that UNT is actually running more plays than their opponents.

2.  Pass rush
The UNT has gotten 7 sacks for 34 yards against their opponents.  The UNT offense has given up 15 sacks for 109 yards.  That is a difference of 75 yards, three quarters of an entire football field.  That is at least one Red Zone attempt.

3.  Turnover Margin
UNT is sitting at a minus 16 turnover margin.  The UNT defense has forced 5 turnovers while the UNT offense has given up 21 turnovers.

Early & Often
UNT opponents score early and often.

4.  Often
UNT opponents score every 8.89 plays while UNT scores every 23 plays.  That means an opponent scores twice before UNT scores.

5.  Early
UNT gets a slow start to every game.  The Mean Green are being out scored 276 to 66 in the first half this year.  That means that the Mean Green trails at half time by an average of 34 to 8.  They trail 15 to 3 after the first quarter.

These are just some of the areas of UNT woes on the field.  One cannot underestimate the series of bad luck that UNT and coach Todd Dodge has had this year.  First, it was announced yesterday that 15 UNT football players had failed drug tests.  That is almost 18 percent of the team according to the article.  That can’t be good for a team that is already behind in facilities, tradition, and recruiting successes.  UNT has also lost several players to a myriad of reasons some of which you will see here and here including second leading receiver Sam Dibrell.

The news hasn’t been all bad for UNT howerver.  The school and coach Dodge convinced students to vote for an athletic fee that will help pay for a new stadium and necessary facilities to help with recruiting.  If you don’t believe that will make a difference, then you need to go down to TCU and look at the Dutch Meyer Athletic Complex.  It is an outstanding facility with one of the best players’ meeting rooms in the country.  It houses a tutoring center for student athletes and an awesome weight room.  Further, it adds stadium seating and suites above the south end zone.

The coaches at UNT have their work cut out, and if Dodge does get it turned around, he deserves whatever he gets paid.  Maybe fans should be patient as a number of the nation’s top coaches had to have time to turn their programs around.

This week there are more interesting games in the context of conference races, and, ultimately, in the context of the BCS race.  This is week number 9 which means that I will update my CFTT Top Ten after the week is over.

Games to Watch

Oklahoma State vs. Texas
Two teams that are undefeated.  The Big 12 South is on the line, the Big 12 may be on the line, and the BCS Championship is on the line.  Is that enough drama for ya?  The Horns have struggled to beat the Cowboys in recent years.  How will these two teams match up?  Oh yea, the game is in Austin.

Georgia vs. LSU
The ‘Dawgs are still in the hunt for everything with their only loss being to undefeated West Division Alabama.  LSU rebounded from the pounding at Gainesville.  This game should be a peir six brawl in Baton Rouge.

Penn State vs. Ohio State
The Nittany Lions take their Spread HD offense into the Horseshoe to take on Chris Wells, Terrelle Pryor and the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Can Pryor manage the game with the help of Wells while the defense keeps the Lion offense in check?  Or will the Buckey offense have to try to keep up?

UCF vs. Tulsa
The Golden Hurricane take their new top 25 ranking in against a team that beat them twice last year.  Can the Hurricane take advantage of a down year for the Knights?

I took a look at the future in my Sunday Night Rewind.  Therefore, I am going to pick a couple of those match-ups and look a little closer.

Oregon State vs. Utah
The Beavers looked great against USC.  They ran through, around and right by the hyped up Trojan defense.  Most people now know who Quizz Rodgers is now after his effort running the ball against USC.  If the Beavers do the same to Utah, they keep the clock moving and Utah off the field.  If the defense does its part, getting a few 3 and outs, then they may not need the luck they had during the game at Carvallis.  Of course, this game is being played in Salt Lake City.
Thursday, October 2, 8 PM CT, TV???

Auburn vs. Vanderbilt
A battle of two ranked teams playing in Nashville.  Vandy is on top of the SEC standings, and they have been taking everybody down going undefeated thus far.  Auburn, has struggled.  Their defense is pretty good, but their offense has struggled to get going in its new spread system.  Vandy is outscoring Auburn by 10 points a game (29.8 vs. 19.8) and averaging 202 yards rushing per game.
Saturday, October 4, 5 PM CT on ESPN

Here are the games to watch in Week 5.

Illinois vs. Penn State
If either team is for real, this game will show it.  Illinois is fresh off their Rose Bowl season has only one loss this season, to Missouri who seems to be pretty good.  Penn State has revolutionized their offense with their patented HD Spread Offense.  They are scoring points all over the place against lower tier teams.

Georgia vs. Alabama
The ‘Dawgs are scrapping to get back in to that top 2 after slipping from number 1.  A win against a team who, up until now, has looked really impressive, would go a long way toward getting back into that top 2.  A win at Georgia would serve notice that the Tide is back.

TCU vs. Oklahoma
With TCU’s debut into the top 25, this game has just become a battle between two ranked teams.  Oklahoma, of course, is ranked number 2.  When TCU went into Norman and upset Oklahoma in 1996 and 2005, those Sooner teams were not anywhere near the level of this Sooner team.  Sam Bradford is not a first year starter, and they just have so many weapons.  Not to be outdone, however, TCU counters with one of the nation’s stingiest defenses.  They also control the clock to the tune of 37 minutes and some change per game.  Sooner fans haven’t forgotten 2005, and neither have the coaches.