Mean Green McCarney Football Machine
North Texas hired head coach Dan McCarney in November of 2010, making him the 18th head coach in their history. Dan McCarney boasts an impressive resume. He first served as an assistant coach on the Iowa staff, coaching both the defensive line and offensive line in successive years. This laid a great foundation for the rest of his career. He left Iowa to become the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin, under head coach Barry Alvarez. This job not only helped McCarney gain valuable experience on a big stage, but also helped him gain notoriety in the college ranks. He left Wisconsin to become the head coach for Iowa State. He is the longest tenured head coach in their history and more importantly, their winningest. However after the 2006 season he decided to step down as head coach. He was then hired as the University of South Florida defensive line coach and was also entrusted with the title of assistant head coach. His tenure at South Florida was short lived, as Gainsville quickly came calling. He took the job, becoming the University of Florida’s assistant head coach and defensive line coach. Coach McCarney stayed at Florida from 2008 through the 2010 season. Now coach McCarney is taking his talents to Texas and he is entering a difficult situation. He is taking over a program that has not won a bowl game since 2002, and has only won 7 games since 2007.
As bleak of a recent history that may be, there are reasons for hope for North Texas, and it starts with coach McCarney. Texas is also a hot bed of high school talent which will go a long way in helping to recruit. On top of that North Texas has a decent sized fan base, and will even have three of their first four games on espn3. It took coach McCarney five years to turn around Iowa State but I am sure he will be setting the bar higher at North Texas. He is even more experienced than he was at Iowa State, and arguably in a better situation.
For starters McCarney is a defensive minded head coach. Playing great defense is the first way to start winning games. If teams struggle to score against your defense, you will at the very least, be competitive in every football game. That alone can be considered a turnaround within the first year. Coach McCarney has already admitted this defense has a major problem-they lack the size of division 1 football players. I am confident that in due time he will change that, but don’t expect a miracle coming into this season.
McCarney is an old school guy, and he may not be a household name among the average college football fan, but this guy believes in toughness and it will show on Saturdays. This North Texas team will be physical on both sides of the ball, and given time will also add some size so they can compete with anybody in the nation. McCarney is not a miracle worker, but give him some time and he could just change the North Texas Mean Green, to a Mean Green Football winning machine.
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