University will not use a hiring committee for football coach
Scott Sidway | Sports Editor
North Texas will not use a hiring committee in pursuit of its next head football coach, according to athletic director Rick Villarreal.
“There is no committee,” Villarreal said. “Any time we make a hire here, the president is always going to look to the athletic director to lead this. Because if he has faith and trust in that person, then they know the business as well as anybody.”
Villarreal said the committee approach is something the university has seldom used since he joined North Texas as athletic director in 2001.
“I’ve hired one person by committee since I got here,” Villarreal said. “I’m not going to say the name, but it turned out to be a disaster.”
After the team’s 66-7 loss to Portland State University led to the firing of former head coach Dan McCarney, Villarreal defended his track record of hiring coaches. McCarney’s buyout totals $2.1 million unless he takes another coaching job.
“I’ve always been willing to take whatever comes with coaches that I hire, and we have a pretty good track record,” Villarreal said. “Some people say, ‘No you don’t, because of the two football hires. But I still say to this day that Dan [McCarney] was a good hire. It’s obvious with some things that didn’t happen during his time, but during his first three years, he won 18 games. That hasn’t happened here in a long time.”
North Texas Daily is following this story. Updates will be posted when they are made available.
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With all due respect, Mr. Vilarreal, you hires in the revenue sports have not been productive and have been downright terrible. Todd Dodge and Dan McCarney were not successful outside of one year that McCarney won with Dodge recruits. Stephens, Ashton, and Peterson in women’s basketball and Benford in men’ s bassketball have all failed. Include the failure to schedule properly in football, failures in the ticket office, a poorly run Mean Green Club and poor overall marketing of the entire program and the department under your leadership is a mess.
How you can hang you hat on those hires is beyond me. I think it is also time for a new AD. With all due respect, this alumni is done with the driving 5 hours one way for this mess. My donations will go elsewhere in the university.
I agree with JD. How can Mr. Villarreal be happy with his coaching hires? The football coaches he has hired have been awful (except for one year under McCarney), the women’s basketball coaches have not been successful, and the next coach that needs to be fired is Tony Benford. Coaches he has hired in non-revenue sports may be performing in an acceptable manner, but the sports that represent the face of a university (football and men’s basketball) are atrocious. If UNT wants to have decent football and men’s basketball programs, they are gonna have to pay to get a quality coach. The athletic department has not shown any inclination to do that. Unfortunately, fans of UNT are going to be subjected to more years of mediocre to poor football and basketball until drastic changes are made.
Rick is a joke. He’s become a tyrant wanting full power and North Texas is suffering. UNT will not get better until he leaves. All our major team sports are a joke. Simple as that.