Tepper: After Portland State embarrassment, Dan McCarney had to go

[caption id="attachment_19349" align="alignleft" width="300"]Photo by Ryan Vance Photo by Ryan Vance[/caption] UPDATE (7:49pm): Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle reports that Dan McCarney has been relieved of his coaching duties immediately after the game. It’s been 649 days since the best moment in North Texas football history. It was January 1, 2014. At the historic Cotton Bowl, in front of a partisan crowd clad in their finest green, UNT head coach Dan McCarney hoisted the oversized Heart of Dallas Bowl over his shoulder after his squad’s 36-14 molly-whopping of UNLV, capping a nine-win season and vaulting the Mean Green faithful into delirium. McCarney had done it. He’d taken a Mean Green program left in ashes by his predecessor Todd Dodge and turned them into a winner. If North Texas football was a novel, this was the triumphant ending that left its readers clutching their paperback copies to their chest and nodding with teary eyes. That’s part of why this postscript is so depressing to write: North Texas had to fire Dan McCarney, which happened immediately after today's game. It’s not just today’s 66-7 homecoming embarrassment at the hands of FCS foe Portland State — though that should be the final nail in his coffin. North Texas was thoroughly and completely dismantled — at home — by a team that does not have the assets that North Texas does. The worst loss by an FBS team to an FCS team ever. This is an Arena Football League team drubbing an NFL team. This is a Minor League Baseball team crushing a Major League team. This is a Ford Focus smoking a Porsche in a drag race. (And it’s worth mentioning here: Portland State is a really good FCS team. The Vikings already beat Washington State in Pullman. They’re a terrific team. But the fact of the matter is that Portland State by nature should not be as good North Texas. And yet.) Last year, when North Texas clobbered SMU, we knew it was the end of the road for SMU coach June Jones. The team had quit on him, and once a team quits on its coach, it’s over. I saw it. You saw it. We all saw it. And we all knew that there was only one endgame: Jones, out. In cruel irony, a year later, it’s the coach on the other sideline of that matchup that’s facing a similar fate. Which stinks. Dan McCarney is a good coach and — as someone who has interacted with him on a number of occasions — a terrific guy. He loves football, and he loves his team. He cares, in italics. But the time has come for McCarney and the Mean Green to go their separate ways. The team has quit on him. There’s no recourse besides a change at the top. “It doesn’t matter,” you may be saying to yourself. “Let him finish out the season,” you’re shouting. And that’s reasonable. But North Texas is staring an 0-12 season in the face, and that is the kind of thing that negatively affects a program for years. Dan McCarney has been around the game long enough to know that, and he knows that there’s just one thing that can give his squad a spark. 649 days after its best day, North Texas football is facing its worst. And now, there was only one recourse: Dan McCarney had to go.