As expected, North Texas officially appointed interim AD Jared Mosley to the full-time position on Saturday, and with that a transformational week for Mean Green football was underway.
The week will end Saturday night as the Mean Green take on Boise State in the nearby Frisco Bowl.
In the meantime, North Texas will chart the future of its football program.
With the AD search now complete, the football search will come into full focus, and a tied-in local source said the university would like to introduce its new head coach at a Frisco Bowl pep rally on Friday.
Multiple sources Texas Tech associate head coach Kenny Perry, TCU coordinators Garrett Riley (offense) and Joe Gillespie (defense), Sam Houston head coach KC Keeler and former Memphis head coach Justin Fuente are the focus of the search at this time.
All have ties to Texas and/or the Dallas-Fort Worth high school football scene.
Perry spent 13 years coaching area high schools before moving into the college game before taking a recruiting position on Gary Patterson's TCU staff in 2013. He has since coached at Kansas, SMU and, now, Texas Tech, with a stop in between with the XFL's Dallas Renegades in 2020.
Sources said Perry has the support of Bob Stoops, head coach of the Renegades, Joey McGuire, and Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale. The furniture and mattress magnate-turned-record-setting sports bettor is a North Texas alum who played for the Mean Green back when the school was known as North Texas State and has donated to the football program previously. Multiple sources said Perry has McIngvale's blessing for the job.
Fuente's name has circled around the program for weeks. He, too, coached at TCU under Patterson (not at the same time as Perry) before running his own programs at Memphis and Virginia Tech. Fuente holds a 69-54 mark at those schools, winning an American title at Memphis in 2014 and an ACC Coastal championship at Tech in 2016.
Riley and Gillespie are both in their first year running their respective sides of the ball for Sonny Dykes's resurgent Frogs, helping TCU go from 5-7 in 2021 to College Football Playoff participants later this month.
Gillespie got his start in coaching at Stephenville High School in north Texas, serving as the Yellow Jackets' head coach from 2008-15 with a state title in 2012. He spent 2016-21 coaching for former Texas high school coach in Philip Montgomery in Tulsa before leaving to coach for another former Texas high school coach in Dykes. One potentially complicating matter is Gillespie's youngest son, Jake, is a junior in high school, and so taking the North Texas job would require him to attend three different schools for his final three years of high school.
Riley can afford to be picky with his first head coaching job, in more ways than one. He's days removed from winning the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach and molded Max Duggan, a 3-year up-and-down starter and a backup coming out of all camp, into a Heisman Trophy runner-up this season.
Relatedly, sources close to the TCU program said Riley signed a new contract at TCU and rebuffed a 3-year, $6 million offer from Texas A&M.
Keeler owns 259 career wins and FCS national championships at both Delaware and Sam Houston. The 63-year-old has been a head coach for 30 years, but has yet to have the opportunity to lead an FBS program (although SHSU joins Conference USA next season). He was a finalist for the Texas State position that ultimately went to GJ Kinne.
Whoever gets the job will take over arguably the best Group of 5 opening in the 2022-23 cycle.
Though he did not ultimately reach the heights many expected, Littrell undeniably left the program immeasurably better than he found it. Coming off a 1-11 season in 2015, Saturday night's Frisco Bowl will be UNT's sixth bowl game in seven seasons. Furthermore, the Mean Green play in the top-of-its-class Apogee Stadium, with recent investments in the locker room and an indoor practice facility that opened in 2019.
Its location at the top of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex should make the Mean Green a factor in the portal for many Metroplex-native transfers, and UNT paid Littrell toward the top of Conference USA. North Texas may feel compelled to pay more than the $1.9 million Littrell made in 2022, because the program's next regular season game will be as a member of the American.
But first, there is Saturday night's Frisco Bowl. Many Mean Green fans are expected to make the 45-minute drive from campus to Toyota Stadium, and its new head coach is expected to be among them.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.