North Texas fires head coach Dan McCarney after 0–5 start
North Texas fired head coach Dan McCarney on Saturday after the Mean Green’s 66–7 loss to Portland State, a source confirmed. Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chroniclefirst reported the news.
The school announced on Sunday that offensive coordinator Mike Canales will serve as interim head coach.
The blowout to the Vikings, the most points an FBS team has given up to an FCS foe, sunk North Texas to 0–5 this season, with no loss coming by fewer than 14 points. The Mean Green are 22–31 in McCarney’s five seasons and have plummeted from a 9–4 mark in 2013 to 4–8 in ’14.
This season has gotten off to an even worse start with North Texas ranking among the worst in the country in yards per play and yards allowed per play. The Mean Green have given up 45 points per game.
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McCarney guided North Texas in its transition from the Sun Belt to Conference USA in 2013. The Mean Green got off to a quick start with a 6–2 record in league play and a second place finish in Conference USA’s West Division. They went on to win the Heart of Dallas Bowl, beating UNLV 36–14. However, that was North Texas’s only winning season in McCarney’s tenure.
The 62-year-old came to Denton after three seasons as the assistant head coach and defensive line coach at Florida. He held the same role at South Florida in 2007.
McCarney began his head coaching career at Iowa State, where he coached for 12 seasons and went 56–85 before resigning after the 2006 season. He had five winning seasons with the Cyclones and earned a share of the Big 12 North title in ’04.
Prior to taking over Iowa State, he served as Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator and defensive line coach from 1990 to 1994. He coached the defensive line at Iowa for 11 years before that and got his collegiate coaching start with the Hawkeyes as a graduate assistant in ’77. McCarney played on the offensive line at Iowa from ’72 to ’74.
