North Texas fires Dan McCarney after inexcusable loss

Yeah... When you pay an FCS school $425k to be an easy homecoming win, and they instead come to your stadium and utterly humiliate you, it's time for a change:

Dan McCarney was fired as North Texas' head coach Saturday night following a devastating loss to Portland State in the Mean Green's homecoming game.

The Vikings hammered UNT 66-7, the largest margin of defeat for a Football Bowl Subdivision team in a game against a team from the Football Championship Subdivision ever.

The loss dropped UNT to 0-5 for the first time since the 2008 season and continued a rapid downhill slide following the Mean Green's Heart of Dallas Bowl win following the 2013 season.

UNT athletic director Rick Villarreal confirmed the school's decision to part ways with McCarney in a hastily called press conference that took the place of the Mean Green's regular postgame interview session.

"This football team has continued to struggle more and more each week in the last three or four weeks," Villarreal said. "It started at the beginning of the season. We are not in position where we are competitive really in any phase of the game."

After their nine-win season and bowl victory over UNLV a couple of seasons ago, I truly expected to see North Texas continue to improve. They had an excellent new facility in Apogee Stadium, Conference USA was a step up from the Sun Belt, they were located in the talent-rich DFW Metroplex and Dan McCarney had had some success at Iowa State. Instead of improving, the program has plummeted. The Mean Green went 4-8 last season, are winless halfway through this season, and as of right now  might very well be the worst FBS program in the nation; Sagarin ranks the Mean Green 195th out of 253 Divsion I football teams and dead last in the FBS.

Granted, Portland State is a good FCS team, having beaten the Pac-12's Washington State earlier in the year. But a 66-7 drubbing? Villareal did what he had to do to placate what's left of the UNT fanbase and to begin the search for somebody to right the ship.

McCarney finishes with a 22-32 record over four-and-a-half seasons at North Texas. Offensive coordinatior Dan Canales will reprise his role as interim head coach (he last led the team in 2010, after Todd Dodge was fired) for the rest of the 2015 season.