McCarney: Good wife beater, bad coachThey wound up hiring him the other day. My first reaction was, "Wasn't he fired by Iowa State?" Like the episode of Seinfeld when Jerry starts dating Newman's ex and he finds out Newman broke up with her. Like, what's wrong with McCarney?
The first thing that comes up with McCarney is leading the Iowa State Cyclones to five bowl games in the early 2000s.
This is true. What they don't go into is the bad.
McCarney's 56-85 overall as a head coach, all at Iowa State. He finished with one top 25 ranking in 12 seasons.
During his tenure, he had seasons of 3-8, 2-9, 1-10, 3-8, 2-10 and 4-8.
In 12 seasons, he had one year where his team wound up over .500 in conference. Seriously. Of his 85 losses, 68 came in conference. In seven of the 12 years, McCarney's Cyclones won one or less conference games.
Yes, the Cyclones made it to five bowl (only once did he win more than seven games) games, but he went 2-3 in those games.
In the end, McCarney might not be any good. He wasn't that good at Iowa State. He was fired and no one's hired him since. Except UNT.
McCarney's seemingly lone attribute is that he's a defensive coach, which will help the Mean Green. If they had played an ounce of defense this season, they're bowl eligible. So many close losses.
McCarney might not be an uninspired hire. It might be a bad one.
Way back in 1995, when he was hired by Iowa State, it came out that McCarney was beating on his wife:
In March, Iowa State announced that it would honor the contract it had signed in November with new football coach Dan McCarney, even after learning that his estranged wife, Brenda, had told police he had beaten her 20 to 30 times, beginning a few days before their marriage in 1986 and continuing periodically for nearly eight years.
Yikes. Maybe he's not beating up his wife anymore. Maybe he's suddenly a good football coach. Maybe Dennis Franchione's still looking for a job.
