True in those two jobs he only lost about 5 games per year and he did win those 2 CUSA championships. Those championships were when CUSA was a decent conference, so I will give you that.
But he was kind of lucky to get the East Carolina job as well. Demoted from offensive coordinator to offensive line coach by his own father one year. That tells you all anyone needs to know about his play calling abilities. Then fired from South Carolina altogether the following year. Gets the ECU job and wins 2 championships before moving up to USF. Bombs there and gets hired again as a head coach. Skip is Kliff Kingsbury's idol, getting fired twice and hired as a head within a month. But that is all water under the bridge, he is our coach with a long term contract.
The dog logo is good. Rounding off the real logo is good. Standardizing colors is good. The ugly logo is bad. Mixed but mostly good on marketing stuff.
The Indy Bowl win was great. But he also had a losing record when he left. Bicknell had a much better record after 3 years (and we'll never know what Dooley would have done past that).
Dooley improved our scheduling tremendously. Most of the better games he scheduled didn't even take place until after he left. Those H-H games with Southern Miss (before we got into CUSA), Houston, etc...were because of Dooley. He got Miss State --and SEC school-- to come play LA Tech in JAS, a fete that many Tech fans at the time thought was impossible. He scheduled a H-H with Army --which for our side, we chose to play in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas-- and a H-H against Navy too. And for the first time ever, he made us competitive in Baton Rouge against Louisiana State, a game which we actually led at halftime, and ended up losing by only 8 points. Like it or not, Dooley got us for the first time ever to play Grambling in Shreveport. He also hired Bruce Van De Velde, who hired Sonny Dykes and continued the strong scheduling with such adds as John Football and Texas A&M returning to Shreveport to play us in 2012, Ole Miss (2011), Virginia (2012), Illinois (2012), etc....
Derek Dooley did more for Louisiana Tech football in 3 years than any AD in LA Tech history has done in twice the amount of time. Even better, he scoffed at the age-old excuses. He proved that good things CAN happen in Ruston, and some very reputable names WILL come play us here.
THOSE were exciting times for LA Tech football. IMHO, 2011 and 2012 is literally when LA Tech football peaked. I just wish we could get half that excitement back.
The dog logo is fine.
I wouldnt mind it on an alternate helmet as a simple one-tone sketch, maybe even in chrome. Many schools use this kind of helmet design, UAB has their dragon on some helmets in this way.
https://uabsports.com/images/2017/8/...=576&mode=crop
No color for ours though (theirs has flames colored in.) Just a simple dog.
LA-T-State-ECH. The one in the first post on this thread. I absolutely hate it. It's so ugly (in itself) and it looks awful on a standings page or scoreboard scroll or schedule poster. I understand why it was created and why it's used (Dooley's probably-not-wrong outsider's opinion that even if we don't like being called "La Tech" it's going to happen anyway, and we might as well accept/embrace it). So I can semi-accept that we use it occasionally. As you said about the bulldog logo, it's something I'd be better with if they made better choices about when and where to use it. Our coaches always seem to have it on all of their sideline gear. I think it's ugly, but it's fine. They're wearing it, not me and they either like it or choose to wear it to make sure the random non-football fan tuning in knows that we're Louisiana Tech in case they don't recognize the real logo or listen to the announcers or see the word spelled out in a million places during a broadcast. Fine. But it looks so so so so so bad here, for example. And there can't be any branding advantage because you can't even make out the letters (and who is looking at the CUSA standings that wouldn't recognize the beautiful logo). It's a little better here (because it's bigger - still ugly and unnecessary). Scroll down to the map graphic here.
In my clearly unbiased and unemotional opinion, it's (semi)ok that we have and sometimes use that hideous thing. BUT - never, ever, ever on a uniform. Never, ever, ever on a field or playing surface. Never, ever, ever on any kind of small or contained or centered graphic (like a conference poster with all the teams' logos or a score crawl or a standings page or a tv pop-up graphic comparing FT % or first downs or whatever). I personally won't buy anything past like a souvenir cup with that logo (certainly not to wear) but if they want to have some clothes or bumper stickers or hats or whatever that's fine, as long as they have other options (which has never been a problem). If the coaches gear has it, fine - whatever. If the practice sweats or warmups have it, ok - whatever. I guess for a big tv graphic that is going to be framed sort of landscape style, it might make sense.
But I cringe when I see it because it mostly just looks awful.
Taste is subjective. I know. I like the bulldog just fine (wouldn't put it on the helmet again). Others don't. Different strokes and all that. But I do think that even if you don't think that particular logo is ugly in itself (as I do) or think its utility in branding is worthwhile (which I question) you'd have to recognize that it's way worse than the good one when it needs to be centered or is going to be fairly small.
...and while we've been mucking up our branding over the lasts several years, we've patted Lafayette on the back and said great job becoming our fagship school.
Any idea what our record is wearing those stupid looking flag/StateT stickers we wore so proudly last week?
Dawgs fly to San Antonio by going North
On the plane's PA
Good morning. This is your captain.
It's good to have your team aboard. We're currently climbing to 33,000 feet and should be on the ground in Tulsa in about 30 minutes.
On the plane's PA (but in the background)
what's that.....San Antonio? You said Tulsa is next Friday's charter for another team?
On the plane's PA
Tulsa? Did I say Tulsa? HaHa....obviously I meant San Antonio!!!!
Okay....hold on everybody....we're about to make a steep turn to the left!!!!!