North Texas Mean Green sign Dan McCarney to 5-year extension

Jan 1, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; North Texas Mean Green head coach Dan McCarney kisses the Heart of Dallas trophy after the win over the UNLV Rebels at the Cotton Bowl Stadium. The Mean Green defeated the Rebels 36-14. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

On the heels of a 9-4 season, in which the Mean Green finished 6-2 in their first season in Conference USA, the school rewarded head coach Dan McCarney with a 5-year contract extension worth $3.625 million, looking to keep him on campus for now.

McCarney is best known for his time as head coach at Iowa State, where he finished 56-85 at a school that is often far adrift from their league-mates from a talent standpoint. The 60-year old led the Cyclones to 5 bowl games in 12 years, and even tied for 1st place in the North division in 2004, a year after a 2-10 record. McCarney resigned from Iowa State in 2006, and took over as defensive line coach at South Florida. A year later, he took the same post at Florida.

In 2010, McCarney was offered the head coaching job at North Texas on the dismissal of Todd Dodge, who had gone just 6-37 over 4 seasons. With a lot of work to do to build the program back up, McCarney managed just 9 wins over his first 2 seasons, before last year’s breakthrough performance.

McCarney has built up some nice depth over his 3 seasons at the helm, but that will be put to the test as the team will is losing a lot of key players to graduation this summer.