Steelers. Hayden Fry era (1973–1978) After Mitchell left in early 1967, North Texas had just one conference title and three winning seasons over the next six years. In 1973, the Mean Green hired future Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry, who had been controversially fired by rival SMU the previous season after leading the Mustangs one game shy of a Southwest Conference title. Fry's Mean Green unit won the Missouri Valley Conference in his first year despite putting up a 5–5–1 season. After a lackluster 2-7-2 finish in 1974, Fry, dissatisfied with the lack of support from students, alumni, and fans, began putting together a plan with university officials to move the program to the Southwest Conference. At the time, the SWC was one of the most prominent football conferences in college football, and besides Arkansas, all of its schools were based in Texas, with fellow metroplex schools TCU and SMU making up two of them. Fry felt distancing the program from a lower-tier conference was a good first step, so the team became a Division I-A Independent before the start of the 1975 season. His plan also included moving some home games into a more prominent venue than tiny Fouts Field could hold, so Fry began scheduling two home games per year at Texas Stadium in nearby Irving, already the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and metroplex rival SMU. Fry also gave the school a complete visual makeover, adding lime green to the color scheme and introducing the infamous "flying worm" logo that became a staple of the university for years to come. Fry's new-look Mean Green went 7-4-0 in 1974 and 1975, albeit with losses coming against games against Southwest Conference and Southeast Conference opponents. The 1975 season saw a 28-0 drubbing of the SWC's Houston, as well as a close 15-12 road loss to SEC's Mississippi State. The 1976 season saw marked signs of improvement, with the Mean Green falling in close contests to all their major conference opponents (a 7-0 loss to Mississippi State was later forfeited to North Texas after it was revealed the Bulldogs used ineligible players). The Mean Green lost 17–14 against No. 19 Texas, 38-31 against SMU, 16-10 to the Big Eight Conference's Oklahoma State in Stillwater, and a memorable close 21-20 loss to Florida State in a rare Denton blizzard at Fouts Field. 1977 proved to be the high mark