CBS11 BREAKING: UNT to CUSA (FRIDAY!)

Alright...I hate to stink up such a glorious thread, but I have no choice. The comment above---Fry gambled on SWC membership and lost---just leaves lots of unanswered questions.

1) Could we have joined the Metro (or whatever conference Louisville, Cincy, Tulsa, Wichita, etc left for) at the time that Fry took us Independent?

2) Once it became clear that we were not going to get invited to the SWC (from what I gather, after 1978), why did we not try to rejoin those old Metro schools? We were a Top 25 football program at the time. Would they seriously not have taken us?!

3) Was Hayden Fry actually a secret agent sent by SMU to destroy us?

For those of us who were students or fans back in the day....this.

Hayden Fry took us out of the Missouri Valley Conference which still had schools like Louisville and Memphis as members was because it would be easier to apply and (hopefully) gain entrance into the Southwest Conference as a Major Independent than a member of the lowly Missouri Valley Conference (as it was looked on as a football conference). Fry was light years ahead of most with his ability to think forward than continually using the past as his main reference point (which we did quite well in Denton and still do to an extent).

All in Denton and beyond (except the Teacher's College crowd) were behind Fry's decision to make this move. The MVC Commish' during this time, ie, Mickey Holmes was furious with Fry, but what Holmes seemed to be naive about was how Louisville and Memphis had similar plans and would also leave his conference soon after.

Best I can tell, the Metro Conference did not form until Fry was well into his Big 10 years at Iowa. And if Fry had still been around, North Texas would have never seen one day as an NCAA D1-AA program.....I repeat...........not one day.

From Wikopedia:

The Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro Conference, was an NCAA Division I athletics conference, so named because all of its charter members were in urban metropolitan areas in, or at least on the fringes of, the Southern United States. The conference never sponsored football, although most of its members throughout its history had Division I-A football programs (from 1983-91, all Metro schools had independent football programs). In 1995 it merged with the Great Midwest Conference to form Conference USA. The merger was driven mainly by football, as several Metro Conference members had been successfully lured to larger conferences that sponsored the sport.

Edited May 1, 2012 by PlummMeanGreen

For those of us who were students or fans back in the day....this.

Hayden Fry took us out of the Missouri Valley Conference which still had schools like Louisville and Memphis as members was because it would be easier to apply and (hopefully) gain entrance into the Southwest Conference as a Major Independent than a member of the lowly Missouri Valley Conference (as it was looked on as a football conference). Fry was light years ahead of most with his ability to think forward than continually using the past as his main reference point (which we did quite well in Denton and still do to an extent).

Able to think "light years ahead of most"?? Or just orchestrating a dastardly plan on an unwitting populace?!!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Able to think "light years ahead of most"?? Or just orchestrating a dastardly plan on an unwitting populace?!!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

So if DMac is Fry's disciple...

Does that mean the move to CUSA will lead us to Division II????

The question must be asked.

Edited May 2, 2012 by UNT90

thank you for that, +10