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Football isn't our only offering to a new conference (thank goodness). I think we have a pretty good basketball program in comparison to many with which we might be aligned. Something else to put on the table. I don't buy, by the way, the expressed assertions that A. we're just waiting by the phone for the popular guy to invite us to the prom; and that B. a publicity campaign, if not backed by substantive value, can affect the decisions of a bunch of cynical university presidents who are working angles with and against each other. More important is whether you have somebody on the phone who knows how power decisions in college athletics really come about. OK, quick: Without looking it up, what's the name of the president of the University of North Texas? V. Lane Rawlins. What does V. Lane Rawlins know about college athletics? Former president of Washington State University. Former president of the University of Memphis. Twice served on the NCAA's Board of Directors and as chair of the Pac-10, Conference USA and Great Mid-West athletic conferences. So for me, the real question -- unanswerable, I would guess, by most on this board -- is whether Rawlins, who is only scheduled to serve through the next academic year, is on the phone trying to make it rain for UNT.

I think that the X-Factor in all of this is Dr. Rawlins. From a source close to the situation - it was Dr. Rawlins who made one phone call to the president at the University of Ciny (both in the Metro Conference) to form Conference USA, alone with UAB from the Sun Belt Conference; Marquette and Saint Louis from the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League), and independent DePaul. Dayton joined in 1993. Remember this is a man who served twice on the NCAA board of directors and as chair of the PAC-10, Conference USA and Great Midwest Athletic Conferences. You can not tell me that this man does not have access to people of influence and power. I am sure he is on the phone right now trying to get UNT in the best possible situation. To me, this is a great situation. A man, like Dr. Rawlins who knows that in's and out's of conference restructuring, while we are in the process of building a new stadium. I think that he is 100% the X-Factor in this equation.

If *I* were the AD? I'd still be calling Wright Waters at 3:00 a.m. every day, disguising my voice. Every day, I'd be telling him that if he doesn't learn to count to one and properly break a tie, I'll do all sorts of awful things to his family. But then again, I'm the sort that sometimes holds a grudge.

Really? The athletic department organized the stadium vote? The athletic department got that student vote passed, huh?

If you were the AD, what sort of phone calls would you be making?

Would love to see conference meetings between Berkeley and Baylor tho!

Nevada put a WHOLE lot less butts in our stadium. As did Utah State and Boise for that matter.

RV's wishy-washy response when given a chance to diss his school's conference to a stranger says it all! But why stop with just emailing our own people? This is the kind of defeatist, think-small attitude that has kept North Texas athletics down for too long! I think we should take control of this process from the amateurs who run UNT. Starting right now, every alumnus should phone the commissioners of every desireable athletic conference 10 times per hour and screech a loud "CAWW!" into the phone each time the receptionist answers. Since at least the bigger conference offices probably can afford caller ID, after a few calls it would be best if you borrowed a phone from the guy in the next cubicle who went to UT. Then after 24 solid hours of 100,000 alumni making 10 calls per hour, for a total of 24,000,000 calls, we start the emails. Every person sends attachments with WKU game footage and an MP3 of the fight song every 10 minutes for 24 hours. Next comes the skywriting over the commissioners' home offices. PA trucks outside their homes are optional, but would be nice. Then we put videos on YouTube showing all of us holding our breath until we get what we want. Or we can believe for just a sliver of a moment that the same university president who has multiple terms as an NCAA board member and chair of three conferences and who just gave the AD a raise and a contract extension might know something that the rest of us don't about how college athletics works.

You're pretty new here, huh? Flyer, breathe. Everything...and I mean everything in this whole conference realignment clusterF is predicated upon what happens in the Big XII...and more specifically Texas. Until the shoes officially drop with that conference everybody else is in limbo and the best thing to do is survey the landscape. Does that mean RV shouldn't be chatting up with other ADs? No, but I also didn't take from this blog that is what is happening...but the AD can't start making a hard sell to lets say C-USA right now when the possibility exists that schools like Baylor and Tech and Kansas and Mizzou and K State may make an effort to hold together the remnants of the Big XII. Patience.

Here's another fun point of discussion that I'm sure is going to be considered reasonably and rationally, then calmly discussed... We've already had an Athletic Director pursue a bold, aggressive plan to get us in a better conference and more closely aligned athletically with other Texas schools. We started out in a conference we had shared with Houston, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Tulsa. But we were going to boldly and aggressively force our way into the SWC! Our bold, aggressive plan took us down a path that netted us zero bowl bids through what many fans consider to be the most successful period of football in school history. Three consecutive 20 win basketball seasons, a period that many fans consider to be the most successful period of basketball in school history, netted us zero postseason opportunities. A few years later, the plan a failure... Our Athletic Director boldly and aggressively bailed out and took another job elsewhere. Four years later, we were a 1-AA program. If we had been a little more patient and a little less bold and aggressive, at the very least we would have gotten some postseason basketball opportunities. It might not have hurt us to stay affiliated with the teams that went on to the Metro conference instead of chasing the ones in the SWC.

Two things, neither of which is specifically disagreeing with anyone's frustrations in this thread: 1. Waiting =/= Doing Nothing 2. Anyone who thinks aggressive action, such as hiring an expansion consultant, retaining a PR firm, working the legislature, and so forth is going to make things better, either for the school's prospects or for our general psychological well-being... Check out how it's working out for Baylor or Memphis or Missouri fans at the moment. I think the Rapture would go over more gently on BaylorFans than the fallout from their maneuvering for a Pac-10 spot. Memphis people are wound so tight with all the Big East/Big 12 uncertainty that a backfiring car engine in Tennessee might cause simultaneous heart attacks in tens of thousands of people. And Missouri? Let's just say that the famous arch in St. Louis might crumble and collapse under the weight of all the Mizzou fans who could end up hanging themselves from it. I don't know what we're doing or who anyone is talking to, but most of the hustlers in this situation aren't getting anything out of the effort, and some are finding themselves much worse off for the effort.

I'd be calling every AD of every school in every conference I had an interest in. I'd also be calling the sports director of every news station, radio sports talk show hosts, newspaper bloggers, student newspaper editor covering every school in every conference I had an interest in. Then I'd call the quarterback of every school in every conference I had an interest in. Then I'd call his mom (if she was hot). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I'd be getting my website blogger to talk about how the athletics department is working for the best interest of the program, or turning over every rock, or anything, ANYTHING other than "the only thing we can do is sit and wait."

We need to be doing everything we can to get out of the Sun Belt. It is a worthless conference with no rivalries. Maybe I'm alone here, but I never get excited to see Middle Tennessee roll into town. If we had moved to the WAC, there would be some interesting teams coming through every couple of years. I can only hope CUSA or the WAC comes through with an invite. If not, we're heading nowhere fast. I love the Mean Green, and when you hit your knees tonight, ask God to love 'em too.

I'm sorry, but Green Bat's comment really got my blood boiling.... Sir, the AD did NOT organize the student vote. They did NOT get the students to pass the vote. They couldn't organize any kind of campaign, and it took, what?, 6 YEARS before they could get the damn idea in front of the students? The student voted passed because of the hard work of STUDENTS, the donations of people on THIS message board, and the personal campaigning of 4 or 5 specific student government members.

I want to go to any conference that doesn't have Louisiana-X or Florida ___ University

Take this for what its worth but here is a quote from the AP story about Boise State going to the Mountain West. Sorry if this has been posted alrady: Dan Hawkins, head coach at Boise State until jumping to Colorado in 2006, said he doesn't think the Mountain West is done adding teams. "We'll see how that whole thing shakes out and what happens to other teams in the Big 12," Hawkins said. "There might be some other teams from ... the Sun Belt, the Big 12, or somebody melded in there to complete the roster."

I think we should crash some shit into the moon to look for water. That'd be fun.

We need to build those boys a nice 18 or 9 hole course to practice on. And then we need to give steep alumni discounts.

Boise is a good fit for the MWC, that makes 10. It will be interesting to see now if the MWC goes after more to get to 12, 14, or 16. If the Big12 remainders want to travel as a group (Baylor, KU, KSU, Iowa St., Mizzou) that would make 15, plus say a UTEP for 16? Anyway, the WAC's loss of Boise does make UNT's stock go up somewhat. We are the western most available FBS school not already in the Big12, WAC, CUSA, MWC, or PAC10.

Great photos and kudos to the Green Gang for their weekly picture update. I get goose bumps looking at the massive towers of concrete and steel being erected, day by day. I'll take our 30K stadium over UCF's 40K erector set of a stadium any day. I'm so proud to be a part of what is taking place at Mean Green Village.

if everything is headed to the super conference, and we're very unlikely going to be invited into one of those, what's the point of moving to another conference? seems at that point either you're in a super conference or your not. and if you're not, you don't matter.

Agreed. If we don't get into C-USA, move L.A. Tech and NMSU into an eastern division with North Texas and three others. It would make for a 12 conference with a championship.

It's typical small-minded thinking at an institution that continues to be the only person in its way from truly taking flight (eagle reference...hey-ooo). It's an ass-whip of the highest order and why I have absolutely ZERO expectations with regards to conference realignment. What I want to see is confidence...even if it is baseless. Perception is reality. I want a blog post that says UNT has a lot to offer any conference and is ready to take the next step onto the national stage. UNT is positioning itself to become another namebrand, large, quality state school in the athletic as well as academic world. But I never hear any of it. In more positive news, we're supposed to be more "competitive" this year and winning 6 games or so would really be a boon to the program!

Interesting timing for that announcement. Maybe it's time for us to announce the impending groundbreaking for our new retractable roof baseball stadium and adjacent Superconducting Supercollider facilities? We should probably locate them both between our blimp hanger and private jet runway.

You got the inside scoop at those two schools?

It's amazing we can draw more than 10,000 fans for a Sun Belt game. Who the hell cares about playing Louisiana-Lafayette?

Silence, you! The AD knows what they are doing. Besides, we have NOTHING to offer so why even bother!? You should be grateful we even have real football on Saturday.

How many cups?

So you're hoping for a conference that won't feature teams that beat the crap out of us on a yearly basis? Me too.

Why bring Lawrence Phillips into this?

PAC 16 -> Texas = The Big Fish SEC -> Texas = One of a Group of Big Fish

I'm also a bit concerned that you guys didn't accurately identify the Chone Figgins reference as well... We're out of practice.

And they've got Kibbie, which is badass.

You jokesters spent all this time ruining conference realignment pipedream circle jerk threads for the last 5 years and now look at us -- we're being left out of the new super conferences. Thanks for nothing. Also, totally missed the slinky reference at first and feel bad about it. COOL KID CODE EVEN ESCAPES THE COOL KIDS!

Start simple, Professor Jindra. Explain who Scott Hall is. Then, build from that foundation.

Their nothing is better than our nothing. Personally I would like to have NMSU back on the schedule each year.

Dream conference: North Texas Kansas Kansas State Iowa State Baylor TCU Houston Oklahoma State Memphis Rice Colorado State New Mexico or New Mexico State Yes, I realize SMU is missing from that list. Realistically, I think this would be a nice conference: North Texas Houston Rice SMU Tulsa Southern Miss Tulane Louisiana-Lafayette Middle Tennessee Western Kentucky New Mexico State UTEP

I tried that strategy one time. Sadly I ended up banging the Southland Conf... and her mom.

Are you out of your mind?!?! You need to be out there buying rohypnol and going to every "ladies night" function you could possibly find. You're obviously not serious about this situation.

Cautious optimism has been restored.

Not all chicks like dudes with upgraded facilities.

The best strategy right now is to stay put and let the ladies come to me.

Notes the obvious: that public boosterism and a publicity campaign aren't how it's done. I would add that as pleasing as a media pep rally might be to the fan base, the university presidents who are making all these decisions operate in a higher sphere. Vito blog

+1 to Brett Vito

Pizza?

What ever happened to this guy ? He was one of my favorites. "We are completely in control of the airport."

Meh.

Why? Seems pretty realistic.

I may puke.

No, it was that back-stabbing bastard Deloss Dodds. HE caused all this.