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Hey that's life? You'll pardon me if I don't find much comfort in that statement since that seems to be the theme of the North Texas athletic department since Hayden Fry left. When Hayden Fry left, he recommended his very capable DC Bill Brashear as his replacement. The administrators that were in charge of hiring the next coach (and who hated Hayden Fry) sniffed and said "he can get in line like everyone else". Bill Brashear, was rightfully insulted and then took his considerable talents as a coach to Iowa. While there he helped Hayden Fry take Iowa to it's first Rose Bowl in..like..forever. A great opportunity for North Texas to have something called "stability" in their football program went right down the drain. But, "hey that's life". We then hire Jerry Moore who goes 11-11 and gets hired away from us. We then hire the very sleazy Bob Tyler for one year. And after that HUGE MISTAKE is corrected our program is almost in total shambles. In both cases we could have hired the very capable Corkey Nelson (he applied a total of three times), but we didn't go with that option until our program was forced to move down to 1-AA. But, "hey, that's life". After we burned out Corkey Nelson by not properly funding the program so that it could move back up to 1-A, we fired Coach Nelson( after doing more with less than any coach since Odus Mitchell) and went on another coaching search. This time using (God help us) a faculty committee. Instead of seriously looking at competent college candidates, like Paul Johnson (the current Ga Tech coach) who wanted the job, we decided that Dennis Parker would be a better candidate. The rest is history. But, "hey, that's life". After that it was Matt Simon and Darryll Dickey. I don't know who the other candidates were when both these guys were hired but, hey, that's life. We then went about hiring one of our biggest coaching disasters in North Texas history. Even though we already had gone down that road before. I don't know what other coaches were interested, but I do know of one that had college head coaching experience that (to use his words) would have "loved to have been contacted by North Texas". But hey, that's life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at you. But you'll pardon me if I don't regard this current hiring situation in such a light hearted manner. And I hope that my point that we've already overlooked too many other perfectly good (if not better) candidates WHO WERE RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSE, doesn't get lost in this PMG-like rant.

I'm in the same boat. A rep from the Athletic Dept. Came out to my workplace last week and is coming out again this coming week with more details. I'm looking forward to learning about the new ways I can support the program beyond financially. I really like and appreciate the direction the school seems to be taking. They are reaching out to alumni to rejuvenate interest in the university. Me likey.

It's effing Kansas. An all time top 5 program...and a team that does not lose at home...4 Big XII loses in Self's time in Lawrence. They beat up good teams at Phog Allen (last year, Tech by 26...Mizzou by 19...Colorado by 20). And these teams play there every year. This is our first trip to, in my opinion, the second toughest place to play in country behind Cameron Indoor...and I don't feel at all like we embarrassed ourselves. We shot 42% from the field despite going 0-12 from 3...committed just 12 turnovers, our lowest number of the season. Are we still a ways behind the likes of Kansas? Hell yes, but if you didn't realize that going in to the game you should probably seek medical attention. There is not a scholarship player on that roster that wouldn't start and average double figures for us. Not one. Both Morris's, Taylor and if that man-child Robinson continues to refine his game are all first round, NBA draft picks...remember how excited we all were over Eric Tramiel, one of the top players we've had in the past decade, getting a try out with the Mavs this summer? Perspective. This game was a learning and growing experience for an already seasoned team. It will only help them going forward.

It looks like I got talked into being a volunteer representative for the Mean Green Club. Not exactly sure what all it entails. Anyone else planning to do this? Glenn

Basing the HC job on a close win or close loss isn't smart. I don't think the actual win/lose of this game will matter.

I love Riley. I love his guts and I think he's got some leadership potential but Monroe sent extra defenders all day (as everyone knew they would, they're a blitzing team) we actually did a good job picking most of them up.....Riley had all day to throw the ball and didn't. I don't think ULM's secondary is full of deions..... I think he doesn't have confidence in his arm which I can't really blame him. I would be surprised to see him as our starter next year. He just can't throw the ball down field. They kept him in check on the ground today too......If he can't run then he doesn't help the offense much....

37pts should have been plenty to ULM for crying out loud

Figured I might as well throw in my 0.02 on this one. I've got an inkling of how this will turn out, but I'll leave that for Cerebus to guess at;) But, just some general thoughts, as it appears most people have kind of made up their minds on this one. 1) If his attorneys are taking this case on contingency, I would point out that most attorneys do not take cases on contingency unless they feel like they have a pretty good chance of being successful. Basically, because if they're not successful, they will have wasted (at this point eight months+ of their time pursuing this case) a lot of time and expense for no return. The better option (if this case were "weak") would be to pursue "paying" cases during that entire time period and not pursue this case. 2) Additionally, all this banter about guilt/innocence/"official reports"/etc seems meaningless to me. An official report from one party, including USF here, is about as compelling to me as Leavitt's own "official report." Neither deserves any more credence than the other imho. The truth is we really don't know what happened, who is more "credible" or "believable" and why Leavitt is currently out of a job. A jury trial doesn't "prove" or "disprove" what occurred; all it will find is whether USF "breached" their contract with Leavitt. USF could be fully correct about their version of the events, but still have "breached" their contract. 3) A lot of times, with employment related cases, it's not about what's "reasonable" or acting "practically"; the parties are "emotional" about the fact that they are "right" or that they were "screwed" somehow. Both sides may honestly feel they are in the right and that's what makes these types of cases tougher. After all, who wants to "settle" knowing that you're giving up something you never should have lost out on to begin with? That's why other types of cases that include say, an insurance company, are resolved so much more easily. In that case, the insurance company isn't looking at a case emotionally; it's just dollars and cents to them and what's the best "business" decision. 4) As far as him having baggage by being involved in this lawsuit, I have mixed thoughts. Yes, I agree it is baggage, but I also don't think someone should be penalized for pursuing their rights or trying to vindicate themselves if they feel they have been wronged. It's the just get on with your life path vs. the I want to be vindicated/I don't want these guys to ever screw someone else over like this and they need to be taught a lesson path. 5) Regardless, I doubt this case will ever go to trial; it will be settled, probably with a confidentiality/non-disclosure clause and somebody will be driving around in either a Lexus or an Aston Martin (and that will tell me how it finally ended up). Cheers.

Just my opinion but in basketball, moreso than most other sports, good defense can really help offensive production/stats. I did not see the game, but based on what I read in the AP, our players really really had trouble with Kansas size/length. Put KU's lineup against our less-than sizeable guards and you get a whole bag of match up problems: we have trouble penetrating against their length, and their quickness lets them get into our lanes and create havoc within our flow. We will probably not see another team like this all year, and thank God we don't have to play in The Phog again. I am disappointed we could not keep it to about 20, but I wouldn't read too much into this kind of loss. Hopefully this is a great learning experience for our guys.

They roped me in too. I havent agreed to a training class yet though, guess I should ask when that is?

I'm doing it as well. I signed up for the training class on the 8th of December. I like Cooper Jones and his staff (Dan, Matt, and Kendra)....I think this will be fun.

I was at this game and have a couple comments to make... Never have I seen an environment like this. It was unbelievable and I will never forget it. The rowdiness, the passion, the shear volume was extremely intimidating. The NCAA tournament(at least the opening rounds) has nothing on the environment that this game offered. After White's first airball, he was punished relentlessly by the crowd. After that, he hesitated on every opportunity to shoot an open 3 (and there were several). The arena is probably the same size as the super pit, except with bleachers that allows it to cram 16,000 people in there... Nobody wins there and there is a reason for that. There is no reason blow this loss out of proportion. They looked competitive in the first half, but couldn't recover from the barrage of 3 pointers that rained down on the mean green in the 2nd half. I doubt any team can win in Kansas when they are making 70% of their 3's. A couple of problems that need to be addressed: After getting down in the 2nd half, it seemed that there were several players who tried to force shots and take the game in their own hands, as opposed to moving the ball around and working as a team. They seemed very frustrated (understandably) and appeared to lose focus. Also, as mentioned before, White would not take open shots that were available to him after that first airball. You can't let one shot dictate your actions for the rest of the game. Anyway, I am very proud of the way they played for the most part and I have no regrets about making this trip. I am having an awesome time up here and I recommend everyone come see a game here at least once.

OK, we're playing no. 7 Kansas and SMU is playing UC-Riverside...enough said about the difference in quality of the two metroplex programs.

Hawaii press conference at 11:00pm Central tonight announcing they are joining MWC for football and Big West other sports. WAC loses auto bids in 2012 and is once again one school short of being a legal FBS league.

Kind of ironic to point out spelling issues in a post where you don't capitalize or punctuate.

There are obviously many things at play as far as NT athletic finances. The student fees are the biggest variable. Remember the BOR can increase the amount up to 10% a year until NT reaches the state max of $20 an hour which could relatively quickly double the amount of funding without any student enrollment increase. Also the amount of the student fees that can be used for construction is supposed to be limited to 50% of the construction cost. This should provide significant increases in operating funds from student fees. Hopefully, a new coach and stadium will also significantly increase revenues. In short, I would not be surprised that the new HC will be paid in the $500 to $750k range with significant boosts also for the staff.

Here We currently sit better in our own conference standings than they do in theirs. Their is nothing about that record that excites me about the future of North Texas. Also, please don't give me the "only lost by X amount of points" garbage. If that crap mattered we'd be working on Todd Dodge's contract extension.

+40,000 (dollars) Forty grand to help make a decision that could be worth millions in the long run? A "waste of money?" I'll give you an idea how much of a "waste of money" the $40K SDSU spent on the Parker firm out of Atlanta was. I communicated with at least a dozen people about Terry Bowden since I thought he would have been a good choice for us. The only dirt I ever got out of that was the rumor (Bowden denies it but there sure seem to be a lot of people who believe it) that he was poking his secretary, who just happened to be the daughter of a certain influential member of the Board of Regents, who was reportedly none too happy about it. So he took a page out of Bill Clinton's book, I thought. BFD. Well, this week's rumors about Auburn make it crystal clear that there is reason to believe that at least for a couple years, Bowden continued Pat Dye's pay for play policy. I'm not saying he did so, only that there's reason to believe that and I now have no doubt that's why Bowden was never even given an interview by SDSU. (That from the mouth of a mutual acquaintance.) Did I manage to hear about that at the time? No. Did the Parker firm hear about it? You bet your ass they did. Kudos to you, 90, and kudos to 2010 UNT. "Grown up" athletics departments hire Neinas or the Parker firm. Schools trying to operate on the cheap (as in minor league) don't.

He got a bucket and a block (should've been 2 but they whistled him for a foul) and logged productive minutes after Edwards picked up 3 quick ones. Lots to be critical of in this game...Knox sure as hell ain't one of them. Plus, for his career he has just 3 fewer three point makes than Jacob Holmen...and on 26 fewer attempts.

No thank you. I would rather have Canales if we can't have Fran or Leavitt. I don't want anything below recent FBS level success.

I respectfully think you are wrong here, sir. Leavitt's lawsuit claims that he was fired without cause, which is why he is seeking 7 some odd million dollars in compensation. It wouldn't be worth the attorney's fees to sue for $350,000. Why do we even care if he is sueing USF, it doesn't affect his ability to coach, recruit, or build a program? I would be far more concerned if he laid down and let USF run over him.

Me too. I haven't given Kindra the date for my training date yet though. Calling Parker county should be interesting. And with that, it would make my job much easier if I could somehow convince those I'm contacting that there is somehow a "Roping Arena" involved? Rick

Yup, we shall see. Personally, whether he gets our job or not, I'm hoping he takes USF to the cleaners. Rick

I think he has USF over a barrel and has an excellent chance to recover what he has coming to him. But mostly, his reputation is what he is after and I imagine he has received some well thought out advice from others in the coaching profession to fight this to the fullest. He has only been unemployed for 9 or 10 months, with the level of salary he has been at previously surely he isn't hurting? And he wouldn't even be a consideration for the NT job of it were not for being fired and I'm hoping we take advantage of it. The opportunity to get a $2 million a year coach for $600k doesn't come along very often. Considering where we sit regionally and with the newest stadium in the land he would be kicking ass here in three years. Rick

I am on board, too - looking forward to it.

And DADDYDUMPSALOT will give more money too!

Just wanted to take a minute and thank the fans and the students for creating an awesome atmosphere that hasn't been seen in the Super Pit for a while. Standing on the floor it sounded like a cannon exploded when Josh hit the layup and then we made the second three in overtime. It's how it should be every night when students are here and when school is out we need to fill the gaps and still get a crowd in the Pit. With a crowd that size please let me know if there were problems or any good things that happened. And I promise to let the student section do their thing. I only stepped over because early on there were a lot of students but only about half of them up and chanting. By the end of the game they were rocking. It was the kind of crowd I've waited for and thanks for making it happen. GO MEAN GREEN!

How good could this guy be, he's only a 1-AA coach. He's been there 11 years with only a 62 percent winning percentage. I mean come on he's only won 1 NCAA championship, hell a decent coach would win the title every year. In the past six seasons NT has won four more conference games (15-11) than this guy did, tell me he's the guy we need. [by the way almost half (7 of the15 conference wins) came in 2004.] He's a position coach at best. Anybody can coach LBs, DBs and special teams for these run-of-the-mill teams. 1978-79: Part-time assistant, Kansas State (RB). 1980-81: Assistant, West Texas State (DB, recruiting coordinator). 1982-85: Assistant, Texas-El Paso (DB). 1986: Assistant, Houston (OLB, special teams). 1987: Assistant, Texas Christian (DB). 1988-89: Assistant, Southwest Texas State (defensive coordinator, assistant head coach). 1990-95: Assistant, Marshall (defensive coordinator, assistant head coach). 1996-98: Assistant, Georgia (LB, 1996-97; DB, 1998). Georgia won two bowl games (Outback, Peach) during his tenure, and he coached first-round NFL draftee Champ Bailey. Anyone can have success at Marshall. It led the Southern Conference in total defense four times (1990, 1993-95), scoring defense three times (1990, 1993-94), passing defense twice (1990, 1994) and rushing defense twice (1992, 1995). I mean come on JMU has won only 5 games this year and they lost to two of the three top 20 opponents [New Hampshire (6), Richmond (20)] by a total of 17 points (28-14, 13-10 in OT). That's only one more than NT, if it beats ULM. The Dukes (James Madison's nickname) managed to squeak by then No. 1 ranked William and Mary (the other top 20 team on the schedule) by only six (30-24). This lousy coach has only outscored his opponents by 63 points. NT needs a higher powered offense. Surely, the Mean Green deserve a real football coach, not some FBS National Championship coach ,who has five Texas Universities on his resume and doesn't have clue about recruiting for Texas football. This entry is total sarcasm, this Mickey Matthews should get an interview and possibly be the next NT head coach!!!

They're not worried about the 11 humans on the other team a player may run into? Keith

MTSU wins the match 3-1. Great Season by our team though! Co-west division championship, and then we beat the team we shared the title with in the first round of the tournament. The team won their first Vball tournament game since 2006, and put up a good fight against a MTSU team that only dropped 1 SBC game all season. Coach Murczek has a great recruiting class coming in as well. I never saw the final numbers, but for most of the year we led the SBC in attendance as well, including 697 for our final home game. This program is on the way up! Go Mean Green!

i can't wait til we get someone over 5'8" to run the point.

Shoulda never been on it.

SB Conference 2013 (12 Teams) West North Texas Ark St ULL ULM +La Tech +NMSU East FIU FAU MTSU Troy WKU +USA drop UALR and add a conference championship game

Kansas has a nice little team. Maybe JJ will go easy on 'em. UNT by 22.

We'll stomp a mud hole in them. The "Phog" is just another old gymnasium. What's a Jayhawk anyway? Cousin to a chicken hawk? If we aren't up by 20 at half, JJ should have to hitch hike back from Kansas.

I'll literally be stunned if we win tonight. This is not a slight to our team. Let's not forget Kansas has a 60+ game home court win streak. The Phog is as tough a place to play as there is. I'm hoping to win, but realistically I'll be thrilled if we have a showing like we did against Texas A&M last season.

The greatest test of his short HC career.

When you write haikus You people sound like Yoda Entertains me much

Good, like I said before, I have nothing against him. I was just curious why his name was Arkstfan? chill man

North Texas fans have complained for years about bigger Texas schools conspiring to keep us down. Considering that, it's ironic that you want us to do that to Texas State and UTSA. We should be happy that two more Texas schools are moving up to the FBS. They could become good in-state opponents and potential conference rivals.

Mike Canales > Norm Hitzges Predictions

Was it a double play? Norm just picking a winner isn't the curse. A double-play is the thumb the pushes down on the syringe of sodium thiopental.

That's pretty much what my girlfriend said last night when I told her Mangrum played for SMU now...

Eager to see how ULL does against Cleveland State.

You can take Trooper Taylor off our list.

How does going to law school make you a quitter? Point of college is to get an education not play sports.

The only way it blows up in Auburn's face is action is taking during the season which prevents Newton from getting the Heisman and/or Auburn not playing in the championship game. Auburn is just praying on buying time so they can get their championship and heisman and after that it won't matter what the NCAA does.

No. Collin didn't get a lot of minutes at North Texas but I fully expected him to be the best player at S. Methodist the first time he stepped on the court.

I'm happy with what Canales has done in his brief time as the interm coach. I believe we will beat ULM on Saturday. If we do, then I think we should name Canales as our new head coach. I don't expect to beat Kansas State, but I feel confident we won't get embarrassed. I think 3-2, with a win over MTSU, a close loss to Troy, and a respectable loss to K. St., is remarkable for 5 games with another coaches team, and base playbook. Personally, I feel this program is night and day from what it has been the last 4+ years, and under Canales it will only get better. We can see it is already getting better. Another coach could come in and win, but I think that would be a bigger risk. How long would it take that coach to evaluate his players and get them where he wants them in his new system? How long would it take him to start winning games? Will he give us a chance to win that opener in the new stadium against Houston next season? Will that coach have us challenging for the SBC Title and a bowl game next season? I think we know Canales can win, and win now.

Whoever we lose... WE DON'T NEED QUITTERS.