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He should be eligible the night of December 17th, which is the day that the fall semester officially ends. From what I understand it is also dependent upon when his grades get posted, but you have to assume that the Athletic Department will push for his grades to be determined pretty much immediately after he finishes his classes.

Just wait for him to laugh and punch him in the mouth. The pants will fall and you don't stop punching until he goes down.

The small touches were probably the most impressive to me on Saturday. There were bathroom attendants in every restroom. I expected this type of level at the club and suite level but there were attendants in the endzone bathrooms, ready to sweep up any crumb that might fall on the ground. As I walked into the stadium, the ticket scanners greeted me with "Welcome to Apogee Stadium" and they were so polite and courteous. The "seat nazis" were probably the best ambassadors of the day - and they were completely cool with letting me wander around and take pictures. I joked with the concierge up at the suite level that even small restaurants get to do a "soft open" to work out the kinks - but they were so attentive and so happy to listen to feedback. I told the suite attendant that I could offer only one suggestion to improve the experience and that would be to pipe the radio broadcast into the restrooms like the Mavs and Cowboys do... she thanked me for the idea, took out a pen and wrote it down. First class all the way around - from the big things right down to the little things. What a great day it was.

BUT HE PLAYS GOLF, WEARS A HAT BACKWARDS, RIDES HIS BOAT ON LAKE LEWISVILLE AND SMILES TOO MUCH!!!!! HE DON'T GIVE A SINGLE CRAP ABOUT THIS TEAM!!!!

I don't find it as sad as I do dumb.

Kids who want to win will go anywhere. This isn't 1977. It's 2011. The internet and cable/satellite TV make every team accessible. OU sells on its name alone and has for decades. They've been pulling kids from both coasts and all over the map for decades. Even John Blake during their terrible years picked up Roy Williams from Northern California and Ontei Jones from South Florida. Their current Heisman candidate QB is from New Mexico; though OU doesn't play either school from New Mexico. Texas school being closer to his New Mexican family didn't stop him from going to OU. Three of OU's starters - two on offense and one on defense, are from California. OU hasn't played a regular season game in California since...2005. And, before that, 1997. OU will be fine if they end up in a conference without Texas. They'll still recruit the entire country, including Texas. OSU will be fine as well. If everyone's theory about driving distances held, the stadiums at all Texas schools would be sold out. They aren't - except for Texas and Texas A&M. If a kid has a shot at UTEP or Oklahoma State, he likely going to go to Oklahoma State since they are winning now. Winning does that for your school. The truth is, kids will pick winning schools. Distance doesn't matter. Florida State's QB last year was a kid from Colleyville. Florida State never plays in Texas. It doesn't matter. Florida State is a nationally known name. There's a kid from Frisco who is a back-up QB for Florida State. And, their kicker is from Houston. Distance didn't seem to matter for those kids and their families; winning did. Again, not everyone in Texas is from Texas. Go look at census figures on the subject. Because the economy of Texas has been so good, people have relocated to it from all over the United States. But - again and again and again - their loyalties are not to Texas schools or professional teams. You've got Packer and Browns and Steelers watching parties at bars all over major Texas cities. People move here, but they don't forget their roots. This all aggravates old Texas people. But, they should have accepted the reality that not everyone in Texas supports Texas college football teams when the SWC was killed. Sorry, old Texas people. Texas isn't diverse just because it has a bunch of Mexicans, Pakistanis, and Koreans. It's diverse athletics-wise as well. In short, it doesn't matter how big UT is or how much money it has. Other schools don't care. They'll go where they want, and the recruiting will be just fine. Texas is discovering how little clout they have, and how many people in high places they've alienated over the past few years.

Yup...if there's one thing I'm known for around here it's my pessimism towards North Texas basketball. Guess maybe I should have a change of hart. Or even heart.

it is ridiculous to think that we don't deserve local media coverage because our scheduling is poor or that we do, in fact, lose. isn't there an old adage, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."? i guess we all should wait to show up at games or talk up the mean green program until they win, huh?! that's FUBAR. i don't think its unfair to expect or simply ask him to mention a record setting night. email sent.

Let's be serious. We have zero shot at a big 6 conference. Zero, ziP, nada. We were not able to sell out the 1st game in a new stadium. Still a long, long way to go.

I understand Baylor doing what they are doing... though, given the opportunity they would do it too. But, couldn't Baylor's posturing only blackball them in the future?

Did they mentioned teh respective team scores? Let's tell 100K apathetic alumni we lost 48-23 and see if Brelan's yardage gets them all excited to rejoin the bandwagon.

Big XII schools generally don't care how many opposing fans travel. You have to fill your own stadium. Most of the Big XII schools don't have large sections available for opposing fans. Why would you if you can sell out with your own fans which increases season ticket sales and allows for mandatory donations for seats? Worrying about how many opposing fans come to your stadium is the same mentality UH used to have. We used to complain that no one in CUSA (with the exception of UTEP) brought fans to UH. Now we're finally getting to the point where if the opposing team brings zero fans, it can still be a sell out. Hopefully UNT gets to that point too. The stadium will help. Winning will help some too. Once you get momentum, it starts snowballing. One sell out leads to another. That leads to games selling out early which leads to higher season ticket sales. But don't complain about the number of fans your opponents bring. That just makes your fan base look weaker because your attendance depends on something outside of your control.

Houston only drew 5k more because our stadium only holds 31k. I think your program and UH's program are very similar from a few years ago. It took a committed administration to really start our ascent. And a whole lot of leg work from dedicated alums and students to rally the support. Great job on the beautiful stadium, you have us beat there. Looking forward to seeing you guys in Houston next year. Good luck to the rest of your season. I will be following your team and rooting for you. GMG!

He's more worried about his next freaking golf tournament than leading his football team to a championship. The guy makes me sick. He has to be the most careless QB with the most experience in the NFL. Gotta get rid of him. Rick

I had the chance to catch up briefly with Coach Leonard on Saturday...he was already set up and tailgating when I made it to the Hill around 1:30...thought that was pretty awesome. I congratulated him on such a great recruiting class and if he knew anything about Patton and Franklin's eligibility...he said Patton will be good to go and they're hopeful on Franklin. He then excitedly brought up Mitchell, telling me what we knew that he'd be eligible in December. Never seen a coach beaming so much over a player.

And to add on to this thought...we've a group of fans who seem to relish in a North Texas basketball loss. They only come over to the basketball board following a loss and start popping off phrases like "this team is playing street ball" or "why don't we play zone?" or "does this team not practice free throws?" or "why didn't we pick up full court in the waning moments of last year's conference championship game against Arkansas-Little Rock when Soloman Bozeman hit a clutch 3 pointer with our best defender on him, but only picking up at half court?" Just some generic examples. They're a whip. And they're considerably more frequent when people confuse expectations with hopes, coupled with logic. There are 340 some odd teams dreaming of an NCAA birth...150 or so aren't kidding themselves. To be making guarantees 3 months before tip and with more unknowns than knowns is foolish.

Email Newy Scruggs

Plus, when they ran him off, they were able to hire another nationally known coach - and, didn't have to look at Texas high schools. Tech has beaten schools in many different conferences now. They've been to bowl games now for 11 straight seasons, and have had 18 winning seasons in a row. They've beaten schools from the Big Ten three times in bowl games (Minnesota, Michigan State, and Northwestern) and schools from the ACC twice (Clemson and Virginia), and on from the Pac-10 (California) during that span. Tech is a well-known entity. Not even Texas or Texas A&M boast as many bowl seasons in a row as Tech.

There were probably some copy points about the game, but hell, Newy probably ate them.

Renewed ours today! We're looking forward to another great season at the SuperPit! GMG!

1. Play a somebody... 2. Beat a somebody... 3. Fill Apogee often (which happens because of 1 & 2) ...then the DFW "major sports market" media will be standing in line at the Apogee Stadium elevator to get to their special designated media location inside our end zone to end zone Press Box.....maybe even Newey. Scheduling schools into Apogee like Texas Southern U (albeit a great university but just not in the right NCAA division) is not a good start in doing this and yes, Social Security is a Ponzie Scheme!

Terrell Brooks: He went 3-0 in Madden against a couple guys on his floor that forgot to reserve tickets to the game. He proceeded to bring home some Chicken Express and totally dominated it from chicken strip to the final corn nugget. I would say it was a good night for him.

Meanwhile Baylor only bought 800 seats for their aTm allotment and returned the rest. If you think 4k is low, you're crazy. I know there are schools that do travel that, but we're not Nebraska. And if you need a school to travel 7k+ to fill your stadium (almost 1/4 of the stadium) on opening night, UNT might as well give it up.

I totally agree. I didn't get any freebies either! Plus I sat at my house all morning waiting for someone from the athletic dept to come to my house and drive me to the game...and when I got there...no one would personally read my parking pass (Which I had to pay EXTRA for!) or tickets to me. I may not be back. How DARE the athletic dept ask anyone to charge for anything. We need more free stuff and more hand holding if we are ever going to be big time.

a/s/l?

Sam Houston State on Sat. Dec 10th at the Super Pit

I'm so sick of people referring us to North Texas State. Jeez. Come on Nick..get it together. JRock

ESPN3 = split screen NT @ Alabama and UCF @ FIU.

Did someone say bar?

The faults of Coach Dodge don't matter to me any more. We all already know he wasn't up to the job. I just want to see if the team gets better from week to week under Coach McCarney. As long as there's progress this season I'm happy.

Maybe McCarney is more of a hard ass than we all realize. The practices are closed, so how would we know? I'm not against a coach throwing his weight around and whatnot. But...it'll be interesting to hear what the real issue was here...or, if it can ever be known. Kip tells me not everything can be known.

I know there have been a few times, often a week or so after some poor, late-night decision making that I've cheered for a Crimson Tide.

You can pile on Dodge all you want, but he had one good class; his second and I think did a fair job scrambling for recruits the last two years. A bad Belt team that plays in Fouts is going to be a hard sale. Everyone assumes that McCarney will be a better recruiter, he certainly has much more to work with. Most of us think that McCarney recruits are a step up but frankly there is little evidence of that yet. If you look at this year's commits there are few that have offers to perceived better football schools. There are also at this point not an unusual number of true freshmen playing. Lemmon is starting and a few others are getting playing time, but it is too early to really rate the whole class as anything better than ordinary. The sad facts are that UNT is lagging the other established FB division schools in recruiting just as they have the last 3 years. Not a knock on McCarney or staff it is just going to take time and some wins to substantially upgrade recruiting. We all hope that this staff is much better evaluating recruits because it is going to take a much longer time for NT to actually compete with even the CUSA teams for the same athletes. The obvious hope is that many of McCarney's recruits despite being relatively lightly recruited will turn out to be stars.

I'd place as much or more of the blame on his lack of ability to DEVELOP the players he brought in. There's just too many upperclassman on this roster who seem to exhibit little or no growth in their skill/ability since arriving on campus. That's what's most frustrating to me.

Plus..... Beerman was as awesome as ever!!

I agree. At least the fight is back and these kids are going to play their @ss off for this school. i respect the hell out of them

Pretty impressive to see a band stretch from end-zone to end-zone and still march around the field.

I'm confused. I thought you requested us to focus on the positive and quit the negativity! Are we allowed to resume our negative ways? I have been a critic of the band primarily due to the fact they don't do things like in the old days! I'm getting old and this is what we like to do. So, here are a few positives: 1. Good for them for not wearing their uniforms in the summer heat. In the "old days" we wore suits with an overlay on top of that. Think how comfortable you would be at the game in a heavy wool suit with a vinyl topcoat. While on that subject, if the decision was up to me, I would order one of every shade of green on the Pantone scale, that way, we would be sure to have at least one hue of whatever green the team is wearing. 2. In a previous thread, I read that the students had to provide their own shorts. Thank you for doing this. 3. Thank you for giving up your summer break and coming to campus early. 4. Thank you for practicing many hours a week in the hot sun for your one credit hour. 5. Thank you to the director for putting a band of over 300 on the field. The logistics involved in this are tremendous. He is paid much less than half of the least well paid member of the football staff and he has no other full time staff to help him. 6. And congratulations for being named the top college band in the country. Even though it was from the Bleacher Report, there are 119 other D1A schools that would have loved to have that publicity.

I may be wrong but I am guessing he meant a much bigger stadium capacity wise. As far as amenities it's hard to beat since we have everything a college stadium would want I am thinking.

Just win

There are certainly procedures and policies that are going to be reviewed, and possibly modified. Please remember that security was extra tight with this being the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Can the stadium fenceline be modified to include the alumni pavilion during the games? Sure, why not? It would improve the gameday experience for fans and increase the incentive for our alumni to join the alumni association.Why can't that whole northern patio become a giant Alumni Association Beer Garden during halftime? There shouldn't be an NCAA issue as long as fans are restricted from carrying their beer back into the stadium.

Who?

Missed calls include holding, late hits, unsportmanlike hits, encroachment, the list goes on. It's less on Houston and more on the refs, if you ask me.

Came to the game with the wife and parents(who came from an hour away). Even though the team lost, everyone is making plans to come to the next game. Things are changing in the attitude towards NT football. We just need to start winning games.

With the addidions of Mitchell , Patton & hopefully Franklin , I think rebounding will be one of our strengths

I'm starting to think we don't need a fanbase. Maybe our team should play to an empty stadium on purpose. We have waaaay waaaay too many things that will "cause people not to come inside stadium at all." We get LITERALLY all day to drink, eat, and play during our tailgates. Hell, you can drink all Friday night if you want...I did. And we are, seriously, complaining that for three hours we're forced to endure the torture of college football...our Alma mater's football team by the way...without beer????!!! And here I was thinking it was the product on the field that needed fine tuning.

I hate the no re-entry rule. The halftime beer jog is an important tradition being thrown by the wayside. Stupid.

The ignorance of our fanbase never ceases to amaze me. They will always look for something to complain about. I suppose you preferred Fouts to Apogee?