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That's awesome! Who knew it was possible to play good football AND mold the players into good husbands and fathers.

Also...everyone go back and watch Brelan's return again...perhaps my favorite thing from the game was seeing the two Georgia defenders both miss Brelan and absolutely rock each other.

Excellent pickup by the Mean Green! Not sure how many of you guys saw Kenneth Lyons back in the day but Combs is Lyons 2.0. (without the elbows) Lyons was considered a nice recruit out of high school but not the national recruit in the eyes of the high majors. As we all know, he exploded when he arrived at North Texas; after adding bulk and muscle. Additionally, improving his perimeter shot. A future NBA prospect and NT HOF. Combs' game and motor is eerily similar to that of Lyons. The difference at this time is his lack of muscle and bulk, which will come in college. What's funny is that I saw Combs again this past Saturday at the fall Great American Shootout. (Carrollton) I left saying, "damn I hope we get this guy". Combs is a better recruit than Greg Wesley, who does not have the same skills down low. Jordan Williams was rated higher based on potential but didn't produce like Combs does. This kid is relentless down low and does not avoid contact. He also has a nice 10-15 foot jumper. I think that by the end of his career, he has the potential to be an all league performer and MVP of the team. He just needs to bulk up a little more for the college level. He would help the Mean Green this year.

Well my friends, I've had some time to process this and really think about what we witnessed on Saturday and count me in with the "happy" camp. Granted, I'm not planning any parade routes or anything ridiculous like that, but I am feeling overall "pretty decent" about what took place in Athens. And while I'm feeling pretty "not sucky" about the whole thing, there are definitely some areas for concern. Here are some things I took from that game. 1. Jub Jub can make one heck of a football call. Due to a family trip on the bride's side of the family that was planned several months ago, I listened live while cruising down I-20 towards East Texas. While I was disappointed that I couldn't see it as it happened, I knew George would not disappoint me with making me feel like I was there. His call of Brelan's kickoff return was greatness. The signal gave way moments after our blocked punt, which was kind of fitting since that's where our chances started to give way. 2. Brelan Chancellor is electric. If there's not one already, we need to get a nickname for this dude. Considering Apogee is an electricity provider, and we play at Apogee, something like "ABC" (Apogee Brelan Chancellor) or something like that might be nice. I dunno, I was never really good at the nickname thing. 3. We MUST get better man-to-man coverage. This was our glaring weakness. We keep leaving the corners alone on islands and they have to learn the first thing I learned as a defensive back -- WATCH FOR THE BALL!!!!!! (I realize this has been stated quite often around here, but what's one more time, right?) It was literally the first thing I learned as a young Jr. High DB -- if you turn and look for the ball, you can literally land on the receiver backwards and not get called. Why? Because if you position yourself right, you can actually make the receiver try to go over YOUR back. PLAY THE BALL. I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but if you see a receiver put his hands in the air, TURN AROUND!! 4. This team has guts. For that brief period of time after the blocked punt, I felt like we had a shot to take this thing. I'm not going to lie -- there was a bit of doubt there, too. But man, it felt really good to be playing meaningful football late in the third quarter against a top 10 team! And not one single time did they give up out there. I truly feel like they left it all on the field Saturday, and for that I am dang proud of our guys! I don't know how many heard the sideline reporter talking about Coach Mac's halftime speech, but it was exactly what the guys needed to hear. And out of the gate, it looked like they took it to heart. 5. We need depth. I believe this was another key difference Saturday. And in FBS football, it's typically what separates the big guys from the smaller guys. I believe in Coach Mac though, and think he'll get us there. Let him keep recruiting his kind of players and keep coaching them and I think we'll like what we see. 6. It's easy to over-react. As many have already said in the past 50-something hours, Saturday's performance meant nothing if we don't take care of business from here on out. "One game at a time" needs to be this team's mantra, and I think it will be. There's still a lot of football left. Some think that's a lot of opportunity to screw things up. Some think it's a lot of opportunity for good things. I believe in the latter. 7. I'm proud to be a Mean Green fan/student! That's all I've got to this point that hasn't already been said. I did get to watch this last night after we made it back home. I want to see that same energy in two weeks against Tulane. And then again here against MTSU . . . etc. I think they can do it. I think the good far outweighed the bad Saturday. Let's hope the boys in green prove me right from here on out!

Can you for once not make a thread about your insecurities? It gets old. Back to the original topic....Welcome home Jeremy! We're excited to have you onboard.

So did I read this right that they claimed that the staff should have hired BETTER life guards? Meaning that they DID have lifeguards... that did save his life? money money money. MONEY!

Here's my take on that Harry. On that last possession, UGA could have taken a knee and ended the game. It was already over at that point, but they didn't. They chose to run up the score. So, I think the reaction on the sidelines was to basically say f'em. We'll just work in a little practice ourselves and stretch this game out as long as possible if that's what you want to do. The fans were booing and all beside themselves when we had the audacity to keep calling timeouts with a minute or so left and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

FIU has the potential for a perfect season this year.

Machine?

Too bad he'll be coached by Benford... Just right.

Back in 1968 or 69 my wife and I drove out to Denton to visit a friend (Sheila) who was attending NTS. The big man on campus was Mean Joe Green, of course. Sheila was tutoring Joe that year. We went out to a pizza place, and in walked Joe. He came over and sat with us for about half an hour, and we really enjoyed his company. Sheila said he was a big old teddy bear everywhere except on the football field. Anyway, I have always kept a soft spot for North Texas ever since, and through the years would look for your scores. When I saw that North Texas was coming to Georgia, I looked forward to the game perhaps more than some other UGA fans. Quite frankly we, as a group, expected to just roll our helmets out there and win the game quickly and easily. All the talk during the week was how much playing time our backup players would get. A funny thing happened on the way to our party; a real football game broke out! There had been some background rumblings about North Texas being a skilled and tough team, and sure enough, there was the Mean Green standing toe to toe with one of the SEC tough guys. I just wanted to stop by and and wish the Mean Green much success this season. You earned a lot of respect in Athens on Saturday.

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/09/breaking-news-unt-lands-top-target.html/

Along this topic, during TV games, there's usually an "advertisement" video that is run from each school and usually from the conference. Anyway, did anybody else notice in the UNT video during the Georgia game that it showed FB highlights in FOUTS!!!!

67 years young today! Thanks for supporting our school

Direct them to the Alumni Pavilion where they can enjoy an alumni tailgate by "registering" with an email address and $10 or whatever for beer/food. Alumni can mingle and have a good time meeting new people from the same class or program. After the tailgate, everyone goes in the stadium for a good game and at the end of the day, the Alumni Association has a new list of alumni emails that they can send game day information to for every future home game to get them coming back.

Nice pick up. Assuming he signs and actually makes it on campus and stays long enough to play next season. Not a knock on Jeremy, just commenting on how few players Benford has been able to get and keep on campus.

What? This kid is white? I thought for sure he wasn't in the videos I saw here on GMG.Com. Are you sure you are talking about the same kid I am? Think he wears the same size suite as Coach Benford? Maybe those suits have a hidden pocket to keep "foreign" kid's Visas safe while they are at UNT. But, really, check out the videos. I really do not think he is white.

Indeed...think that could be possible in men's basketball as well? In all seriousness...this is a testament to the work Mac and Company is doing to create a great team AND a great and positive reputation for UNT overall and the football program in particular. He knows, as do most of us, that most of these players end their competitive football careers at UNT, and will be professionals in something other than football. This shows respect for others, respect for the team, respect for UNT and personal respect. Great story. Very proud to be a member of the Mean Green Nation.

Didn't Rice put up 77 on us in 3 quarters back in 2008. I hope we repay them for that this year....with a victory of 1 point or more.

Very, very nice pick up

Looks like a great pickup!! Welcome to the Mean Green Family Jeremy!

90, I don't disagree with anything you're saying. However in the context of my original post.....my point was surrounding what this program needs. This program needs attention. Positive attention. Some "cool." I don't think anyone on here (including me) is happy with getting beat 45-21. That's not the point. The point is, halfway through the 3rd quarter of our game against the #9 team in the nation, UNT got more positive attention than it has in a long time. I would argue as much if not more positive attention than what we were getting during our bowl run a few years ago. We gained some legitimacy on Saturday in the eyes of many that ignore us and don't take us seriously. One thing to consider.....most in the national media don't pay attention when we blow out Idaho. But they perk their ears up when they see we're hanging with GA for most of the game. And the message got out like wild fire. The speed of today's information with social media is an advantage for a program like ours. (provided we perform) Look at FFR's post about our #1 AA ranking in 1988. Had ESPN had 12 channels, Fox college this, CBS College that, facebook, twitter, etc back then...UNT would have been a bigger story. ESPN Gameday was at freaking North Dakota State on Saturday. There are more opportunities to shine a light on our program if we show something on the field. And we showed something on Saturday. Despite the final score, we finally looked like we belonged on the field with a big boy. That does wonders for our image. And like I said....now if we go 6-2 or 7-1 or hell, 8-0 in conference. It will be followed up with, "they're pretty good.....they went toe to toe with GA." instead of "they don't play anybody" which followed us around in the sunbelt days. Combine that with a 6 point loss to one half of the MAC championship and a win against the other half. We have some college football "street cred" now. But Given what we've seen the past several years....we have every right to be skeptical. However there are a whole new set of eyes on the program now. And it's because of how we played in the first 40 minutes of that game on Saturday. We've seen good play on the field with no attention. We've seen the ability to get attention grow since then. Now we have an opportunity to combine the two. That doesn't erase the fact that we still have to take care of business in New Orleans in 2 weeks. We lay an egg vs Tulane then of course, the positives from the GA game vanish as fast as #3 headed for the endzone.... If we beat Tulane then lose to MTSU at home.....it goes away as well. That's what makes it so nerve racking. And so much fun... .

Your entitled to your opinion but I don't understand why you feel this way and can't separate the difference between a win of a winnable game (Ohio) and a close loss of a game no one had given us a whisper of a chance to even survive the first quarter in (Georgia). What about the future? Doesn't it make you excited for the future and what these coaches might be able to build here? It does me. If nothing else here is something I took away from this game. With 3:45 to go in a game which we were expected to lose by 36 1/2 points we had played the 9th ranked team to a 14 point game till this field goal. I have been to many if not most of the body bag games over the course of the past 29 years. I can attest that with the game under 4 minutes to go have I rarely ever witnessed our defense STOP all the starters of a top 10 team's offense on our own 27 yard line and force a field goal. Usually by that time in these games our defense has been completely worn down and had given up. Not this time. Afterwards, they didn't come off the field relieved or happy that it was finally about to be over. They came off the field screaming and pissed off at each other because they had just given up 3 points with 3:45 to go...basically sealing our fate. For me, that defensive stand was a point of importance in behavior and attitude change displayed by this team that I would hope most noticed and realized that things are looking up. No one is happy about a loss, but considering how poor we have been recently, it's a great sign of things to come.....SOMETHING TO BE EXCITED ABOUT. Regardless of the score it shows that even coach Dodge's players were in fact capable of being very good once placed in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. By the way, yes, this was a close loss..(should have been 17 instead of 24)... because I dismiss the last garbage TD due to the fact that our size and depth at that point had finally caught up to us and the fact we didn't even have all of our starters in the game there. I'm guessing here, but I think our coaches must have thought that Richt would sit on the ball with 2 minutes to go and he didn't. Sarge was on the bench. He was spent...done. Fought his ass off the whole game, and Georgia slipped around his side and ran it down to the 1 on a single busted play. That's what we get for hesitating I guess, but I just don't think we expected it. Lesson learned. Rick

But... UNT athletics does have billboards. Whenever I'm heading down to Keller for my church gig along I-35W, there's a digital billboard just beyond Paradise Liquors that always has a recurring ad for our next home game, whether it be football or basketball. I like this route cause it's much easier to change.

Right there with ya! Great get. Wondering if Combs can help recruit some more players of his caliber for the Mean Green. Just going on the theory that good players like to play with other good players.

Baby Patino does and is VERY thankful. Hopefully we find ourselves in a similar situation at years end.

Why do we have to kick our own players in the teeth with some of these discussions? Do any of you get kicked in the teeth at your own jobs by (basically) outsiders? I wish Scotty Young well at La Tech. Don't we want BB to do well, too? Of course we do. Yet we need some school (like La Tech did last Fall) in CUSA to get back to Top 25 rankings status-- I hope that would be us. Plus we don't need CUSA schools to have "off years" so we can have an "on" year. That recipe does not have Top 25 rankings in the mix at all. GMG!

Take a look at what WV did with Tavon Austin. I think you can do a lot by just pure alignment. Maybe have him line up in the backfield as a FB and motion him out. Have him line up as RB. Line him up in the slot. Different alignments will tip the defenses hand on man or zone coverage. Maybe one or two jet sweeps a game, but lets not get crazy.

There have been numerous debates on here for years on what the challenge is for this program: coaching, budget, recruiting, attendance, wins, etc. etc. I think the biggest challenge this program has is perception. And even though the end result in Athens, GA yesterday wasn't what we began to hope for....the program took a big step in helping with our biggest challenge. UNT already has the cards stacked against it given this location. What helps us (being in Texas, DFW, hot bed for recruiting) also hurts us (now 12 FBS programs in TX, 3 within 30 miles, old SWC focus, big 12 bias). Oh yeah and a loooong history of irrelevance in football. (apologies to the Hayden Fry fan club) We've heard the term "sleeping giant" thrown out. Some roll their eyes at it, others hold out hope that it will rise. What I noticed yesterday as we were tied 21-21 halfway through the 3rd quarter with the SEC East preseason favorite, is what I believe is a pent up ground swell of potential buzz around this program. I started looking around twitter at this time to see what was out there. Now I'm not a big twitter guy...I follow mostly sports media and probably check it once a week or so. But I saw mean green buzz like I've never seen. Corby Davidson tweeted about The Mean Green. Bill Jones. Sean Bass. Tim MacMahon. Chris Fowler. (yes ESPN Gameday Chris Fowler....and his tweet was an apology for the NTSU mess up. someone called him out) Greg Williams. Keith Whitmire. Brett McMurphy. Etc. Etc. Local media as well as national media. Harry posted several twitter snap shots as well. The Mean Green all the sudden became......"cool" with 7 minutes left in the 3rd quarter of a "body bag" game. They started trending. This morning, I searched the headlines: "Georgia pulls away to avoid upset vs. North Texas" "N. Texas hangs tough, but falls to No. 9 Georgia" "Georgia defeats North Texas in a tough one" "Georgia rallies against gritty North Texas" "Georgia forced to pull away later than hoped" Now they weren't all in that vain but what headlines like that do for our program is add some relevance. Regardless of the final score, those headlines shine a positive light on the program. WE NEED A LIGHT SHINED. What this program needs is some "cool." And you become cool in college football by getting your name mentioned on twitter and on ESPN. Why is that important? That depends on your definition of "sleeping giant." Our sleeping giant is the 100K+ alumni and 36K+ students in this area. SMU doesn't have that. TCU doesn't have that. They can't. We already have that. All we need now is to improve our perception. And the sleeping giant that stirred oh so gently yesterday may just open its eyes. All around the metroplex yesterday as twitter blew up, this sleeping giant said, "man...UNT is hanging tough with GA." "Hey, what's going on with UNT?" "Hey...I went to UNT!" At 2-2 with every game left on the schedule winnable, what a tied score in the second half at #9 GA does is puts an eye slightly up I35. If we beat Tulane, it won't be, "Tulane sucks." It will be "hey, UNT's pretty good.....they went toe to toe with GA." If we take care of business in NO and come back to what will be the largest crowd of the season and beat a good MTSU team.....it will be "UNT is 4-2....headed toward a bowl." It won't be "they don't play anyone." Every win will be followed by "They went toe to toe with Georgia." That combined with the increased ease of getting the message out is the difference between our previous bowl run and this one. And make no mistake....we are in a bowl run. Get on board. I fully expect this team to beat Tulane. With these players and this staff.....we should. Monday at work....you will hear non-UNT grads congratulate you. You will hear "man ya'll looked good on Saturday, Ya'll gave them a game." And the grads you do work with, that have been cowering in the corner for years will start to pick their head up a little bit...might even read an article on their alma mater....the crazy ones might dust off that green pennant that's been in their closet. What happened halfway through the 3rd quarter is our perception improved. And the message got out quickly. We have a real D1 coaching staff. A team that believes in one another and a preemptive light shined on UNT. Now if we do what this team is capable of doing, we will continue to improve our media position (social and otherwise) People that are associated with UNT in some form or fashion heard about UNT yesterday. And they were able to be proud. What may seem like a small step was actually a big one.

we need to run more end arounds with him....fake it to him several times, occassionally hand it off to him, sometime fake it and throw a little wheel route to him, etc.

For you young'uns on here, there is nobody around that knows DFW sports and hoops particularly like Cooley. I have been waiting for his endorsement. November can't get here soon enough.

Friday night 6pm-8pm official get together, I believe.

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/092313aad.html Brelan Chancellor was named the C-USA Special Teams Player of the Week, completing a Mean Green Sweep of each POW award. Week 1- Zach Orr, Defensive Player of the Week Week 3- Derek Thompson, Offensive Player of the Week Week 4- Brelan Chancellor, Special Teams Player of the Week Pretty impressive for a team that was picked to finish 5th in the West Division in the Preseason Poll.

I finally created an account to say that my girlfriend and I will be making the trip to NO. Looking forward to our first away game experience.

The mother broke a nail dialing 911.

Bark...bark...tree...tree.....

For sure. But TJ is a 6'4" guard. He's a sharpshooter too. He's a different player from the other 3. I'd like to hear what differences each 6'7" SF brings to the table. (I.e.: different strengths/weaknesses). EDIT: Cooley chimed in above as I was writing this... any other thoughts Cooley?

OK students who read the board... time to find out what this is about and let us know!

Need to figure out a way to get Chancellor more involved in the off. , he only made one reception in the game.

No offense, KRAM, but this kind of excuse making drives me freaking NUTS. The whole "well, we tried, but it's someone else's fault at UNT that we just can't get it done" is old, tired, and really just dumb. If we don't have an AD that can solve these type of problems, you know, problems that magically don't exist elsewhere, perhaps we just need to find ourselves a new AD. Don't give me excuses, find a freaking solution, RV. IT'S YOUR JOB!

This is why my favorite part of "Beyond the Green" is hearing Mac end each post-game speech with a reminder to the men of his expectation that they represent themselves, their families, and the program well off the field.

Good pickup, kudos to Benford and staff. Gives me a little hope Benford may turn it around.

Ahhh, the Pee Wee Herman defense. Are you by chance missing a bicycle?

Not the towel incident! That was the worst. When it first happened on the busses it was funny watching the guys who took towels return them. However, when the other busses were doing the same thing and we could see how many players were involved it started looking really bad. Plus, the police were overseeing the return. Totally shameful. I walked into the Tavern that night when we got home and everyone already knew about it. Including the news. Awful.

Mine's not as fancy of a job as FFR's... but it gets the job done on the worksite. You can guess what it says on the other side.

So, got a little Mean Green respect at DFW on the way out last Friday, and it happened again on the return trip. As my wife and I boarded the bus to our car location, a guy says...so who was it that you guts played last Saturday? Georgia right? You guys gave them all they wanted and then some! Then the couple beside him starting talking about the game and all the good things they are hearing about UNT these days. Turns out they were all A&M grads...al about 55-60 years old. Really great to hear all this and the recognition and respect UNT is gaining around the area these days. Of course I was wearing UNT gear both going and coming. Of course... Good things are happening folks...if you don't see it you are not looking and not paying attention. Good stuff...great stuff!

Harry, I agree with most of what you are saying... but would you really sacrifice your left testicle just to see a RB hit the hole? I mean, I consider myself a pretty big Mean Green fan, but if it meant losing a nut, I'd probably instead try to see if we could improve the passing game

That is a very sweet collection right there.

Amen bro Jesse, it was the ex's due to the exposure on TV & the ex's wanting to get together that did most (ie. if not all of these get togethers) of these watching parties. To the alumni assn. What are you doing to expidite this movement for the last 30 years or even this last weekend? SO KRAM what did the assn. do to foster the ex's getting together this last weekend- since you seem to want to have a say in everything. By the way Kram you left off the one with ex's in Wash st. Your loosing your grip dude just like the functioning of the alumni assn. Rob is trying to compile a compter listing for email's for the next event (ie. no listing did exist as of last week). To Rob, thanks for coming to our aid. By the way, several advancement personel called me about the school taking over the ex's at the function prior to the last game. I feel working with them all of us will see POA's and more direction for our ex's in Texas and other areas' with that happening. Now, answering this (ie.as you will) for us that would like to have functions with other ex's put you assn's POA ( plan of action- I figured you wouldn't know what this was) in the thread for the this year through 5 years. Along with, how are you going to do this! But, with you talk is cheap action is...