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I know Scrappy has been our mascot for many years. But to me, it seems that their (playing into modern gender roles here) disinterest and general apathy when it comes to firing up the crowd really make a difference on how students and five year olds going to their first games feel about UNT The players treat them as a barrier to get around during warmups...and the dancing often portrays someone that has a less than healthy relationship with the product on the field. The coaches caravans (when they feel like coming) and other community events have a different feel, but they just seem off when it comes to their full support of UNT. Is it time for a new mascot for UNT? I'm sure that Scrappy is a nice eagle and I wish them no harm, especially since Eagles are considered endangered species (both the animal and the fickle UNT football fan). But it seems to me that some positive energy and more hip thrusting during games couldn't hurt!

Five-For-Five: Flying Worm Days It was a quintessential piece of 70s design, a child of 1960s psychedelic design with thick, curvilinear shapes; a long, thick body with equally thick wings coming off its back. It was a stylized rendition of an eagle. However, to North Texas students of the era, it looked like a flying worm. And the name stuck. But the 1970s uniforms were much more than the Flying Worm. North Texas has long changed the shade of green worn by its student-athletes, but this was easily the most bold: a bright, eye-catching, practially neon lime green. Introduced in 1973, the Flying Worm and lime-green uniforms were retired in 1982-83. But more than any uniform or logo before or since, the Flying Worm continues to enjoy popularity. Read more: https://meangreensports.com/news/2020/9/17/general-visual-history-of-the-flying-worm

Too many people on this board take too many things way too seriously

The flying worm is back! Thoughts? Go Mean Green

PETA ? Is that People Eating Tasty Animals ?

Overall, I love the look. It just doesn't get more unique or dynamic than the old school two-tone green with white on white. The grey facemask is the perfect touch. I'm old and miss the days when grey was the only color on a facemask. I wish they'd make this our regular away game uniforms.

I agree totally with you here. Also, this ran through my mind from the beginning of your statement

The Flying Worm—-In memory of our friend Richard “Rick” Scarborough Spears—the “flying worm” creator. He first created it on a cocktail napkin then showed it to Hayden Fry who liked it back in 1973. Rick told his “worm” story to many of us & the official color number of the apple green that he chose (which Fry also approved). That color number escapes me now. ••• By the way, ol’ Rick never liked the name flying worm. RIP, Rick Spears.

I’m starting to wonder what @Victorygreen04’s influence on the program might be. I know he’s been a poster here for a few years, but to me, it seems like his second-guessing of our posts around here really makes a difference in how posters feel about UNT.

Y’all want to get rid of everybody today. Seth..Brett Vito… now scrappy. What’s wrong with you people lol

I think a package deal, getting rid of Scrappy and Albino Squirrel together would do wonders for UNT Athletics! Seriously, it's time for some freshness in both areas.

Once a year, only at a home game as a sentimental tribute, and NEVER at a bowl game. They do look beautiful but we do need to keep working vigilantly to establish our university's branding.

So the mayor of Dallas is promoting this: And the Mayor of Denton was promoting this:

If any of you don’t listen to the coach’s radio show I really think you should download the varsity app and give one a listen. You get good fan-centric information in a relaxed manner. They really are a good listen and you get information from both SL and the players that you don’t see on the board or in the “on the record” press conferences.

My guess would be more Wildcat with Stone Earle. Preston Landis looked really good when given a few carries late in the game against TSU,

I'm all for the parade and any and all Hoco activities and fun. But have we seen what the typical UNT student is today? Not the athletics/activity or event attending/ school spirt type. And I don't intellectually know our students. But if our university wants us to get serious about athletics, monetary support, etc. then the student(s) our admissions team allows in matters. Being a well-rounded HS student matters. Being active in HS matters. The university says they want those things, but if you make a ____ on the SAT you're automatically admittted regardless of anything else. If you have a ____ high school GPA you're automatically admitted. That's not admitting well rounded students. That's admitting future students that have no verifiable work ethic, extracurriculars, school spirit, pride, etc. If the university did their part in admissions, the STUDENTS wouldn't have allowed the parade to be canceled. But, here we are.

If for no other reason than "the kids," North Texas should hold the parade. Denton and area children love a parade, and many love sports. I would get the local Pop Warner teams to participate (as in floats), and the middle school teams and I would even offer the high school teams a spot in the parade, and provide each kid a ticket to the game. Love the Greek competitions. Nothing bonds an organization like late night, last minute float preparation. And market the hell out of North Texas sports. Every team not competing that weekend should have its own recognition. Connect this school to the community! I would support a GMG effort to bring back the parade. GMG

"Wanting more from the team" is not in his job description though. What he wants from the team are stories. Now, you might think that after, what? 20 years? ...of covering the team, he might just be a die-hard fan like us. But that doesn't appear to be the case. And it doesn't have to be. It's not the newspaper beat writer's job to stir up ticket sales, clicks, recruiting, etc... That's the Athletic Department's and football team/staff's jobs. I think you're mistaking Vito's interest for Brune's.

Gagree. I don’t think this is about waste/emissions, and even if it is, let’s talk about compromises to make it greener. That’s cool with me. Buncha people riding on trailers or walking isn’t that bad anyway. It’s not a monster truck rally. Have recycling bins and mandatory material disposal at the end of the parade. Not that hard to come up with solutions.

Yep, sad truth with todays college kid is that they’re too lazy to contribute or walk to apogee. The weird thing is that other universities don’t seem to have this problem @tmjermi agree, there’s enough local alumni and “local support” that we could easily put it together. if they are are against waste then don’t do the floats, just drive trucks around or walk. Shitty excuses if you ask me

I know I’m in the minority here, but I don’t think SMU beat us as bad as most do. We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times when it was still a game and the snowball started rolling downhill. Sometimes when the snowball starts rolling, it’s hard to stop. Admittedly, we were having trouble stopping their offense, but I still think it’s a different game had we not imploded. I don’t know what happened at UNLV. As I was watching that game I didn’t think they were very good, but they were just embarrassing us. This game was the peak of disappointment for me. Memphis, I mean, we can play with those guys.😁😁. There was a lot of anguish over that statement, and the head coach shouldn’t have said it, but I took it to mean that the teams were evenly matched…which is true.

I really do think most engaged alumni would agree, along with most businesses on the parade route. I’m 2.5 hours away but if anyone wants to actually get organized about pushing back against this ignoring of tradition, I’m all for organizing a group. I wouldn’t be surprised at all about an organized effort being successful about bringing it back.

Best logo ever!!, and really sharp uniforms with the green pants. However, I do not think this retro helmet green is the exact green used in the Coach Fry era. This one is a little too lime green. Coach Fry's helmet was a little shade darker, more apple green. How do I know? I have two Fry helmets, one I had signed by Coach Fry in person. One is on loan to UNT Athletics....you may have seen it in some of their ads. It's normally kept in a display case I think up in the stadium suite level hallway (photo below). And if any of you have any old Flying Worm memoribilia, helmets, etc that your wife wants you to get rid of...send me a Personal Message!! Maybe we can do a trade or $wap some stuff or $omething.

Thank God he's out of SF.

For some reason I feel it incumbent upon myself to explain the white. Nike currently does not offer that shade of green in the fabrics for pants and jerseys, so they had to roll with white for these throwbacks. I'm not sure if we carried more weight with them if that would inspire them to offer it. I'm sure if it was Texas they would, but most teams are probably in our situation with them on these types of issues.

A 5 year extension? Please tell me this was a mistype.

Their algorithm is not looking at something in the equation based on some we passed up ? Funny we all want to be a respected program and rank higher than we have - we get the new number and shot holes in it - but the ranking # ain’t right. I guess we’ll have to take it. For Seth firing friends, this isn’t going the right direction.

"All told, the first release features five teams each from the SEC, ACC and Pac-12, four each from the Big Ten and Big 12 and two from the American." https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/34926878/tennessee-ohio-state-georgia-clemson-top-first-cfp-rankings https://collegefootballplayoff.com/rankings.aspx 1Tennessee8-0 2Ohio State8-0 3Georgia8-0 4Clemson8-0 5Michigan8-0 6Alabama7-1 7TCU8-0 8Oregon7-1 9Southern California7-1 10LSU6-2 11Mississippi8-1 12UCLA7-1 13Kansas State6-2 14Utah6-2 15Penn State6-2 16Illinois7-1 17North Carolina7-1 18Oklahoma State6-2 19Tulane7-1 20Syracuse6-2 21Wake Forest6-2 22NC State6-2 23Oregon State6-2 24Texas5-3 25UCF6-2

The Flying Worm is what we rocked when I was there - Love It !

Love his energy and love for UNT. Hope his predictions come through. He’s got me fired up for the rest of the season! I might just run through a brick wall! GMG!

•••UNT Homecoming Saturday ••• Weather: Sounds like a perfect Fall Saturday. https://meangreensports.com/news/2022/10/27/football-unt-athletics-to-dedicate-new-unity-plaza-on-nov-5 _________________ Homecoming, Fouts Field, 1985 (a very nice crowd that day) Photo is Mean Green broadcast team of Bill Mercer (Rt) & UNT alum Craig Way (who is now the Radio Voice of the Texas Longhorn Network).

https://untalumni.com/events/homecoming-bonfire-2022/ With Brave Combo!

I'm a fairly recent graduate but "back in my day" (ha!) It was about bragging rights and a trophy. That's it. That was enough to get the Greek organizations involved. Sad it's not the same. Regarding the parade, I was planning to drive up across the few counties that separate my family from Denton for the parade. I was disappointed to find that it hasn't happened for a few years. Hopefully they bring it back next year. My kids are clamoring to go back to a UNT basketball game, though. Luckily that's right around the corner!

Yeah, it was horrible at the time, thank goodness for those sororities really doing most of the work. Still, while it was not fun at the time, I have a lot of great memories like protecting the float the night before from being messed up by another organization.

WKU had one, they showed the floats during our game.

This place keeps getting rid of traditions. There is no sustainable culture to pass down to new students. If this is the intent, then it is working.

It's hard to say where we are. This CBS poll has Western Ky ahead of us at 71, but we just beat the brakes off of them in their house on their homecoming. My guess is we fall somewhere in between. The only thing I can think of is that the USA Today poll is relying on the Aune that showed up against WKU. With that Aune, we would have beaten Memphis and UTSA. Also maybe they are relying on the Mazin Richards we see now. After the UNLV game he commented on how moving to FBS shocked him and he didn't know how big of a transition it was and he vowed to not underestimate it again and he seems to be night and day better. The Mazin Richards improvement and the Aune of Saturday we could have possibly beaten UNLV.

The Worm has turned!! GMG

Excellent, Sir. Your nail-on-the-head satire is not wasted at my house as I'm sure it's equally appreciated round about... including Vito's place.

With all due respect to Ms Jackson, I call bs on this. It’s been a minute for me but Greek life used to have homecoming competitions that included float building. In fact, many student orgs built floats. Seems pretty student engaging to me.

Confirmation Bias. People have bought into the MAGA-Trump BS, and have implemented it not only in their political beliefs, but everything that relates to their lives.

I'm frustrated about the losses but I'm more frustrated is that in many of them, especially in recent years, we haven't been competitive.

It's just not his job to be a cheerleader for the school. Despite what many national media news outlets have turned to in the form of "journalism," (i.e. biased reporting with targeted omissions or flat out falsehoods), BV's job is to report the goings-on around the school athletics, their performances, and the impact of it all on the rest of the school and conference. It's why he's won several awards for his work in the last few years for writing the articles and blogs that he does. What you want is a more fan-driven site like underdogdynasty or, really, a dedicated SB Nation site like Syracuse has in www.nunesmagician.com. I get that you don't mean any disrespect, but you have to at least respect the job he's doing and what his mission is at the Denton RC. I'm all for having both!

I honestly think Brett stresses to be the "objective" voice in the media. Trouble is, his is the ONLY voice talking about UNT on a regular basis. I do like his player profiles that bring home the personal side of our warriors. However, Brett tries too hard to be objectives and it comes across as apathetic. IMO, a little cheerleading wouldn't hurt given the limited reading audience. I think it would actually improve things from a perception standpoint. GO MEAN GREEN!

Using a single example out of a much larger body of work is not a logical way to rationalize something. Here's Seth's non-conference history at UNT excluding FCS teams: Year Date Opponent Result 2016 September 3 SMU* L 21–34 2016 September 17 at No. 23 Florida* L 0–32 2016 October 22 at Army* W 35–18 2016 December 27 vs. Army* L 31–38 OT 2017 September 9 at SMU* L 32–54 2017 September 16 at Iowa* L 14–31 2017 November 18 Army* W 52–49 2017 December 16 vs. Troy* L 30–50 2018 September 1 SMU* W 46–23 2018 September 15 at Arkansas* W 44–17 2018 September 22 at Liberty* W 47–7 2018 December 15 vs. Utah State* L 13–52 2019 September 7 at SMU* L 27–49 2019 September 14 at California* L 17–23 2019 September 28 Houston* L 25–46 2020 September 19 SMU* L 35–65 2020 December 21 vs. Appalachian State* L 28–56 2021 September 11 at SMU* L 12–35 2021 October 9 at Missouri* L 35–48 2021 October 23 Liberty* L 26–35 2021 December 23 vs. Miami (OH)* L 14–27 2022 September 3 SMU* L 10–48 2022 September 17 at UNLV* L 27–58 2022 September 24 at Memphis* L 34–44 To save you from counting, that's a 5-18 record—a winning percentage of 21.74%. Not good. And before you say, "Oh, well there are some good teams in there like Florida! We can't reasonably expect to beat Florida!" Okay, I can agree with you on that. But 2016 Florida is really the only team. Everyone else was beatable. And before you say, "Oh, well some of those teams aren't in the AAC so it's not apples to apples." Okay, let's look at just the teams from the AAC during the seven seasons: Year Date Opponent Result 2016 September 3 SMU* L 21–34 2017 September 9 at SMU* L 32–54 2018 September 1 SMU* W 46–23 2019 September 7 at SMU* L 27–49 2019 September 28 Houston* L 25–46 2020 September 19 SMU* L 35–65 2021 September 11 at SMU* L 12–35 2022 September 3 SMU* L 10–48 2022 September 24 at Memphis* L 34–44 That's a 1-8 record against AAC teams during his tenure—a winning percentage of just 11.11%. I appreciate Seth for the positive things he has done at UNT, but he's not the guy who will lead us to AAC championships and playoff bids.

I want to put extra emphasis on this... Assuming the college playoff system goes through as it's currently proposed, we are in a better position to earn a college football championship playoff spot than UCF, Houston, Cincinnati, and many P5 schools. Think about that. If we can get our program to the point where we dominate the AAC and win the championship (which is a reasonable goal with our resources), we have a high likelihood of being one of the highest ranked conference champions and secure a playoff bid. UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati decreased their chances to earn a playoff bid. We just increased ours. IF we can earn playoff bids early in the life of the expanded playoff system, we can use that to significantly increase the level of talent we recruit. "If you come to UNT, we believe there's a good chance you'll compete for a national championship. Do you want to be buried in P5 conference standings, or do you want to compete for a national championship?" Again, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. UNT leadership can't sit on their hands and hope Seth pulls out some new magic trick in year eight that he hasn't pulled out in the first seven years.

"Leaders at these schools are paying attention, and as three major powers, including last year’s playoff entrant Cincinnati, are departing, the new-look AAC will be a land rush to see who will replace the Bearcats, UCF, and Houston as that perennial G5 giant." This is one of the main reasons I think Wren needs to part ways with Seth after the season no matter what. We've been destroyed by AAC level competition throughout Seth's seven years here (that's nearly two full four-year recruiting cycles to address talent and scheme issues!). Based on his body of work at UNT, it's evident he's not the person to take us to the next level. It doesn't mean he's a bad person. It doesn't mean he's an awful coach. It doesn't mean I don't want the best for him. It doesn't mean he can't or won't be more successful elsewhere... But after seven years of evidence, it's clear that Seth isn't able to get UNT to an AAC championship level (he hasn't even gotten us to a CUSA championship level). There are good, experienced head coaching candidates on the market right now who have experience coaching at a higher level, could hit the portal immediately, and build on the momentum of our entry into the AAC to get us to AAC championship quality quickly. Just imagine if the college football playoff expands sooner than 2026 and the new staff has had a couple years to upgrade our roster and implement their system. There's a legitimate possibility for UNT to become the perennial G5 giant and earn early championship playoff bids within the next few years. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which is why I think it's so crucial to go for it. We need to take the shot with the goal to become the G5 giant that earns the first few championship playoff bids. Achieving that is attainable with our resources, and it would change the course of the program forever.

Interesting that it puts us in front of Houston, Memphis, SMU and UNLV.