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I've been the one who has been pointing this out....so let me make a few minor clairifications; He hasn't arrived late.....but he gets there right as the show starts. May shake a few hands of fans....that's it. The first week....he wasn't there....and we were told he took the team to support the women's soccer team. Their game started at 7....his show runs from 6-7....so not sure why he had to miss the whole thing. On weeks 2-4.....he left each show after 30 minutes. Dave made the excuse that he had to go look at film. But he didn't leave Rudy's. He would go to the other room, and eat and chat with AD staffers. Then...15 minutes after we were told he "had to leave".....he walks back into the show room....to go the rest room. But he made sure he was out of there....before the end of the show....so there was no chance for any fan interaction. I went to the McCarney shows...and some Littrell shows. They both stayed the entire hours.....and even 5-10 minutes afterwards. I realize that radio shows aren't that big of a deal in this day and age....so maybe they should be done away with. But in his contract (look it up).....Eric makes a $300,000 stipend for radio/TV. So it's fine by me.....do away with the radio show...that very few (including the coach) care about. And save some money. One more note: I stopped going to the show after these first four weeks....so if things have changed...someone can correct me.

Not sure if you're just disconnected or just have no clue but this is not the case. Morris has been incredibly accessible and transparent. Seth was the exact opposite, always gave non-direct coach speak answers and did all he could to avoid fan interaction. Morris is a complete 180, and it's a shame that he hasn't gained more fan support. If it were solely up to his actions, we'd have great attendance.

As someone who makes commercials for a living and has worked with ad agencies and media buyers, what you're proposing will cost BIG money, not just "some money." Especially during a Presidential election year where TV airtime comes at a premium. For a marketing campaign to work you need both reach and frequency. The DFW metro is the #5 DMA in the country so you're going to spend boat-loads of cash to reach the DFW metroplex. Next is frequency. In order to make an impact in the minds of viewers, this ad would need to run multiple times, not just once. So now take the reach costs and multiply it by the frequency costs and you're looking at one helluva investment (mid six-figures) for a single FAU game. Unfortunately the math doesn't make sense because the ROI isn't there.

This team is 4-1 this offense is one of the top offenses in the country this defense is one of the most improved in the country this staff continues to prove they can scout, recruit and develop. this athletic department is all completely remade since Seth was hired, quit holding past failures against current accomplishments. It takes all hands on deck to move this program forward. Go Mean Green

Long days and pleasant nights, 2023-24 Mean Green. It’s time for a very new group to contend in Denton, TX. Even relative to the current realities of college athletics, it’s been an eventful couple of years for North Texas. Just two winters ago, Grant McCasland was leading UNT on their second straight postseason run on the heels of a big, loud, successful campaign. Then, McCasland departed for the Big 12, as did superstar guard Tylor Perry. No matter; the Mean Green tabbed Ross Hodge, a promising young assistant to McCasland, to lead the returning core. In his first rodeo, Hodge lured some quality players from the transfer portal and kept North Texas right in the mix. Despite a fistful of injuries and six losses by five points or fewer in American Athletic Conference play, Hodge debuted with 19 wins and an NIT win at LSU before being knocked out of the tournament by its eventual champion, red-hot Seton Hall. Last Year: 19-15; 10-8, Seventh in the American Athletic Conference, lost in the second round of the NIT Head Coach: Ross Hodge (Second Year) Projected Starting Lineup PG Jasper Floyd – 6’3″, 190 Senior G Atin Wright – 6’1″, 190 5th-year Senior G Rondel Walker – 6’5″, 180 5th-year Senior F Grant Newell – 6’9″, 225 Junior C Moulaye Sissoko – 6’9″, 250 5th-year Senior Experienced Reserves G Latrell Jossell – 6’1″, 185 Senior G Matthew Stone – 6’4″, 200 Senior W Johnathan Massie – 6’6″, 205 Senior F Brenen Lorient – 6’9″, 210 Junior Freshmen G Tyran Mason – 6’6″, 195 F/C Baron Smith, Jr – 6’9″, 220 F/C Brock Vice – 6’10”, 230 (Redshirt) read more: https://collegehoopstop50.com/2024/10/03/69-north-texas-mean-green/

Why would the Mean Green have fans? Because people who graduated from UNT have a stronger lifelong tie to UNT than any other school that plays football. Because even in down years it's still a good time to be at a college football game drinking beer, eating nachos and yelling obscenities when they run a draw play on third and long. Because the Green Brigade is great. Because we have a Victory Cannon. Because supporting a school you didn't attend more than you support your own school causes genital shrinkage. Everybody knows this. Ask Craig Miller. He knows it better than anybody.

We are not Rice. We have a huge alumni base that has forgotten about their alma mater. Our issue with attendance and TV viewership should be a quick fix if we are smart. Why do I say this? Because at this moment, UNT football actually has a product to sell that the DFW community and our disenfranchised alumni base will get behind. So here is the plan... Get our athletic department media team to create a commercial promoting the game at FAU and have it run on the local stations all next week. Our game got picked up for ESPN2 in primetime on Saturday. The commercial needs to include imagery of some of the local communities... Signs and water towers type stuff (Denton, Dallas, Fort Worth, and some of the smaller towns too). Highlight our offense stats, and include our most explosive plays this season. Make sure everyone in DFW knows we have the most explosive offense in all of college football. We also need to get the commercial out on X, and have our celebrity alumni retweet it to their fans. It will cost some money, but it can only increase our viewership, which would make it worth the expense. If it works, do the same thing for our Memphis game, should it also get picked up for broadcast Or we can just sit around and keep doing what has yet to work.

John Hedlund given two also simultaneous yellow cards. NT trails 0-1 at half despite their usual massive advantage in shots

My friend, winning consistently is the answer. Winning cures all. The math doesn't make sense if you spend $500K+ to spread the word for one football game. That's madness. Single game promotions (what you're describing) are done by the TV networks to generate buzz and increase viewership so they can in-turn generate more ad sales revenue during the game. Universities don't promote single-games for a reason and it boils down to money and ROI. When universities do advertise on TV it's always to promote the entire university because new 4-year student tuitions do generate a positive ROI. Single game advertising does not.

Marketing has been good...a lot better than the past. The Answer is Winning....constantly

“If it’s a priority, you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.” This is posted in my office and kicks off a lot of conversations with my officers about what being truly committed to the mission means. Seems we could use the same reminder around here.

Where are the fans? Where is the administration that does not give fans a reason to attend athletics. We have the highest paid AD staff and Executive Admin but seeing less about the teams. I know from having a kid in her 2nd year that the students are getting better but until there is a major culture shift from the top, fans will not attend in the amounts us die hards would like to see. A huge issue also is the need for a FB Coach who wants to interact with fans and does not hide from pressers or cut them short or no show.

No one is more disgusted by the portal/NIL than me, but North Texas didn’t invent those things. Our program is just playing under the rules we are given. Based on the early results, the portal was a net positive for this team. Don’t know if we can do that every year, but 4-1 is pretty damn fun. Come on back.

UNT's record over the last 20 years is 89-149. We are 1-6 in Bowl Games. We have had 4 winning seasons (that's being generous about a 7-7 finish). Our best players are poached every year. Why would that program have fans outside of the handful of diehards on this board, especially in this state and this area where people have options?

I still feel it was a mistake for Sam to leave FCS, but I've always felt K.C. Keeler was a special coach regardless of his age and would thrive. Check out how he's handled the jump to FBS and the NIL mess. Hat tip to @SUMG for the article. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/moneyball-at-sam-houston-how-the-bearkats-are-thriving-despite-the-least-amount-of-nil-in-the-fbs/ Rick

The point of this article is that they are doing this with hardly any NIL money at all.

No one wants to talk about the double edged sword.....which is TV. All the games being televised is great. So we can see every game now. But because of that.....and the frequent TV stoppages.....your average game at DATCU....seems to be a 3 hours, 45 minute affair. And because of that.......some fans.....will just stay at home and watch on TV.

Yes, easier until Liberty with teams like UTEP and Kennesaw State. They ain't played nobody, Pawwwwwwlllll.

Vito said Tulsa is a "regional rival" for us. I disagree. Tulsa doesn't move the needle with most NT fans. True, they are a similar distance as Houston or San Antonio. But when was the last time a game with them was important? I felt La Tech was much more of a rival with great games in football and basketball.

They play in the worst FBS conference so it's easier to win?

I appreciate your attempts to think outside the box and propose something that will work to get more interest in our games. A lot of what you suggested is great and will eventually help if we start winning, especially given EM's offense which is much more exciting to fans. However, marketing has little effect on people that simply aren't interested in your product. Of the nearly half a million alumni (300k+ in DFW area) probably 80-90% just don't care. They didn't care when they were in school and they don't care now. The ONLY thing that will get people interested in UNT football is WINNING and doing it CONSISTENTLY and I suspect the majority of people that eventually start coming to our games if we start winning aren't even alumni. They'll be our own version of T-shirt fans, but that's okay. But we have to start WINNING and not $%&* the bed every time we get close to breaking through. In our 42 seasons of FBS from 1970 to now, we've only had 12 winning seasons, with 6 of those coming in the 12 seasons before the 1983 drop to I-AA and 6 in the nearly 30 seasons since the return to FBS in 1995. Our 12 seasons of I-AA had some of our best success, with winning seasons in 6 of the 12: 1983, 1986-1990, which included two teams going to the I-AA playoffs. Those 6 winning seasons of I-AA encompassed the entirety of my attendance at UNT, so I'm pretty familiar with the FB atmosphere at the time, and despite it being enjoyable, attendance was still a problem. There were attempts to get the frats involved, but they mostly attended for a half while spending most of the time not even watching the game. Then there were the T-shirt fans for other schools. You couldn't swing a dead cat w/o hitting a AtM, UT, or OU, etc. shirt when you walked around campus. You know they weren't interested in UNT FB. We've seen a couple of times how we can actually get a great crowd to show up, e.g. bowl games, but the bottom line is to get that enthusiasm, you have got to put a WINNING team on the field and it can't be once every 8 years.

Sad to see UTSA get so competitive with us in such a short time. Theybshould be nowhere near usz

Entertaining game. Curious to know the details of the Hedlund ejection. Pretty physical game. Sorry to hear the team didn't come over and acknowledge the crowd. The King goal to tie it up was a thing of beauty.

Ho hum third tier opponents don’t attract fans to Denton. Been that way for years. People in the Metroplex will come to see name brand opponents, it’s been proven. We don’t get them and when we get them we usually blow it.

The game ended tied at 2, not a high point for North Texas Soccer, especially before a large crowd. More embarrassing for the team was that they did not cross the field to sing our alma mater or salute and thank all the fans that came out to support them. That unappreciative display was total bush league and the team captains are to blame. The fans have entertainment options and there's never too big of a rush for the teams to not be able to say "Thank you for your support".

"North Texas: where people end up." That's a phrase I heard long ago when I ended up at North Texas State, and I suspect it really still rings true. People go to Texas, or Bama, or A&M, or Georgia, or Michigan, in part for the sporting scene and history. Not all their students, to be sure, but enough that there's a likelihood that the venues will be filled. Most students at UNT are probably not at their first choice school, and definitely aren't at their first choice school if the athletic social scene is a big driver for them. North Texas isn't quite the commuter school it used to be, but the attractions of almost anything else on a Saturday night can't be easily dismissed. Pick up UNT and stick it in East or West Texas, and you'd have more people at the game -- if only because there's nothing else to do.

I'm almost convinced Eric Morris is going to break the streak. Wouldn't be surprised if he's hired away after the 2025 season.

I’ve been beating this drum in other posts, but the bottom line is that the culture and identity of this university does not attract sports fans. Those students turn into alumni that still don’t like sports, no matter how much winning is going on. You would think that the administration would be interested in why our alumni are less engaged and less likely to donate compared to other schools of our size, but the answers likely won’t be pretty and go far beyond just wins and losses.

UNT challenges start with a mostly uninterested student and alumni base. In addition to what you said and the Nil, which depressed many, it was also the starting weekend for the State Fair. I do think you are correct. Our general fanbase, not those on this board, for the most part, is not committed to being here for games. Whether watching it on TV is more convenient, 3 out of 4 consecutive Saturdays in Denton, or just having other things to do. But - Man oh man, that offense is getting fun to watch. Things may change.

One whiff of adversity and our casual fans disappear. It's really annoying that we cant get people to care unless things are going perfect. Which is funny because those same people have no problem tuning in week after week to watch the Cowboys not win anything for 25+ years. Keep that same mindset for your alma mater.

There's been a post or two pointing out how Coach Morris has blown off the radio show and its guests. His contract requires him to be at his radio show each week, but he's had one no-show and the other times he's shown up late and left as soon as his portion of the program was done. Previous coaches have been there the entire portion of the show, even arriving early and leaving a little late to take the opportunity to mingle with fans. I am not speaking from firsthand experience. Someone previously posted about this; and with the new not-nearly-as-good search functions, I couldn't find the post. Coach Morris may be doing well at other occasions, but he seems to be missing weekly opportunities at the radio show.

Production costs will be minimal because we can create the commercial in house. Air time is expensive, but we can target certain times (5 & 10 o'clock news), instead of all day long. That should reduced the cost some. The cost may still be high, but the cost of continuing our current plan will be falling further behind. UTSA, Texas State, and now SHSU are all gaining more relevancy as we make excuses for not marketing our athletics.

Sadly, we crap the bed when we play teams that our students and alumni care about almost every year. When we played SMU, they almost always annihilated us. We play UH or Tech, get absolutely crushed. It gets old. But I quit going to games because of the portal. It has ruined college sports for our level of play. Add in the NIL and it’s just not a game I’m meant to be a part of anymore, especially with kids at home.

Actually, yes. ACC has been wonderful so far. I love the coverage on the ACC network. Enjoy your ESPN+ games.

No matter if it was Seth or if it's Eric or if it's whomever is next, it's going to take more than a heater for a few games to get people outside of die hard supporters fired up enough to start showing up to games. Ideally, we'd see three consecutive seasons where we win more than we lose and we look competitive in our losses. The last time we had three consecutive seasons with a winning record was 20 years ago, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

There was a time I would've said that about UCF here in Florida. Now they make games at the Bounce House look like a party and their fired-up crowds of 43,000+ skew younger than any other football school in the state. Fox brought their Big Noon Kickoff pregame to UCF this season and said it was their largest crowd ever. Just because Mean Green Nation has plenty of reasons for pessimism doesn't mean this can't happen to us. Students want to be a part of something special in their college years.

Morris has been outstanding in this regard!

🎯 In addition to our aggressively underwhelming overall record in both the regular season and in the postseason in the last couple of decades, the last time we had a head coach who left of his own accord and not because he was fired, his contract expired, he disagreed with the administration, or he was serving as an interim, was 1980. That coach was Jerry Moore. A head coach hasn't succeeded here and moved on to lead a bigger program thanks to that success in 44 years.

I'm a fan. I go to games. Every home game, and a couple on the road, ever year. Since 1980. That won't change. I hope enough of us show up so that I can keep being a fan. I'm selfish that way. (In my opinion, marketing has had its best year. Amongst the regular excuses we offer on this board as to why no one attends our games, we have won 4 games out of 5. That should negate anything else for enough people to show up so that we don't have to ask the question: "where are the fans?" May be the best answer is: "there aren't enough." And that sucks.) GMG

What would our attendance be if we didn't have the Green Brigade? Seems like most in my section are band parents & there's a mass exodus after halftime.

This is very fixable with games that matter. SMU has had over 2/3 of their entire student body at the last two games. If UNT did that you'd sell out the stadium. Do you think SMU just has sports crazy students? Generating that excitement will be harder without marquee opponents but with winning and the right promotion you can get much, much farther down the line and mostly fill the TCU stadium

All of these things. I've been following NT sports for over 40 years and we've never had a lot of people consistently show up for games -- football or basketball. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, North Texas has never had a tradition of "school spirit." So, it's not surprising that alumni, let alone the general public in the DFW area don't bother to make it to the games. Maybe that will change at some point if we are consistently winning championships/bowls and beating ranked teams. But, realistically, I don't know how it does. They've been fun to watch the last couple of games. Even the defense.

thanks, great discussion

I went to the watch party in Houston for Tech. Great people, bad game, and very empty. I get it- midday game. We have a reservation every game, but there were more Tech fans in the bar by chance. Their official watch party was 20 minutes away. If the university wants to actively promote the school, this is an easy win. I attended an VMI watch party. They work with alumni in the area to promote events across the country. They have travel engagement personnel that make away games fun. We need a SE chapter based out of Atlanta.

This is a lame excuse but I really think Tulsa being our 3rd home game in 4 weeks was a factor. Especially for fans who live an hour or more from Denton.

Unless we somehow get ranked, and going to the games become "the thing to do", our attendance will remain the same. Good years maybe a couple of thousand more but people have to many other entertainment options and our students generally don't care. It's been this way for a long time.

I gave up my season tickets this year because I just couldn't make it to town for many of the games this year, but I plan on renewing next year. I feel the same about the portal/NIL, but I really enjoy the games and am hopeful some guidelines get established soon to control the constant moving, etc...

It's pretty obvious....a lot of our fans are in the Portal. I know so many hard cores who no longer come to games. The portal/NIL was the final straw for many. And this is my 50th year as a fan....I plan on making it my last......as an "in person" fan.

The PAC already had to take USU, and can't touch UNLV who signed the MW's agreement to stay until 2032. Gonzaga will also get a full share with no football which is 70% of a media deal's value. Outside of San Diego what other large metros can they pitch to networks? This seems like a mess already.

I’m sorry, but what is Memphis bringing to the table other than reputation, that they haven’t lived up to, and fans that think they should be listed with the KU’s and Dukes of the world?