Harry

Look st his followers on twitter and you will see he has coaches from Baylor TCU many more following him. Impressive size and film.

Take a look at their future schedules. They get Baylor this year and their 2018 schedule is like our trail of tears in 1995: "The seven-game road schedule features a matchup with UVa for the first time on Nov. 10. LU and UVa agreed to a 2-for-1 series with the Flames returning to Charlottesville on Nov. 23, 2019, and the Cavaliers visiting Williams Stadium on Sept. 11, 2027. Wake Forest, which was originally on the future schedule in 2018, restructured the previous contract into a 2-for-1 series. Instead of paying Liberty a guarantee to make one trip to Winston-Salem, the Demon Deacons will host the Flames on Sept. 17, 2022, and either Sept. 3, 4 or 5, 2016, and Liberty will host Wake Forest on Aug. 30, 2025. “We’re trying to have at least one prominent home game each year,” McCaw said. “Being able to attract upcoming opponents from Power 5 conferences is a great accomplishment.” The remainder of the road schedule in 2018 includes a meeting with Army on Sept. 8, back-to-back weeks in the Land of Enchantment to play New Mexico (Sept. 29) and New Mexico State (Oct. 6), and three consecutive weeks away from Lynchburg at UMass, UVa and Auburn from Nov. 3 through Nov. 17." http://www.newsadvance.com/sports/liberty_university/liberty-announces-football-schedule/article_81232054-37ee-11e7-be01-376129245bd0.html Their funding and facilities can't be ignored. It will be an interesting program to watch the next couple of years.

I feel you man. Especially when you think we have recently lost Wilson and Willy Ivery and Tee Goree.. that's a lot of talent that could have really helped us.

I think people need to stand down a bit on the Jordan Murray criticisms. Could he improve in certain aspects? sure. He also has been extremely durable and played in lot of games for us. Still has a lot more to play. Garnering honorable mention all conference accolades as a sophomore is no small feat. Guy didn't redshirt and hplayed in 5 games as a true frosh as we fed him to the wolves. Started 10 and played in 12 last year. He has exceeded my expectations by quite a bit. Still has his best ball ahead of him in the next 2 seasons.

Seeing him pop up a lot on social media lately. Twiiter link here: https://twitter.com/coach_jdbaker He is listed as Quality Control QB Coach - bio listed here: http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/john_david_baker_1021958.html Look like he joined the team last year and was a QB at Abilene Christian prior: http://www.acusports.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=4326 Background story: http://archive.gosanangelo.com/news/passion-passed-on-ep-442677045-358285461.html/ Hails from San Angelo. Seems like a good addition. Anyone know him or of him?

Great article (other than the Mose error) as it looks at Rice, UTEP, UTSA and SMU olines as well. Must read! Ranked #11 in State of Texas 11. North Texas The Mean Green offensive line was a revolving door last season. Both in terms of personnel and results. North Texas allowed 93 tackles for loss and 43 sacks. The Mean Green lose their top two lineman in center Sam Rice and tackle Trey Keenan. This offseason guard Wylie Reinhardt retired due to injury. The three returners will be counted on to hold things down, starting with Jordan Murray the 6-9 man mountain at tackle. Murray isn't exactly mobile, but we harken back to another Air Raid lineman from the Mike Leach era at Tech, Brandon Carter, who must've weighed 340 and couldn't run a 10 yard shuttle without collapsing, but he served a purpose. Murray doesn't so much block as he does shield and create an impediment. Given his lack of mobility, his best position might be inside. Creighton Barr will slide into center. He started the first six games at center and played in nine games total. Senior T.J. Henson started nine games last season and should fill into one of the guard slots. Junior Chris Miles started three games at guard to round out the 2016 season. JC transfer Manase Mose brings a physical edge to the interior. He'll factor at guard or center. The Mean Green staff would like to move Elex Woodworth back inside, but he may be needed at tackle. Much of that will depend on whether Jalen Thomas or Chandler Anthony step up. Anthony sat out last season with a broken leg. Thomas appeared twice in 2016 after transferring from ASA College. Read more: https://swcroundup.com/news/2017/6/26/position-rankings-offensive-line?utm_content=buffer1acf8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I think this is reasonable. Back when we joined the Belt, there was some initial disappointment but the president at that time Pohl felt like it was a conference we could dominate. And we did well in that conference for a good period of time. When we joined C-USA we were all tickled with how well we started things out in the 1st year going 9-4 and winning a bowl game. There is clearly a huge step up in terms of our administration and its support of athletics. The Mac and McCasland buyouts would have been unheard of in years past. We are now paying our head football coach $900K a year and have dramatically increased the assistant pool. For comaprison, in 2005 our entire football staff payroll was $774,000 with Darrell Dickey making $204K which was 4th in the Belt. There was an average of $63,278 paid to each assistant at that time. Now our top assistants are making >$200K. Our social media game under Mac was basically non existent. Now it appears that we are starting to see impressive results in our social media output. It has taken too long, but over time, every aspect of athletics seems to have been addressed whether it is the AD position, facilities, coaching etc. The only item that seems to be lagging is recruiting. And that is why there is concern, we have seen in the past what mediocre recruiting results can bring. I agree that the expectations need to be very high.

A great list compiled by Gil Brandt! http://www.nfl.com/photoessays/0ap3000000816217/gil-brandts-greatest-nfl-linebackers-of-alltime

It's hard to develop rivalries when you are consistently losing. In the first year of CUSA it appeared we were going to have some nice rivalries with C-USA foes like La. Tech, Rice, UTSA and even UTEP. After that we really dropped off the radar. Now I would say we have two big rivalries in SMU and UTSA. Hopefully there will be more down the road. I can see them develop with Rice, UTEP, and possibly others. Just win baby!

That's actually a great idea.

Sorry wasn't meaning to fool you. But he has a lot of UNT coaches following him right now and he's a very good player... so hopefully he will come on board soon.

Not yet but hopefully soon!

No one would argue that we had a lot of assistant turnover this past cycle after the surprising bowl game season. I think in terms of recruiting expectation we focus a lot on Littrell's salary increase and expect immediate results. The truth is assistants do most of the recruiting. So, I needed to remind myself how many recruiting positions we filled after last season: Chuck Langston OLine Jeff Koonz LB's Marc Yellock DLine Marty Biagi Special Teams These four may not seem like a lot but that's 4 out of 9 total assistants... almost half (44%) of your staff that can potentially hit the road. These new guys have to get situated, figure out what they are selling and start building or rebuilding relationships at high schools. That is why keeping your staff intact is so damn important. The spin we hear after mass defections, "Well that means we hired good coaches" is true and it may help you to lure quality replacements, but it doesn't help recruiting one bit. Recruiting has specific timelines and camp dates and time sensitive things that favor staff continuity. And I realize it is a fact of life at a G5 program that you are going to lose assistants every year unless you stink. So having the same staff in place when Mac's tenure was nearing the end was not necessarily a good thing. So, all I am saying is perhaps we should give them some more time before we judge. I have heard and read good things about all 4 especially Koonz and Biagi. We had an East Carolina fan talk highly of Yellock. Langston has been around the block but seems to have some good connections as his territory at Lamar included Golden Triangle, East Texas, Texas JCs, and Oklahoma. These four guys could really start to shine in the future and perhaps even the second half of the recruiting game this year.

I was looking at the La. Tech players that have been drafted to the NFL in the last two years (there are 6, 3 in each of last 2 years), and the highest one drafted of them all was defensive lineman Vernon Butler who was the 30th pick in the 1st round last year. As you would expect Holtz and co are tweeting the hell out of this and rightfully so. They also had several sign as free agents. I noticed that the coach who recruited him at La. Tech was Jeff Koonz who is now on our staff. This is good for two reasons. One it shows that Koonz can land a big time player and has good evaluation skills. It also gives us someone on the inside who knows how La. Tech works on the inside and how to battle them for recruits. Butler was from Mississippi and had offers from Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Southern Miss, Memphis and Louisiana-Lafayette.

I agree but with the injuries it is going to be a tough road back.

The key to this story has not yet played out. If Wilson had academic issues or family issues etc then ok it happens. If we find out that the above is just a smoke screen, and he is leaving because he wants to transfer to another program then that is salt to the wound. I am not being negative here, it has happened before to us with a highly talented player. When this went down with TW my mind immediately went to a highly rated defensive tackle we signed under Mac who played one season, due to "giving up on football". Months later he reappeared at a juco and after enrolling there for a year ended up transferring to Baylor. Terrell Brooks Story Link

I like every North Texas fan was elated to hear of Zach's potential return to the league. I can only imagine the way too premature end to his bright career was a difficult pill to swallow. It stung all of us deeply. It was not fair. I do want to make one point of clarification very clear. If there is even a tiny chance that his return to this brutal game could cause any type of long lasting injury I would hope he would walk away.

Big loss. Kid had talent.

I didn't hate the new UNT lockers when I first saw them but I didn't love them... however now when I look at them compared against USM's...

UNT at #94 others of note: SMU at #51 Houston at #38 UTSA at #81 TCU at #24 Rice at #61 http://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CompositeTeamRankings

"Quite a few athletic directors"??? Our last one was here 15 years! Do some research man!

Looks like he will play another year in the juco and then join UNT. Update from Vito: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/mean-green/2017/06/24/fredricks-cites-relationship-unt-hoops-staff-reason-commitment

Heading out to Cali may seem cool but if he wants his friends and family to see him play he should stay in Tejas!

@AndrewVito is going to have some info on this shortly so stay tuned.