Harry

https://www.hudl.com/profile/6459454/antonio-gage Wow great pick-up. Again reaffirming the importance of Coach Nate Brown, and his outstanding ability to recruit top talent. Interesting note for the old-timers, it appears we beat out Minnesota and specifically former UNT Coach Matt Simon out for this kid. Good news and should create some momentum! GMG!

That appears to be the case.

Love this! Very good for us!

Good for him.

Let’s take a closer look: 2016 Synopsis: By all accounts, first-year head coach Seth Littrell’s inaugural campaign at the helm of Mean Green football was a successful one. After the team only won a single game in 2015, Littrell led them to five wins and a bowl appearance. That performance netted him a five-year contract extension. Wins over Rice, Marshall, Army and Southern Miss were messages to rest of the Group of Five that North Texas was once again ready to compete at that level. Who did they lose? Quarterback Alec Morris graduated and should be considered somewhat of a significant loss, even though he only started six games last season. They also lost leading receiver Thaddeous Thompson. On defense, the team lost two defensive ends in Jareid Combs and Jarrian Roberts as well as middle linebacker Fred Scott. Combs was probably their most productive player in the front seven. They also lost three seniors in their secondary. Who do they return? It looks like they’ll have their leading rusher, Jeffrey Wilson, back for his senior season. Wilson did not play in North Texas’ recent Spring Game, but there is no evidence right now that he won’t be the starter when the season starts. Just for fun, here is a video of him blowing chunks in the Heart of Dallas Bowl: read more: http://www.blackheartgoldpants.com/2017/4/18/15313114/know-your-enemy-spring-edition-iowa-hawkeyes-north-texas-mean-green

The money is getting ridiculous but I have to admit that it looks really cool.

Therein lies the issue. There's a lot of scoffing going on. La. Tech will not accept ULM. UTEP hates NMSU and the AAC schools don't want any of the CUSA schools. It's just a very difficult sell even if it makes financial and geographical sense. I heard an interview with a media person who was claiming that now with Amazon (just landed Thursday Night NFL Football) Facebook Twitter Snapchat and other mega rich social media sites there would be a renewed battle for sports broadcasting rights. The basic premise was that the value of live sports broadcasting was still very valuable and these companies were starting to figure out how they could leverage them in a lucrative way. The problem is ESPN etc have locked up all of the power conferences into long term deals. It will be interesting to see how this eventually plays out.

There are big changes coming to Conference USA and most of the rest of the Group of Five, as the mid-major Football Bowl Subdivision leagues are known, that many league officials are understandably hesitant to embrace. College athletic administrators already have been through the ringer. Beginning about five years ago, a chain reaction of conference realignment began that ended with 80 schools changing leagues. Few were hit harder than Conference USA, which lost seven schools to the American Athletic Conference. But like it or not, more change is coming. When your expenses are rising and revenue is falling, simple economics demand that you become leaner and more efficient. And that’s the situation facing C-USA. “Conference USA’s current financial model is unsustainable,” said an athletic director who asked not to be named. I’m not picking on C-USA, which is a pretty good football league. The problem here isn’t on-the-field performance. It’s the bottom line. C-USA’s TV revenue cratered from $1.1 million per school in 2015-16 to $200,000 this year. Costs have also risen, in part because the NCAA adopted new policies such as paying stipends to athletes for costs not covered in scholarships. Paying the so-called full cost of attendance has cost ODU $600,000 this year. The elite Power 5 conferences, including the ACC and SEC, continue to be fat and happy. The ACC shared $26.2 million per school in TV and other revenue last season, and thus can afford the travel costs that come from a footprint extending from Miami to Syracuse. read more: http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/football/it-s-inevitable-conference-usa-as-we-know-it-is/article_19e86f15-f21e-53f4-8868-505de84abcf2.html

Assuming there is one spot left what do we need most? Juco or high school? Post or guard? If there was a pure 3 shooter out there I would take him even if juco.

And now Brice is transferring - ouch!

Ouch!

Very inciteful article!

I felt like he could play. Sorry to hear this and wish him well.

It's just too hard to manage. They don't have the personnel or budget the constantly monitor the interwebs and social media. I personally would prefer they focus on actual pay for play and more heinous areas of infraction. i sort of liken it to Dallas' recent change on marijuana infractions. Why put our officers and limited budget towards booking and jailing a guy for a having a small amount of marijuana? Now they are doing cite and release. This allows them to focus on finding and jailing more violent criminals. Our jails are full enough as it is and it is costly to the taxpayers. This social media is extremely hard to manage and the NCAA has a withering budget in the future with streaming etc affecting the amount ESPN is going to pay.

My sources indicate it will be handled much like the stadium was. UNT System maintains a 100+ million line of capital credit. They will allocate the 15+ million for the IPF and then build a capital campaign around it. My sense is they already have some big donors ready to write big checks. There is also the issue of naming rights which should garner a fair amount of dollars. i can't emphasize enough the advantage this facility can offer our recruiting story especially when you tie it to the stadium, Athletic center, academic support etc all being in the same place. It will offer us one of the most impressive facility packages in the southwest and certainly CUSA.

Who is the odd man out?

Welcome Mike! Looks like a nice pickup.

Commits to UNT today.

At 6’3, Miller has great size for his position and his ability to finish with either hand in the paint makes him a constant threat. When asked about his game, Miller said “My strengths are being a good leader on the court and controlling the pace of the game. Also, being able to score at will and being able to set my teammates up to score.” Miller is an active defender, using his length and athleticism to get steals and blocks. Coaches are starting to take notice of Miller’s abilities. Head Coach John Sparks said this about Miller “Michael is a very coachable player with a high IQ that plays extremely hard, he is always wanting to learn and get better at the game of basketball. He has gotten stronger and more athletic since being here and will only get better at his next school.” read more: http://www.jucorecruiting.com/news_article/show/741053?referrer_id=1424455

As the college football news hunkers down and waits for white smoke to emerge from the NCAA conclave on the biggest set of legislation in a generation — no one seems to know exactly when the vote will go down, but it’ll be before the country breaks for the holiday weekend — Todd Berry conducted a radio interview to give one last stump speech for the AFCA’s stance on the issues. And what are those issues, you ask? Adding a 10th assistant coach. A December signing period. The so-called IAWP rule. Drastic changes to the summer camp schedule. Small things like that. The IAWP rule is a great place to start. With the backing of the AFCA (more on this in a moment), the Division I Council will vote on a rule that bans IAWPs — individuals associated with prospects — from being hired to support staff roles, lest all prospects associated with that new hire be ineligible to play for said program for two years after his hiring and two years after the player’s eligibility has expired. There are a number of potential issues with this role, which we touched on yesterday, but I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version here: Chip Lindsey and Jeremy Pruitt were hired to Auburn and Alabama, respectively, from the high school ranks to support staff roles. Lindsey is now the offensive coordinator at Auburn, and Pruitt is now the defensive coordinator at Alabama. The two coaches in charge at this November’s Iron Bowl may still be in the Alabama high school ranks had this rule been in effect a decade ago. Here’s another problematic situation: a Division III assistant is let go in December and unable to find a job in that cycle. To remain in the game and feed his family, he takes a high school coaching job. The following December, an FBS program would like to hire him to a support staff role but now must weigh whether it wants to recruit that high school for the next two years before hiring him. If the program happens to be, say, Texas and the high school in question happens to be Southlake Carroll, the career college assistant may have his path to college football blocked as part of legislation not targeted at him and didn’t exist a year ago. A hypothetical situation, sure, but the powers that be voting on this week’s legislation take responsibility over this situation and others like it in their thumbs when they hoist them up or down when voting time starts. Berry is aware of those exceptions and still supports the IAWP rule as a necessary means of stopping adults from leeching themselves onto teenagers’ college decisions. “Our board of trustees started looking at this six years ago knowing we were having a growing problem, potentially,” Berry said in an interview Wednesday with the ESPN Radio affiliate in Waco. “Obviously there’s some temptation in hiring someone in a support role that has some association with a prospect and their employment basically assists in recruiting that individual. And with the burgeoning number of support staff that we’re seeing across the country, our board looked at this years ago and said we have an oncoming problem. Unfortunately, again I don’t know that it’s rampant, but we are seeing a trend that all of us would like to stay away from. Basketball, even though it’s a different sport, the reality is they’ve been utilizing this in NCAA basketball for a couple years now. So we looked at that model and said, ‘Is this going to solve some of our problems in relation to this?’ And we felt like this was a good step. Read more: http://footballscoop.com/news/todd-berry-explains-afcas-stance-major-issues-ahead-monumental-ncaa-vote/

You make a good point on softball. She seems to be getting things on track.

This could have been handled better on our end. We have not had many of these types of buyouts in our history. So lets admit we could have done better and try to learn from it going forward. GMG

Later this week the NCAA will put to vote a rule that could change employment practices in football coaching more than any in recent memory — a rule that would extend staffs from nine to 10 full-time assistants. But there is another rule on the docket that could also have a drastic effect on the lives of thousands of coaches. It’s a rule that could severely limit high school coaches’ ability to move into college football. Bylaw 11.4.3 reads: “In bowl subdivision football, during a two-year period before a prospective student-athlete’s anticipated enrollment and a two-year period after the prospective student-athlete’s actual enrollment, an institution shall not employ (or enter into a contract for future employment with) an individual associated with the prospective student-athlete in any athletics department noncoaching staff position or in a strength and conditioning staff position.” In plain English: if a college program is to hire a high school coach it must immediately hire him to an on-field position, or it can not have recruited a player from that high school for two years prior to hiring the coach and must also refrain from recruiting players from said high school for another two years after his employment. That’s an entire cycle of high school players a college program would have to bar itself from in order to hire a single coach. The intent is clear and admirable — to curb basketball-style package deals wherein commitments from highly-recruited players are contingent upon schools finding jobs for coaches or family members. It was referenced in the Michael Johnson saga, where Jim Harbaugh hired an offensive analyst who happened to be a California high school coach and the father of a top-rated quarterback in the class of 2019. (Johnson also happened to be a former NFL offensive coordinator and never actually joined the Michigan staff, accepting the wide receivers job at Oregon just days after the Michigan news broke.) But the unintended consequence of Bylaw 11.4.3 could essentially choke off one of the major pipelines for college coaching talent in the NCAA. Arizona State’s Todd Graham, Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, Ole Miss’s Hugh Freeze, SMU’s Chad Morris, Tulsa’s Philip Montgomery, UAB’s Bill Clark and UNLV’s Tony Sanchez famously launched head college coaching careers from high school football. All moved into directly into on-field roles, moves that would have been permissible under the new bylaw. But as staffs have grown, programs have moved to hiring high school coaches into off-field roles, where they then move on the field at that program or elsewhere. For instance, Malzahn hired Chip Lindsey from Spain Park (Ala.) High School to become an offensive analyst at Auburn during the Tigers’ eventual SEC championship of 2013; Lindsey is now Auburn’s offensive coordinator. Nick Saban plucked Jeremy Pruitt from his defensive coordinator job at Hoover (Ala.) High School to become the director of player development on his original Alabama staff in 2007; Pruitt is now Saban’s defensive coordinator. Read more: http://footballscoop.com/news/ncaa-proposal-disastrous-effect-high-school-coaches-looking-move/