TheTastyGreek

I was just about to set you up to keep this going. Just to make sure... You're saying that we've got no shot at winning again this season, and that we're definitely going to lose on Saturday, right?

Quoted before an edit, for the sake of unintentional comedy.

Quoner, MeanMag, JimmerJammer, UNTFan23, UNTFlyer and I are all in the same house. I know BonfireBrian and MeanGreenSoHo are headed up, same with NT03 and a group of his friends. SUMG has made it out before and I think he's planning on coming again.

Don't bother with Generic Bill. You may remember him as the guy who made a Hal Wasson joke when we were on the verge of hiring McCarney. If I remember right, the Sports Director over at KTVT/KXTA is Dandy Killeen. He's an alum. Email him instead.

Spoken like a Frenchman. How'd that work out for them?

It was a very controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision handed down in Baylor University v. Opposable Thumbed Bear.

I think he's always posted the score of the recruits' teams first. They just haven't been losing much.

From the staff directory: Steven.Bartolotta (at) unt.edu

Since we started wearing those, we have 2 NCAA berths and (potentially) 5 straight 20 win seasons. Sounds like the start of a pretty strong tradition in those outfits. Also, they look sharp as hell. I remain annoyed that I can't buy one. The fact they haven't refreshed inventory on basketball jerseys in at least 6 months (we have black... and black! sizes limited!) makes me think we probably are in for at least a minor redesign.

Hopefully, we wind up with a firm that has a proven track record of positive results for DFW universities, both athletically and otherwise. Fingers crossed.

For what it's worth... I talked to Cam Spencer's dad for about 3 seconds after the Senior Night ceremonies. He said that there's still an appeal they can and will file with the NCAA to try and get Cam that 6th year. Obviously, people are planning for a future without him on the roster. But there's still at least one more opening to try and get him eligible for one more season.

When I was a kid, I outgrew a pair of sneakers at age 5. But my parents had a philosophy that we shouldn't waste money on shoes as long as we kept needing haircuts. It wasn't particularly fun walking around barefoot for 13 years, especially when we lived up north and the winters got cold. But the whole experience did give me thick skin, if only on the soles of my feet. And it taught me how to get by with less (in this specific case, 7 toes instead of a full set of 10). Side note: Most people know the trivia that Hitler was originally a failed artist before getting into politics. Far fewer people know that John Geoghan and Osama Bin Laden ran a boutique PR firm back in the early 1980's. Their horrible experience handling the Tylenol/cyanide scare for Johnson and Johnson made them decide to shut down the shop and turn to religion.

That's not the only reason. Don't lie. Public records and newspaper archives are available online. You know what I'm talking about. The DUI? The vehicular manslaughter charges? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that you had a good lawyer, Courtland. But dismissing charges is not the same thing as erasing facts from the history books. Don't take my word for it... Ask the little girl that's had to grow up in an orphanage. If you can even find the courage to look her in the face, that is.

I am by no means a public relations/brand management expert. I had a cousin who thought about getting into the PR industry, but the family staged an intervention and convinced him to pick a more respectable career path. He gives handjobs in the parking lot behind New Fine Arts now. But I do agree that if this gets contracted out, hopefully whatever collection of degenerates "earns" the job will put forth the effort and expertise necessary to get some traction and progress towards these goals. PR firms are basically just offices that serve as holding pens for onanists, frotteurs, and drooling incompetents too feebleminded to even push a mop in any sort of organized and productive manner. Whoever we end up signing on for this project, I just hope they have some sort of track record and motivation to work for our school in particular.

If I understand what this is correctly, it isn't a materials change. This is a request for proposals from 3rd party PR firms, brand management companies, etc., to have an outside firm with prior experience and expertise handle these things (to whatever extent the contract includes) for the school and the department. Basically, we're going to finally get some resources behind making this stuff a priority, and we're not going to throw it on someone already in the department... An outside company with skins on the wall is going to handle this stuff now.

Maintaining the 20 win streak, as much as people may turn up their noses at it, is valuable. And, considering where we are at this point in the year... It's a viable goal. I sure didn't think I'd say this when we were 13-2, but I think a 20 win season would be a pretty respectable finish for us this year. I'd hate to see that streak end.

This is going to be great. My hope is that everyone builds up insane standards for this initiative, takes out 50 years of rage and frustration on any effort that's a part of it, and whines and bitches about everything and anything they think might possibly be connected to the project. If Dan McCarney won't take you out to lunch, blame this. If Wal Mart has any TCU shirts in stock, blame this. If UT-Arlington has a billboard along your route to work, blame this. If squirrels are getting into your bird feeder, blame this. I want this to be like the men's basketball meltdown bitch-a-thon, only 100x more angry, intense, and mentally handicapped. Remember- Hayden Fry didn't need no PR assistance! MORE POSTERS!!!!!

This is going to be very interesting. Maybe even more interesting than the Gas Prices thread.

I took a preemptive strike and bought a vehicle with excellent fuel economy. I love my Messerschmitt, and I'm never going back to any other brand.

Exactly. The same article appears as the most recent news on Tyrone Johnson's Rivals page, because he's mentioned in the same Q&A article that discusses Tony Mitchell and our 2011 class. But Tyrone Johnson is already signed to go to Villanova.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And I will not support appeasement of gas price threads. I think there's a historical example that shows it's a bad idea... But I can't quite remember what the example is.

Before anyone goes too far with this one... I think there's been some confusion. Coleman's recruiting and potential freshman impact in 2012 are mentioned in a Q&A type article that also mentions our 2011 recruiting class. I can't find anything, there or elsewhere, that indicates he's ever even heard of North Texas. He's from New York, so there isn't the local angle that gave us an in with Tony Mitchell. And his dream schools are Syracuse and North Carolina.

This has the potential to be the most inappropriate and ill-advised encore since Michael Richards starred in that remake of The Jazz Singer.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! GAS PRICES THREAD! There could be a storm front on the way through...

For perspective... In the banner 2008 year, when USA got a 10 seed and WKU got a 12... The Belt had 6 wins against teams in the top 100 RPI (pre-NCAA tournament). And that year, we played 18 conference games, so the best teams had fewer OOC chances to rack up that type of win. WKU beat Nebraska (96), USA beat San Diego (94) and Mississippi State (40), MTSU beat Belmont (79), UALR beat Tulsa (93), and we beat Oklahoma State (78). There were also a couple of near-top 100 wins, like UNO beating a ranked N.C. State team (final pre-tournament RPI: 103) and USA beating Southern Miss (107). The Belt as a whole also only had 2 loses to RPI 300+ teams, and both of the teams that lost those games were in the West (so they only played USA and WKU once). Also, USA and WKU lost a combined 7 OOC games: Tennessee (1), Vanderbilt (12), Gonzaga (30), Mississippi (48), Southern Illinois (62), Miami-Ohio (72), and Northern Arizona (139). 7 total OOC losses, 4 against RPI Top 50 teams, 6 against Top 75 teams, and the worst loss coming to a team in the top 140. Western is the team with the "bad" loss among the 7, and their only 2 Sun Belt losses came against... South Alabama. 2 teams went out and lost to only quality teams, then dominated the league while the worst opponents (from an RPI perspective) were buried on the other side of the league and only hurt them once that regular season. Two other SBC teams got to 20 wins that year, with another topping out at 19, helping them maintain a respectable RPI through Sun Belt play. This year, we are in the final week of the season and all but us and UALR have only 1 or 2 games remaining. There are zero 20 win teams, and in fact only FAU and us are above .500 against D-1 competition. UALR is sitting at .500 vs. D1 teams (13-13). The other 9 teams in the league are all below .500, despite playing 16 games apiece where either they or another conference member have to come out with a win. The hottest team in the Belt right now is ULL. If they win out and take the tournament... They'll finish with a 15-13 record vs. D1 opponents (16-14 overall). One of their two D-1 OOC wins came against Centenary, a team that hasn't given out a scholarship in 2 years and is about to finish the drop to D-3 athletics. Current record: 0-28, including 2 losses (one at home) to non-D1 opponents. If ULL wins the tournament, they'll have to make the Elite 8 (and that's including a win in one of the play-in games and the first ever 16 over 1 upset in history) just to get to 20 wins, INCLUDING non-D1 games. Bad. It's been a very bad year for this league.