TheTastyGreek

Doubling is ridiculous. But, I wouldn't be surprised to see us get a 500-600 ticket bump when we'd play Houston/Tulsa/SMU or any other school with a decent distance or local alumni base. An additional $5000 per game, 3 or 4 times a year... That's enough to turn a guarantee against Jackson State into a guarantee against a Boise State-type team. I'm happy at the moment, and I don't think CUSA membership is the magical cure-all that turns us solvent and respected locally. But, if I had to choose between CUSA and the Belt as it stands today, I would prefer CUSA.

Missouri State or nuttin' for me. There's been a month-long asswhip of a "discussion" about Georgia Southern and Appalachian State over on the SBC forum. 90% of it has been a jackass GSU fan alienating the rest of the population, and them trying to get him to shut up and go away. Just seeing the name Georgia Southern makes me shudder in revulsion now.

That statue guy has ENORMOUS nads.

That must be what he means. Because I'm half-Olive skinned, and he's so white I could use his ass as an ironing board.

Something like that, you mean? I just drilled out holes in our PVC pipe flagpole last night, and it's ready to go. I don't think it'll be hard to tell us apart from the other green tents.

You're always welcome with us. Just look for the flag and the green tent.

My point is that if I asked a casual sports fan what they think of Boise State, they probably still remember their football win over Oklahoma, and consider their sports programs to be respectable. Northern Illinois... At least most people might recognize them as an actual D-1 school, even if their name isn't as recognizable as Boise State. If I went into a sports bar tomorrow night and asked every person I saw to correctly categorize Texas Southern, Jackson State, Newman, University of the Southwest, Southeastern Louisiana, and Cameron as either Southland, SWAC, D-2, or NAIA... How long would it take before someone could guess them all correctly? Hell, last year, Midwestern State University had home games against University of the Southwest, Dallas Baptist, Texas A&M-Commerce, and Southeastern Oklahoma. And they're a Division 2 team in WICHITA FALLS. If you put our OOC schedule next to those games, how many people could guess which schedule belonged to which school? Unless you're talking to a SWAC alum or a D-2 basketball junkie... Our home schedule this year is basically indistinguishable from most of D-2 MSU's schedule from last year. This is bad. This is not good.

At least it's a NAME that people will recognize, even if it's not for basketball. But we won't be getting them at home... Instead, we're getting an NAIA team, two D-2 teams, 2 SWAC teams, and Southland powerhouse Southeastern Louisiana. They had 13 wins last year, and they haven't made it out of the first round of the Southland Tournament in any of the past four years. Who's the opponent that's going to draw in casual fans? Texas Southern? God help us if we get an announcer with "North Texas State" disease, because they might accidentally revert to calling them Houston College for Negroes. I don't think that'll go over well. Nor will it go over well for our RPI, given that they've only won 7 games each of the past two seasons, and they haven't finished above .500 in 5 years. Thank goodness I can drive to see some decent games with North Texas in them... Because I sure as hell won't be seeing them at the Super Pit. I was willing to just grin and bear it when I thought we'd be seeing a phenomenal OOC schedule at home next year... But this? This is what we're offering fans at home? I'd say this home schedule is a joke, but there's nothing funny about it.

Aaaaand I just read Vito's blog, where Boise and A&M are non-return games. Jesus... That's embarrassing.

Boise, Rice, UTA, and possibly A&M should be here next year. On top of our home games, I can drive to see Rice, OK State, A&M, UTA, and Houston Baptist. The only OOC game that isn't within there-and-back in the same day distance is Boise. A&M and HBU would require a 9-5 person to take a half day at work. I wish this wasn't such a "bust" year in terms of getting good OOC opponents at home vs. on the road. But... All things considered, it could be worse. Still... It makes me wonder how well we'll do in scheduling for football once the stadium excuse is eliminated. We seem to suck ass at getting people to come here compared to other schools in the SBC, both in football and basketball. Basketball venue isn't an excuse, but it doesn't seem to help the core problem of getting people in our barn. And others in the conference seem to be capable of pulling it off.

5 will be either Virginia or Oklahoma.

It's her real name. She's Greek.

We're both here, it's just the first day after a 3 day holiday weekend. Also, there's a lot more traffic on the board, so we're not as prominent when we do post. I'm currently preparing for my no-holds-barred gladiator match with Illuvius, which is taking up some of my posting time.

GoMeanGreen1999 and his wife usually bring fantastic chocolate chip cookies to our tailgate... So there's your prize. Gladiator fight under our tent, 3:00 p.m. You bring the loincloths, I'll bring the chest oil. I don't want to sound too cocky... But you'd better start composing some haikus in advance. Because I'm going to rain bad news down on you until you say uncle. Also, the lack of votes leads me to believe that I don't have to murder her. Thanks for your mercy, Mean Green nation!

I want Todd Dodge to win because I'm excited about this high octane brand of new football I'm finally seeing this year. Seeing a powerful ground game rack up nearly 300 rushing yards behind an overpowering Spencer Leftwich offensive line... Then seeing a stout Gary DeLoach defense swarming all over the place, bottling up the line of scrimmage and scoring some key turnovers at critical times... And that brilliant delayed handoff on 2nd and 25 that netted us a first down? It's like nothing I've ever seen before. I'm just excited about this innovative new approach to football at North Texas, and I'm excited to see where it takes us next!

Oh, I'll be there this weekend. Even if we'd been blown out at Ball State, I'd be there this weekend.

This win, on it's own, is big enough to allow me to be optimistic again and to feel a lot of excitement about what the future might hold, this season and beyond. But it isn't enough to convince me that we're on the right track yet. A couple more, and then we'll talk. For now, my outlook has changed significantly, but I'm still not 100% sold. Early returns this year are very encouraging, though.

Exactly. He's not a rapist, attempted murderer, drug trafficker or 9/11 truther/NORML spokesman. When does the beatification process start?

Pro Athlete Lauded for being Decent Human Being "(He) isn't merely in the top 1 percent of... players; he's in the 51st percentile of human beings."

Oh, I'm not getting cocky or anything... It's a minor detail about his overall vs. his school-specific record. He's still a very good coach, he just hasn't had all his success at Ohio.

One nit to pick... Solich isn't 81-46 at Ohio... He's 81-46 in his entire career, including his time at Nebraska. At Ohio, he's only 23-27.

Specifically, 1996. We won our opener under Coach Simon at home against Illinois State. Oklahoma, coached by John Blake, lost at home to TCU. Actually started out 0-4 on their way to a 3-8 finish.

2005. Oklahoma loses their opener to TCU, we beat MTSU on the road in the final victory of the 26 game conference win streak. Katrina pushed the LSU game from the season opener to the 6th or 7th week of the season, or you'd have to go back farther than 4 years.

I want every opponent on our schedule to win every single game they possibly can when they're not playing us.

I believe it means "no further message"... But I haven't checked the acronym positional listing for additional information yet.