TIgreen01

I'm sorry we lost him. I saw him play, in person, against Rockwall and several other times on tv. While his size was of some concern, he was technically sound and very quick on his feet. He's one of those guys that always seems to be around the ball---which I think makes up for size many times. What we don't know is, and should give our staff the benefit of the doubt on, is whether this was just a numbers game that caught up to him. Most reports I've heard claimed he was going to fit in at defensive back somewhere and we are really loading up numbers wise there---esp. after last weekend. Also, if a kid doesn't want to come to UNT I won't begrudge him for it...there are plenty of kids who do want to be in Denton.

Have you SEEN McFadden play football? Have you seen Tebow in an actual game? Numbers are numbers, and some schools setup their players better to pile up stats. McFadden split time so he's not going to have the numbers to match any of the heisman finalists....but go watch the guy play football---specifically the LSU game for the last 2 years.

How do you not vote McFadden?!?!? Seriously, people.

I agree with that...esp. when UCLA was #1 in the country when Texas took them out. Augustin is flat out the best point guard in the country. When we got the game back to 9 points, he took over. I'm just disappointed we took ourselves out of the game so early on. A few bad calls and a little Texas full court shook us early and we melted down. Still, like I said before, there is much to learn from this game. We will get better...

wow...just switched over to the tamu CC vs. Oklahoma St. game on espn 360. OSU's arena is EMPTY.

We're not really getting "embarrassed" by Texas. Though when I think embarrassed, I think of a team that clearly doesn't belong on the floor with the other team. Most of the damage we inflicted on ourselves early on...

Have to say that this game will likely help us if we make the tourney again b/c it's a great example of our emotions getting the better of us after such a horrid start. The team can learn from games like this....

Not really. Schnellenberger is a crazy old man, but he's still the best coach in the conference. Sad for the Sun Belt, though. I hope FAU can bring more than 2k to New Orleans....

Down by 2....step away from your keyboards, people.

Troy plays BSU's schedule THIS YEAR and they are a top 15 team. Instead, Troy plays games AT #21 Arkansas, AT #12 Florida, and AT #10 Georgia. That nets them 3 losses. BSU played exactly ONE BCS team this year...AT unranked Washington (who's record sits at 4-8!!) and LOST. Florida Atlantic played games AT Oklahoma St., AT #14 Kentucky, AT #6 South Florida, AT #12 Florida that netted them 4 losses. Sportswriters didn't care about BSU until they started piling up 10 win seasons against crappy teams. The same goes for Sun Belt teams. The key is NOT LOSING A SINGLE GAME when you are a non-bcs team....conference affiliation doesn't matter in that all non-bcs teams face this same problem.

You're still missing the point. Do we play in a weak conference? YES. Does BSU play in a weak conference? YES! The key is winning all your winnable games. The SBC does NOT hinder us(any team from the SBC) in getting AP or Coaches or ESPN poll votes....the fact that we have ANY LOSSES AT ALL DOES. BSU and Hawaii have played the TWO weakest schedules in the country. Think that doesn't help them in their quest to complete a perfect season??! If Troy had played the same exact schedule this year (in terms of SOS) do you think they'd be at or near 0 in the loss column? I think they would be....and they'd be a top 15 ranked team to boot.

Maybe came on a tad strong with my wording there...didn't really intend to attack RV, though I realize after re-reading that it probably came off that way. My main point was that BSU and Hawaii are playing the WORST ranked SOS every year....and they almost never open their season up against the #1 team in the country. It's bit complicated there b/c those are technically regional games for us where that just doesn't exist for BSU or Hawaii....but you get the idea. I whole-heartedly agree that we needed to do better last year against the weakest schedule we've ever had and think that's what ultimately cost DD his job (doing so poorly against that schedule). This year was going to be tough with Dodge breaking in an entirely new everything, but the record setting blowout loss set his cause WAAAAAAY back before we ever got a chance to get rolling....not to mention the follow up shellacking at Arkansas which derailed the progress we had been making. I agree that the Belt provides 8 winnable games a year (which is why I said it definitely wasn't hurting us), but you can't start off EVERY season with blowout losses to top 5 ranked teams and expect your fanbase OR your team to maintain optimism. BSU and Hawaii aren't scheduling ridiculous body-bag games (with the expception of Georgia in '05 for BSU), they are scheduling reasonable body bag games (ie. Oregon St.) and are competitive in them....then they play I-AA games---which I hate, but they do it anyways. ps...where are you pulling your rankings from? Texas in '02 was #2 when we played them and OU in '03 was #1, Texas in '04 was #2 or 3, LSU in '05 was #2. When we played them....but oh well, semantics.....

A four page thread and only 1 post that actually gets it. For those that watched the BSU-Hawaii game last Friday, ESPN showed THE STAT that solves the conference question for us all. BSU had the 118th ranked strength of schedule, while Hawaii had the 119th. That's right, the TWO easiest schedules in the COUNTRY. Here they are: BSU Date Opponent Result/Time Record/Tickets August 30 Weber State W 56-7 1-0 (0-0) September 8 at Washington L 24-10 1-1 (0-0) September 15 Wyoming W 24-14 2-1 (0-0) September 27 Southern Miss W 38-16 3-1 (0-0) October 7 New Mexico State W 58-0 4-1 (1-0) October 14 Nevada W 69-67 5-1 (2-0) October 20 at Louisiana Tech W 45-31 6-1 (3-0) October 26 at Fresno State W 34-21 7-1 (4-0) November 3 San Jose State W 42-7 8-1 (5-0) November 10 at Utah State W 52-0 9-1 (6-0) November 17 Idaho W 58-14 10-1 (7-0) November 23 at No. 15 Hawaii L 39-27 10-2 (7-1) Hawaii Date Opponent Result/Time Record/Tickets TV September 2 Northern Colorado W 63-6 1-0 (0-0) September 8 at Louisiana Tech W 45-44 2-0 (1-0) September 15 at UNLV W 49-14 3-0 (1-0) September 23 Charleston Southern W 66-10 4-0 (1-0) September 29 at Idaho W 48-20 5-0 (2-0) October 7 Utah State W 52-37 6-0 (3-0) October 12 at San Jose State W 42-35 7-0 (4-0) October 28 New Mexico State W 50-13 8-0 (5-0) November 10 Fresno State W 37-30 9-0 (6-0) November 16 at Nevada W 28-26 10-0 (7-0) November 23 No. 19 Boise State W 39-27 11-0 (8-0) December 1 Washington 11:30 PM ET Tickets Notice how the only body bag game on either schedule is Washington---which is about as much of a body bag game as us playing Texas Tech....and neither team opens with a guaranteed loss. When RV first took the job he understood(at least publicly) that this kind of scheduling was critical to building a winning tradition and said he was going to work on it. Where are we now? Opening every year with a rotation of OU, UT, and LSU. Awesome. WE HAVE TO STOP DOING THIS. Plain and simple. Most on this board will call this line of scheduling chicken, and will claim that we'll get no respect playing a schedule like the ones shown above. My response is to go lookup BSU's schedules for the last 5 years. BSU wasn't selling out games in the late 90's when we used to play them....it took YEARS of rolling up fat winning percentages to get them there. If we do what BSU is doing (scheduling ONE body bag game per year--and usually a weak one), playing in the Sun Belt shouldn't hurt our cause...

Yes....as far as easy to do and least resistance, this is the best idea. My 3 year old daughter can already handle doing this....so it CAN'T be too hard to say/remember for college students/alums.

That is awesome! What exactly is funded? Do the members get shirts or anything??

I agree. Nobody should be attacked for preferring football to basketball. When I was a student I much preferred the bball games to the football games, but we never had good attendance in either sport the entire time I was there. Still, the bball atmosphere is just so much more fun (even with smaller crowds) than the football games. You almost can't go to a basketball game and NOT pay attention to the action...the setting is just so much more intimate than Fouts (and why we need to doze that thing asap)....anyways, back to the topic at hand-->I went to both events saturday (and toted my wife and 3yr old!). This was my first bball game in 3 years. I have 6 tickets to the OSU game but that will probably be the last weekday game I can make this year. In any event, I mostly wanted to just add that I was IMPRESSED with the student turnout compared to when I was in school. Are the 2 sections right behind the Pit Crew completely filled with just Pit Crew members?...or is that just student seating and only the first few rows are the Pit Crew? It looked to me like those guys/gals are doing a great job in starting to get some students back out to the bball games. What's the story on that group?...it's not a membership group like the Talons, is it?

Well, I hadn't been to a game in probably 3 years, but I made it last night and have tickets to the OSU game. I used to attend every home game as a student (graduated in 01) and thought last night's attendance was far better than most games during my time....what did you expect vs. a NAIA team?? If we have less than 5k for the OSU game I'd start getting worried...

Doesn't Dodge have to sign-off on the defensive gameplan?? What makes anyone here think that he "KNOWS" that Mendoza is the problem?? I'd bet that he probably thinks it's a combination of things and not all on Mendoza's shoulders (as probably most would agree). However, after seeing the body language and discussion that was going on in-game/post-game last night between the defensive players and coaches I just wonder if it's gone so far that Mendoza may not ever be able to get the kids confidence and buy-in back. Let's just say that he is able to sell the players on his plan again (however altered it may be during the offseason)...our first game next year is against friggin LSU--not exactly a confidence builder. Not to change the topic, but good gosh we have to stop opening with games like this.

You're right. I saw the 3 players (Vizza, Fitz, and Chapman) who were interviewed for the post game show as they were walking out of the lockerroom on their way to the interview. The looks on their faces can be summarized as: Vizza and Fitz -- just a look of hopeless shock Chapman -- PISSED OFF.

I feel bad for the D. Staff and players. The players looked lost last night. Then on the sidelines the coaches just had looks of bewilderment in their eyes when talking to the players between series. Just from that interaction (and the fact that we were just missing assignments all over the field), I don't think that this loss can be pinned on a lack of talent. It looked like the players were just tuning the defensive coaches out on the sidelines. If there are NOT changes to this staff, I wonder how Mendoza and his staff are going to get these players back---b/c it's obvious that they are not buying the current plan.

DING DING DING! We have a winner here.

Am I the only one who thinks that it's sad that ANY of this could be heard from the stands?! Sheesh, I was in the stands and thought it was a quiet crowd, but this is absurd! I'm with those on the Attendance thread that think we did a horrible job of getting into this last game as a fan base... That said, thanks for sharing what was overheard...somehow I missed this entire interaction.

It sounds like you assume that EVERY situation that comes up in this locker room in year one is one that can be handled perfectly and easily. I think you should consider the option that maybe it's going to take time to "clean house" of any bad apples* that exist on this team. Bob Knight, when he took over at Tech, dumped half the team before the first season. Though I don't agree with doing that, that helped him get his locker room squared away. Dodge didn't come in and wipe out the squad, and he didn't recruit 75% of the players on this team. Most of these guys came to NT under different circumstances than what exist here now. Not everyone is going to be happy and buy in when the entire culture changes in a few short months. *I don't know Dom. Green and can't say that he is a bad apple---though his disciplinary record alone means that you can't dismiss it as a possibility...at least until we know the full story.

I think it goes both ways. Our best recruiting class ever was landed in the midst of being absolutely terrible (2000?--with Booger/Buckles/etc). We give players the chance to play early and get in while building up tradition. That and most kids still know Dodge---and like OldTimer said---their COACHES know him and trust him. The kids might get scared a little by our record, but I bet many of their coaches are telling them otherwise. I've got a few ex-HS level coaches in my family who are not as close to the situation in Denton as I am...but they keep up with it....and EVERY one of them still expects good things here at NT while Dodge is on board. He is truly respected around the state....mostly b/c of how he handles his life and the way he cares for the kids in the program while still running a tight ship. Hearing what ex-players like Mitch Maher say (when he's commented on this board in the past about Dodge) only reinforces that thought in my mind.

I agree with you...mostly. I'd just rather cut the privates out of our party. All they do is stir up trouble anyways. SMiss is already complaining about the privates in CUSA after less than 3 years! Better to have a group of state institutions with similar academic standards and all around funding.