TIgreen01

Ok...put me down for $5 that Ramone Archie out-recruits everyone else on the staff. Any takers?

Well, that sucks. Wasn't he our highest rated recruit coming in this year? Whether or not he could have contributed immediately to the team, it still isn't good to lose your top recruit this quickly.

Good writeup.

Newman Smith HS in Carrollton, TX -- 1996. Cross-town rivals of RL Turner....my soph (or junior?) year we played (touting 0-9 records each) to a 10-10 tie in the last game of the season. Carrollton was not a football hotbed in my day!

Well, I hadn't seen too many posts bashing SMU by you, so I've been trying to fill in the void...not very well, though! I agree, though....SouthernMustang is making it difficult to call those SMU bums names...well, kind of!

Excellent point! I didn't realize they played Tech to start the year. That could very well be an SMU upset. I never pull for them to win any games, but that sure would help the atmosphere for our game with them.....so, GO smu??....man, I feel dirty having typed that! 4-6k would be a good away crowd. If they beat Tech, that is a realistic number for them to hit this time around. I know I'm working on a few office-mates of mine that are SMU grads...they are reluctant to come, but the insults are starting to get to them...

Just curious....to anyone who attended the last SMU game at Fouts, how many fans did SMU bring? I had the misfortune of attending 2 SMU games in the last 2 years (one where the alum who invited us and provide free tickets no showed and last year's BU-SMU game (wife is a BU alum)). I don't care how "excited" you think SMU is, they simply do not show up to support their team at Ford....let alone drive to the dregs of Denton, nearly 45 minutes away.

We won't beat BU 2003....they brought more fans that day than SMU could dream to bring. Couple that with us coming off a bowl win for BU compared to a 2-9 finish last year. I think 25k would be a nice crowd. Now...if we give UT a competitive game....all bets are off.

nfm...

Well, considering your scenario is to have UNT receive the kickoff and start from the 20, I'd say we're basically screwed from that point on. I do not see us gaining 150 yards in this game, so if we are to win it we need to be playing on a short field and take advantage of turnovers. Considering that UT will be using a run,run,run gameplan, we're going to have to hope that Jamaal Charles (and is Selvin Young still there?) lose a few fumbles as they did last year. I totally agree that we should absolutely stack the box on every play and make them pass. Maybe the 3-4 will help us coming off the edges to get to the QB better when they do pass and force some bad throws. Going just off of the last 8 years of games against top 5 BCS teams, DD will not come up with a gameplan to challenge UT's defense...so for this game, he will put all of his emphasis on trying to avoid getting run on up the middle and forcing the QB's to beat us. To answer your question on what NT should do if we get the ball on the 20 to start the game....3 straight low-risk running plays--and for goodness sakes, have Keronna Henderson on the field to take out whatever LB/S is shooting the gaps to help avoid a crushing hit on Super Jamario. Then block like a MF'er for T. Spencer and hope he gets off a huge punt to get a good start to the field position war. Our emphasis in this game needs to be on special teams play---avoid the blocked punts and huge returns that UT usually gets against us. Making UT drive the entire field will help us keep the score low and beat the spread. And that is all I'm hoping for out of this game....for DD to get back to his old ways of consistently beating the spread against the big boys.

Agreed. Also, where is Chad Rose(or whoever our projected Center is) on this list?

Well crap. With posts like this, how are we supposed to trash talk or bad-mouth ASU?!

So....just one honest question in all of this. Wouldn't NT's recruiting costs naturally be less than most every school in the Sun Belt? Being as close to Dallas, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma as we are, not much would need to be spent on travel costs....or am I missing something? What all goes into the recruiting budget? I would think that the biggest thing that would cause your costs to go up would be to send more coaches (than another school) out on the road or recruiting farther away....do we know how these numbers actually break down? oh...forgot to mention that asu sucks!

Are you seriously taking shots at Dunham and Dickenson?!? You've got to be full of some vile hatred to dislike either of those guys, IMHO--esp. Dunham. If your reason for not liking them is that they actively root for the Mean Green during broadcasts, I'd also like for you to name 1 I-A team in the nation that doesn't have announcers that do the very same thing.

I've got a better idea....one that would garuantee a pissed off SMU....let's just not let them into the stadium that day...Anyone wearing red&blue gets a kick in the rear and gets sent packing...kind of like they didn't let us into the SWC. There is historical precedence here, I'm telling you. Yeah, it might hurt attendance but I'd sure feel good about it!

SEPT 2 @TEXAS --L (blowout) SEPT 9 SMU --L (lose by 10+) SEPT 16 @Tulsa --L (not close) Sept 23 @Akron --L (high scoring) SEPT 30 MTSU --W (close) OCT 7 Florida INT'L --W (10+) OCT 21 @Ark State --W (7+) OCT 28 @Troy --L (close) NOV 4th LA TECH --L (less than 7---we're turning the corner at this point in the sched) NOV 11 @Louisiana Lafayette --W (7+) NOV 18 Fla Atlantic --W (10+) NOV 25 @ LA MONROE --W (10+) 6-6 by my count. 6-1 conference. The question is, will that be good enough to go bowling again? I hope not--only b/c I want the Sun Belt rep to be good enough to win the game. I still think we are a year away. It'll take time for us to cleanse ourselves of all the losses from last year, but by mid-year we ought to be turning the corner with all the underclassmen and the new DC. I will be happy with 1 OOC win this year, and thrilled with 2. We have a history of starting slowly under DD and we are still relatively inexperienced.

I'm not sure why anyone is giddy over the fact that they'll have an inexperienced QB next fall. Last I checked, our run defense was atrocious. Unless we make some major strides before 9/2, UT is going to be running the DD offense against us. I'll be interested to see how much of the 3-4 we run against UT and their massive oline...esp. if we're only using it with Gilmore on the field.

Outstanding!

Well, I sure hope you are right...b/c I don't know if we'll ever see a run of 4 straight years without a loss in conference again. Like the competition or not, but that WAS a HUGE accomplishment.

I definitely think that all those things contribute....but the catalyst for people seeking entertainment is that they have to be attending something that they think will be entertaining in the first place. Winning football is much more entertaining to watch (to the masses) than losing football. Winning football creates a buzz. DD put a team on the field that won the majority of their games for 3 years and lost very little at home....thus creating a more enticing entertainment option. Not giving him credit for that sounds more like bias than reason.

If you do this for a living, then I'm sure you'd agree that just comparing numbers doesn't tell the whole story....esp. when the numbers you quoted above were averages for an entire season. You don't see individual game peaks/lows. Anyone who has been going to home games regularly for more than the last 5 years can vouche for the fact that there are more people in the stands, on a game by game basis, than ever were here for Matt Simon...but your numbers show the opposite.

Dad?...is that you?? My Dad HATES that guy....along with Brent Musburger--who is even worse--if that's possible.

Jim Nantz.

Exactly! Which is why I'd rather not even hear about this stuff. Keeping us at a safe distance would help.

Don't we play SMU next year at Ford? I'd say we need to win that one for sure....look what happened to us with the BU series. We wipe the floor with them in 03, then get drubbed in 04. BU got their revenge and we fell off in many people's minds. I want wins both years, but NEXT year is the critical year.