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GoMeanGreen: English? English? English? Simone: Um, he's not available. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw English pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. GoMeanGreen: Thank you, Simone.

In this D-III game (Belhaven v. Texas Lutheran) the refs did count the kick. However the NCAA rules state: “a player shall not kick a loose ball,” and doing so is a 10-yard penalty that carries a loss of down.

From what I saw and heard in the stands.... No facts other than my perception. There was a stoppage in play and a trainer went on the field and it looked like was taping his arm or hand (possibly to stop some bleeding?). The ref saw it and said that it was an inured player and he had to leave the game for a play, he further said that since it was on the defense that there would be no run off of time.

Anyone else notice that the SMU players ran up to the fight but then stopped and watched while the UNT players were jumping on the pile throwing punches? Guess they did want to break a nail, but gee they looked tough.

After week one UNT is #4 in total offense behind Missouri (defeated Missouri State - FCS - 72-43), Oregon (defeated Southern Utah - FCS - 77-21), and Oklahoma (defeated UTEP - FBS - 56-7). I know it is only week one but I will take a top 5 ranking above teams like Clemson (Kent State), Ohio State (Indiana), USC (Western Michigan), Baylor (loss to Liberty) for the week! Source: http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/21

Seems to be working now.

For those at work... New twitter post, better photos.

Let me start by saying that I have not been in charge of an Athletic Department. However, I have led change for large companies from the C-suite. We have asked AD Baker to do the following (not a complete list, I know) Change the culture. Change the Strategy for the Department. Improve communications. Let’s start with the culture. While this is a top of the list item this will take the longest without a doubt. Culture is a crazy thing that many leaders talk about but few understand. As the CEO I can talk about the culture and provide the vision for the company, but it takes the leader with-in the company to make it happen. Leaders like Coach Hedlund and his staff who have an amazing winning culture with Women’s soccer (22 Straight winning seasons). Leaders like Coach Littrell and his staff who started last season with the goal for the team “to win our bowl game” in the first meeting. Fans and sports writers say stuff like the team has “bought in” the coaches philosophy. All this means is that the culture is starting to take hold. The Leaders need early wins to get the team to follow, this is easy. (New drills the team likes, new uniforms, new locker rooms, better food, ect…) the tipping point will come 2-3 years later when the wins are on the field and it is a result of the leaderships constant pressure to adhere to the new culture. I will argue to the end that the Leaders both Coaches and Players own the job of creating the culture, not the AD. The AD sets and communicates the vision. One cannot change strategy overnight. First you must understand the organization and goals of the ownership. I have it easy in that I have a small group of partners that I must understand, AD Baker must understand the goals of the Administration, BOD, and Donors all of whom have different opinions and agendas. It takes so long for several reasons. 1) Before I can say what needs to change I need to understand what is happening now. Seems easy if you have been following the Mean Green, but to someone who has not been around, one must look at the reasons behind where you are today. 2) I have to find out who is willing to change, this leads to the decision of who needs to be trained up and who is going to be managed out. 3) I have to listen to the team. If the team is not on board with the strategy then they will ensure it will fail. 4) I must keep the company running while working on the plan. It took me over a year to complete my 5-year plan and long-term strategy. I have been working on ensuring that my team understands it and has all of their questions answered before I go public because they will be the ones who make this work and communicate it to their team and public. ---- As far as strategic plans for facilities there are thousands of variables that all contribute to delays in the process. From assemblage (buying and combining plots of land) to permitting, to funding, to code changes that cause things get delayed. Personally I have seen it take over 2 years to get a plan approved. As far as improving communication, the Athletic Department is improving. I have been involved with North Texas since the 1990’s and the improvements in the last year are a step in the right direction. Is it perfect, NO, but compared to anything in the past we are flooded with information about the teams. I know this year for the first time that soccer camp has started and I further know that they took a pretty good run yesterday afternoon. I knew the same day that English broke his foot and will be out, I know the back story on Wilson, I know Arikawe set a personal best squat of 345 lbs, I even know who was elected to the hall of fame. There is still a long wat to go on our marketing and communication game but we are for once in my 25+ years improving our game instead of status quo. AD Baker is going about change in the correct way, even if some do not agree. Change is not easy in the real world. In fact it is what ends many promising careers. I am not saying that he should get 19 years of poor leadership and communication. But as one who has had to fight the battle I see him doing it correctly. Good leadership influences change, bad leadership forces it. AD Baker should be given time to create and execute his plan. While I know some what AD Baker to come on this site and lay it all out because you want to know, I can assure you AD Baker has communicated his vision clearly with the Coaches and Administration, and honestly that is what is important.

Exactly my point. It should already be happening. The fact is that we have years of experience that say it will not happen. I do not know how to go about giving the university the stickers to put in the diploma but I know how to buy stickers and hand them out. All traditions or pride start with someone making it happen, not with a school administrator. People make the Battle Flag happen, make Boomer happen, and make the Mean Green Machine happen. (thanks to several members here and the Talons) The administration makes Eugene Levy Scrappy happen, agreements that make it hard to sell Mean Green gear happen and makes accounting errors in the amount of $83.5 million dollars. When you look at other schools that we want to compete with students started almost every tradition or association not the administration. (34 ex students at UT started TX Exes, The association of Former Students at A&M was started by combining Alpha Phi and the Ex Cadets Association) There are lots of problems with any idea, quite honestly they are easy to point out, hell there are 1646 pages and 41,132 post about problems and complaining about what should be done. I for one think we should start offering solutions and more importantly making them happen.

You can get 1,000 stickers for less than $100 delivered, hell we can get 25,000 for about $600 delivered. Of course it would be best if it was a promotion and handled through the Athletic Department but if they are not interested we should just make it happen, fund it as a group and hand out at a game... With only 4 gates we should be able to man the exits, for a few hundred bucks extra we could donate to a student group who would make it happen. (Talons?) We can complain about the problem or do something about it!

Please God, choose the battle flag. The others are good but reading a flag going 80 mph will not happen. Flags are visual. Quick easy visual is what is needed. That is why most national flags are just colors....

Tony Benford Relieved Of Head Coaching Duties http://mgrn.us/2lujEYw Wish him the best but it was time.

According to “The Wren” … “I want to share a few of the projects we are working to complete: • Athletic Facility Master Plan that will provide a facility road map for North Texas Athletics for the next 15-20 years.” So I believe that the location will change, but it is interesting that the track facility had a soccer field inside the track in 2013 and an Indoor facility was on the plan as well.

I was looking through the 2013 master plan and found the two attached maps. One showing the location of the soccer and track and field facility. The other showing a location for the indoor Fieldhouse facility. The stated location for the soccer and track and field facility matches the plan so I wonder if the IPF is going to go in that location as well?

UNT 90 posted in "Will there be consequences" thread... I know it is UNT90... "Will there be any consequences for recruiting the 12th ranked class in CUSA? Will we see assistant coaches replaced? Will the recruiting coordinator be held accountable? Or will we continue to be UNT."

There are some people on this board that want to fire coaches, have Wren exit the bunker, and are all doom and gloom because we did not have the top recruiting class in the CUSA or State. To all of you, I say in my best cheese head idol voice R-E-L-A-X, relax we are going to be OK. Now before you start bashing, yes I did want a top class and would have loved 19 4 and 5 star recruits, however I am realistic and knew this would not happen, this year. (there were only 25 – 5 star and 354 – 4 star recruits in 2016) I do not buy in to the fact that North Texas is a hard place to recruit, I do however buy in to the fact that players want 2 things, playing time and chance to win. We can get the top players all the playing time they want but winning has not been our strong suit. Since these freshmen have been alive (1999) our record is 75-142 with only 4 winning seasons (3 in Dickey ball and 1 with Mac). Just for comparison: Clemson (11th ranked class) 161-73 16 winning seasons / TCU (22nd ranked class) 167-59 14 winning season and move to Big 12 – same coach / Baylor (41st ranked class) 98-119 7 winning seasons all since 2010 (RGIII’s Junior Season) / Marshall (49th ranked class) 133-93 10 winning seasons Just in the high school years of this class: UNT 19-31 / Clemson 49-7 / TCU 33-18 / Baylor 39-13 / Marshall 36-17 Let’s look at a few successful turnaround teams in the same time frame. Briles at Baylor (arguably the biggest turnaround in the last 10 years – even if it was dirty) first 3 seasons 15-22 with his first 2 seasons only hitting 4 wins each. Took 4 years to become a 10 win team. He took over a 3-9 team. In 2009 his second full recruiting class, Dave Cambell’s Texas Football was praising the Bears for recruiting JUCO talent and 3 star offensive linemen. They talk about recruiting to their scheme and “having promising players that needed to be molded” Dabo Swinney at Clemson hired in 2008 first 3 seasons 19-15 (partial 1st season) Took 4 years to become a 10 win team. (7-6, 9-5, 6-7 in his first 3 years and he took over a 9-4 team). Doc Holliday at Marshall Hired in 2009, first 3 seasons 19-19. He took over a 4-8 team. Took 4 years to become a 10 win team. 2nd recruiting class ranked 87th (8 3 stars) class avg. 78.41 I can keep going but the data is the same unless you take over a top tier program It takes several years (on average 4) of recruiting and molding good players to fully implement your program. Mac showed promise but could not mold players. So out in 4, good call. Seth Littrell at North Texas, 5-8 in his first year after taking over a 1-11 team (best 1st year turnaround of all of the above) Recruited 7 - 3 star recruits with an overall class rank of 78.65 (Better overall class in year 2 than Doc according to 247 sports). Is being bashed for taking JUCOs and recruiting promising player that need to be molded… Sound like Briles in his second year except for the bashing part? If I told you that 7 years from now we would be on or 6th bowl game with a 60-43 record with at least 3 10 win seasons, 4 top 50 appearances, and one top 10 would you take it? I would! Even though Marshall who has these stats since Doc took over had a horrible year last year I guarantee that they would love those stats for the next 7 years… Give Seth and his staff some time. They all have a vested interest in turning this thing around. It is literally worth millions to each one of them. If we have another ho-hum 5-7 or 6-6 year I will be with you on putting Littrell on a very hot seat but for now… R-E-L-A-X.

To me it has to do with the date change. New Years day adds 10K. Is hard to get a kitchen pass to leave the family holiday to travel to a game the next day... While I hope two days adds a few it is still a work day where one has to take a vacation day instead of heading down to the game on a day off. My guess is we will end up between 28-32K total and that is only because we are a local team. Date played Winning team Losing team Attendance 1-Jan-11 Texas Tech 45 Northwestern 38 40,121 2-Jan-12 Houston 30 Penn State 14 46,817 1-Jan-13 Oklahoma State 58 Purdue 14 48,313 1-Jan-14 North Texas 36 UNLV 14 38,380 26-Dec-14 Louisiana Tech 35 Illinois 18 31,297 26-Dec-15 Washington 44 Southern Miss 31 20,229

US Army, Interrogator Panama 1990, Honduras 1990-91, Ft. Bragg 1992-93

Depends on the situation. It will always be at least one play to give him and the opponents a chance to cool off. However, if it was cheap and had the intent to cause injury (diving at a knee) it would be much longer than a few plays. I have benched players for the ballance of the game in some cases (throwing a punch). I will not discuss the next week's practice for that player. With the being said there are times that, say I want to get in to a QB's head... where I am OK with a obvious roughing call. It will be a play on the bench and a reminder to keep it clean.

Just as an option there is a Disney Cruise that departs the 22nd from Port Canaveral, FL. Arrives the 23rd in Nassau at 9:30am. Kick off is at 1pm so there is some time prior to the game. Only issue is that you need to be back on the ship by 5:15 with the stadium being 20 min from the cruise terminal, you may not be able to stay after the game for the trophy ect... Following day is at a beach then a day at sea for Christmas. Family of 4 should be about $6K for an inside state room. I just thought I would throw it out there if someone needs to talk to the wifey about an unforgetable trip for the family over Christmas that may just have a UNT bowl game included.....

The photo I posted is representative of the photos on-line. I do not see any UNT markings.

Looks like UNT is auctioning off the old football lockers. If you need something interesting for your man cave.... WOODEN FOOTBALL LOCKER ROOM LOCKERS MEASURING APPROXIMATELY 60” TALL X 18” WIDE X 30” DEEP. http://www.lsoauctions.com/details.cfm?itemnum=1074396110 - lot of 2 http://www.lsoauctions.com/details.cfm?itemnum=1074396111 - lot of 3

This time of year it rains daily between 3:30 and 5:00. The big issue is the tropical depression that is over Daytona right now. It should be gone by tomorrow and there will be several days of 85-90 degree heat to dry it out. I would not bet on the rain check.... nor a slow field...

Hooked me up with 2 as well. Thank You!