oldguystudent

I will take that into consideration.

I can think of two bad hires that most people here thought were brilliant at the time. Be brutally honest. Think about what Rick has done here and look at the constant fan base grumbling and meager compensation he gets in return, then tell me why Southern Miss shouldn't at least be something he would be open to investigating. So let me think about this. More money, better conference, fewer fans on speed dial and back to where home is. Somebody calls me up with an offer like that, I'm certainly gonna listen.

All entertainment value of this entire thread aside, I truly doubt that anything at all gets posted on this forum without an agenda behind it.

A two-part answer to your question: 1) NMSU because I wanted to get 12 teams in the conference and some of them are a bit of a stretch with geography on their side. 2) I rattled off those teams with no relation whatsoever to economic reality, but rather to places I like to visit (except maybe Tulsa). 2.5) I would think by the parenthetical comments on each school that a reasonable man would see the frivolity with which I posted, thus not necessitating a "REALLY!?!?!?111?!?!?" type of response. 2.75) UTEP and NMSU are so close to each other that they have reciprocal in-state tuition between residents of the El Paso and Las Cruces areas. They share the same television market.

I might remember what the food tastes like in that place had I not been fighting off an endless barrage of insane upsells through the duration of my one visit. You could serve orgasms on a plate and I won't eat there if my waitress is trying to force another two dollar garnish on me every thirty seconds.

Here's the conference I want. I would make concerted effort to travel to each road game: Nevada (gambling, beers in the stands, easy cab ride to hotel) UNLV (see nevada) NMSU (hatch chiles in everything!) UTEP (I love El Paso. Amazing Mexican food. Crazy fan base. Extra lithium in the water supply to make you happy) LaLa (apparently the best tailgating anywhere and beer in the stands) Tulane (gambling, convenient downtown location, possibly beer in the stands?) Tulsa (pretty easy drive, and if we're in conference, we've got to eventually beat them at something right? But take TX > 3.2 beer with you) Rice (easy drive, nifty old english lettering ) Ark St (I think somebody told me Jonesboro night life is insane) UTSA (They may be passing us by, but I've always enjoyed the river walk) SMU (after 100 years, isn't it time to bury the hatchet? Right in the backs of the necks of the ponies?) UNT (because nothing says home field like sharing a Holiday Inn Express breakfast with 150 rabid OU fans)

I can die a happy man now.

I'm still trying to understand the purpose of the pavilion. Is it for alumni who have traveled from afar and don't have the wherewithal to tailgate? As someone who lives locally, I don't see a use for it. I don't in any way mean to deride it. Maybe I'm just fortunate to have a great tailgate crowd.

Here's a hybrid meme. Think of the Mexians. Do They like basketball?

Huh. I'm on my phone and working through this thread backwards. Imagine my surprise at the green lit tower. Reading through post game comments, I thought UNT got it handed to them on a platter.

Not to mention they're always hoarding the lucky charms!

I really wanted to like the train. I mean, I really wanted to like the train. Kid and I rode it the week it opened. Since I live in Lewisville, I don't even have to deal with DART. Win! Right? Yeah, not so much. First, it goes to the other side of Denton over by Industrial. As a destination in and of itself, not bad, but pretty far from Apogee. As the connecting bus schedule is currently set up, it's incredibly inconvenient to get from the A-Train to Apogee. Second, like you said, you'd need to alter the A-train schedule. It's pretty crappy right now. At night, like once an hour if that crappy. Third, you really think DART's gonna' play ball? Fourth, so let's say I wanna indulge in a beer or 12 while tailgating. The connecting busses at the Lewisville station stop running at 5pm. This leaves me with a two-mile walk home or a night of free accommodations courtesdy of LPD. Or....OR!!!! I could...wait for it....drive 15 minutes up 35, park, and have at it. I truly wish the train was built and run in a fashion to get people to games, but I don't see it happening.

I don't think I can give you a completely accurate student viewpoint, but I can tell you what I saw on campus when it wasn't Saturday. First of all, I think that overall, the students did pretty good this year until the last game when they didn't feel like sitting in a cold rain for a game that didn't matter. Unfortunately somebody saw 50 guys getting drunk on the hill during a game, ignoring completely the thousands of students that were in the stadium at the time, and raised hell about it internally and externally, resulting in an article in the North Texas Daily, Lane Rawlins shutting down tailgating for a week, and police presence so prominent I expected to be asked for my papers inside and out of the stadium. The students, as a general rule, don't put much stock into UNT athletics as it is. Creating an atmosphere, perceived or actual, of antagonism from the faculty and alumni, isn't going to bring them in. Believe me, there are plenty of other pursuits when you're between the ages of 18 and 22. Pardon the horrific comparison, but if you want to increase student attendance, you gotta' think like the big tobacco companies. That is to say, acknowledge that you're not going to get organic growth in your existing customer base. You need to get 'em young. Like real young. Attack two fronts here. 1) Incoming freshman. Emphasize the football program like crazy to incoming freshman. Emphasize it at that first flight week. Make them tour the stadium. Have some kind of dorm wars thing at the games. Have dorm sponsored tailgating in the student premium lot. Have the talons go roust them out of bed on Saturday mornings and get their butts over to the stadium. Walk them there, drive them there. Hell, give them piggy back rides. But get them there. And when they're there, welcome them with open arms. Even if they're wearing a burnt orange sweatshirt. Even if they don't stand. Even if they don't know how to wave their arms during the alma mater (something I still have yet to figure out. I guess they don't emphasize that in grad school). 2) Area elementary and middle schools. I was listening to the women basketball team against Texas Tech a while ago. They bussed up a thousand DISD elementary school kids for that game and they had a blast. They were loud. They were nuts. They were 1,000 butts in the seats. Why the hell can't football do this? Is it demeaning? Does it reduce revenue to fill a couple thousand otherwise empty seats? Bring in the kids and make them fans. Hell, pay for the busses to bring them in and make that money up in concession sales. Attack these two fronts and accomplish two things 1) Bring an immediate and statistically significant increase in butt count at each and every home game. 2) Create a future revenue stream of dedicated alumni donors when we are rooting for the Mean Green from six feet under, shouting for the worms to get the hell out of our view.

Five years ago, I had zero plans of looking for a job at 40. Welp, crap happens. I only got hired at the eleventh and a half hour after graduation, mainly because I'm waaay too old to fit the profile of the big firms. Should I find myself in a similar situation when I'm sixty, I hope guys like you aren't the hiring managers.

I know, right? This is Denton! We take our drugs seriously here!

UCF played an FCS opponent last year. Nobody even remotely related to such a substandard program should be allowed within 300 miles of Denton.

I'm between assignments for the rest of the day, and that's a good question. I don't see the host on whois. Anybody know how to look up who hosts your domain name?

I think he's trying to say Todd Dodge should get into training race horses and jockeys.

The Japanese tsunami was a disaster of epic proportions. The Todd Dodge hire was an unfortunate error in judgment that rendered our Saturday afternoon beer buzzes a little less pleasant for a few years.

Was it a mistake to hire Todd Dodge, even taking into consideration the crippling salary constraints and dilapidated facilities? Probably. Did the person making that hire stand bull headed and steadfastly by his mistake, utterly refusing to remedy the situation the very moment it was financially viable to do so? Was there immediate and dramatic improvement in all things UNT football thereafter? Hayden Frye is long gone and I'm completely happy to have Rick steering this boat. I just hope nobody has informed him of the vacancy at Southern Miss. The wrinkled hundred dollar bill mentality around here would likely be enough to send me back home five minutes ago if I were him. Even if Southern Miss weren't in a better conference with a better program and better fan base. It couldn't have gotten worse than Todd Dodge. It can certainly get much, much worse than Rick. *Edited because phone autocorrect

I realize high school is a different game than college, but when I look at his record outside the million$ in Southlake and I look back to my experiences watching his complete and utter incompetency at Fouts, I'd be hesitant to hire Todd Dodge to mow my lawn. Hell, at least one thing's for sure. My lawn would grade out fantastically. I've been poking around some of the high school message boards, and I'm really surprised to see that there are STILL apologists out there who worship the very ground he walks on. For all I care, he can head on up to Newman University and coach Men's Bowling for Vic Trilli. As long as he stays far, far away from UNT football.

Ok, so no outsiders in the big bowls like back in the day. You know, the day. Like the good ole days of 1984 when lowly BYU won the national championship playing in the lowly Holiday bowl. Oh. Yeah. That was the single event that really drove the big boys to circle the wagons. Couldn't let a no name joint like BYU ever win a championship again. BCS, no BCS. Playoff, round robin, random selection. The big boys will always be the big boys, and they will always push the newcomers off the hill.

I believe the current team worth is five games for the price of six. What, too soon? *Because of the highly sensitive nature of many people reading this board over the current scheduling issue, I feel it obligatory to point out that I wrote the above comment in complete jest and intend neither support nor derision toward next year's football schedule and how it may ultimately turn out. I just like BBQ'd ribs and pie. That is all.

Here's my take on the FCS thing. Every year I've been here, the first game of the season has always been really well attended. Curious new students, alumni happy for football season to start, eternal hope. Then every year we get it handed to us at the first game and the curious go back into hibernation. Beating up on Texas Southern certainly doesn't help out with whatever the football equivalent of RPI is, but it showcases a victory for the people who are coming out to see the team for the first time. Also, after the team gets used as a turf mop by LSU, it wouldn't hurt to have a less physically taxing game to recover. I've always wondered what long-term physical effects it has on the team to get utterly manhandled by the big boys. I imagine a good number of them are still pretty beat up by the time they get to conference play.

Good God. That was my street in Frisco. I thought you were clairvoyant or something!