oldguystudent

I hope Army has some significant personnel changes between now and our next meeting. I don't wish to play against their current M.O. ever again.

Off topic, but that reminds me that because I went to school before America was a bunch of (insert feminine pejorative word here), we had a couple Spanish professors who would schedule weekly outings to bars specifically to get us drunk and over the fear of speaking in a foreign tongue.

Aside from the fact that if I owned this team, I wouldn't even let any of the staff drive cars manufactured by Fiat/Chrysler, respected or not, it's easy enough to look up the history of the father and the departure of the son. It would be damn near impossible for me to believe either of them selling me on UNT if I were a high school player.

I tried really hard to cheat and find this on the way back machine -- no dice. I am amused that I found the following thread titles from early 2009: "Would You Mind Utsa In The Belt?" "Let's Talk About Negativity And Humor On The Football Board" Unfortunately the way back machine didn't drill down far enough to see the actual posts and responses. I bet they were gold.

If one were to dig back into the gmg.com archives of November, 2008, one would find that we were so desperate that many wished for simply not losing as badly. Like, go 1-11 again, that's cool, but stop doing it by going down 30+ points in the first quarter every game. That's how bad that was.

My best guess is some kind of convoluted cognitive dissonance. The guy wore green. Some people hold their reverence for "The glory to the green and white" second only to their religion, and it's a close second. Therefore, he must've been good. These threads come up about every six months, and no matter how much time has passed, and what things have changed in football (for the better), there are STILL holdouts who think he should be coaching here to this very day. I'll never understand it, but there it is. As I will never change those minds, so will those minds never convince me that he was anything other than an arrogant fraud. Agree to disagree and let's go back to fear mongering that Seth Litrell is going to SMU next season.

Going by winning percentage, in arguably a more difficult conference, for every win Dodge produced, SL has produced 3.73 wins. If only counting the first two years of tenure (remembering that SL took over a 1-11 team), for every win Dodge produced in 2007-2008, SL produced 4.15 wins in 2016-2017.

Humility in failure goes a lot further in the public eye than unwavering arrogance and constant justification for every stumbling block. Just remember, it's a plan.

Dodge wins while at UNT and those teams' records: 2007 -- Western Kentucky, transitional FBS -- 7-5 (All 7 wins over FCS opponents) Louisiana Monroe -- 6-6 (This team actually beat Alabama who had an uncharacteristic 7-6 year) 2008 -- Western Kentucky, transitional FBS -- 2-10 (2 wins over FCS Eastern Kentucky and Murray St.) 2009 -- Ball St. -- 2-10 (Wins over 0-12 Eastern Michigan and 5-7 Western Michigan) Western Kentucky -- 0-12 2010 -- Florida Atlantic -- 4-8 Cumulative opponents' record, including FCS games 21-39. Six wins in 3 1/2 seasons. Three of those wins were over a hapless Western Kentucky team. Best win appears to be against the juggernaut of Louisiana Monroe. It's difficult for me to determine if 2008 under Dodge or 2015 under Mac was the worst season I've seen. Mac at least fooled me into thinking that he knew what he was doing there in 2013. Dodge never offered any such comfort, fleeting as it may have been. As to high school, discounting the endless resources provided at Southlake and Westlake: Cameron Yoe -- 8-12 Carrollton Newman Smith -- 9-11 Keller Fossil Ridge 7-12 Marble Falls 8-12 So best assessment I can objectively give after looking through the records is that if you give him the best of the best of everything, he can coach a Greg McElroy, but if you put him in a position to build from the ground up, well, he ain't no Jim Leavitt.

This will be an interesting test as to whether he loves money or glory. He's making about $130K at Westlake and walks on water in that town. He goes to UT, he'll likely double the income, but will be mostly anonymous. He's 54, so he's not a young prospect trying to work his way up the college ladder, so I can't imagine that he's got another FBS head coaching position in mind.

Can we throw some bleachers up in the IPF? Problem solved!

For those unable or unwilling to get through the WSJ paywall on this, North Texas comes in at #80 for $29,266,000 just below Fresno St. and just above East Carolina and San Diego St. SMU comes in at #74 for $36,047,000 Louisiana Monroe brings up the rear at #115 for $6,792,000 CUSA: UNT - #80 $29,266,000 FIU - #84 $24,145,000 Marshall - #87 $21,483,000 Rice - #88 $21,453,000 UTEP - #91 $19,344,000 MUTS - #92 $19,322,000 WKY - #97 $16,532,000 Southern Miss - #101 $15,037,000 FAU - #104 $13,221,000 LaTech - #110 $10,836,000 I don't see Old Dominion, Charlotte, UAB, or UTSA. I'm guessing because those programs are too young to have a measurable value. I'm pleasantly surprised to see us at the top of CUSA and mingling with MWC schools in valuation here. Many of the AAC schools aren't on the list. My guess here is that they're private and choose not to divulge the information needed for this list. The bottom AAC school I see is East Caroline, one spot below North Texas. The top AAC school I see is Central Florida at #61 and a big leap from UNT's value at $82,302,000.

Time and time again in the 2013 season, we would watch opposing teams bent over at the knees, gasping for air, sweating like a type 1 diabetic in a candy shop in the second half while our guys had their way, fresh as a new student on orientation day before they learn what a bong is. Who was responsible for that?

Consistent demonstration that there are G5 teams out there that can play with the big boys, thus showing that they deserve a shot in the playoffs.

Like Utah in 2008 and TCU in 2010, UCF went undefeated and didn't get a damn sniff at a national championship. This needs to continue.

Good win, NMSU, now GTFO! Sincerely, Karl Benson, destroyer of conferences, esquire

So, basically, it's like going to a game a LaTech.

You need electricity to run a football game.

All reports are that FSU will still play in the bowl. Nonetheless, I saw the original r/cfb post right when it came out and wondered if it would get picked up. Boy howdy did it get picked up. Snarky remarks in the fallout were that OP would not be getting a contract from ESPN because he did too much journalism with a capital J instead of relying on twitter soundbites from the locker room.

They do!

Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing work, Bobs.

It most certainly did during my UNT days. Haven't really looked for it since.

As to the close games. There were a lot of those under Dodge in his last year. The ball bounced against us every time for the loss. There have been a lot of close games under Littrell. Without going to look up all the games to find an exception, the ball has bounced for us for the win, at least every close game this season. Good coaching staffs find a way to create that luck. I'll take those close games all day long. We had two of the best games I've ever seen this year in Apogee because of crazy last minute finishes. (I'm going to exclude UAB because somehow I just comfortably knew that one would work out ok).

We're going to have a thorough review of the new law in February led by a guy who is as smart as he is boring. I've read some of it, and it's, well, it ain't written by English majors. There are some major points that have the highest level of tax experts scratching their heads going, "What the hell does this mean?" I have one client for whom the definition of a single word, still very unclear, will swing his taxable income $17 million up or down. There are going to be lawsuits, regulations, and of course, tax accountants and lawyers sitting in rooms figuring out new tax avoidance strategies as @KRAM1 correctly remarked. Just sit tight, all. They pay us the mediocre bucks to figure these things out. Edit: I'll add to this that this bill is all encompassing. It's so comprehensive that I imagine they'll end up calling it the tax code of 2017 a la Reagan's massive changes that we now call the tax code of 1986. I don't know how they came up with so many things to affect in such a short period of time, but here we are. It's gonna be a while before the dust settles and people figure out where everybody stands, and money gets redirected to the most advantageous paths.

They're doing away with the 80% deduction directly related to tickets. If I'm the AD, I restructure to massive percentage of unrestricted gifts, and a very small price for season tickets.