VideoEagle

That's what I get for not paying close enough attention to which game!

I'm hoping for good news on Monday or Tuesday.

Here you go. http://www.killerfrogs.com/msgboard/index.php?showforum=4

I signed up last summer and cellphone was "coming." Great find! Of course on second glance I see it won't work yet on my Android Samsung S6.

I just saw this. Good for you! I hope you enjoy the games. It's painfully obvious after thousand's of posts over the last four years that anything NT did was not going to please you. Enjoy the Frogs! I've got a number of friends and relatives who are alumni. They are a great group.

For years I was the only staff video editor/motion graphics/special effects person for a multinational children's television company. In an era of shrinking corporate resources, being understaffed with little or no redundancy happen far more often today!

Don't waste time doing that! It's far better to spend any time, energy and resources working on getting new fans rather than trying to convince one's who've left to come back. I used to run a non-profit volunteer organization that raised money for the arts in Dallas county. We found we could get three $500 or $1000 donors for the same number of letters, phone calls and visits it took to bring back a disgruntled $250 donor. I'm not saying don't try at all to bring the disgruntled back, but limit the resources spent in that regard as the total return is better seeking new donors or in this case fans. There are so many potential new fans in the area, let's concentrate on them first! Extending the SMU football series is something the vast majority of current fans want. A game between two teams in the area is far more likely to be something a casual fan might want to try out. There is no question each of these games is going to generate more local news coverage than the average game of either school individually. Clearly, the overall athletic program at North Texas needs to improve. Equally clearly, steps are being taken by Mr. Baker to start making these improvements. Things are not perfect, nor will they every be. But we didn't get into this situation overnight or even in just a few years. It will likely take several years to fix many of the problems. But it appears right now to most of the followers of NT that it will take less time to improve than it took to sink to the point we were at after the Portland State game last year!

The TCU games where "no one shows up" are now far better attended than before because the TCU athletic department has worked hard at getting people to ignore the opponent and focus on TCU. It's a proven successful strategy and one we should follow. And it appears we are doing that. Yes, it does make the vast majority of the fan base happy. Keeping the majority of the fan base happy is going to increase overall attendance and total donations. There are always going to be a few whom are impossible to satisfy but this strategy has shown if will give a program net growth.

You've got to plan ahead sometimes.

I had to unblock to see this answer. I'm going to assume the "can" in the first sentence should have been "can't." A good friend who's a donor to TCU tells me their program really started to grow in attendance when they stopped worrying about who brings more of their fans. The fans brought by a visiting team are negligible to the home team fans who come to games. TCU built their program by teaching their fans to come no matter who TCU happens to play that week. The fans come to see TCU and don't care who the opponent is. Those are the fans who buy one program at the start of the year and laminate the TCU player page. They don't care who the other team is! It simply doesn't matter that NT fans go in droves to Ford Stadium as long as they show up when the games are at Appogee, And playing SMU has historically draw a lot of NT fans to Denton.

If the last two rounds of conference realignment has shown nothing else, they prove predicting how conference realignments will happen is a fools errand.

Absolutely correct! There are dozens of examples of how a "fire'em all" approach simply does not work well in the real world. It might make outsiders happy briefly, but they will soon be unhappy again when the department fails again because everyone left is worried about yet another mass firing. You can't publicly "hint" that people are going to loose their jobs no matter what they do from now on and expect anyone in a department to actually improve their work. Furthermore firing someone because they followed the instructions of the previous manager makes in highly unlikely you are going to get quality applicants to fill that position. You simply can't hide things like that in today's world as you could in the 1960s. I know a lot of people want to get rid of Bedford. I want him gone as well. But making management decisions based on revenge for the way a previous manager worked is simply stupid, And it's especially dumb in 2917.

Bedford shouldn't have been given a fifth year. Actually, he shouldn't have been given a fourth year. But that has already happened and there is no point in worrying about it. It's a sunk cost - the money and time are already gone - and thus shouldn't play any part in decisions going forward. That's one of the basic principles of sound management.

It's a great list, but there are a LOT of bad actors who ignore the DNC rules. I found the nomorobo.com service works great. It's only for land lines right now. Your phone rings once and the system scans to caller id against its list. If the number is a known telemarketer, fundraisers, etc., the call is blocked. Otherwise, the rings continue. You can white list numbers you want to get through.

It's good news - winnable games against a team from the AAC. And SMU is a team a huge number of our fans, alumni and students WANT us to play. It's guarnateed publicity in our home market by doubling the total amount of coverage.

You mean like an exact date for firing Bedford? A location for Tasty to stand with a sign of insults in Greek to be sure he see it? That kind of specific?

Interesting article from the WSJ. At lesast 108 athletes punished for serious crimes and killed off teams were allow on to teams at other schools. Some have done well, others committed more crimes. Sen. McClaskil of Missouri points out that while some do deserve second chances, the don't deserve the accolades and hero worship that star players get. I found the article through the WSJ Facebook page so you can access it without a WSJ subscription. If the link doesn't work, try going to the WSJ's Facebook page and scrolling down. When you open these articles, as you start to scroll, a "subscribe" message will pop up but almost always you can just click the "close X" to keep reading. It's certainly an interesting topic - should second chances be based on athletic skill or not. https://www.wsj.com/articles/scores-of-college-athletes-who-faced-felony-charges-get-second-chance-1488459601?mod=e2fb

The vast majority of college football players are never going to play a down in the NFL. Here's an article about two from Texas Tech that did better than most who DO go to the NFL! http://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/local-news/former-tech-football-players-land-28-billion-oil-deal-now-two-of-the-richest-texans-under-40/663792612

Arkstfan had some analysis a while back on NMSU. The short version is other the thier return to the SBC, the last several previous conferences to take only did so because there were no other choices. The WAC didn't want either Idaho or NMSU, but everyone else they asked said no. The Belt early on was in a continuous battle to keep the minimum number of football schools. I don't rember the exact details, but he showed the Big West,, Mo Valley and even the old Border conference settled on NMSU out of necessity rather than actually wanting them.

Exactly! At this point in NT's football program, I think just getting NT to a bowl game - any bowl game - is worth a one-year extension. When we are going to bowl games 5 out of every 7 years, then this should be revisited but we are nowhere near that now. There is nothing wrong with short and intermediate goals. Have both of those lower does not mean never raising goals later, but it does give a coach attainable goals to work toward.

Nothing beats visiting a facility personally and talking to the people who work there in person. It gives a chance to get honest assessments from the people who use the facility on what they like, don't like and what they would do differently if they could do it all over again. While you can do a limited amount of that on the phone or via email, doing it in person will get more accurate information. Visiting other college facilities lets them talk to college level people about college level problems which are clearly different than those faced by high schools. The status of the people who toured also shows this donor and other potential donors that NT is serious about both making upgrades and making the best choices available with the resources available. The highest university officials are directly involved in a very public way. That doesn't happen with phone calls, emails or brief car trips.

Wow. And someone thought each line was from the "best take." Makes you wonder what the "bad takes" looked like!

It's quite common to have multiple logos and tag lines for multiple markets. McDonald's, Disney, Mattel, Borden's, Kimberly-Clarke all use differnt banding to reach different market segments. Having a single logo can work, but is extremely limiting. I don't think we need to add additional limits to our out reach right now. That said, you have to get the right logo for the right market. While their are people at the University paid to do this, anyone who has been involved in marketing will tell you no matter what the safeguards and checks things get through. And no matter how much an organization tries to look for problems, members of the general public are more likely to find them simple because there will ALWAYS be more members of the general public than working for the organization. If you see something wrong, send an email. If you aren't sure to email, aim high and it will more likely get redirected to the correct person. Great. That image is going to take weeks to get our of my mind.

Exactly! If you see something like this, contact the athletic department directly rather than post here. If you aren't sure whom to contact, then email Wren. He does respond to things, although it might be several days before you get an answer.

I would think we are in the mid to lower 80s based on our final record which is right where USA Today puts us. But the Campus Insiders ranking isn't way off either, just behind Missouri and just ahead of Oregon State. Personally I put more credence in USA Today than Campus Insiders.