MeanGreen61

Returning players shine 7-on-7 games By Michael Neglia Staff Writer March 28, 2006 The NT soccer team started its spring schedule on Sunday when they played four games in College Station. The team played three 7-on-7 games and one full game (11-on-11), while it played 25 minute halves as opposed to 45 minutes and played on a shortened field for each 7-on-7 game. The Mean Green won its first game of the day, defeating Sam Houston State 6-2, tied its second game against a soccer club in Houston 5-5, and lost its third game against Texas A&M 10-4 for the 7-on-7 games. “The reason we do 7-on-7 games is because it gives us a chance to look at everybody,” NT head coach John Hedlund said. “Teams are usually a little short because their seniors just graduated and their recruiting class isn’t there yet, so we get a chance to look at kids that usually don’t get to play and I get a chance to do things that I normally wouldn’t do during the fall season.” The full game saw NT beating Stephen F. Austin by a score of 4-0. “It is geared towards getting ready for the fall, almost like a non-season,” Hedlund said. “It was a good measuring stick to see how our weight-training programs are going and see where everyone’s fitness level is at.” While the team was able to see some of its other players compete, the starters played sharp like usual. “Everybody played pretty well,” Hedlund said. “Heather [forward Heather Hutyra] played well; I think she had three or four goals throughout the day. Kelli Lunsford, Dani Slavonic also played well, and Angela Hawkins did a good job at defense. The usual players stood out.” The spring schedule allows NT, who returns all 11 starters, to play together as the team. After winning its conference and reaching the NCAA tournament for the second straight year, expectations are high. “We should be pretty strong, and it should be an even deeper team than last season and we should win the conference title and go back to the NCAA tournament as long as we don’t have many injuries,” Hedlund said. The Mean Green’s next game is on April 1 when it plays Oklahoma and University of Texas at El Paso in the Sting College Showcase.

Football: UNT looking for running backs coach again Douglas stayed only days before leaving for South Florida 08:48 AM CST on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 By Brett Vito / Staff Writer North Texas coach Darrell Dickey found himself back in the market for a running backs coach much sooner than he expected last week. Dickey originally hired Troy Douglas to take over for Bruce Bell after the longtime UNT assistant retired following last season. Douglas stayed only a few days before South Florida lured him away. USF introduced Douglas as its safeties coach last week. Dickey said UNT couldn’t announce that Douglas had joined the Mean Green’s staff due to a holdup in his paperwork on campus. Douglas worked with UNT’s running backs during spring practice and was a member of the staff for 10-12 days before he left for USF. “Although it is a compliment to our program that our coaches continue to be hired away to other programs, we have lost seven in the last three years,” Dickey said. “It’s beginning to be troubling that we are losing them because we can’t pay them what other schools do. I can understand Texas A&M, Arizona State and Mississippi State. Without any lack of respect, the Tulsas and South Floridas of the world hiring away our coaches is a concern of mine. “We want to be on the same level with those teams, but they are hiring our coaches and paying them substantially more money. We are well behind South Florida and they have only been playing football for 10 years.” Several of UNT’s former assistants have advanced their careers by going to schools in more prominent conferences. Defensive backs coach Van Malone left UNT for Arizona State after last season before ending up at Texas A&M. Freddie Kitchens left for Mississippi State and is now with the Dallas Cowboys, while former offensive line coach Eric Wolford is now at Arizona. Former UNT offensive line coach Spencer Leftwich is now the offensive line coach at Tulsa, while former UNT defensive coordinator Gary DeLoach is now the secondary coach at UCLA. Former defensive backs coach Sam McElroy is now the head coach at Tarleton State. “I realize that we have had turnover in coaches, but six of them have gone to BCS schools and one became a head coach,” UNT athletic director Rick Villarreal said. “The amount of dollars those schools get from the BCS alone is almost as much as our total budget. Turnover, for that reason, is not uncommon for schools in our situation. I think it’s important to realize that we have increased our total salary pool for football coaches nearly $300,000 since the 2001 season.” Dickey sees the turnover on his staff as an indication UNT’s coaches have earned the respect of their peers. “One thing the people who criticize our coaches should do is look up and see everyone else in the country appears to think that they are pretty good coaches,” Dickey said. “We are brining in good coaches and they are leaving for more money.” UNT hired tight ends coach Thomas Dunson, a former graduate assistant, along with Douglas since the end of last season. Both worked with the Mean Green during spring practice. Dickey said he wants to fill his opening for a running backs coach in the next few days so that he can assign the coach a territory for the spring recruiting season. UNT’s new coach will enter the fall without having worked with any of the Mean Green’s players, including former national rushing champion Jamario Thomas. “I am not concerned that we will be starting with a new running backs coach next season,” Dickey said. “It would be better to have a coach to go through spring practice, but it’s not going to set us back.”

Didn't Van Malone go to Arizona or Arizona State, spend the night in a Holiday Inn Express and head to A&M ?

Your favorite movie ? Just because people don't get hysterical on a message board doesn't exactly mean that they beleive all is well.

You may want to pick another program to follow to preserve your mental health.

Bulls-eye !

Rice has no problem with attendance requirements. They host Texas every other year.

Or, as usual, there will be a variety of complaints on the board about the 'next guy'.

College Football Data Warehouse. http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/su...s/opponents.php

http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...ATES02/60323009 ULM's Jyles makes CFL announcement By Paul J. Letlow pletlowthenewsstar.com Steven Jyles, Louisiana-Monroe’s fourth-year starting quarterback, has signed with the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton franchise. Eskimos general manager Paul Jones, a Monroe resident, presented Jyles with a No. 7 jersey during today’s news conference to announce the signing. Terms of Jyles’ deal were undisclosed but Jones confirmed that it was a multi-year agreement. He will report with other Eskimo quarterbacks in mid-May for pre-season training. Jyles is the first ULM quarterback to join the Canadian League since Raymond Philyaw, who signed with Winnipeg in 1997. He was named player and offensive player of the year in the Sun Belt Conference as a senior. Jyles led the league in total offense and is the league’s all-time leading passer.

MTSU players dub Stockstill a 'perfectionist' By ADAM SPARKS sparks@dnj.com Rick Stockstill should come with a warning label: "In no way does the head coach's mannerisms reflect the actual progress of his team." The new MTSU coach can't help but be picky. His coaching style, as painful as it sometimes looks, is based on the endless search for the perfect play. FULL ARTICLE http://dnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/.../603230313/1006 Muts offense not running on empty ARTICLE http://dnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/.../603220333/1006

Games, scores, dates. http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/su...s/opponents.php

Trojans warm up to new offense By Tom Ensey Montgomery Advertiser Troy's new tricked-out offense hasn't been all that tricky for the players trying to learn it. They wear a cheat sheet on their sleeve. Offensive coordinator Tony Franklin's complex system comes complete with a system to make it easier. Franklin calls in the play from the press box. Sideline operatives start flipping metal plates on a sign that codes each play by color and numbers. The quarterback communicates with the center to set the cadence. The players look up the play on their wrist bands, and it tells them what pass route to run. There's no huddle, of course. FULL ARTICLE http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/p.../603220349/1002

Post on the Sun Belt board by PantherFan. FIU FOOTBALL STADIUM Construction to begin next year BY PETE PELEGRIN ppelegrin@MiamiHerald.com Florida International athletic director Rick Mello met with the university's board of trustees Tuesday to present a rendering of the Golden Panthers' new football stadium, and the school will begin construction on the stadium in January 2007. FIU will play all its home games this season at FIU Stadium. Originally, the Golden Panthers were going to play this season's home games at the Orange Bowl. The dates for the home games will remain the same. ''The stadium consultants did not want to rush and put ourselves in too tight of a construction schedule,'' said Mello, who had planned for construction to begin this summer. ``Our 2007 home games are likely to be at the Orange Bowl, with the new stadium opening in 2008 for our home opener against South Florida.'' The stadium will have a seating capacity of 25,500 with the plan of eventually expanding up to 50,000 seats. The stadium also will have 13 luxury suites, 1,400 club seats, a new press box, new lighting, a jumbotron scoreboard and new coaches offices, locker rooms and expansion of the weight room. Mello said the luxury suites will double as graduate school classrooms. The estimated cost is $31 million, which Mello said will be funded through private money and guaranteed money from out-of-conference road games. Mello added that, "no state monies or monies earmarked for academics will be put into the stadium.'' The stadium is also expected to play home to high school football games, concerts and possibly FIU soccer.

Arkansas doesn't have too many more than 20 that sign with 1A schools. Believe it was a grand total of 31 in 2004. Who did you out-battle for these Arkansas Top 20 players? Who, besides ASU, actually offered them?

Everybody's sure missing all of this talent on the ASU team. Know it's early, but the highest projection so far is 3rd in the mediocre Sun Belt.

Not surprising. Lady Cogs were one of the worst teams in CUSA.

Agreed. Skipping over them is even becoming a chore.

Shame on them Who woulda thunk

Do you mean there are negative post about Mean Green football on this site ? Who woulda thunk

How did this turn into a whoop it up thread for ASU? Probably a middle of the pack team in the mediocre Sun Belt

Fire when ready ! http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2006/Co...hes_SunBelt.htm Best Coach – Darrell Dickey, North Texas – Last fall was an unmitigated nightmare in Denton for North Texas, but it’s going to take a few more 2-9 seasons to knock its coach from his perch. For four years leading up to 2005, Dickey was the only Coach of the Year the Sun Belt had ever known and the Mean Green its only champion in football. And in conference that’s become synonymous with mediocrity, that’s more than enough to stave off challenges from the likes of Troy’s Larry Blakeney and Arkansas State’s Steve Roberts

Mountain or a mole hill?

Huge financial eggs come from these NCAA baskets Conferences score big with tourney's popularity, TV revenue 07:22 AM CST on Thursday, March 16, 2006 By GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News It wasn't so long ago, says Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett, that a small NCAA Division I athletic league would operate with just a commissioner and a sports information director working out of their homes. The booming popularity of the NCAA men's basketball tournament and its big television contracts helped change that. The Southland Conference employs nine people in its Plano office. The conference and its schools will receive roughly $5 million from the NCAA this year, Mr. Burnett said, practically all of it attributable to the men's tournament. The other Division I conferences headquartered in the Dallas area will get even more. Conference USA expects about $15 million, and the Big 12 Conference expects $24.5 million. If you could buy shares in March Madness, Wall Street would consider it one of the great growth stocks in financial history. "This is a very valuable sports product," said C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky. The University of Memphis, a member of C-USA, is the top seed in the Dallas subregional, which begins Friday at American Airlines Center. As a group, the Dallas area's three Division I conferences will receive more NCAA money this year than the entire three-week men's tournament generated – $41 million – from television and ticket sales in 1986 when Dallas hosted the Final Four. The tournament's TV revenue alone this year will be $453 million, more than 800 times the amount in 1970. In 2013, the final year of its $6 billion, 11-year deal with CBS, the NCAA is scheduled to receive $764 million from the network. Money from television and marketing rights accounted for 86 percent of the NCAA's total revenue of $507.7 million last year, according to the association's 2005 report to members. "You have an organization running an entire industry that is totally dependent upon one event in one men's sport," said Gary Roberts, a Tulane University law professor and sports business expert. NCAA's distribution A small amount of NCAA revenue ($13 million this year) comes from ESPN, which televises the women's basketball tournament. Much of the rest is from championship ticket sales, largely the men's tournament, NCAA reports show. The NCAA distributes about 95 percent of the money it receives to its members for athletic and academic support, as well as for championship event expenses in its three divisions. Last year, $298.7 million went directly to 31 Division I conferences and independents, representing more than 320 schools. About 40 percent of that money was tied to success in the men's tournament. Rod Fort, a sports business expert at Washington State University, says the powerhouse basketball conferences maximize revenues through March Madness just as the powerhouse football conferences maximize revenues through the Bowl Championship Series. The BCS, however, isn't nearly as lucrative. This year's four biggest bowl games generated roughly $130 million for participants. Some critics say all that money overemphasizes sports at the expense of the classroom. "I think it is madness," Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist said of the NCAA Tournament. "It is not what you would have if there was any reasonable balance between academics and athletics." Maximizing revenue The NCAA acknowledges the criticism. It recently administered the first penalties against schools whose athletes aren't making satisfactory academic progress. In January, during his state of the association address, NCAA president Myles Brand said big-time college sports and education can, and should, coexist. "The business plan for the athletics department mirrors that of the university," he said. Their common goal: maximizing revenue and redistributing it throughout the organization. As the larger debate continues, no one foresees any slowdown in the immense popularity of the NCAA men's tournament. And no one predicts any meaningful drop in the value of the television contracts, although some see a leveling off. According to TNS Media Intelligence, more than $2.2 billion was spent on network advertising during the NCAA Tournament from 2000 to 2005. And the $467.7 million spent last year almost equaled the amount generated during the entire college football season. The research firm expects nearly $500 million to be spent on network advertising during this year's tournament. CBS also benefits from local ad sales at stations that it owns and operates, says Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for TNS. The network's contract includes Internet rights, which are expected to be increasingly important. Bob Dekas, CBS' coordinating producer for NCAA basketball, links the tournament's popularity with a grass-roots wholesomeness that appeals to rural America as well as big cities. "Nothing in life is pure," Mr. Dekas said. "But it's as pure as life gets." While the NCAA has concern about being overly dependent upon one source of money, ballooning revenue from the men's basketball tournament has helped some conferences diversify from football. The Big 12's expected cut this year from the NCAA will be nearly 22 percent of its total revenue of $112.3 million, according to projections the league provided to The Dallas Morning News. In fiscal 1997, the league's first year of existence, the NCAA provided $5.7 million, about 9 percent of the Big 12's total. Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said the NCAA's share of his league's budget should continue to grow through the end of the current CBS contract. After 2013, he sees more potential growth from football bowl games and regular-season television. "The NCAA contract is fully priced in the marketplace," he said. CBS began its affiliation with the men's tournament in the early 1980s. Television rights fees increased steadily, taking a big leap in 1991 with a seven-year, $1 billion deal, and an even larger leap in 2003. It pays to win In the first three years of the current contract, NCAA revenue distributed to the Big 12 increased 80 percent from 2002, according to the NCAA. Conference USA's revenue from the NCAA increased 64 percent and Southland's 55 percent. The part of the tournament's payout tied directly to winning favors traditional power conferences because it is based on total tournament appearances over rolling six-year periods. Consistently having more teams in the field and more wins means more money. In the formula, each game appearance, leading up to the finals, equals one unit. Units earned one year don't begin to pay off until the following year. This year, each unit accumulated over the previous six years is worth $163,981, up from about $100,000 in 2002. So, just getting a berth in the tournament this year eventually will mean more than $1 million to a team's conference. And game-winning shots this year will be worth a million bucks, literally. That frustrates Mr. Burnett of the Southland Conference. His league, which began in 1963 and opened its first office in 1987, gets one tournament berth, almost always a low seed. The last time a Southland team got past the first round was when Karl Malone played for Louisiana Tech in 1985. So, when it's time to tally units, Southland has only six while the Big 12 can have 80 or more. The multiplier effect is powerful. Mr. Burnett hopes his conference eventually will get more revenue opportunities by placing teams in the National Invitation Tournament, purchased by the NCAA last year as part of a settlement in an antitrust lawsuit. Still, Mr. Burnett says, it's hard to imagine life without the NCAA windfall. "If we did not have that payout, a lot of leagues would have problems," he said. E-mail gjacobson@dallasnews.com