LongJim

No, but the school's situations are different in many ways.

Some of my thoughts on the MWC: UNT needs to be in a conference with in-state/interstate rivals as much as possible. This program is fighting 100+ years of apathy because they never played anyone the public gave a crap about in conference play. Look at the home schedule attendance from last year. Top 3: La Tech, SMU, Rice. By a wiiiide margin. Heck, even Incarnate Word outdrew SoMiss, and Flantic doesn't travel at all. You want UNT recruits and their parents to be able to travel as easily as possible to away games. Mama wants to see her baby play. Cannot underestimate how important that is in recruiting. You want travel costs to be as low as possible for your entire program. MWC will be a strain on the AD. You want opponents with name recognition in the state of Texas, which is where UNT draws most RECRUITS. For perception purposes, and ideally, UNT NEEDS to be mentioned in the same breath as the SMU's, Tulsa's, and Houston's of the world on Saturday and Sunday morning. MWC game times and opponents hinder that. You want OPPOSING teams fans to TRAVEL as much and as many as possible to Apogee. Attendance will suffer with MWC. UNT will not play BSU at home every year. When will the phrase "...before a sellout crowd at Apogee Stadium..." be uttered by a broadcaster or printed online? I think UNT should continue to build and WIN. Play the long game. Set sights a bit higher than the MWC. I think--at this point in UNT's progression--it's at best a lateral move, and at worst, a total momentum killer and a step backward. UNT needs to play a long game. MWC jump would be premature and a move sideways at the most.

MWC is not a good fit for UNT as it stands--IMO--and I doubt it ever will be.

Lager, ale...I'll take either.

Good post. I think there's a lot of truth to "showing up and out" to make yourself attractive to other conferences. It's all about the $. The other thing to consider is how UNT is perceived as an academic destination. Beating the drum of "Tier 1" is a good step. UNT has to be seen as a value-add for the conference from both an athletics and scholastic standpoint. Filling Apogee and TRAVELING WELL will open eyes. Bowl attendance opens eyes. If UNT fills hotel beds and restaurants at away destinations and is seen as an academically desirable school (which it is), that influences a lot of folks. DFW location is huge as well, despite differing opinions.

Good stuff. Really impressed with SL. Has his head on straight.

I really hope they can pull this off. That old hotel will look magnificent if it can be restored properly. Now, I'm not sure if restoring it can "bring Mineral Wells back", but it surely can't hurt it.

To see how this is resolved. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/06/18/us/ap-us-transgender-athletes-high-school.html

Me too. I was able to visit DC a couple years ago, but ran out of time to see the ANC.

That is going to be a first-class facility.

Yeah, I don't disagree at all. Lots of dirty hands in that mess. It's a real tragedy in a lot of ways.

I know some Baylor higher ups were involved in the mess, but Briles was far from a scapegoat. This is from a Rivals article published a few years ago when the S hit the F. ************************************* "The Beginning … I’m going to ask you to use logic in this section because it’s critically important when trying to rummage through the deceptive actions and words Briles has offered up for more than two years in regards to Ukwuachu. Briles’s current story consists of him never being told by anyone at Boise State, including former BSU head coach Chris Petersen, that Ukwuachu had anger or abuse issues while he was a student there. Never mind that Petersen quickly disputed that claim under no uncertain terms (unless you believe the words “thoroughly apprised” translates to nothing that’s actually thorough) or that Boise State did an in-house investigation that painted a very troubled picture of Ukwuachu, let’s just give Briles the benefit of the doubt. Poor Art was out of the loop completely. It’s important to note that in order for Briles’s story to continue to hold water and for any justification of Briles’s decision-making that followed the assault of Jane Doe to appear remotely justified, he would had to have never actually found out about Ukwuachu’s past at all. Like not until the Texas Monthly article came out this week. In order for that to be the case, logic would deduce the following. 1. Everyone at Boise State not only misled Briles, but Chris Petersen was purposely deceptive on when the two men discussed Ukwuachu’s situation at Boise State, despite the fact that there was nothing to gain and everything to lose should his deceptiveness eventually lead to problems at Baylor. 2. Ukwuachu lied to Briles from start to finish, never once detailing what actually happened at Boise that led to his departure. 3. Either Pearland High School head coach Tony Heath also lied to Briles in giving Ukwuachu a firm recommendation or Heath never found out what happened from Petersen, Ukwuachu, the people of Boise or pretty much anyone on the face of the earth who might have known what happened to his former player in a far-away-state. Keep in mind that Heath describes Ukwuachu as a close friend to his son, so either Heath just didn’t care or everyone involved made an effort to leave him clueless to what was happening. EVERYONE. We also have to believe that a Boise State coaching staff that recruits the Houston-area like gangbusters would risk its reputation and ability to continue to recruit the area by holding back any and all info. 4. Ukwuachu’s family also misled Briles or was completely in the dark about what happened at Boise because it apparently never gave any indication that troubles existed outside of homesickness and some depression. 5. When Boise State blocked Baylor’s appeal to allow Ukwuachu to play immediately, Briles never asked anyone why. Once the deny of the appeal came in, he just shrugged his shoulders and never once asked for specific reasons for why the school would take such actions against a kid that was homesick and depressed. Basically, Briles thought he had a player being mistreated by the jerks at Boise (given the circumstances), but he never followed up with questions that might lead to answers. Oh, and in order for this to be true, logic dictates that no one at Baylor so much as asked a series of questions after the deny of the appeal arrived in an effort to support its new pass-rushing machine. Logically, those are the things that had to have happened together in concert to keep Briles forever in the dark, except there’s a problem with the logic. Petersen isn’t the only person that claims to have been honest with Briles, as Ukwuachu himself has given strong indications that Briles wasn’t guilty of the banana in the tailpipe routine. “The Baylor coaches knew everything and were really supportive, so I appreciate that,” Ukwuachu told Sicemsports.com in 2013 after his transfer had become complete. One of the questions Briles must answer is this … if everyone lied to your face about what happened at Boise, why did you forever stand by Ukwuachu once you did find out that everyone lying to you had left you in a very precarious situation? It turns out that a player he didn’t care enough about to ask a few follow-up questions when his eligibility appeal was denied, lied and left him completely wide-open for massive criticism following the claims of sexual assault. In what world does that happen and the response is to double-down on the support for Ukwuachu? Briles’s decision-making in the aftermath of a sexual assault allegation … Typically speaking, the way a college coach handles allegations of sexual assault isn’t rocket science. If a player is being investigated for sexual assault, you suspend him and hold him out of all team activities until the investigation is completed. If a player is charged with sexual assault, you boot him from the program never to return. If the investigation goes nowhere and charges are never made, you can bring the player back. If charges are made but eventually dropped, he can attempt to play football somewhere else, but he can’t play at your school because the risk is simply too great. Those are the ABCs from the unwritten college coaching handbook, except that Briles went the opposite way. From the moment of his transfer through the initial investigation of the crime through the entire legal process that followed, Briles tripled and quadrupled down on his support of Ukwuachu, allowing him to continue to take classes and hang out in and around the program, all in an effort to ensure that if any wiggle-room became available, Ukwuachu would be instantly available for the football team. How do we know that? Because Baylor defensive coordinator Phil Bennett told a room full of Baylor alumni that this summer, nearly a year after charges were presented and just a few months before Ukwuachu’s trial was set to begin. Oh, and Ukwuachu’s attorney mentioned the same thing in court this week. Pending pretty much anything but a guilty conviction, the hope was that Ukwuachu would play this year. Meanwhile, over the course of the last two years, Briles went out of his way to remain vague on the circumstances surrounding Ukwuachu when anyone asked about his situation. Instead of acknowledging what was taking place, Briles’s disingenuously misled anyone and everyone looking for an answer. Briles would have you believe that because Ukwuachu never played, he took the proper amount of action in such an incredibly dangerous set of circumstances, but the truth is all Baylor ever really did was take his name off the roster, which really isn’t the same thing as booting a player from the program at all. The truth is that he enabled a monster before, during and right up until his conviction of a violent sex crime in almost every way a college coach could possibly enable and protect such a monster. And now he would like for us all to believe that he’s the trustworthy one and everyone else is the liar. The disaster known as Baylor University ... In the event you’re under the impression that I believe Briles alone is to blame, let’s take a look at the incredible set of decisions that took place under Baylor president Ken Starr’s watch. 1. Baylor Associate Dean Bethany McCraw, who was responsible for the Title IX investigation of the alleged assault, cared so deeply about finding the truth that she didn’t even wait to include the results from the pending rape examination before concluding that "there was not enough evidence to move forward" in the school's investigation of Jane Doe’s claim. McCraw’s work was so careless and flimsy that none of it was allowed into evidence in court this week. 2. In the aftermath of the allegations, rather than take action against the alleged rapist, the school forced Jane Doe to change her classes and her study times, eventually taking scholarship money away from her when she struggled to keep it all together, which caused the victim to eventually transfer. 3. The school knowingly allowed Briles to breach normal protocol in the situation of sexual assault charges involving student-athletes, eventually allowing Ukwuachu to graduate from the school after receiving an uninterrupted education worth six figures. 4. The school’s athletic chaplain, Wes Yeary, testified on behalf of Ukwuachu, despite the fact that Jane Doe had told Yeary about the assault. According to the Waco Tribune Herald, this is what happened when the prosecution asked if Yeary knew the victim: "Under cross-examination, LaBorde asked if he also knows the victim in the case, bringing an immediate objection from Dan MacLemore, who represents Baylor and was sitting in the back of the courtroom. MacLemore said he would assert the pastor’s clergy-parishioner privilege if there were questions about pastoral counseling with the victim. "After a conference in the judge’s chambers, which included the victim, Yeary testified that she told him about the assault. He said he told her that if she would have called him that night, he would have given her a ride home." 5. Perhaps more than anything, every single person involved in this story on the university side of things is guilty for never approaching Briles and saying, “Lord forgive me, but what the ^%$# are you doing? Nothing about your decision-making and actions is worthy of a school that prides itself in being a place of Christian ideologies.” The bottom line with Briles It’s his job to know who and what is coming in and out of his program, and no one else’s. Enablers of his activities will have you believe that it takes some sort of telepathic skill to uncover the events that journalists from Texas Monthly were able to find by simply asking the right people. Rather than asking how Briles is supposed to know about these details, perhaps the enablers should be asking how many abusers of women has Briles let into his programs over the years through similar failed background checks? If the message today is that Briles isn’t responsible for bringing in a person with a history of violence and possible abuse, then what you’re really saying is that he’s never responsible for anything other than wins and losses, and maybe that’s the way Baylor University wants it. But, it is his responsibility and not knowing isn’t an excuse that works in 2015. If we’re to believe Briles, he unknowingly allowed an abuser to come into his school and within months, that abuser sexually assaulted a women. That's on him. It happened on Briles’s watch. If the message today is that he’s not responsible for any of this, then let’s just throw the idea of responsibility out altogether. At no point in any of this has Briles ever stood up and said, “The buck stops with me. It was my decision to bring him into the program and I am responsible for all things that happen in my program.” Instead, he’s tried to pin blame on Boise State, Chris Petersen, Tony Heath and just about anyone else he can think of."

You need to up your game. Some UNT student roasted a Rice player so badly that it made him piss on the ice machine.

Yeah that was a bit of a non sequitur, I guess.

Love me some Poppys. Have to try the BBQ sammich.

Just north of Joe Greene Hall IIRC.

Wow. That is beyond incredible. SMDH...

Guy is a sack. Disgusting.

Maybe a few of them, but in general, I doubt it. Dyess is out there, so there's plenty of places to let your hair down in Abilene.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/college-football-playoff-2019-prediction-for-every-semifinal-bowl-game/10zb9g0rofc2d1bmrd4axpdsuf

Never. That's iconic.

The last time I was in the Barnes and Noble in the union, the tshirts were still for sale there. That was the first weekend in March. I did not see mugs, but did not get to that section of the store.

Good article by John Stossel. https://reason.com/2019/04/24/the-green-new-deal-will-hit-the-poor-with-higher-energy-costs/