Aquila_Viridis

What I meant was a mistake, was using up capital for a stadium, at a time when it should have been used to find a way to fund a much higher level of coaching staff than we've had all these last several years. And by capital I do not mean only money. Then maybe by this point in time we could be fixing the stadium problem. Even today we are going very cheap on coaches. That stadium won't get us in the Big 12, but if we had been winning all the last several years, NT would be on the list regardless of a dump stadium, cause we could just play the games in Dallas or Arlington til we built one. Again, one of the worst mistakes I've ever seen, and not being on the list at this critical time is one of the consequences.

Well I do regret that I put everyone in the same boat. So no, I should not address all of the club level group collectively. However, my point is that more and more I feel that there is a set of people, and definitely not all in the club level, that care more about the game as a social event. In fact, at one point I felt this group was very desperate because they were concerned they might lose this social opportunity altogether. For this relatively very small group, the social aspect seems more important to them than winning or having a team is important even to the rest of us. I see this social model sort of working right now for Ole Miss. But it won’t work for long. And it took them a LONG time for it to bear any fruit. And Ole Miss is about as different a place from NT as there is anywhere. This is not going to ever work at NT. There are too few such people for NT. For NT, there are a lot more people who care, or would care, about winning. But I have never heard an NT president say ‘we are committed to winning’. Yes we needed a new stadium but not right away, and the money for it would have come if we had been winning all these years. People said, ‘well we need it to recruit’. No, not with a high profile coach, then the stadium would not have been needed for that. And look to the pitiful extent it has actually helped with recruiting and to the game results from that. That was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen and we are living the consequences now. I think the leaders at NT can’t even imagine what would happen, if they got committed to winning, set a higher fee on the incoming vast number of students (so known up front) and used the money to hire a coach and staff who would - for certain, not maybe - have extreme success at our level (and no I don’t condone extreme discipline issues), then experienced sustained winning, and even more importantly - competitiveness against P5 opponents. That little stadium would not be able to contain all the people. You have like 7 million people down there within a short radius. It takes a very tiny fraction of that to make 100,000 people. That number of people is not going to come out because of the fine venue and tailgating. I do think there is a group of people, that have had opportunities to be heard, who do not want to see that happen, and that makes me really angry. Maybe the university has only heard the viewpoint of these socializers, because for the most part they're the only ones still around. Of course the university is not going to get the input of many people who care about winning, because those people are mostly not around due to lack of winning. And the university has not made much effort to go out and ask about it, and even if they did, a lot of people they might ask would not even understand because the concept of it is so foreign. But if they saw it, then they would understand.

The reasons your access comment struck a nerve are: (i) the reason you get access are because the program is small time, thus it is taken to mean that you want the program to remain small time; and (ii) you juxtaposed it with Alabama which (a) can only be taken as bragging, and (b) tells everyone you have essentially jumped ship when it comes to caring about success of a program. There were no positive reasons to mention (ii), so you should not be surprised that it makes some of us sick. I am so tired of bandwagon fans like all the Steelers fans all over the place who have never been to Pittsburgh for example. That's the kind of thing you're doing. For people who invested in the stadium Club level, I hope you enjoy your hobnobbing. Pandering to the few of you is what has the program in the toilet. No doubt you find that sentiment ironic given your support. The university thinking such few would dig it out is one of the fatal errors they made.

To anyone who thought the stadium would 'vault the program forward', I take this fine opportunity to say 'I told you so.' What we needed much more was a major level up in coaching. Failure to direct the necessary funds to that is why there is no one in whatever stadium the Mean Green plays in.

So much for the 'The old boss was holding him back.' concept. What a loser!

What in the world caused you to mention him? I didn't see anything to be excited about.

Stay your fixation. Most of our opponents' fans are not that clever.

We no more need to change our name than USC needs to change theirs. Keeping the name tied to the region was smart. It is an awesome region, unlike for example Western Kentucky or Southern Mississippi. Just need to do everything possible to promote people thinking of the metropolitan area as 'The North Texas Region'. And unlike USC who has an entire metro further South in San Diego, there is no more Northerly region in Texas. I agree NT has made progress in some absolute ways since the 80s, but relatively speaking, other universities in the state have made so much more progress that in some ways we essentially regressed.

The situation is never hopeless. All it takes is leaders who think it's important on their own. As long as the leaders think, 'well I'll ask around and see if very many people think it's important' then there will be failure. On the other hand, when they just decide to have a successful program and then do have one, then if they asked around they would find a lot of people who care. That's what being a leader is about. We haven't had that before. Maybe we have that now. There has been a lot of change.

I love the presence of the eagle logo which previously was pretty much limited to athletics. Great move!

I could not tell what the purpose of the meeting was really supposed to be. Do the decision-makers really need to be told to stop running one of the 40 largest colleges in the US like one of the smallest? I guess so, because this little get-together seems like exactly that. It seems like 'cart before the horse'. Instead, hire the right AD and he already knows all the stuff that needs to be done. If NT hired from within, it would cement NT's place as one of the most disproportionately bad athletics programs in college sports, for decades to come. Loved the 'see the results' comment. Yes and you will see those results for another 15 years. So this is not a time for just winging it, or DIY as seems to be happening. On 2014 numbers, there were 36 universities that had more full time undergraduates than NT. Of those, only 6 had athletics programs on par or less than NT. The rest were all well-recognized names. Any expectation other than quickly becoming a well-recognized name is a waste of time. And by 'well' I mean not only the high level of notoriety but also being recognized for doing well. That expectation will guide who should be the AD, then he will lead without the need for consultants.

It's a trap.

It made me so angry that I made a facebook account so I could comment. How liberating.

Damn. I value my privacy so I don't use facebook, or I'd post some extreme comments on that pile of trash. The foolishness that goes on down there is incredible. Based on the article, the only sensible idea from it is NT should hire someone from A&M.

Forget about filling the stadium, not on the horizon right now. And no to playing whatever team your buddy went to. All that matters is winning games. The question is, how are we going to win games? The answer is more money. You aren't going to get hardly a drop of what is needed, from the little bit of attendance from your buddies. I think you have made it about yourself not the university; the event and not the result.

We don't need to do any different conference. We should go full in on the higher student fee concept. It is our opportunity to differentiate, because we ARE different. UTEP for example has all of 13,000 full-time undergrads, to our 24,000. Another $12 million a year will make us a consistent winner in this conference. Some students will complain, but others will take their place. And they are all borrowing so much for other charges with no idea what those are going to, that the complaint about athletic fee would be hollow. Yes our total subsidy will be bigger than most everyone else, but WE are bigger (a lot) than most everyone else. That seems to be routinely forgotten.

The MWC geography is not comparable. I have been in favor of MWC for a long time if ever available to us. But short of that, I am not interested in being joined with TX State, Rice or any of those schools in Louisiana and MS and not NMSU either. I don't think there is long term upside in it. We have to look forward at what has potential to grow into something.

We need to be with one of the Miami schools, not both. OD and Charlotte are large metros; we should stary with them. But OD is spending a lot more than us; must be addressed. If we could have a steady group then there could be controls among the group to avoid breakaways on budget.

This 'regional rivals' is a terrible idea. If you want regional, go watch the HS games on Friday night. Small time. NT and others can find the money to play related opponents. stAte, not NT, should be in a conference with LT an USM. Here's 10 teams that make some sense together: UTEP, UTSA, NT, Salabama, UAB, MT, FAU, GA State, Charlotte and ODU.

The problem is we are not JUST WINNING. It doesn't just happen. There will not be many wins for '$ to follow', without more spending initially. This fantasy that the thing will grow itself is what has kept our program in the cellar for decades. The fact that we are not even competing consistently with these tiny universities even though spending some more money overall than they are, should say something. Maybe it's dilution; that athletics is not as big a part of the culture at NT as at those smaller schools. Whatever it is, instead of saying 'well we only have to spend $30 million to have a program at all, but not one that wins, so let's just spend $30 million', NT needs to accept that it must find a way to spend more. NT should not be trying to compete with tiny universities. It should be trying to compete with big universities. As for the student fee, I don't know what it is at NT or at other universities. I do know from the above that $250 more per semester would go a long way to closing the gap in our conference. In that case, then the size SHOULD be an advantage. We have more people to spread it around on, so no one bears too much. Again, wherever you try go get the money from, they need to understand WHY. I agree with this to some extent but honestly when I think of fundraising, it is as more of a Development function. Promotions is important, to build connection with the community, and should bring money from attendance, but that at first will only get a drop of what is needed. What we need must be executed like a fundraising campaign. I don't necessarily think of that as an athletic department function or expertise.

Full-time Undergraduates Athletic Expenses Ath $ per FTU Florida 30,314 $125,384,443 $4,136 LT 6,585 $21,849,418 $3,318 Marshall 8,268 $27,397,209 $3,313 OD 15,102 $42,780,118 $2,832 USM 10,841 $24,546,909 $2,264 WK 13,382 $30,212,548 $2,257 Chattanooga 9,066 $17,359,207 $1,914 FA 15,891 $29,794,361 $1,874 MT 17,381 $31,671,166 $1,822 Charlotte 18,309 $28,573,920 $1,560 NT 23,669 $31,268,741 $1,321 UTSA 20,033 $26,177,864 $1,306 FTU #s are from US News 2015. Expense $ are from USA Today 2014-2015 Finances page. I used to think that NT's enormous size is an advantage, but I have come to realize that it's only a potential advantage in the long run. With our current obesity, it is a huge disadvantage and challenge in the near term. Look at it this way: if a really big fat guy (that's us) and a somewhat out of shape small guy half his weight, lose the same absolute number of pounds, the small guy is still going to beat the big guy bad in a race. Only when the big guy loses twice (or more) as much weight are his long legs going to help him win the race. In the situation above, losing weight means spending money. Universities love to benchmark. Above is a benchmarking exercise that shows how woefully underfunded NT leadership has allowed NT athletics to be. It is a serious disservice to the students, alumni and community, because the results of the major sports on the fields, courts and TV sets all say that NT is a crap university. That is not true, and people need to know it. For now, this September, I expect as usual that we'll be announcing to the 20 million people in the state Florida that the U of NT is a joke. I'll make a score prediction based on it: 41-13. In the column on the right above you can see exactly how bad it is. I threw in our upcoming P5 powerhouse opponent and FCS Chattanooga, home of the Mocs, to give a broader sense of scale than just some of our conference foes. Not only do we have no hope of competing against Florida; based on this, I'd wager we would not compete consistently against Chattanooga or several other FCS teams. If we are going to stay at this terrible level of funding, we need to be somewhere where we don't have to play the other teams in the top half of this list. Instead, I sincerely hope our institution's leaders would commit to getting competitive in the ratio on the right. And they can't just put it off on the many apathetic alumni. We few who do already care, need the university to take leadership to address this funding issue. They and their staffs can do far more about it in their day jobs than we few can. Most people who are 'apathetic' are that way because they have never been approached by the university on a specific basis about this and told what a major problem there is and why and what needs to be done about it. A coaching change, an AD change by themselves will not do it alone. I know all public universities are facing budget challenges, but hardly any other schools are finding less money for their athletics programs on a per capita basis. At a minimum, NT leadership must find a way to match FCS Chattanooga, or the major sports will continue to struggle. A more reasonable goal would be to double the current amount. Imagine where NT would be with that! So yes, it is - objectively, based on benchmarking - reasonable to expect, that our athletic budget should be $60,000,000 per year. Obviously that's not going to come from TV or the NCAA or from 17 people. NT leadership has to get out there and find it from thousands of people and businesses in the North Texas region and from internal reallocation. It's not easy, but the results will be worth it many times over. It is time for NT leaders and staff to pound the pavement and beg for money, in a very specific way with explanation (not just 'we need money'), and to find a part of it by reprioritizing from some programs that have enjoyed relative overfunding. If the current leaders (the regents and the politicians included) are not willing to take and require such measures, then out they should all go.

That is not lost on me and it is one of the reasons I have any hope left.

Getting our house in order has a lot to do with who we are regularly playing. Our current slate of opponents, including the stupid games against P5 powerhouses, does not lend itself to getting our house in order. Some of the opponents are good for us, but those are the exceptions not the rule. Though as I've mentioned, finding opponents who are good for us - and again this is based on assumption of continuing our long-standing proportionally extraordinarily low level of institutional commitment - is very hard to do.

I for one will say I had no idea what you meant about him beating a drum like 90. I know what drum 90 was beating. Likewise, i note the qualification in the statement above but nonetheless I do not understand what you mean by that, and accordingly would have to disagree with the statement at this point.

It will only matter who is in that job if his superiors seriously care, as a key institutional goal, whether he succeeds. Changing AD was sort of like the stadium in that it was something that should have happened a long time ago. We've had a new stadium for years but they haven't seemed to care whether there's anyone in it. At this point I view the AD change exactly the same. So, no; it provides a possibility at least, but a lot more needs to be done than making the change at AD.