Aquila_Viridis

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.

Their budget is much more. They have built strong support for basketball over years.

Yeh but their existing stadium architecture is whack. Whatever they are doing is better than what we're doing because there is a level of commitment well beyond ours. That could change of course but I gave up hoping for that. I think they are serious about getting in AAC.

Well I have to take UAB and Saladbama off my list. Those schools are tiny too. Nationwide, large urban public universities that have such a proportionally miniscule approach to athletics as NT (but do have a football team of some sort) are very very rare.

New AD will succeed only if higher ups REALLY want him to succeed. What makes you think there has been a change of heart?

No not so much. stAte and Salabama for example. Anyway no I am not too interested in most past or current Belt members. From the current Belt I would take GA State and Salabama. I know you're groaning because of the proud tradition of the 3 mentioned above (and I am only being about half sarcastic about that cause they do have something) but unless after decades NT is finally going to go All In on athletics - and I am doubting that, then we have to come up with an entire different mindset. That means codgering together a different league of schools who share a common vision and institutional goals. I will call it the Urban Stoner League of which we should expect to usually be in the top half. Maybe a San Jose State for example would want to join. On the other hand, by going All In, I don't mean they are going to pour additional state or student money. I mean that they make public statements about a serious goal of consistently winning soon against high level opponents and a commitment to get people working on developing a broad base of other support for the program, that can achieve a budget that will enable such winning. I have never heard any such thing from NT. I don't expect to. The LTs and USMs, Marshall and stAte etc have a higher relative commitment to their programs. They are tiny schools by comparison. But the athletics is a much bigger percent of their whole being. Hanging with that type crowd with our big stoner mindset is not working out. It will not work out in the long run without a basic change in institutional mindset. So right now I see us on a path to nowhere.

No I don't miss the Fun Belt and in the near term I don't care about attendance. I care about winning, alot. I also care about playing against schools that are near decent airports for example, not ones who can kill it on a low budget and enjoy support cause there's nothing else going on there.

I agree. It should be the TailZone. Also that sounds like a zone I'd like to be in.