Aquila_Viridis

I'll be surprised if it's anything other than a roadmap for achieving the requirements for Tier 1 status. Though if it is a good and workable plan to do so, that is certainly something worthwhile to have. I used to be a lot more concerned about NT's dismal status in football than about the academic reputation. I really studied the academic rankings this year as I have a HS senior. We are in much worse shape from that perspective. Of course I have also recognized the connection between the two and I believe the sports competition is one way of generating interest that can open pathways to increasing the endowment. A few years ago I tried matching my support to athletics with equal donation to academics. It was painful and I hate to say there is once again imbalance. However, that should be a goal for any supporter of NT's sports programs. I am sure many though are even exceeding such a goal and I hope to get there too.

I agree with the concept though I don't agree with Troy being one of our lesser tier schools. Monroe needs to be buried. All the Cajun fans need to Occupy Baton Rouge until they can jettison the - Lafayette name. However it still leaves only three Belt schools that sound like real competition. I think a conference upgrade can only tolerate maybe one directional school, and of course that would be us. Instead of upgrading the Belt, the four schools form a new conference, taking the most serious sounding from the WAC and MAC: Arkansas State Troy Louisiana North Texas New Mexico State Louisiana Tech Idaho Ohio then add whatever else from the WAC and MAC to round it out. Utah State if available, Toledo, Bowling Green? Sure it's spread out, but look what the MWC and CUSA monstrosity will be like. For a MAC team that would be a way to break from overconcentration and to separate themselves from the others who are locked in decades of subpar status with no end in sight. For us it is a way to kill UTSA and TX State which is way more important than many of you realize. Just look at how that would compare to the conference lineup we have now. Noone is going to take us seriously playing Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Western Kentucky, South Alabama, etc. And no more weird basketball affiliations. At least when you're NORTH Texas, that's a region more substantial than most whole states. WE HAVE TO BREAK FROM MOST OF THIS CONFERENCE!

I was really happy when he hit that kick. That was a great showing by a program that has a lot of purple and yellow adversity going against it. Nice win for themselves and the conference. Really entertaining game!

I should add that if North Texas seceded from the rest of Texas I would leave Austin immediately and move to North Texas.

UTA should be UNTA. UT should get out of UNT's region and turn over its campuses to the UNT system. Otherwise we should annihilate them.

I like the letter. I take the message to be: 'people of our region, get behind the region's representatives in the arena of college sports.' It so happens that UNT is best situated among the three to represent by far the most people in the region, so UNT by far has the most to gain from this (diplomatically) collective message. This should be followed by an aggressive saturation campaign of the eagle logo. Maybe AA will take money to drop leaflets. I think the trustee would have to consider any offers.

Where did they get that kind of money in Jonesboro???? Talk about upping the ante. They are serious!

The BCS bowl performance cited is attributable to members that are leaving the conference.

Whenever I watch NT BB and they win I am astounded because they do not move the ball around with a collective purpose. That TT game was some of the worst basketball I have seen by two teams so this result didn't surprise me. I don't think I want to go next Tuesday.

Oh and one more thing. UTSA is the pro team that SA didn't get when they built the Adome. They are still trying to justify it. When the novelty wears off and the people realize it is not ACTUALLY a pro team or any semblance of the same, there will be a precipitous decline.

One issue we have relative to other schools is that there really aren't too many people out there ASPIRING to attend North Texas. I think a lot of them end up there who wanted to go somewhere else, though maybe they didn't want that bad enough. Some of them - very few it seems - will end up coming around and being thankful that NT was there to help them along the road of life. On the other hand, I know some people, who for whatever reason, aspire to attend places like Baylor. Maybe NT should get more selective and send some more of the other type people to TX State or SFA.

If you want regional rivalries, we could just start playing on Friday nights. Now to your point, the attendance might be about the same as the other night. :-)

Maybe our coaches should drink more. Hard to believe I will end up driving 7 hours round trip for this. I hope no one from CUSA or MWC was there.

NT is so much larger and more of a significant university than several schools already in conferences that we would like to move up to. How can we possibly not have gotten there already? UTEP, Memphis, Southern Miss and Louisville for example are each only half the undergraduate enrollment of NT. Wyoming is a tiny little school, around 8,000 undergraduates. It is also astonishing that some of our little current conference mates are able to keep up with us. Monroe only has about 7,000 undergraduates and stAte only 8,000. We have to do better. North Texas has like 22,000 undergraduates and I'm not even counting the 6,000 part-time students. Certainly bigger than Alabama and LSU. Why can't we generate that kind of spirit and support? If it's because of the lack of tradition and TV exposure then NT needs to make it a priority to find other ways to reach people. There's got to be at least 2 million people within a 20-mile radius of that school. North Texas should be in their faces all the time. I feel like these conference officials must be going 'what is wrong with you people?'

Someone please paint a rosy picture for what the path forward will be if we do NOT get into CUSA or MWC. I am not being sarcastic. I think I need an emotional landing zone just in case.

Sorry but he's pissed himself almost down to his knees. Coaching is not all he's doing on the field.

There is no question. If we get a chance to get out of the Belt and into MWC we go MWC. How could anyone want to stay in with MT, Monroe, FIU, FAU and the assortment of non-football schools like UALR and South Alabama which I guess is getting football? Are you kidding me??? You would stay in with that rabble instead of Colorado State, Fresno, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming? We have GOT to get out of this conference. I was talking with someone last night in San Antonio and he thought we were still in 1-AA. You can carry on about Big West but in 2011the MWC has better programs even without Boise.

I just took a dump and it was vaguely in the shape of a roadrunner head. I heard this pile is on the short list of CUSA's radar, but it's the radar they use to find turds not the one they are using to find new conference members.

The name does not have to change. You people are not thinking globally. The conference is looking to the future and the REALLY big east - that's right, the Orient, the Far East. You can't ignore the massive number of people that make up this possible new market. It will only take the Chinese a few weeks to reverse engineer a football team for one of the local universities.

San Antonio is a great place but there is no need for a football game as an excuse to go there. Bashing the Paseo is way off target. I would like to have seen the area in its natural state but that is not our time.

Definitely recognize the limits of the rankings, but it is hard enough to compare schools using any one of them. Adding others makes it very complex and so eventually it will boil down to one. Our endowment situation is deplorable. A case could be stated that we should scrap all efforts to build recognized athletics and focus all promotional efforts to build the endownment. However, the usual chicken and egg challenge comes into play: realistically I think it is necessary to develop recognizable (recognized for success that is) athletics programs as a pathway for building connections that will allow significant endownment growth. My own personal support for UNT has grown considerably, and that growth is directly attributable to success of the football program starting in 2001. If we don't get back to that, it is likely that the level of support will slide back, because there are a lot of other things competing for my caring.

Of all our current Sun Belt brethren, stAte is the only one I value and the only one I'd care to see go anywhere with us. I don't think we're ever going to get anywhere playing these other schools in the conference. With Memphis, S. Miss, Rice, Tulsa and Tulane we'd have a much better chance of generating interest. Someone mentioned the MAC as a stable conference; yes it is stable but their attendance is dreadful. That is not a model to follow. Toledo has one of the coolest mascots/logos of all teams though. We have to get out of the Sun Belt. I hope our leaders are not complacent about this. Those who talk about adding UTSA and TX State, that is crazy. There is too much DILUTION in the area already. Maybe in 30 years, though at which point I would hope we'd have moved on further. If we don't get up and out we're going to get drowned by these new programs competing for athletes. I'm telling you, just wait til UT Tyler wants to add football, or how about UT Arlington or UT Dallas, and don't forget about SFA and SH.

Actually I said the 2010 edition, which used 4 tiers. You did not read the tier explanation they are using now. They rank numerically all the top 75% in the category (National Universities) now and call everything else 'Tier 2.' That means bottom 25% or ...... fourth out of 4 groups just like in 2010.

Whatever SMU may ever have done is nothing that couldn't have been easily overcome by sufficient commitment on the part of our school administration and influential friends and alumni to see NT competitive in football at the highest level. At our core there is still clearly commitment lacking. And in their defense, we have to recognize that there are other issues to address also. I am looking at the 2010 edition of the US News college rankings. Both SMU and NT are ranked in the 'National Universities' category. SMU was 68 and UNT was in the 'fourth tier', which means somewhere between 200 and 260. Further, this type of deficiency plays a part in conference affiliations. The good news is that several CUSA members are also in this lowly domain (including UH), and some are not even 'National Universities'. I don't think there is any better school that CUSA would have any interest in getting. Have you tried to get to Ruston? Yes, believe it or not, Louisiana Yech is in the 'third tier'. There is not a lot of pride in being in the fourth tier. We are right there with Oakland University (located on Squirrel Road in Rochester, Michigan), which I could have sworn was a 'for profit'. I shouldn't make fun of them. If we don't get out of the belt and 'the other OU' decides to field a football team, it may only be a matter of time before the Golden Grizzlies are feasting on us.

The CUSA should be astounded that we have kept in FBS at all with the competition we face in this state and our place on such a low rung. I'm not nearly as excited about CUSA without UH but get us out of the Sunbelt and the results will be great anyway. UTEP - they are just afraid. They know we have 10X better location.