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Glad to hear it. On top of everything else, UNT doesn't need a Switzer problem.

Ouch. The fact we're debating whether some 0-12 seasons are worse than others is a sign of how bad things are.

How could you not miss Dickey a little when we're playing like this? I know the guy was an SOB, and I'm glad we're rid of him, but that doesn't make the way we're playing right now suck any less.

Having the entire Student Government Association campaign for the stadium, when the SGA is in charge of running the election, could put a bad taste in people's mouths about the fairness of the vote. There are people in SGA who are campaigning for it, from what I've heard. They're just doing out outside of the SGA.

Since you asked: My thinking is that students who care about campus life at UNT are large enough that if you reach them and they remember to get out and vote, the proposal wins. If you don't, the naysayers crowd can win a vote with low participation. While at UNT, I helped get a protest candidate elected student body president. We won by doing lots of guerrilla advertising and talking to every single group on campus that would hear us out. In general, though, I'm tired of being told to do nothing and let others take care of things at UNT athletics. Where has that ever gotten us? When I see what USF and UCF have done here in Florida -- UCF with a new on-campus stadium no less -- I want that for my alma mater.

I get it already -- alumni are freaked out at the prospect of an alumni ad running in The Daily. I am the only alum here on GoMeanGreen who thinks the ad is a good idea. Stop freaking out. I'm looking at alternative means of supporting the effort.

I heard from SGA. As UntFlyer says, any individual or group that spends money advocating in a student election like this referendum is limited to $1,000. I'm looking at alternatives to a Daily ad. Are there any web sites that make the case for the proposal? I've been skimming the Facebook group, but haven't found a site other than that.

The fee begins in 2011. Most of the students voting on this will be alumni when students begin paying for part of the stadium. Students at UNT don't seem to realize that they'll be alumni a hell of a lot longer than they'll be students. The idea that you're the only ones who should factor into this -- when future students are paying the bill, not you -- seems absurd to me. It's a historic decision that involves alumni, students and future students. As for what we did as students, my generation was around to change the name of the school, push to get us out of Division I-AA and almost elect a dalmation and squirrel homecoming king and queen. If we'd been given an opportunity to fund a new football stadium and had a school administration that favored it -- I love Big Al but he wasn't a football fan by any stretch -- I hope we would've gotten it done.

The guy's 36 years old, according to his profile here. Older than some of the alumni he's telling to shut up and butt out. I appreciate his enthusiasm for the stadium referendum, but he might consider the possibility that pissing off alumni on a board that's full of them ain't helping.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the 2002 vote a student referendum to impose a $3 fee to pay for Title IX compliance? Maybe that vote failed because Title IX is harder to sell than a new stadium, since the number of UNT students who attend any women's sports events is considerably smaller than the number who attend football games. Blaming alumni "interference" -- on the basis of a Daily editorial -- seems a bit incredible to me.

So in addition to telling alumni to butt out of the vote, you now favor deleting some of our opinions on GoMeanGreen.Com if they don't meet your approval? Nice.

I hope your optimism is right in the long run, but right now the only momentum we have is downward. If Dodge's recruiting classes are "top" and are playing now, there must be a definition of "top" that does not include on-field success. We got big problems here. Dodge's sophomore season can still be righted by Sun Belt play, but the team failed the OOC test about as bad as could be imagined.

Yep.

I expected us to be competitive, at least to halftime, and to maybe have a chance to win one of those games. If we don't expect that, I think we're setting our sights too low. Look at what some of our Sun Belt rivals have achieved this year in out-of-conference games.

There's a difference between letting students take the lead and letting students do everything. There may be ways we can help the three groups that seem most likely to get out the vote -- student government, Greek organizations and student athletes -- without creating the kind of backlash some of you feel so strongly about. But if we just sit on our hands here and do nothing, I think that's a huge, huge mistake.

"Leave it to us" has been the UNT athletic department's answer to everything in the 20 years I've been following the program. What reason do we have to believe that they're doing everything that's needed to pass this vote? They lost four years ago, and I'll bet they wanted us to butt out then too. The idea we shouldn't get involved is absurd. If the AD at Florida or Florida State said that here to the fans of those programs, he'd be handed his ass.

When I was editing The Daily, our editorials were decided in small meetings by a handful of people -- usually the suckers who agreed to write them. They weren't indicative of general student opinion, and we'd often get hammered for them by people who disagreed.

Why am I not surprised that "do nothing" always gets the most votes when ideas like this are proposed? If this stadium proposal loses, folks, you can kiss UNT football goodbye. This is an important moment. If you don't like this idea, I hope it is because you're involved in doing something better.

Thanks. If the limit is $1,000 per individual/entity, that's still enough to buy two good-sized ads in The Daily during election week.

What are you quoting from here?

If political advertising hurts more than it helps, as you suggest, why can't I go 10 minutes here in Florida without seeing an ad for either Barack McCain or John Obama? Sorry, but I don't buy your argument at all. Students know they're casting a vote here that affects future generations of UNT students. Hearing from past students who support the stadium would not anger them.

People are worrying too much. The Daily will check into the rules for campaigns related to student votes before accepting the ad. They're already looking into it for me. Ballpark figure, if 10 members of GoMeanGreen pitched in $200 apiece, we could run a half-page ad in The Daily for the Friday before the vote and on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as votes take place. If the ad came from GoMeanGreen members as a collective effort, I think that would be an effective way to express our support for the stadium effort.

What reason did they give? The current students are making a decision that will affect future students, both in terms of fees and in terms of building a stadium that could enrich the reputation and profile of the school. Why shouldn't alumni have a voice in the matter? When I was at UNT and got roped into student government, I would've welcomed input from alumni on the issues that came before us. I would especially have liked to hear from alumni who cared about the school's football program.

Can you elaborate on this? Who's restricting spending, and how do they restrict outside non-student, non-school groups?

This is bad, but the memory of the Sun Belt championship years is still fresh enough to provide a reminder of what's possible. That wasn't true when Coach Dickey's run of conference wins began, and it wasn't true when I attended school in the '80s and our best hopes were I-AA glory. UNT back then was more hopeless than it is today. There's more on-campus activity, more students who care, and more attention from the DFW media. UNT football will bounce back, either under Coach Dodge's recruits or the next regime. If USF can build a Top 25 team from scratch in hyper-competitive Florida, UNT fans can't give up hope that it will happen to our program in hyper-competitive Texas.