rcade

That's what it says to me, too. Maybe there's a positive -- you can't have a pissed-off seven-figure booster if you don't have a seven-figure booster in the first place.

As someone else said, it wasn't the players' idea. I've corresponded with the parents of several players, and they're hot under the collar that Dickey's F-U to UNT is being blamed on them. It wasn't their idea.

ESPN Gameplan has been good this year at putting at least one Sun Belt game on each week. Since MTSU and Troy are deciding the Sun Belt Championship this weekend, I figured it was no-brainer that would be the chosen game. If for some reason that wasn't possible, they could have the last game coached by the most successful coach in the Sun Belt's short history by picking UNT's game. Instead, we're getting Florida International vs. Florida Atlantic, a South Florida matchup in which the only remotely compelling storyline is whether FIU ends one of the most miserable seasons in Division I-A history with a perfect 0-11 record. Not that I'll be watching, but I hope FIU wins. With the brawlgame and the seven-OT debacle, those players are in Book of Job territory.

One thing I don't get about the Dodge speculation: How could he possibly leave before his son's senior year at Southlake? That's a once-in-a-lifetime moment for a father who coaches his son and he'll never get the chance again. If I'm Dodge, I don't take a college position until next year.

Nice.

If you want $1.5 million to turn into $60 million, you need lots of publicity. That's all I'm saying here. The donation's great, but nobody knows about it. Maybe UNT's planning some big-check event at the next home basketball game.

That's my site. I discussed the attempt to chase down the facts here.

This is a great day for North Texas athletics, but the press has mostly missed it. I don't understand the timing of the $1.5 million donation and stadium capital fund announcement. Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving is the time to bury bad news, not share good news. It looks like the Goldfields' incredible act of generosity only rated one media mention today -- a couple of paragraphs in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. If North Texas is going to raise the capital to build a stadium, the PR people need to be smarter than this.

We have enough weak programs on the schedule by virtue of being in I-A's weakest conference. The risk of losing to a I-AA program is too great, and it's an unpleasant reminder of the days we were in I-AA.

I can't recall Dickey getting much criticism, if any, for losing money games to BCS opponents. Criticism of his OOC performance was generally about teams we had a realistic chance to beat, like U.S.F., FAU and Troy before then joined the Belt, Baylor, SMU, and Tulsa. With the exception of Baylor and SMU at Fouts and one bowl win, Dickey's teams rarely overachieved in OOC games and were often blown off the field.

So the new stadium would go where the old golf course was?

Thanks for posting this. I didn't see evidence of community outreach on Dickey's part, but I'm four states removed from Denton so I get my info here and from the media.

My guess is that it was supposed to read like this:

I'd root against SMU if they were playing O.J. Simpson and 21 of his clones. I root for the Sun Belt rep in the Nawlins Bowl, because our conference needs to win it more often than once. Man it's a crime to think UNT could have played the hated Mustangs in a bowl game.

I heard that Dickey took no questions from the media at this press conference. He asked them to show up, read off his accomplishments for 45 minutes, and vamoosed. Most of what he says is true, and I think the guy's a no-brainer UNT Hall of Famer the minute he's eligible. But if he made friends during the last several years of his time in Denton, where are they? How many fans here or elsewhere are going to the wall for him? My read on the situation is that there's not a lot of residual good feeling for this guy based on off-the-field conduct over the years, and this bit him in the ass when his teams faltered.

The national press his ad got was critical, but it's still national press. I think it's a sign of a maturing program that people care more about stuff like this. I expect we'll get more media attention for the hire of Dickey's replacement.

I had never seen one of Mattress Mac's commercials before finding one on a sports blog: Link Sweet. That living mattress could probably tell people some wild stories.

Do you aspire for North Texas to become a mid-major (or better) program? That road is paved with six- and seven-figure donors, many of whom lean on their ADs and school presidents much harder than Mattress Mac. On the off chance he's reading this forum, thanks for the donation and thanks for caring enough about the program to buy a $5,000 full-page ad in the DRC. I think you're wrong about the decision to fire Coach Dickey, especially given the events of the past Saturday, but I'm glad you're involved in the program.

According to a source, Ramon Flanagan got into the fight after being told at halftime he ought to play his seniors in their final home game at Fouts. Flanagan also allegedly spent the days since Dickey's termination refusing to talk to players who "got him fired." It will be a real shame if this crap is swept under the rug because these coaches are on the way out. I put a call in to President Bataille's office this morning to let her know the reports of what's been going on in the final days of Coach Dickey's tenure at UNT (making clear that I'm not a witness to them personally). If you're affiliated with UNT football, I encourage you to contact Bataille and reporters who cover this team and shed some light on the uniform stunt and Saturday's meltdown. The seniors deserve better. UNT deserves better. Ironically, this stuff might have cost Dickey a chance to go out with a win at home, considering how close a game it was.

If Mac gets over the Dickey ouster, it will be good news for the program. We need all of the boosters we can get, especially ones who are willing to write checks with five or six zeroes in them.

Is Todd Dodge as big a name in Texas football that he'd been mentioned this often? I figured all of the Dodge talk here was due to a couple of zealous fans of his high school program.

It's not my job to protect UNT's rep. Darrell Dickey and Ramon Flanagan should have to answer for this stuff, if it's true. They're dishonoring the seniors who ought to have gone out on a high note, but instead have to deal with halftime meltdowns and uniform stunts. Though it's true these coaches won't be UNT's problem any more, Dickey's still getting $500K from the school. That ought to buy a little more class than we've gotten in his departure, and I say that as a fan of his accomplishments who was on the fence about his firing.

Uniform changes where they've planned them in advance and worked with the sponsor can be cool. Clemson coming out in purple uniforms for the second time in their history was a weird but memorable moment. I'm in Jacksonville and the all-black uniforms are great, especially with that defense in that house. But if the reports from Saturday are true, the idea that a Division I-A football program's ousted coach could sneak rec-league unis on his team as an F-U to the school paying him a half-mil buyout is unfreakingbelievable. Can anyone imagine Ron Zook doing that at Florida? He'd have to go into hiding like Salman Rushdie.

If anyone was a witness to any of this, I've been contacted by a reporter who'd like to hear from people who can shed light on it. Please send me an e-mail and I'll do what I can to put you in touch.

I saw that. With all due respect to Harry, there's stuff here that ought to be brought to light. If he forbids the speculation here I'll pursue it on my weblog. During halftime, Offensive Coordinator Ramon Flanagan allegedly got into a fight with the wide receivers coach and tried to choke him. The fracas was so bad, from what I've been told, that UNT's offense received no instruction from the coaches during halftime.