rcade

This is the spot where I parachuted out of your rant. No one should be able to understand the drop because it was the worst decision a North Texas Board of Regents has ever made. It wasn't after a long period of football mediocrity that might lead any school's leadership to despair. It was just four years after Hayden Fry left for Iowa. The football world knew that the Mean Green could be a strong program even in the conference wilderness because Fry had proven it. Instead of building on that, school execs told themselves the "we'll focus on basketball" rationalization. UT-Arlington did the same thing when it murdered football in the 1980s. Can anyone name a single moment of greatness that the Movin' Mavs have produced on the basketball court the past four decades with that extra focus? A single player? Do they even play basketball any more? "We'll focus on basketball" is just what their presidents say every few years to shut up new students who organize to bring back football. North Texas dropping to I-AA in 1982 solved a short-term financial problem caused by staggering financial mismanagement in athletics. Among the mistakes was spending big promoting a country concert-football event at Texas Stadium so poorly attended that the singer invited all fans to come down onto the field to watch. Another was having the athletic department handle the ad sales for the North Texas-Kentucky game instead of letting the TV station do it, which left 47 out of 48 ad slots unsold. So we got out of a $976,000 hole by creating a long-term perception of being small time, which UNT athletics is still fighting today. I kind of became accidental besties with Big Al Hurley after graduating, but how he, Eddie Chiles and the rest of the board thought dropping from I-A was a good move I'll never understand.

I'll hold him down while you kick him in the nards.

You are correct. As Mean Green faithful we are the sommeliers of losses. This one was of particularly foul vintage.

If we've got this much despair after one loss, if we lose 8 like we did in Littrell's first season it's going to look like the Jonestown Massacre around here.

Seth Littrell said fewer words with each season at UNT. His last press conference was just an anguished moan like the Nazi who drank the wrong grail in Indiana Jones.

Let the Joe Walkers gloat after their school loses a game. I'd rather roll with a new coach who might not work out than accept .500 football forever while getting stomped in big games and bottom-rung bowls.

Kinne only looks like the obvious better choice because of week 1. He has less experience than Morris. Kinne had one year as co-OC at Hawaii, one year as co-OC at UCF and one year as head coach at Incarnate Word carrying on what Morris started. Morris had three years as co-OC at Texas Tech, one year as OC at Washington State and four years as head coach at Incarnate Word. Both of them are gambles. When they were hired by their schools last December, the case for Kinne over Morris would have to be about intangibles like how schools felt about their plans and their charisma. It couldn't be about experience or Morris would be in San Marcos. These two dudes have so many things in common it's weird. How did the fate of Texas State and North Texas fall into the hands of two former Saskatchewan Roughriders?

He's new and enthusiastic, so I'm willing to grant Coach O a mulligan on what he said. But he's got this receipt business all wrong. Deion said "we keep receipts" after a historic win for his program. He didn't say it after losing by 37 points at home to a 6.5-point favorite that won four games last season. Did Coach O also yell "scoreboard" as he left the field at the end of Saturday's game? That would be just as misplaced as saying "we keep receipts."

It isn't perfect because the next coach might not be able to keep the train rolling. As someone who enjoys every UTSA loss, I'd rather see them roll the dice with a Traylor replacement than watch him continue to deny me joy. The dude can coach.

It's wild that after week 1 we're now wishing we had hired the second-to-last Incarnate Word coach instead of the third-to-last Incarnate Word coach.

This isn't YMCA football and the players aren't our kids. We don't have to keep things positive and bring them orange slices and Gatorade. Everybody here has proven we support our school win or lose. Or more accurately, win or lose and lose and lose again and lose so bad winning doesn't even seem possible. The coaches and players aren't proud of that performance. I'll show pride when there's something to be proud of.

I'm not reading too much into Morris over a first game loss, but I was expecting more than to be completely blown off the field. Cal was 4-8 last season and last had a winning season in 2019. They were only a 6.5-point favorite and won by 37.

You probably shouldn't mention Texas State when counseling patience. Their new coach G.J. Kinne beat a P5 as a 27.5-point underdog in his first game.

Littrell had 88 games to show what kind of coach he was -- average. Morris has had 1 game.

The ACC is desperate to stay above 14 teams. Maybe a terrible deal wasn't the best SMU could have reached.

I don't think programs as big as FSU and Clemson could be stuck for a decade in a conference they don't want to be in. It would leave too much of their fate to the actions of others.

SMU-Clemson may be as short lived a conference matchup as SMU-UNT. I've been spending a lot of time in Tallahassee and the talk about Clemson and FSU leaving is constant.

SMU money was big in the 1980s before the death penalty. There's a lot more money in college football today. Is SMU even capable of spending so much more than the big dogs that they catch up without TV revenue? Their collective got a lot of hype for the first deal to pay all the athletes, but today they're not in the top 20.

The problem with your analogy is that before SMU, joining a P5 conference wasn't like being in debt. It was like owning a bank. Former AAC member Cincinnati will be $300 million richer from media rights revenue when SMU starts getting paid in a decade.

SMU's ACC deal is a revenue sharing death penalty. If the point of the P5 is to rake in obscene TV revenue and spend it like one of the haves while the have-nots fall further behind into irrelevancy, SMU will be earning like a have-not until 2033. By that date all the P5 schools they see as equals will have spent $200 million to $300 million SMU didn't have. SMU has a talent for falling into deep holes that take decades to escape.

If all you want is to not be G5, you've achieved that. If you want to be seen as being worthy of a place in the P5, you've taken a deal so degrading no other P5 entrant has ever taken it before. UCF, Cincinnati, BYU and Houston are getting full Big 12 shares in 2025 expected to be $30 million a year. In 2025 you're getting nothing. The best you can hope for is that other schools follow the precedent SMU has set and lock in this new idea that some P5 schools get paid and others fill a seat -- like at the Oscars when a nobody comes in because an important person needs to pee.

Even after the nine years they don't get an equal share. It rises gradually over time after that. I think SMU fans are underestimating the reputational effect of agreeing to be the least worthy member of their conference. Being in the P5 means getting fed at TV rights time and they will be stuck at the kid's table for a long time.

SMU giving up $200 million or more in media rights money to join a conference is hilarious. That has to be a record. They're like a rich kid with no friends whose dad has to give every kid who attends his birthday party a present just to convince them to attend. And hire Lil Yachty to perform.

You have too much faith in SMU's ability to not suck over time.

Is there a place any more for "sensible" in college football? Every new development is crazier than the last. Deion has 86 new players including 53 incoming transfers at CU.