rcade

I agree with Nick Saban: "Any team that does not win its conference championship game should not play in the BCS title game." OSU deserves a chance at LSU.

It bugs me to be too far away to attend games. If circumstances ever bring us back to Texas I'll be going all the time. I've never understood why UNT football isn't a bigger deal to the Denton area. When I've visited Clemson a few times, everywhere you go there are Tiger paws. The supermarkets devote aisles to Clemson gear and the campus is at the center of everything. UNT football isn't on a level with Clemson, of course, but UNT has more than twice as many students. Denton residents share their town with an enormous (and excellent) public university. You'd think there would be more local pride in that.

It's great you have the money and time to fly back to Denton for games. Not everybody is in that position. I live in Florida and follow the team the way I can -- on TV and radio. Unless you want to pay my travel expenses, pick up some work hours for me and watch my kids, that ain't changing.

Speak for yourself. I forget which school I attended if the name isn't on the helmet.

You're crediting Leach with a championship ring won after he left a school?

That depends on what Leach would have been willing to do as UNT coach.

I thought Dodge improved academics too. Add that to the list of things he did badly in Denton.

I think you underestimate how much he has to rebuild his reputation. It'll take some success at WSU -- a pretty big feat -- for him to start getting the kind of love he got at Tech before the scandal.

The fact it took Leach two years to get a new job shows he was damaged goods. But I'm glad that WSU was willing to get beyond that. He's a hell of a coach, and as long as he doesn't recruit the children of ESPN personnel he should be fine. It's too bad WSU isn't on the coast, given his love of piracy.

UNT has posted Gosselin's column: http://inthenews.unt.edu/story.cfm?action=view&id=150436 I didn't know the academics were such a mess when he arrived. I'm glad he is focusing on that, because it's a disservice to UNT athletes to let them leave without a diploma.

That was a great accomplishment. It's worth noting that GoMeanGreen members contributed money and effort to that campaign as well.

It's not that simple. Casual fans don't all wait until a team is a proven winner to show up. They trickle in over time as the team's reputation improves. If McCarney puts a Belt contender on the field and the team notches some OOC wins, it'll get some butts in seats.

I think ticket sales will improve because of how the team has played this season. We're not at rock bottom any more. We have a realistic shot next year at taking the Belt.

I think it was demoralizing to start every season with two body bag games in which the Mean Green were humiliated by halftime. I can accept one body bag game, but the rest of our OOC schedule needs to be teams we have a realistic chance of beating.

I don't know what time of year ADs plan future schedules, but I'd like to hear that UNT is approaching CUSA and MWC schools for games. If we want in these conferences, we should be building relationships with these teams and showing them Apogee.

I don't know if it makes you a bad fan, but you're waiting for a scenario that's a one-in-a-thousand shot to ever happen. UNT is in the Sun Belt. No better offers have been extended to us. The WAC is at best a lateral move with some serious negatives. So if you can't get excited by the prospect of UNT playing for a Sun Belt title at Apogee, the program's unlikely to motivate you as a fan.

I live in Florida. Eight hours to drive from Florida Atlantic to Denton? More like 21.

Here in Jacksonville, cyclists operate rickshaw bikes to take fans from distant parking lots to the Jaguars' stadium on game day. I think they charge $10 or $20. Is anyone doing that at UNT games?

I'm impressed with what UTSA has done so far. I hope UNT is scheduling a home and home against them and considering one with Texas State as well.

Man, people can be such downers here on GMG. Having several thousand people and the high school players, coaches and parents come to Apogee is free marketing for UNT athletics. We finally have facilities that work for us instead of against us. Will it make a huge difference? Maybe not. But the more high school games at Apogee, the more people in Texas will know that we have a hell of a stadium. Treat them to a nice gameday experience and some of them might even come back just to watch games.

The WAC has ridiculous travel times, TV starts late at night and may be worse than the Belt now. Going down to FCS is never going to happen, but if it did, bringing teams like McNeese, Central Arkansas and Stephen F. Austin to town is not going to excite anybody but you. Staying in the Sun Belt makes the most sense until/unless we get a CUSA or MWC invite. It is what it is. When we were good in the Belt, fans showed up.

Al Hurley was university president back then, and he was still in charge when UNT football rejoined I-A (now FBS). So he did some work to elevate the program, though his record was mixed as an athletic supporter.

Texas is talked about more than the other ex-SWC schools combined. Beating UT would have been huge for I-AA UNT. Appalachian State beating Michigan huge.

It would've been the first and only time UNT ever beat UT. You're nuts to think that wouldn't have mattered.

If UNT was in a BCS conference, I hope we'd see that the effort to split the FBS in two may be killing the golden goose. The BCS schools are practically begging for an antitrust case.