The Fake Lonnie Finch

I don't envy the WAC. But, they are having their crap kicked in by the illegal BCS-system, so I've got to grit my teeth and wish them success. That being said, the Big East should extend us an invitation before it's too late and the Big 12 (with 10 schools) snaps us up.

Many of you would like for us to beat Houston, and so would I. They deserve whatever bad comes their way on the football field because they are horribly wrong for the country with unemployment being as high as it is and jobs being sent overseas because of the high cost of union labor, corporate greed and an influx of illegal Mexican immigrants from all over Central and South America. But, what I really would like to see is a victory of Indiana. After all, it's Indiana who cashes in every year on their poor performances just because they're in the Big Ten, where people think your name has to be Barak Obama or Mitt Romney to be somebody. Since the illegal BCS was formed, we've been to four bowl games and Indiana has only been to one. Yet, they've made tens of millions more dollars than we have in the system. It's not right. Therefore, in addition to giving the new nachos another chance, on Saturday, September 24, 2011, you should be at Canales Stadium in Denton wailing until you heave lung biscuits and your throat feels like dry, white toast against the Indiana Hoosiers. They represent all that is wrong with college football with unemployment being as high as it is and jobs being sent overseas because of the high cost of union labor, corporate greed, and an influx of illegal Mexican immigrants from all over Central and South America.

As of right now as this minute, 62.62% expect us to win between 5 and 8 games. Fellas, I think that shows there is some true optimism in the fan base. I agree we should win at least five, having won three last year with a bum coaching staff and many key injuries. My chant remains the same: (1) Coaching experience matters (2) The Sun Belt isn't a high climb Let's go win some and whatnot! We are superior race of Denton; bring your women and children to our new stadium to witness the spectacle of our resurgence and, finally, our day in the sun!

We will wins some games this year with those guys. Maybe not 11 in a row like the Texas Rangers; but, we'll win enough for everyone to be happy with their trip to New Orleans or Mobile in December. Ya-hooooooooooooo!

Now for something positive... ...the upside to Darius Carey being gone is that it perhaps makes those remaining on the roster hungrier to show what they can do. His absence can be their gain. Plus, for those of us who wail about lack of tight end play, this kind of forces Canales to consider using the JUCO kid more than he'd maybe planned to do so.

I agree that he had potential, and sometimes showed flashes of it. But there are 100s of Darius Careys on college football rosters across the country - good potential, athletic...but too lazy or shortsighted to put in the work to fulfill it. Think about guys from small colleges like Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, and Terry Bradshaw who worked their asses off with the talent they were given. Then, think about the athletes who initially are in better situations and don't take advantage of them. Sure, we've not considered a traditional college power. But, we're miles ahead of where Payton and Rice came from, and about equal on the food chain (until our new stadium is ramped up) with where Bradshaw came from. Also, being in my 40s now with a wife, kids, mortgage, and the responsibility of trying to run a business, I have less patience for kids who are given opportunities at a young age and blow them. The Darius Careys of the world will have nothing but regret when they grow up and realize the opportunities they wasted because of stupid, off-the-field issues. Part of me wants to wish the kid good luck at McNeese; but, the other part cares less about his football abilities and just hopes he'll grow up and stay out of trouble. It's a shame.

They do want us as their "whipping boys." And, as long as we submit to them, they will continue to bully us in the football realm. That's where the money is. Baseball, they could care less. Basketball, they could care less. They are the ultimate hypocrites in football. I say, call their bluff, make a separate organization, and tell them to go beat up each other. Whoever is eft standing at the end of their "bowl championship series" send to a neutral site to play our champion. Have a real championship. Not one stacking in favor of "traditional powers." The BCS is nothing more than a ruse to enrich old powers who fear equal footing. The Michigans and Notre Dames of the world are protected and enriched whether they succeed on the field anymore or not. Nothing could be less competition-friendly than rewarding the mediocre. The BCS enriches is bad and mediocre. We'll play Indiana this year. They are annually enriched although they've only been to one game in the BCS Era, and it wasn't a BCS bowl game. BYU has been to more bowl games than Indiana in the BCS Era...Air Force, TCU, Utah, Tulsa, Houston...and yes, UNT! We've been to more bowl games than Indiana in the BCS Era, as yet they get a windfall every year just because of the conference they are in. Why do Non-BCS AQ conferences continue to participate in it? Tell them to bugger off, and if they grow the balls to do so, meet us once a year for a championship.

Tell him to call coach McCarney. I think that's the way it works with transfers - the player has to call the coaching staffs of the schools he's interested in attending. NCAA rules and whatnot.

These Cheerleaders from Morgan State made an M. Maybe our cheerleaders should make a traditional NT. (1) Do we have enough cheerleaders to do two letters? (2) Can our cheerleaders spell NT?

Here's the other thing to note... ...you always hear about hot UT co-eds. But, the Longhorn students in the background of the photo don't exactly make me want to leave the green grass of home. Maybe UT has two or three dozen decent looking chicks, and they're all on the cheer or pom squads. Austin and UT are highly overrated in the chick department. I always thought the UNT gals were better.

...grow some balls and tell them to go blow themselves. Form a new organization separate from them and quit scheduling them. Yes, it's radical. But, if they want to play with themselves, let them go play with themselves. Let them have their bowl games, let the new organization have a playoff, then challenge the cowards to a "Super Bowl" type game between the champions of the two organizations. Yeah, it's radical. But, on July 13th, who cares?

Agreed, 110%. Those uniforms are terrible. The first are fine, because they are normal. WYO? Stupid. The uniforms with matching shirt and pant colors are the worst. Please, let our dearly beloved Mean Green have green pants when wearing white jerseys and white pants when wearing green jerseys. Please. ...with UNT on the hips.

I guess part of the reason Notre Dame hasn't done as well as expected in recent years is that the fans, at the cheerleaders' direction, are yelling confusing things at them from the stands:

They should have worn the flippers to complete the outfit.

My guess is after seeing them struggle against teams fielding fourth team quarterbacks had something to do with it. Still, it's not like they conducted a search for the best available after they canned him. They elevated a guy with one year of experience as a coordinator at the FBS level and two other years as a position coach. That's not too impressive.

Which is, again, proven wrong because sports people still say NTSU to refer to us. If we went by UNT, they'd call us UNT and everyone would know what it meant. This, again (and again and again), is the other huge fallacy - people won't know what it means. What followers of college football can't make the connection between a school and its acronym? Be realistic. People who follow college football know the 120 teams that make up the FBS. They are not confused by acronyms. To the contrary, they use them all the time. UNT isn't difficult. Posted months and months ago, even if you considered the stupidest of fans and commentators, there is no other UNT anywhere else anyway to get us mixed up with. It's not the problem our athletic department thinks it would be. It would raise our profile and bring us into the final decade of the 20th century. I figure we're roughly 25 years behind the curve here. But, we can hope.

Here's an idea from the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders. I goes to the Eagles' tradition of deep sea diving. I don't know if deep sea diving is a tradition at North Texas, but we are also called the Eagles, so that must count for something:

I think the cheerleaders have to tee it up somewhat. When we play Texas and OU, their cheerleaders have sets of cards they show their mostly illiterate, bandwagoning fan bases so they know what to yell. Very Pavlovian. Texas/OU cheerleaders standing on opposite sidelines hold up cards. On one sideline, cheerleaders hold up "Boomer" or "Texas". Then, in a stunning fit of ingenuity, a couple of seconds later, the cheerleaders positioned on the other sideline hold up their cards have the words to complete the chant - "Sooner" and "Fight" Looky: Here's an example from a Longhorn basketball game. Pretty simple stuff, really. An OU cheerleader leads her side of the stadium with the technologically advanced, poster-like "Sooner" card:

You've got to get your crack money from somewhere.

Not the same - both of yours are using UH intercrossed. We have "UNT" for the academic side and "North Texas" for athletics. You guys don't have "UH" on academic and "Houston" on your helmets. That's the type of situation we're in. It would be like OU having Oklahoma on their helmets, or TCU having Texas Christian on theirs, SMU, LSU, etc., etc., etc. See what we're saying/dealing with here?

I don't think it's a matter of pleasing one set of fans versus another. I think it's just an overall recognition of something logical based on how we are still referred to across the country by national media.

Look, the Arkansas State elevation of OC Hugh Freeze is part "mythological creature" hire. He was a high school legend in Tennessee...one of these high school "spread offense" gurus. Sound familiar? The path he is cutting is somewhat more similar to Art Briles in that he was an FBS-level assistant before getting his head coaching gig. He spent two seasons on the Ole Miss staff as a tight end coach. He then went to NAIA Lambuth, then their OC on a team that barely beat our fourth QB last year. So, what do you have there?: (1) High school spread offense "guru", 1992-2004 (2) FBS BCS AQ position coach for two years, 2006-2007 (3) NAIA head coach for two years, 2008-2009 (4) Arkansas State offensive coordinator, 2010 That is a better hire than a guy who coached for over a decade at Iowa, half a decade at Wisconsin, over a decade as head coach at Iowa State, and gained a national title ring as the architect of the Florida defensive line which stuffed OU's "Best Offense Ever" in the 2008 National Title game? Come on, man. Current rosters aside, nearly everyone of our assistant coaches has more experience at this level than Arkansas State's Hugh Freeze. They've rolled the dice. We rolled the dice in the past. Good luck to them and their dice roll. Look, they beat us last year 24-19. They were up 21-3 at the 12:31 mark of the second quarter. Whatever "vaunted" offense this Hugh Freeze guy had produced only one field goal in the final 42 minutes and 29 seconds of the game. They had 328 yards of total offense - not exactly an earth-shattering number. We were down to starting Chase Bain at that point in the season. So, I mean, this is the guy we're supposed to believe is the better hire? We've already got game film of us shutting his offense down. No hard feelings to our Sun Belt brethren in Arkansas, but again, good luck with your dice roll. You were one game better than our injury-riddled and mid-season coaching change crew with that guy as your OC.

I would like to take the time to address the following truths, and I base them on our collective experience as UNT graduates and/or fans: (1) National publications and commentators often erroneously refer to us as NTSU. (2) Our athletic department doesn't think anyone will know what UNT is if we use it as our athletic logo. Given that (1) is true, doesn't it make (2) completely illogical? It has been a full 25 years since we've gone by NTSU; and, yet, national sports people still remember us by that acronym. Although it ruffles the feather of many Eagle fans, being called NTSU really should be our rallying cry to switch the school athletic logos to UNT. As national sports publications and commentators have proven, going by NTSU never stopped anyone from recognizing who we were. Quite the contrary: It was, and remains, our identity to them. Therefore, it is unlikely that making the logical switch to UNT would give us less recognition in their minds...and pens and voices. Those in the college sports world live by the acronym. When we are mistakenly referred to NTSU, I posit that it is because the writer, commentator, or announcer making the error is mentally - and, sports-logically - reaching for an acronym. Why, then, do we not go ahead an help them out by embracing - as the majority of sporting colleges and universities in America have done - our university's acronym? It is so obviously missing that it continues to lead to the NTSU error - an error repeatedly made in honest attempts to refer to us in the way that is screaming for us to be identified. Further, and finally, is it not confusing (marketing majors and grads) to have two different branding messages coming from the same source? Looky here: Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They don't use two or three or four separate branding ideals to differentiate among auto, home, life, and small business insurance. Whataburger. Just like you like it. Coke. The real thing. And, on and on (and on, on, and on, the beat don't stop until the break of dawn!). Why, then, does our school differentiate the academic portion of the school from the athletic activities part? Why? We are either UNT as a whole, or we are not, I say! When I attended UNT, I was a student at the school and also a supporter when I went to the athletic events. If someone asked me where I went to school, I didn't say, "I go to UNT, but my favorite college team is North Texas." It's absurd. UNLV is UNLV. We know which school it is whether we are talking academics or athletics. OU is the same. SMU. TCU. LSU. UAB. UTEP. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! When will the dual marketing madness end? When will we embrace one identity? Will it take as long as it did for us to get real athletic facilities? Stop the insanity!

This doesn't seem to be a problem for OU, LSU, UCLA, etc. ... or, even the likes of UAB, UNLV, and UCF. As noted before over half of the FBS colleges use letters instead of the school name. People who are watching sports programs for college football scores know what UNT means. They knew what NTSU meant as well...in fact, to this day, sports programs and publications still screw up from time to time and say NTSU. Sports people remember and know sports acronyms.

I hung the Rub Some Green On It one in the weightlifting section of our garage. Guess I need another one now.