The Fake Lonnie Finch

Good edit - questions and opinions are two different things, aren't they? A question was asked and an answer was given. Such is generally the way of a message board. You don't have to like or agree with the answer to every question...Doyle....

And, Patterson beat OU on their home field without a roster full of senior and fifth year seniors who entered as nonqualifiers. So, Patterson really is doing more with less than the Boise folk (Koetter, Hawkins, Peterson). Given their performances once they moved up the ladder to conferences with uniform recruiting rules, Koetter and Hawkins have been proven to be no more than average. Not all athletic directors are stupid. With 25 or so Division I-A head coacing openings after last season, Patterson was named in the Miami search. He was in the Kansas State search the year before. Peterson didn't get a phone call. Folks, people who do it for a living know what goes on behind the scenes. Most of them do anyway - enough to know better than to look at a school full of Cali nonqualifiers' 1 point overtime win against OU and read too much into it. Why not just live in the now and admit TCU has a good coach? Some sort of anatomical envy going on with some of you?

NFL contracts aren't guaranteed, per the collective bargaining agreement between the Leauge and the Players' Union. So, a player or prospect can sign a deal for a year or one hundred years. It doesn't mean anything in the way of permanent job security. When you read the CBA, you realize it's basically a right-to-work deal: a team can cut a player at any time for any reason. Guys sign deals all of the time, especially free agents. Teams bring them into camp, basically as fodder, then cut them. It takes a while to hang on and make something of it. http://www.nflpa.org/CBA/CBA_Complete.aspx

The enrollment for Tulsa listed there is total undergrad and grad school. Take out the grad schools and TU only has around 2,500 undergrads. It really is a tiny school...but, wealthy as all get out from former students in the oil business. Nonetheless, it was a nice, quiet place to go to law school. Basketball is what the old alumni go crazy over. The Reynolds Center gets really loud during games. I guess with Oklahoma State being within 45 minutes, and Oklahoma and Arkansas both being within an hour and a half, they decided long ago to emphasize basketball over football. It's good to see their football fans finally be rewarded. It's amazing to think about all the sports programs they upgraded while the football fans waited for the administration to decide whether or not to raze Skelly. After all, they sat and watched while the basketball, tennis, soccer, softball, and track facilities got Grade A makeovers.

People, seriously... It's a list of former Mean Green NFL players. Is it incomplete? Yes. But, it gets all the retired players. Everybody around here is so touchy. Just take the information and be happy. It's not NFL.com. These guys probably do these lists in their spare time. Good grief.

I don't know why this site doesn't list those guys. You might e-mail them and ask. It's nice for a list of retired players.

http://www.databasefootball.com/players/by...+of+North+Texas Abbey, Joe (1948 - 1949) Armour, Phillip (2000 - 2000) Awasom, Adrian (2005 - ) Bahnsen, Ken (1953 - 1953) Baker, John (2000 - 2001) Barnes, Tomur (1994 - 1997) Battle, Ron (1981 - 1982) Beatty, Chuck (1969 - 1972) Birdsong, Craig (1987 - 1987) Bishop, Bill (1952 - 1961) Cooks, Rayford (1987 - 1987) Cooper, Jim (1948 - 1948) Davidson, Greg (1980 - 1982) Dunlap, Lenny (1971 - 1975) Elliott, Tony (1982 - 1988) Garza, Dan (1949 - 1951) Gipson, Tom (1971 - 1971) Gowin, Toby (1997 - 2004) Greene, Joe (1969 - 1981) HOF Hardman, Cedrick (1970 - 1981) Haynes, Abner (1960 - 1967) Haynes, Louis (1982 - 1983) Holloway, Glen (1970 - 1974) Holtzman, Glen (1955 - 1958) Kassell, Brad (2002 - 2004) Knight, Curt (1969 - 1973) Lewis, Reggie (1979 - 1980) Lockhart, Carl (1965 - 1975) Lott, John (1987 - 1987) Love, John (1967 - 1972) Lowe, Loyd (1953 - 1954) Mcwatters, Bill (1964 - 1964) Minter, Mike (1987 - 1987) Morris, Donnie (1974 - 1974) Mugg, Garvin (1945 - 1945) Parker, Buddy (1935 - 1943) Parker, Willie (1973 - 1980) Pegram, Erric (1991 - 1997) Perkins, Art (1962 - 1963) Phillips, Kim (1989 - 1990) Pruett, Perry (1971 - 1971) Ramsey, Steve (1970 - 1976) Reece, Beasley (1976 - 1984) Renfro, Dean (1955 - 1955) Renfro, Ray (1952 - 1963) Runnels, Tommy (1956 - 1957) Sanders, Bob (1967 - 1967) Scales, Hurles (1974 - 1975) Shanklin, Ron (1970 - 1976) Shepard, Charlie (1956 - 1956) Smith, Bobby (1964 - 1966) Smith, J.t. (1978 - 1990) Starnes, John (1987 - 1987) Stout, Pete (1949 - 1950) Strickland, Larry (1954 - 1959) Washington, Fred (1968 - 1968) Waters, Brian (2000 - 2004) Whitaker, Creston (1972 - 1972) Whitfield, A.d. (1965 - 1968) Witte, Mark (1983 - 1987) Womble, Royce (1954 - 1960) Wright, Jim (1947 - 1947) Wright, Ted (1934 - 1935)

Kragthorpe had nothing to do with the Skelly upgrade. I went to law school up there from 2000-2003, they were making plans for it back then. One of my professors was the legal liason to the athletic department's compliance department. Like us, TU's discussion was always whether to knock it down or remodel it. They've chosen to remodel it in its current location. Tulsa is doing what I've said all along is the thing we should do - keep Fouts in its place and remodel it. By the way, those aren't trees on the backside of the stadium, it's neighborhoods. Tulsa has some uber-rich alumni, they just haven't been giving in the past. It's interesting to note that the same guy who gave Arkansas the money to redo their football stadium a few years back also gave Tulsa the money to redo their basketball arena. I could never figure out why he wouldn't just give TU money to revamp Skelly as well. It's much smaller than Arkansas' football stadium. Three years ago, the guy who gave TU the money to build their state-of-the-art tennis center gave the school $7 million toward the North endzone reconstruction project. Now, another TU dude's Trust has given $9 million. That's big cash from two sources. The things about TU that people don't know is that it's a rich, private school. And, I mean rich. Many of the oil bigshots from Tulsa's past claim to "Oil Capital of the World" got their petroleum engineering degrees at TU. The thing is, the oil guys weren't really big into football. They have two world class museums up there, the Gilgrease and the Philbrook, but not much in the way of sports. I'll tell you, though. TU deserves it for all of the crappy football they saw from 1992-2002.

Unfortunately, attitude doesn't equal speed. Anyway, the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune had an article about OU minus Peterson today: OU more than prepared for post-Peterson era By DAVE MATTER of the Tribune’s staff Published Friday, April 20, 2007 Former Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson will be the first player selected from the Big 12 Conference in next weekend’s NFL draft, but the Sooners are hardly sweating the post-Peterson era. During the second half of last season and throughout spring practices, Oklahoma learned that Peterson’s injury-shortened junior year might have been a blessing. While a broken collarbone sidelined the former All-American for half of last season, the Sooners discovered their supply of tailbacks lacked neither quantity nor quality. In the seven games Peterson played last year, OU’s first six and the Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma averaged 172 rushing yards. In the seven games he missed, with Allen Patrick and Chris Brown handling the carries, OU averaged 182. Of the five times the Sooners averaged 5.0 yards per carry or more, three came when Peterson was out. Perhaps most telling of Oklahoma’s Peterson-less prowess, the Sooners were 5-2 with him in the lineup, 7-0 without, including the Big 12 championship game victory over Nebraska. Even as Peterson heads to the NFL - he’s expected to be a top-five pick in the draft - Oklahoma should have the deepest collection of running backs in the conference. The most explosive of the bunch might be redshirt freshman DeMarco Murray, who put on a dazzling display this spring. In three scrimmages, Murray ran for 327 yards and four touchdowns on 29 carries, an 11.3-yard average. In each outing, Murray had at least one run for 65 yards or longer. Still, Sooners Coach Bob Stoops expects to divide the carries between Murray, redshirt freshman Mossis Madu, Brown and Patrick, who was last year’s workhorse in Peterson’s absence. "We are going to be able to use them all in different ways and get them all 20 or 25 snaps between three or four of them and give them an opportunity to keep them fresh and to keep them fast as you go through a 13- or 14-game schedule," Stoops said. Who will be handing those runners the ball? That’s another matter, one that might prove to be more difficult than replacing Peterson. With three quarterbacks competing to replace steady departing senior Paul Thompson, the spring game passed without Stoops anointing any as the favorite. The contenders - junior Joey Halzle, redshirt freshman Sam Bradford and freshman Keith Nichol - can make every necessary throw, but Stoops probably won’t identify a starter until a few weeks into preseason practices. "Yes, it would be great if you had a guy that is experienced and you know who it is and you give him all the snaps," Stoops said. "But none of these guys have played, and you are only respected in the huddle and you are only respected in the locker room when you have earned a position."

If you do a little research on Patrick, you find that he was a First Team All-State tailback in high school, but didn't make the grades. When he went to his JUCO, they put him on defense. OU signed him as a safety, then moved him to tailback when Peterson was hurt the year before. The guy seems to be a workhorse of a tailback, too. Three games in a row last year - Colorado, Missouri, and Texas A&M - they gave the guy the ball 35, 35, and 32 times and he got more yards each weeks! Then, he sits for a couple of weeks, comes back against Oklahoma State and lights them up for 163 yards on 23 carries. He also ran for 61 yards on 11 carries in the bowl loss to Boise - better numbers than Peterson had put up until the OT touchdown run. 10/21/06 Colorado G W 24-3 35 110 3.14 1 10/28/06 @Missouri T W 26-10 35 157 4.49 0 11/04/06 @Texas A&M G W 17-16 32 173 5.41 1 11/11/06 Texas Tech G W 34-24 Did Not Play 11/18/06 @Baylor T W 36-10 Did Not Play 11/25/06 @Oklahoma St. T W 27-21 23 163 7.09 1 The bottom line is, OU won't be hurting at tailback even with Peterson gone. Their weakness is going to be QB. We're their game one, and it will be game one for whichever of their QB wins the job. That's why I say our secondary is going to need to really step up and bring it. If they can get us some short fields early, maybe OU gets frustrated like they did against the Frogs two years ago because they couldn't run their vanilla playbook on them. Also, a blocked kick or punt...a long punt return or two. I don't know if that's possible since we lost Johnny Quinn. But, we'll need it from whomever is back there this season. We really are lucky that Miami goes to Norman the following weekend. The Sooner coaches won't want to show the 'Canes anything. That helps us out, too, if nothing else.

Dude, if you ever have the chance to go to a Missouri Tiger football game, you get that X 10. Since Mizzou is really the only big name school in the state, it is filled with the state's best bettys. I think the hottness of the Mizzou gals keeps the football team too distracted to have prolonged success on the field. Seriously.

The only thing that gives me hope about OU is the fact that they are breaking in a new starting QB for the third year in a row. Everybody else returns. Even though they lose Adrian Peterson, the Sooners were 6-0 with him out and the back-up guy in. The back-up guy started six games last year and is back, along with a kid out of Las Vegas who was a Top 5 running back two years ago who redshirted last year. Also, OU completely overlooked TCU two years ago. Now, that TCU team went 11-1 and had a bunch of upperclassmen on both sides of the ball. We don't have that luxury on offense. What we have to do is make zero - and, I mean, zero - mistakes with the ball. And, our defense has to find a way to exploit their inexperience at QB. Their OL is all returning upperclassmen, so they'll be stout. To me, an upset of OU lies in playing mistake free on offense, getting two to three turnovers from our secondary, and having a big play out of the special teams. My guess is that they throw a pretty vanilla offense at us because they play Miami the next weekend and won't want to give too much of their playbook away. So, discipline on defense will be key. They came out vanilla against TCU two years ago and the Frogs tore them up by blitzing on run and pass downs. The thing that is just the killer is how our young offense will deal with their defensive speed. We need short fields to work with against OU and Arkansas. Special teams and the secondary...those will be the key to an upset.

1. Winning 2. Remodeled football stadium - I'm one of the few that doesn't believe we have to start from scratch with the stadium. Remove the track, bring seats closer to the fields (especially the end zone seats), have a nice brick wall surrounding the whole structure, add about half a dozen luxury boxes on the student side, revamp and expand the press boxes, have a good-looking façade around the stands, expand the bathrooms, move concessions away from the stadium and into their own structures facing the stadium, have closed circuit TVs outside the stadium where the concessions and bathrooms are...and kill the crickets). 3. Pick a dadgum shade of green, logo, and stick with it FOREVER. 4. Winning

The thread originally went to OU when someone said their size would be the difference. True enough. But, it's their speed that will be the real killer. The point being that it doesn't matter what UNT does, until they hit Sun Belt games, they will (with the exception of SMU), be facing teams with such advantage in overall team speed that it won't matter what we do - run or pass. Again, the problem with having the OUs, UTs, and Arkansas' of the world on our schedule is that they have linebackers as big as our tight ends who play sideline to sideline with tailback speed. Size advantage is one things, but the linebacker and secondary speed is a pure killer when we line up versus the big boys. Also, to the people who continue to mention Tre Newton...it doesn't matter what a player does in high school against a bunch of high school kids, 99% of whom will never play any type of college football. OU and Arkansas and the like are a completely different ball of wax. Look, I understand completely that RV feels like he has to get fat checks from those schools due to our lack of money and attendance. But, to me, people come out to see winners. Going out on the road to be whipped every year by bigger teams does nothing for us. It never has, and it never will. Sadly, Dodge will be marched down the same path. More home and homes against the Tulsas, Akrons and other Mid-majors, please, and no more guaranteed blowouts at the hands of the BCS schools. It just never has made any sense. Give the players (and fans) a fighting chance to taste winning early in the season.

Boise State only threw 29 times in the game versus OU, including the overtime. Their tailback, Ian Johnson, ran 23 times for 101 yards and the final two point converstion for the winning tally. Maybe you watched a different Boise State game. Texas Tech with Mike Leach, Louisville with John L. Smith, Missouri - supposedly with Dodge's offense installed - and Chase Daniels at the helm have all been snuffed out by Stoops' defenses. Size had nothing to do with it. Winning consistently at the eilte I-A level takes speed on defense. OU and Arkansas will have it. Troy State will have it to a lesser degree. Again, it takes a running game to open up a passing game, particularly against teams with speed like OU and Arkansas have. Without a running game threat, we'll simply be throwing a ton of short, incomplete, or intercepted passes and be routed. Basically, it will look like past OU ruotes of Texas Tech, Missouri, and Louisville.

The OU (and Arkansas) lines will for sure be bigger and stronger, but that won't be the killer. The killer there will be the sheer team speed mismatch. That, and OU has made it a point to dismantle pass-heavy offenses during Stoops' tenure. Without the threat of a running game, Stoops' OU teams have killed "wide open" pass attacks. The only teams that might struggle defending the new offense will be our fellow Sun Belt foes. Although, Troy State has had the defensive speed to stick with and sometimes upset foes with bigger and better athletes, so they probably won't struggle with it either.

It doesn't make sense, but for reasons other than Boise State doesn't play anyone good. The reason it doesn't makes sense is that Boise State's upperclassmen came to the program when the WAC still had no barrier to signing non-qualifiers, whereas every other conference did. Some conferences had complete bans, others limited schools to signing one or two. Until recently, WAC schools could sign as many as they wanted, no limits. Therefore, until a couple of seasons ago, if a top Division I-A prospect out West did not qualify for a Pac-10 program, he could simply go to a regional WAC school without having to lose any eligibility. The vast number of California players on Boise State's roster had nothing to do with them loving potatoes - it had to do with being able to play and to do so immediately. The myth of Boise State is played out in the coaching careers of Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins. Both won tons of games for the Broncos and were hailed as master recruiters, program builders, etc. The myths were busted once they began coaching in conferences with non-qualifier rules. Koetter did nothing in six years at Arizona State and was eventually sacked. Hawkins took a Colorado program which had competed for conference titles in four of the previous five seasons and turned them into a 2-10 doormat who lost at home to Montana State, a run-of-the-mill Division I-AA program. The process that temporarily "made" Boise State and Fresno State has never been in place in the Sun Belt Conference. Therefore, if a top national prospect from Texas did not qaulify, he could not simply drop down to another school in another regional Division I-A conference without non-qualifier rules. He had to go the junior college route, usually ending up at NEO A&M in Oklahoma or one of the Texas or Kansas JUCOs. We saw this with a linebacker during this recruiting period. Further, the process that made Boise State and Fresno State has been gone for a couple of seasons now. The effect is already being seen at Fresno State. Boise State loses most those non-qualified seniors that led them to the Fiesta Bowl. Their program will fade back to run-of-the-mill just as Fresno State's has. Finally, college athletic directors have taken notice of the Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins fiascos. Thus, it is no surprise that Boise State head coach Chris Peterson received no offer to even interview for other jobs despite taking his team to the Fiesta Bowl and upsetting Oklahoma. There were plenty of good job openings out there. But, the myth is dead. ADs now know that success in the WAC doesn't translate into success in places where far stricter recruiting rules have long been in place.

Guys, Why do you keep repeating this? Taylor Insall's dad does not work for the Abilene Reporter News. In fact, he doesn't live with his dad at all. His lives with his mother and step-dad, neither of whom work for the ARN. I know this because, instead of flying off the handle when the story broke, I e-mailed the reporter to get the facts straight - something easily done, but not a favorite thing to do of those of you who think they already know the story. Anyway, continue to make up stuff in your head about the article, but quit posting things that are untrue about Taylor Insall's family. Pathetic.

I'm not at a point of displeasure. The people at the point of displeasure are those who have to face the reality that Todd Dodge doesn't wear a blue suit and red cape with big yellow S's on them. And, there are many poster out there who send me private messages asking me to post more often! Imagine that. Therefore, I know that there is a healthy segment of posters out there who appreciate balance in the discussions here. I've told some of them that the only reason I don't post more is that I've got a business to run and a wife and kid to support. Many who only post occassionally are the same way. We balance our lives so that college football isn't the driving force. As a result, we don't put any of the coaches or players on unduly high pedestals. UNT was here long before Darrell Dickey or Todd Dodge, and it'll be here long after. So, forgive me - and those other occassional posters - who don't slobber at the mouth for Todd Dodge or any of them. Again, I entreat many of you to step away from the message board, as in a period of fasting, for just a day or two and seek some emotional balance. One negative newspaper article shouldn't set you off spewing about players, their parents, journalists, and former coaches. Seriously. Some of you are more paranoid than the freaks down at the 6th Floor Museum.

Yes, we know that. Also, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. My point was, some people here are choosy about which list they like. DMN only had one UNT recruit, so it was pooh-poohed in favor of the FWST list. And, over the past three months, many here have droned on and on about how Darrell Dickey didn't get this many or that many recruits from area or state Top 50/75/100 lists. But, they also say lists don't matter. All I did was asked those people to clarify, do they or don't they matter? I already know the answer - whichever one shows the most UNT players counts; the rest don't. Obviously. However, I can guarantee that if it had been us that had signed 10 of the Area Top 100 from the DMN list, or any other list, you'd be trying to nominate Dodge for the College Football Hall of Fame.

Darrell Dickey isn't the head coach of Utah State. He didn't join the staff until January 16th, less than a month before signing day. By then, their offers were out. You think schools wait until the final two weeks to make all of their offers? This is the third season for the current Utah State staff. It's not as if they started recruiting the day Dickey was hired. They already had six offers and/or OL commitments by then. They weren't undoing a year's (or in some players' cases longer) worth of recruiting simply because they hired a new coach a couple of weeks before signing day. Be realistic. Also, stick to issue, that is whether or not Dodge should have at least called the kid. He should have. He's a man. He could easily have called the kid and leveled with him. He didn't. For a long time, he wouldn't even return the coach's phone calls. If you're not going to be man enough to talk to the kid one on one, why not simply return the coach's call promptly? The coach didn't like it, an Abilene newspaper reported it, someone posted it here...and some of you are mad about it. Tough. To many of us, Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, Matt Simon...it doesn't matter. Get out there and win. But, many of us certainly aren't deluding ourselves into thinking any of them are Jesus Christ. To the rest of you, it's dream time in the land of Mickey Mouse. There's not a testicle hair's worth of difference among them. They're football coaches. And, it so happens, our current one got some bad press because he wouldn't simply return a call to a kid or his coach. You may not like that it's now out there for public comsumption, but...that's life, eh?

Dude, don't even bother. There are factions here - the true believers on one side, the rest of us on the other. Believe me, I get private messages from the people who post here who have brains in their head...thankfully. You posted an article that shattered the true believers' image of St. Todd. Nobody cares what your intentions were, just that you didn't bow down at the alter of Todd. Hear me now, believe me later.

Oh, I see. Since the DMN doesn't have as many UNT recruits listed, they don't know what they're talking about. But, the FWST does because it has more UNT recruits listed. Interesting. I find alot of hypocrisy here regarding recruiting. From time to time, people have slammed Dickey for not getting more people on this or that list, but then say "lists don't count, results do" if a list doesn't have enough recruits from our class that signed yesterday. So, which is it? Do the lists count, or not? Or, do you simply cling to the notion that the only list that counts is the one that has the most UNT prospects? Well? And, if lists don't count, is Tulsa ahead of us? They signed more DFW area players, listed or not, than we did.

Taylor Insall lives with his mother, idiot. Some of you have lost your minds. Dodge didn't call a kid and his coach told the local paper. And, you want to drag the guy's family into it knowing nothing about him. Sad. I don't post often, and I'm glad I don't. It seems as though the vast majority of you have no sense of balance between life and college football. It's difficult to believe that we graduated from the same institution.

The article says he didn't, and the kid's coach confirmed it. Re-read the article. Also, all this "business first" non-sense is laughable. Coaches at much bigger schools have honored scholarships before to kids that were injured before they hit campus. It's called having class. I'm not saying the kid should have been given a scholarship. He and his coach, though, should have been called and told early in the process that his scholarship wasn't going to be honored. It's not like moving the earth and sky. It's simply picking up the phone and talking to a kid. He couldn't have at least done that? Please.