The Fake Lonnie Finch

I enrolled at UNT in 1990. So, I've seen all of them from Scott Davis 'til now. We went back up to I-A in 1995, so Davis and Maher, it's hard to count them because they weren't seeing the same competition year in and year out. We went I-AA in 1982. I saw none between 1969, the year I was born, and 1990, the year I began attending. But, Steve Ramsey is my mark because he went to the NFL and started.

The uniforms are great. I rarely like white helmets, as you know. But, I'd take a white helmet with that dark green jersey and either Worm or SOW in green on helmet. The pants stripes are greatness as well, an excellent classic look. A real football-looking football uniform set, for sure. I hope we keep it forever.

Everybody who has watched the game of football at any level knows that Derek Thompson can do this with a little help from his friends. Say it with me again: Playmakers make plays.

Last year, I offered my full apology thread to Todd Dodge for making North Texas better than Penn State because he kept the program free from child molesters. This year, I thank Todd Dodge for Derek Thompson, the best quarterback of UNT's Division I-A/FBS era since Steve Ramsey, and for Breland Chancellor, who will be UNT's next NFL draft pick, one we've waited a long time to see. And, thank you for the rest of the Class of 2009 recruiting survivors; there were few who saw five years: -Thompson -Daniel Prior (who can forget his moving into the dorms video?) -Hilbert Jackson -Ryan Boutwell And, thank you for the Class of 2010 seniors who stuck it out with McCarney as well: -Richard Abbe -Aaron Bellazin -Brandin Byrd -Brelan Chancellor -Zach Olen -Zach Orr -Will Wright These are all good seniors recruited by Todd Dodge, a man I hope to buy a burger at the Buda Dairy Queen for some day. He taught me that there is more to football than winning; but, winning feels good, too.

Really? Clawson was at Tennessee/in the SEC for one season...the season Fulmer was fired after eight games. I think the problem at Tennessee during that time period was multiple presidents, NCAA investigations, and Fulmer at the end of his rope. We be lucky to have the "absolute joke" Clawson on our sideline. In fact, if we have another losing season, and Bowling Green goes bowling again, I'd say put him on the short list of coaches to consider to replace McCarney. Without question.

Houston, we have a problem...your "unstoppable" offense went 5-7 two of the last three years. And, the guys who coached and QB'd the outlier season are long gone. Either Bowling Green and Ball State would use the Cougars like a $5 whore. Everybody in America knows this except you and Al Gore. (That rhymes, so it could be a lyric. I claim no copyright to it...so rapper and writers, have at it.)

In Bowling Green's defense, they did have a Top 10 defense last year. So, it wasn't all just Tulsa sucking. Dave Clawson is a pretty good football coach as well. He likey and teachy the pro style sets and running the ball.

The problem with football, as pointed out by me and LongJim, is that you have to be able to do these things to succeed: (1) Run the ball (2) Stop the run (3) Have solid special teams play Tulsa, which graduated their entire starting defensive line, will have problems this year. They also replaced three graduating offensive linemen; so, that's a problem. Tulsa will be used like a dirty dish rag for much of the season.

Now that we know the QB transfer couldn't beat out Thompson, any other transfers into the program able to unseat any starters? That's a big "no." Perhaps they'll make us "deeper" in talent. Anyone?

Houston? Is this a joke? One time they beat Penn State and so the whole paradigm of football is shifted? There's a school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama faring much better year in and year out than gimmicky Houston. Two 5-7 records in the past three seasons. Wow. That Houston spread is just confounding the college football world, I tell ya.

This. This is the Gospel of Football. Be able to run. Be able to stop the run. Don't give the game away on special teams.

Three of the four in the two-deep at DT in the 260-270 range...to start the season. They'll lose weight throughout the season. Thank goodness we have two bye weeks this year. Those guys are going to be worn out by the end of the season.

Derek Thompson is the best. He always was the best among the quarterbacks on this roster. Dajon Williams is better than McNulty and Berglund. How long until Berglund transfers to a I-AA? You are all bitter, bitter people. But, I'm happy. Eat me.

This post has been promoted to an article

Don't we have a heavy arts component at UNT? We should get someone over in the arts section of the schools to make busts of the NTSU legends to display at Apogee. That's my suggestion of the day. Tune in tomorrow.

Don't we have a heavy arts component at UNT? We should get someone over in the arts section of the schools to make busts of the NTSU legends to display at Apogee. That's my suggestion of the day. Tune in tomorrow.

To me, this is A&M playing the Big Boy game. The Penn State folks would be proud. Potential controversy? There's no controversy until someone catches us red handed, right?

I have something to say here that has been said before at other times: why the emphasis on Texas? Think about this, most of the walk-ons and transfers are from Texas. Okay, fine. There are many great football players from Texas. And, Texas is the second highest populated state in the union. But, what has that really meant in terms of football? Since 1969, only one national title in football, the Longhorns' 2005 masterpiece. Before that, you have to dig back to segregated, pre-face mask Texas A&M and TCU in the 1930s to find a footballl national champion from the state of Texas. Florida, Florida State, and Miami all have won at least one national title over the past 15 seasons. Why don't schools in Texas, which undoubtedly has as good a prep athlete base as Florida (or California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.) deliver more national title-worthy schools? I think the problems with a school like ours gets too overly focused on recruiting Texas. Yes, we must recruit Texas. No question about it. But, at some point, do you not look around you and try to go somewhere else once the best in Texas are committed to other places? We have only 11 players on the roster who are not from the state of Texas. And, of those, six transferred from other schools outside of Texas. We really only have five players on the roster who went from high schools in other states to North Texas. I hate to keep comparing us to Tulsa, but what else can you do? They are regional and we should be able to compete with them. Their rosters is just about 50/50 Oklahoma kids versus out of state kids. I've preached this before and I'll preach it again. I fully realize that we are not Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, or Oregon, schools in states with small populations, so they must recruit out of state to survive. But, I do think, at some point, we have to take on that mentality of recruiting outside the state to survive. Talent is for sure in Texas. But, it is for sure in other states surrounding Texas. We need the best players we can get, and it shouldn't matter where they played high school ball. What did being in the Sun Belt really do for us? The last seven national title winners in football have been from the SEC. So, you know the is talent all over the South. And, there we were, for a decade, playing football all over the south - from Lousiana to Florida. What did it net us? What were our coaching staffs doing to capitalize on us being among that talent? I don't know how to do this, other than just hope some coaching staff someday does it: supplement whatever we get out of Texas much more heavily with out of state players. Transfer players are fine. But, they don't seem to pan out any better or worse, overall, than those we sign. So, let's throw the net out a little further in recruiting preps. You can't catch a shark if you're always fishing at the lake.

And, Lou and Wally came from an era where kids porbably worked harder anyway. Wally was no pushover as an athlete back then either. He'd led the AL in homers and triples, and had been in MVP balloting twice. Wally was a known entity and the Yankees were making a calculated risk in taking Gehrig over Pipp once Pipp returned. Their gamble paid off. And, Pipp, the very next year he was in the top 15 of vote getters for the NL MVP Award with his new team the Cincinnati Reds. So, it's not like he dropped off the face of the earth. We can agree on the point that everyone needs to be ready, giving starter-like effort in practice and game preparation. You never know when the guy in front of you will be injured. And, if you want to be a star and have a shot at the next level, it only makes sense that you'd be ready. If I were a coach, I'd be asking the players all the time, "If you are not ready to start every game, why do you keep hanging around?" I know with McCarney, he's had to rebuild the roster purely from a numbers standpoint, so some dead wood was probably (unhappily) tolerated. If we are to believe what Bellazin and others have said about this season, though, we should take gospel their declaration the roster is now full of players with both feet in and buying into the program. The proof will be when an injury does occur. We'll then see whether those guys standing on the sideline are ready. As far as WR and DT go...I agree with the thread that they are big concerns. At DT, I still think we don't have enough depth for a 12 games season (although, I do like that we have two bye weeks in there). At WR, though, there should be no excuse this year. We have enough bodies. We now need the players in those bodies to emerge and make plays.

You are only accomplished if you have accomplished something. We don't have any idea if these guys will ever accomplish anything. That's the problem. We have a roster full of receivers who have yet to step up and prove that they can make plays during games. Injuries do not matter if you have someone with Lou Gehrig's work habits coming in when Wally Pipp is injured. As of yet, we don't have any Gehrig's on the roster - guys who are ready to take advantage of the guy in front of them being injured. Whether by scholarship or as walk-ons, the coaches give these players an opportunity. Whether they take full advantage of such by being ready at all times - whether starting or standing on the sideline - is up to them. We need more Lou Gehrigs on this roster.

And, to the defensive line... ...if OU is stealing recruits the week before and week or signing day from the likes of UNT, Louisiana, and Houston, you know it is difficult to find DTs. So, what do we do? Thus far, we have stuck for a four man front. I'm not a fan of sticking to doing what doesn't work. I'm tired of posting the different ways other schools who are similarly at a recruiting disadvantage for DLs have changed their defenses to make up for it. The coaching staff either will change it someday or they won't. And, if they won't, we will continue to watch other schools run over us, we will continue to lose; and, the current coaching staff will be fired. That's the way football go.

Welcome to the club...I've been harping on these for about a year now. DL for several years. The reason you have the word "playmaker" is that football isn't perfect. Because of the defense, the play you call may not work to perfection. A playmaker at wide receiver will recognize the defensive alignments the same way a quarterback will and fight to get the ball at all cost. At this point, we have only one guy who is a semi-playmaker, and that is Brelan Chancellor. Playmaking can't really be coached. It has to come from within the player. The playmaker hates to lose, whether it's running a route or making a block. He hates to lose. Every down is part of the game. The playmaker wants to win every down. Last year, Brelan Chancellor was sometimes a playmaker. But, he was mostly alone. And, after the was injured and out for the rest of the season.... We can talk facilities. We can talk coaching. We can talk administration support. We can and have talked about all of these things. However, when the whistle blows and the ball is in play, it's up to the players to understand how the game is unfolding in front of the them and make plays to their team's advantage.

I'm sorry, but that many of you are delusional. Brock Berglund is from Colorado, not a highly competitive state for high school football. Brock Berglund couldn't crack the starting line up on a very bad Kansas squad. Brock Berglund: ditto at a JUCO, so he split when he saw the writing on the wall. To those of you making hay about this transfer or that transfer not starting: UNT isn't a high school football team. Whatever many of these "highly rated" transfers did in high school, it didn't translate at their first school. Why are you surprised that they haven't make an immediate impact here? North Texas fields a Division I college football program. No one steps into the locker room and get anointed a starting position. Everyone earns their position under this coach and this coaching staff. Thankfully.

Love that Derek Thompson. He's a gamer.