Greendylan

Ah, I meant to add "FBS" into that statement and forgot. It's updated now.

Since the current coaching regime has been in place (start of last season) North Texas is 0-8 against FBS opponents that finished the regular season .500 or better last season or currently are .500 or better. The average score has been 48-30. If I were to calculate the average deficit at the end of the first half in such games, my head would explode. Suffice it to say, there just is no evidence to suggest we have a chance to win. Army - as many points as they need to score to win comfortably and feel good about themselves NT - around 30

I'll go ahead and say this now: Kinda sorta playing better in the 2nd half (if it happens) is not a moral victory or any positive sign. It's just another massively disappointing loss.

Every 50-50 officiating call is going Tulane's way--as if they needed any help.

Blowout loss. Morris teams don't beat teams with winning records.

Yes, this cannot be another the-opponent-doesn't-punt-until-the-third-quarter game. Memphis is a lot more like Tech than they are a bottom half of the AAC team. It's not fair to the offense to expect them to produce points on almost every single drive, but they'll probably have to do so to prevent a blowout. I'm still skeptical about the supposed defensive improvements. They've only looked better against completely dysfunctional offenses that can't move the ball against any of their opponents. I guess we'll find out soon...

I would agree with you, if not for the point that the Tech loss wasn't just a loss. It was one of the worst 1st half performances in the modern history of college football. The other games were fun...but they were against teams that range from REALLY bad to below average. If we lose the next three all by double digits, which is pretty much what most of the college football world expects, it would be understandable for some fans to be disappointed with 5-4 and non-competitive with the upper half of the conference. Hopefully the defense will surprise some folks and that won't come to pass . . .

There's a Newtonian law that the performance of North Texas football is inversely proportional to the number of people paying attention. It would be the most North Texas of North Texas occurrences to push for months for a sellout, get damn near close (even after historic ineptitude last week), and then to suffer an upset loss. Wyoming's defense is really not bad, and the NT defensive scheme might be just the jolt their offense needs to wake up. Wyoming 34 North Texas 27

I think motivation may be a problem, but it's a little different than you're thinking. For the second year in a row, we have a defense that is just almost nonexistent. I mean, we'll sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that they're making progress when they get an occasional stop or two against a really bad team/injured team or an FCS opponent, but if it's a team with a functional offense (i.e., at least mediocre) then it's pretty much a guaranteed touchdown every drive. If you go back and look at the 15 games we've played in the Morris era, it's pretty shocking how few first half punts we have forced. So, this then puts immense pressure on the offense, which leads to mistakes, which leads to blowout losses. We play a schedule most seasons with 4-5 really bad opponents (like bottom 30 in the nation), and those allow us to get at or near bowl eligibility, but meanwhile we're just slipping further behind the teams that are actually decent. So, it's probably hard to keep a team motivated when the defense knows they are helpless play after play, drive after drive against half our opponents each season. The offense also likely feels unmotivated when they know that every drive where they don't score essentially means we're going down by 7 more. Hell, how could they stay motivated? As a fan it's hard to stay motivated when it seems like we have a system only built to work against 100+ ranked opponents. Even wins feel meaningless when you know you'll get horribly embarrassed against the next relevant opponent.

We're way behind where we should be in NIL, and it took our coaches too long to recognize the right way to use the portal. In many ways, NIL is a reflection of how bad your fan base wants it. Clearly, our fans, generally speaking, just don't care as much as a lot of similarly situated schools. So, regarding NIL, I guess we are where we deserve to be. That being said, I can accept being mediocre most seasons, occasionally bad, occasionally good--especially considering the above realities. What is not acceptable is to be absolutely embarrassed and make a mockery of yourselves on national television and do 40+ points worse than an FCS school did two weeks ago in the same stadium. That's not an NIL failure. That's just one of the worst game preparation failures I've seen in many years--coupled also with roster management problems. NIL is an excuse to not compete every year for a conference title. It's not an excuse for this disaster. I've never been so disinterested in NT football after decades of being a fan...

We had one of the worst defenses of all time last season. We bring the coordinator and scheme back and are beyond embarrassingly bad (to historic levels) once again. Meanwhile, the administration has the audacity to ask for a sellout next week. I'm starting to think it would be better if we could just quietly finish this season with as few people paying attention as possible.

Please . . . UNLV is a midmajor peer with similar challenges, and they beat a Kansas team last night that is better than Tech. We are just sucking at preparing a team and having a winning game plan.

It's not just one bad game. It will take many years to recover, perception wise, from this. It's like Portland State but with way more people in Texas paying attention.

A program with pride would fire someone immediately after this.

Well, this is embarrassing. And, please don't fall into this "Tech has Big XII talent" trap. They do, but they are not a good team. There are better teams than Tech in the AAC. North Texas is just awful.