Smitty

For a moment I thought you were going to do a Bill Hicks comedy routine.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to... I know I posted this earlier this week, but it's still funny. Love Airplane!

And if she's not a UNT fan and you get her this gift, you may never be well done again.

Purple pants. But TCU is wearing black jerseys! Versus is on Channel 190 for Time Warner cable viewers.

Dead.

You're right, I do not believe what I read of this kind of nonsense. If you disagree with someone on policies, on real issues, fine. But these attempts to smear and demonize political opponents - whether it comes from the left or right - is just pathetic.

I think this is best decision for the health of these players and for the future of the program.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines. "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"

What is the record for a student vote?

Because ESPN is ranking only BCS schools this week.

Yeah, if their parents are against it then the students are for it.

Party animal.

That's just what they said about Martin Luther. Or was it Lex Luthor?

Just don't let her know about our state-of-the-art waterless urinals. With the amount of water we're saving, tearing down Fouts could cause a drought.

Could you please provide me with a complete list of anyone you will be voting for? Then I gotta make a call to an off-shore bookie...

She's a reporter. She did this because it's her job. It's not her job to bring her school up or down; her job is to report the news she finds. I'm guessing she was assigned this or heard about the voting starting today. She came to the campus and interviewed ten or eleven people, and none of them were in favor of the stadium, so she reported that. Because that's what WBAP pays her to do. Pure conjecture: Facebook and discussions with those attending the football game suggest the students are in favor. But this reporter and the Daily poll suggest they're opposed. These may actually be consistent results. When I attended UNT (when it was called NTSU) I was on the Union Program Counsel that did movies and events in the Union, and we were always told that the majority of students went to class then split, and they didn't care about campus life or extracurricular events. We always had to program knowing that. In this instance, perhaps the majority of students have no idea that this vote is happening and could not care less. So if only a small percentage of the student body knows about this vote, perhaps that's why this reporter found such indifference and perhaps why the Daily's polling was so skewed - because random selection on a weekday morning is going to find mostly those students who are not interested. A reporter asks random students if they want to pay for a new football stadium, and, not knowing the details of the issue, their gut reaction is no. Fortunately, the Facebook results suggest that of that minority of students that have taken an interest in this issue - and are likely voters - a significant majority are in favor of the stadium. Just a theory.

Oh, they're back. I see a lot of guys in pastel collar-up Polo-style shirts in Uptown Dallas. Looks like a damned John Hughes film festival.

Yes, punctuation is important.

The attendance was better than I expected, for whatever reason. I'd prefer to think that the attendance was simply a display of support of North Texas. I did worry that there would be a significant drop in attendance, but it didn't look like there was. And that makes me feel better about the students' stadium vote. If every one of those students who attended vote yes, then I like the chances of this passing.

I agree that the freshmen and sophomores have a lot of learning to do. That's why it might have been more prudent to mix them in with the juniors and seniors. Regardless of the cupboard-being-bare argument, I just wonder if it would have helped the newcomers get acclimated to the game. You call for patience, which I agree with. But where was the patience of Coach Dodge when he benched so many seniors and inserted so many of the kids into the lineup? Why not work the kids in and let them learn next to the seniors? Why throw so many freshmen into the deep end? Could the results possibly have been worse if a few more of the juniors and seniors have seen more playing time? Patience from the fans? How about patience from the coach? Finally, if you have complete faith in Dodge, that's fine. But there is room here for discussion and disagreement. Your personal insults toward those who disagree with you are tiresome. I don't care who they are directed towards. Enough.

Pretty close. Their quarterback made a bunch of big plays at big moments, but the killers were their big plays: a reverse for a TD (seconds after UNT had taken its first lead of the season), two long passes for touchdowns (perfectly thrown, by the way), and a kickoff return that was bobbled inside the five-yard line before being returned for a TD. But UNT also missed on some chances, such as when they stopped ULL on a fourth-down play in the first half, then fumbled the ball right back. That kind of thing. It was heartening to see the Mean Green play hard but it was frustrating to see the missed chances and the big mistakes.

I phrased that poorly. I mean a coach in his first year in that job.

First: I give a ton of credit to the Mean Green players for playing hard Saturday night and for fighting back into a game after falling well behind, especially on the heels of so many disheartening recent games. Louisiana-Lafayette's big plays and UNT's turnovers were immensely frustrating, but UNT's players showed that they have not quit. They certainly did not quit tonight. Second: In 2006, Dickey's bar cupboard beat SMU, 24-7. Two years later, a coach in his first year on the job takes SMU against an undefeated Tulsa team that lit up UNT like a pinball machine and played that Tulsa team right down to the final seconds before losing, 37-31. At the same time, North Texas, under a coach in his second year on the job, was losing by a combined 61 points to Florida International and Louisiana Lafayette. Make of that what you will.

I don't know what it does to our referendum, but it sure cuts short that husband's referendum.

Just asking: how do you know it was a staged or biased poll?