Smitty

Corrected

Immortalized on TY Sports. What else could you ask for?

Greetings, folks. Been away awhile, mired in one of those times when the world has been pulling me in a dozen different directions at once, and I've been indulging in Photoshop therapy: just goofing around with the greatest computer program of them all, making graphics with no deadlines. I find userbars to be a nice outlet, and I've made a few. Sixty or so. I lost count. The standard for userbars is 350 pixels wide, but I made these for gomeangreen.com at 570 pixels wide, which will fit in the message window at 800x600 resolution without widening the message window. I have updated my previous userbars to use the standard userbar font, and I've added a few bits such as the talon claw to the chant userbar. I've got userbars for fans of every UNT sport and a few individual athletes, including Giovanni Vizza and Casey Fitzgerald. I've got userbars for the music department, the One O'Clock Lab Band, the Green Brigade, and KNTU. There are three for the North Texas Dancers and several for some of UNT's famous exes, including Brave Combo, Peter Weller, Larry McMurtry, Don Henley, and Norah Jones. There's one to declare you're a UNT student or alumni, and a new one for the Pit Crew. There's even a userbar for TY Sports. About time, too. Anyway, hope you enjoy. Mean Green userbars

Least friendly? Fan favorite? Would anyone be complaining about Coach Mendoza's personality or confrontations with fans if UNT's defense had been solid and up to expectations? Mendoza is not leaving because he wasn't nice, he's leaving because his defense was terrible. Indiana put up with Bobby Knight and the fans loved him - as long as he was winning. This is no different, and if MacDuff can coach and recruit and give us a great defense then he will be a fan favorite. Maybe MacDuff is a gamble, but this is exactly the kind of gamble a program like UNT should take. Just like the risk Arkansas is taking with a head coach who might leave next year, and just like the gamble UNT took in hiring a high school coach with no collegiate head-coaching experience - the potential reward is worth the risk. Play it safe and UNT will stay be mediocre. If UNT is to achieve what we hope it can achieve, then risks must be taken.

DENTON, Texas (1/4/08) – University of North Texas head football coach Todd Dodge has announced that he will not renew the contract of defensive coordinator Ron Mendoza for the 2008 season. “After careful evaluation of our defense during this last season I have decided it is in the best interest of this football program to make a change at defensive coordinator,” Dodge said. “These decisions are never easy, but ultimately I have to take the steps necessary that I believe will help build the football program at the University of North Texas.” Mendoza spent just one season at North Texas after Dodge brought him from his staff at Southlake Carroll High School where the two spent the previous seven years together. In addition to his coordinator duties, Mendoza also coached the Mean Green linebackers. “I truly appreciate the dedication and the effort that Ron Mendoza put into this program throughout the last year,” Dodge said. “He is an outstanding football coach and a dear friend and I wish the absolute best for him in the future.”

140000 miles to Hawaii? Is Ms. South Carolina teaching geography at SMU?

ESPN this afternoon was suggesting that Franchione is the leader for the SMU job, and said he was on campus yesterday. However, they also said that SMU has a pending interview with a standing head coach who will be interviewed after his team's bowl game. One of their talking heads said that coach is June Jones at Hawaii.

Even though Franchione might move on quickly, SMU is so down with its post-death penalty history, its lack of fan support, and the general malaise infecting the program, the Ponies are in desperate need of a strong recruiting class and a winning season. Franchione might be able to provide both. Yes, UNT is down right now. But the Mean Green have won in the past decade, have been to bowl games, and have a new coach that is recruiting well. We have reason to hope. But SMU fans have been given very little reason to hope, especially after seeing all the work of the past few years collapse this past season. Even if Franchione leaves after one season, he could give SMU something to build on that, frankly, they simply don't have right now. Franchione and SMU are both in need of resurrection.

Because each and every one of them believes that they will be the one playing, and those other three all-state players recruited at their same position will be the ones to sit. I've been around athletes being recruited, and for many of them, the thought never occurs that they may get squeezed out. They just do not realize how tough its going to be. For instance: back many, many years ago (in my former journalism days), I interviewed a runningback at North Texas just prior to the start of his freshman year. He was an all-district, all-region type in high school, and he told me that he planned to rush for a thousand yards that season. He really was not bragging, he was just projecting his past success onto his college career. He rushed for about 300 yards that year. I saw him again before his sophomore season, and he remembered our previous conversation. He explained that he simply did not fully understand just how good everybody at this level was. EVERYONE was all-district and all-region. EVERYONE was a stud in high school. It wasn't until he got on the field in college that he realized just how much higher the level of athleticism was. I think that's what happens to a lot of these kids. They were studs in high school and they fully expect to be be studs in college. Look at some of these recruiting classes at A&M and UT and OU, with three or four players at linebacker or offensive line. That doesn't include the three or four that were recruited at that spot last year and the year before that, and the three or four that will be recruited next year. Odds are that many of those kids are going to sit, but they don't want to hear it. They might listen in a couple of years, but not now.

What bothers me is not the legal debate, but the fact that Mr. Horn chose to leave his home to engage in a gun fight in the middle of a residential area. In doing so, there was a serious risk of a stray round going through someone's window and hitting an innocent bystander. He's very, very lucky that the robbers did not have guns - for his own well being and for the safety of his neighbors. Think of how many stories we've heard of gang gun fights claiming a child caught in the crossfire. If criminals invade your home, I absolutely support using deadly force against them. But Mr. Horn endangered his neighbors by taking the fight outside. I have no doubt a lot of his neighbors - maybe even all of them - support him, but I doubt they would be so supportive if an innocent had been shot in a needless gun battle.

There's still plenty of time for him to take the Michigan job.

Sergeant York is a great movie starring Gary Cooper, based on the true story of Alvin C. York, an American soldier who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War I. The movie was nominated for Best Picture, and Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Yes, the relationship soured and went really bad, and the exit was ugly. It's hard to forget the end of his tenure, and it was time for the relationship to end. I may have taken a few un-kind shots at him myself. Such is the result of an angry divorce. But I grew up in Denton as a North Texas fan, and I was around for that forty years of wandering in the wilderness without a bowl game. That kind of streak wears on you. While you always try to be optimistic, optimism slowly starves and is replaced by a belief that winning will never happen. Honestly, I didn't think I would ever see North Texas in a bowl game. Coach Dickey changed that. Coach Dickey, through his team's success on the field, raised this school's football hopes. He also raised our expectations, in the end to higher levels than he could attain. Now we've got a new coach, we may soon have a new stadium, we're recruiting better than ever, and we've raised our standards. I wonder if any of that would have happened if Dickey's teams had not gone to those bowl games. I don't give a rat's ass how weak or strong the conference was, or how big or small the bowl game was. Fact is, I am able to say that my alma mater won a bowl game. For that, I will forever be grateful to Coach Dickey. And for that, we should all wish him well.

Forgive my ignorance of architecture and this process, but if they are asking for quotes from architects and engineers, does that mean they are asking for quotes for preparing a stadium design and blueprints, or quotes for constructing a new stadium from completed blueprints?

Besides, you have any idea how much time I spend making that Flying Worm screensaver? No friggin' way they're dumping the Eagle.

I must disagree. We are still very much the Eagles. Our mascot: Scrappy, an eagle. Our logos, past and present: eagles, from the Flying Worm to the new Diving Eagle. Talons, whether the student organization, the logo, or the hand symbol we hold up: it's an eagle claw. Look at the meangreensports.com website. There is the eagle logo prominently at the top of the page, and an eagle scream plays when the home page opens. I don't see much evidence of getting rid of the eagle. It's everywhere, and it should stay that way. For those who have ever said anything about traditions, about building traditions, about continuing traditions: THE EAGLE IS A NORTH TEXAS TRADITION. Now some of you want to get rid of it? One of the few traditions we have? Oh, I get it now. You just want to kill Scrappy, don't you? This is all a vast right-and-left-wing conspiracy! You won't be satisfied until you shed Scrappy's blood! You mascot murderers!

IF Georgia Tech is pursuing Paul Johnson, they've got the huge advantage of being a BCS program with a successful tradition. Its the kind of place a coach would go to win a national championship. But it would be interesting to see what Justin Willis would do in Johnson's running game.

From ESPN's Weekly Watch: Impressive what UT is doing the year AFTER Kevin Durant left.

ESPN radio reported that Paul Johnson is visiting with SMU. I believe they said he is also being courted by Georgia Tech and Duke.

Thanks! And thanks for leading the chant at the last home game. I do believe it's going to catch on.

Yeah, but would you do CPR from the back like this guy?

Unbelievable finish. Incredible go-ahead basket. UT wins, 63-61.

UCLA up 4, 59-55, with 3:08 left

UT 55, UCLA 53, 4:30 to play

Missouri not going to a BCS bowl is indefensible.