untcampbell

A very good man indeed. I sometimes questioned his actions (eluded to by Gray Eagle), but just loved this man for his kind, inclusive, approachable and unpretentious nature. He treated me like a big shot when I was giving much less than I do now (I was no big shot then, and am not now). A toast to you, Fred McCain. GMG

NT softball shuts out a good Texas State team yesterday, and beats Texas Tech today. GMG!

Luna threw a no-hitter in UT's season opener, and is an all-american pitcher. NT plays much better than their first game against #9 UT...gets close in a 5-4 loss. The freshmen grew up a little in this tournament, and Kirk, save one inning, pitches well as the ace of the staff. NT gets on Luna for 2 in the first, but leaves the bases loaded. Had two on the in the fourth and didn't score. Both opportunities with one out. NT had a base runner in the 7th also, but couldn't bring her home. Great learning experience, and NT always loads its schedule against top competition. Good season ahead, and a nice 3-2 record to start the season. Lovelace Stadium is a fun atmosphere to watch a ballgame and the ladies give a great effort while obviously having fun. NT is at home against Oklahoma State and Nebraska-Omaha Feb 15 and Iowa and Dayton Feb 16....come see them play if you get a chance. GMG

Starting 4 freshman and a fifth is in the pitching rotation. FR Tori Bice picked up the win in her first start, with big support from the field and Lauren Pool out of the bullie. GMG

I believe the fraternities will be in charge of distribution. GMG

Great start to the season...beat Memphis 6-2. UT next: 6:05 on LHN. GMG

North Texas softball opens its season in Austin this weekend, playing Memphis and UT on Friday and TAMU-Corpus Christi on Saturday. The UT game is scheduled at 6:00 pm Friday and will be shown on the Longhorn Network. Great chance for NT to get some statewide exposure. Let's win all three, ladies. GMG

(ignore if already discussed) DMN posted ratings for the Texas teams involved in bowl games. Some items I found interesting: Ratings for the major Texas markets (AUS, SAT, HOU, DFW) were listed for the Hawaii (SMU), Holiday (Baylor), Meineke (TTU), Armed Forces (Rice), Alamo (UT) and Buffalo WW (TCU) bowls. The Cotton Bowl was still to be played. The markets without a pro team usually did better than HOU or DFW. Austin had the highest ratings of the Texas markets for all six games, usually by a wide margin. Birmingham, another market without a pro team, had the number 1 or 2 market for 5 of the 6 games. DFW's most watched game was the Texas game, with 8.2% of households watching. Its least watched: SMU (1.7%). In fact, SMU/Fresno scored a 1.7 in HOU and DFW, a 2.2 in SAT and a 2.7 in AUS, and was the lowest ranked bowl game of the six listed for every Texas market and for the number one market, Birmingham at 5.6. It really wasn't even close. DFW ratings for the six games, listed by Texas team, and the rank amongst the 4 Texas markets: SMU ("Dallas' team"): 1.7-fourth Baylor: 4.3-second TTU: 4.9-second Rice: 3.1-third Texas: 8.2-third TCU: 7.2-second In fairness, perhaps viewers just weren't ready to watch bowl games when SMU played on Christmas Eve, but note the date and game time shouldn't really matter because the measure is a % of households "watching" TV, any TV, any show, during the game's time frame. GMG

@brockberglund University of North Texas QB #16 God, Family, Football. Go Mean Green Denton, TX OK...so I am a sucker for the good things around me... Brock posted a tweet that he would donate a toy to a child less fortunate than him (paraphrased) for every new follower to his Twitter page. That was enough for me! This guy seems like a good dude. Love his Twitter home page (shows an artist rendering of Apogee). Editorial...he has the important things in his life prioritized well. Looking forward to seeing him play. GMG

Well kids, the sheer joy and ecstasy we all share from another excellent year in NT Olympic sports has been tempered slightly by the lackluster performance by the "money" sports in North Texas land. So I urge you to turn your attention to the always festive bowl pool a friend of mine started many years ago. Really, what says Christmas better than the holiday bowl pool? I have played for the last few years and it keeps me interested in Tuesday night bowl games in Mobile, Thursday afternoon bowl games in Boise and all days and points in between. Entry is $25...my entries are listed as UNTCAMPBELL and GOMEANGREEN.COM (love to promote this magical place we have here). I propose a separate $5.00 separate entry fee (I would be happy to serve as banker for this) for a winner-take-all prize to he who does best from this board. Below are details for the pool, but PM me with your entry name(s) if you enter and want to participate in the side bet. Good luck, and GMG. UNTCAMPBELL - I'm sending you this website generated email to re-invite you into my pool named "College Bowl Pool XXVI". Follow the link below and when you log into the website you will be asked if you plan to participate in my pool again. If you don't go to the website, I'll assume you didn't get this email and I may try contacting you again. Click here to Log In and Rejoin My Pool. If you have any questions, please let me know. If you have trouble signing in, your username is "UNTCAMPBELL" without the quotes, and you can retrieve your password by clicking here: Get Password Thanks, COMFYSHEETS Invite Your Friends! Feel free to invite friends who may want to participate in the pool. Just forward the following link to them. http://www.officefootballpool.com/pools.cfm?p=2&poolid=15441&pwd=Gators Clicking on the link above will take them to officefootballpool.com where they will be walked through the process of creating a user account (if they don't already have one) and joining our pool. Pool Rules POOL FORMAT This is a Confidence Pick'em pool where your standings are based on points. You pick all the games and rank them starting at 1 (your lowest rank) and get the rank value in points for each game you correctly predict. POOL SCHEDULE This pool will include all the bowl games starting 15-Dec-10 with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Entries will be accepted up to 1:00p EST/10:00a PST on December 15. POINTSPREADS This pool does not use point spreads. Your win-loss record is based on the 'straight-up' outcome of the games. POOL STANDINGS The person with the most points is ranked first in the standings. CONFIRMING PICKS It is your responsibility to confirm that your own picks are accepted by the website. You can do this in a number of ways including the pick confirmation email and by returning to the pick sheet to see that your selections are bolded. The picks shown on the website after our deadline has passed are your FINAL picks. TIEBREAKER The tiebreaker for this pool is the total points scored by both teams in the BCS Championship game. If there is still a tie, the places will be combined and the payout split evenly among the places that tied. ENTRY FEE As always, the fee is $25.00 - Make sure to identify on your check any alias that is being used. It helps match up the payments to the entrants. Entry fees are due no later than December 25. I'm tired of chasing payments after the Bowls are completed! Send check(s) to Steve Lang, 14360 Morning Mountain Way, Alpharetta, GA, 30004. Finally, we're all (mostly) big boys and girls so please pay up. Last year the Pool got hit for $50 because two people reneged on their payment. PAYOUT The top 10 places PLUS the "I'm So Bad I Deserve My Money Back" last place entry will be paid out using the following schedule less the web hosting fee of $9.95 + $1.00 for each entry. 1st Place - 35% 2nd Place - 20% 3rd Place - 15% 4th Place - 10% 5th Place - 7% 6th Place - 5% 7th-10th Place - 2% each I'm So Bad I Deserve My Money Back - $25 FAILURE TO PAY Should an entrant not pay their fee (imagine that), the total combined pot will be reduced accordingly. I will NOT pay the winners using my own cash hoping that the laggards will pay. When I send out final results, I will also include the name/alias/e-mail info of anyone who doesn't pay. Maybe the mob will be able to convince them!

Wow...nice to see the early involvement from Brock...putting our guys in position to connect with community...like. GMG

Program funding idea: if we just sit tight, and are the last one standing in C-USA, do we get the lions share of the $7 million from each team that leaves? We play more non-conference games, yes, but with the extra funding, we can likely drop to one "body bag" game (allegedly) per year!! GMG

The UTSA saga parallels very few programs in the country, certainly not ours. From afar, this is what seems different about UTSA vs my favorite team: School, from administration to athletic department to students, appears "all in." Large metropolitan city without a pro football team appears fully committed to supporting its school and the school's efforts to expose its product through athletics. Unlike Dallas (SMU) or Denton (UNT), UTSA is "San Antonio's (football) team." Fort Worth gets close with its support of a WINNING program, but SA fully committed up front. An aside: I suppose support for the basketball team is lacking at least in part because the Spurs are "San Antonio's (basketball) team. UTSA benefits from the "Waco effect." If NT were 50 or more miles further from Dallas, its past, present and future, from academics to athletics, would be totally different. When a city sees the school as one of its key reasons for being, and then fully commits resources to the goose that lays the golden eggs, all win. Examples: Waco, Lubbock. Simplistic...perhaps. We are what we are in Denton...under-supported, under-funded, under-achieving. Until North Texas and Denton decide to be something else, it is a misnomer to term this team, this university the "sleeping giant." All that said, I chose to attend North Texas (after a misguided detour through Austin). I graduated from North Texas. I love my school and my team. GMG

ESPN story: The talks originated after last week's decision in Denver by the BCS commissioners to award an automatic access bowl berth to the highest-rated champion to the "Group of Five" conferences. That decision in essence put the Mountain West on equal footing, as far as playoff access is concerned, with the Big East starting in 2014. The "Group of Five" includes the Mountain West, Big East, Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt conferences. Since these conferences essentially are on equal footing, these conferences should be built completely on regional lines. This is in essence the "mom and pop" vs Walmart. Compete by minimizing your costs (travel) and creating as much free publicity as possible (nearby rivalries). Negotiate conference deals with the regional sports networks and build cross-conference non-conference games that build connections with the other regional networks, i.e. Sun Belt vs MAC, Mtn West vs CUSA, CUSA vs Sun Belt, Big East vs MAC, etc. Or perhaps better yet, perhaps the Group of Five negotiate with the major networks, collectively, to provide a true national contract ("game of the week") and conferences then go regional to maximize local exposure. Throw in the attraction of scheduling a military academy every other year or so. Play two non-conferences against other Group of Fives and one against an elite program. By minimizing the number of elite games, collectively, the Group of Fives can command higher per-game bounties when playing the elites. The elites get tired of beating up on each other, seek additional Group of Five games and the price goes up until the Group of Fives collectively agree to schedule another bounty game. I am sure this plan is filled with flaws, read that MONEY, but why not build truly regional conferences that compete against each other. GMG

Anyone have video of that play? I missed it (bathroom issues...but at least it was a clean bathroom). GMG

Shamefully I have to admit I missed the interception/fumble play USA towards the end of the 3Q. Didn't see it in the highlights. Anyone have access to post it? Think it was USA #9...a PacMan want to be. GMG

Sorry for the late notice, but text me at 214.683.8956 if you can use a pass. We will have to try to figure out how to do the transfer but last time, I donated a pass to the attendant and said to give it to someone deserving (not that I defined that for him). Probably can do the same thing here but leave it in your name. I will be up to the stadium around 2 pm. GMG

Let me correct my post above...I am pulling for him NOW! GMG

May have been MDH, but if so, the students learned from their elders sitting around them and pretended the stadium was the library. GMG

Really not worthwhile for me to guess the attendance....I thought, by the end of the 2Q, we were getting close to 20K. The alumni side was as large as it has been this year and where ever there was shade, we were filling up there. Students were not in place at kick off but their side was respectable by half (respectable for the type of game we were watching). Never was a much noise in the stadium (see my parenthetical comment from above). GMG

If he has half the passion you do, I can't wait to pull for this guy! GMG

With KRAM on this...always find it difficult to believe that a coach would let his ego get in the way of a WIN, if in fact he felt a win would be more likely with one player more than another. I never profess to understand college athletes or coaches, but it seems the ego of winning trumps the ego being questioned on personnel decisions. GMG

Nice first post, amigo. GMG

Candy Haven used to provide birthday cakes for the parties we did at my former business, Putt Putt Golf and Games. I loved it when the kids left half-eaten plates of cake for me to clean up after! Jane is the best! GMG

Flying in from a Houston appointment and will be there 2 hours before game time! Our tailgate will likely be smaller than normal, but we will represent. GMG