MeanGreenZen

Don’t kid yourself, Cougar King. There is no “P4”. There is the SEC. The Big 10. And then everyone else. The ACC and Big 12 are just as irrelevant as the rest of G5 in football now and will only become more so…

I hate the portal and NIL too. But North Texas didn’t invent those things and the answer isn’t to quit on your alma mater. We just have to ride this out until whatever is next comes along. Looks like we will have an exciting team next season too.

I see a couple of girls who might make a good walk-on nose tackle.

You can rebuild a college basketball rotation to contend at a high level in one year. That is just 8-9 players. And if you get lucky with 2-3 absolute monsters, you can make a run in any given season. Of course, then those 2-3 monsters will get poached by deeper pockets and you will have to start all over again. But still, it is possible. But we can’t rebuild a college football two-deep in one year. That’s almost 50 players that we need to compete at a high level. And as has been demonstrated, any time we get football players who have any kind of success in the NIL era, they are gone quicker than you can say “Chandler Rogers”. Another reason it is easier for us to compete in the NIL era in basketball is because that sport is dominated by guards. There are LOTS of talented guards available in college basketball and some of the very best can fall through the cracks and land with us for atleast a season. And while many people would say that college football is dominated by quarterbacks (and that position is VERY important)… what really separates the elite college football programs from everyone else are the defensive linemen. The supply of 18-24 year-old humans who weigh 300 pounds with the strength to take on multiple blockers while also having the speed to run down a quarterback is no where near the demand. And these defensive linemen usually take a while to develop. But anytime a defensive linemen shows a hint of promise, he gets funneled to the highest bidder and that won’t be us. Which means we will never be able to compete with the SEC or Big 10 in football.

I’m not saying drop football. Football is important in Texas. But we don’t need to pretend that we are the same level with teams with 5x our revenue who can and do take our best players any time they want. We can’t afford to pay football players and everything else that comes with that. So we shouldn’t. And we should find a level for football that can accommodate that. We CAN competitively pay 8 basketball players (maybe 16 if Title 9 makes us pay the women too). I don’t like any of this. Just trying to figure out the best way we can position our athletic programs in this changing environment.

The P2 schools make 5x our annual revenue. Five times! And most of their revenue is from media deals, ticket sales and donations while our revenue is mostly from student fees. This article mentions a possible 22% revenue distribution to players (collectively bargained pro sports are closer to 50%.). As far as I can tell, our revenue from all sources is running at around $44M annually so 22% is about $9.6M that would go to the players. Where would this money come from? What would we have to cut to get it? Could we increase donations to cover that? I doubt it. I don’t think that you can ask students to pay the salaries of other “students” playing sports. That is not right. I wouldn’t have an issue with the players being compensated via media deals, ticket sales and alumni donations. But at North Texas, that ain’t big bucks. I just worry that the train has left the station on competing in football. Especially since there are teams in the P2 who can afford to pay their BACKUP quarterback more than our entire NIL budget. And every good player on our football team last season has left our school for more money at other schools. At that point, why even pretend that we can compete for a national championship in football? And if you can’t win, why not play something else? Let’s find a different level with a sustainable model that provides an opportunity to really compete. Basketball is a different story because you can put all of your resources into a rotation of just 8 players. And I do believe that we can still compete at a national level in basketball.

Johnell Davis to Arkansas.

You are correct. But the problem is that the SEC and the Big 10 have all the power and the current system only benefits them as it allows them to funnel all of the talent from the less funded schools. The Power 2 have the money to retain all their own talent and can take whatever they want from us. They aren’t going to change this system voluntarily.

After spring ball is when all the programs know if they are thin at defensive line or not. Many are and are willing to pay big $$$ to fix that. That’s why you are seeing so many D-linemen jumping into the portal now. This is when the D-linemen have the most leverage. Yeah it sucks for us, but this is happening at all the P4 schools too. The P4s are also having to bid against each other for their own D-linemen.

You are correct. If he gets a guarantee from a NBA team that he will be drafted in the 1st round then that is a 3 year deal x $2M a year minimum and he will be GONE. But that is a long shot. The Arkansas message boards are sure their Chicken Man money will land Johnell but some big $$$ alums at Kentucky took Calipari leaving for the Razorback job personally and refuse to lose out to Arkansas again. Johnell is benefiting from that bidding war.

Johnell Davis is out of Michigan’s price range. Massive bidding war going down for him right now between Arkansas and Kentucky. He will probably be highest paid player in college basketball next season.

Lol. Reading it. I’d rank the novel up there with Dune and Lonesome Dove if anyone here is a fellow former UNT English major and would like to break off into small groups and discuss.

Well, I guess I no longer have to commit seppuku to retain my honor as a North Texas fan. We’re back Baby!!!

Maybe it was a reference to our NIL offer? Maybe we were offering a certain % of donations and he wanted a firm dollar amount? The NIL negotiations going on right now are bananas: it is a new thing, the market is hidden, rumors, unregulated, lots of shady middle men, people who have never negotiated anything in their life… Probably lots of lessons being learned on all sides.

For a post about transparency, that is pretty vague. Next…

The Reece Mooney era was a beautiful three snap sequence on a spring Tuesday afternoon in shorts. I will always think fondly upon it.

You win on price, you will lose on price. Bet he averages about 12 points a game in the SEC.

What? You think we should be pulling Vlad Goldin out of the transfer portal? Last I heard he is leaning towards UCONN.

Noland wore out his welcome at OU. He found an important role in a good program at North Texas. He really could have been featured next season and made his mark here but chose to leave. Just another hired gun who won’t be remembered anywhere he has been. Can’t imagine he is making much more NIL at New Mexico.

Jason Edwards’ agent is running his recruitment. And agents don’t make commission on the value of your college degree…

Rauben Jones is a great player. If he isn’t getting NIL $ from Michigan then he is an idiot. And I don’t think he is an idiot. And I would guess that the reason he is at Michigan and not Texas Tech is because Michigan had the most NIL $ to offer him.

This is an interesting pickup for us. This guy doesn’t conform to the typical transfer profile that we should be focusing on: highly productive player at a low-major/D2 or a formerly productive player at high-major/mid-major who needs a change of scenery. Brock Vice has played ZERO real college basketball. But finding a player who can be productive for us at the center position is going to take some creativity. Need to replace Tylor Perry or Jason Edwards? Not fun, but there are LOTS of fast young men 5’9 or taller who can dribble and shoot that the marketplace has undervalued. Ross Hodge can take his pick. There just aren’t very many 18-24 year-old humans who are 6’9 or taller. And the marketplace places a very high price on those who are that tall AND possess any degree of athleticism or basketball skill. Which brings us back to Brock Vice, who redshirted on a VERY good Creighton team that finished 25-10 last season (second-place in the Big East). The starting center on that team was Ryan Kalkbrenner, a 7’1 monster who averaged 17 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots a game. His backup also put up good numbers in very limited minutes. So Vice hasn’t been a productive college player yet, but atleast he has a good excuse. With both players in front of him on the depth chart eligible to come back to Creighton next season, Vice needs a change of scenery to get his oversized sneakers on the court. He’s 6-10. Can rebound AND shoot. Was an outstanding high school and AAU basketball player. And has enough meat on his bones and athleticism to have been a standout high school football player. This is exactly the kind of kid that Ross should be landing. We did not have a player like this guy on our team last season and it hurt us all year. Welcome to Denton!

Why would a big brand like this invest so heavily in one school? College sports are so tribal and FedEx wants to serve everyone. Now I am LESS likely to use FedEx.

Why would he announce at 5:30 pm on a Friday? That is when you bury news not make your big announcement. Guess that Michigan business school isn’t that good…

He chose Nicholls State. lol. I’m going to keep trusting in Ross until I have a reason not to.