island eagle

He's also a Dallas Top 100 area recruit.

The State contributes a much smaller share of the total budget to the State Universities than in the past. They expect the institutions to come up with any extra needed money through private fundraising sources. That is a major problem here at UTMB where grants nationwide are decreasing at the same time that pressure is increasing for getting money from such sources as Federal and private grants.

I think that Tune will get a lot of looks from TD.

Bump

Harry, Can you add me also???

There was an article in the FWST this morning, saying he had committed to North Texas.

You are absolutely right. If there is one element that has held this program back more than any, it has been a history of mediocre attendence. Fix that and lots of good things will happen. Poor attendence cost us a Liberty Bowl bid in the Fry era (also became the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Hayden was concerned). It cost us a chance at a CUSA bid. When we average 25,000 or more a game, no matter who we play, lots of opportunities will open for us.

My wife was trying to think of what to get me for Christmas. She finally settled on the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, a 1,600 plus page compendium of just about anything you could want to know about college football history, facts and trivia. It includes pages on every team ever in 1-A football (or the NCAA, prior to the split of 1-A and !-AA), complete bowl histories back to the beginning, including bowls that are now defunct (such as the Salad Bowl), team stat leaders by years, All-American teams by years, WEEKLY polls (AP and UPI) back to the time they first started, etc, etc. Among some of the trivia I picked up already from this volume: 1. The highest North Texas has ever been "legitimately" ranked (I'll explain later) was in 1959 on November 2nd, when they reached 20th in the AP poll and November 9th, when they were ranked 17th in AP and 19th in UPI. Unfortunately, they lost to Tulsa 6-17 that week and dropped out of the polls; Ironically, TCU was 18th in AP and tied with us at 19th in UPI that later week; 2 Speaking of 1959, and our Sun Bowl loss to New Mexico State, we were evenly matched statistically, though we lost 28-8. We had 20 first downs to NMSU's 15 and 334 total yards to their 342. But, we lost 6 fumbles and I guess that doomed us. Also in 1959, Abner Haynes was ranked 7th nationally in total rushing yards. Pervis Adkins of NMSU was ranked 1st. We were ranked 2nd nationally in rushing yards that year, just behind Syracuse, 4th in total offense and 10th in total defense. 3. In 1977, we were ranked 18th in the UPI poll on 10/10, 16th on 10/17, 16th on 10/24, 20th on 10/31 (after losing to #20 ranked Florida State 35-14), 18th on 11/7, 14th on 11/14, 13th on 11/21, 17th on 11/28th and 16th on the final January poll. We were not ranked in the AP poll at any time that year. Fry was casting top 5 votes for us in the AP poll, which kept us ranked high.....so you might say the 1959 rankings were the true highest rankings we've ever received. 4.When we beat Florida in 1947, the Seminoles went 4-5-1 that year., beating North Carolina State, Furman, Miami and Kansas State and tying Tulane. They lost to Mississippi 6-14 the week before we beat them 12-20. They lost, 14-20 to Auburn the week after we beat them. 5.12,500 fans were on hand to see us lose to Nevada in the Salad Bowl on January 1, 1948 in Phoenix, Arizona. 6.There was a bowl game in Havana, Cuba one year: The Bacardi Bowl.12,000 fans showed up on January 1, 1937 to see Auburn and Villanova battle to a 7-7 tie. 7.Steve Ramsey was 5th nationally in passing in 1968. Barry Moore was 5th in receiving (Chuck Hixson of SMU was ranked 1st in passing and Jerry Levias was 2nd in receiving). In 1969, Ramsey was 7th in passing and Moore was 4th in receiving. 8.In 1967, North Texas was ranked 7th nationally in total defense. 9.In 1975, when we beat Tennessee, the Vols had lost to Alabama the week before, 7-20, but beat Colorado State the week following our victory, 28-7. 10. In 1939, Tennessee led the nation in scoring defense with 0 points scored against them in 10 games. Bet that record will never be duplicated! --

Stump played at A&N in the 80's. Local papers, however, quote him as saying he is not interested in an assistant coach job at North Texas. Of course, he could be saying that for the public and talking to Dodge privately.

Recruiting ratings are a mixed bag. If you get someone from the National 100 or Texas top 35, they almost always make it though there are some busts. If you take the Texas top 100, or even top 250, lists, you get a fair number of both hits and misses. By the time you get to the Local 100's, they are no better than just taking a bunch of All-District players. There will be some hits and a lot of misses four years down the road. If you go back and look at our recruits. When we get a Texas Top 100, or even better a Texas Top 35 (which the Austin paper puts out), we get a pretty good number of hits. But, if you look at the local 100's, most of our best players didn't make those lists. SMU had a lot of those over the past 6 years, but they only began to show some results when they started getting a few state 100's. So, to make this short. The higher lists have some validity, but are not perfect. The lower lists are pretty much beauty contests.

Wow! That is great news.

Nat Tune, Nick Foster, Kelvin Drake, Sam Owusu-Hemeng, Draylen Ross, Marquis Sykes and Kail Krider are my top choices to make a splash next year. A couple of these may have lost their red-shirt status (such as Drake), but I think most will come in as RS freshen for this Spring practice.

Tune is a very bright QB. If he has the tools to make it, he will be a real contender for the job next year.

Collins runs in the 4.5-4.6 range. He could make a wide-out also.