untjim1995

Vizza was a freshman on that first Dodge team in 2007. He transferred out after it, probably knowing Rodge was gonna get to start for Dad, but also because he got beat to a pulp. He never played a down of football ever again.

UCF moved up to I-A exactly one year after we did. They’ve been able to finish in the top ten, win BCS bowl games, and move up to a power conference. UCF has an entire market of a big city to themselves, sharing Orlando with a basketball team. UTSA is most like them in this regard and we have seen them zoom by us, too. its sad, but the reality is that we just have never recovered from the nuclear decision of dropping down to I-as and staying there for 12 seasons. Even when we moved up in 1995, it was because we wanted to be able to make more money as a bought win. Today, we are looked down on by CFB fans and media, as well as our own alumni. Heck, we can’t even sellout our own 30k stadium. Our location is supposed to be this huge advantage, but for football, it’s a giant disadvantage, as we are buried behind the DFW coverage of the 4 pro teams, the P4 teams, and other sports like golf. It is what it is.

It's just not a situation that is sustainable. Not for a G5 school, especially one with little to no success, a reputation of apathy, and few opponents that really get the fans fired up to come watch. All kids dream of playing for those Power Schools, particularly the giants of the sport. So there's a totem pole and even at the top, there's always someone else that will offer you more. I watched about 6 cfb games all of last year, 3 of which were the playoff games. I doubt this year will be any different.

I’ll also add that keeping Dodge for a 4th year to save $275k got us 1 more win before he got fired with 5 games left in the season. If Didge didn’t get WKU on the schedule, who he beat 4x IIRC, he would’ve only won 2 games in 3.5 years. As it is, his record here was 6-37.

The next week after the OU game, we played at SMU and lost. That was SMU's only win of the season, while we beat ULM and winless WKU for our only two wins all season. While an entertaining game, that UNT-SMU game was between two weaklings. SMU fired Phil Bennett and hired June Jones, who built SMU back up from the ash heap fairly quickly, only to eventually fall apart, too, a few years later, when a UNT blowout of SMU in Denton showed them just how bad things were and he quit.

He had a great QB in Gio Vizza, who was a strong-armed freshman. But the beating that the guy took, most of which was on the concrete turf of Fouts, just crushed him. The dude quit football entirely after that one season.

Saw that he passed away yesterday. He was our OC for the 1994-1995 seasons. A brilliant offensive mind and a great guy. I always wanted him to come back here as our coach, but he apparently knew that the facilities and leadership here at the time was awful. But he made Tulsa a very good program and I was always surprised it didn't work out as well at Louisville as I expected it would for him.

And Todd Dodge always reminded everyone that he was PROMISED a new stadium would get built when he took over. I think that helped get the attention of the students (UNTFlyer) that Fouts was a complete dump and had to be replaced. I don't think Dodge was a terrible hire at the time for the reasons you listed. But he had so much arrogance about his SLC success that he thought it'd be that simple at the FBS level. Bringing in HS assistants or folks who hadn't coached in years was just a giant mistake, one that the AD should've stopped.

Its more like the last 60 years, with some decades being worse than others. Probably the best leadership we've had for athletics was from 2010 and its not exactly been stellar. But its light years better than Gretchen Bataille and RV hiring a high school coach because she didn't want anyone making more than the school president and the AD not even thinking twice about him bringing in mostly high school coaches to be his assistants.

That will take $2.7 million to send him away after this season.

UTSA at 47. Program didn't even exist in any fashion until 2011. They joined CUSA at the same time we did in 2013. Amazes me what we can't do, while others just zoom right by.

105 scholarships is just a way for the schools to handle the portal taking away their rosters every season.

Y'all's? You're as big an SMU fan as anyone else has ever been on this site. You fool no one.

Its super simple here. Either the ACC GOR is the strongest contract ever written and it binds the ACC together until 2035 or its not and a settlement or breakaway occurs, most likely within 2-3 years max. If its the first scenario, SMU hit a grand slam. Because they get 10 years of football against big time opponents in a power conference, as well as super high levels of college basketball. Even if it falls apart, they still got away from us in a conference setup, which is what they believe single-handedly defines sparedom to their alumni. Why? I have no idea. But its very true. Very similar to how TCU and Baylor look down on them and will never be in a conference with them again if they can help it.

True on Nebraska. They got kicked out of the AAU after they joined the B1G, so it obviously matters big time to that league to have strong academics and strong athletics. The ACC would probably stay around as a conference but it wouldn’t be a power league anymore. Probably stay with the leftovers in the East and SMU, while adding in Memphis, Tulane, USF, ECU, UAB, and probably FAU. We would just back full with CUSA schools.

The B1G and SEC are saying that now, but its because the networks aren't looking to start a new contract with any of these contracts. The B1G is sticking to its AAU status thing, but the SEC will add them eventually to keep the B1G away from good brands in the Southeast. It just may take a few more years and it may be a situation where the SEC gets them both for cheap, the way the B1G got Oregon and Washington for half payouts. I still think we are gonna see the ACC get absorbed like the Pac-12 did. If I had to guess, it'll be like this: B1G: Rutgers, Penn State, Maryland, Virginia, UNC, Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington (24 schools, all AAU institutions) SEC: Va Tech, NC State, Clemson, South Carolina FSU, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, MSU, Bama, and Auburn (20 schools) Big 12: WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, Cincy, UCF, Iowa State, Kansas, KSU, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Houston, Colorado, BYU, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, and Stanford (20 schools)

Either that GOR is the strongest contract in sports history, or it will get busted. So far, that GOR strength has held up and it's what SMU is banking on to last. But the moment that it gets busted or settled, then the reality is that FSU, Clemson, UNC, Uva, Va Tech, Miami, Duke, NC State, Louisville, Pitt, and Georgia Tech are gone to the other three leagues.

Oh. Never thought about that. Maybe something like this: Hey, Denton!! Start caring about our university by coming to DATCU Stadium!! Take out 4-5 hours of your Saturday to come over to the stadium and watch our marching band perform!! They will play live (during a football game that features UNT) and even march on the field!! It only costs $25 to attend!! DATCU sellouts are right around the corner!!

Maybe I've missed something over the last 34 years of being around UNT Football, but this has never once been shown to be true, to occur, or to work when tried. Denton residents either don't care about our teams or they actively loathe their existence. This isn't Lubbock or College Station where there is no other game in town and the cities' residents actually like football. This is the biggest artistic/musician town in the state that thrives on being anti-establishment.

NIL just means Now It’s Legal to the SMUs of the world

I seriously doubt UTD students care at all about college football. Come to think of it, neither do most of the UNT students, apparently.

Dan McCarney, when he first got here, was the closest thing we have had to being a salesman as Hayden Fry was. HE believed that this place was going to be huge, as we were opening a new stadium, preparing to go to CUSA in a few years from the first edition of the SBC, and sitting in the middle of the Texas recruiting hotbed. He went on media outlets to tell everyone how exciting the future was here. He was great with TX HS coaches. He would talk to any UNT gathering he could to see the program. And that's when the Apathy Monster defeated him. DMac thought recruiting would be easy here. But he ran an antiquated offense that nobody in the state ran or wanted to run. The TX HS Coaches liked him, but they didn't like that offense and they knew the UNT Apathy better than he did. He had no idea of the decades of apathy he was fighting. He couldn't understand why people didn't show up for games in Denton. He even wondered why the HOD Bowl game in Dallas on NYD could have such a huge green crowd show up for us playing UNLV but wouldn't show up for a conference game in Denton. Eventually, the stress and his coping with it thru drinking almost killed him, as he suffered a stroke. And he was never the same after that. And neither were his teams. What Dodge had recruited was put to use in a solid way by DMac and his staff, but what they had recruited couldn't come close to replicating the same talent he had inherited, especially at the skill positions. And two years later, with the worst collection of QBs we have ever had, we hit rock bottom in the worst loss in modern college football history, that 66-7 loss at home to FCS Portland State on Homecoming. He was rightly fired immediately after the game and the rest is history. Similar to Littrell, having had some success here got him an extension, but it just meant that we had to buyout more in the end. Hoping Morris' tenure will be different, but so far, nothing has suggested we are on a different path.

They should have done the same thing to Baylor. But the SMU example was so painful, the ncaa would never do it again. The sports media felt so sorry for SMU, even though they cheated better than anyone ever had, over and over. I still say that SMU should sue the NCAA out of existence for what they did. It cost them billions.

It would make the most sense. We don’t need to be playing UT, OU, A&M, LSU, etc…all of whom have hundreds of millions in revenues, humongous stadiums that are sold out, and rosters that are full of NFL caliber players. Let us play teams that play in stadiums that are between 25k and 50k. Play teams with similar attendance issues and funding that is not completely out of whack with the lower programs in this level. And if SMU, TCU, Baylor, UH, and others want to play in a conference without us, go ahead. But we can play on their level. We can’t play on the levels of these NFL-lite programs. And as I’ve said many times, it’s blatantly unfair to everyone associated with a G5 program and never being able to play for a national title, like every other level Of football allows.

Sadly, I think the lower G5s will have to do that, the ones in CUSA and some in the MAC and the SBC. But the Higher G5s in those leagues and the MWC and AAC will stay above that, joining the former power schools that could left behind.