untjim1995

I feel bad for you on this. You've literally never seen good UNT QB play here. Average is the ceiling for what you've seen. Fine is better than Morris, McNulty, Greer, Damarcus Smith, Dajon Williams, Quinn Shanbour, Caleb Chumley, Isadore, and any other QB we have had on this roster since 2014. And Derek Thompson was the QB before that for two years, so again, average has been your ceiling for watching UNT QBs. It is what it is. Until legitimate FBS caliber QBs want to come here and both play AND go to class, this is what the situation will continue to be. You're gonna have to watch us take short QBs, taller QBs with slow feet or less than strong/accurate arms, or QBs from JUCOs that always seem to have questions/concerns. That pretty much covers up almost every QB we have had other than Gio Vizza in the last 10 years.

We are really ranked 48th out of the 65 G5s (not including BYU).... Until we can get above the top half of the G5s, we are still spinning our wheels. We are always going to be looked at as a regional body bag opponent for the p5s

That UTEP game was the last game and their seniors played all out, while we didn't come close to matching that intensity. Hoping it's a learning moment for SL from his first year as a head coach. But those last games of seasons can be crazy. Our worst team in forever barely lost to UTEP to end the 2015 year, partly because UTEP didn't care at all and we let every spare QB play that day and it cost us a win.

I bet they would haven't said it last year, either. Coaches and players are SUPPOSED to believe this...otherwise, you get Portland State results every week.

I think the main reason that Texas College Football at this level has regressed the way it has--to where we had zero teams ranked at the end of the year--is due to the 7-on-7 craze and the spread offenses run at TX High schools. They don't practice enough hitting or for tackling. The best athletes are skilled offensive guys. And it translates upward. Nobody in the Big XII plays any defense these days, even TCU who has a coach who built his name on it. UT could, but their prima donna players didn't want to play as hard as was needed and their offense was pretty much the worst in the conference. A&M is the same on defense, as well as the AAC and CUSA schools. These TX FBS coaches just ask the defense to get a couple of stops and hope they score every time--see Art Briles, Kliff Kingsbury, etc... I think the DL and the entire defense that SL has is gonna be asked to pretty much do the same thing--just get enough stops to keep us in the game.

Its why this game could be used to bring in somebody other than an FCS spare for our scheduling, so that even when we would have 5 home games, this game serves as basically a very close 6th game for UNT fans to get to easily. You could have a setup of @SMU, @bodybag, @ BYU (for example), and a home game against Army/UH/Memphis in the odd years, then follow that up with SMU and BYU at home and a roadtrip to Army/UH in the even years to join the bodybag game. FCS games offer THIS program (not others, but this one) absolutely nothing right now. It boggles my mind that our previous AD was gifted Apogee by the UNT students (under UNTFlyer's leadership) and he rewarded us with games against Texas Southern, Nicholls State, Portland State, Bethune-Cookman, Lamar, Abilene Christian, Incarnate Word, Houston Baptist, and Rhode Island...he couldn't even get the two FCS schools in Texas that might actually bring people to the stadium to watch us play SFA or SHSU. Poor Wren Baker got stuck with a schedule that is basically a hand of high cards, while the other CUSA West teams are holding OOC schedules of pairs, three-of-a-kind, and straights...it sure helps their recruiting, particularly UTSA's.

That UAB ranking is just one reason most people think they will be absolutely terrible this season.

I would imagine that Tulsa will be in on him...

DMac just seemed to lose it...I'm sure the stroke had something to do with it, but the frustration of not being able to have recruits come to us instead of fighting for them every year just drained him. I'll say it again, but we haven't had someone that publically optimistic about UNT Football since Hayden Fry was here. For three eyars, it looked like it was all coming together, too, even though recruiting still sucked. But when 2013's season ended in the HoD Bowl win over UNLV, we got absolutely no bounce--the fans didn't care enough to buy season tickets after the best season we had in over a decade, maybe longer, and even worse, TX HS Coaches and recruits didn't care as we got no bump upward. Then in 2014, we regressed backwards at QB and our recruiting class was dead-ass last in the FBS. Why recruiting here is so impossibly hard is frustrating, but I get why it is this way. History of apathy has been just terrible to the program's reputation and we don't play people that get recruits' attention like it does at other similar G5s. Except for Dodge, with his great HS reputation to get skilled offensive players here, and Dickey getting a few gems that he managed to convince to come here in a few classes, this place has royally sucked at the recruiting game since 1995 when we moved back up. I'm still at the point of only believing that recruiting can be fixed here when I actually see it get fixed here with a few solid classes at the top quartile of G5s (P5s aren't a reasonable comparison, IMO). Otherwise, its the toughest part of being the UNT Football Coach.

Not sure why that thread got closed, but I predict the Ponies go 7-5. That home schedule is very winnable. SFA, us, Arky State, UConn, Tulsa, UCF, and Tulane. Athlon predicts them to go 7-5, as well.

That wasn't the question...Do you LIKE your job??//Greggo Still the funniest bit of radio I've ever listened to in my life...

I totally agree with you. We would have to have some tremendous offensive success and his reputation as being a Leach disciple would gain traction amongst the Power Conference Coaching ranks.

It also speaks volumes about the previous staff's inability to identify QBs for this level of play. Connor Means couldn't get playing time as a QB here against the worst collection of QBs that we have had here in my almost 30 years of following the program. And he now plays Linebacker--in his upperclassmen years...my goodness, Dan McCarney just fell apart after he was here for 3 years on the job. Couldn't get recruits to come here like he thought he would be able to after three years and just left us with a roster that was so poorly rated, its damn miraculous that SL turned it into 5 wins in his first year.

I think Graham Harrell's upward projector for his career (if I happens) would be one of the following: 1.) Becomes OC for Leach or some disciple of Leach's coaching tree who is at a bigger school (think OU) 2.) Becomes a Head Coach at a lower level school in Texas (SFA, SHSU, ACU, etc...) if we have success in the coming years ahead... 3.) Littrell has big time success here and is gone within the next couple of years and Harrell gets rewarded with a chance here.

I agree on Dickey. He already has his name on practice fields that is due to being held hostage for a donation by a very disgruntled fan. He had three winning seasons in 9 tries. His personality was less charming than the Fouts piss wall. 42-64...I just don't think he should have a Hall of Fame entry and have the practice fields named after him. If for nothing else, maybe this will allow us to offer the naming rights up for bid again or name it after someone who actually won here, like, oh, I don't know, maybe somebody like Hayden Fry...before he dies, it might be nice to honor the best coach we ever had.

Yes, that was the opening drive of the game and of Darrell Dickey's career as a head coach...

And this was after my HS in Ft. Worth went a salty 3-27 in my last three years there, where we beat the same team, Paschal, each year, then lost to the rest.

This is my 28th season to enjoy...5 winning seasons, 22 losing seasons, 8 coaches, 4 ADs, and a record of 112 wins, 184 losses, and 2 ties. A sweet .379% winning percentage in football.

What UTSA has become isn't really too surprising. They are a large public university in a town without another FBS program. I realize UT/A&M have tons of pull there, as well as the fact that Texas State is just up the road, but their city has no other football team to cover in the papers or on TV/radio for a local appeal until UTSA moved up. The city has shown a lot of support for them. They have no other pro sports besides the Spurs to take away from potential fans attending games and the Alamodome is right in the center of town. ANd the final kicker that helps them tremendously is that their city is seen as a tourist destination by other schools' fans, which is how they have gotten Arizona, Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, New Mexico, and Colorado State to play them down there. UTSA has a ton of advantages that nobody else in the regional G5s have. It would be only be surprising if they didn't take advantage of it all. So far, they've built this thing up in a pretty reasonable fashion from just starting football back in 2010.

You have hit the nail on the head perfectly. In Colorado State's situation, their football program was given a huge priority back in the 80's and early 90's, when Sonny Lubick became a huge success and they became a top 25 team in most years. That university's family (alumni, student body, faculty, administration, etc...) wants sports to be its primary window to the university, so they've put lots of $$$ towards facilities, coaches, and buyouts. Plus, they have regional rivalries in conference that have been around for decades (AFA, Wyoming, UNM) and they get to play the big dog in the state (Colorado) every year to start the season. Our situation is pretty much 180 degrees from theirs. They play in a league that will get to continue playing at the highest level of play when the future culling of FBS occurs. They have two FBS schools in their state to compete with that love playing them in sports every year. We here on gmg.com could only wish that we had those kind of luxuries--its too bad that the other 98% either don't care or openly wish we would get rid of the football program...

I think that he used these escorts for recruits first and foremost at Ole Miss. it all makes sense as to how they started recruiting lights out with a guy who had never shown that ability before and at a place that hadn't been really good in awhile.

Although I truly believe Freeze is a sleazeball, I think the reality is that these calls were to get these escorts over to recruits. Hence, he made Ole Miss into an SEC recruiting juggernaut overnight. Whenever a terrible Power program comes out of nowhere to become a big winner in a fairly short amount of time, you can bet its due to cheating--Baylor and Ole Miss are the obvious two choices that fit this description.

Freeze will coaching in the SBCUSA within two years...

Great post. Look, we have to give Wren Baker the benefit of the doubt because he is still trying to get stuff figured out and done here, stuff that the university's leadership ALLOWED to suck at a high level for a loooooonnnngggg time. It's very telling that the UNT 17 basically gave up on RV after the buyouts became too big to ignore and the "access" they were getting to the AD and the program was, quite frankly, not worth a pot to piss in. Baker is new...I am quite certain that he wanted to fire Tony Bumford on Day One, but he couldn't because the funds that would have been available got rid of the fat-ass that drove the bus into the bottom of the lake. SO, publically, he said the right thing, while privately, he went out and got the guy he felt would be the best fit here and he paid handsomely for it, which is refreshing in its own right. Baker may end up sucking to, yet keeping a job here for a long time like RV and Helwig did before him. Its UNT, its what we do when it comes to athletics. But, maybe, just maybe, this man is different and can actually hire personnel that gets shit done, in the areas we need. I'm not talking non-revenue sports or compliance or any of that--these are important, but nothing like fundraising, winning on the football field and basketball court, and knowing something about getting PR/marketing for us in the entire Metroplex, not just Denton. These have to be the top priorities. It doesn't mean you go all Baylor and just get to become a winner and not care about anything else, to the point of covering up multiple assaults by your players. It means being something akin to La Tech's AD. It's working to become something like UH has grown into. If that can occur here--and I have severe doubts it can--it will be due to guys like Baker getting it turned around and moving up the AD Foodchain in the world of college athletics. But we have to give the man a chance--he isn't RV, even if some of the stuff he says sounds too familiar. RV sounded eager to when he first got here...and then the leadership and culture made it clear to him how to keep his job and be the good company man. But until otherwise shown, WB isn't RV or Craig Helwig, so we have to trust Smatresk hired the right guy and will do everything he can to get this thing up to a standard that it has NEVER reached before in the last 35+ years.

I think part of the reason this things you want aren't ever announced is due tot he crazy fact--that you are already seeing, as we told you would happen--is that having a huge alumni base, student body, faculty, and citizenry that almost in its entirety don't give a rat's ass about UNT Sports doesn't really add up to reaching goals unless they are curb-level high. That's not who we are here. Maybe, and I do mean maybe, the music and arts here could set those goals high for fundraising and attending their concerts/shows. That's what the UNT Family cares a lot more about, both on campus and in town. They will never care about athletics like you want them to--its not what the UNT Family wants...only the 2% that care about athletics. Its why most people do what UNT90 did--try to care, try to follow the program, go insane hoping it becomes what he wants it to become, realize it won't, then leaves. As a matter of fact, most students and alums don't even get that far--the culture tells them not to care almost immediately on campus. For those of us who have been around for more than 25 years supporting this place, this bit of advice is all I can offer to you. Go to the games, follow the program, watch them on TV, and just enjoy it for that. Yes, we are old and the sanity begins to wane after 15 years or so, but I still follow them because they are my alma mater, not because they will ever care about winning more than I do. Because if they did, the stadium we play in would be about 20 years older than it is today and we would have had a winner more years than not since 1995, instead of the 4 we have enjoyed out of 22 we have played as a FBS program. If you can do that, you'll be a fan for life here. If you can't, well join the other 98% and know that some other Power school will become your t-shirt school and you'll probably never come back to Denton again for anything UNT related.