untjim1995

This is what Benford is supposed to be--a recruiter at a Power Conference school with lots of resources and a plethora of talent surrounding him. He doesn't need to x's and o's anything and Will Wade won't ask him to do that. He will plant him in every gym in LA, MS, and TX to get the Tigers some great talent. Thanks again, RV...the $hittiest of his hires, if you ask me. Worse than Dodge just due to what he took over and what he left behind--with absolutely no success at all and an attendance plummet that may not be recovered here for years ahead, if ever...

The biggest leaps forward are going from awful to not awful...see Littrell's first football season here as proof. We basically improved 5 games--the last year of Mac/Chico saw us win one game because of miraculous circumstances (UTSA playing their 4th string QB in the second half let us win a game by a TD at home or else we are winless). I suspect that McCasland's first year here will look a lot like Jankovich did here in his first season after Gales was fired in 1994, as well as Johnny Jones after Trilli. Both coaches went .500 or better in their first season, where the kids that stayed were excited as hell to have new coaches that were excited to be here. I suspect that will occur here, somewhere in the .500 range. I will say this about the NIT when it comes to propelling a program forward. I've seen A&M, Wichita State, Baylor, and SMU use it to make major strides forward. I suspect that UTA and TCU will do the same, especially TCU, who has money, resources, conference pedigree, and ESPECIALLY a great head coach with great name recognition. It must be nice to have money and the interest of BMDs to care about revenue sports that way...

I think we can agree that Earl Campbell, Billy Sims, Eric Dickerson, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Adrian Peterson are the best running backs from Texas HS that went on to have incredible college and NFL careers. Maybe more to add to the list, but not looking at HS, but after that, these 5 are the ones that really stand out to me since the full integration of major college football in this state.

I'm very glad that we got this going instead of trying to start up baseball. The priority needs to be football, then mens hoops, and then womens hoops...in that exact order.

I'm sure Baylor will come calling, eventually, if the timing works for them and him...

TCU advanced to the NIT Semifinals in NYC with last night's win. IF UTA wins at home against Cal-State Bakersfield, they will also go to the NIT Semifinals in MSG. Its entirely possible that these two could play each other for the NIT Championship. Coach McCasland, welcome back to DFW...you, like SL, are inheriting a sinkhole of a program, but you have even more local teams that are very good to throw dirt down you. Good luck, coach--because you are gonna need a train full of it to rebuild this situation.

MUTS has quite an NCAA history--they have beaten UK, Florida State, and Michigan State in the tournament. Some teams, like Richmond or UALR, for example, when they make the tournament, they tend to make some noise.

It's really going to be interesting to see how this all plays out when the Big XII finally dies off and the Power leagues start their next wave of separation. I've always believed that it's very possible that the Power Leagues won't play any of us anymore, or will only let certain leagues still play them, so as to get the revenue from not having a TV deal worth anything major. CUSA and SBC have no choice but to realign geographically. The MAC geographical model is the one to follow here. It wouldn't surprise one bit to never see a Texas tech play here in 2027 or 2028, whenever it is set on the schedule, unless tech gets left behind, too. I tell you what, the real worry for schools like us is that the NCAA Tournament and College Baseball Playoffs get closed to us. At that point, and nobody knows, but it's gonna really be tough to have much of a fan following.

RV would have had us play TWO games at Bama for this sum of cash...

Its kind of funny--the folks at UConn want out of the AAC to go back to the Big East because they believe the conference is run down now--which is true. The folks at Southern Miss and Marshall don't like CUSA because its become SBC 2.0, but they can't do much about it because they have no TV market to sell the AAC. And the folks at Arkansas State and ULL can't believe they are stuck still in the SBC while UNT, MUTS, WKU, and the F_Us got away. Until these conferences realize that geographic realignment is their only way to move forward, it will continue to be this way--too many people in the AAC and CUSA look down their noses at other schools being aligned with them in conferences...it really is cutting off your nose to spite your face, in most cases.

You aren't, but they just don't have the money or the media love...

I think Kaspar would be a nice fit here. He's probably as good as we can get, to be honest.

It has always been a matter of when...look at the NCAA Tournament. The bubble teams that got in were almost entirely from the Power 6 (includes Big East). UTA, Monmouth, and Illinois State are among teams that couldn't get into a party that 15-loss Vanderbilt got invited to. Instead, we get USC, K-State, Providence, and Wake Forest as entries. No lawsuit is changing this. They control the networks, the legislatures, and the media.

Equal to Benford?

Again, better than Benford...

Fran Fraschilla just re-upped with ESPN for four more years....

Still better than Benford...

It's just a tough sell here, when anyone who knows anything about our history of apathy (or worse) towards athletics, then sees that winning doesn't matter first, but cost does. Usually, your candidates tend to be guys looking for a retirement check (McCarney) or guys looking for a first head coaching job at this level (everyone but McCarney). Its pretty simple. The university placed its value on lots of students and on music/fine arts. That will never change--ever. It's been this way for multiple decades. The community doesn't want it to be any different. Ill always follow our teams because it's my alma mater, but I've come to realize in the last few years that I want to win more than the university does at football or basketball. And that's ok. My degree from here is still very valuable and will always matter to me. But I've got three smaller kids who already follow other programs because they know North Texas is really bad at sports.

I tend to trust TTG and dahbeed on this. Harper would be a really nice hire, but better places will hire him most likely. Middle Tennessee makes a lot of sense for him, if Kermit gets hired at LSU.

They have a lot of advantages on their side that we don't. They have no history of apathetic losing. They don't share a market with anyone else. The SA media likes covering them. And Power 5 teams want to play there. We don't have any of that.

The thing that amazes me around here is how many act like any criticism of Darrell Dcikey's SBC run thru a brand new league of barely FBS teams is treated like blasphemy. But to act like you appreciate what JJ did here was pretty special gets met with lots of people acting as if he was nothing special.

I don't think we should re-hire JJ. But I bet he's one of, if not the best, candidate for the job. If he is, we should re-hire him. We probably wont, but unless darrin Horn shows interest, there will not be a more accomplished coach at the level we play at that will be a better choice than JJ. But that's assuming JJ wants to be a head coach again here.

Combs will be gone if he gets a degree and we hire someone that nobody has ever heard of, which is most likely. Besides, he could go play at a real basketball program in front of more than 1000 people in non-conference.

In the last 40 years, one basketball coach, Johnny Jones, got hired away by a bigger school. And he just got fired. Same with football, except hayden Fry stayed at Iowa for decades longer. We all want to be blindly loyal fans, but this place is usually a death sentence for a head coach after this, in terms of being a head coach at the same level again. There are exceptions, but this is not a place that others use to springboard into something better in the two main revenue sports. It's almost always been a trap door to career death as a head coach in college at the same level or higher.

All 1200 of them... Look, as long as music and arts bring in students from other states, and a "value" education bring in tons of local students, the folks at the top and in the faculty are thrilled. They want nothing more. And that's ok. It just has cost the university any interest or dollars from people who like sports. But they know that the student body, alumni, and local Dentonites overwhelmingly don't care and don't want to spend anything on UNT athletics.