untjim1995

To even be considered as causing enough damage to challenge the carnage that the 1-aa drop in 1983 caused is really saying something...but I agree, RV hasn't caused this...he's merely a symptom to the bigger issue that can't get cured here--apathy and loathing of football.

They will until the Big XII's GOR runs out...besides, Cincny is a great academic school, has a very solid basketball program, and its location would help WVU have a travel partner, as well as the conference gaining a foothold in a talent-rich state in Ohio, where Cincy is easily the 2nd school to tOSU. Cincy and BYU might be the only chances that the league could stay together long enough to see the ACC schools fall apart before the Big XII does...

This is the biggest concern we have. Whatever you think about Dan McCarney's coaching, its impossible not to recognize his motivational and positive mindset he came here with in 2011. I truly believe he had no idea that getting kids here would be a hard sell. And by the time he got fired, we had beaten him down so bad that Darrell Dickey's attitude started to show up in his words and actions. Maybe he and his staff didn't recruit hard because they didn't think it would be a tough thing to do, but it was fairly obvious that they had no idea how much baggage our reputation has hurt us in recruiting. Except for Dickey's one or two classes that had some strongly-rated kids in it, our classes have generally been subpar for where we are located. I still think that its this reputation for apathy and losing that keeps TX HS kids, coaches, and parents from looking at us as anything but a safety net. Its this--and really only this--that will determine if Littrell can fix things around here. He has to get kids here that have talent coming in and that they need that talent to get developed. Right now, we just don't have much a lot of that kind of talent here on this roster, at least yet. I have a feeling its gonna start getting better and in more numbers in the next few years ahead, if Littrell's pedigree means anything--and I believe it just might...

Just a bit of advice here, but I would recommend preparing yourself for the worst and seeing if we can do anything better. Our schedule is brutal for our current program. We have one team, Butt Cookman, on our schedule that we should win. If we played Army, UTSA, or UTEP here, maybe we could figure on winning two or three of them, since they are probably our closest competition on the schedule right now. But they are all on the road, so maybe winning one game is reasonable to guess with this roster and brand new staff. SMU, Marshall, La Tech, USM, and MUTS are all home games, but they are all better than us to varying degrees, just like road opponents in Rice and WKU currently are as well. Florida pays the bills, obviously, so that one doesn't really count from a competitive standpoint right now. I'd take 2 wins, with only a blowout to Florida and maybe one other opponent and feel like we have made SIGNIFICANT progress from where we were when Littrell took over. We have earned this ranking, I'm sad to admit. Its pretty obvious that we are almost completely void of developed talent on offense, no size or speed on defense, and a brand new coaching staff led by a head coach and OC that have never been in these positions before. If you judge this season solely on wins and losses, this year will be brutal to you. but if you can look past this and see the recruiting pick up and see the offense get better as it gets used to the Air Raid, as well as development on the defense and ST, this year will be very entertaining to see how the seeds of growth for the future get planted.

Oh, I agree, Cerebus. I just think both ODU and Charlotte, along with UTSA, were a strange add to a FBS league that had been around for a while. Seems like the SBC would have been suitable starting points for the eastern two, but ODU does have a lot of potential. They show you that having a solid basketball program can open up doors to fan interest and support for your school--IOW, its not all about football, as so many idiots on conference realignment have missed on so badly over the years. It may have started off that way, but TV market and revenue sports in total became the true drivers. I will say that I worry MUCH more about our students and leadership figuring out a way to torpedo our existence at the FBS level than I do about CUSA drop-kicking us out, like the SBC did to NMSU and Idaho. UNT will always give CUSA leadership the ability to include DFW's population and TV market into their advertising pitches, even if we keep going in the direction we are currently. But if that fee ever gets rescinded, we are done as a FBS program. This is where the horrible hires and terrible AD leadership will doom us, IMO.

Yeah, the only chance we ever have with this would be the MWC to look at us as a way to get back into DFW and to just look past our warts and see the potential for what we could bring if we ever got things going in the right direction. But they can easily look at a very real probability that they will get back into Texas with schools like TCU and Baylor in the years ahead when the big XII falls apart, as well as schools like UTEP or Rice, as well. Sadly, when you factor in UTSA being in San Antonio and playing in the Alamodome, we are probably behind 5 schools before even getting any look from the MWC. The AAC is a non-starter solely because of SMU, case closed. I suspect that only one AAC school will get poached if the Big XII comes calling, which would be Cincy, since BYU would be the other school to move. Assuming this played out, I just don't see a CUSA team replacing them in the AAC, as they would probably go after NIU first, then Ohio next to replace Cincy. If a southern AAC member got replaced, like Memphis, Houston, UCF or USF, the replacements would depend on the market being replaced. If it were Memphis, MUTS would probably go to the AAC, If UH left, Rice would immediately be the replacement. If one of the Florida schools, Temple, or UConn got poached, I suspect that the AAC would probably look at replacing them with just the best name programs in the Eastern Time Zone to replace them Only then could I see Marshall or USM getting some possible interest, even though they provide no TV market at all. The only possible CUSA defection I could see is if the MAC, assuming it has a TV deal that is better than the new CUSA deal, which I don't know if it does, is if Marshall decided to go back to the MAC to replace NIU or Ohio. I have no idea if Marshall or the MAC would have any interest in each other again, but that's about it. I truly doubt any AAC schools other than Cincy will get invited to the Big XII and I just don't see any CUSA components adding as much value to the AAC as NIU or Ohio would to replace them.

This is the single best conference affiliation we have had in the last 50 years. I'll always be thankful for SMU leaving to go after their Big East dreams and giving us their spot. Otherwise, we are still in the SBC. Just imagine for a moment if SMU, Tulane, and Tulsa hadn't left for the AAC, but everyone else had left (like UH, Memphis, ECU, UCF, USF, and Temple). CUSA would look like this right now: SMU, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, UTEP, La Tech, UTSA, USM, Marshall, one F_U, UAB, MUTS, and probably still ODU and Charlotte just because of ECU's insistence that would have still backfired. That leaves us with this: UNT, Texas State, ULL, ULM, Arkansas State, Troy, South Alabama, WKU, one F_U, and probably Georgia State, Georgia Southern, and NMSU. This would depress anyone to think about, compared to what we have today. People have heard of Rice, UTEP, La Tech, and Southern Miss. UTSA gives us a team that is easy to travel to see in a destination city that can also bring fans here, plus it should help you with recruiting other Texas HS kids. Tulsa and Tulane are solid names, but they have are not as attractive as Rice within Texas circles, just from the SWC history and its academic prestige, not to mention its location in a huge Texas city. The hard part about CUSA is the East. Having both Florida Airport schools, as well as Charlotte and ODU doesn't do anything for attracting viewers to watch us play them. UAB, MUTS, WKU, and Marshall are all solid names for both revenue sports, but we only needed one of the F_Us, and giving us Charlotte and ODU as a way to placate ECU was just plain stupid, as they were always going to leave when given the chance.

This is dead-on...we were the worst team in America last year. We won a game because of the football gods allowing us to play an awful team at home and have them go down to their 5th string QB for us to squeeze out a win by a TD. We don't get the luxury of playing a bad team at home this season, like we did last year with UTSA. The reality here is that Butt Cookman represents our only chance to be a favorite this season. And it should be the only game we should be disappointed in greatly if we lose, just from a competitive standpoint. Losing to SMU or the CUSA West teams sucks, but they are all better than us, whether by a little bit (UTSA) or by miles (La Tech and USM). Losing to any of those teams will not be surprising, while losing to Butt Cookman would be awfully deflating. Last year, I said that if we lost at SMU, there wouldn't be one other FBS team we would beat, all things being equal. Well, the Portland State prison-raping made that point even worse, but UTSA's 5th string QB made them a FCS-caliber level team to compete with and eventually sneak out a miraculous win. This year, its all on the Butt Cookman game. If we cannot beat them, we will probably be 0-12. But even if we do go 1-11 or 0-12, it still doesn't mean that all is lost. We don't have Division 2 level QBs playing all season long anymore, with gameplans that Texas HS kids won't play in. We won't have a coach who is so far behind the times that the modern game makes him look lost and going crazy. Littrell and company get a full year to take advantage of just implementing a new mindset in the locker room and on the field, running off spares and bad characters. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 2017 and beyond will be much better because of what 2016 will bring, even if its a winless season. Portland State, Dan McCarney's offense, and McNulty/Greer as your QB are the low point of the entire program and we have moved forward from there. Even going winless this season is still better than where we were in the 4th quarter of Homecoming last year, as the team looked up and saw a bought FCS opponent that nobody has ever heard of ahead by 59 points. It won't get worse than this, unless we lose to Butt Cookman by 60 points at home this year or any other FCS opponent in the coming seasons by 60 or more. Lean on this when times get tough this season--plus, it will help you get over the complete depression of knowing the same AD who watched over this catastrophe is still completely in charge for years to follow.

The defensive problems that this strategy inherently provides for your team, though, is the lack of hitting and tackling in practice. The only thing that the Old Man Buick offense helped you with was that your defense could be a huge weapon in today's flag football world because of the hits and turnovers that it can cause. Of course, when your defense sucks with this offensive strategy, you get years like the last two years or the last two years of the Dickster. It would just be so nice to see a time here where our offense was balanced enough to do the Air Raid, but also go under center to pound the ball in when you need a firs down or need to score in the red zone. Since 1998, we have literally gone with the polar opposites: run the ball to run out the clock, throw the damn ball all over the place, go back to run the ball and never throw downfield, and now back to what appears to be a gameplan full of throw the ball and play every snap 5-7 yards behind the line.

Ok

You are really gonna love it when the university renames the athletic department the "Rick Villareal Athletic Complex" after he retires, which coincidentally won't be when the current contract runs out. He's gonna get an extension, either by extending Bumford or because the UNT17 will make sure he gets to stay to run their pet project that they bought from the BOR. RV ain't going anywhere, anytime soon--as in 5-10 more years...AT LEAST.

I was real big on Chris Thomsen, who used to be the HC at ACU and was the OC at Arizona State, because he had sent kids from ACU to the NFL. If you can do that at ACU or WTAM, you can do it anywhere else in the state with better facilities and conference affiliation. Still think Littrell has a fine pedigree, and Thomsen or anyone else we would have hired would still have the massive RV-as-the-AD problem, but at least Thomsen has experience as a college head coach before and won. Hopefully, Littrell can become a winner, too, even if the AD is a moron of the highest order. But for that to happen, Littrell has to bring in talent that will stay here and find players that can be developed into talent. If he does that, the NFL draft will eventually see some UNT players be included in the years ahead.

Basically, the Big XII has three pieces that have major value to other power conferences: UT (everything), OU (sports), and KU (basketball, AAU membership). After that, WVU carries some value in sports, but carries poor academics. OSU, Tech, and KSU are similar, but share the states with big brother. ISU has AAU membership, but that's about it. And the two private schools, TCU and Baylor, don't carry much value to other power conferences at all. I still believe that the Pac, B1G, and the ACC are the conferences that will absorb a lot of the Big XII when its all said and done. The SEC will go east to get ACC schools in states they don't have a presence, such as Va Tech and NC State, meaning WVU and UConn will probably end up in the ACC. The Pac will probably get the Texoma Four together. the B1G will add KU and another ACC school that is also an AAU member (Ga Tech, UVa, or UNC). The 4 leftovers, KSU,ISU, TCU, and Baylor, will fill into the MWC and AAC.

My guess is that the difference in mileage between travel to Provo, Utah and Boise State is substantially less than eyeballs of millions of Mormons that BYU brings against the massive media market known as Boise, Idaho...

Sometimes I think some posters here think that our 2013 season was the norm for us, not even realizing that its the only winning season we have had since 2005...

Apparently not...

I pretty much agree, Deep, but the possibility does exist that we could do it. Can you imagine the embarrassment that we will feel if UTEP, Rice, and UTSA go to the MWC, allowing them to stay in the FBS level, while we get dropped back to a lower level? Of course, we are in the 2% that care, so it really would only embarrass us... If WSU brings football back (big stretch) and their basketball program stays at the level they have been in the last 5 years, they will get invited upward, but I believe it would be CUSA or the MAC at best for them for football, which really doesn't help them as much, since the MVC is a better basketball league. Now, if the MWC says to them that they will gain admittance as is, with the reality that they will be full conference mates once their football program gets up and running, ala South Florida in the old CUSA, that investment would probably be worth it, if only because it would let them be in a FBS league with staying power way above the MAC, CUSA, and SBC.

Sounds like the Big XII is finally realizing that having a couple of other teams would really help their chances at getting a playoff berth for other teams in their league not named OU or UT. The regular names are coming up: BYU, Cincy, Memphis, UCF, USF, UConn, Boise State, Colorado State, and UH. I don't see UH getting in, so I'll take them off the list, but they would be really smart to take BYU and Cincy, IMO. Boise is too far west, especially with WVU in the conference. UConn is too far to the NE. Colorado State isn't that big and the Florida schools look a lot like UH, good schools, good programs, not enough value for a power conference. Obviously, BYU gives you a national name and high value in revenue sports. The Big XII could easily get around the whole bit of avoiding Sunday games for them. If the AAC loses Cincy, it will be interesting to see who they get to replace them. This may be where the MAC gets hit, as I could easily see NIU being the replacement. That would save CUSA from losing anybody, which would be good for UNT. I doubt that the MAC would replace them with anyone else, since they would still be at 12 teams. I also saw on cbssports.com that Wichita State wants the MWC to consider them as a member, since Hawaii only plays football in the MWC, but everything else is in the Big West. But because they don't have football, the MWC commissioner doesn't seem too interested. The article mentions UTEP as a possibility to the MWC because of familiarity with the schools in the MWC as former conference mates. I still contend they will go that way only if the MWC adds other Texas schools. If the MWC ever splits with Hawaii, I could very easily see them adding in three schools to get to 14, which would be UTEP, Rice, and either us or UTSA. If we could build up our program ahead of UTSA significantly, we could overcome their location advantage fairly easily. As I've posted before, I truly believe that the MWC and AAC are going to be leagues that the power conferences will allow to stay aligned with them in the future, not as equals, but like they currently are, as leagues that will be allowed to play them in OOC games and give them a chance at earning a BCS Bowl berth. I figure we have about 5 years to get things built up and to garner attention of the MWC for this possibility, since SMU in the AAC stops our chances to ever go there. But so does UTSA, too...

That's true. I don't think anyone knows how UAB's return will affect the CUSA schedule.

I really hope that people understand just how down we are and that Littrell will need several years for us to get an idea if he even knows how to be a decent head coach. His first job, fixing the locker room, appears to be going well. Remember, he took over a roster that has already shown it will gladly quit on the university that gave them a scholarship. Running off people who either lack character or talent had to be Step One and it appears he has done a good job, so far. The second step involves looking at what you have left and identifying what parts are usable. When these are your first two steps as a new head coach--and its your first time to ever be a head coach--that doesn't ever add up to a big turnaround. Winning two games in 2016 would represent SIGNIFICANT progress from last year, when we suffered the worst loss in modern college football history and really should have gone winless (thank God UTSA had to play their 5th string QB in the 2nd half of our game here in Denton so that we could win by a TD). Our schedule this year is just a killer for where we currently sit. But next year, when we lose the three CUSA East powers and gain three CUSA East dregs for the schedule, this will help. Its a big reason that I think we will see us win 1-2 games this year, 3-4 games in year 2, and then 7 or more by 2018, when we still play those three CUSA East dregs. The biggest step Littrell has to make going forward this year is just winning some recruiting battles. It really wont surprise me at all to see him go heavy on JUCOs in this next class, just to try and infuse some talent into the roster until he and his staff can build up some cred with the TX HS coaches and parents of recruits.

Well, the family legacies at UT and A&M (especially A&M) and their high end academics certainly attract a lot of students who want that "experience" of being a college student. To me, A&M and UNT are polar opposites. One school is cult-like in its traditions and following rules and order. Our school is more the opposite, mostly because our students are often working thru college or this is their first college experience within their family. Obviously, with the music and fine arts windows, you will get some folks who are often more inclined to go somewhere that is counter to popular norms, although Denton today is far more homogenous than its ever been in the previous decades. To me, the kids who are more rah-rah, be-true-to-your-school types are often seen at A&M and Tech, while UT is just so big and diverse that you see all kinds. UNT, UH, UTEP, UTSA, and Texas State have lots of commuters and first-generation students, so a lot of them just look at the college as the place to get a degree, not to have a true college experience. Sure, music students and art students in Denton are probably enjoying the experience that kids who like sports and school spirit in College Station or Lubbock, but we know that the large majority of UNT alumni leave Denton behind for good when they leave, never to come back for much or never giving $$$ back in any major way.

That's exactly what I mean, Deep... Rarely have I seen a deeper conundrum than our football program, stuck in between a large majority that loathe it or don't care, but we keep it because a loud minority will pay for it.

Those large Power Schools have thousands of alumni and t-shirt fans who pay for monthly subscriptions to hear about the "inside" of the program they are following. For just $10 a month, you can subscribe to Orangebloods.com or TexAgs.com, both of who rate classes of kids from within the state. In Orangebloods' case, their lead guy, Geoff Ketchum, is the Rivals guy for this state. Now, put this together...I pay $10 a month to hear about everything at UT, the guy who runs the site also runs a state 100 list, and they want to see UT look as good as possible. Voila, Tyrone Swoopes is a 5-star QB out of a 2A school that goes winless because he chose UT. Voila, Texas has class ranked in the top 15 every year. And, voila, because those ratings are obviously biased, what looks a team full of highly rated talent is actually overrated and that's how losing has crept into the program--overrated prima donnas that think a UT scholarship is their ticket to the NFL, except its proving to be the exact opposite on the field and scoreboard. Same thing happened to A&M after the Johnny Football craze and getting into the SEC. Overrating kids because they are going to the SEC doesn't change the fact that A&M's system isn't built to ever beat all of the SEC West powerhouses they play each year. What it boils down to is the money that these fanbases will throw out to people just to get some "great" news actually skews the ratings, causing higher expectations from these classes than there really should be. This is, of course, only a problem for power schools with large fanbases. Nothing compares at all for the G5s, who barely get any interest from media in the college football world to begin with. And those media members admit that they spend 85% of their time covering the power schools. And its why I will be so glad when the day comes that our G5 schools will no longer have to play the NFL-lite schools. Its a bought fight, from before the game is scheduled.

So true. Look, the university has achieved its nirvana: educate thousands upon thousands of students, keeping job security in place, while allowing its music and fine arts department to be the primary window to the university. I promise you that to the UNT administration, for every time they hear about an SEC or Big XII school laughing at them because of sports, they laugh back at them because of music and arts. As my Aggie buddy used to say fondly, "If we ever have to play you guys in a marching band or drumline contest, yall are gonna pound us...", which was his way of trying to make the whippings we always take at the hands of the Southern Power Teams more tolerable. We just do it differently here. You've got UTA who keeps everything but football, but engineering is their main window, you've got UTD who doesn't exist at Division1 so they use academics and technology as their windows, and you've got UTSA, UTEP, and Texas State who play Division 1 in everything and want football or basketball to be the main windows to their school. And then you have us--music and fine arts, as primary window, with cheaper costs in a college town, playing Division1, but not really caring at all if we suck or not, just offering it up ISD style. And then you have SFA and SHSU, two schools that play Division 1 in everything but are FCS instead, yet still use revenue sports as a primary window to their schools. Obviously, there's no reason to even list UT, A&M, Tech, or UH on this list. This reality is a hard one--as in its hard to accept but also hard and fast in stone here. But once you accept it, you either keep going to games to enjoy interactions with your buddies and watching live sports, you find other ways to support the alma mater thru its plethora of colleges and programs, or you walk away. The administration and BOR doesn't really care which way you decide to go, since they know that thousands upon thousands are about to take your place in the student body enrollment and alumni records.

I just don't see how you can change the culture of a place that has either loathed football or just ignored it for decades at the administrative level and within the faculty and the student body. Obviously, winning might do the trick, but its not as if the few times we have had a winning season, that it has turned into anything of major note at the stadiums in Denton. Since 1991, we have had 5 winning seasons (1994, 2002-2004, and 2013). Even in those seasons, we didn't even average 2/3rds of the capacity of stadium. Maybe its being in a pro market or being surrounded by P5 giants, but nothing about the SLC, Big West, SBC, or CUSA has really moved the needle in the generic fans' eyes.