untjim1995

Mitch Maher had a great career here--it was as a I-aa QB, but he was the best QB we have had here since I began following our program. Scott Hall had the guts, but the offense he played under was meant for a busdriver--similar to Derek Thompson. Andrew Smith showed some flash and he was our qb when we own the NO Bowl, but he died so young, we just can't say for certain he would have been like those three. The worst Qbs I have ever seen us roll out as starters are 1a): Andrew McNulty and 1b.) Josh Greer, with honorable mention to Richard Bridges...

Build an indoor practice facility next--we don't need baseball until football and basketball are going in the right direction and making money.

Black Sweater vests would seem more appropriate...

My only fear with the new AD is that the reputation of the university's views toward athletics for so long cannot get older alumni reconnected, even though things have changed greatly on that front in the last few years. It means that the MGC doesn't grow like we want and that season ticket base doesn't increase. 2014 was a real downer for a lot of us when we found out that our season ticket base dropped AFTER a 9-4 season that featured a huge HoD Bowl win in front of 35k MG fans in Dallas on NYD. Then we saw that the MGC wasn't even growing 2% of the alumni that graduated in RV's tenure. The I-AA fiasco wiped out generations of fans, but it feels like those who have graduated since we moved up to I-A in 1995 have had more interest in athletics here, even though we have sucked mightily for most of that time. But I also feel like RV's ineptness and accepted laziness for so long hurt a lot of those alumni, too. For now, its really easy to see this being all on RV--and a I think that is mostly correct. But I just hope that whoever comes in next can make headway with alumni and local citizens near here that RV couldn't or didn't make any traction with. RV will say that we didn't win so that hurt his ability to grow the MGC and season ticket holders, but he was the one who hired all of them. I will say this--if Littrell cannot turn the football program around and if the next AD cannot measurably fix our meager MGC and season ticket numbers, we are really going to have ask ourselves if this can get fixed here. And that is why Harry is dead-on to say this is the most important athletic hire of our last 35+ years.

No, RV's biggest failure is a tie between hiring an inexperienced assistant coach that had made his name as a recruiter to take over the best basketball program we had in decades. The Dodge experiment was a head coaching failure more than an AD failure--as it was a Hail Mary hire. The problem on the AD's end with Dodge was not making him hire college coaches for his staff in the first few years. Our low point in existence was Portland State beating us 66-7 on our Homecoming, but Dodge gave us the 2nd one, when we were annihilated at Rice 77-20 in his second year. Rice had 77 points in the 3rd quarter and easily could have scored 100+ if they had wanted to. We have had horrible leadership and personnel in place for revenue athletics for a long time, sans Johnny Jones. Hopefully, Jalie Mitchell and Seth Littrell are going to be the ones to change course for us for a long time in the right direction, as well as whoever gets hired as our next AD.

These are two examples of just how small time we were back then. Fouts was terrible, the SBC was the lowest conference on the totem pole, and we had several losing seasons in a row while being led by coaching staffs that openly fought and argued with fans in the stands. We may be #128, but we ain't that pathetic anymore...

It will take a person who can look at this situation and see ways to succeed here at raising funds and winning in revenue sports--and get reassurances from the administration and BOR that the university won't torpedo the efforts that are going to be needed. Similar to how I've always felt about conferences above our current situation, its going to take someone who can see the potential here and actually believe in that so much that they will take on the job because he or she believes completely in our future being much better than the past.

Well, we did get over $2.1 million in donations after the Homecoming debacle...

Just because I did this last week from the cfn website ranking the FBS, I went and looked at how Athlon rates the entire G5 of 62 teams for 2016. #1 G5 team is UH. #62 is North Texas In the top 10 of the G5s, you have UH, Boise State, San Diego State, South Florida, Air Force, Temple, Cincy, Appy State, Navy, and Southern Miss. Conference Breakdown is 5 AAC schools, 3 MWC schools, 1 SBC school, and 1 CUSA school. In the top half of the G5s (the top 31 teams), the conference breakdown is 9 AAC schools (UH, USF, Temple, Cincy, Navy, UConn, Memphis, Tulsa, and East Carolina), 8 MWC schools (Boise State, San Diego State, AFA, Utah State, Nevada, Colorado State, UNM, and San Jose State), 6 CUSA schools ( USM, MUTS, Marshall, WKU, La Tech, and UTEP), 5 MAC schools (WMU, Toledo, NIU, CMU, and Ohio), and 3 SBC schools (Appy State, Arky State, and Ga Southern). Overall ratings of each conference--AAC--19.6 (#1 UH and #51 Tulane), MWC 27.1 (#2 Boise State and #55 Hawaii), CUSA 33.5 (#10 USM and #62 UNT), MAC 34.7 (#11 WMU and #58 EMU), and the SBC 36.6 (#8 Appy State and #60 ULM). Just wanted to show how another college football media looked at our level of play. CUSA comes up a little better than the MAC on this list, while the MAC was a bit ahead of CUSA in the CFN poll. The AAC and MWC still look much better as a whole, at the top half of the G5, and especially at the top of the G5 in the top ten.

I disagree--when you won a game because a really, really bad team came to your place and had to replace the 4th string QB with the 5th string QB in the second half and allowed a late TD to lose by 7 to us, and that represents your only win last year, you aren't coming from a good place. We should have been 0-12, but we did get to 1-11, including the worst loss in modern college football history. If you only win two games this upcoming season, while being considered the worst team in FBS for the season ahead, if you win a couple of games, it means you aren't the worst team in the country. Right now, that is progress, no matter how much it kills anyone to admit. When you get buried under 100 pounds of horse$hit, the first thing you gotta do is dig out and get some air. Doesn't mean you won't stink still and that anyone is going to please to be associated with you, but you have made progress in moving up from the current situation.

I am impressed you could even type that without dying of hysterical laughing first...

I just don't see us buying off these FCS schools or getting out of the bodybag games scheduled ahead against Arkansas, Wisconsin, or A&M. Ironically, the only thing I can truly see is the possibility of SMU buying out of the series with us in a few years. If that occurs, we would have another home-and-home available for rescheduling. We have Army for the next 8 years, which I know we will not get out of, and if SMU doesn't cancel the series, then we won't see another OOC opponent at Apogee until Memphis comes here after the Army series ends. Its too bad for the new AD, who will probably be shocked at all that he is going to have to try and build up when he gets the job, beyond just fundraising and hiring better coaches. The fundraising will determine the fate of the next AD, for sure, but the football scheduling that he will inherit only makes the job much harder. When you come to a job and look at in the next 4 football season ahead and see that you are hosting the CUSA , SMU, Army, Butt Cookman, Lamar, Incarnate Word, and Abilene Christian, you know that it isn't going to be sellouts at Apogee that will fix things here, even if we are good. The best crowds we have seen at Apogee since it opened had 28k for UH in its inaugural game and 24k for UTEP on Homecoming during our only good season in the last decade plus...

Not that I'm aware of...its really hard in the circumstances you listed above because LSU has no interest at playing a game outside of Baton Rouge or New Orleans against an in-state school. Same thing for A&M, Texas, OU, or Arkansas--they'll play at JerryWorld in DFW. The problem is that the P5s have all the money and power here. Sure, a school like Western Kentucky was shrewd enough to use a bought game at Wisconsin to get a home-and-home with Wisconsin in hoops, but that is also due to the fact that winning a game at WKU has some merit in the NCAA circles come Tournament Selection time. In the end, though, its up to the ADs at each school to work a deal. Previously, we had a lazy AD who just accepted the deal that some P5 powerhouse offered, just so it could be done. He knew that whatever they would pay us was enough to cover a lot of AD expenses, so negotiating didn't even matter to him. The schedule here will be bad for a while, barring something completely changing the games scheduled against FCS teams, SMU, or Army. My guess is that the one decent sized P5 we could get for a game here for many reasons is Oklahoma State. They have always played at G5s, have a ton of alumni in DFW, and only play here every other year when they go to Ft. Worth to play TCU. Kansas, Mizzou, and Colorado are others that could be enticed by getting another DFW game, as well, but OSU represents the best chance, IMO, of hosting a P5 that is in the Big XII and would fill up Apogee to close to a sellout.

You are absolutely right that we could surprise people, but there's a reason we are rated where we are. People understand the situation here. All I have been trying to say is that we shouldn't get down on Littrell or the program if we see a 2 win season in 2016. I think Littrell has a real chance of turning this thing around in the next few years. I want him to be the guy that gets a job at a bigger name because of success he has here. I just don't think that the schedule in the upcoming year, with a brand new offensive philosophy that is completely the opposite of what we have run in the previous 5 years, and a roster that is still void of a lot of developed FBS talent equals a big season. I'm telling you right now that if we win 4 or more games this season, Seth Littrell's time in Denton may not even make it beyond the next season--that is how fast his star could rise here, if he gets to bowl eligibility by Year 2. The schools above us our going to be salivating over him being their next head coach.

But its either because of capacity or because of suckitude. Kansas State proved that if you can turn things around, people will come watch and support you--but its a lot easier to do that when you have Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, and the other Big 8 powers of the day playing at your place every other week.

Just now seeing this...absolutely impressive!! Awesome job to the staff!! This is how recruiting to a place with playing time should be sold--if you can beat those two Power Teams for a top JUCO kid, you can beat anybody for recruits. Keep up the great work, staff!! As I've said many times, its wins like this that are the most important victories for our program this year. It makes the talent bse of the roster get where we need it to be in the years to come.

Yes, in college, his pure athletic ability and size just put him above the crowd most of the time in his last two seasons. Vince Young is not a smart individual, though. Once the physical abilities got evened out in the NFL, his days of getting up after big hits was pretty much over. But his two Rose Bowls at Texas were things of beauty. He's a Texas legend and always should be. As MGT said, one of the best college players of all-time...

Absolutely--but my point is that we won't know if he is a failure after this year, even if we go winless. The roster he has to work with is the reason we are rated 126-128 in two recent rankings. 2018 is the season I will continue to point to--SL will be in his third year, should have a QB that knows his system, recruiting will hopefully have improved, and our schedule should be much easier, just off of the CUSA East possibilities. This is where I see getting 7+ wins and challenging for a CUSA West Championship as being feasible. Our home schedule in 2018 would be SMU, FCS, La Tech, Southern Miss, UAB and one of these CUSA East spares (Old Dominion, Charlotte, FAU, or FIU). Add in games at Army, Rice, UTEP, UTSA, CUSA East spare listed above, and at the bodybag, you can see that if a third year coach hasn't gotten us competitive enough to get 7 wins against this collection of teams, it probably isn't in the cards for us to make it much further as a FBS program.

If he takes this roster and wins 3-4 games this season against this schedule, Seth (Or Seat if you work for the AD) won't be coaching here beyond three years. Hell, Morris at SMU gets al kinds of kudos and is always mentioned as a candidate at bigger jobs and he led SMU to two ins last year in his first season following the 1-11 disaster the year before. I think SMU will win 3-4 games this season, just like USM did under Todd Monken in 2014 in his second season there. Winning 1-2 games in their coaches first year laid the foundation and it really sped up for USM after that, while yet to be seen for SMU, but by all accounts, it looks promising. I'm sure that they had a fan that thought Monken sucked afte rhis first two years of taking over a disaster at USM, since winning 4 games in two seasons after taking over a winless team from the previous coach means ABSOLUTELY NO PROGRESS was made as it would certainly mean that was acceptable. Fortunately, Monken overcame that fan by winning 9 games and earning a CUSA West Championship. If we are really, really lucky, Seth (or Seat) will be able to say the same thing here...that only starts by improving recruiting substantially from where it has been since the Dodge years.

Just remember, though, even though we are dead-ass last on this list and #126 on another, and coming off a season where we won a miracle game to avoid being winless, as well as adding a brand new head coach and an offense that is completely the opposite of anything this roster has ever run in college, us only winning 2 games against a very difficult schedule for our current situation means absolutely no progress is being made-- because progress means acceptance...and unless we go .500 or better, this year has been unacceptably wasted. (according to a regular poster on here...)

He and that Geoff Ketchum are two of the dumbest reporters I have ever read---they try to say they are professional journalists, but they are just fans turned money makers for Texas fans. I read on a Texas Longhorn Fan website a few years ago that it could be argued that no person has hurt Texas Football more than Geoff Ketchum. He's the Rivals ranking specialist for the state--and just happens to run a newsletter and website that charges for content. Naturally, any Texas recruit got super reviews and higher ratings than others. Guys like Gilbert and Swoopes, both of whom he rated as 5* QBs, as well as so many others, that get inflated because Texas wanted them, then got to campus and couldn't play at this level. Both of those guys are just tools...

If Chip Brown says that the Big XII isn't expanding, we should see an announcement pretty soon that two more teams will be added soon. Dude has an uncanny ability to be dead-ass wrong about stuff like this. Still my favorite was his tweet in 2011that A&M was absolutely not going to the SEC...two days before they announced they were going to the SEC. He has a record like this and it amazes me how many sports journalists still use his stuff.

I really couldn't remember, but that does ring a bell now that you mention it.

No it isn't...your ability to critically think needs to improve greatly...so does your posting

I would love it if we had done that, but it appears that UH never has had much interest in associating with us since the 70's, when their program made it into the SWC Country Club and ours didn't. We have played them three times since 1977 in football, all UH wins, two of which were in Denton, ironically. I believe we played UH a few times in basketball when I was in school my freshman and sophomore years in 1991 and 1992, but I don't remember playing them since. Its very odd--they have basically pigeon-holed us into a Texas State and UTSA type grouping. Don't know how much SMU's influence has played into this, but I have to figure that it hasn't helped.