untjim1995

I think the administration won't spend a dime on buying out Benford because they already spent money to buyout Petersen and probably have some skin in the game on McCarney's firing, although most of that one came from the UNT 17. Follow the money--if it is gonna cost more, you can guarantee that its not going to happen admininstratively. It'll take someone in the 17 to foot that bill. And the buyout of Mac pretty well knocks that one down. Someone is going to have to step up to buyout Benford's last year. If not, he comes back in a contract year, something a real program would never allow to happen. But we aren't even close to real.

As I said, if Benford gets retained, especially without an extension, that loud laughter you will hear is mine--and yes, I'll be laughing at my alma mater. And other than the 1500 that show up to the Super Pit, so will a lot of other folks. It is fitting that this is becoming hilarious...after all, #itsallajoke.

And watch RV get an extension, too, since one of his revenue hires also earned an extension... UNT'd

I still believe that JJ will be our coach again. Think about it. If LSU buys him out, this year or next, he would be welcomed back so quickly by RV, the fans, and the administration. I truly believe that he will make it back here. He's the one coach here in a revenue sport that left here as a winner since Fry left, IIRC. He has been able to win in spite of his boss--that's the real miracle here. If we got him back, it would be a perfect fit.

This. RV will leave if and when the UNT 17 want him gone. Not a day before. The BOR ceded control of the athletic department to those guys. It's basically the UNT17 Mean Green now...

Because we replaced a 60 year old decrepit toilet bowl of a stadium that needed multiple generators just to host a college football game? And that happened because the SGA President led the charge? To me, Apogee had to get built or football was done at this university within a decade. And its beautiful, from an aesthetic standpoint, as well as a financial standpoint, in that it is paid very handsomely by the students who go to school here via a sports fee. That fee, is well under what peers like UTSA, Texas State, and Lamar charge their student body for athletics, as allowed by the state. Plus, our fee is set to be sunsetted when APogee is paid for in the years ahead. This isn't even counting wins/losses and personnel hirings/firings. I'll stick with my opinion--we don't care about winning in revenue sports, never have, never will.

Yeah, because taking over Johnny Jones' most talented team ever is EXACTLY the same as taking over a squad that was led by Vic Trilli, who was our first version of Todd Dodge before Dodge ever made it to campus...

I'm sure it will all change very soon...

Baby steps

Tell him that those guys will praise him if he will help us get rid of Benford...

As much as I wish JJ was able to come back here, LSU cannot afford to buy him out right now, both fiscally and politically.

Stony Brook pays $25k less for a basketball coach than we do...thank about that point when you realize that $325k is apparently considered too much to absorb to make a 4-year loser go away. UNT'd

If Benford comes back to coach in the last year of his contract, we get what we deserve...both next season and years after, since recruiting beyond the next season is going to suffer greatly. But I'm gonna laugh hard if he does avoid being fired after 4 straight losing seasons and taking over the most heralded team the program has had maybe ever. UNT'd

How many of you would follow UNT sports at the current level you do today if we got dropped down a level in football, like we did in the 80s?

RV thinks this guy knows how to work the system, too...

I've said this for a while. Dillman is very much the best QB prospect we have on the roster. Now, he will have a coach who actually knows how to run an offense with a throwing QB.

We really shouldn't even field a football team anymore. I'd be willing to bet that SFA and SHSU are both higher than we are on this list, as well. Stick to music, fine arts, educating teachers, and having a decent business school. It's what the UNT Family loves and frankly it's all they want the leadership to focus on and hold them accountable to. Lee Jackson oversees a gigantic accounting scandal and not only does he keep his job, he gets EXTENDED. Smatresk comes here to clean this up, does nothing to fix athletics quagmire, gets EXTENDED. RV has watched over 5 years of pond scum level waste, and keeps his job, probably to receive an extension in the years ahead. We don't care about sports here. Never have, never will.

You can't say you weren't warned, Ben...I'm at 26 years of following the programs and their has only been one theme that has ever been present to make personnel decision--cost. You mentioned that if we cannot afford to buyout $325k for Benford, we should go down to NAIA. Trust me, there are people at this place that would be completely fine with that, if it was feasible. Fortunately, those voices have really diminished over the last 20 years. But make no mistake, in leadership, faculty, and around Denton, there are still plenty of people who absolutely loathe UNT athletics and wish we would get rid of it to be like some kind of UT-D campus, focused solely on education and academics, but in the areas that we are known for. Culturally, nothing changes here until the leadership decides to do that. And those in leadership fear losing their positions for bucking the historic UNT status quo that strongly exists in the UNT Family.

Especially when RV has already convinced them before that to invest lots of cash into our program. At some point, you'd think that two lines would get drawn--one, the donation dollar threshold isn't getting crossed any further, and two, the carnival barker that convinced me to invest my time and money into this thing for "access" has just sold me snake oil. I'll never understand how incredibly successful business people who would built up their fortunes thru hard work and intelligent decision-making have been so easily swayed by the AD here that has shown a complete failure for leading revenue sports to being winners with well-attended games that bring in more revenue. Its a mystery, to me...

RV isn't getting fired. Tony Benford should, but if he doesn't, its only because the UNT 17 won't pay the buyout, probably since they are still reeling from paying off $2.1 million for Dan McCarney's contract in October. Normally, I'd say the BOR would come in and buy off that last year, but they are probably still reeling from having to buy out Mike Peterson's contract last year, as well. Smatresk either flat out doesn't care, or he is being told that firing RV is not gonna happen by the BOR and UNT 17. Either way, for a lot of us, we aren't visiting a game in person in Denton or giving another penny to the program until RV is gone. And, at least for me, I'm fully prepared for that to last for another decade or more. I'll listen or watch games on TV, follow things on here, and on the local media's little UNT blurbs, but nothing more. And if that makes me a bad fan in the opinion of others, all I would ask you to do is to look around at the seats around you in Apogee or the Super Pit and ask yourself why you are surrounded by more empty seats than filled ones, considering the same AD has been in place for 15 years now and the university has hundreds of thousands of alumni and students, thousands of faculty, and millions surrounding the local area.

This just confirms what a few of us said about Smith not being anyone you can count on. I remember a few posters talking about how Damarcus Smith will really get the chance to show his talent under Littrell, that the challenge will make him rise to the occasion. There was literally nothing about his background or his time here that suggested this could occur. He ended up here for a reason. You don't choose to be a QB under Dan McCarney if you have decent choices. He didn't. As for this year, Morris will have to be healthy and damn near all-conference for this thing to get to 3 wins. Its very possible that we match our last season's win total. We have no QB depth or knowledge of if he can even play, we have no depth or size in the front seven, and our OL is still very raw. When you combine those three things together for a football team, then add in a brand new, never-been-a-head-coach-before leader who is installing an offense that is 180 degrees opposite of what the entire roster has been built to run for the last few years, and sprinkle in the absolute hardest Eastern CUSA opponents we could get, it doesn't paint a picture for success on the field. As I have said many times, 2016 is all about cleaning up the locker room from the quitters that showed up last year and also winning battles in recruiting. If we do that and go 1-11 on the field, it will still be a successful season. If you are gonna measure success only for Littrell's first squad on the scoreboard, its gonna be a colossal failure and people are going to claim he is a bust. There is no way you can know if Littrell is a bust anytime in the next 2 years, for sure, with the absolute dog$hit roster he has inherited, both from a talent standpoint and from a heart standpoint. When you quit on the university and allow yourselves to get beat in the worst loss in modern college football history, you aren't talking about character being a real high quality that can overcome the lack of talent he has inherited. This is 2013 Southern Miss, version 2.0...just with an incredibly awful AD.

I've never cared so little about the alma mater than I do right now--and its my fault. It's not RVs fault, it's not Smatresk's fault, and it isn't the BOR's fault. I care about and follow college sports very closely. It's not something the folks in leadership care about--realizing this has really opened my eyes to just what a waste of time and money it has been to follow UNT sports and believe that winning ever matters to those in leadership. Embarrassing athletics and allowing that to continue just drives apathy to become even more entrenched than it already has been for decades. But believing that this mindset would ever change was very naive on my part. It took 25 years to get there for me, but 2015 proved how little we care about the only area of the university that I truly followed closely after graduating. That's not anyone else's fault more than it is my own for believing it would be different than it has been for decades. It is what it is.

TTG, don't do this to yourself. You know the answer, and you know ours is the complete, polar opposite....

You all are thinking like real athletic departments do--in terms of potential revenues and opportunity costs...UNT has never run athletics like this--ever. Its all about "known" costs and "known" revenues. Benford should get fired and probably will in the next few days and weeks. But it will be because his contract was deemed "acceptable" to be bought out by somebody, be it the BOR and the UNT 17, who have had to already buyout Petersen's contract and Mac's $2.1 million dollar contract in the last year. The only reason he was never fired before was because it would cost too much. Normally, after the 4th year of a 5-year contract, he would get bought out. But because of the other RV blunders they have had to pay for, its very possible that Benford stay for a 5th year, without an extension. That would be so stupid and short-sighted, but its definitely on the table.

There are $325k reason why they would wait...