untjim1995

I doubt the Big Xii expands, either. The money from expansion gets divided out further, even with a football conference championship game. Texas gets their LHN money--they have zero interest in adding anyone else to the pie, unless OU and KU are about to bolt. That would cause them to listen to OU, finally--unless their end game is to get Big XII money for as long as possible until they go independent or join another P5 league. But lets say the Big XII does expand--Cincinnati is the most assured member of moving into the conference, just because they give the Big XII an outlet into the northern markets and gives West Virginia a travel partner. Then, I believe the next school to get added is out of the group that delivers a new TV market. That could be BYU, Memphis, USF/UCF, or UConn. It won't be UH--they already own that market and the Big XII members added TCU only because A&M left, just to keep an extra game in Texas. BYU and Cincy make the most sense to me. If this occurred, the AAC has an opening. I think NIU would be #1 on their list, followed by Ohio as the #2. If the MAC loses one of them, I think they will go hard after Marshall again or Western Kentucky. CUSA would replace with them either of them with Appy State. The bigger worry I have is that the MWC will come back to Texas, with Rice and UTEP being bandied about. That would be awful enough for us, if that alone occurred. But what would be absolutely horrific is if those two left to go to the MWC, along with UTSA and La Tech, a team that already played in a conference with a lot of current MWC teams in the old WAC. I mean, sure, we plug in Texas State, Arkansas State, ULL, and NMSU, but that would mean our move to CUSA would essentially then look like this instead: UNT, Texas State, New Mexico State, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Southern Mississippi, Florida International, Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Alabama-Birmingham, and Appalachian State (assuming they replaced Marshall in the above scenario). That would be better than the old SBC, but only because we would have another Texas school, albeit the lowest on the FBS Texas totem pole, with us. Basically, when it would all be said and done, we would have traded ULM for Texas State and Troy for Southern Miss, both of which are upgrades from the other two, but it isn't what we thought we would get when we joined CUSA in 2013 that had East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa in it, along with Rice, UTEP, UTSA, and La Tech. If I were at UNT, I'd make it real clear to Rice and UTEP that I want to go with them out west and bring La Tech with us. That would give the MWC the chance to split East and West, giving us La Tech, UTEP, Rice, NMSU, CSU, AFA, and Wyoming as Eastern teams in the MWC, none of which are PST. Play another two teams in the Western Division, getting you to 9 conference games, plus your bodybag game, another home-and home, and bought FCS game. No more east coast games against teams we don't know or care about, or games against southeastern schools that we don't have anything in common with.

SMU killed any chance of us making the SWC back in the 70's, when it would have made perfect sense, getting TCU, Baylor, and Rice to fight this, especially after UH joined the club and immediately began kicking ass. When CUSA chose UTEP, yes they were ahead of us, but SMU didn't just throw their lot behind Podunk La Tech for grins, they got Tulane, Rice, and Tulsa to go along with them in not supporting us. But the funny part is that TCU has basically done the same thing to TCU since the early 00's. Left the WAC for the original CUSA, when it was very strong. As soon as teams left CUSA for the Big East and CUSA added SMU, they immediately bolted to the MWC. And as soon as the Big 12 opportunity jumped open, that was the only way that the Big East/AAC would take in SMU. Yet, they have preserved the tradition of almost always playing annually on the gridiron. Why SMU, who has no fanbase to mention, wouldn't want the easy gate receipts that come from playing us regularly is really too bad. You could easily get UNT, TCU, and two others for home-and-home series, which will give you at least one decently attended gate at Ford Stadium. But if you won't continue the series, it will be a great slap to the fans around here who think that our AD got some coup by scheduling you for a series that is 12 years long, except that after 4 years, y'all can quit it. But his fans will say it was your fault, not his, so when we play Idaho, ULM, NMSU, and Georgia State in home and home series to replace you, with the same exact amount of visiting fans as SMU brought, maybe, just maybe, our fanbase will finally realize that playing you guys in football again is something to never do.

Apogee opponent sometime in the 2020's...

To sort of agree with you, any expansion is only because Master Texas deems it acceptable to the rest of the Big XII employees. Otherwise, its a moot point, for sure.

I do think Cincy will end up in the Big XII, plus another AAC school, maybe even a grand total of 4. Some combo of Cincy, Memphis, USF, UCF, and UConn are possible/probable. I would expect that Cincy would get replaced with either Northern Illinois in the MAC or Ohio in the MAC. Memphis would get replaced by MUTS. USF/UCF would get replaced by an F_U, and UConn would get replaced by UMass. If all four left, CUSA would replace MUTS and an F_U with Arkansas State and ULL

Texas Wesleyan...home and home

Shocking... To believe that series is going to extend out for 12 years is not understanding when SMU generally schedules us. Its when it helps them. I have thought that this series would get cancelled/bought out by SMU just as soon as they could find the right time. They think Morris has them on the upswing and playing lowly North Texas doesn't help their image. As far as I'm concerned, I'd be thrilled with them cancelling this sucker. Then we can see who RV schedules to replace them.

We all want this place to be something better than it has been, but to not understand the inherit issues with athletics at the university's administrative levels makes you look like an ostrich in the sand. Creating sock accounts makes you look like either a serial killer or like a guy that GL2Greatness would hang around with and call as his buddy.

Probably...while you were changing usernames, most likely. Kill me if I ever have to change my username because I got banned on an internet message board...

Very entertaining and interesting thread. RV's scheduling is terrible--to argue otherwise is just to defend him because you like him. RV's hires have been very, very subpar--only because Johnny Jones was solid, Karen Aston and Jalie Mitchell seem to not suck, and Littrell is brand new. The others have been awful--and that includes Dickey, even if RV didn't hire him. He extended him twice when no one else wanted him. The UNT 17 love the university and sports--its awesome in many, many ways. The shiny new facilities and the removal of Dan McCarney immediately after the worst loss in modern college football history despite his $2+ million dollar contract buyout said all we need to know about their love of this place. RV gives them the access and they feel loyal to him, obviously. What we know is that for a long time we threw no money at this thing. Then the SGA stepped up and made us throw some money at this thing. Then the UNT 17 came forward and we have thrown more at this thing than we ever have historically. But without winning, that money is never attracting other money--hence, the lack of attendance and the lack of MGC members. Throw in ridiculous RV comments/lies, it pushes a lot of people away, as evidenced by many on here. You cannot go 11 years at any other FBS or FCS school and have one winning season to show for your time as the AD--but you can here. And as evidenced by the clear reality that the BOR and administration won't change RV out, whether Smatresk wanted to do that or not is the true wild card, it remains the new albatross on the entire program. Until winning becomes the important goal in football and basketball, not staying in budget and not letting 17 people fund this as their own investment club, it just appears to be a colossal waste of time and money to believe something else will happen here under the current AD. And that's why a lot of people look at Seth Littrell and think that he is climbing a mountain of pure dogshit around here, that even with his pedigree and background, the inherent problems of the university's views on athletics are not ones that anyone has overcome in a major way. JJ obviously had minor success here and it grabbed LSU's attention so much that they hired him, since they knew their "son" had built up a decent program at a place that winning in anything revenue related has been almost impossible for decades.

You are exactly right--so you go talk to schools that don't play here in the area anymore, like Nebraska or Mizzou or Colorado. Of course, Colorado and Mizzou could be played at Apogee, but Nebraska wouldn't fit their fanbase at a smaller venue, but could fit at The Cotton Bowl or AT&T Stadium. To me, the Cotton Bowl would be a good venue for an afternoon game against a team like this. There aren't many teams that we couldn't host at Apogee, but a team like Nebraska or LSU are ones who couldn't. The schools in the Big XII that could be talked into a series in Denton, I believe are Okie State, Kansas, and KSU, but we had to play in Manhattan 4 times before they came here (not a part of the same deal, but still). KU would play us, like they have Rice and La Tech, as well as other MAC teams. OSU has proven many times over that they will play anywhere: Central Michigan, ULL, Troy, FAU, and UTSA. But our schedule is locked up for so long with SMU and Army, plus bodybag beating and bought FCS game, there is nothing that will be changing. By the time we could schedule someone here, the P5s will probably stop playing G5s altogether anyway. Look, we blew it--a long time ago. The I-AA run, finally coming up to I-A on a quarter-ass budget and facilities, and having poor leadership at the top, we made our own bed. At this point, and this is probably what RV and the leadership at UNT believe, the best we can do is try and be the best G5 program we can be, while still being able to get the P5 money. And if we had decent advertising, a decent SID, and a stronger promotional program, maybe that could happen. But we don't--and after 15 years under this AD, its fairly certain that we know what we have--and that is deemed perfectly acceptable by the powers that be. All you can do is accept it. You either follow the team or you don't--either way, they don't care, as evidenced by the lack of butts-in-seats at our football stadiums and the Super Pit.

Michigan flies their entire team to Florida for spring break to have workouts. I don't know what that costs, but I'd be willing to bet that they would have an interest in playing a game at the Cotton Bowl against someone and still pay for it, like UT is doing in Houston. But a game against North Texas won't convince them to do this because we suck so bad. Nebraska had a deal set up to play NIU in Chicago in a 4 for 1 series, but then cancelled that game, which NIU agreed to just to keep the 4 bought games in Lincoln The problem with all of this is that we aren't getting any of those teams to come down here because they would rather play a series with SMU, who has the name cachet amongst media and fans. We don't--and they know that we will easily give up our orifices for the right to go to their hometown and get bought for a cheaper sum. That's the leadership we gladly accept here for athletics. I don't ever believe we will play a P5 team in Denton or DFW anytime soon (or ever). But the fans' acceptance of FCS games as being fine OOC opponents is what just beats me down. We get nothing from these games--the 2014 crushing of Nicholls State didn't tell us one thing about our team's ability to compete against CUSA teams, and the absolute prison-raping we took in 2015 by Portland State just confirmed how colossally bad we had gotten in just a year and a half under Mac. And 2016's Bethune-Cookman extravaganza at Apogee won't do anything except to give Littrell a home game that we should win, the only game on the schedule that we will be expected to win.

Do we get his pay, too? I'd take that chance...

Darrin Horn is a great name to go after. So is Chris Beard at UALR. Here's another name that I think will be available at the end of this year--Trent Johnson. I think his TCU days are numbered, since they haven't competed in the Big XII at all. That's not on Trent Johnson, who has done a fine job at his other stops at LSU, Stanford, and Nevada. The Big XII is way too tough for a school like TCU to compete in right now. Maybe a new coach and their upgraded facilities will help them in the years ahead, but Trent Johnson has coached TCU at the old dilapidated Daniel-Meyer Colisuem, as well as at the FWISD gymnasium last year. This year, with their new upgrade, they are playing the Big XII at its historic best right now. But RV is leading the hire--that means a real probability of us hiring an assistant from some big name program that has never been a head coach before. As we know, those guys have no idea what they are getting into when they arrive in Denton and see how little people care about athletics, both in and out of the university.

I've said this before, but please explain to me why we couldn't do this with a team like Nebraska, a school that has lost all ties with Texas. Besides RV's lazy ass, name me one other reason why they wouldn't play us in the Cotton Bowl? Ask yourself why we couldn't do that with someone like LSU, too.

But RV deserves to stay in his job and have the athletic department named after him...he introduced tailgating to the university--you can't just let go of someone with that kind of vision...///UNT 17

Starting?? That started in Year one of the Bumford Era...

I have a strong feeling that Dillman will be our starting QB in 2017...give him time with Harrell's coaching and Littrell's offense and I bet he shows up as the QB a lot of people wanted him to be at Nebraska.

Young Ben, we have been trying to tell you this for multiple years now. The leadership at this university will never look at sports the way you want them to. They care a ton about UNT-Dallas or UNT-Frisco, as they know its easy money to get more students to enroll. Winning at revenue sports has never mattered here one iota. Never. There are literally decades of figures from w/l records, attendance, fundraising, etc..to look at to back this up. Just now, we have 17 alums, out of hundreds of thousands of UNT graduates, who care enough about UNT sports to fund it at a "big" level. And how does the BOR and administration look at them? Like they are god-sends, because they don't have to put any emphasis on even caring about something they don't want to care about. Hence, we get UNT-Dallas from Lee Jackson. We get UNT-Frisco, which Smatresk seems giddy about.

There a lot of things RV is terrible at. We don't need to manufacture $hit to enhance that--which is what is happening here. All of this, RV being the AD, hiring coaches that cannot make a dent in recruiting or have no idea how to coach a college football team, having absolutely no sway in Texas HS Coaches or recruits minds, and having very little media and fan interest--it all stems from two things: apathy from the university's leadership being funneled down to the students, faculty, and alumni, as well as the gut punch that almost killed the program by dropping down to 1-aa for 12 freaking years in the 80s and 90s. You are literally dealing with a program that no more than 2% of its potential students and alumni base even follow--the coaches and recruits only know us as a loser, even if they don't know much else about us (see the Aledo kid earlier this year that said he had no idea about UNT as an option). Its gonna take a special coach to rebuild this thing up. Somebody who can coach up low rated and unrated kids to beat CUSA programs, while not getting completely defeated by the fact that UNT is difficult to recruit to (see McCarney's evolution from rah-rah guy to bitter, old man coach in 4 years). Littrell is next in line to try this. And maybe he can do it, when the previous coaches since Dickey's SBC run ended in 2004, couldn't. But even Dickey pulled that off by miraculously pulling in some very solid recruits--not getting kids that had only one FBS offer (us). Littrell's job is one that is damn near Herculean. If he pulls it off, he will have earned every single cent that he will get paid after this monumental achievement. We thought Dodge left Mac with nothing, but it was more to the point that he couldn't coach at this level, since there was some very developable talent here then. I don't know how anyone can look at what Littrell has inherited and think its even closely similar, from a talent standpoint, to what Mac inherited. Its like looking down a well and realizing that you can't even see water. That's where we are right now. Its gonna take a monumental effort just to get water in the bucket, much less to just get it up to the top of the well.

What helps RV with the declining attendance is the fact that CUSA TV payout has been better than anything we had before, although that is about to decline significantly. That helps to keep the BOR focused on the things they want to focus on, as MGT noted. Of course, scheduling big payout games in football and basketball still covers a lot of bills, too, which he has going forward for the next 5 years or more. MGT is right about the day of reckoning being about being out of budget. But that will happen because of the bigger revenue streams we currently get thru TV and bodybag games, not because of declining attendance. Again, that attendance drop in both sports would have already cost him his job if that was the case. Its not and that is why he has it made as long as 17 people will continue to fund the department over and above what the UNT BOR budgets.

Couldn't agree more, DeepGreen. Only thing that brings people like us back in the fold is winning OR firing RV. I'm like Littrell a lot, but I don't have much faith for him to get this turned around with the "leadership" that RV provides and the BOR demands of him. If Littrell does turn it around here, getting us to .500 or better at anytime in the next three years, he will be coaching somewhere else as one of the hottest coaching commodities in college football. I hope he gets that opportunity--he seems like a great guy and a real family man. But it remains to be seen if he can be a head coach that produces wins on the field, not just in the locker room and with the community. Dodge and Mac were great in the locker room and with the community--yet failed miserably here. Unless Littrell can make it happen on the field here, with improved recruiting and an actual college football playbook and strategies, he will unfortunately follow in the footsteps of the coaches before him here. And that will continue to fall on the footsteps of the leadership here--which has proven over and over that they don't know what they are doing...

And none of it matters. RV isn't getting fired. If he was going to be replaced, it would have already happened. RV has the full backing of 17 people who love the access and laughs they get from the AD. And the BOR is fine with that. Benford will get fired as soon as a winning season isn't possible...just like Dodge did. By "saving" 325k extra, we have been rewarded, just like we were with Vic Trilli and Todd Dodge, with a 4th year of lots of losing. But we don't care about attendance or donations. We care about the known costs, and we know that buying out Benford last year would have cost $325k more than it does now.

Looking at Benford's track record, I'd be willing to bet he would finish closer to 9th or 10th...even if only three people entered said contest.

Morris could very well be the best QB we have had here since we moved up to FBS. Vizza, from a pure talent standpoint was the best we have had, with Scott Hall's grit making him number two on that list. Vizza just got the $hit beat out of him too much on the hard Fouts turf and decided that this place wasn't for him. With a real college coach and line, he could have been really, really good here, at least on par with everything Derek Thompson did. I figure Morris' pedigree of being an Allen HS QB and earning a scholarship to Bama has to give him some respect from the UNT fans. It would be damn near impossible to be worse than what we have seen the last two years with 4 FCS or lower QBs.