untjim1995

Of course I do. It was awful--under the chancellor's watch, I might add. Really, I have no problem with Smatresk. He is following orders, nicely. He does seem like a very smart and nice man. But, again, the point of it all is to focus on what matters most--he kept us under budget!! He didn't get us anything in increased revenues, that say, oh I don't know, winning athletics would provide, or at least sending a message that a putrid AD will no longer have a job, would bring, but then again, that 's the BOR's job. And it is rather apparent that they have zero interest in hurting the relationships with the UNT 17, who love their boy RV. Hence, the UNT 17 Mean Green...

Well, at least you shouldn't have any trouble getting tickets...

Nice... It is refreshing to get confirmation of the rather obvious view of how things are run here. Hopefully, there are others on here who will continue to see the light.

The last sentence is the reality of what the UNT leadership offers. Go along with it or go away. Either way, we don't care. we get easy money from an increasing number of students and we have 17 donors who pay for this and we aren't disturbing that apple cart. Nothing changes here unless the leadership's view of athletics changes drastically or until the mega-donors decide access isn't more valuable than winning. I wouldn't expect either of those to change anytime soon, so the answer is to walk away and just follow UNT sports from the comfy confines of gmg.com. You'll feel better about saving your money and time...and even belly-laugh a few times.

Sorry, Ben...it sucks when this realization sets in. Trust me, it happens to almost everyone who has ever cared about UNT being good in revenue sports. Eventually, you'll pick another college to root for or you'll go all-in on pro sports. You'll tell everyone you went to North Texas and quickly add that we don't care about sports to your Aggie, Longhorn, Sooner, Bear, Red Raider, etc...acquaintances. You will even see them spout off about times when they remember UNT not being terrible, making bowl games and the tournament. Then you'll hammer them with the reality that since 2005, our football team has had one winning season and that mens basketball went to two NCAA tourneys, as 15 seeds, and prompty got whipped by the 2 seeds they played. And then you'll bring up the fact that the women hoops team hasn't even had a winning record in that decade, either. And finally, you will twist the knife by saying we have has the same AD the ENTIRE TIME and doesn't even appear to be on a hot seat. That's when you'll get eh shaking of the head and the very polite apology and request to come join their fanbase. Welcome to 99% of the UNT Fan Experience!! It happens to almost all of us at some point in life.

Nobody should be surprised by this. We have been trying to tell you all for months now how rancid this place is regarding revenue sports. Why anyone would spend one more penny and one more second on this place is beyond me. If you say its because it is YOUR SCHOOL, just know that the university has so many other ways that you can help, via scholarships to the general fund or to individual colleges within the university. You giving anything else to this is a waste. Only 17 people give enough to not be a waste--and they waste their money on their buddy, but hide behind facilities and scholarships for athletics that they are proudly funding, just because they think they are exactly the same as their Longhorn, Aggie, Sooner, etc...buddies that get privilege with the AD. Here's a hint--your giving here makes you a big deal to RV and the BOR for a reason. If you gave at the same level at any other university not in the SBCUSA, the AD probably wouldn't even know your name. The UNT 17 Mean Green...so perfectly encapsulates where the athletic department currently sits.

So this list not including the private schools makes it look better than it really is.

This is your best post ever... So many of us have walked your path, excited about the idea of being good in sports that people care about because of all of the perceived advantages we should have a large, public university in DFW. We give it decades worth of money and time...only to get $hit on over and over. Finally, after getting numb to it, you finally realize that things you care about aren't what your alma mater cares abut at all. So we walk away...

Yale gave Kansas a game earlier this season at the Phog. They rebounded really well, which is why I picked them in my bracket. Not to mention that Scott Drew coaches at a below-average level at x's and o's. His two Elite Eight runs were as a 3 seed and required them beating a 14 seed, and 11 seed, and a 10 seed each time, only to get beaten by Duke and UK. And just for those that would trade places with Baylor, there's no doubt. Apples to oranges on every level, though--at least until we let raping women, punching women, and killing other players and hiding it with a made-up story about being a drug dealer become our accepted way...

I will say this, when AState has been asked to fund a coaching change, you guys haven't messed around. If Steve Roberts or John Brady had been coaches here, I have zero doubt that they would still be employed and treated as if they were golden hires. You guys don't work that way, institutionally or from the viewpoint of giving alumni. Here, we have institutional leadership that wants to focus on keeping costs as low as possible (admirable on many levels) to keep enrollment growing, so as to subsidize their careers. And our alumni, almost unanimously, leave Denton and never give one cent back or one second back to UNT Athletics. When all you care about is being a "value" and having a cattle call approach to gaining students of any kind to come to your school, its pretty hard to get anyone to feel connected to the university's teams, especially when the administration don't even make it a priority at all.

FIFY

My point was that he wasn't hired away after the winning he enjoyed here in the 70s. Except for Fry and Johnny Jones, nobody has both won here and been hired away in any revenue sport. Obviously, the biggest reason for that is nobody else had a winning record in any of those sports here since the late 70's, except JJ. Think about that for a second...if it weren't for Johnny Jones, we are looking at no coach in three different sports to not have a winning record in 35+ seasons. If you all think that is "caring about winning in revenue sports", you have a very distinctly different viewpoint from the other 98% of the UNT Family.

Look, the DMac firing was funded almost completely by the UNT 17. The university probably had some cost with it, too, but when you combine that cost with the buyout of Mike Petersen, which was all on the university's dime, presumably, that is just too much to the BOR to deal with to also buyout $32k for Benford's buyout. Because, GSP!!, HORRORS!!, we would possibly be out of the allocated budget for athletics--those pesky "known" costs we run our university by... UNT'd

Anyone believe this now?

Why not talk to the coach at Tarleton? If he is building up a strong D-2 program, he obviously knows how to coach. That would be a thought...he would be inexpensive (Priority #1 around here) and has Texas ties. Obviously, it doesn't appear as if that will happen this year, but by next year, that should be an option, assuming nobody else has already picked him off...

Posted this on the basketball forum, but this one is more read, and illustrates just how poor we are at getting people to attend anything here with the $hit products we are giving out. Football averaged over 13k in attendance for a 30k seat stadium. Mens hoops averaged just under 2000 in attendance for a 10k arena. Thank God we aren't gonna waste another $325k on a buyout of a coach who just finished his 4th season without a winning season...those 8000 unfilled seats don't need to get an actual butt in them or they might have to get fixed. Saving on possible repairs...finally an opportunity "cost" that we are striving to work to alleviate at the administrative levels!! UTEP 7386 ODU 7038 Marshall 5474 MUTS 5184 UAB 4946 Charlotte 4668 La Tech 3856 WKU 3672--this has to be an alltime low USM 2994 Rice 2205--Rice has under 4000 students, IIRC UNT 1979--with over 37k students and hundreds of thousands of local alumni UTSA 1072 FIU 1007 FAU 872--WTF??

There's no way we averaged this in actual attendance, but even if we did, its less than 20% capacity. 4th worst in CUSA, in front of stalwarts, F_Us and UTSA. CUSA has to be wondering why the hell they invited us.. UTEP 7386 ODU 7038 Marshall 5474 MUTS 5184 UAB 4946 Charlotte 4668 La Tech 3856 WKU 3672--this has to be an alltime low USM 2994 Rice 2205--Rice has under 4000 students, IIRC UNT 1979--with over 37k students and hundreds of thousands of local alumni UTSA 1072 FIU 1007 FAU 872--WTF?? Obviously, why would anyone buyout an extra $325k to try and change this very successful trajectory we are on, after finishing 12-20??

I think we better start looking at who will be available in 2017...

What JJ built here, after taking over a program that is every bit of where McCarney left football, is damn near miraculous. Nobody--and I mean nobody--should denigrate anything he accomplished in his time here. Was he great x's and o's coach? Not great, but he was good enough at it as a mid-major coach here to build success. He was a very good recruiter, which is also why he built success here. Johnny Jones left here after a long successful run to go coach in a power conference. Nobody else has done that at UNT in the three main sports since Hayden Fry in the late 70s. He built us into a winner, a team that drew 3000-4000 a night at an arena that holds 10,000 people. Today, we are thrilled to see a real crowd of over 2000. And, of course, we are thrilled to see our team finish near .500, which that pesky level has been reached once, and only because the OOC was completely dumbed down to a level not seen here in a revenue sport in years. RV took a flyer on an assistant from Marquette, with Texas ties, that had a pedigree for being an ace recruiter. He gave the keys to the nice sedan we finally were able to afford to drive and he quickly totaled it. If a new coach was hired today, with the talent that Benford has been able to bring here, it wouldn't take years to rebuild this thing, like it will Littrell in football or how it did for JJ after Vic Trilli was fired. A real coach could get us back into a winning record very quickly--that's the beautiful nature of college basketball. But, instead, we will keep the bad driver on as head coach, because its affordable, and we are keeping the AD in place because he provides access and is friendly with the people in charge. I laugh, only because it feels better than to cry about it... UNT'd

Laughter...

You know, when you think about this, it is really MUCH worse than that. Imagine if football had more games to play in a season than basketball has had, or vice-versa, what would that percentage look like? That's why I always look at RV's overall winning percentage in those three sports in his time here. BTW, when you combine 15 years of football and both basketball teams, you get football at 65-118 (.355), mens basketball at 244-219 (.527), and womens hoops at 179-266 (.402), you get a whopping .447 percentage. In the last five years, we are 23-38 in football (.377), 54-99 in womens hoops (.353), and 72-87 in mens hoops (.453). Rv's "visionary" leadership and fleecing has led us to a stellar record and winning percentage of 149-373 (.399). Who wouldn't deserve to keep their job when their main products and services were successful at less than a 40% clip after 5 years? I mean its college sports we are talking about, so there's no way that anyone connected to that kind of losing would even get 5 years, right? Wait, the AD over this pile of dogcrap has been here for 15 years? Embarrassing. And if you aren't embarrassed by it, you should be.

Oh I agree, but the sentence isn't about could or should...its about will/would. We aren't going to do this in any timeframe you want to mention. Why? Because I believe some BOR members look at $325k and freak out at how much that could be used towards. When there is no will, there is no way...we don't have the will to pay off another revenue coach's buyout, or even the AD who put us in this position. Instead, we let 17 people decide if he stays. Its not gonna change, either. They own the AD. And the BOR isn't ponying up $325k to pay off this hire when they know he can wait a year and it will just not get renewed and the budget stays intact, with no BOR appropriated funds necessary. The UNT Family rejoices that the BOR continues to stand up to evil athletics, while the BOR stand up for the UNT 17 for taking this off their plates to keep the UNT Family overwhelmingly pleased. And the UNT 17 stand up for their good ol' pal RV, because he allows them access and has fleeced them out of millions, which none of them want to admit.

I really don't know this, but I'm gonna guess that it has something to do with our incredibly large student body and the athletic fee...but I know its not from the MGC that grew by 864 people in the same time the university graduated 75000 people or whatever it was that Cerebus reported during RV's tenure.

You know that we don't make decision on opportunity costs or unknown revenues--its only about known costs, nothing more, nothing less.

Money, as in $325k, apparently...