untjim1995

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...

I'm reminded, for the umpteenth time, of the famous Jerry Tarkanian quote about the NCAA penalizing Cleveland State to show everyone how tough they are when they know Kentucky is cheating. Ole Miss is cheating, so let's put powerhouse ULL on probation... I really, truly wish they would just finish it up and completely pull away from the non-P5s and play their semi-pro games. The rest of us can actually enjoy real college football played by actual college students, not pros-in-waiting. I know so many of you will say that would be awful for us, but we made our bed decades ago on this stuff. And, even after coming back to I-A in 1995, our attendance isn't terribly different than it was back then, even with a brand new stadium and a more recognizable conference. We aren't ever going to be on that level, financially or by fans. That doesn't mean we have to drop down, it just means that we shouldn't ever be playing football against these p5 behemoths that pay us to get bent over a barrel every year. The sooner those days are gone for UNT, the better it will be--even if that means the AD will have to actually hustle to raise funds to pay for non-revenue sports, something that the current one is committed to doing every year he can, since it's easy money.

Whoops...

I've wondered about this for a long time. For G5s, it's always gonna come down to how much money you spend (both administration and alumni) to keep you going. This is where your UH, SMU, East Carolina, UCF, and USF have a huge advantage. We know where we stand on this in Denton.

Pretty much the status quo for the last five decades or so...

Continue laughing...

Trust me, you didn't ruffle my feathers...its just hard not to be embarrassed by the worst loss in modern college football history and the fact that we have to be warned about looking past another FCS team on the schedule.

Smatresk has been what I figured he would be--a godsend toward cleaning up the accounting fiasco and inspiring the university's faculty and leadership to be better as we continue to grow. But we all know who hired him. The same BOR and administration that has kept its dedication to athletics at arm's length--or further. I really wanted to believe Smatresk would come in here and really put his stamp on the direction of athletics, but I knew that if he tried, it would be really tough. Well, at this point, we have no idea if he even cares enough about it to want to make changes or if the BOR made it abundantly clear that no changes at the AD level would be made, so the topic is basically DOA now. Either way, it doesn't signal much is going to change here. The Benford situation is one to really watch--if he gets to stay another year or if he somehow gets extended, RV gets one, as well. It will be extremely telling if Tony Benford isn't fired at the end of this season, without ever finishing above .500 even once, even with some incredibly dumbed-down OOC schedules in the last three years.

Not at all--but it does reflect progress. Right now, those are the baby steps we need to get back to the point of just walking again. Success will be to see our program running, not walking, but for now, its basically been in a hospital bed for the last year and a half.

Success is winning. Progress is the term you want to see, which 3 wins would solidly show to most of us. He's a brand new coach, installing an offense that is 180 degrees different from the previous staff's offensive gameplan. He has a defensive front seven that is woefully small and slow, compared to most of our peers. And he takes over a team that MIRACULOUSLY won one game last year because the other team was playing here and using their 5th string QB, which allowed us to score a late 4th qtr TD and win the game. Butt-Cookman is our only game we will be favored to win in 2016. If we pull off another upset or two, it will be significant progress from where we were last year. Littrell's biggest wins this year need to be in our locker room and in the classrooms, living rooms, and coaches' offices at various high schools and jucos. That's what its gonna take to get this thing back up and running. Its very possible that we win 1 game next year, but if we get recruiting wins, it will point to us getting back on the right track. But if we aren't able to make those in-roads, then the next few years are going to be more of the same, sadly.

That defensive front is going to be so small, with no depth. if we get to 3 wins, it'll be a shocker...

UNT/Denton always turn out for old SWC teams. We will get 21-23k if it's a morning/afternoon kickoff or 24-25k if it's an evening kickoff.