untjim1995

So the reality here is that the P5s will become the P4 in the next decade. When the BIg XII implodes, the P4 will issue a concession for schools to still get consideration to the party--pay up by showing how much you want to be a part of this when no conference will invite you thru football independence. Yep, we are about to kick it old school--as in the glory days of Penn State, Miami, FSU, Louisville, Pitt, and so many others that were independents, schools like UH, SMU, UCF, USF, TCU, Baylor, ISU, Memphis, UConn, Cincy, and Boise State will go Power Independent because their budgets can afford to do it, at least at the onset. This will give the P4s their new bought opponents, too. The rest of us...well, you're hitting on what lies ahead. Your MAC schools, your MWC schools not named Boise State, your lower AAC schools, CUSA, and the SBC will absorb some of the top schools in FCS and create our own subdivision. I'd love a new conference that would like this: UNT, Tulsa, Arkansas State, La Tech, ULL, Tulane, Rice, UTSA, Texas State, UTEP, NMSU, and Sam Houston in a conference gives you New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, DFW, Tulsa, Lafayette, Shreveport, and Arkansas. I'd take that over what we currently play because I have zero interest in F_U, Charlotte, ODU, WKU, MUTS, and UAB in football.

I don't think June Jones was a failure at all at SMU. He inherited a team that one won game (against us) the season before he got there. In his first year, they won one game, as well, but in each of the next 4 years, they went to a bowl game and won 3 of them. Yes, his last season plus went downhill, but if SMU fans think he was more of a failure than a success, that says more about their Football IQ than anything else. When we hired McCarney, I thought it was a great move, just because we actually spent decent money on an experienced coach who had Hayden Fry's backing. We had gone decades since doing that, so it made us pony up more for a coach than we ever had before, which is why we can pay Littrell over three times what we paid Dodge in 2010. But the problem with McCarney was his stubborn approach to offense and his inability to get recruits to look at us as anything but a last resort. It literally killed Mac's spirit here--remember how much we loved hearing him give us something good to hear about our university and our program's future? That was gone after the HoD Bowl, when recruiting never picked up and all of the talent that Dodge had gotten here and just needed to be coached up by an actual college football staff finally left, it became apparent that this thing had no chance to end well--and it didn't. Was McCarney more of a failure than a success here? I would say yes, clearly, just because he had one good season out of the 4+ he was here and he left us with almost nothing in the cupboard and an incredibly all-time embarrassment loss to FCS Portland State--as in most embarrassing loss in the modern history of college football. Littrell represents a lot of good things for this place--great roots, great pedigree, great values, and great play calling--but none of us have any idea if he knows how to build up a program and lead it, both on the field and off the field. We know that he is youthful and has some good young coaches on his staff to help him, which should help in recruiting, but we don't know if he can get Texas HS Coaches and recruits to look at UNT any differently than what they have when McCarney and Dodge were here as head coaches. We want him to and we think he can, but its possible that the many reasons we have documented before about our program are just too much even for him. And to a lot of us, the number one reason that we believe no one has been able to win here is because of the AD. And that AD isn't going anywhere until he wants to quit, retire, or until he dies. So we will continue getting articles, blogs, columns, etc...that basically say the same thing this one does from one of our "own", someone who is completely embarrassed of our program and has most likely gone on to be a lifelong fan to be of UT. Make no mistake about it, we have hundreds of thousands of alumni and students just like him, just without a media outlet.

To be honest, I still can't believe we won a game in 2015. I'm seriously glad we did, but it was very unexpected. How anyone could look at that Portland State game and recognize the fact they are FCS and it was on Homecoming at our place and then not give us an F- is really beyond me.

You cannot convince me that we would have beaten UCF if we had played them.

Some just lost more than others...

But the real question here is if you would say it to his face...#askCBL

I know that you are younger and that you are of the generation that "mehs" all the time as loud as possible, but did you ever think that just for once that maybe--just maybe--the citizens of Denton, by a large percentage, feels the polar opposite about UNT Football as those of us on here do? Has that ever crossed your mind when we average 13k in attendance in a bad year and no more than 19k in a good year? IOW, the people in this town and at this university have never shown an interest in helping UNT Athletics beyond when they play someone they care about, like a former SWC team or service academy? Maybe, just maybe, Vito and the DRC are just reflective of the readers of their paper... I know, I know...Meh...

I'm no member of the UNT 17, so I have no agenda. Just sharing my opinions on a message board like most everyone else here.

They probably did run the spread, but none of the QBs on this roster have played in a spread offense at this level, nor have they shown that they can even throw decently at this level of play, including Morris, who I really think will be the starter here and will be the best QB we have seen here in years (like decades). We will see, I guess.

You guys outplayed us the first year in Denton, no doubt. And the next year, you were just better than us. This year, we outplayed you guys in Denton. This upcoming year, we look to be better than you guys and your coaching situation is in disarray, which is why I think we will even the series. Look, I don't hate you guys. I think its nice to have an instate rivalry finally. We both need to do a lot of improvement in the years to come to get out of the level of rankings that suggest we cannot beat FCS teams week-in and week-out. Right now, as well as with UTEP, the three of us are all really, really terrible football programs in need of some serious improvements.

Or maybe now that Coker finally lost to us, the cat is outta the bag... If we cannot beat you guys this upcoming season, there won't be one other FBS program we can beat in 2016. Basically, you'll be what SMU was for us last year. If we couldn't beat them, there was not supposed to be another FBS opponent we could beat. Well, instead Portland State whipped us and we beat UTKFC instead. I think we have 2 games next year that are almost certainly going to be wins--Bethune-Cookman and @ UTSA.

Its gonna be real hard for most of the offense to fit into what Littrell likes to run, which is probably why we will see a very basic level of what he ran as the playcaller at UNC. Once he gets the right personnel here over the next few years, then the offense will really open up.

But his interim replacement did...

I think when he took over for Dodge, Mac looked at the linemen that were here and thought it was the smallest and slowest he'd ever seen--which was true only because he had only coached at Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, South Florida, and Florida, places with abundantly more talent than we ever had. McCarney knew that he could motivate that bunch into getting bigger and faster, just with a decent approach to coaching them in S&C and in practice. And that's what he did, culminating in 2013's great season and HoD Bowl win. But he couldn't recruit better talented guys to come here, which eventually drove him crazy. Why? Its everyone's guess, but he just couldn't get it done. When you go 1-11, with almost no talent on the defense, its not hard to think he left us in worse shape than we he got here. Maybe Littrell and company can fix that, but I don't see that happening this year. He's gotta clear out the quitters and the neer-do-wells on the roster, of which there are currently plenty, as well as just a general lack of talent at QB behind what he is bringing in from Bama. All I want to see outta this team in 2016 is that they try harder than they did in 2015 for Mac and Chico--IOW, don't freaking quit. Win only one game, win three games, whatever, just get rid of the quitters and develop an attitude in the locker room that will permeate to recruits and to the fans. That's what 2016 needs to be all about--improvement in attitude, from players buying into their coaching, and from coaches in how they convey themselves to recruits and their HS coaches. Everything else is completely secondary. Going 1-11 again will be understood and swept under the rug if you can improve on the other stuff mentioned above.

Bailiff is just using it as a chance to get more years outta Rice...not even money, just years added to his deal. Pretty smart on his part, actually.

Neither UT or A&M seems to understand that they need each other more than ever before. A&M needs UT for their fans to have a competitive win against a name program that their fans would enjoy more than the random win over Arkansas, Auburn, or Alabama (which are all great wins). UT needs A&M for recruiting and to actually host a game in Austin every other year that the fanbase would be excited to go see. But I'm of the belief that this game ain't getting played anytime soon--the Longhorns are too arrogant to want it back at the top levels and the Aggies are too irritated that they wouldn't keep the series going when they left to go to the SEC and DeLoss Dodds told them that "We will decide when we play again, not you." Other than legislative demand, I don't see it happening anytime soon. Plus, both schools want to use it as a recruiting chip, so right now, as UT is further down and playing in the weaker Big XII, the Aggies have been able to get better recruiting classes because of better seasons and better conference mates. When the shoe gets on the other foot, you can be sure that UT isn't gonna jump up and down to play A&M if they are down, too. All I know is that when both teams are mediocre, this is when, historically, that some of the Texas private schools and UH have done very well. This year was yet another season that proved this point.

This is my point, as well. If either of these guys accomplish a big turnaround in the next 3 years, they are going to get hired away. If they don't, they each probably have no more than 4 years at their job and will get fired. There are exceptions, of course, but G5s are usually training grounds for the P5s to buy them when they like what they see.

http://www.cfb-history.com/2012/11/09/1977-college-football-polls-apupi/ What is really hilarious in this is that Kentucky (??) finished #6 in football by the AP voters---but was unranked in the Coaches Poll...

This isn't happening, so its a moot point, but if it did, I'd go after someone who has done well at fundraising in a G5 urban school, i.e. not Arkansas State or ULL... Losing is always tough to deal with, in part, because a lot of different components affect outcomes (recruiting, health, grades, schedule, etc...) on the field or on the court. But to have 15 years to cultivate 17 BMDs while overseeing an increase of about 800+ people in the MGC when 70k+ have graduated in that timeframe shouldn't be a very difficult hurdle to jump over for ANYBODY who is a decent AD. And to the RV apologists, if you're right, nobody else comes in and does better at this, then it will be obvious that we aren't ever gonna be able to build this program up to where we hoped it would get. Again, though, its a moot point. He isn't going anywhere, anytime soon. He is too protected right now. Its an amazing accomplishment if you really think about it in these times of huge athletic budgets and the size of our student body and alumni base.

Hell, not even getting to .500 has gotten extensions at UNT--see Dickey, McCarney, and RV. And if he can do it, RV would gladly extend Benford, who can't even get over that pesky .500 hurdle with some of the weakest schedules that we have ever seen--and he still might get extended at the end of this season, although its incredibly doubtful.

Yeah, that's exactly the same... And if you ask UT fans about DeLoss Dodds right now, most of them will tell you that he left them in very bad shape. He completely missed on the realignment mess and with the LHN. Now, UT is stuck with the kids that A&M got away from to the SEC, knowing full well that when the times comes for the big XII to implode and they have offers to go to the Pac-12, B1G, or ACC, that they have to figure out how to deal with potential lawsuits from Baylor, TCU, and/or Tech being left behind. But I do know that under DeLoss Dodds, since he was Men's AD only, UT won national championships in football and baseball, while also going to the Final Four in mens hoops. He cultivated the largest budget in collegiate sports, allowing him to fire Cliff Gustafson, Fred Akers, David McWilliams, John Mackovic, Bob Weltlich, and Tom Penders. He didn't fire Mack Brown or Rick Barnes, that was done by Steve Patterson. He fired 6 people in his revenue sports...equal to RV...

That certainly isn't a problem in 2016...Since 2006, he has fired these people he extended or hired in his tenure--Darrell Dickey, Shanice Stephens, Todd Dodge, Rick Petersen, and Dan McCarney. Tony Benford is standing on a banana peel looking over the Grand Canyon right now in terms of getting shoved out. Its very probable that RV will have fired 6 coaches in the three revenue sports in ten years--that is not just experienced, that's damn near Hall of Shame level firing of your own personnel that you hired/extended. Dude, you are way wrong on this...no way only half would have left. It'd be more like 75% or more... No access, no money...

I don't blame Meacham--better jobs will be available for him

And he is still here after all of this mess...that 2% is the UNT 17 and BOR, basically. Its good to have friends in high places...

Afterwards, the KU fans that stuck around and watched Buddy Hield finish up an interview with ESPN on the court, gave Hield a standing ovation for tying the scoring ark by an opponent at Allen Fieldhouse--that place is only 61 years old...