untjim1995

I had a meeting today with a client's son who is the head football coach at a local high school in Frisco, so we got to talking about football and colleges that recruit their players. He mentioned that the school's QB got offered a full scholarship a couple of years ago after his freshman year to Clemson--a guy you may have heard of, Chad Morris was the OC at Clemson back then. For obvious reasons, an SMU offer is now being looked at. So that led me to ask him about UNT and Coach Mac. The dad said something really good, but also vey telling--he said, the UNT coaches are visible and they are very engaged, but the only kids that have any interest in looking at them on offense are the linemen. He said his son and the coaches like McCarney personally, but the only skill kids that have any interest in playing in Denton are those who run non-spread offenses, of which there was one in their district. He said it will always be tough to convince kids to play in an offense like that because coaches and players today think its just flat out boring. I told him that the fans think its boring, too, unless the defense and special teams make up for it. Granted, this is one coach's view in the Metroplex, so you can take it for what it is worth, but it basically confirmed a big part of what we have thought about our QB issues--we can't get decent QBs here that can turn into something, in part because they won't come here, or because they won't get the chance to be developed into anything other than the busdriver. We just gotta pray that Mac's strength of developing linemen and solid hard-hitting defenses will show up in the upcoming years. Otheriwse, the next three years are going to be a lot like the other years around here for the last 10 years, sans 2013.

Just for something interesting, are there any other programs you like or root for besides UNT? If so, break it down like this along with your reasons: Other G5(s) you like: I like Air Force and Boise State--US military academy and the little guy that built itself up to be a badass P5(s) you root for: Kansas and Notre Dame--love the Jayhawks, primarily because of hoops and family, and I'm an Irish Catholic... G5(s) you dislike the most: SMU--obvious P5(s) you dislike the most: Baylor and Texas Tech--two schools who epitomize the term "tick", who also happen to have the most idiotic fanbase (Baylor) and a very trashy fanbase (Tech)

​That ain't changing anytime soon, either. We now how this story goes--we watched it under Dickey until the 2006 season ended. Old school coach that believes in running the ball and not throwing it down the field very often, unless you have to. Hence, you get the FIU game last year where McNulty throws a pick-six in the second half, then literally doesn't throw another pass the rest of the game, which we held on to win by less than a TD. No throwing QB worth his salt is going to look to come here, unless they are a grade-risk or have no other options as long as this is the offense.

​I just hope that RV knows he feels this way. I suspect that Mac knows it, too, and will be ready to gameplan for a win over the Ponies in Dallas, in our "alterantive" home game this season!!

​I'm reading your bio listed under your photo--interesting stuff. Just for the sake of posting something interesting on the board, I disagree with your saddest day in UNT FB history being Jerry Moore replacing Hayden Fry over Bill Brasher. Although a poor choice, nothing is worse than allowing our program to wallow down at the i-aa level from 1982-1994. The timing of doing it, coinciding with the SWC being a top conference in its day, with $MU buying all of its players and TCU quickly following along here in the Metroplex, as well as the fact that Arkansas, Texas, A&M, Baylor, Houston, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State had good to great teams during most of that time, just buried our program. If we ever fully recover from it, I will be shocked. The perception of this school when it comes to sports is still so sad in the eyes of Texas media and fans, which is why recruiting perpetually sucks here compared to the otehr schools in the state.

​In bold, do we really need a media outlet in Houston to give a synopsis of where UNT is located and a very brief description of our program? I doubt that the DFW media needs to do that for UH. If it is needed, how freaking sad is that for the 4th largest school in the state?

​I guess we buy what we want to buy... Seneca Wallace was an NFL QB he got to come to Iowa State. He got them into the top 10 at one point before the old Big XII just grinded them into a pulp. He had Sage Rosenfels, there, too. But here at North Texas, going into his fifth season as the head coach, the only QBs we have seen that get to play with any regularity in his offenses here are busdrivers. Derek Thompson, Andrew McNulty, and Josh Greer. The other QBs that have failed to get meaningful playing time of more than a few games are Osborn, Berglund, Dajon, etc...all known during their recruitment as QBs who were dual threats or had big arms, which come to think of it, sounds exaclty like Damarcus Smith. Look, I want you to be right about this--I think McNulty is below average for a FBS QB. I think anyone who can make plays should be the QB, not someone who cannot throw consistently downfield. The track record at UNT for Mac, though, says completely the opposite will happen.

​All things being equal, I expect that SMU under Morris will be better than last year's bunch, just not 37 points better. I think we win down there, maybe a bit closer than we want, but I see us winning by 10 points or so. SMU is bad--really, really bad. If we cannot beat them this upcoming season, we aren't beating any other FBS teams on the schedule. I am actually very confident we will beat them, though. McCarney's MO is to beat the rival--may not win too many other games, but he beats the rival (see Iowa State owning Iowa during his tenure and our absolute butt-kicking of the Ponies last fall). I'm not sure we will learn anything big about our team after the opener--kinda like last season after we beat them badly, we were still small on defense and had a poor offensive gameplan no matter who was the QB against anyone with a pulse on defense. I think the same will be in play in 2015. We aren't winning games at Iowa, Marshall, or Tennessee. We probably lose at home to Rice and WKU, as well as at MUTS and La Tech. The 50/50 games are at Southen Miss and here against UTEP and UTSA. That's why I think 4 wins would be an achievement with McNulty as your QB, a brand new OL, and a defense that still has a long ways to go.

​You know, this may have been the lowpoint for FBS football for a home game at UNT. We were playing a team called Florida International, at Fouts, in the Sunbelt Conference, with a horrible record, an absolutely putrid offensive gameplan, and missed several field goals that made it possible to get to 7 OTs. Middle schools executed better than both of those teams did that night. Even though we won on the scoreboard, I think most of us didn't feel like winners after that game--just not the biggest loser on the night. It wasn't worse than the 2008 game at Rice, where we lost a heartbreaker 77-20, only because Rice totally tapped the brakes in the 4th quarter--that easily could have been 100+ to 20. Dodge was our coach, we would win 1 game the whole season and just got humiliated in the state by losing to freaking SWC basement dwellar Rice by 57 points. That was when I knew that Dodge was a horrible choice as a coach here. I gave him a pass for the first season, even when OU trampled us 79-10 in the opener. But when you couldn't compete with Rice to a point that you find yourself losing 77-20 in the 3rd quarter and they just basically had mercy on us the rest of the game, it was pretty clear we were in bad shape for another 2+ seasons until he was deemed affordable to fire. To me, this was our FBS lowpoint. Even lower than this, though, was my sophomore year at UNT, in 1992, when we played Nicholls State at home in a night game in November at Fouts. We counted about 150 people in the stands, including the band. Both teams were just awful. We won 31-3, so we weren't in last place. Our coach was a pure high school coach, Dennis Parker, so it was also quite clear we weren't ever getting better anytime soon under him. I remember thinking that we would be better off just dropping the sport than continuing at this level of play. I guess the leadership agreed--we announced that we would aim for a run back up to Division 1-A by 1995 and fired Parker and hired Matt Simon, who was at least an experienced college coordiantor. Thankfully, those days are in the past.

​The working/traveling alumni hate them, but the students and local alumni seem to enjoy the Thursday night games, no matter where they are played. The Rice game on Halloween two years ago, as well as the ULL game the season before that really surprised me at the student turnout.

This was as obvious as the sun rising in the east. Dajon had zero chance of ever playing here after being dumped into Mac's doghouse. Sure, a lot of that is on Dajon, but what really damned him into the doghouse was his freelance play and the turnovers he committed with it. That is a mortal sin to Mac--so much so that he would rather Andrew McNulty play QB and hand the ball off and throw one yard passes for the majority of the game. Dajon was always going to end up in FCS--he is a legit FBS talent with the right offensive mindset, but he will make a team in the SLC pretty good. For thsoe of you that think Damarcus Smith is going to come in here in the fall camp and win the job, Mac learned from Greer that a trained busdriver is his preferred QB. Smith MIGHT backup McNulty, but make no mistake about it--Mcnulty is the starter here for a while, probably the entirety of the season. It has been so easy to predict what was gonna happen here. Mac picks Minimac as his starter, talks about intangibles and experience, compares him to Derek Thompson (you know, that SR QB that led us to a bowl game and was the MVP), and runs off the athletic QB who freelances too much. This was exactly what Dickey did to Woody Wilson when he was here, couldn't trust a guy who, heaven forbid, made plays by freelancing, instead of just handing the ball off on 3rd and 23 to run the clock out. Dajon's situation has played out almost identically. If this thing gets to 4 wins this year, I'll be thrilled. The schedule is daunting, the Qb play is mediocrity at best, and the lines are inexperienced. I'm telling you that the SMU game will tell us a lot about this season if we lose to them--they are one of two teams on the schedule that should be wins. If we lose to them, its very probable we might not win 2 games all season long.

​I don't really see how UAB will be able to recruit anyone worth a damn--this will get used against them for decades ahead. If Troy, South Alabama, Middle Tennessee, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, Southern Mississippi, Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Western Kentucky, Florida International, or Florida Atlantic are recruiting against them, I cannot see how UAB can beat them for a recruit anytime soon. UAB hasn't dropped down to FCS, but its gonna feel that way in terms of what the fans, media, recruits, and their parents/coaches are going to think for a long time. We here at UNT might be the only school in the country that can understand how difficult its gonna be to change that viewpoint. But UAB has always been a basketball school in a football crazy state--if this keeps them in CUSA, they are still way better off to have a football team that allows their hoops program to stay in a decent conference.

If this keeps UAB basketball in our league, then its a good deal. They are a program that has been able to make noise in the NCAA Tournament in years past, not just this past season.

​I'd sure like to believe this, but I also know that we didn't support baseball at all when we had it in the 80s, according to students and alumni who were around during that time. Maybe we will do it better this time, hopefully? I just don't want another sport taking resources from the revenue programs that we need to win in now.

​Cerebus, I totally agree with you--I was just trying to lay out some reason that RV seems to still keep his job here, despite poor revenue sports hires and a pathetic w/l percentage under his watch as the AD. Literally, the only reasons that I can come up with are instituting tailgating, schmoozing with the big money donors, and staying within the BOR's budget without complaining publicly. RV has the easiest AD job in America at a FBS school--and it ain't really close. Just stay in budget, don't complain, and play nice with the few monied donors we have that think schmoozing with RV is the exact same as their Longhorn buddies schmoozing with DeLoss Dodds... I just don't see him ever getting fired here--he has this job as long as he wants to have it.

​Obviously, no one would call me RV's biggest fan, but Harry is dead-on about this. The MG Village and Apogee are absolutely wonderful, which did happen on RV's watch. I suspect that if baseball does happen here, a new stadium will be small, but will still look very nice. I worry about putting too many eggs into baseball here. The sport doesn't draw terribly high attendance numbers, its rarely on TV, and did fail at UNT back in the 80s. I think people look at UTAs program back in the day, as well as Dallas Baptist's today and think we should be able to duplicate their success. I'm not sure how realistic that is, at least in the first 5 years or so. I still think that the best use of resources is to continue funding football and basketball as much as possible--meaning that we fire people when warranted, not when it is deemed affordable. I like watching college baseball right now as they prepare for the College World Series, but all I see it doing at UNT in the near future is drawing away precious financial resources that could go toward an indoor facility and toward getting better coaches's salaries/buyouts...

​A CEO-type AD exists at your big time college athletics schools, mostly P5s, with a few G5s sprinkled in. We don't qualify in that definition, obviously, so I think of RV more as a department head, or division leader, just to try and compare it something that most of us in the private world could relate to. If you look at his job from a w/l perspective or from a fundraising perspective, how anyone could say he deserves to keep his job is beyond me. If you look at it from an intangible level--goodwill, team player, and stays within budget, it can be argued that he has done a very good job. So looking at those two perspectives, its kind of easy to see what the BOR and the few big-monied donors around here really value in that position and in RV himself. He's been here 14 years, so its pretty obvious, at least to me.

​Worst pro sports moments to me are a tie: Rangers losing Game Six the way they did and the Catch where the 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game. Worst UNT moment: LaDarrin McLane fumbling the winning TD away in Lubbock is first, followed closely by Solomon Bozeman's 3-pointer to beat us in the SBC Championship game.

​I can honestly say that I want to be proven compleely wrong on the BOR's views on athletics' funding going forward. Its just hard to ignore decades of proof that argues to the contrary...

​Mac and Chico think McNulty is very athletic--at handing off the ball and throwing 1 yard passes...

RV isn't going anywhere, anytime soon, unless he decides to leave on his own merit. The MGC numbers are an embarrassment, but he will tell the BOR that its not on him becuase the alumni overwhelmingly don't care about UNT Athletics. Then they will look at the budget and see it is in good shape and give him another extension, just like they've done several times in that same 2002-2014 timeframe we are dissecting. I predict that we go 4-8 this year in football and that Tony Benford gets replaced by Rob Evans on an interim basis sometime in January or February when it becomes clear that we aren't making any progress. Then, RV will begin the process of choosing another head coach, this time it's for men's hoops. Since 2007, he will have hired Todd Dodge, Shanice Stephens, Dan McCarney, Tony Benford, Karen Aston, Mike Petersen, and Jalie Mitchell. The next men's coach would be his 8th hire in the three revenue sports in the last 9 years. Yet, the same monied voices and BOR members still keep RV around, extending him every couple of years.

But couldn't the university say that Apogee will be used for graduations, concerts, high school games, soccer, etc...? And the MG Village could be used for other music or arts, I'd assume, instead of football and other sports. It does bring up a good question, though. What would the reaction be if we did drop football like UAB is doing? What would the reaction be from the student body? Alumni? Faculty? Denton? DFW media? If the answer to these groups is probably wouldn't care or definitely wouldn't care, its always going to be a possibility that UNT Football could get dropped. And I agree completely with your last part--I'd never set foot on the campus again if we dropped football below the G5 level, even though I realize that we are in the extreme minority on this position.

I've felt like it was UAB's way of trying to string along CUSA to keep them in their league for a little while longer. Louisiana-Lafayette, welcome to Conference USA!!! Sam Houston State, welcome to the Sunbelt Conference!!

Here's the problem with replacing RV...the BOR will choose someone who will toe their same line, but with even less knowledge or understanding of how things roll around here when it comes to athletics. RV isn't the problem--he is merely a large symptom of the actual illness. If we added 72,000 alumni in 12 years, while seeing growth in the MGC Club go up 864 people in the same time frame, at some point you need to ask yourself why that would be the case and what should we do about it, Instead, we ask this question--and only this question--did we stay in budget? If so, then ignore everything else. If not, issue a wrning or a firing immediately. That's how you get extensions during a time when your revenue teams have just been putrid under your watch and your arm of fundraising has increased by 864 people in the same time the unviersity has graduated 72,000 people and the city and county you sit in have increased their populations by tens of thousands. Again, until its not all about fixed costs that are known, RV will still be the AD until he doesn't want to be. The BOR wants a manager that keeps it in the black, not the red...that, my fellow GMG.com posters, is exactly who RV is, a bought man who does what he is told to do by his bosses. Nothing more, nothing less. The BOR is your center--get into it and change their views, then you can begin to look at better AD replacements. Otherwise, it'll look a lot like it did when Johnny Jones and Hayden Fry left town--who can we get that won't cost much and will not complain publicly.

We won't ever get away from at least one money game against the P5s because it is easy money. You can schedule one game in a season at a P5 juggernaut and get non-revenue sports paid for the entire year with it. And its what almost every G5 program in America does, not just us. I think a 2 for 1 with a traditional power would be worth it, even if we played at the Cotton Bowl for our one, but I know I am in the minority here. But a game in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl against Nebraska or LSU would be possible since it would hold the fans that follow those two powers. And if you somehow win that one game, you have given your program the chance to catapult itself to a place its rarely (or never) been. The Iowa games, when looked at as a money game, is just genius. We play a B1G team, get a huge check, and have to potential to actually compete. I've seen Troy, Arkansas State, MUTS, and FAU compete and defeat a B1G team from time to time in early season OOC play. So, getting those two games is great on that side of the equation. Plus, you don't play name-your-SEC-or-Big XII-powerhouse that has athletes that we cannot compete with ever, leading to severe blowouts almost always. The only problems I have with the two games at Iowa are 1.) that it shouldn't get matched up with another bodybag game in the same season anymore, yet we play at Tennessee, and 2.) we were explicitly told when Apogee was trying to get funded was we would be ablet o upgrade our OOC schedule to bring in more well-known opponets, teams like Iowa... At this point, though, we cannot even consider getting another OOC team to play in Denton until 2020 and beyond unless SMU or Army drops the series with us. With P5 leagues mandating more OOC games against P5 competition and not playing G5s on the road, I don't see a team like Iowa coming here. If I were the AD here, looking at what I have in play now with the schedule, I would look at scheduling only G5 schools for OOC play and try to regionalize it for exposure. In other words, with Army, we play in the NE every two years, while SMU gives a local game every year. I'd schedule a western opponent for a 4 game series, like Fresno State or BYU, then I'd schedule a game in the upper MIdwest, like NIU or Ohio again. Since we play in a southern based league, we wouldn't need any additional SE or Texas exposure with G5 teams, but we would get games across the country each year and have those teams come here to play, as well. And for those that claim we have to have a bodybag game to pay the bills still, then either raise the student fee to a level that powerhouses like UTSA and Texas State charge their students to cover this shortfall or throw this all out and play two bodybags every year like we are this year--if that's the only way we can pay for the AD to run, we need to just ULM or La Tech it and play two bodybag games every year, which is absurdly pathetic for a university of our size in the state of Texas.