untjim1995

In my opinion, this next year is Benford's last unless he finishes at least 5 games over .500 AND we finish in the top 4 of CUSA AND don't lose in our first CUSA Tournament game. And I don't see us doing any one of those, much less all of them. Just got to hope and pray that a really good coach wants to come here and gest hired by RV and the BOR. Football is in a totally different place, as far as athletics is concerned. Oranges vs. Apples. Football gets more funding, more butts in seats, more media attention, and more fan interest, just because we are in Texas. Comparing the results of those two sports isn't fair, either way. I do think that Dan McCarney parlayed a great season into multiple years to finish out his career in Denton, which is at least three more after this past season. It might very well include the last year of his contract if Mac decides to retire and announces it before the end of the 2017 season, which would save UNT his salary for a year. That's a "known" savings, which is why Tony Benford is still here--because we know that his "known" costs are two more seasons of an annual salary of near $400k. Because I have absolutely no faith in Tony Benford at all--and I mean none--I don't think we will fall into the trap that a decent season (see qualifications above) should earn him an extension. As a matter of fact, i expect Rob Evans to be coaching this team at some point in February, taking over for a fired Tony Benford, just as Chico did for Dodge in his last season. And much like Chico, but with a much better resume, Rob Evans might be giving us his interview as more than an interim coach with results on the court. That wouldn't surprise me, either. Benford has been a disaster from Day 1, even if the team got better results in the last two years due to a very watered-down OOC schedule in both seasons. The best he could do was .500 in his second season and with an extension probably availbale to him if he could just get back to that pesky .500 level again, his team couldn't do it. That tells you a lot about a coach and his ability to develop his team in his third year. I understood giving him a second year, even as abysmally awful as that first year went, but when Year 2 was nothing spectacular and grumbling about his job got louder, I thought there was a small chance he would get fired. But he didn't and followed it up with an even worse Year 3, record-wise, yet he gets his ultimatum year 4, where a buyout of just one season is acceptable here. If he gets an extension for anything below the meager expectations listed above, you can expect this place to continue to just flounder in front of about 1200 diehards. BUt I don't see that happening--because I don't believe Benford can coach a team to be a winner...and we have three different seasons to look back on to make that claim.

Sure we have eggs. They are in the music and arts schools.

Have the facilites improved? No question they have. Has our conference affiliation improved? Yes, no doubt. Has our reputation for our football and basketball teams improved within the Texas HS coaches' circle? If you go by recruiting results, the answer is no. Has our attendance or support improved drastically for either sports to help with media coverage or increased funding? Nope Dickey's teams would be just as boring and our recruiting would still suck under him even if we played at Apogee because he was unmotivated at his job unless he thought he was going to get fired. Vic Trilli's teams would still get blown out by other teams even if we got to practice in a new facility or in an improved Super Pit. Neither of those coaches, just like Todd Dodge and Tony Benford, were the right picks for this school. I think Coach Mac was the right pick, but I'm really afraid that we have beaten him down instead of him raising up the morale of the fanbase, like I thought would happen. The way I look at it, in being around here since 1991 or so, the only hire that understood UNT completely in terms of what we have and what we don't have is Johnny Jones. Jankovich couldn't understand Helwig's scheduling for funding strategy, so he left. Simon was basically the same way in football, but he was a timebomb waiting to explode for a lot of reasons. The others on the list included the likes of Tina Slinker, Jimmie Gales, and Darrell Dickey, coaches who had a very few winning years within a much larger time of losing. McCarney, unfortunately, could very well fit in this category if recruiting continues to be terrible. We just never fired them until it was deemed "affordable". And the list includes the "incompetents"--Shanice Stephens, Vic Trilli, Dennis Parker, Todd Dodge, Mike Petersen, and Tony Benford, none of whom ever won anything and just stole money from the university for multiple years.

If there was just one sentence that totally encompasses how easy the AD has it here, this is it...and its why RV will never leave her until he retires. I mean, how can your get rid of a guy who so brilliantly opened up football tailgating for a university in the South? You cannot put a price on that kind of vision...//BOR member

I've advocated for awhile that we should have at least one scrimmage in Frisco at the Toyota Stadium in the Spring. You get a chance to play at a nice stadium, in front of a large growth population, that is fairly close to Denton. If Plano is our best site for the Coaches Caravan,let's try and give that fanbase a nice gift for their fandom--of which Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Prosper, and Allen can all get to very easily and even bring a friend or two. Again, only for a scrimmage in the spring, but I think it would be good for everyone to try something like this. But it would cost money to do it, so the answer is obvious...

This is another fine example of just how much our location hurts us--at least until we beat somebody that the DFW local media and fans care about. SMU is still SWC royalty to the local media, while TCU is officially in the new P5 country club. All we are to the DFW media, for the most part, is a giant commuter school that gets bought for wins by the people they care about, while playing in conferences that are looked down at as being below the highest levels of Texas HS Football. Absolutely sucks for us, even if a lot of it is our own fault...

I don't really have any issue with this--Thursday nights are great atmospheres, too. The student body seems to really like the Thursday night game, too...

OK--I've tried to look at this everyway imaginable to figure out how we could be this low for fundraising. Is it the losing in the revenue sports that has us beaten down? Is it just low effort by RV and his staff? Is it the i-aa fiasco that still haunts us because most of our alumni that are between the ages of 45 and 65 couldn't give a rip about UNT in almost any way? Its all of it...and its all on the BOR and administration. They created this culture, give lip serivce to the few that care about sports here just to keep their money flowing in, and then go back to taking care of their pet projects and areas within the university. Lee Jackson--not fired for being over an accounting fiasco that would get anyone else fired at another school--instead gets extended. RV gets 14+ years to lead an athletic department that somehow gets credit for opening up tailgating for football games, completely ignoring his stellar record for the sports anyone left still even cares about, as well as his scheduling and his abysmal hiring record--anywhere else he is long gone, but here, he gets extended. Todd Dodge and Tony Benford have "coached" their teams to records of achievement so below acceptable in three years that both would have been canned anywhere else--here, they get a 4th year--its just too expensinve to buy out an extra year of $300k for our university...I guess that's true when you have a giant alumni base and community to draw from and you raise $750k while your peers are raising millions. It doesn't change here unless the BOR and administration change directions completely. Until known costs gets replaced by lost "opportunity" costs as the ONLY thing that matters to these people, sports here will always just flail aimlessly. It takes money, it takes athletic leadership, it takes a commitment to winning...none of which has ever been in place or allowed to be in place in Denton for UNT Athletics. Ever.

But is he 6 feet tall?//ChicoandMac

There is a lot of talent in the South, in general, and In Louisiana, in particular. La Tech is generally the second choice behind LSU in that state for HS recruits, plus they are competing aginst non-P5s around them like Southern Miss (who has fallen way down), the SBC schools who are still kind of type-casted as being lower that CUSA schools, and then Rice (academics separate Rice from everyone), UTSA (still new to the landscape), UTEP (far away from most other cities) and UNT (we don't care about winning). Combine it all with a winning history and a commitment to making their revenue teams winners--not just fielding teams, but winning--you get what you have there in Ruston--plus there aren't any other pro teams or bigger names within an hour of La Tech's campus...it must be nice to enjoy that kind of view from your administration.

I'll be surprised if they buy him out for that much. May settle on soemthing or keep him until the buyout drops, but that contract is as bad as a P5 school can give out.

I just think that the location we are in that was supposed to be some huge advantage because of our sitting in this hotbed of recruiting for us to potentially take advantage of has, in fact, turned out to be the opposite. Our location hurts us alot more than it helps us with recruiting--at least it has for several decades now, no matter the head coach, the AD, the stadium, etc... It remains to be seen if we can ever change that perception within the area, but if a new stadium, new coach, and new conference hasn't moved the needle dramatically for us in average attendance or in substantially better recruiting classes, it really shows how low we are in the area's perception. And, yes, I know winning would supposedly change it, but in the very few times it has happened here, it hasn't changed dramatically at all...

Well, it sure as hell hasn't worked with non-UNT grads...

We don't need to add baseball anytime soon. We need to channel every effort we can in spending better on football and our basketball teams. If we are so cash-strapped and poor, donm't spend anything on a sport that won't bring in anything revenue wise to the AD. Put it towards sports that we know can and will bring in fans and dollars. Get those done and then we can go from there to add baseball.

#G5sdonthavemoneyorpull #seeAustin

La Tech also has a few huge advantages over us. That location of theirs plays to their favor--they don't have anyone to really compete for some great talent in northern Louisiana. Not ULM, not Grambling. Basically, they are the TCU of those three, with Grambling and ULM playing the part of us and SMU. Players want to play there because they take winning in football and basketball, both men and women, very seriously. We don't. Also, even with our "superior" location, facilities, and more money from a larger student body and alumni base, La Tech never told their alumni and students that they should just give up and drop down to the old i-aa for 12 freaking years. We lost generations of fans--those that had graduated from UNT, were going to UNT, and those coming to UNT all the way thru the early 00's. We didn't even try to give it a quarter-ass effort until the early 00's with our funding, personnel, and scheduling. Yeah, we know Corky did more with less in the 1-aa years, but 99% of the UNT "fanbase" literally didn't care because of the i-aa thing, especially while the SWC was still very strong. While we were playing int he SLC for 12 years, La Tech went out and recommitted to I-A Football and would soon see wins over Alabama and Michigan State on the road, making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament with their women's teams, and their men's basketball teams have usually been very good. And I really believe our location is more of a hindrance than a plus--yes, we are on the outskirts of DFW, but we still get all the local NCAA competition we can handle, plus the pro sports that dominate our media and fans' interest. TCU has done very well because they started getting Ft. Worth to adopt them as the "hometown" team in the mid-90s and then made football into a big winner, so they created their niche, but we don't have that in Denton--at all. Dentonites don't look at UNT as the hometown team because they think of the pro teams as their hometown teams, as well as following the P5s closely. Maybe its because Ft. Worth wants to have something as its own over Dallas, maybe its because Denton just is more about music and arts, as well as high school sports...I don't know. But that location we are always told is a huge untapped advantage has only shown me that local kids don't want to come here as their first choice for several reasons and all of the local HS coaches and parents look at UNT as a place that just doesn't care about sports, so they rarely help get their kids to come this way. I am of the belief that if we were in Wichita Falls or Sherman, we would be better off as an athletic program than being in Denton. We are just too close to DFW to get true support from the locals or to get any hometown treatment like even schools like La Tech gets or even a school like SFA gets in East Texas. That adds to the college experience of getting away to a more traditional college atmosphere for students and athletes.

Jordan Case would be an awesome person to be the enxt AD--bleeds green, has lots of business connections, and used to play here during a winning timeframe. He would never get the chance, though. We don't hire anyone from UNT to ever be a head coach or in leadership. Its always from somewhere else.

#willgetdismissed #toomanyP5legislators #followthemoney

In Texas HS Football, teams run the spread about 95% of the time--the QBs throw the ball A LOT. Why in the world would a decent QB from Texas want to come play in an offense that throws the ball down field as little as we do unless we are getting clobbered and are trying to come back? I remember in our win at home over FIU, McNulty threw a pick in the third quarter or early 4th and we never threw another pass the rest of the game while being up less than a TD. Recruiting against UNT for a QB has to be like taking candy from a baby.

This is a great question. I'd like to go with the advantage of UNT first, 1.) Its close. 2.) Its a good bargain for the price--kids can live at home or live relatively cheaper in Denton than in College Station, Norman, or Austin. 3.) Good educational reputation in DFW--if kids want to stay in this area, they get some in-roads from emplyers who know UNT produces solid graduates in many fields 4.) We have athletics, unlike other local options--UTA or UTD The disadvantages, at least to me: 1.) UNT will never give off a true big-time college atmosphere for athletics, like at other P5 places or even some non-P5s--this is a true bonding experience for those alums of these schools 2.) UNT's overall rankings in public perception are as a regional school, except for music, which isn't a huge money maker--we can argue on who gets rated higher in those lists, but it does add to our public perception of being a diploma mill 3.) We will always have a large percentage of the student body who just come here because its easy to get in, easy to go back home to DFW, and never plan to step back on campus ever again--large public universities in metro areas always have that issue. It will always be up to my kids where they want to go, but it wil almost ocmpletely boil down to whether they want to stay close to home or at home during college or if they want to go away for a more traditional college experience. If you want to major in something, there are always great places to earn a degree from, no matter the choice. But I do think that many DFW kids look at UNT as a last resort option because of its closeness--thus the community college feel that has pervaded Denton for so long. And the administration loves the "cheaper" cost of attendance, just because it keeps job security at a higher level for the faculty and employees of the university. I do wonder how different my college years would feel as I look back on the last 20 years since I graduated if I had gone to a P5 school like so many of my buddies did at A&M, UT, Tech, Baylor, OU, LSU, Arkansas, OSU, KU, KSU, and others. I can't imagine how cool it must have been to have gone to A&M when they beat top ranked Nebraska at Kyle Field in the late 90s or being a UT alum when they beat USC to wint he national championship. Same with being an Arkansas or KU grad when they won national titles in basketball. Or being like Baylor or Tech when they played and beat some top echelon team that thye get to play every year. None of it adds to a degree value, per se, but it does add value to the connection of the university and its "family" to you, both personally and professionally. When I meet a UNT alum and tell them I went there, very rarely does it involve anything about athletics or anything more special than I went to school there while I worked and havent been back since. Athletics does that at other places, often in a big way. Here, it doesn't even move the needle, unless you are talking to a fellow gmg.com member. And that is why I would encourage my child to realy look hard at where they want to go to school--the major matters first, but the experience matters a close second. And particularly for boys, athletics is what defines that experience the most.

Just shocking that McNulty is the #1 QB--its almost as if Coach Mac trusts him more than anyone else on the roster at QB...oh wait... Andrew McNulty will be under center in Dallas for the opener in our alternate home game. And he will get the majority of snaps all season long. He is the Bus Driver du Jour here. The DT comparisons are about to get put into overdrive in the upcoming months, even if McNulty isn't as good as DT was here. I thought we would win about 3-4 games with DT as our QB in 2013, but our defense and special teams were so awesome, we won 9 games instead. I don't see either of those being close to that 2013 team and our QB play is worse, all while we add in a much harder schedule and only 5 home games. Winning more than 4 games in 2015 would be strongly exceeding expectations to me. I see SMU, Portland State, UTEP, and UTSA as possible wins. After that, they are all either probable losses or just collect the check and hope it doesn't bounce losses. 2016 is the year to get back to 5 or 6 wins, then 2017 is when I see us getting back to that 7+ win plateau again--and that is being optimistic. If we cannot get a decent QB in here to run the most boring offense in the country and actually make decent throws down field, the next three seasons under Coach Mac may not combine to give us 10 wins. I think you have to ready yourself for that possibility if he cannot make any head way with better QBs than we have had since he's been here, unless, of course, we get back to a defense and special teams play like we had in 2013 or under Dickey from 2002-2004. That's the only way you can win here with this offensive philosophy. Otherwise, in the Dickey/Mac years, you have averaged a little over 3 wins when the defense and ST aren't awesome.

Just out of curiosity, where do you see us being on the brink of anything special in the two big sports? In football, we have a horrendous schedule with 2 P5 bodybag games and only 5 home games, of which 1 is against Portland State, we have no QB on the roster that is a difference maker, and we just finished off another 100+ ranked recruiting class for the umpteenth year since we moved back up to FBS in 1995. And our offensive gameplan is right out of the 1960s. To see more than 4 wins next season, in my opinion, takes some seriously green-colored glasses. In basketball, we are bringing back the basketball coach who has had one non-losing season in the previous three, which was because the OOC schedule has been dumb-downed significantly. We have talent, but not enough to make a difference over what the head coach brings to each game. I applaud your fandom, but I just don't see what you see in those two programs being on the brink of anything special, unless you consider special being the brink of hiring a new basketball coach (I do) and of bringing in a new starting QB in 2016 (I do). I think our best chance of getting a .500 program again in football is 2016 at the earliest and basketball probably won't get there for a while when we hire a new coach after next season. I do think that 2017 is the chance to have us get back to being a bowl team in football again, since that would give us a QB who hopefully will have experience as the QB busdriver that Coach Mac needs to run his offense and we will have a few years to build up our defense and special teams again.

So we didn't even make it to April before the first "McNulty is a lot like Derek Thompson" memes get thrown out there. Alternate home game in Dallas to open the season at SMU, McNulty is just like DT was as a Sr. QB, we gotta give Benford a 4th year to see if he can truly coach a D-1 basketball team, etc...this things were as predictable as the sun coming up in the east. We get spoonfed a lot of BS around these parts when it comes to sports that people actually care about.

I think it's beyond sad that it would be easier to try and get a coach here for only a 3 year contract because it would make it easier to replace that coach sooner. A crazy approach that, oh, every single FBS school uses is to actually buy out that contract early if needed.

This is where we are folks...alums who would rather keep people in their current roles just to spite posters on a message board even as they continue to f up our program. No wonder Tina Slinker coached here for 17 years with a horrendous record. No wonder RV will be the AD here until he wants to retire in the next decade or two. Awesome athletics program you are demanding there. The BOR must love your train of thought.