untjim1995

I've been thinking a lot about our current coach and the recent run of wins the team has strung together. It makes me think about what our long-term outlook will be with the program and it really is difficult to figure out what direction this will go. So I ask you all on gmg.com: What is the best situation for our program, in regards to him being our coach beyond next year? You can make the argument that he has been a huge disaster, that it took him one full year to destroy all of the progress that Johnny Jones made. You can also make the argument that he is showing improvement on the job, based upon his record in the last two years and expereince as a head coach. It really is a two-sided coin--a really good recruiter, but the recruits don't stick often. He's been a bad x's and o's coach and motivator at times, but he has beaten his share of teams on the schedule, as well. Let's assume for a moment that he isn't extended after this season. Next year is his 4th season as head coach, with only one year remaining on the contract. Basically, its the make-it-or-break-it season for both him and the university. What kind of record would he need to have to get an extension by the university (not what you think it should be, but what you think the AD will accept)? I feel like he isn't the guy to really get us over the hump, but I do recognize that he probably is getting better as a head coach, if for nothing else because he was so epically bad in his first year as a head coach. And I do think the AD wants badly to be able to extend him, just for his own resume needing major improvement on hiring revenue coaches. To me, the best thing that can happen next year is to have a really bad team or really good team that makes your decision easy to make. Otherwise, another .500 season or just above that really muddies the water even further on what to do next. What I fear happens here is that we see an improvement of finishing above .500 next year, but still finish middle of the pack in CUSA, yet he gets extended and we get stuck with a bad coach for more years going forward. But it is also clear he has gotten more comfortable in running the team as a head coach than he was in his first year here, so if he gets extended, would we get a better coach as the seasons progress, like Johnny Jones?

I wish the P5s would just finish this. WIth the new scheme of "legally" paying players, they will just increase this each year until the SBCs, MACs, and CUSAs of the college world wave the white flag. Eventually, the AAC and the MWC schools will, as well. Then the P5 teams run their own system, fully independent of the G5 or FCS for good. That day cannot come soon enough for me, at least when it comes to UNT. I wanted UNT to become a P5 eventually. I wanted us to play in a conference that was full of bigger schools. I wanted us to be a place that other Texas colleges wanted to be associated with us as conference mates. The only problem is that when that could have happened, back in the 70s, the small privates, pun intended, of Texas said no. So, instead of looking in other directions for conference affiliation other than the SWC to see about joining, like say, a MIdwestern conglomerate of schools with no Texas team inside of it known as the Big Eight, or even a collection of western teams in the US that already included a Texas step-child like us (UTEP) that was known as the WAC, we decided the very best thing we could do was to instead just quit I-A football and join the Southland Conference for the next 12 years. You cannot tell me that either of those conferences that I mentioned wouldn't have taken a long hard look at getting a presence in DFW. But, nope, the SMU-led privates said we couldn't get in their country club, so our leadership took that as being better to just avoid ever trying to get into any other country club ever again. So the SWC schools said no to us, the leadership at UNT said give up without completely quitting the sport, and the other bigger schools in the region just kept building and building, becoming P5 behemoths that we know have nothing in common with athletically, except for being a bought opponent for early season drubbiings. Even when we finally decided to come up from the i-aa purgatory in 1995, we weren't really ready to move up, fiscally or physically. We played in a dump of a stadium, in conferences that were just full of newbies to i-a, and we lost a lot. We literally fell about 30 years behind the P5s. Oh, I hoped we could bridge the gap with the right coach, winning the right league title or bowl game, and have new facilities that better conferences would want to play in, but it all came too late. And now, with the paying of players "legally", you basically see the true line of demarcation between us in CUSA, UH in AAC, Tech in the Big 12, and A&M in the SEC. The higher or farther you go out, the smaller and smaller we are. A lot of that is our fault, a lot of it isn't our fault. But what is now certain is that we are forever meant to be a G5 program. The funding to pay this out will never be the same--and no P5 recruit will ever choose a G5 school, just on the grounds of money. Yes, they could always transfer down to a G5, and many of them still will, but that permanently slants the playing field even steeper than it already was--and for us, it was already a mountain side because of our apathy and losing history. In the coming years, when the P5s finally get their wish, I want the G5s and the FCS to do something to separate themselves--play on a different day or night than the P5s or the NFL. Promote the heck out of being scholarship-only football. We aren't IVY League, but we aren't NFL-lite factories, either. When the P5s commit infractions from still funneling money under the carpet to recruits, hammer them in the media about the hypocrisy of it all. Highlight former G5s that play in the NFL still, but also those kids who went on to become very successful in their non-sports career. Create regional and geographic conferences that feed into a very predictable and UNDERSTANDABLE playoff system that can be played in December while the P5s toil away for practice in their bowl games or for their own playoff system. Make your championship like the College World Series, where everyone knows where the ultimate landing spot is at the end of the year--say its San Antonio every year at the AlamoDome or Indianapolis at the Lucas Oil Stadium--just make it something that becomes synonymous with our championship pursuit. ADs and presidents at the G5s are going to have to come to these realities at some point. Yes,SMU has millions of dollars, but nobody will ever want them in a P5 league--they don't have enough fans. Yes, UH has a big market and a large enrollment, but nobody in a P5 league wants them--they already have those markets taken. These schools can keep throwing cahs at the problem, but the problem is incurable at this point. Its like having gangrene in your foot, but thinking that you can still run a marathon because you used to. Eventually, that foot has to get amputated. Sure, you can still run that marathon eventually, but you'll never be able to run it like you used to, so you have to come to a new reality. The G5 leagues and schools are going to have to do the same. Or else they are going to waste even more money on paying players that won't help your bottom line at all, nor will it ever give you enough on-field success to finally get rewarded with a P5 spot (unless you are one a very select few in the G5 that would fit geographically with an open slot in a P5 league). Its why I just don't see us playing this pay the players game for very long at any competitive rate. We will never be that school that moves up to P5 status--our location, our history, and our apathy killed that chance from ever happening. And quite frankly, it has too for every school in the G5 that resides anywhere near this region of the country, whether they believe it or not.

I cannot possibly agree with you more. But I also cannot believe that RV isn't going to sell the fact that Benford has earned an extension in his eyes because of what he has straightened out since his first year. You cannot underestimate the very real fact that RV doesn't want another revenue sports debacle on his watch. And you cannot underestimate the BORs desire to do things as cheaply as possible when it comes to athletics.

Sorry about that--I misunderstood the root of your post. I just want us to do something we haven't done before--go and get a head coach for the program that has been an actual head coach at a Division 1 University for more than an interim basis. I just think we could get someone in that position that wants to get another chance again as a head coach, like UTEP got with Tim Floyd. Or go the route ULaLa did when they hired Bob Marlin from SHSU and Texas State did when they hired Danny Kaspar. No more Vic Trillis or Tony Benfords, please...hiring a "recruiter" as thead basketball coach has gotten us about 80 games under .500.

I just cannot imagine a scenario that doesn't involve Andrew McNulty taking the first snap of the season in Dallas. Coach Mac loves the kid and feels more comfortable with him as the bus driver than anyone else. I know Smith is supposed to be great because of his JUCO days (we said the same thing about Greer, too) but not being here until the fall camp is not going to help him beat out McNulty, at least not in McCarney's eyes. I would be just shocked if Dajon Williams or Josh Greer ever step foot on the field again as a Mean Green player, much less taking any snaps as the QB in a game ever again. I think if Chumley can play, he will be the guy that might graduate to being the bus driver after McNulty is no longer eligible after this season.

The lighting is bad in the Super Pit, for sure, and needs to be addressed. But finding the Super Pit is the easiest building on campus to get to, so no Benford, its not the lighting outside keeping people from finding the game. Ithe the "game" that's making people miss the Super Pit--as in I haven't been in the place in a long time. I sure miss watching a good UNT team in the Pit. Tasty is right, of course. The best improvement to the Super Pit would be to bring in a coach that has some skins on the wall from being an actual head coach before. And it doesn't have to be a coach from a former college giant program, either. You cannot tell me that Steve Shields at UALR, Scott Cross at UTA, or Brad Underwood at SFA wouldn't be able to do great things with the advantages of playing in CUSA at the Super Pit instead of their current situations, all of which have involved many NCAA Tournament appearances between the three of them. Benford is learning on the job still--he was a highly-renowned recruiter before he got here. And even with a .500 record last year and possibly another one this year to try and help him look like he is improving as a coach, the schedule remains weaker so that more home games are winnable to boost up his record and the inconsistency of the team is off the charts, which should be laid at the feet of the head coach's lack of experience in knowing how to keep the kids focused and motivated all season long. I do believe that if Benford gets to .500 this year, the idea of an extension will get floated by RV. If Smaestrek is really wanting to show how much his UNLV experience with hoops is top of mind, it would be to make sure that an extension never gets offered for such a low bar. To me, the only way he can get an extension after next year is to make a postseason berth in the NCAAs or NIT (not something bought like the CIT or CBI), which would basically be that he has gotten us back to the heights of his predecessor, who also got extensions for earning the NCAA berths. If RV extends him out after this year, on the basis of "turning things around by having back-to-back .500 seasons, I think we should all be able to see how much this place cares about "winning" in sports. Because an extension for Benford might only have to involve years, not anything materially extra financially, which has historically been the BOR's first determination on stuff like this.

To me, none of them (Pohl, Bataille, or Rawlins) have egg on their face like Lee Jackson does--he's been the chancellor over all of this mess. Yet, he doesn't even get a slap on the wrist...instead, the BOR EXTENDS him out as our chancellor after the budget fraud comes into the front and center. Its almost as if Lee Jackson is just easier to keep, so we will just extend him out, since it won't cost as much as hiring someone else after firing his worthless ass... Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the way we have rewarded an athletic director around here, too...

The question really is how much of a value do they want to put on winning in revenue sports? If it is waht it has been, then music and arts and low tuition will continue to keep us in the same situation--low endowment, disconnected alumni base, and almost zero school pride. The recent decade has seen a lot of improvement in facilities and pay, but the stadium has basically been paid for on the backs of student fees and the pay increases fit with the extra revenues that come from being in a better league (CUSA vs SBC) and higher enrollments. This is what my dream scenario would be from Neal Smaestrek and the BOR. Smaestrek goes to them and says, "We have to make athletics the number one priority outside of academics, just like it was in Vegas. We need to go out and demand a winner, pay more for better coaches, reward winning with monetary increases (not with large extension of years), and most importantly, buy out mistakes when we realize that winning isn't happening here. In other words, the days of letting Vic Trilli and Todd Dodge get 4 years to coach because we will only buyout one year of a contract are over. We either do it right or I let the alumni and students know that we don't want to make this the priority I think it needs to be." And then the BOR says, in agreement, "Yes, Neal, we want this, too. We are allocating $5 million dollars toward helping this happen right now. Buyout what you need, hire who you want, schedule better for the two main revenue sports, etc...Starting today, we are telling our UNT community that we are making this financial commitment ABOVE the current budget to try and make this thing into something its never been asked to do--become a sustainable winner that will not accept losing easily anymore." And then the dream ends as the BOR laughs off such a request and the DRC and NT Daily get filled with angry letters to the editor and columns dedicated to keeping us as a university focused on music and fine arts and low cost higher education. Smaestrek leaves to go to a P5 school with endless resources and we hire the college of music director as the next university president who immediately talks about how we spend too much on athletics, that Apogee is really just a great venue for the Green Brigade and that we would be much better off if we go back down to FCS and join the new SLC, with our old rivals like ACU, Lamar, and Nicholls State, all of who we already play here in Denton anyways...

The .500 extension is still very much in play...

I have no problem with the SMU or Army series, none...maybe a little longer than I would like, but again, I have no issue with either of them. Its the other two that are just ridiculous to me. If you have to have a paycheck game every year, then give your team at least a chance--schedule a Big Ten, northern ACC school, or Pac-12 school. IOW, don't go out and schedule the hardest teams in the whole college football world that have plenty of fans of their own (alums and many more t-shirts) in this area. Losing to a SEC team or southern Big 12 school by 5 TDs or more doesn't help you one bit, reputation-wise. Seriously, when we lose by 70 to OU, all the UNT students and alums who like OU aren't ever going to change their feelings about UNT. Same with UT when they beat us by 65--it just gives more ammunition to UNT students and alumni who grew up as huge UT fans yet another reason to just keep UNT behind them in their full support. To me, if Iowa is your OOC paycheck opponent, you at least have a chance to compete with them, just because they arenb't full of the best athletes in the sport, unlike the powers of the SEC and the Big XII. If we get beat 59-0 by Iowa, then my theory of this being a better opportunity opponent will be completely wrong, but I don't see us getting creamed there, like we do in Austin, Norman, Fayetteville, Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa, etc...PLus, they aren't ahuge amount of Iowa t-shirt fans walking around Denton and DFW, unlike the others mentioned. And, worst of all, playing these teams, either forces you play another bodybag game on the road or a bought FCS game at home--neither of which is good for the program. I'd almost rather us play a second money game if things are that bad around here financially than to schedule a no-win game against Abilene Christian. Just like with Nicholls State, we literally got nothing from that game other than a win that felt like a glorified scrimmage. It didn't help our team in any way, at all. As a matter of fact, it actually made some think that the QB, who put up great numbers on a team that the Guyer HS could've beaten, was better than he was. These FCS games, while apparently enjoyed by a number of alums who want the chance to tailgate together just one extra time, are just a colossal waste of time to the rest of us. Which come to think of it, is exactly how the fans at name-your-southern-P5-giant feels about us being on their schedule--the difference is that they don't need any extra fans. We do, and an alarmingly high level of them at UNT and in Denton, give that major support to those other schools instead of ours.

This is what I was thinking...or heck, even cancel the game if it doesn't really affect the CUSA standings that much (I don't know if that is true or not, just typing out loud here) for the conference tournament. Then again, I don't really have a problem with this. We need the money, the womens team is terrible, and TWU has an open arena to play in. Women's basketball doesn't really move the needle for me, I just don't want it to embarrass the school. Right now, with the record we have, that's what it is doing, even if it is at a much smaller level than the two sports here. When your record is 3-20, you really cannot complain too much about being bumped for anything that brings in more revenue to the school. I'm just glad that they aren't making them play at Denton HS or Strickland MS...

I don't think they would beat them easily, but I do believe that 2003 was the best one we had, just because of the studs on defense and at RB. But 2013 had Chancellor as a kick returner and fairly stout ball-hawking defense, as well. I think that would be a close game--it would also probably be the fastest game ever played, since neither team would probably throw the ball more than 5 times!!

Probably Tarleton State or Midwestern State...and I'm not even kidding.

Here's a crazy idea that probably has never been even thought about at the BOR meetings: BUYOUT a bodybag game and work on scheduling a more attractive opponent here. The spread in costs looks like it is about $500k or so, nothing small, but in the space of college football expenditures and being at a university in Texas with 35K enrollment, I'd venture a guess that we could at least try this once and instead of playing at Arkansas and buying Abilene Christian, you could have found another two opponents to play in a series as a home-and-home, someone like BYU and New Mexico or Boise State and Houston. Again, I'm not even asking for P5s, just give me anything but FCS teams.

Damn, TTG--let him come up for air after that mauling...

Thanks TTG--I agree with what you are saying. I just was hoping against hope that we weren't going to see anymore FCS teams here, but the bodybag game basically requires it. You know, on this season's schedule, the thing that just kills me is playing two bodybag games and the only home game being an FCS team. That is what happened back in 2012, too, with games at LSU, and at KSU, but playing Texas Southern as your only home game in OOC. I just think we get spoon-fed crap here as fans. "Come out and watch us play a team you've never heard of in football and basketball... or else you're not a true fan". "We cannot get anyone big time to come to Denton until we build a new stadium because Fouts is so decrepit...then we build a great venue and play worse teams in OOC play than we did at Fouts". We get told that "if we could get 25k at every game that the bodybag games would go away"...then see them scheduled out for years to come, and with the exception of Iowa, only at the powerhouses of the South, where we will never have the talent to keep up with those P5 behemoths. I guess my point is that I hope you all enjoy the heck out of the Saturdays when the FCS teams come to town. I haven't watched one of them play in Denton since 1997 in the home opener against Illinois State at Fouts. And I won't, either. Its just not worth my time. I'm sure it was awesome watching us plaster Nicholls State by 70+ and that when we beat Portland State this year, it will be awesome for all those in attendance. If that makes me a bad fan, I guess I am.

I'm not sure that I follow, so I apologize ahead of time if I miss the point you are making with the question. I do that alot... If you are asking me if I would've been cool with selling one-and-done games at those places you menitoned at Memphis, Tulane, and Tulsa, the answer is wholeheartedly no, because those schools weren't P5 schools. Even if we were in the lowly SBC, I don't think those would've been acceptable to do one-and-done with. Who we played in OOC competition at Fouts as a SBC team was usually as good or better than what Apogee has brought us. None of the teams you listed should be anything but even series between us and them. Again, I apologize if I missed the meaning of the question...

See, to me, Boise had two huge advantages over us when we moved up. First was location--Boise itself isn't a huge metroplis, but there are enough people around there to support fully the BSU program. I mean, really, what else are the locals gonna support team-wise? They had a built in community to go after. Secondly, the Boise State move up never followed a catastrophic move-down, one that was done in the middle of the hotbed of college football at the time, the SWC. Boise State's alumni and local citizens thought it was just fine to play Idaho State or Portland State--hell, that's who they were playing (basically) for decades before as a i-aa team. After 12 freaking years of being at i-aa, even as the SWC imploded, leaving all of its members to go to other conferences that we could have been joining them in or already playing in, nobody really cared if we played Arkansas State or Louisiana-Monroe or Louisiana-Lafayette. Even when we started beating those team regularly in our SBC halcyon days, about 10k-12k actually showed up to watch us play them. I mean we were winning bigtime and going to bowl games and having national rushing champions...and getting an actual butts in seats crowd of over 15k was a biiiiggg deal. To me, I agree with the sentiment of my dearly departed great pal, Richard Durrett, who said that when the local media talked about UNT football and what it would take to get us to move up in the eyes of the local media and fandom, it wasn't beating the dregs of FBS football or FCS teams only. It was beating a big named school AND beating those dregs. He used to say that UNT cannot get the DFW fans attention if their only wins are over SBC (and now CUSA) teams. It has to be both--that's why that Texas game at the beginning of the year stood out as such an unbelievable opportunity that we wasted--we didn't even compete with a team that went 6-7 and basically got beat by almost every single good team they played. We have shown that scheduling like we have hasn't moved the needle here much at all, attendance-wise. You can say that we haven't been winning, either, but we rarely play anyone here that people want to watch us play. I'm not wasting a second of my own time watching any FBS team play a FCS team, P5 or G5--not on TV, not in person. And more and more, that's waht many fans are saying, since it costs so much to go to a game and it takes so much time now. And its a big reason why the P5s are making their OOC schedules that much stricter, which is good. I just wish the G5s would follow suit and only play each other or P5s in OOC play. Its blatantly unfair--if we hate playing at texas, OU, LSU, Bama, Arkansas, Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Iowa every year because of the bought ass-whipping it brings, what good does it do for a program that needs fans BADLY to buy a game against Abilene Christian or Lamar, where you'll be lucky to get 15k actual butts-in-seats for those games, and that's probably only if its the season opener to prop it up?

I realize that, but other schools seem to be able to do it better than us. Play SBC teams instead of FCS schools, for pete's sake...we look so damn small time, its not even funny. I'd get it if we matched Mizzou up with Incarnate Word or Arizona with Nicholls State, but freaking SMU with Liberty and Army with Lamar? That ain't bringing $78 million dollars back to the UNT community very easily. Its just too bad...

So what exactly did that poster say? I mean I get that containing the excitement of announcing Liberty as an OOC opponent and the renewal of historic rivals in Lamar and Abilien Christian must have been just painful to keep secret--damn CUSA rules!!! Back when we played these teams in the Southland, they never had a problem with us releasing the schedules of our OOC opponents...

Doesn't it feel good to laugh?//normvoice

Liberty, Lamar, and Abilene Christian...do go along with Portland State and Incarnate Word...after Texas Southern and Nicholls State. Why in the world did we pay $78 million dollars for a new stadium and increase fees on the students for this nonsense? Pathetic.

Wow...just wow...I wish I had this kind of luck with stocks or betting.

I never can find a steak knife or an axe when I need one...

Well, it took a complete, fundamental change in the offense, bringing in Sonny Cumbie to run the spread at TCU, that helped Boykin become a great QB. Literally zero of that type of change occurred here after the season...