untjim1995

But how would we ever pay for the athletic department's bills if we cannot play an OOC game at (insert P5 giant here)? You gotta stay in budget and this is the safest way to do that... //typical BOR member Since 1991, my freshman year at UNT, we have played or are scheduled to play the following schools in 41 OOC games in Denton: Abilene Christian (1991-1994), SW Missouri State (1991,1993), Montana (1994), Oregon State (1995), UAB (1995), Idaho State (1995), Illinois State (1996), Vanderbilt (1996), Indiana State (1997), Houston (1998, 2011), UNLV (1999), Baylor (2000,2003), Samford (2000), TCU (2001), Nicholls State (2002,2014), South Florida (2002), Tulsa (2005, 2008) SMU (2006, 2014, 2016), La Tech (2006), Navy (2007), Ohio (2009), Army (2009, 2017), Rice (2010) Kansas State (2010), Indiana (2011), Texas Southern (2012), Idaho (2013), Ball State (2013), Portland State (2015), and Incarnate Word. That breakdown is as follows: 6 OOC home games against P5 schools at the time of playing them (Oregon State, Vandy, Baylor twice, Kansas St, and Indiana) 18 OOC home games against G5 schools when we played them (UH twice, UNLV, TCU, USF, Tulsa twice, SMU three times, La Tech, Navy, Ohio, Army twice, Rice, Idaho, and Ball State) 3 OOC home games against FCS schools that were i-aa when we were still 1-aa (SW Missouri State, Montana) 14 OOC home games against teams classified lower than FBS or Division 1 when we played them (4 against ACU who was D-2 at the time we were i-aa, UAB (weren't I-A yet), Idaho St, Illinois St, Indiana St, Samford, Nicholls State twice, Texas Southern, Portland State, and Incarnate Word) Over a third of the time, since 1991, we have asked our fans to come out to a home game in Denton to watch a team that is lower in classification than we are at the time of kickoff. Our record is 11-1, with two more to play. Less than 15% of our home games in Denton since 1991 have involved a P5 school at the time it was played. (Oregon State was in our first year up to I-A in 1995, K-State closed out Fouts in 2010, and Indiana played here in the opening year of Apogee in 2011). Our record in those 6 home games is 3-3. OTOH, since 1991, we have won exactly two road games against P5 competition (both in Lubbock in 1997 and 1999). And, as we look out in the years ahead, nothing changes in this approach. We literally don't even give the fans or the program the chance to have a defining win that might actual gather some media attention from the local media, much less anything national. I can really argue that our best OOC home wins are Baylor in 2003 (who was absolutely atrocious), Oregon State in 1996 (who was absolutely atrocious), Indiana in 2011 (who was absolutely atrocious), and Ball State in 2013 (who was very good), and Idaho in 2013 (who was atrocious).

Nicely played, sir...

The only other gmg.com predicted statement that we have left to hear is "We believe that Andrew McNulty can be just like Derek Thompson was in 2013, a senior QB that has greatleadership qualities and won't make many mistakes for our offense..." I have no doubt, whatsoever, that this statement is coming. Don't care about what Mac said yesterday about QB play or that Smith may have more talent. Until otherwise stated, McNulty is the Busdriver du jour for this offense.

Absolutley...this cannot be stressed enough. We have MUCH BIGGER buyouts to look at than Coach Mac...

Complelely agree--I really like Mac as the face of the program, as long as his positivity holds up. He's just stubborn in his gameplan, which is the hardest thing to deal with when you don't have skill players that can make plays. But if he wins more than 4 games this upcoming season, it will show us a lot about his system that depends greatly on line development. As a matter of fact, 5 wins or more makes me feel like he's well deserving of the extension he got. The schedule he has been dealt here is daunting for a G5 school in CUSA. It would astound me to see us get more than 4 wins. I just don't see it, no matter who the QB is. But McNulty is his guy and he's gonna lean on the senior at least in the first month of the season. Seriously, that SMU game will tell us a lot if we lose. We may not get more than 2 wins if we cannot beat the Ponies. No matter what, McCareny ain't getting fired after next season. We cannot afford to buy out 3 years of the largest contract ever given out in school history. Maybe two years (doubtful), but defintiely not three. Coach Mac is just showing you how much he wants to get the thing back on track here, not because he's on any hot seat. The seat doesn't get hot until 2016 at the earliest. I still maintain that he will retire at the end of his 2018 contract if he doesn't get another extension. And the BOR here would be very glad with that, so as not to pay out any buyout. Canales is the one on the hot seat--make no mistake about it...

CUSA had to pick us after SMU left if they wanted a presence in DFW still--they literally had no choice. Apogee being built wasn't getting us into CUSA any sooner if SMU was there. I'm sure Apogee was a nice cherry on top of the sundae for CUSA, but if Fouts was still there and we were still parroting around those old drawings and sketches of a new stadium that never had a prayer of getting off the ground without the SGA and Todd Dodge forcing it down the BORs throats, we would still be in CUSA. The damn league is SBC 2.0--it's better, but not by much, than the old SBC. And Green P1s point about who we host at Apogee versus Fouts is spot on. Frankly, I cannot believe that the big money donors here aren't bitching to high heaven about laying down $78 million from various sources to build a stadium that literally has hosted the exact same caliber of teams that the Toilet Bowl Fouts hosted. To me, #itsallajoke, applies to this whole situation. I don't think your buddy, RV, needs to get fired now. Nobody else will get to run the department any better than he has under the UNT BOR. And I know he wants to win, that he probably wishes he could hire and fire as he wants to in revenue sports, but he can't because of the restrictions that the BOR puts on the AD. But arguing about scheduling OOC opponents here at Apogee, after being told specifically that teams like Iowa could be targeted as a reasonable opponent to bring down here now, then signing a 2 for 0 deal with them, it all just screams small time. Look, if we need these games to pay the bills, just say it. Its ok--nobody at UNT is going to be surprised. Play 5 games schedules in Denton, with 2 bought beatings a year, and then 2 home-and-home series with actual opponents people might care about. I'll never step foot at Apogee for Texas Southern, Nicholls State, Portland State, or Incarnate Word--my time with my small children and wife are way more valuable than that. Obviously, a huge majority of people feel the same way. Its hard enough to make that sacrifice for the SBCUSA teams we play, but at least they are all G5 teams. If RV said tomorrow, that in 2020, we are playing BYU in a home-and-home series and that it would be our only home game that season in OOC, I'd be thrilled. As a matter of fact, I'd pay 50% more for that game, too, just because its a marquee opponent. SMU and Army are fine OOC opponents--love both as a series to be played, but neither should be your PRIMARY OOC home game. If they are equal to the other home OOC game, that's fine. But don't sell either of them as some great coup that we got them on the schedule, so if we are really lucky, we'll also get Nicholls State or Incarante Word to match up with that powerhouse SMU!! To put it in comparison, SMU is hosting us this year in Dallas. Their other OOC home game is against Baylor, while they travel to Ft. Worth for TCU. That's how you schedule OOC. Whether that's on RV or the UNT BOR, its a disgrace. Apogee may have saved the future of the program as a G5 school for decades to come, but other than that, our program still has a lot of "Fouts" in the way we run the major revenue sport at UNT. Scheduling, to me, is exhibit #1 to this fact...

Yep, that's all he has to do. Since they hired him, don't you think they made it clear that athletics is never gonna be the primary window to the university? Look at his first answer to the question that was linked about attendance at athletic events--he mentions the Green Brigade. That tells you all you need to know. The president of Texas Tech isn't answering that question by saying anything about their band, nor are the presidents at TCU, SMU, or any other FBS school in the region. Music is the primary window here--and that's what the UNT community and Dentonites overwhelmingly want. Frankly, we have no idea what a big winner would look like here in either of the big two sports. It'd be nice to see, but if Fry's success ever happens again here, sustained ranked seasons, that might be the only way things could change. But the BOR and administration showed everyone back then how they truly felt about athletics after he left--you can only hope it would be different the next time, and that assuming it can ever happen here again, which it hasn't since Fry left in 1978.

None of it makes a damn bit of sense. McCarney's positives (his attitude, personality, history of development of linemen) haven't moved the needle one bit with recruits. Now, that attitude appears to be going the way of DIckey, who basically just gave up. I just don't understand it. And the previous regime's had some good linemen, especially Dickey, but even then, all we could be were the dregs of college football, except for Cincy in the '02 NO Bowl. Again, it makes no sense. Dodge was going to get the benefit of the doubt at first because of name recognition, but once it became abundantly clear in his third year that college coaching wasn't his thing, the remaining talent just needed a boost from a real staff, which McCarney did do, just to give him credit for that. But how that hasn't improved recruiting is just beyond me. It hasn't mattered if its Simon, Dickey, Dodge, or McCarney--our rivals recruiting ranking has been between 86 and 123 since '05, witth only three of those years being better than 100 ('10=99, "08=86, and "05 =95). Obvioulsy, losing is the only common issue in that timeframe, but you'd think that somehow, somebody would've sold playing time as a great recruiting chip and that some kids would have taken it. It really makes you wonder if you can actually build a consistent winner here--we have had 4 winning seasons in 20 years of Division 1 football. I'm not ready to agree with Dickey and Mac and complain about recruiting here being extremely difficult, especially with the facilities and CUSA, but it all just doesn't quite add up--very perplexing. In the end, it doesn't really matter, since Mac will be here for at least three more seasons, maybe even 4. But it really doesn't make a bit of sense to me, at least, how recruiting just seems to languish here, year after year after year.

There is just no way that Smaestrek will ever get the BOR and administration to fire RV for something like losing. He'd have to have either missed budget (gasp!!) or done something unethical (like speak out about the wisdom of making athletics a secondary window to a university in Texas) to get canned. He has the safest AD job in America. Benford was never going to get fired if he won more than 5 games, which was a layup considering the schedule he got this year. Its just a matter of if he can get to that magical .500 number for an extension, which is highly doubtful right now. As far as Petersen goes, he will probably be here until his actual contract runs out if Benford doesn't get extended this year. IIRC, Benford's contract is up in 2017, meaning 2016 is his make-it-or-break-it year. Since very few people care about womens hoops, you can easily see a situation develop where Benford got bought out after 2016 and then Petersen gets let go of after the 2017 season, which is when his contract expires. If anyone got bought out early, it would assuredly be Petersen, since the known costs of that buyout would be $500k, whereas benford's buyout would be a known cost of around $650-$700k. As we all know, known costs are THE determinant for any personnel changes at UNT. Now if Benford pulled off the miracle of reaching .500 and gets an extension after this season, then I think you can make a clear call that next season would be Petersen's make-it-or-break-it season, since that would just be one buyout to deal with. Right now, Benford's and Petersen's contracts run out in the spring of 2017, while McCarney's runs through the 2018 season. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on Benford getting extended after next year until 2019 (RV badly wants this hire to not be deemed a complete failure even though most of us feel like he already has been one of epic proportions), Petersen gets fired in 2016, and McCarney either getting bought out in 2017 or announcing his retirement so that 2018 will be his last season and we don't have to pay out any buyout for him. And RV will be the AD well into the 2020's.

I can almost guarantee you that McNulty will start. He's a senior, Coach Mac loves him, and he is an experienced busdriver. McCarney already said he's the starter going into 2015. Assuming that all of that is true--and I really believe it is--I see us at 3-9 or 4-8. 5-6 wins is possible, but not likely. Anything above 6-6 as your expectation means you are a true homer... We beat SMU and Portland State, as well as wins over UTSA and/or UTEP, which gets us to 3-4 wins. It is entirely possible that we win less than 3 games--much more likely than winning 5 games. I'm just going on the belief that SMU isn't going to be much better than they were last year--if we beat them by 37 points in Denton last year, I'll take us to win a close one in Dallas this year. They aren't going to that much better than they were last year (at least early on) and we aren't going to that much worse than we were last year. Even playing that game in Dallas won't change this--we win a close game, like 27-24. If we lose that game, I really don't see more than a 2-10 record, at best.

No offense, and I'd rather us win in those sports than lose, but nobody cares about either of those sports, except for the friends and family of the players. If you have to prop up an ADs job performance (not saying you are, BTW) by trumpeting soccer, softball, tennis, golf, track, etc...well, that tells you all you need to know. At other schools in the country, if you cannot win at one of the big 4 sports, football, mens hoops, womens hoops, or baseball, you aren't gonna stick around as the AD for very long. But here, you keep your job for 15 years, receiving numerous extensions. Look, its not just athletics, either. Lee Jackson got extended AFTER the accounting fiasco that still totally hamstrings the entire university from knowing what they can budget for as we move forward. The BOR here literally looks at the cheapest path forward on everything--tuition, budgets, capital expenditures, etc..."value" is all they care about.

As far as the schedule goes, I would be just fine with 5 game schedules--if it meant that the one OOC game was a stronger home opponent than SMU or Army. ULM--I cannot believe I have to go down this low for a comparison--has had several 5 games home schedules, but have hosted Baylor and Wake Forest in Monroe. Baylor is greater than SMU, Wake Forest is greater than Army--its that simple. For RV, his job was done for scheduling with getting the SMU and Army series done for a long term. He got the program that UNT fans wanted (shaking my head) to play in SMU for a long series--not realizing just how much better this is for SMU than us, since we actually will bring a few thousand fans (or more) to Dallas, while they bring about a 100 or so to Denton. This isn't even counting the fact that SMU sucks so bad right now that they will buy this sucker out as soon as we win another game or two in the series. Their money will rescue them if the team cannot do it. Think about that for a second--if Tulsa leaving CUSA got us Idaho and Portland State, what the hell would a series that gets cancelled by SMU bring us in OOC games in Denton to replace them? We would either be playing more Texas Southerns, Incarnate Words, Nicholls States, etc...or we will just schedule out another P5 road game. And as far as RV goes, his biggest pluses, in no particular order, are as follows: 1.) Opened up tailgating for football games--the fact that no one before him felt that a football team in Texas on a Saturday might like this idea absolutely tells you just how low of a bar RV has had to jump to be the best AD we've ever had. 2.) He stays within the budget that the BOR gives him--number one priority at UNT, without complaining. He can stay here for another 15 years if he wants, just as long as he stays within that budget. 3.) Extended Johnny Jones twice. 4.) Hasn't resorted to playing most OOC games at other p5 giants, like Helwig did in both football and basketball. 5.) He's very likeable and accessible, at least compared to many other ADs at other schools. To me, his minuses, which are glaring, are: 1.) Poor hires and extensions in the money sports--Dickey (the 2nd time, when no one was even attempting to hire him away), Dodge, McCarney's recent 5 year extension that looks way too long, Shanice Stephens, Tony Benford, and Rick Petersen. The record of the three sports that people actually might pay to watch is just abysmal under his watch... 2.) His revenue sports scheduling is beyond pathetic, even if he gives us a home game or two in football that Helwig wouldn't have done. In mens hoops, we get about one team a year in OOC that is worth trying to sell to others to come watch, like Creighton this year. Otherwise, Northwood, Langston, Houston Baptist, PVA&M, etc...dot the schedule as the usual type opponents we get to an arena that could easily hold a decent crowd for marquee opponents. 3.) Blames players in public for being the culprit of the team's woes, which just throws more gas on the fire for the recruiting issues we already deal with here at UNT. 4.) He knows that all he has to do to keep his job is to stay in budget--winning and losing don't matter at all to his job status. He literally does the bare minimum needed to keep his job, which is detrimental to the programs ever gaining much popularity here.

That's all we are trying to say here--RV had to stay "underground" just for this to have any chance of passing. If you give him credit for that, so be it...but most of us don't give him credit for getting the new stadium because the SGA had to do the heavy lifting.

Thank you...you basically just donkey punched Mean Green Texan in the junk.

FIFY He had to basically go into hiding so as not to attract any extra attention that the "stealth" campaign led by UNTFlyer would get from his involvement. Or else it would've gotten all the anti-athletic students out to vote. That was the loudest complaint after the vote passed, that it wasn't promoted enough to the students. Whether that argument is valid or not isn't really the point--the best thing that could've occurred for the future of UNT Football was to have your AD basically hide in a bunker. Honestly, that isn't even RV's fault--its the reality of athletics at UNT and the way it is looked at by the student body, faculty, and administration. RV had no choice if that thing was gonna pass--which I still feel like was a miracle.

The sadder part was that we then signed a 2 for 0 road series with Texas Womans University since they were just Pioneers and not Indians, who were P5 in their day. The AD back then sold the TWU series as "alternative" home games that our fan could get to very easily...

No offense, but if you've followed UNT athletics for anywhere close to 15 years or more, you should know that a change isn't happening--not at AD, not at head coach, nor from the BOR. You're gonna have to change to accomodate them--its either accept this as is or leave. That's why we have about 15k as an average at a university with 36k students, 200k in local alumni, and millions in the DFW area to pull from. It is never going to be the priority you want it to be. You either accept that they are yours and follow them or you accept that we don't care about sports like other places do and you leave here. There literally is no "in between" here--at least it hasn't been since 1990, when I started following the program. And from what the old timers around here post, it doesn't sound as if it was much different before then, either, from a leadership standpoint.

The schedule is what it is. RV is the AD the BOR is fine with, so its not changing here anytime soon. Its beyond terrible to have three of your five home dates to be on Texas/OU weekend, Halloween, and after Thanksgiving, but its par for the course around here--we almost always play a home game on the worst weekend possible to host a game in Denton, but nothing really changes there, either, so... So the question is how do you make the best of this? Well, besides winning bigtime, which doesn't look that possible to me, beat the teams you can beat. The first is to beat SMU in Dallas. They are terrible--don't care if they overpaid Clemson's OC to come here and he knows every single Texas HS coach like they are family. They are really, really bad. If we don't beat them, we have two other 50/50 opponents besides SMU (@USM, and UTSA), other than the obvious Portland State game. So secondly, you win those games, that gets you to 4 wins. Maybe steal a win over one of these teams (WKU or UTEP) and that gets you to 5 wins. I don't see us beating Rice, Marshall, La Tech, or MUTS in CUSA play, just from a talent standpoint. Lastly, make sure the check doesn't bounce from Iowa or Tennessee. I really hoped that we could compete at iowa this year, but now my only hope is that we can in 2017. McNulty isn't going to be able to lift a team like this to victory against anyone who has talent--he's just not that kind of QB. And the talent on this team, especially on defense and on the OL, isn't developed anywhere close to being ready to compete with the CUSA bullies or the P5 giants. I look at this schedule and realize that there is a real chance we go 2-10, but probably more like 3-9 or 4-8. I just cannot see anything at 6 wins or higher out of this bunch right now. The developed talent isn't there, the gameplan isn't there, nor is the QB play there. To get back to a 2013 type season, you're gonna need two of those three to be there, at least. Derek Thompson had a great defense, special teams, and running game to lean on, so even if he wasn't sharp, the team could still have a chance (Ohio or UTSA in 2013). At least from my view, as a simpleton fan, I don't see it being that good. I'd take a 5-7 season right now, just for improvement sake--but I really don't see that as anything more than a dream right now.

Interesting read--we spent $24.6 million on sports last year, ahead of FAU, Charlotte, Southern Miss, and La Tech in CUSA, as well as Kent State, Toledo, Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois, and Bowling Green in the MAC. I'm going to assume we are outspending the majority of the SBC by quite a bit, as well. Those AAC budgets really show you the difference between our level of G5 and those in the AAC and the MWC. I would surmise that UConn has a larger budget than a lot of P5s right now, since their costs were over $70 million last year--of course, they turned that into another men's basketball championship and another women's basketball championship, too. That's why they will be in the ACC or B1G fairly soon.

That turf we had at Fouts at the time was basically painted concrete. It literally had no softness at all. We used to water it down before games, just to try and soften it up--Matt Simon read that was supposed to help with limiting knee injuries because the turf wouldn't grab the feet as bad if it was wet. Yours truly got to go out and attach a fire hose and water the field down for hours before a game--such fun to start watering a field at about 7am on a 30 degree morning or at 2:00 on a 95 degree day on turf that added an extra 15 degrees from the radiated heat bouncing back at you...

Great stuff--I love this analysis too, even if I have no idea if its good or bad...it looks smart, for sure. But that last bolded sentence cannot be further from the truth. Nothing in 2015 will matter, contract-wise, for Dan McCarney if we go 0-12, 6-6, or 9-3. I think his JUCO recruitment is in line with what Dodge did at about this point in his tenure here, which is try and hit JUCOs up for playing time at a school that needs them. Our Texas HS recruiting has been atrocious for so long that a new coach always comes in here thinking it will change, then finds out it won't, and then hits the JUCOs to try and make up the difference just to field a team that he hopes can be competitive. I went back and looked at our Rivals recruiting class rankings from 2005 thru this year's 2015 class. We have ranked above 100 three times ('05 we were 95th, in '08 we were 86th, and in '10 we were 99th). Otherwise, every other year has seen us rated between 100 and 123--that Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, and Dan McCarney in that 11 year span. All three coaches had to learn the hard way that the Texas HS kids weren't coming in droves to UNT 9for whatever reasons) and that JUCo talent had to be brought in to try and help the situation. To me, that doesn't make this year any more important for Mac to turn things around and show he is anything but average. It really just talks about the fact that his approach to his entire program is built completely on building up talent on the lines and having a solid running game with an experienced busdriver at QB. If 2015 goes badly--I don't see more than 3-4 wins on the schedule right now-- it still isn't costing Dan McCarney his job. He will coach here until 2017, at the bare minimum, assuming his health holds up just fine.

If you think RV feels that Benford is a shitty coach, especially after all of his public comments about his team being the problem and that Benford is growing into the role as a head coach, I don't know what to say. Maybe he says that in private, but I really doubt it--RV needs (badly) for Tony Benford to not be another colossal failure in revenue sports like Todd Dodge, Shanice Stephens, and Rick Petersen have all been under his leadership. And those extensions of Dickey and McCarney under Rv's guidance haven't really worked out for him. Only Johnny Jones was a success--and that was after five years of extreme medicority that followed the worst basketball we have ever witnessed at the Super Pit. If Benford can get to .500 again, he can say that he has made strides in getting the program back in the right direction (in his opinion only) and that it really won't cost the unviersity too much to extend his contract out a couple of more years at the same pay. If the BOR has proven anything over the years, it is that this kind of approach to athletics (cost vs. winning) will be fully embraced. The real problem for RV and Benford is that a .500 record this year is a really tall hurdle going forward--it could be that we leap over it, but it is doubtful. But just like RV told Dickey in 2001 after we lost to ULM and couldn't fire him because of the BOR, he told him needed to see some wins to justify an extension. Dickey ran off 5 straight wins, a conference championship, and a bowl berth. Maybe Benford gets the same message and the team squeezes out those 7 wins needed to get to .500. At North Texas, you can never count out the reality that we will reward a coach for accomplishing very little. Too much history to think otherwise, IMO...

I'm fairly certain that the governor who appoints BOR members takes into account the recommendations he gets from current BOR members, administratioin officials, and other alumni leaders at each school. I cannot even imagine how few actual UNT Athletic fans have been even considered to be on our BOR over the decades. Yes, they might cheer for us or give lip serive to being big fans, but then they hire the Bataille's of the world how tell you in public that they love sports and go to games, but then use their influence to alter decent progress in the department. Just for a moment, imagine another Texas college president saying to anyone, "A football coach will never make more than me"--they would never even make it to the end of the semester for that kind of short-sighted remark, just because of the revenue that athletics generate for a school. IIRC, its also been said she wanted Shanice Stephens as the head basketball coach for the womens team. If that is true, and if RV hired her for that reason, I have to even wonder why you have an AD to begin with if you don't let him make the official hires. For this to change here, you are almost going to have to have the BOR get Souter-ed by several people...members who tell the BOR they will keep athletics secondary, but decide to fund it and lead it as the primary window of the university--like every other FBS school in America does. GOod luck on that happening in your lifetime--I'm 42 and I don't expect to ever see it happen.

That's not up to RV--its up to the BOR and the administration (see Jackson, Lee). His job security is from not complaining about that said fee or any other funding issue.

I think its possible that we could ge there. Rice, Marshall, FAU, FIU, Charlotte, and UTSA are all winnable. At WKU, UAB, MUTS, ODU, and at UTEP are all probable losses, but going 7-4 with that group isn't that out of the question. I don't think it will happen, but it could. And if RV reiterates to Benford that .500 means extension, then you never know what could happen.