untjim1995

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.

And that is your main problem here, when it comes to athletics. The music program is the window to the university--its popularity amongst UNT's family is unchallenged, not to be messed with or bothered. Yet, before football games, at halftime of games, and at basketball games, a big part of the music program, The Green Brigade, gets to perform. If they scoff at even helping the athletic department advertise the idea of getting more people interested in coming to games, that mindset is hurting the entire university, even themselves. At most schools, athletic success leads to higher enrollment, more donations, and to greater alumni involvement. If the BOR and administration are happy with the current level of alumni contributions, donations, and involvement, then there's just nothing we can do about it. But the endowment here is woefully low compared to other peers, as is our overall academic ranking compared to schools we should be compared with in Texas. No matter how popular our College of Music may be, it certainly has proven over the decades that it isn't raising our awareness enough to get more donations to move the needle. But we can see countless examples of schools that do put emphasis on athletics and see the benefits they enjoy from that success.

Here's a crazy idea--since we all know that the vast majority of UNT Alumni in DFW don't care about athletics that much, but do love some music and arts, why not combine efforts here? Get the Drum Line to play in DFW, get the One O'Clock Lab Band to play at one of the DFW venues...seriously, you would probably triple the attendance and get some potential "buyers" to actually here about UNT athletics, maybe even for the first time ever. Even if they hate football, tell them that your only chance to watch the Green Brigade perform is at our games. If its this bad concerning anyone caring about UNT Athletics, and getting 40 people to an event in Dallas and 60 people to an event in Ft. Worth suggests its not exactly good, and that the primary thing that UNT Alumni really care about is music, then bring them music and tell them how the athletic department can help the College of Music get more funding. If the BOR and the administration will actually allow it to happen, start using the primary windows of the university in music and arts as a way to advertise the athletic programs. I can almost guarantee you that getting the UNT Drum Line or the One O'Clock Lab Band to play at one of these venues would pay dividends immediately to the entire university.

Colorado was also pretty good back then--they didn't need tro consider a series with UNT that was outside of a whore game in Boulder. Now that they are absolutely terrible, with no more game at all in Texas, where they were knonw to get recruits back in those days that got them division and conference championships in the old Big XII, I'd suspect that they could be sold on the merit of playing here. Of course, SMU and UH probably have more appeal to them, but you watch and see them schedule a series with UTSA--then watch as we ask ourselves (again) why UTSA can schedule these teams and we cannot. Obviously, San Antonio is a major tourist destination adn the Alamodome holds a lot of people, as compared to Denton and Apogee. but I still think its at least worth the call. If they say no, tell the media and fans exactly what they said as to why they wouldn't come play here. That alone would go a long way into making alot of us feel like we are actually trying to get a series against a P5 team that DFW fans would be interested in going out to Apogee and watching with their UNT neighbors and friends. It certainly would be easier to get people there than scheduling Northern Colorado, an FCS team that I'm certain will end up in Denton in the years to come.

This. Plus, they play Baylor in DFW every year, not to mention a trip to Ft. Worth every other year to play TCU. Tech and Baylor have no need to play us here in Denton anytime soon, same with the even bigger regional P5s, Texas, OU, A&M, and Arkansas. BUt I'd be on the phone with T. Boone to talk to him about a series with Okie State. Make it a 3 for 2 series, with OSU alternating home games on seasons where they travel to Ft. Worth, just so they can get a road game in DFW every year, which is huge for both recruiting and their alumni base. If Okie State won't do it, call Kansas or K-State about doing the same thing. Hell, MIzzou and Colorado don't even play anywhere near DFW anymore--I'd be willing to bet they would be interested in coming to a hotbed of recruiting for a game or two. All that said, this is a pipedream. We are playing SMU, Army, and a spare FCS team here in Denton for the next 10 years in OOC play. By the time a P5 could be scheduled to play here, they probably won't even be playing G5s or FCS teams anymore.

I watched a game against Tarleton State one year at the Pit that couldn't have had 200 people at it when Jankovich was the coach. He was a good coach, though, He just got stuck with a lazy AD that wanted to pay for the department thru money games on the road in OOC play. Jankovich quit instead of playing that game, so Helwig hired a former UT connection in Vic Trilli, who so was so uber-positive that he said these types of schedules is exactly how UT built up their program, by playing any big-name program at anytime on the road. He forgot that they also had the benefit of playing in the SWC, which featured Arkansas and Houston, both of whom were regulars in the NCAA Tournament, as well as Texas tech in the James Dickey years when they were good, too. We played in the Big West and played UC-Irvine, Idaho, and other teams outside of our time zone. And by the time we got to conference play, we were usually sitting around 2-10 or so and were just beaten down to a pulp by the Maryland's of the world in OOC. Craig Helwig is the curb that RV had to jump over to look great to the BOR and the fans, simlar to what Coach Mac had to do after Todd Dodge and Johnny Jones had to do after Vic Trilli. When your hurdle to look better than the previous person is not higher than a low curb, you can usually look pretty good.

Yet he gets extended again and again. The BOR loves him. So do the very few big donors we have. You either accept it or you go away--just like the other students, alumni, and potential fans have for decades. They are our teams with our alma mater on the uniform. Its not their fault that the leaders above them aren't held to a better standard of success that might actually attract fans to come to games.You either support the kids with your attendance or you walk away. Judging by the 1/2 empty (or more) Apogee at the end of the season home game and the 4/5s empty Super Pit at the end of a season home game, we can fairly easily figure out what side we gmg posters are on and the side the other UNT family finds itself overwhelmingly on.

This isn't a terribly surprising number. I'll say this, when you don't play anyone that people care about for 95% of your home games, you aren't gonna get people out to the stadium if you are losing, even season ticket holders. Even when you are winning, if you are playing a team that Texans don't care anything about, you aren't going to get great attendance. Today's conference schedule is light years better than it has ever been, but you still run into the issue that CUSA's other three Texas schools all play here in the same season, meaning we then play there the next year, thus giving us three non-Texas home games for divisional opponents. The "good" news here is that the Texas schools are here in opposite seasons as our gigantic rivalry game against SMU that supposedly everyone demanded we get. Also, in the SMU years in Denton, we get Louisiana Tech, who Texans do care about way more than they ever did ULM or ULL. So that means we have two or three decent teams to get some people to come watch us play. Obviously, through the years people barely care about any other current SBCUSA team that we play. The FCS thing is even worse, but that horse is already out of the barn now with the wonderful teams like Texas Southern, Nicholls State, Portland State, Incarnate Word, Lamar, and Abilene Christian being on the schedule. Add in the fact that our OOC schedule is basically locked for years ahead, and P5 teams are predictably looking at ways to play most of their OOC non-P5 games at home going forward, it throws more toxicity into the equation . Then, combine all this with the lost generations of the UNT Alumni that don't give a rat's ass about our sports teams, and you have a mountain that almost looks too big to even try to climb, which is basically how the administration and BOR have treated athletics forever here. But the good news is that the recent student body and alums do seem to have a much tighter appreciation for UNT Football than those of the past. And, eventually, an OOC could be built in the 2020s that could attract better names here, G5 teams that will play here if its good for them to play us--BYU, MWC teams and other AAC teams. It cannot be fixed until years from now, but it is fixable. And when the P5s do pull away permanently from the G5s, hopefully our conference affiliation will then include even more regional teams that have looked down on us for decades as potential conference mates, teams like UH, SMU, Tulane, and Tulsa. That could provide substantial saving on travel, as well as the added benefits of closer universities that can bring their fas to each other's place. A BOR and administration could be ready to really demand winning and better revenues from the athletic department, especially if the P5 tit finally runs dry and you have to get revenues in to fund your program. Basically, it is conceivable that the BOR and administration could reverse their position on athletics that has been in place forever here, even it is highly doubtful. What I hope for is that Smaetresk will be the lightning rod here and stir the pot up to get this going and the BOR buys in. He then replaces the current AD, places a huge emphasis on winning, and lets Tony Benford know he has one year to make the NCAA or NIT or in another job, then tells Dan McCarney he has until 2016 to get back to .500, since th 2015 schedule he was given is ridiculously bad for a CUSA school of our size. What I expect is that Smaetresk was told by the BOR to give lip service to athleics, but funding will never be above where we keep it, so anything like the above scenario would result in a firing/early retirement if it was "demanded" for in public. The truism of a leopard doesn't change its spots will probably continue to rear its ugly truth to the very few UNT fans that exist. It is correctable, but the cost would be substantially higher than we have ever given to athletics and would probably result in near-riots among the UNT Family, the 98% who absolutely loathe athletics or absolutely don't care about them at all.

And, remember, the economy has done nothnig but improve since our HoD Bowl win, so you cannot blame this drop on any macro-level economics. We don't care about athletics here. Never have, never will. We like music and arts and cheap tuition. At this point, though, I don't waht else can be done about it that the BOR will do.

BYU thinks they are on the brink of Big XII membership--and they may very well be. If noit, they are still basically a P5 school, as the ACC and SEC consider them that way for OOC purposes. If BYU has to go back into a conference that isn't a P5, which I highly doubt, it will be the MWC. Don't confuse basketball with football--the West Coast Conference is one of the best non-power conferences in the country, with the A-10, the AAC, and the MVC. BYU fits perfectly with the private schools that make up that league. CUSA will keep UAB, until its obvious they cannot. They will hold off until UAB has to admit it cannot have a football team at the FBS level anytime soon. When that occurs, they will add a school from the SBC, probably ULL. Whot eh SBC pulls up to replace them will probably be another FCS school to move up.

Its real possible that the receiving corps here is going to the best position on the team, overall, but it could be wasted if the offense has to stay as conservative as it did last year because the QBs aren't trusted to throw the ball to one of our guys. I just remember the FIU game last season, where McNulty basically didn't throw a ball in the last 10+ minutes of the game, out of pure fear that it would get turned over and we would lose. Sadly, it was probably the wise decision, but it explains the issue we have here with poorly developed QB play. And I don't see that changing much this year. Unless McNulty has magically improved and unless the OL is actually better than I expect it o be, its gonna be a long season offensively.