untjim1995

So far, since Apogee has been built, we have hosted or scheduled the following teams to play in Denton at a brand new stadium: Houston, Indiana, Texas Southern, Idaho, Ball State, SMU, Nicholls State, Army, and Incarnate Word. In the previous 3 years before Apogee, at decrepit-ass Fouts, we hosted Tulsa, Ohio, Army, Rice (back when weren't conference foes), and Kansas State. I love Apogee--but I continue to wonder how long its gonna be before people who hate athletics around here are going to ask why we spent $78 million dollars to build a facility to play opponents that Fouts hosted, especially when we are in the new i-aa again, after the P5 split away. Wouldn't it be ironic if Lee Jackson and the BOR got replaced because they allowed a huge expenditure to get made on a football stadium?

FIFY

That website just depresses me...as does playing Incarnate Word in anything. How does that game help you at all? Just as the Nicholls State game showed, these games do nothing for you, except give you a win and to see what it is like to be on the other side of a bought victory. Nobody wants to go watch these games, the results show you nothing about what your team will do against your regualr competition, and they don't even bring any fans with them to help you at the gate. If youre gonna play FCS teams, schedule SFA or SHSU, for goodness sake...they at least have alumni who will go watch their team play that numbers more than 20.

No one seems alarmed that we gave up 100 points to a NAIA school...

You're better than me, then, because I thought the Benford hire was at-best questionable. I wanted an experiecned head coach, as well. Someone like Shields at UALR or the head coach at ULL that used to be at Sam Houston. I liked the Fraschilla idea, too. But, if you went the assistant route, then Coach Forrest from the previous staff under Johnny Jones would've made more sense to me, just for continuity. Going forward, I'd go after Brad Underwood for sure, but he's probably not going to be available by then.

That's my point--we do battle them for recruits. They want to take advantage of home games with us to nnot only win, but to do it in front of recruits from Texas that we are all recruiting.

#slowclap

Benford showed up??

I think we will beat FIU at home, but I don't see us winning either of these two games on the road. UTEP is just a better team than we are right now and they are playing at home, which we have shown that we cannot even compete on the road for 4 quarters. UTSA and us are equal, but they will also be at home. PLus, you cannot forget the recruiting factor that both coachers at UTEP and UTSA want to take advantage of by getting wins over us, especially UTSA.

I think they have joined Baylor in offering benefit$ that aren't publi$hed... In Waco, its called a Bible full of cash...In College Station, its probably a Corps Boot full of cash.

Its hard for me to post that I am willing to give this thing a new shot, especially after the last two years. I think he has a schedule to make some hay at home in OOC, but I just don't see us beating anyone who has a chance at making the NCAA Tournament. As I posted the other day, I see us going 6-2 at home in OOC play, 0-4 on the road in OOC play. CUSA has some good teams at the top, but its still a one-bid league, probably La Tech's or UTEPs to earn. I see us winning 7 or 8 games in conference play (including the conference tourney). That gets you to a record of 14-17, which I think is about the best we can expect for. If we get to 16 wins this year, that means we are guarenteed .500 or better. With this schedule, that's possible. And with this AD wanting to show everyone that Benford wasn't a complete failure, I'd expect RV will be ready to extend Benford out another year or two, which would give him 3 or 4 more years to coach here. If Benford wins between 5 and 15 games, he'll be back with a make-it-or-break-it 4th year to coach, which would require a winning season to get him an extension. Under 5 wins would probably mean that Benford gets fired--I think...after watching Vic Trilli and Todd Dodge get 4th years after 3 awful seasons leading up to that 4th year are the examples of why I cannot say it would be a certainty.

This. When Johnny left to go back to LSU, we should've hired an experienced head coach, or at least hired a coach from Johnny's staff to take over and keep some continuity going for the players. What was a bad idea was to hire an assistant coach from outside the program that has never been a head coach. What was a worse idea was to hire one who was known to be a great recruiter, not an x's and o's coach, just like Trilli was when we hired him. What was the worst idea was to hire one who was an alum of a giant P5 school in the state, so if he was any good, he would've been Tech's head coach wihihn a year or two. And if he wasn't any good, we were stuck with him for 4 years. We went the worst route possible...

Or Nicholls State?

Great point and I think you are right about the defense figuring out the up-tempo offenses, too. Hell, Saban tried to get the rules committee to change some of the rules regarding the no-huddle offenses on the grounds of "safety", but that was easily seen as benefitting the defense, which was his main reason for doing it. But he (or someone like him) will figure it out, I'm sure. And it will be awesome to go back to real football instead of glorified tag football at the schoolyard.

At a school like ours, you're just going to have to develop these no stars, 1-stars, and 2 stars into 3 and 4 star type players, particularly in the front seven on defense and on the OLine. We always have a solid stable of running backs and we usually have a decent corps of WRs. But its the front seven that will determine if the secondary is great or putrid (there's generally no in between here) and its the OLine that will determine if your running game will give that defense the rest it needs. Last year, we had all of that, in Year 3 of Mac's tenure. Then we lost a ton of starters. Now, we are basically in Year 1 again, based on the results we have seen--the question is if it will take just a year to rebuild or if it will take 2 or more years. One thing is for certain, though. It won't be because of the QB. Since we moved back up to Division 1-A in 1995, we have had one QB who could've been a legitimate passer for an entire season, Giovanni Vizza. He had the size and the arm--he just got beaten up so bad during games in his freshman season and beaten down so much off the field because of the Dodge-coached program he got involved with here that he didn't have the heart to keep going, so he quit. Other than that, no other QB we have had since then was a QB that you could look at and say that he had the potential to lead a conference in passing or win a game with his arm. Its just how it has always been here--Simon, Dickey, Dodge, or McCarney--three of them couldn't or didn't recruit decent throwing QBs, while Dodge did, but he was incompetent at actually running a college program. That is why we know that the only path to success we have seen here has been thru the busdriver-offense route, which rode the coattails of a great defense and special teams, as well as a dominant running game to keep the clock rolling and keep the defense off the field.

I agree, but even Alabama has had trouble with that offense in past years, with losses against Texas A&M and Auburn. All that said, you're right in that those teams have the athletes to at least hold their own against it. I just think that the Texas HS offenses running this spread actually stunts some defensive development because of practices that aren't full tackle contact (see Todd Dodge here). Unless you have a coach who can teach defensive skills, like Patterson at TCU seems to do better than most, you have to take the good with the bad and try to develop them into decent players over time. At some places, Baylor or Tech or A&M, defense is just given a token amount of coaching and the focus is on offense. And even at places with coaches who are good at developing defensive teams, like TCU and even here with McCarney, you can still get caught up in track meets because of the rules and the immense amount of offensive talent that exists on rosters in the state of Texas. Schools like Texas and Oklahoma are finding out that their defenses are not equipped, for varying reasons, to stop the spread offenses. Whether they go full bore at being offensive-focused teams like Baylor and A&M right now or find a defensive scheme that can stop those offenses enough to beat them regularly is the biggest question they face. The problem, again, though, is that the majority of your recruits play this glorified flag football, so you've got to be able to teach how to hit and tackle very quickly, which is obviously easier said than done in today's college football world.

To me, the point isn't DT--its Coach Mac. This is his offensive gameplan. H eloves the Stanford model--beat you up with a strong running game a great defense, mixed with solid to spectacular special teams. The QB is a busdriver. This year's team has a porous defense against anyone with a pulse on offense, the special teams is decent, and the OLine hasn't played well for the most part, except against three bad to they-may-be the-worst-team-I've-seen-in-decades-bad programs. Next season, these two things determine our success--whether our defensive front seven improve strength wise so as to put more pressure on the QB, and if we can develop a new OLine since so many guys will be done. If so, then we are a bowl team next year. If not, we win 3 or 4 games at the most in 2015. McNulty's play (or Greer's) won't determine that anymore than it has this season. Who Dan McCarney needs to find and get here is a Scott Hall type QB--one who is gritty and just comes off as a leader, but can be a solid busdriver, too...

Count me in, as well, as someone who thinks the spread offense is glorified backyard football. I don't know how or when, but some defense is going to figure out how to punish that offense and it will end it for good. Just like the wishbone and option football got dealt a crushing blow when defenses figured out that you had to get quicker LBs at DLinemen to stop it, someone is gonna figure this out. I like the 20-13 game way more than the 82-27 game.

I like MAc a lot--and I don't fault him for following his gut with the offensive gameplan he believes in. But what else is he going to say when asked this question? Its not like he's gonna say, "Well, our old school offense really doesn't appeal at all to any decent passing QB in this state, which is too bad, since 95% of them play in a spread offense." I think we have 3+ season to show that QB bus drivers are the best this offense is ever going to attract, especially now that Dajon Williams has been removed from being the starter because he couldn't drive the bus well enough. Derke Thompson and Andrew McNulty are going to be the QBs that we will have here under Mac. He wants kids who buy into his entire philosophy and won't kill them with several stupid mistakes per game. He is fine with limited capability at that position if it means we don't turn the ball over a lot and have a power running game. It is a new Buick, driven by a more upbeat and PR-savvy head coach than the old model we traded in back in 2006. McNulty will start here next year, mark my words. He will be the next "Derek Thompson", a solid-SR QB that will show great character and leadership. What that really means is that if we have an OLine that can develop into something next year and the RBs are solid, we have the chance to have a 2013-like season again. If not, it will look a lot like 2014 again...

I'm gonna bet this helps Tech more than it hurts them when the real season begins. Tubby has their full attention now--and as much I cannot stand their stupid fanbase, Tubby knows that Lubbock becomes a much tougher place to play when conference season rolls around if they have any kind of decent team. He will get them ready. It wouldn't surprise one bit if Tubby didn't "throw" this one to get the players attention...

I guess that's why the MAC is just SEC-lite...who could possibly expect to beat those two juggernauts in back-to-back weekends?

Here's the thing about Lee Jackson. To alot of us on this board, he is an idiot, for several reasons. The athletics fee that we charge half of what powerhouses like UTSA, Texas State, and Lamar legally can and do charge just kills me and is right up there for a primary reason that I feel that Jackson is terrible. But here's the rub--to the vast majority of UNT's family circle (BOR, admisnistration, faculty, student body, alumni, and Denton citizenry) Jackson is a great chancellor. He is protecting their interests that have stood for decades (low costs, focus on education and arts/music, avoid athletic funding as much as possible). A lot of us can bitch about Lee Jackson, but just like RV, he is the poster boy of how the UNT BOR wants things run. If you don't believe this, ask yourself what other university system would keep a chancellor on board and EXTEND HIM after a multi-million dollar scandal occurs that will cause major budget shortfalls, of which dirty old athletics get the lion share of the cuts? We don't like athletics here--its not because we have an incompetent administration, its because we have always had an adminstration that competently protects the interests that the school has always put on a pedestal.

worst....thread....ever....

Best wins in my opinion: 1.) beating Cincinnati in the NO Bowl--winning a bowl game as a conference championi was nice, but Cincy choking away a game earlier in the season at home against Ohio State (who went on to win the national championship) made the win even more impressive. 2.) beating Tennessee in Knoxville--The Vols are always going to be NCAA royalty, even when they aren't great, just because of their history, stadium, and conference. 3.) beating UNLV in the HoD Bowl---winning a game at the historic Cotton Bowl, on New Years Day, in front of 40k Mean Green fans was a dream come true for those of us who grew up in the area and remember that stadium always hosting SWC champions. First time in my life that UNT Football actually got some strong media attention in DFW. 4.) beating Texas Tech in 1997--it was our third year back as a Division 1-a team and we beat a Big XII team that was a SWC legacy program at their place on a last minute TD, causing George Dunham to exclaim, "Do You Believe in the Mean Green!!!!" , which still gets played on The Ticket when Georgio talks about UNT. The next week we gave A&M a pretty strong game for about 3 qtrs at Texas Stadium and we all thought we were on our way to winning the Big West. Then, we couldn't get up for any of the Big West teams and got beat by Idaho, Boise State, and Nevada and beat NWSU and USU to end the season at 4-7, which was very disappointing. But that Tech win had people talking about us as a promising program. 5.) crushing Baylor in 2003 at Fouts--all of the other games listed happened somewhere other than Denton, but this one, against another Big XII team and SWC legacy program, saw Fouts hold its biggest crowd ever. We let out a generation of built-up resentment toward those SWC bastards who rarely (as in almost never) played us in Denton. We beat those AQ leeches 52-14 and it could've been worse if we had stopped trying in the 4th quarter and let them score a TD. My favorite football game ever in Denton. Some honorable mentions--Beating Tech in 1999, beating Tech in 1988, beating NMSU at Fouts to win the SBC in 2002, beating SDSU in Denton as our only win over a ranked team in our history, beating MUTS in 2001 to being a dominant stretch against the sbc for the next 4 years, beating Indiana in 2011 for our first win at Apogee and our first win against a Big Ten team, beating Rice in 2013 in a nationally televised game that featured The Stand, and, for pure fun, beating a ranked i-aa McNeese State in the rain at Fouts in front of 19k that basically put us in the drivers seat to win the SLC in our last year as a 1-aa team (punctuated with a fumble return for a TD that caused George Dunham to yell out "See 'Ya Later McNeese State!!" Feel free to add to this list--I'm sure I missed a few along the way.

Bailiff at Rice would be a real smart hire, for a lot of reasons--Texas HS ties, understanding coaching at a private school in a big city, and a salary that wouldn't be exorbitant (not that this matters for them). If I were at SMU right now, I wouldn't hire Mack Brown for $4 million dollars at a G5 program that is about to feel the full effects of being stuck in the new i-aa. I'd put all my money toward the hoops progra over there and just run the football program to appeal to the 10k in the DFW area that have any interest in SMU Football playing in a G5 league. Bailiff, Hudspeth at ULL, or Skip Holtz at La Tech would be my top three targets if I was there.