untjim1995

I'll give you $700,000 reasons he won't get fired after this season. After the 2016 season is when his buyout will be enough to be acceptable to the BOR...not a moment before. Benford = Trilli = Todd Dodge = Fired after 4 seasons, with one year left on the contract to buyout.

Well, you could have 3 home and home series if your AD conisders a road game in Dallas as an alternate home game every other year. This is all about paying the bills for the entire athletic department. We are poor, we need lots of money from the bodybag games, and playing a 5 game home schedule every other year will help the AD stay in the black (or near it anyway). Scheduling is all about known costs--as is almost everything we do when it comes to athletics. Its always about known costs--not opportunity costs that are lost, but what we know for certain something will cost. You could call it a VALUE proposition, if you want...

If my child was going off to college and he or she wnated a true college experience, I'd tell them that going to a school that has its own town to itself and plays at the highest level of athletics would enhance that experience greatly. Obviously, if academics are the sole parameter to make this choice, then that changes a lot of that. But I am truly jealous of all of my buddies who went to the Big XII schools, SEC schools, or any other bigtime conference, just for the attachment they have to their teams and the coverage they get for their games against each other. Their experience in college was much different than mine, when it comes to athletics. Yes, I loved UNT and Denton as a student and that part of the experience was great, both on campus and off campus. But my Tech buddies talk about the times they beat Texas, A&M, OU, Kansas, and other top teams in football and hoops while going to school in Lubbock. Same type of experience goes for my friends that went to A&M, Texas, OU, OSU, Baylor, LSU, Arkansas, KU, KSU, and Mizzou. And that is a big part of a college student's life at one of those schools--and it carries forward. I'd bet that at least one of my three kids will go to UNT when the time comes, maybe even all three--both the wife and I graduated from UNT. They love going to games, but the oldest is already getting the itch to go watch the big time teams and asks why we don't play any of those teams in Denton. As I tell my wife, I want the kids to go where they want to go, to the place that makes them feel most comfortable, but also the place where they will feel like that is their school for life--sports is often the biggest connecting point, in my opinion, to an alum feeling that connection. My wife went from community college to UNT, never went to one game while there, and has no interest in developing that relationship back to the school. Her sisters went from community college to Texas A&M--one never went to a game there either, but the other one is as diehard an Aggie as you can meet. My wife see how much that connection meant to her younger sister and how important it still is to their family. And she can now see how that experience she never tried to have with UNT would have changed her view of the university completely if she had either tried to create one or, if, like those kids at the big schools, made it an event to always be on campus on the weekends and to be at the stadium for home games. That's where Oklahoma, OSU, KU, KSU, Mizzou, Arkansas, and LSU pick up the Texas kids that populate their student bodies so heavily--they can offer the kids who don't get into or don't want to go to UT, A&M, and Tech an awesome opportunity to enjoy that experience. That's why this P5 split is about so much more than just sports teams and money for the ADs at their schools. It gives them free commercials every game that the networks show them, it gives them free promotion every time the various media outlets are talking about the games they play, and most importantly, they give their economies a huge boost for those events, which helps everyone involved with the university in those towns.

When it comes to North Texas, I've learned that it really is better to never underestimate who we will be glad to play in a conference with. I believe that Sam Houston State, SFA, Southwest Texas State, McNeese State, NIcholls State, Northwestern (LA) State, NE Louisiana, Texas-San Antonio, Texas-Arlington, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, Troy, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, South Alabama, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Old Dominion, Charlotte, New Mexico State, Idaho, Utah State, Arkansas-Little Rock, and the University of New Orleans have been some of our conference mates from 1982-our CUSA days. Abiline Christian, McMurry, Texas Wesleyan, Hardin-Simmons,Tarleton State, Texas A&M Commerce, West Texas A&M, Midwestern State, Sul Ross State, and Angelo State are probably wondering how they haven't managed to get into a conference with us in the last 30 years...

I think you all remember that Richard Durrett, who passed away earlier this summer, was my best friend. I gave his eulogy that day and met so many of his peers who just loved him. Max Morgan was one of them. He and Richard were good pals--in some weird way, it gives me great peace to think that Richard and Max are yukking it up together in Heaven looking down on all of us...its been a tough year for the local sports scene, for sure. RIP, boys...

The plan is awesome, no questions about it, considering the way tuition rates have skyrocketed over the last few decades. But, again, if all you ever do is market toward "value", you get folks who are looking for value. We have a great education experience to offer for college kids because of our proximity to some of the best professors who live in the entire DFW Metroplex. Yet you can still have a unique college-town experience here, too. But when your entire marketing strategy is built around "value", its the Wal-mart approach. You get those people who only want stuff for as cheap as possible. Look, we buy stuff at Wal-Mart because it is perfect for our budget, so we fight through the crowded store to buy stuff we could get at Kroger or Tom Thumb for a cheaper price--but I have no love for Wal-Mart. Its just the place we go to buy groceries because its cheap. When I go into a Market Street or another top end grocery store, I am blown away at all they offer to the consumer, although its much more expensive. In a lot of ways, this is how I feel when I go to another college town for a visit--like I have gone into some new universe that the town and the university are completely centered on the college itself and their teams. They aren't selling tuition or tickets for as low as they can--they are offering the experience for the true price. They know that to get a student who has to pay more to get into that school will get a degree that will make them connected back to the school, usually for life. They turn into donors and season-ticket holders. Here at UNT, I actually believe we will look a lot more like our fellow universities in college towns in about 20 years. The students and alums of the last few years seem to be way more engaged into UNT than the previous 30 years of students and alumni--that won't pay dividends untill they get into their 40s and 50s, but that shold come back to help the entire university. But we still have a huge amount of those people who won't ever visit Denton again for anything--because they got the best "value" they could get. They lived at home and went to community college for a few years, then finished up at UNT while living at home, never feeling any appreciation for being Mean Green. Again, if that is who you advertise to, almost constantly, that is who you are going to get the majority of the time. We may be close to DFW and its suburbs, but we aren't UH, UTEP, or UTSA--we offer a true college experience. That's what we need to promote-- and that includes the experience of going to a football game on campus.

GL2Greatness is probably a sociopath...his trolling fits the profile perfectly. Dude may be Dexter for all we know...

What does the P5 pulling away from the G5 do to these efforts? When they start playing only against themselves and expand their playoff to 8 or more so as to help those programs who lose a game in OOC not get knocked out of the playoff picture, I wonder how the G5 schools like ours, with large alumni and students, plus a large amount of people that are near the campus, will work to get people at football games. At some point, as TFLF points out, our level of play will have to be about logistics instead of broadcast potential and TV schedules. I still think that we are going to see a day with 5 years that we are gonna be in a conference with peer G5 schools, such as: UNT, UH, UTEP, UTSA, Texas State, ULL, La Tech, Arkansas State, and any of the privates schools (tulsa, smu, rice, and tulane) who don't give up scholarship football. (NMSU fills in for whoever quits) Memphis, MUTS, USM, UAB, Troy, ULM, South Alabama, FIU, FAU, USF, UCF, and Georgia Southern East Carolina, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Marshall, WKU, Appy State, Georgia State, Navy, Army, Temple, UConn, and Cincy (if those last two are still left behind) The MAC Travel, competitive programs, and AD funding are gonna be huge players at that time. F_U teams aren't gonna want to play here anymore than we are gonna want to travel there. The question that nobody can answer is if the fans at these G5 schools will still go out and support their schools or if the P5 will just get most of those fans who haven't sold out yet to them.

I think we all need to realize that DW is the QB because no one else on the roster can play the position at this level very well. The question isn't if DW can save the season, its if DW can be developed into a QB that can play FBS football on a week-to-week basis. This week is the perfect opponent, obviously, but it will still be a struggle beyond this week. I really hope he is mature enoguh to handle this, beyond just hoping he can play a full game and stay healthy.

Well, last year, in the 4th week of the season, we played an afternoon home game against Ball State, who was undefeated, and we announced a crowd of 14k. I would assume a really bad FCS team will cost us about a thousand in announced attendance. I guess we will see...

They will get pummeled, just like they did when they played the last NFL-lite program they played this season when OU boat-raced them in Norman. Auburn will win this game 52-10.

I think NIcholls will score at least one TD. I think DW will probably have some struggles as he gets used to being the guy. I look for a 30-7 win in front of an announced crowd of 13k.

We might care about MUTS or even one of the F_Us just because we are diehards and we remember knocking MUTS down a few pegs back in the early SBC days, but most peoiple that aren't diehards think that Middle Tennessee State sounds like a Division II school and an F_U school sounds like a scrimmage is about to break out between our football team and a bunch of airport workers...

I think the biggest differences between 2004 attednance and 2014 attendance are really just having a MUCH better place to watch a game in Apogee and the fact that we are playing more teams that people actually have heard of and care something about. Back then, in 2004 and 2005, we played the following teams in Fouts: Florida Atlantic (L), Middle Tennessee (W), New Mexico State (W),Louisiana-Monroe (W), Idaho (w), Tulsa (epic L), Troy (L), Louisiana-Lafayette (L), and Arkansas State (L). In 2013 and 2014, we have played or will play these teams: Idaho (W), Ball State (W), Rice (W), Middle Tennessee (W), UTEP (W), UTSA (L), SMU (W), La Tech (L), Nicholls State, Southern Miss, Florida Atlantic, and Florida Interntaional. Yes, the FAU, FIU, Idaho, Nicholls State, and MUTS games don't get anyone terribly interested in coming to Denton to watch a game, but Ball State was a really good team, and Rice, UTEP, UTSA, SMU, and La Tech are great teams to play against in Denton. I think it also helps to have a guy like McCarney as the head coach to get people interested in the program than Dickey, but that horse has been beaten to death and buried (hopefully).

Seeing us play Nicholls State reminds me of just how low our program got back when we dropped down to i-aa. When I was a sophomore, in 1992, we played Nicholls State at Fouts on a Saturday night in November. Neither of us were any good, probably had a combined 4 wins between us that night in a SLC 1-aa conference game. We won 31-3, to go to 3-6, under Dennis Parker in his second year as our head coach. It all sounds good, except for the fact that there were about 200 people in the stands that night, including the Green Brigade. Literally, the "crowd" was made up of the players families. I remember that we were on the sidelines and a couple of us actually counted 12 people beyond the band in the student side of the stands at Fouts at the beginning of the 4th quarter. No matter how much we wish we were higher up the totem pole in the current FBS setup, we are light-years ahead of where we were then...of course, part of why we are where we are is that we allowed our program to get to that point.

I'm fairly certain that the BOR didn't think that the vote had a chance of passing--in part, because it never did before. But the stealth campaign worked...if that campaign had been made more public and had the AD out in public talking it up, I doubt it would've passed. Thankfully, it did. Even when the P5s pull away, we still needed something better than a 6-man HS field to play football in, so Apogee should be perfect for us for decades to come. As for the athletic fee and Lee Jackson, I think he did what the BOR wanted him to do, which is why he got an extension. With the accounting scandal that occurred within the system, he should have been fired immediately. Instead, he got extended. He has contacts in Austin and he uses them to help UNT--its just that athletics isn't really that important at all to him or most of the BOR and administration. Look, that's fine--he does what they want, just as RV does. And, by an extremely large majority, that's what the UNT alumni, students, and faculty want, as well. They want tuition as low as possible, they want the reputation of the university to be known for its music, arts, and education, and they don't want to spend $$$ on athletics, particularly football. Again, that's fine--you have to do what the people want or you're gonna be out of a job. That's just reality. Its tough, though, for those of us that do love college football and live here in Texas. We all have friends that are SWC and Big Eight school alums here in the state who live and die by their school's teams each week. They have forever looked down on North Texas (State) or just feel sorry for us, like how could we not be at least better than we have been over the years. They are still just astonished that we went down to 1-aa and stayed there for so long. They cannot understand why we like music and arts more than football and basketball. As alumni at UNT, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and say that is how things roll up in Denton. We do get lots of pats on the back when we beat one of the old SWC private schools or don't get absolutely pummeled when we play one the P5 giants, but they know we aren't ever going to be included in anything above where we are because our political ties aren't stronger than theirs, their history gets them the majority of the media coverage, and their fanbases have more money or more people in it (or both) than we will ever have. I believe this is why the number of t-shirt fans of the other Big XII and SEC schools that have graduated from UNT are so huge. They know we aren't ever going to be included with the P5 teams they watch every week. So they either go away and never even think of going back to Denton ever again for a game or they keep an eye on how we do, but they never dream of missing a UT, A&M, OU, etc...game to watch us play Western Kentucky on a Saturday in Denton. But the ultimate irony of all is that these people wouldn't ever go back to Denton either for any orchestra performance or musical performance on campus, either, which is what the university always prides itself on publically. Instead, they just go away, never to be heard from again.

If we have a crowd that is bigger than the Ball State game from last year, I will be really surprised.

I think Emmitt posted about this, but we are in danger of falling into a very Dickey-esque situation at QB if we aren't careful. Dickey had Scott Hall at QB..and that was about it. He was the only QB Dickey ever had that could actually produce points and wins while he coached here. Nobody else had any sustained success at that position under Dickey, in part because no decent QB wanted to play for his style of offense. Its certainly looking that way right now for us with Coach Mac. Its one thing to have a hard-nosed, run-first offense that pounds the ball, but passing QBs don't want to play in that offense . Now, as it was with Scott Hall and Derek Thompson to a slightly lesser degree, if you can find a QB that can make the 8-12 throws a game that you need to win a game with this offensive mindset, you can have some great success as a team, since no one else plays that way anymore, except for a handful of teams. Unfortunately, though, if your QB has no confidence (see Greer or Meager from Dickey's 2006 season) or will not be allowed to go outside of the box to generate offense (Woody Wilson comes to mind, praying Dajon won't find himself in the same category), you get Dickey years like 1998-2000 and 2006-2007, as well as the first two teams Coach Mac had here at UNT.

I agree completely with you about Smaestrek's views on athletics--I just don't know how much effect it will have on the chancellor or the BOR. If he can influence them to raise the fees, then you can begin to put more pressure on getting a return for your investment from the athletic director. But right now, as it stands, RV has the easiest AD job in America--its not even close. The BOR has made it very clear that all he has to do is run the AD with a surplus left over and don't make any waves about funding, which he doesn't. He does a great job of building a schedule in football and basketball to pay the bills. He does a great job of connecting with the fans that like UNT sports--tailgating alone has bought him favor forever with most of the season ticket base. But, in the end, the only way that a guy who hired Todd Dodge, Tony Benford, and Shanice Stephens could still be here and still get extensions is if the folks above him believe he is doing everything they are asking of him. Since he became AD in April of 2001, football has a record of 61-101, a winning percentage of .377. There were 4 winning seasons and 5 bowl teams in that time. Mens basketball has gone 218-182 in his tenure, for a winning % of .545, which includes 7 winning seasons and two postseason berths under the guy who was here until 2012. If football pays 75% of the bills and basketball pays the rest, the only way the AD over that entire tenure could keep getting extensions is if the BOR puts a higher premium on value than it does on winning. Its certainly my opinion that they do just that, but maybe Smaestrek will change this somehow over the coming years.

I was out of town for the La Tech debacle (thankfully). It sounds like Coach mac realized that Dajon is his only chance at having something develop at QB for this season. At least Greer was given the chance against three teams to prove he couldn't handle the gig--maybe he can be adecent backup QB going forward. I am hopeful that the reason we got ass-pounded by La Tech was because we played such an emotional game just 5 days earlier against the fanbase's rival du jour, SMU, and just had a huge letdown. You cannot be losign to someone at home 42-7 and blame it solely on the QB, so I have to believe that the team just celebrated that big win a lot and wasn't mentally prepared for a much better opponent in just 5 days. It probably didn't help that La Tech was crushed by us in Ruston last year, either. But I do think that DW will help this offense get better, but I don't know if its enough to get us above .500. I do think we will win 1-2 more games with DW than Greer or McNulty would get us, though. This is what I see going forward: Nicholls State--Win @ Indiana--Loss @ UAB--Loss Southern Miss--Win @ Rice--Huge Loss Florida Atlantic--Win @ UTEP--Win Florida Int'l--Win @ UTSA--Huge Loss I think we go 6-6, with our wins being over 5 of the absolute worst FBS programs in the country and a horrible FCS school. I don't know if we will get bowl berth, either, at 6-6. As I can see the conference filling up their five bids with other schools ahead of us, but I could see us somehow getting a bid to a bowl that no travelling fan will be able to attend (like Hawaii or The Bahamas).

This subject is frustrating on so many fronts, in part, because there are so many things to blame: Because of our mostly lackluster history, no public P5 school in Texas, Arkansas, or Oklahoma will play in Denton (apparently) because their fans think its way beneath them to do it. Their alumni seem to remember fondly games in Dallas with SMU, so they have hosted Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M mulitple times over the years. At this point, although it seems amazingly petty, and we have played three of those schools in the Super Pit in hoops, it appears that it must have some validity. In that case, there's not much you can do, if its got any merit. And with the P5s basically telling their teams to tighten up on the OOC games against non-P5s, it is just going to be even more diificult to see any of them playing here in Denton, at least in my opinion. The solution would seem fairly easy to me--just schedule another P5 opponent from outside of the region that will travel here. I realize San Antonio is a destination trip for a lot of people, but getting a team like Arizona to play here in Denton shouldn't be that hard. If they won't, call another Pac-12 team. Call BYU, who might as well be a P5 team, as well. But we don't look at it this way, sadly, because: Because we are poor... We have to play a bodybag game (or two) every year to pay for the athletic department. The university's BOR won't increase the athletics fee to cover this costly department--because it costs and goes against its value proposition. So we let schools like UTSA, Texas State, Lamar, etc... fully charge their students the highest amount available by the state for this cost. I guess they won't ever make the very prestigious BEST VALUE poll like we have. So because we won't do this, RV has only known one way to pay for the entire department, so he has the ADs at OU, UT, Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Iowa, and other P5 money cows on speed dial. And because we don't have great attendance, we only have enough resources to buy home games against FCS schools or FBS dregs in the SBC, so the AD just looks at it like the Monopoly Man with his pockets empty--he's gotta mortgage something...so its the football and mens basketball schedule. Because our fanbase, scorned by being left out of the SWC Club, made it very well known that scheduling a long-term series with SMU would be treated as a crown jewel. Plus, it would give the fanbase an "alternate" home game every other year, so we can schedule another bodybag game for fundraising or we can buy a cheap home game against Texas Southern, Idaho, or Nicholls State. And when you can schedule a service academy to travel here every other year, as well, you know you will get a "big" crowd in Denton at least once a year (over 20k), as long as they alternate. So, we get SMU and Army as the big OOC game every year going forward. Whether we get another home game against a FCS or FBS dreg is unknown, but it does pay the bills and keep the AD out of the red--again, that is the first rule of the Best College Value Proposition.

I think Coker is gonna get a real hard look, as will Chad Morris. Mike Leach won't be out of the question, either.

It spart of what Coach Mac does--you build up the lines and you get hard-hitting LBs and safeties for the defense and strong running backs for the offense. While everyone goes to the stupid flag-football spread offense that makes a game last 5 hours, we just pound you into the ground. It gets to where replacing starters gets easier because the process is in place to replace them with similar builds and strength in each of those spots.

I think you have a good point about those FCS move-ups AFTER the P5 split away for good, but before then, there will be some more FCS teams move up, like Appy State, Georgia Southern, and Georgia State recently have done, as well as Old Dominion, Charlotte, and South Alabama. I'm sure Montana, Montana State, Eastern Washington, North Dakota State, Sam Houston, and Youngstown State are probably looking at this reality to get up to the G5 level before that happens to get their hands on that money.

I agree--we learned under Dodge that getting enough players for this type of offense is really a tough sell at our level. And that was with a high school coach...imagine how June Jones has felt seeing the same things come about with all of his accomplishments over the years. I love that we are being looked at as the throwback team--the one that hits hard, runs the ball down your throat, and just plays solid special teams. And with a coach that people like and want to follow.