untjim1995

Yeah, the SEC and ACC have made it clear that those games are not going to get played out of their home stadiums anymore. They might play one in a neutral site game like Ole Miss did this year against Boise State in Atlanta, but they aren't going to play anymore of those on the road. The days of Wake Forest losing at podunk ULM are gone. I bet within 5 years, the P5s will only be playing P5s, while the G5 will play each other. I do expect the G5 to expand greatly with other FCS programs moving upward, so that pool of schools will be grow to be bigger than the current 5 G5 leagues. I suspect another league or two from the current FCS could move up, such as the Big Sky and the Southern Conference.

I'll go with UNT 23, La Tech 14

Realistically, I bet that these schools will get mandated pretty soon to just play P5 schools only. We had a post recently about how Kansas is getting call left and right from SEC and ACC teams to play them since those conferences are trying to make their members play only P5 schools in OOC games. If not, however, I think Kansas, Colorado, Mizzou, K-State, Okie State, and even Nebraska should be approached. For the Big XII schools, you schedule them a game in Denton when they play TCU at home, and for the former Big XII schools, they need the recruiting presence in Texas again, especially Colorado and Nebraska.

No doubt--then they followed it up with wins over Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Georgia, Virginia Tech, and TCU in the Fiesta Bowl. But even with that, they are probably just about finished as the little darling that they were. The G5 status just kills that national perception going forward, especially if we cannot play the P5s anymore, as they keep talking about occurring soon.

My point on this was that those strict admissions after the Death Penalty (pre JJ) were too much for a small private school to stay relevant in the college football landscape. I know they have been relaxed since 2008, but the reality, again, is that even with those relaxed standards and the success Jones enjoyed at SMU, it was never gonna really matter. SMU was gonna be a G5 school no matter how badly their alums wanted to believe that a P5 invite was going to eventually come to the Hilltop. Except for UConn and Cincy, none of the rest of the G5 stand much of a chance of gettting a P5 invite in the future. Remotely possible invites might go to a school like USF or UCF, but even that is just dependent on the Big XII expanding to some new markets and staying together as a league. To me, the Big XII is probably DOA by the time the GOR ends in 2025, if not before, so there could be more additions to the G5, like TCU, Baylor, Kansas State, and Iowa State, if not others from the league. I suspect they will get the Big East treatment, just as SMU and UH felt when they joined the league, only to see the AQ rug get pulled out from underneath them. As that G5 reality continues to set in for SMU, and not getting the benefit of playing P5 schools in OOC that their fans think they should be competing with, this program is very much ready to just die on the vine, IMO.

They really are. I'll never forget when the Big XII still had 12 teams and they polled the athletes on who had the best fans and the worst fans in the league. Tech finished #1 for the worst fanbase, earning 36% of all respondents. To give you an idea of how bad that was, the next closest was Colorado, at 18%. No one else had more than 10%. Those fans are just awful--a very well-earned reputation.

I've heard this when Forrest Gregg got hired. I heard the same thing when they hired Phil Bennett. At this point, I don't think it really matters anymore. They have bigger problems that money cannot fix. They have no fans, even when they have been decent. They don't play anyone their alumni want to go watch anymore, except for the old SWC teams they get in OOC. When the P5 split away, they are going to be done--I'm convinced of it. The Death Penalty at a small private school with strict admissions was just too much to overcome.

I've come to realize that the only G5 schools that get decent exposure nationally are the ones who have several wins over P5 teams. Unfortunately, that deck is stacked big time against 99% of the G%. You play mostly road games and then hope to get a home game every once in a while against a P5 team. A team like ULM, which has beaten Alabama, Arkansas, and Wake Forest, while losing close battles against Baylor and Auburn in the last 7 years, yet they are just looked at as a smalltime program.

Tomorrow, I would prepare you Hardline listeners to hear Mike Rhyner and Corby Davidson rail on SMU to "just give it up" since they just got blasted by North Texas State...

Let's get this straight. Penn State, institutionally, hid the fact that several children were sexually molested by a football coach at their facilities. The head coach knew about it. The AD knew about it. The university president knew about it. And for that, their penalty was losing several scholarships and getting a bowl ban for 2 years? MakeS perfect $en$e... This is why I have no problem with these programs breaking off--I really don't want to be associated with the cheating and general lack of ethics at your typical P5 powerhouse. I don't care if its Miami, Florida State, Auburn, Texas A&M, OU, USC, Penn State, Ohio State, or Notre Dame--none of their "success" is what I would want at our school if it meant looking past crimes, cheating, or paying players with cash, drugs, and sex. Its times like this when I think my rants against UNT are way off about not concetrating enough on athletics back in time...I don't think we are paying off music students or covering up crimes for teachers-to-be. Just sickening.

Basically, the majority of giving alums we have are from the 60s and 70s, when we were good to great. When we decided that caring about football didn't really matter, we lost the strong majority of people who graduated during the 80s and 90s. Now, you have the fans from the 00's and the 10's being the future. The 00's fanbase at least gave us a decent base to build up from. The recent graduates and current students look to be like the 70s graduates who actually saw Fry's teams build something that made you want to follow them every game. Unfortunately, the students of the 80s and 90s really never got many reasons to stay with us, hence the reason we had even more Longhorns, Aggies, Sooners, Red Raiders, etc...that were at our school than UNT fans.

A lot of alumni were like me--my son had his first little league soccer game at 10:30. There was no way I could make it for the 11:00 kickoff. So, after we got home, we just watched it all on the DVR. I enjoyed it greatly at home, but I had tickets we had to give away because my group of three couldn't go. I bet there were a lot of alumni parents like me on Saturday. Trust me, I was not happy about having to miss a home game I've looked forward to for about 3 years...

SMU is just dead...they have dreams of yesteryear, but they are on par with the non-SWC peers now. They think they should be Baylor or TCU, that they should be way above RIce and (gulp) North Texas, while in reality they are on par with Texas State and UTEP (maybe). This program has almost no support, only plays teams in the OOC that their fans care about because they are old SWC teams, and they have now turned on the only coach who has done ANYTHING there in the last 25 years. They are a Division 3, non-scholarship program, waiting to happen. No way they are playing football at this G5 level when the P5 breaks away--they'll say its below them and costs too much, which will be ironic because money is all they have on their side and their history of paying players in the 80s is what cost them the program that they still think they should have today. And I love every part of it....

Hey chief, I never said I hated paying for these sports. I said I hate that we have to play UT, OU, LSU, Bama,etc..so that they can exist here. And, no, you cannot focus on them above football or basketball at this school at this time with our budget constraints. That's a bit different from saying I want soccer or track to go away.

I didn't know it was so hard that we can't even match up with ULM, either... I like giving people a chance at success...

Do those sports make money? If not, then they don't need to be a focus at all at UNT right now. Hell, it pisses me off that we have to play texas, OU, LSU, Bama, etc...because of those non-revenue sports having to be paid for.

I personally didn't clamor for this series with SMU--I wanted to set our sites higher than them. They are a fine OOC game, but I'd rather play TCU or Baylor than them, but now that we have them, its fine. They just aren't what I expected to be the marquee home game when Apogee got built. But its fine. My point was that Fouts could've handled, albeit decrepitally since it was a toilet, the OOC schedule we have delivered to season ticket holders so far. We just were told we would have the ability to attract games in Denton that are more highly regarded.The masses may have wanted it, but I was more TFLF circa 2006 regarding Todd Dodge on the series myself. Iowa...sheesh

Now you've gone and done it...you're about to be dead to half the board.

I think its because we "get" Idaho...they are cheap to buy a game from, not that powerhouse NMSU would cost a ton more, either. Texas Southern. Idaho, Ball State, SMU, NIcholls State, and Army--that is just a who's who of college football in 2014, isn't it? Thank God we built Apogee to play these guys in OOC because there is absolutely no way Fouts could have handled these guys as opponents...oh wait...never mind.

We can bitch about RV all we want on here but the BOR has made it abundantly clear that he will be here until he wants to leave...probably the same for Lee Jackson, as well.

Iona and Creighton are nice teams to have on your schedule, but neither will increase attendance one bit for a home game at the Super Pit. Of course, Tony Benford still being the head coach won't help increase attendance one bit for any home game in the Super Pit, either, so I guess it doesn't matter...

That's extremely weak, UNT90. Its the same exact model that USF laid out that UTSA is following to a tee. Tampa and San Antonio didn't have a college team to support as their own. Once they started their program, they got their local media behind them from day one. Plus, they had their alumni and students involved, since there has not been any apathy yet to set in. BTW, I hate it too. But you cannot fault UTSA for doing what we couldn't or wouldn't do. Nor can you fault CUSA for looking at the potential of having their market in the league. Trust me on this, the AAC and the MWC are watching closely. When either of those leagues scoop them up, it won't kill our league, just because Texas State is there to take their place, but it would deifintely be another team in the state that will be higher than us on the conference ladder. SMU and UH fans are already open to getting them into their league, just for another Texas school to play in a growing market. They are a growing G5 program that is gonna be here for a while.

Do you dislike USF, too?

They are South Florida 2.0--same recipe, probably the same results...

I'm right there with you...its not done this way in literally any other college town in the region that I'm aware of, but it is in Denton.