untjim1995

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.

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.