untjim1995

The P5 will argue that you can always get invited if you can prove that you should be included. Translated: no chance in hell that will ever happen. If Boise State couldn't get included or UConn couldn't get included, then the rest of us have no chance.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/8/6/5976943/steve-patterson-texas-ncaa-comments Patterson represents everything that greed stands for in every way possible.

I have a suspicion, that by 2018 and beyond, schedule-wise, it really won't matter about this anyway. If the P5 haven't separated officially by then, I would expect that most of them will have OOCs that only allow G5 or FCS games to be played at their places. I fully expect that by 2018, the P5 will be its own division within the NCAA or it will be completely separated from the NCAA. To me, the NCAA Tournament and College World Series become the biggest issues for non-P5 schools to consider. If creating a Division 4 keeps the NCAA Tournament and College World Series basically as is, then I'm ok with it. We will never be allowed to compete with them on anything remotely close to equal footing, just like all other G5 schools (I'm looking at you SMU and UH). Let them play each other in a 64 team setup in football if that is what they want. Just don't change the NCAA Tournament or the College World Series. Keep us all with equal access to both. The rest of the G5 and higher-end FCS teams (think Montana, NDSU, etc..) will just have to be creative with their football division and figue out what makes the most sense for them. Make the FCS playoff system available for the G5 when the P5 are not playing their playoff.I think that is the secret that no one talks about that has a big advantage over the current bowl system. People like playoffs, they like knowing that their is a legitimate endgame, not some poll-driven two-game deal. Nobody cares about FCS schools because they are so small and play other teams that aren't well-known. BUt if we have a system in place where all the current G5 schools are in this hypothetical level, it should at least pick up interest substantially form what it currently is. And a NDSU game against Fresno State playoff game would have more appeal than a typical NDSU versus McNeese State, since no one has heard of McNeese State. Make your new G5 level available for about 65 teams, just as Division 4 will be. If you're an SMU and won't play at this level and quits football, then you have a plethora of FCS teams to step up and replace them. Look, none of this is close to ideal for us. We want so much more, but it is the cold reality that we are a have-not, always have been, always will be. A true collegiate athletic experience is one that we will continue to offer, not some glorified minor league ripoff that the P5s are going to offer, all the while throwing away the education mantra for the almighty $$$ that TV will give them. So we have to try and make that reality as pleasant as possible, if at all possible. If its not, then we have wasted a lot of time with a football program we shouldn't ahve had and UTA will look really smart at the end of all of this. But I do think that real scholarship only college football that involves G5 teams and some others is way better than the old 1-aa system. I don't think there is much to argue on that point. BUt if its the unfortunate reality we face, we are going to need to do what we can to make it as good as possible. It won't be playing schools like Nicholls State or Northwestern State (LA) in conference. It would still be playing CUSA teams or some regionally based conference with peer institutions that we should have been in for the last 50 years that politics kept us from being in. I guess we will see how it all plays out, but it seems like an unavoaidable situation that we all will find ourselves in within the next 4-5 years, if not sooner. I've said this before, but this is unavoidable for us. Its just a matter of when. We can either figure out how to compete at this level with better known teams than we dealt with back in 1982, since the G5 does have well-known teams, unlike the 1-aa fiasco of the early 80s, or we can quit. But if we quit, I sure as hell don't want to be the chancellor that has to explain why we spent $78 million dollars on a stadium that isn't used anymore, so I doubt that is the way we ever go.

Dear RV, Call Colorado, Kansas, or Mizzou and see if they have any interest in coming down here for a game. Call Nebraska and talk about a JerryWorld or Cotton Bowl game. Just try it... Signed, Apogee Season Ticket Holders who hate watching Texas Southern, Idaho, and NIcholls State

I still think the loss at SMU later in that season was worse than this loss. KSU had a full allotment of scholarship players while we only had 60 or whatever was alloweed back then for i-aa schools. And they won on the last play of the game. The SMU game was a blowout and they didn't have a full allotment of scholarship players yet, since this was their first year back from the Death Penalty. We got whipped 35-19, IIRC, at Ownby Very pathetic effort.

Wow--just wow...this just gets more depressing with each new post an what non-AQ is scheduling an AQ team at their place in the future.

I got to school just as Dennis Parker became the coach. It was clear from day one of working up there that he had no idea how to coach college football players. He always talked about Marshall beating Odessa Permian and Marshall winning the state championship...it was really just embarrassing to watch the players tune him out. Then, we hired Matt SImon, who was very talented as a coach, but he had a massive ego. Telling him an answer he didn't want to hear turned into a $hitstorm real fast. He was a train wreck waiting to happen--which finally crashed in 1997. Craig Helwig decided that he would just hire the enxt coach without even doing a search, so he hired Darrell Dickey. Both were former K-State folks. Unfortunately, Helwig looked at scheduling away games against as many powerhouses as possible as the way to pay for the entire athletic department, while Dickey believed that those games were just for the paycheck, so he rearely put together any kind of gameplan other than just running as much as possible to keep the clock going. He never connected with the few fans we had, nor did the fanbase connect with him. Even with the SBC success, it never meant much outside of the few thousand diehards in Denton. What we have in place now is light years ahead of what we have had since Hayden Fry worked here...

I think we win all of our home games, so that give us 6 wins. I think we will lose at Texas, Indiana, Rice, and UTSA. That is 8-4. Now, for my hedge on the bad side. If we have major injuries, this thing will do good to get 4 wins. But, assuming we stay healthy, I can also say this for the first time ever--there isn't one game on the schedule we cannot compete in and win, including Texas.

First game is at Amon Carter Stadiumin 2018, return trip to Columbus in 2019.

All I'm saying is that I won't be surprised if we run the ball for good yardage against UT. I think our gameplan is one that will play well against them, from time of possession to pitting our strength against their defensive weakness. Plus, I think they aren't going to score a ton of points on our defense. I may be 100% wrong and they will just massacre us like every other AQ powerhouse we play for a paycheck. I just feel like we have a decent chance to be competitive in this one, even more than we were against Georgia last year. Yes, our team last year is probably better than ours this year, but that UGa team is waaaaayyyyyyy better than this Texas team. That may not mean a thing and we will just get crushed, as usual, in this game by 7 TDs or more. But my gut tells me this one will be closer than any Longhorn wants to admit it will be. It wouldn't surpirse me to see UT win by less than 2 TDs, with one of them coming late to seal the game. Or it could be closer than that, too. Heck, if we get turnovers in this game and can run the ball like I think we will, I can actually see us pulling off the upset, too. But that's a dream scenario, too, so I am not predicting that to happen. I just think we can compete with this pampered bunch--they haven't even been to practice yet and already guys are getting kicked off the team. I bet fall camp sees more players leave, as well. That whole program has been a country club for a long time--that major change isn't going to get accepted easily. Its gonna be a rough year for them.

$$$$$$$$$

I think we have a chance because Texas is going to be bad...ASh isn't going to make it thru a full season with that weak OL they have running out there, which will also kill their running game. Then, there defense has to play in the high octane Big XII, where I see Baylor and OU just killing them. They play Tech in Lubbock, Okie State in Stillwater, and K-State in Manhattan, so I see at least two more losses from that group. Plus UCLA will run a truck on them, too, in Dallas. If they beat us, BYU, KU, ISU, WVU, and TCU at home, plus steal one of the three games I listed above in Manhattan, Stillwater, or Lubbock, they get to 7-5. But I see them going about 5-7. Its gonna take Strong a while to get rid of the Club Med mentality down there. In 2008, Mike Sherman took over the Aggies for Franchione--and promptly lost to SBC mate Arky State, who just ran them into the ground. Same thing happened in 1996, when OU hired John Blake and he lost the home opener to a bad TCU team, who also ran it down their throats (this was a pre Franchione team under Pat Sullivan, who was terrible). If we are ever going to beat a team like this, it really would be now. If we can't, its not going to change much around here (the check just needs to cash, after all). We will still have a very good chance of doing well in CUSA play. But this Texas team looks to be the worst money team we have played in the last decade.

IN 2005, SI had TCU ranked in their opening college football poll at somewhere around 48 or so. Interestingly enough, the team ranked right behind them in the 2005 poll was none other North Texas, coming off 4 straight SBC titles and having back-to-back rushing champions in the same backfield. One went way up from there, one went way down...

Just like yall did when you opened up the season at home against another in-state Texas school from that area? I can't remember what happened when yall played Texas State in Houston a couple of seasons ago...I guess I ought to look it up and see how big of an ass-kicking yall put on them that day. I bet it was massive!!

I give the administration a thumbs up for this idea. If I am gonna complain about the things I don't like, I have to give them credit when they get something right--and this is a great idea!!

Its hard to look at that list of talent and realize we went 2-9 that season. Thats when the wheels fell off--home against Tulsa.

I truly believe that CUSA, even as it exists today, is still the best conference we have been a part of for football since the MVC days, maybe even the best of alltime. Is it perfect? Of course not. But being in a conference people have heard of, with teams that people have heard of in Texas and actually can get people to come and watch them are waaayyyyy ahead of anything this place has seen in the last 50 years. Rice, UTEP, La Tech, Southern Miss, and now, even UTSA, are just light years ahead of the SBC, Big West, and the independent days of the 70s and early 80s (not even counting the SLC 1-aa debacle). I can't even imagine how good it would've been if CUSA still had Tulsa, Tulane, SMU, UH, Memphis. UCF, and East Carolina along with Marshall, USM, La Tech, us, Rice, Utep, UTSA, UAB, and MUTS. That would've been a strong 16 team collection of southern based programs and markets, with a great mix of public and private schools. But egos are just too big with this stuff and once you are stuck too low on the totem pole, it seems you pretty much get stuck there in perpetutiy by those above you, which is understandable to some degree. How great though would it be to have small market teams with solid histories in Marshall, ECU, USM, and La Tech, add in the private schools that get you the NO, Dallas, Houston, and Tulsa markets to some degree, get coverage in Orlando and Nashville from UCF and MUTS, then add in UNT, UH, UTSA, and UTEP to get coverage in every big market in the biggest state in the conference, and then throw in markets and basketball tradtion in Memphis and Birmingham. It makes so much sense that it would never happen.

I am not the one who makes it an either-or thing...that is all the university has done toward athletics for almost our entire existence. See SilverEagle's posts about the history of our Presidents and Chancellors and they way they viewed athletics. Again, name me the one school in this state that chooses an art or music college as their main fundraiser over athletics. Name just one. Then ask yourself if we have a lower endowment than those schools. And you will never know how much we profitted off that bowl game--just from getting DFW alums reconnected to our program that haven't dared to go up I-35 to watch a game in decades, but felt enough pride to go watch us in a bowl game against freaking UNLV. Who knows the benefit it has potential enrollment or future donations, either. The point is that the we are choosing to fund much more fully two areas that cannot ever come as close as athletics CAN to being a huge fundraiser to the entire university. Athletic Departments give dollars back to the university at schools where they are profits. And according to that report that Harry posted earlier, we are in that group of schools that made over a million dollars from athletics last year. Sorry, but the endowments and fundraising at even lesser state schools in Texas that aren't Tier One just blow us away--UH, Tech, UTD, UTEP, etc...what do they focus on that we don't? I bet you can figure you out...

So are Tech, UH, and UTD. Two of those three pay a lot more attention to revenue athletics than we do, plus they have huge endowment advantages over us. UTD has the research and engineering advantages because they don't have DIvision 1 athletics. I just ask this simple question of four similar universities as ours in Texas. Texas Tech, Houston, UTSA, and UTEP--which one of these schools would drop athletic spending as much as we did? None is the correct answer, but if you want to argue that one of them would, then ask yourself if that is smart for funding. Texas freaking Tech has gotten to where they are SOLELY because of the emphasis they have placed on athletics, specifically on the relationship they cultivated with their alums and with the big player in this state (i.e. Texas). Their academic record is very poor as compared to most other AQ schools, yet they will have a place at the AQ table, almost certainly, due to their fan following. UH is a better academic school--by far, actually--than Tech, but even they had to overcome the stigma of being a "commuter school" in a big city. Yet, even with getting bitch-slapped out of the AQ big time all those years ago with SMU, TCU, and Rice, they have continued to fund their program at a high non-AQ level. Why? I mean, if its gonna keep you from Tier 1 status, who would do this? NO, the correct answer is that when its been done right, even here in Denton in the Fry years and in this past season, fans come out in droves to show their support. UH is moving out of Robertson Stadium because of their successes under Briles and Sumlin. UTSA is moving upward FAST, all because they looked at the obvious advantages of their situation in San Antonio and started funding FBS football. Now look at them, getting big crowds, a nice media following, and the full attention of other conferences and AQ teams who want to play them, both home and away. Here's a crazy reality to the athletic-haters in Denton: in other college towns, when they win big time at a revenue sport that people want to watch, funding goes up for everything!! So does enrollment, if you want it to go up (see TCU in 2011 and Baylor now). Athletics is a true window to the university--it deserves as much attention and funding as you can feasibly feed it. Billboards and ads proclaiming you as a great value doesn't do it, in case anyone hasn't figured out why our endowment is still woefully small for a school our size that has only been around for almost 125 years. Obviously, if this is wrong, I am not getting it, which may say more about me than I care to admit, but I really don't get why we would cut athletics that much in 2015. Its almost begging Dan McCarney to leave at the first opportunity that he gets. And, believe me, if we have another bowl season here this season, a school like Kansas would be foolish not to go hard after him as their next head coach. It is as close to a no-brainer as you can get in this situation, for both parties. And just like we did in 1978 after Hayden Fry left, we will again have no one else to blame for our ineptness at understanding college athletics at the FBS level. Its just disgusting.

Interesting that the college of music sees a drop of 2.8%, while the college of arts and sciences gets a small increase to their budget. Yet athletics loses 18.7% of its budget in 2015. Music and Arts will always be the window to the University of North Texas, according to the BOR and Administration. There isn't one other university in Texas at the FBS level that would have cut athletics by this much. And this is why you have such a disconnect between the university and its alums. Every other school uses football as their main advertising arm to connect to their alumni and their community. We use music and arts. I'm sorry, but 40k people gathered to watch a UNT Football team play in a bowl game against UNLV on January 1st. That ain't the area to cut--unless you think that you can host a concert or recital or exhibit that can draw even close to that same amount of people and dollars. I may get tons of-1s because music and arts matters so much around here, but I, like a lot of guys, like football and basketball. Music and arts will never get my interest or my dollars ahead of athletics at UNT. There are a lot more UNT graduates like me from the past 35 years who have been so alienated by the lack of attention to athletics that we have paid that they simply have chosen to just follow UT, A&M, Tech, OU, as well as all the pro teams to choose from in DFW. That "opportunity" cost is why we are where we are now, still being on the outside of the major players in college athletics. And that's a damn shame, in my opinion.

Whoops. Shocking that you don't know what the hell you are talking about...again.

The team to get down this way for a game at JerryWorld or the Cotton Bowl is simple--Nebraska. They need Texas games again now that they are in the B1G and they would bring a huge crowd that Apogee couldn't handle.That is who you target. Otherwise, its a team like LSU for a big neutral-site game in the Metroplex. Another team that could benefit from playing down here, but Apogee would work fine for is Mizzou. Iowa would fit that bill, too, but that is gonna open up a can of worms not worth opening anymore. The other teams to go after for a series seems really obvious, too--Okie State, Kansas, and Kansas State. They could use another game in the Metroplex to offset the years they don't play TCU and Apogee could hold that crowd. Games against Oklahoma, Texas, Tech, Baylor, Arkansas, or A&M are not really feasbile as opponenets in the area for us since they play up here every season. I don't think any Pac teams would travel that well here. BYU would, though, which is another game I'd go after really hard, since they are an independent now. I think the potential of getting a great draw for a game against teams like UNC, Va Tech, UVa, Ga Tech, and NC State is better than a lot of people would guess, as a lot of folks from Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, and the state of Virginia live here in the DFW market now. No matter what, any of these teams beat the hell out of anyone we have played at Apogee or have scheduled to play in OOC so far, including UH, Indiana, SMU, and Army, even though each of those teams is a fine OOC opponent. I just think making SMU your crown jewel to sell to your fanbase as a marquee OOC game for years to come is really just sad.

No offense, but this first set of rivals isn't even close to being true. Hell, the best rivalry setup we could have had was with Texas Tech and they bolted after we won 2 of the 5 games in the series and literally fumbled away a win in the final game in Lubbock of that series or we would have won all three games played at Jones Stadium. They quickly replaced us with SMU for the next decade on their schedule and never lost to them. Now, they get TCU in FW and Baylor int he Metroplex every year. But the three private schools you mentioned don't give a rats ass about us. Maybe SMU will care after we start this upcoming series, but I fear them buying it out if we beat them a couple of times. Both SMU fans and TCU fans have complained loudly in the past about playing us because they feel like its a lose-lose situation for them. Baylor feels the same way. The historical rivals are really just Texas State and NMSU, neither of whom our fans give a rats ass about. To me, MUTS, was the only team I looked forward to playing in the early SBC years, but that rivalry never really developed because neither team was ever really good at the same time. Now, MUTS is a nice team to continue playing year-in and year-out in CUSA, similar to playing Marshall. BUt the real possible CUSA rivals are those teams in our division--teams like UTSA, UTEP, Rice, La Tech, and USM. UTSA and La Tech are the two that really stand out to me as the teams that could easily turn into decent rivalry games, due to proximity, recruiting, and being state schools.

I think this is the best plan for a conference like ours. HoD Bowl and NO Bowl will always be attractive choices for UNT, UTSA, Rice, and La Tech. UTEP will ove being able to go to the NM Bowl Bowl or HoD Bowl. F_Us will love Boca Raton Bowl. No one will ever want to go to The Hawaii Bowl or The Bahamas Bowl, just because of cost and length of travel time.But, make not mistake, for UNT, the HOD Bowl, NO BOwl, and NM Bowl are nice places for a school like ours to end a season in a bowl--almost every season that ends in New Orleans, Alburquerque, or Dallas will be great years...

I had dinner with a former USM football player on Saturday night. He said directly that he wishes that USM had also left CUSA for the AAC. I told him I didn't blame him for feeling that way, especially since they lost a lot of their rivals over the years to the AAC and beyond. But in the end, I told him the reality ofd why CUSA is the place USM will always be--Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Conference affiliation is all about TV markets and national appeal. USM has zero on the first and a dying amount on the second part. The teams in CUSA that will have options of moving upward into the AAC or MWC, if they are even wanted in the future after the P5 split off, are as follows: UTSA, F_U, UTEP, UNT, Rice, MUTS, and Charlotte. UAB and Old Dominion are maybes on this list, because they have decent TV markets and good basketball resumes.. But USM, La Tech, Western Kentucky, and Marshall are pretty much stuck in CUSA--they provide no TV markets at all. Even with a little national appeal, there isn't enough there to make up the difference that their small markets provide. I still believe that the MWC will come back into Texas and get UTEP, UTSA, and some combination of UH, Rice, SMU, and UNT to get to 16 teams. When that happens, the AAC will replace any Texas teams that leave with the other school available in that market (SMU leaves, replaced by UNT or UH leaves, replaced by Rice). CUSA will replace anyone who leaves from Texas with Texas State and ULL.