untjim1995

Use the Cotton Bowl to do a 1 and 1 series with an AQ powerhouse. Get Nebraska or LSU here for a game there or get a team like Clemson or Florida State here. Apogee is great for everyone else we schedule or would schedule us up here. Since Texas, Oklahoma, A&M, and Arkansas already play annual games here, that will be tough to get them here. And since Tech and Baylor play here in the Metroplex every year, that would be tough, too, although Apogee would hold up a crowd for either of those two teams. This doesn't even count the games these teams play here against TCU or SMU. Another team to get after for an opponent for a bigger series is Okie State--get them for a 2 for 2, with one of the games in Denton and one in Dallas, if needed. But they just get a game with TCU every other year, so you could them for the years that TCU goes to Stillwater. I've always felt a Cotton Bowl game during the State Fair that featured us against a Nebraska or Okie State would get a huge crowd. But its a pipedream for now, since our OOC schedule is booked out for so long with the $$$ games we always play on the road and the $$$ games we are now paying FCS and FBS dregs to play at Apogee every year, plus the SMU and Army games.

I certainly think we woke up yesterday, for sure, and it was glorious. But the giant can easily fall back to sleep quickly if we don't follow up this awesome season with another big year in 2014. The crowd yesterday looked awesome--it reminded me of the NO Bowls where we had bigger traveling crowds than we had at Fouts for SBC games. That seems to be the biggest question for UNT going forward--how do you get the people who showed up at the Cotton Bowl in their Green to do the same thing when we play a non-AQ game at Apogee? To me, that's when I know the giant has finally awakened for good, when home games against conferemce mates like MUTS or WKU on a non-Homecoming weekend draws 25k or more. Heck, even against the Texas CUSA teams on one of those weekends, too!! Dan McCarney is a great ambassador to this place--I just hope that an AQ team that needs a new coach doesn't come calling soon. His age and health might keep some folks away, but his enthusiasm and experience and ability to connect with the fanbase would more than overcome those first two concerns. If Art Briles leaves Waco, I could easily see them calling on Coach Mac. If Kansas wins another 2-3 games next fall, they would be the most likely program to go after him. Those are the types of concerns that make you realize that the sleeping giant could be forced back to sleep. But its also why we just have to enjoy this season as much as we possibly can. And we also get to realize that one attitude of North Texas seems to have finally died off--an administration and community that doesn't care a bit about athletics. Because a university that could care less about athletics doesn't come out of the woodwork and just show up like they did yesterday without having thousands of die-hard fans and their friends and family attend a bowl game--that is the biggest difference I see between today's UNT and the late 70's NTSU with Hayden Fry here.

Raise and three more years--today!! Do it, BOR!!

All three of the guys you just listed played HS ball in suburbs...that question will just have to be ignored because of the implied evilness of suburbia.

No matter what the attendance is, just don't let the local media get away with putting us down for not supporting our team enough with attendance smack. Their beloved DFW Private Schools wouldn't get 25k against freaking UNLV on New Years Morning in Fair Park... If an announced crowd of over 35k is what we get, I would feel like this was a huge success. And if we somehow got an actual Butts-in-Seats of over 35k, I will feel so ecstatic about us finally making a dent with the DFW fan.

That game may go down as one of the worst BCS matchups of all time, in terms of attendance and fan interest from outside of their fanbases. The Fiesta Bowl probably hates Oklahoma so much right now for beating Okie State, which forced Baylor on them. Combine that with UCF, who is a good team, but doesn't really resonate with the AQ public, and you see a Fiesta Bowl that will not get any ratings, not have great attendance, nor will it get that great of coverage by the national media.

Tech won't finish higher than 9th in the Big XII. That win for LSU won't help them too much, but a loss would've really hurt. Tech would kill us by about 50, though.

This. Hell, we got more buzz from only losing to Georgia by 24 points than we did for any of our victories, including a Ball State win that should've got more buzz than it ever got. 95% of the College Football Media and Fandom follows AQ powers. If you want their coverage and respect, you have to compete closely with them and beat them every so often. See Boise State, TCU, Fresno State, and the old Southern Miss teams from years ago--those were/are your annual non-AQ darlings almost every year.

That Tech game didn't have 25k in attendance, I promise. That shot holes in every single Tech fan that loves to spout off about their huge presence in DFW. The UH-Penn State game did well for a combo of reasons, that UH was good and didn't have to travel very far, that Penn State has a large and loyal fanbase all over the country, and DFW residents wanted to see Penn State play here. The OSU-Purdue game really impressed me in how many Okie States fan showed up for a game that didn't get that much press (sound familiar)? Purdue was not good (6-6), but OSU really showed up. Look, I doubt very seriously that we get to 40k. Its just not an attractive opponent to the locals, its not a close opponent for a traveling fanbase that isn't big to begin with, and the games starts at 11am. The problem is that your SMU-TCU and SWC media are gonna play this as a way to say that we don't belong at this same level, that SMU and TCU would've drawn bigger crowds, even with their current losing teams. And if we lose, it will be even louder from the local sports rags...Just remember, though, if this happens that it will be complete Bull$hit that no one should buy. No way that SMU or TCU, given UNLV as the opponent, would draw a REAL attendance of anywhere close to 30k. Hell, Baylor and Tech wouldn't draw any better than we will for this game with this opponent either. Anyone can brag about their attendance in games against SEC, Big Ten, or Big XII teams--show me what you got when you have to play a non-AQ team. That should tell you what you need to know about that garbage argument that will be thrown out on January 2nd...

Sorry, but you gotta let go of the past. Its amazing that some of you around here have stuck around for as long as you have. If you cannot get over an alum who thinks North Texas Athletics has been spare compared to name-your-AQ-giant T-shirt school within 10 hours of here, then you would have to dislike about 200k people...I mean, really, how did you stick around here when the likes of Al Hurley, Lee Jackson, Craig Helwig, Dennis Parker, Darrell Dickey, and Todd Dodge did FAR more damage to the UNT brand than Craig miller ever did. If you want to hold a grudge against someone from North Texas (State) past, look at all of the old nestors who tired to get football killed off in Denton in the early 70s or the folks who decided to let us go down to i-aa because it was cheaper to do. Look at the BOR and administration that allowed us to play in freaking Fouts Field for about 30 years too long. Look at the ADs that hired inexperienced coaches every year from 1979-2010 in football. And look at the Denton residents who have ALWAYS made it clear how much they could care less about North Texas Athletics, to the point where a town with 100k in it, even if it includes students, cannot even put 20k into the stands for most home games. Basically, no one could hold a grudge against that many people for that long and still come around here for games and contribute money to the program...its ok not to like Craig Miller, but his mindset is still the prevailing mindset today in DFW and, gulp, in Denton and on the UNT campus today. We may have more people coming to games than we did before, but our proportion of the student body/faculty/administration/Denton citizenry that cares about UNT Athletics is still woefully small. That's not Craig Miller's fault--and I don't blame him for following someone else closely. It amazes me that he even comes around at all, much less contributes anything toward UNT. If you want to talk about amazing, look at the other UNT alum at the Ticket. I actually think that its incredible that we have an alum in George Dunham in the DFW media that has allowed himself to take the annual nut-kicks he has all of his professional career for publically supporting North Texas Football. That Craig Miller, his old classmate and buddy, feels the way that hundreds of thousands of people who have attended UNT at some point or live with an hour of the campus and have never even sniffed attending a UNT home game except when a bigger named team has played here, isn't really the story to me. Its the fact that someone in the SWC dominant DFW media actually declares publically his love for UNT. During the Ticket's existence, George Dunham's love for UNT has been paid back with a record at the FBS level of 78 wins and 146 losses, featuring all of 4 winning seasons out of 19, while playing in the Big West and SBCUSA for all but one of those years. Be mad at the people who allowed that to happen, not at an alum who grew up a huge fan of some other school that has actually captured hundreds of thousands of fans becuase of their winning tradition and gets to play teams regularly that Joe Fan cares about. Hell, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm jealous as hell of every single alum of any school in Texas/Oklahoma/Louisiana/Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri/etc.. that plays in an AQ league. I couldn't imagine how great it must be to have a Saturday schedule like Tech gets or Baylor gets every year, especially when you have gotten the "luxury" of comparing it to North Texas home games in the same time frame against the ULMs, Arkansas States, NMSUs, Nicholls States, and Troys of the college football world in front of "crowds" that would have been lucky to get to 15k at anytime in those 40 years. It will take a full decade of doing the same identical thing that TCU did just to make a dent within the Metroplex fandom for our school. And TCU had a lot of advantages we don't have right now and probably will never have, even before they moved into the Big XII. Other teams have shown a strong desire to play TCU in Texas, teams that Joe Fan cares about. All of this means we have to go out to places like Norman, Oklahoma and do something that TCU did--beat them on their field AND win their conference. When we do that, then we will make tons of waves. Until then, the DFW media and fans, like Craig Miller and those 200k living UNT alumni, will wait to see if we actually do something to warrant their attention. You get their attention, you'll get their attendance. You get their attendance, you'll get their donations. And you get their donations, you get to keep the successful coaches at UNT, instead of watching them ALWAYS go off to greener pastures.

Its probably all they could afford, since they just fired Carl Pelini with years left on his contract.Whether it is a settlement or continued payout to Pelini, I doubt a school like FAU could afford too pay a whole lot for their new coach.

Guys, look at Mike Locksley's time at UNM as their football coach. That may be where you are going to find the parallels, IIRC.

What was the attendance yesterday for this prison-style assault? To me, when you tell someone that you lost at home by 34 points, it had better be against a really good team that has name cachet from a good league. Losing by 34 to a school that is widely viewed as pissant (sorry SFA fans, but its the truth) at home is just Trilli-esque. Even worse, he will be here for another year after this, probably another two years.

This is the equivalent of us losing at home to FIU or some other SBC spare back in Dodge's 2nd year in football. We have him two more years to straighten it out--which meant he would go on to win 4 more games as the head coach. Benford will continue to follow this same chart.

It may be true, but it's way better for us than it was in 1983. The other left behinds are much more relevant to the college landscape than anyone we had to align with back then. If you think we are ever going to be allowed to be included in an AQ league. That will never happen. We don't have the tradition, resources, or name recognition that the other AQs want. It sucks, but it's the truth.

My favorite moments at UNT involved two football games: When Brett Renfro returned a fumble for the game-clinching TD in the rain against McNeese State to put us in first place in the SLC. We also had a big crowd show up, which basically ensured that we would be able to move up to I-A in 1995. The other moment was when Troy Redwine caught a Jason Mills TD pass on the final play to beat Oregon State at home in 1995. It was our first win as a i-A program since 1981, meaning we had finally made it back out of purgatory (i-aa).

I have a bit of advice... LET THEM GO!!! Let the Big AQ 72 go away and create their own association--let them pay for players, coaches, and staff like they are NFL and NBA teams. Let their alumni, their professors, their administration, and their fans pay for that. Let them just play games against each other. All of those OOC games with them are so slanted, usually, to the AQ's benefit, anyway, so why not just let them play each other and see how fun it is in places like Lubbock for their team to go 3-9 every year when they cannot schedule 3 OOC spares evey year. Let the rest of us then participate in real amateur sports. Here's the crazy thing--we will still be on TV, we will still play teams that we care about playing, and we will be able to compete for a national championship that we cannot compete for today in football. Newsflash, those AQ giants are already get the majority of coverage and following anyway. That isn't gonna change, so just let them get it done. This is nothing liek it was in 1983, when we moved down to i-aa while a huge presence of local teams played in the SWC and we played small schools that were viewed as spares. Now, you'd see every school in the SBC, CUSA, MAC, AAC, MWC, and a some Big XII leftovers join forces with schools in the FCS level to play each other. I promise you that a home game in Denton between us and SMU or TCU will still draw well. We blew our chance at ever moving upward on the college sports ladder back in the late 70s --we never supported great UNT teams, we never gave the best coach in our school's history a reason to stay, and we just flat out quit after Fry left because the SWC said we weren't going to be invited to their party. And, the worst part of it all, was allowing their snub to be the mindset that WE carried forward, leading us to the i-aa purgatory that haunts us still today. Look, maybe we never even got into the SWC and just stayed independent, like Tulsa did. But when the SWC broke up, guess who could have been in the WAC or CUSA with them? Us. Or even more forward thinking would have been to go to the old Big Eight and talk about the benefits that they could have by gaining a presence in North Texas, which would have helped their league immmensely from a tv standpoint and from a recruiting standpoint. And this isn't even considering the GIGANTIC LEAP it would have given us at that time and today. Imagine if we could have made that work? Games in Denton against OU, OSU, Nebraska, and Colorado in football...hoops games against KU, KSU, Iowa State, and Missouri...we would have BLOWN by the SWC schools of the day, except for UT and A&M. Today, we would be looking down at Tech, UH, TCU, SMU, and Baylor in the same way they look down at us. Meanwhile, our universities can go after kids that will actually graduate from schools while representing us on the field and earning a scholarship. That, to me, would make me so proud as a UNT alum, especially if that was combined with a league that gave us great Southwest colleges to play (hint, SWC teams and other local schools in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico).

No way those anti-trust lawsuits and suits to tax the Power 5 would ever go against the AQs...they have too many friends in the legislative and judicial branches across the country, plus they have all the corporate and media backing. Trust me, we have given the AQs plenty of chances to have someone from the Big Sports Media and from DC and other political outposts chime in on how awful this setup is...and all we have heard is how football brings in the most moeny and that those who bring in the most should just break-off from the others. We heard politicans clamor to fix the college football system, by installing a playoff, which is now set to start in 2014...just without a chance in hell of a non-AQ making it in that playoff. I get it--it downright sucks. But there's nothing we can do about it, except to quit watching their bought teams play each other. And, honestly, football, as it is played today, is becoming more and more susceptible to a huge walk-away by many people who are seeing that its long-term health impacts are too risky for their kids. IOW, what is a cash cow today, has no guarantee to be that same type of cash cow tomorrow. (This is another reason as to why college hoops has started to matter way more in realignment in the last couple of years than it did at first, when it appered that a school like Kansas would get left behind.)

The AQs have so much power that an anti-trust lawsuit would just get beaten anyway. Those schools' alumni control the legislative and judicial positions in their states and in DC. The money they get from this monopoly is sickening, which is why they'll never let it go. I'm with drex. We play true amateur sports at the non-AQ level. We aren't an NFL or NBA lite school. Very soon, this whole AQ break off will make this all more apparent. Whether it's with the NCAA or not is the question. Look, when the Big XII eventually folds, you are gonna have 4 Super Conferences, probably with 16-18 teams a piece. Those of left behind will combine with the FCS schools and have our own separate division. It's what the BCS media wants and it's what the AQ schools want. And, to me, the sadder part of all this will be when those schools leave and create their own March Madness and College World Series. It's tough for us, since we really never got a chance--a true chance--to be a player in an AQ league (or historical peer, like the SWC). We never tasted what it must of been like to get huge attendance by hosting UT, A&M, Tech, OU, Arky, etc... But schools like SMU, UH, and Rice must feel like they have been castrated. And I bet TCU falls into that same category again too, when the big XII falls apart. The only schools in that league that are certain to get into another AQ league are Texas, OU, and KU. Who else gets left behind is going to be amazingly brutal. And they won't be able to do anything about it.

1.) UNT earning this bowl bid in this game is the best opportunity UNT has had in decades--since Fry roamed the sidelines. To play in the Cotton Bowl on New Years Day, no matter the opponent, especially while SMU and TCU are at home, is found gold. Best thing that we can do is win this game, preferably in a big way. That said, I think this will be a close game. Obviously, we haven't played well after a break, so I worry that UNLV may have a big advantage here, maybe even one that means that the difference in winning and losing this game. 2.) UNLV, while a recognizable name because of basketball, won't bring many fans, nor will it make many Metroplex residents shake off their NYE hangovers to go to Fair Park that NYD morning. Reported attendance will probably be around 30k, which will make us look like nobody showed up in the cavernous Cotton Bowl. This will lead to attendance getting overblown by the local SWC media--they'll use it as more propagnada that we don't belong in FBS and that surely SMU or TCU would've brought a bigger crowd. That will be a load of $hit...TCUor SMU wouldn't bring anyone to this game in any bigger number than this for UNLV. Our friends in FW like to talk about the number of Frogs that were in Pasadena or in Tempe a few years ago, but those were BCS bowl games. Any venture as to how those stadiums of the Poinsettia Bowl looked when TCU made it? Empty. Guess who would have giant numbers if they got to go to one of those games? Almost everyone, including us. SMU doesn't even deserve to be included in an attendance thread, so I won't even waste my time with them. 3.) Dan McCarney has done everything that we asked him to do--rebuild us up from being a laughing stock, make us more repsonsible in the classroom and on the field (no more stupid penalties), and turn us into a winner by Year 3 of his tenure. He deserves a nice extension and raise. He may be vanilla with his gameplan, but he is showing us that it works when he has the right pieces in place that have been developed in his system. And right now, he looks like a huge value compared to June Jones. And if Gary Patterson continues to make TCU look like they made a mistake in moving up to the Big XII by not being able to win against that higher level of competition, Mac will look like an even bigger value to us. 4.) Enjoy the game on TV, Ponies and Frogs!!

FW Star telegram has a blog update from Mac Engel with the headline that UNT fans better show up to the bowl game--hard hitting local advice!! But, at least we are mentioned in the FWST this morning beyond the fact that the DMN has us mentioned in the headline that SMU finishes behind Rice and UNT in the Texas College Rankings... Not exactly owning the media coverage yet--maybe later this week or this month?? http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/?rh=1 http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/

It's awesome for the diehard fans, but the casual fan and most importantly, the local media, won't give a crap about this game. It's just typical UNT luck to finally have everything go so right only to get paired up against a team that isn't from the Big Ten, due to the fact that Penn State is on probation and no one else in that league could get to 6 wins. It sucks, in my opinion, but there's nothing we or the HoD bowl can do about it, so we might as well beat UNLVs ass in this pseudo home game. It will be interesting to see how attendance will be for this game, though. People don't want to hear it here, but we are just like all of the other non-AQs and subservient AQs--attendance is usually driven up or down based on the opponent.

http://www.ponyfans.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=69475&sid=5425df859767747075f7ab369cec6111 And I love it!!

I'm the exact opposite--I hope he tells this same story everyday for the rest of his career here. I want him to remind everyone of just how little this place cared about football and athletics before he got here. We played in the worst stadium in FBS football. We played in the worst conference in FBS football. We kept one of the worst FBS coaches of all time around here for a 4th year, even though he had managed to win all of 5 games, 3 of which were against one team (WKU), who happened to be the only team in FBS that was worse than us--all because they refused to buy him out an extra $275k. I hope we never forget where we came from...

Where did you read that? What source?