untjim1995

There's no way, I mean no way, that this university is going to buy out his contract after this year. He will be here, at a BARE minimum, of another year before that will be considered. My guess is that we have him for two additional years beyond this one before the consideration of firing him would happen.

Yeah, because being 12 degrees outside, on a Thursday night, with a 2-win team playing powerhouse UNLV is normal for the AFA... Its funny, I remember when TCU played AFA up there and lost in OT a few years back on a Thursday night. Both teams were ranked. It was a full house. Yeah, I cannot wait to go play at UAB, Charlotte, Old Dominion, F_U, Western Kentucky Marshall, or MUTS again. Those games are WAAAYYYY closer than those games way out west, especially against those spare programs like Fresno State, Boise State, Nevada, etc...Who would want to ever play in a conference with ranked teams that can get into BCS bowls? CUSA is much better--because we can travel to see games in Ruston, El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston. Never mind that none of the schools in this league currently or previously, have ever been to a BCS bowl game.///sarcasm I'm sorry, but I can get people out to Apogee and the Super Pit to watch games against Hawaii, San Diego State, Nevada, Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, AFA, New Mexico, UNLV, Wyoming, Utah State, and San Jose State. The only game I could get anyone to attend this season was UTEP, you know, since people have heard of them, even though they are terrible. Granted, Rice would have been a game people would go watch if it hadn't been on Halloween, but the point remains. We think too small time about the future of the program and where we want it to be. TCU fans and administration showed us what winning in the MWC can do for a program that is really not on par with the AQs in funding or support. I have no doubt that if the right perosnnel and recruits were in play, that UNT would be able to enjoy similar success as the Frogs did in the MWC, with their 12k enrollment. Ask yourself this--if we were playing the AFA this weekend in Denton, who tremendously sucks this year, would we draw more people to Apogee than playing UTSA at home? The answer seems fairly obvious, to me.

Dodge left McCarney with the smallest lines a FBS program could have. ANything that has been developed from those two lines are only because of Mac's experience in developing linemen, specifically in strength and conditioning and in technique. Dodge left him Dunbar and some nice other nice pieces that had to be developed. Coker got a national champion team for his first two years, even if they lost the last one to Ohio State on a bogus pass interference call in OT. Once those guys left, Coker's teams really fell back. After he was fired, Miami's program is about as mediocre as it has been in the last 40 years. That said, Coker was the perfect person to start UTSA's program. He has name recognition and creditbility because of those Miami teams, which helps with their fanbase, media, and the high school coaches here in Texas. UTSA has everything laid out for them to become a great non-AQ program. We will see if Coker can lead them up to that level...I sure wouldn't underestimate them.

I hear you on what he can deal with here, but most coaches worth their salt--and that definitely includes McCarney--aren't folks that are known to be "settlers". Sure, Peterson and Patterson are examples of coaches who have stayed put, but their universities have heavily compensated them to stay and moved their programs into higher profile conferences along the way. Maybe UNT does the same thing to reward Coach Mac, if needed. But the clear majority of coaches, no matter their age, are always looking to move upward and get the raise in pay and stature while they can get it. This is especially true between non-AQ and AQ conferences. Illinois will get more money from bowls and their Big Ten membership, while not winning a game, than any non-AQ team , except for the one who makes a BCS Bowl. IN other words, Illinois can easily dump a guy who has been Dodge-esque in his tenure there, for a true re-builder with strong Midwestern roots and in a league where his run-first offense would play very well. All the while, he gets double his pay. And the longer he waits, the more his age does come into play as a factor against him, notwithstanding his energy and attitude. If he leaves UNT for another place, it will be after this season or next. Illinois would fit just about every characteristic of a job that McCarney has excelled at in the last 15 years. I'd love for him to say no, if offered. But I'd be shocked if he said no to this hypothetical offer. Remember, Hayden Fry left here for moribund Iowa in 1978, where he hired Coach Mac. The rest was history--and Illinois is an easier place to recruit to than Iowa. Maybe Illinois won't consider even talking to him, much less making an offer his way. But if I were the AD up there, I'd be putting out feelers to see if Coach Mac would be interested.

I've said this for a while, but Mac's energy and attitude make him feel younger than he really is. He would be an excellent candidate for the AQ teams that are down on their luck in the Midwest. Illinois could get Coach Mac for what they are currently paying and get experience and a winner in him. Plus, he is known as a turnaround artist, which can easily be sold to your fanbase, even in Illinois. He can EASILY get a compensation package of over $2 million in Champaign, Illinois. I'm not sure he can get to $1 million in compensation here in Denton anytime soon. The attendance thing matters, but not nearly as much as many think. We were the absolute dreg of FBS--along with Western Kentucky--when McCarney took over here. We've never had good attendance, so it was going to take time to get people back into the fold, which is just now happening. The biggest differences are simply money and conference affiliation. Think about this--if he gets Illinois to 6-6, he will be GUARANTEED to go to at least the Heart of Dallas Bowl. If he gets UNT to 8-4, you MIGHT get to the Heart of Dallas Bowl. If you can get double your pay for being able to go to the same bowl in the Big Ten that takes a great season in CUSA, you'd be a fool not to at least listen. And Coach Mac is not a fool...

These people are true idiots...they make Tech fans look smart and sophisticated.

I think the league is just such a punchline to college football fans and media that it makes it really easy to dismiss them. Even when the SBC has had a decent team or two, it still has been looked down upon. Heck, there have been years where the SBC was easily better league-wide than the MAC, the old WAC, or old CUSA and still didn't get any love from college football media or fans. It will always be the the dregs of FBS, which is unfair, but there's just not much that can be done about it. Even college football writers won't give a SBC championship team a vote to be ranked, while the other non-AQ conference champions usually get ranked or a lot of votes to be ranked. Its tough when you are consistently being trotted out as a bought win in several OOC games, especially at the beginning of the season. That perception never gets wiped away by the end of the season in the voters eyes.

I think we will pull away in the second half because of our depth and our defense. Mean Green 34 Roadkill 20

I'm so glad to be out of the Sun Belt...even if we sucked there for the last 8 years. I don't care--that league was never gonna help us get any momentum.

It's the toughest thing that UNT has to overcome, the DFW sports media apathy by its top members. Sure, we have lots if broadcast and print alums in the DFW area, but except for George Dunham, no one else has any pull at the top of the DFW sports media ladder. Tim cowlishaw just represents the SWC mentality perfectly. It's gonna take beating an AQ team AND winning the conference to make a dent with these people. The only reason they haven't dumped SMU completely is because of their SWC history and the rise from the death penalty that many of the DFW media helped to bring about. It's just how it is....

Notre Dame will never play us in a regular season game anywhere in Texas. Don't even think that is a possibility. BYU might, but no chance on Notre Dame. With their quasi-ACC existence in football, every year they will play mix of 5 ACC schools, plus Navy, USC, Purdue, Michigan State, and Stanford. Then, they have their One neutral site game against some opponent of AQ standing (see their game against Arizona State in Arlington last month). They play Baylor in New Orleans in a few years. As the years progress, the AQ teams will be harder and harder to ever play at your place for a series. Most schools will have 3 games to schedule OOC in the near future and they will try to play at least 2 of those games at home, which means 1 bought game and 2 series opponents. With the B1G and the Pac12 agreeing to play one OOC game per year against each other, that means most of those teams will just buy 1-2 games from the non-AQs and the fcs ranks. That leaves you the Sec, big XII, and the ACC. But getting any home-and-home series will be tough with any of those schools, unless you use JerryWorld or the Cotton Bowl as possible hosting venues.

Some of you may have seen some of the ad campaign from earlier this year that the Catholic Church did that was basically, "Come back home--if you've been away from the church, know that you will be welcomed back with open arms." It has brought back many former Catholics, while opening the door to their families and friends, too. An ad campaign by the university that covered all facets of what we offer and what we are striving to do would certainly go over well. And it can't be half-assed, either. For athletics, I'd be on every sports station and in every sports page once this season ended, promoting the idea of a welcome back for the UNT alum who now has a team that is good and a facility that is just terrific. Maybe even offer an introductory season ticket price for someone who joined the alumni association recently, but has been graduated for more than 10 years. The folks that got to school in Denton between 1979 and 1995 got very little reason to care about UNT Football, mostly because the administration and the BOR barely funded it. Those people are your target--they are in their late 30s to their early 50s now. If you can salvage anything from this group, it'd be worth every penny you spend in getting them back. And the cold reality is that many of these people are a lost cause, that they came here because it was cheap, close to home, and gave them a chance to get a degree that could be very useful in DFW and beyond. That's the problem with being a "value" school--you are aiming for people who want to have nice perks for little cost or effort. Our University's endowment is clear proof of this. It's hard enough to get decent alumni contributions from teachers, since their pay is low. But your business school and your research school should have those alumni that feel connected enough to give back, since they are filled with folks who have higher incomes. It's only going to get tougher on the university as those alums from that timeframe get older, if we don't reach out vigorously to them soon to tell them we want you to come back, to see our teams play, to see our art exhibits, and to see our performing arts facilities and concerts.

I think most of Denton and the majority of UNT faculty and teachers feel the way that those have spoken out loudly and absurdly about this stuff regarding athletics. When you have focused on education, music, and art, you're gonna have this stuff pop up. Not one other school in this state would run into these people and their anti-athletic cause. Not UT, A&M, Tech, Baylor, TCU, SMU, UTEP, UTSA, Texas State, UH, Rice, SFA, SHSU, etc... Please, folks, don't let this turn into a repeat of the late 70s again, where we make it abundantly clear that athletics shouldn't even get decent funding. We lost Hayden Fry, I-A football, and generations of money-giving alumni that love and fund Longhorn, Aggie, Sooner, etc...football instead of ours. Don't cost us Coach Mac because of this North Texas State Teachers College mentality!!

SMU Army BYU Ohio

I think the eastern jewels will be MUTS, an F_U (interchangeable, really), and one of the urban schools that are moving up (Charlotte or ODU). Marshall and WKU will probably be fine, but I don't see a huge upsiade for either of them. I just think Middle Tennessee has a lot of advantages in being in a state with a lot of talent that has one behemoth school (Tenn) and a big private school (Vandy) with high admittance standards, and a basketball school in Memphis. MUTS has a lot of potential, IMO. In the west, I've always said that UTSA has the most upside because of the market they serve and they have no "bad" years to recover from. That said, I think UNT, La Tech, and USM are right up there, too. Rice, to me, as a small private school with high academics, will slide back down. And UTEP and UAB are lost causes, I think, for the next 5 years.

This is your mind on drugs... I just want to hit 10. I'm not even kidding. OU is nowhere near as good as they were last year--they will finish around 8th in the Big XII this year. And we gave up 95 points to them.

WVU and KSU will get to 6--both Kansas and Iowa State are just awful.

The Big Ten has already gotten their 7 teams bowl eligible IIRC, or they are fairly close to having them sew it up. Iowa beating Purdue was big for them ebcause it got them to 6-4 with games left versus Michigan at home and at Nebraska.

Look, the HoD Bowl is dying to have us in their bowl game this year. They have to get a CUSA entry in there and we are EASILY their best hope for a nice turnout in that game. This is the dream come true for the HoD Bowl and CUSA--to have giant UNT play in its backyard while playing a BIg Ten team that travels very well (basically anyone not named Northwestern). They want us to play Iowa. The only two things that can trip this up is Iowa to beat Michigan, which could happen, but I think Michigan wins that game, and us winning out and going to the Liberty Bowl. Ironically, us making to the Liberty Bowl, while making us CUSA champions, also gives us a farther venue to travel to against a tougher opponent. Anyone from the SEC that will be bowl eligible will be much tougher than anyone that the Big Ten sends down here. I want to play Iowa in Dallas on New Years Day at the Cotton Bowl. I want Hayden Fry to flip the coin before the game and to be honored at halftime by both schools. But I'd gladly "settle" for being CUSA Champs and playing a team like Ole Miss or Vandy in the Liberty Bowl, too!!

You'd be surprised at how much more Cross could make here and not have to change his life dramatically. CUSA job in DFW is way above being a coach of a SBC school in DFW.

I think we would still a very attractive job, just because of location and facilities. We just need to hire an experienced head coach--its shocking that the only time we've done this in the last 30 years at UNT in football or men's hoops is McCarney and now we are finally seeing the light at the end of this very dark tunnel there. But hiring an assistant coach with no previous head coaching experience damn near killed our football team for 20 years, which is my fear here with our hoops team.

Our perfect candidate is now at Texas State because he couldn't get an interview here. My choice would be Cross first, then i'd go hard after Shields at UALR or Marlin at ULL.

Message board approval is very important to you, so I will give you this... We better celebrate this victory tonight...its probably one of about 4 we will enjoy this year (and that might be aiming too high) Benford'd...thanks RV

Interesting talk on the Aggies and Longhorns on The Ticket right now...making a big deal about the Aggies SEC advantage on recruiting in state talent, which is why they are surmising that Texas is no interested in playing A&M and why A&M has done a nice 180 on playing Texas anytime, anywhere, as they espoused during the split.

I remember how badly I felt for him in that NO Bowl game against Southern Miss when they put 9 people in the box. USM was just so much bigger and faster than us. Between that game and the Tulsa debacle at home in 2005, it became very clear that we had certainly fallen backwards from where we wanted to go.