untjim1995

The Pac-12 and the ACC both told Texas that their LHN wouldn't be acceptable at all for consideration of membership in their leagues. Obviously, the Big Ten and the SEC feel exactly the same about the LHN. The GOR for the Big XII schools and the ACC schools will really be the litmus test for more AQ realignment. If the GORs cannot get busted, then realignment will pretty much stay as it is. But if it gets busted with small exit fees or buyouts, the Big XII and the ACC are going to git pillaged by the Big Three AQs. There is a pretty good rumor out there that OU and KU to the Big Ten is very possible, along with Mizzou, UNC, Duke, and UVa. That would give the Big Ten 18 teams, spread from the entire East Coast through the midwest. That would leave the SEC to replace Mizzou, which is a horrible fit in that league anyway, and they can get the footholds in states they covet to get into by adding Va Tech and NC State. The ACC would then replace their losses with West Virginia, Cincy, UConn, East Carolina, and South Florida.. If the Big XII loses either Texas or Oklahoma, they are done. Oklahoma and Kansas both have other schools to keep in mind, so they could get stuck with them, but I doubt it. Same with Texas, as it concerns Tech, Baylor, and TCU, but I suspect Texas can get away if they take care of Tech or if they decide to go independent because no one wants Tech in the other major AQ conferences--the Big Ten called Texas' main issue from being invited to their league as "The Tech Problem". The Pac brethren feel exactly the same way about Tech and Okie State, but they will take them if it gets them Texas (sans the LHN) and Oklahoma. Probably the same for KU, too, in that K-State might be able to go west with all of them if it means the Pac can get the Big Three from the Big 12, UT, OU, and KU, all of which have powers in the $$$ sports and have high academic accolades on their side (UT and KU are in the AAU, which seems to be very highly regarded for an invite to the Big Ten, and OU, while not in the AAU, has the most National Merit Scholars amongst public universities in the country). One thing is for sure, Baylor's gonna sue the hell out of everyone to block all of this and they will get lots of support from their brethren in FW, too, but I just don't see this working out too well for either of those two private schools. I think the Big XII's best days passed as soon as they lost Nebraska, Colorado, A&M, and Mizzou. Each delivered big names for either TV markets or national recognition and all ahve great academic pedigrees from the AAU. Replacing them with TCU and WVU is not even close to being sufficient.

If we had won even 1 more game at the end of that schedule, Chico would've been the head coach here. You can argue the merits of if he deserved it or not then, but it would've happened if we had won one of those games against Troy, ULM, or KSU. I actually am glad that it worked out the wway it did. I was on record as wanting an experience FBS coach that people had heard of to come here. Hiring Chico as the OC was even better because it gave the fans someone to feel connected to, but also told the fanbase that we were willing to try and pay a coach with experience--something we hadn't done since Hayden Fry. In the end, I think it all worked out the way it should have once Dodge was fired.

Stats don't show heart or effort, which were both on display in Athens against a behemoth of a team, in NFL-lite Georgia. We won't play another team that good for a long time, thank God--Texas next year will be so much softer than Georgia or LSU or Alabama or any other SEC power. Iowa in 2015 will be waaayyyy slower than any of those teams, too. Who knows about Tennessee, but they will probably find their way back by the time we play them. BUt the point is that we won't have to face a program with that combo of size, depth, talent, and atmosphere for a while. To see us fight Georgia for 4 quarters at their place, enough to garner much interest from many points was something I haven't seen from a UNT team since we lost at Texas in 2002 or at Oklahoma in 2003. You act like we should have been able to beat Georgia. By reading your posts, I would have thought that this game was 45-0 in the 3rd quarter and we scored three scrub TDs on their walk-ons to make it 45-21 in the 4th quarter. That is the exact opposite of what happened. I totally agree with you about Tulane and all the other CUSA teams we play, but to not look at this Georgia game and see major progress is just trying to nitpick, IMO. I realize the parallels are there from last year after we played K-State well, but that team, even though they were ranked #1 at one point, wasn't as good as this Georgia team. This UGA team would have mauled that KSU team from last year, just from a size and speed standpoint. I'm hoping that DT and the rest of the team will show us how much they have matured by not letting up against the Tulanes and La Techs of the world. So, in that regard, we are in total agreement.

I've said this before, but the 1-AA demotion wasn't the worst part of us falling backwards. It was the fact that we stayed there for 12 years. A I-AA stay of under 5 years would still have been bad, but it would've given the leaders of the university time to refocus on building a legitimate stadium, which would have allowed us to move back up and be ready for 1-A competition. When we finally did move up in 1995, we really gave it about a quarter-assed effort. In that regard, it's only now that we even give FBS competition at the non-AQ level an effort that is necessary to compete with other non-AQ schools that have been around for more than 20 years. We just have to hope that we stay after it at a competitive level. No more 1982 debacles in Denton.

UNT90, I usually agree with your posts, but you really are being negative and argumentative for the sake of being a contrarian. If you don't want to see anything good from competing for almost 4 full quarters with a Top Ten SEC team on road in the 4TH GAME OF THE SEASON (not the first game where you can sneak up on inexperienced teams), so be it. But we gave Georgia fits well into the 4th quarter. Georgia has NFL talent everywhere--as a matter of fact, they are probably a top five team in CFB. If they had won at Clemson, they would probably be #2 right now. Alabama, Oregon, and Clemson are the only teams that are better than Georgia right now. I think they will throttle LSU at home this weekend. Mark Richt wanted to rest his guys after the 1st half and couldn't do it because we stood up and fought with them. The last 10 points they got, especially that last TD, were really needed for them not to lose spots in the polls that have ridiculous voters who only look at scores. I totally agree with the Tulane premise, though. If we $hit the bed against Tulane, all of the local media and fan buzz that we felt will vaporize. We have seen this happen a few other times before--in 1997 after losing to a top ten A&M team in a closer than expected game, we lost to Idaho and Boise State (before they were good) and Nevada. Simon got fired at the end of the year. In 1999, after we beat Texas Tech--again--in Lubbock, we followed it up with a bad loss at baylor, a Baylor team that won less than 3 games, IIRC. And, of course, the KSU game from last year got followed up by a turd of a game at home against Troy. I still think we beat Tulane in NO, though. We are better than them and if we play like we should, we will take care of business. Its the other two October road games where I can see a stumble or two. But I was greatly encouraged by the effort and the talent we displayed on Saturday in Athens. We look like a college football team at the FBS level--even during our SBC championship run, I always felt that we looked small compared to other non-SBC teams. But I think we look the part now, just without the depth on the lines that we need. But I think the thing that is almost stealth to so many around here is the strength and conditioning of this team, especially on the lines. This is just another reason as to why McCarney was a solid hire to build us back up from the Dodge ashheap.

Will they even get 20k in attendance for this game? That game should have been played in the I-Bowl in Shreveport, not the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

The game that has sellout possibility is the home game against UTEP. Even if they are bad--and they are--they have a lot of alumni here in DFW. And the students, alumni, and Denton residents have heard of UTEP. If we are in first place by then, I expect to see a crowd of no less than 25k, but if we are unbeaten in CUSA play, a sellout is very possible. Let me put it this way, if we win most of or all of our games between now and that home game against UTEP (@Tulane, home vs MUTS, @ La Tech, @ Southern Miss, home vs. Rice on Halloween) and have good weather when the Miners come into town, there will be no excuse available anymore for attendance issues. You would have wins, a Texas team that has been around for decades as a FBS school, beautiful stadium, and a big game toward getting into the CUSA Championship game. If people cannot get excited enough to come out for this game, then there is just not much else to say. I would be willing to bet this will be the highest attended game ever at Apogee IF we keep winning. I just fear those road games and that home game against Rice.

Its all just a matter of time. I suspect that the AQs will tell the NCAA to shove it. They will just say that we are free to start our own intercollegiate athletic association, that we aren't making the NCAA give up as the regulator for all the other Division III, Division II, FCS, and non-AQ schools that would be left behind. The big media networks are going to salivate over this. They will get better names for better games every week, as well as a re-bid for their own NCAA March Madness and College World Series from ESPN, CBS, FOX, and NBC. The thing is that those schools control so much, from the media to the fans to the legislatures, both in state and in DC. One thing we all know is that you cannot beat money unless you have the people (votes). We get less than 20k in attendance, while Texas gets over 100k in attendance. They will always have that power--they graduate journalists, lawyers, and business grads at a high rate, both from volume and prestige. Its just too big of a difference. But the thing is, though, is that UNT isn't any different when compared to Texas as any other non-AQ in this state, even UH. Nobody can compete with the control the Longhorns, Aggies, and Red Raiders have--not even Baylor, TCU, or SMU. They are just too big and too monied. Its just the same in Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc...

Man, UTEP will lose a lot of their fanbase after this debacle...

I think the good from this game gets carried forward if we win this next game. Much like last year, after the KSU game, we lost all momentum by losing. Tulane is bad, they are a team we should beat anywhere. If we lose to them, the DFW media will just laugh us off again. This will remind the long timers here of the time we hung tough with a top ten Aggie team at Texas Stadium in 1997 and eventually lost, but lots of buzz was created by UNT being ready to make its mark as a I-A program. And we followed that up with a disastrous Big West season that cost Matt Simon his job. We cannot let that happen again if we want to gain a foothold in the DFW media.

The AQ media admits they don't even care about non-AQs, unless its Boise State. The NTSU reference and the negative remarks are just more salt to the wounds up here. Until we win one of these games, this crap will continue, both regionally and nationally.

Nebraska-Miami in the Orange Bowl in 1984 is still the best college game I've ever watched. Texas-USC in the 2005 National Championship game was great, too. Boise State over OU with all the trick plays is up here, too. The Cotton Bowl of 1982 between Texas and Alabama, won in the 4th quarter by UT, 14-12 was also terrific, but a cut below the other three. The TCU-Boise State Poinsettia Bowl was also very good, TCU winning 17-16, between two top ten teams. The Snow Bowl between Mississippi State and Texas A&M in the Independence BOwl was also great, with MSU beating the Aggies in OT. And, finally, to homer it up, UNT over Cincy in the NO Bowl of 2002. This has been the pinnacle of being a UNT Football fan, watching your underdog team beat the favorite in a great town in a bowl game against a team people actually have heard of.

And he should be, with all the wins and attention that he has brought to FW.

Exactly. How people can feel good about RV as our AD is just amazing to me. It's the helluva guy syndrome--he opened up tailgating, he knows my name, he shakes my hand...Think about this for a second, the AD knows your name because there aren't enough fans around to get confused. I guarantee you that Chris Del Conte down at little old TCU doesn't know people like RV does because they have a lot of fans. We have about 10k diehards. Has that risen under RV? No doubt. Has tailgating made a huge difference? Of course, but to give him major kudos for doing what moronic ADs from the past wouldn't do is very low bar, IMHO. But the diehards would've been double if we had continued to improve after 2004. Instead, we watched the whole thing hit the absolute rock bottom a program can reach. Luckily, Coach Mac appears to at least have an idea on how to rebuild the team on the field, even if his employer doesn't give him much help in promoting the games or bringing in better opponents to help the turnstiles, since its obvious now that people come to Denton to watch the other team play us. RV will be here until he retires. But for fans like me, I have invested 23 years in fandom here. The university has 5 years left to show me that winning in football and basketball matters to them finally. If we are still bad, then they lose me, just as they have lost so many others. I've given them enough time to convince me that revenue athletics matter here. It's more than building a stadium (finally) to replace the toilet you played in 30 years to long. It's more than paying the most you ever have in your history for a football coach. It's more than getting into your dream conference, even though it is a shell of what we dreamed it would be with SMU, UH, Tulane, Tulsa, ECU, and UCF all gone by next year. You show you are truly serious when you pay money to buyout bad hires--not when it is fiscally acceptable. Again, this place has until the end of the 2017 football season to show me that my fandom should continue. I will not be one of those guys who looks back and says I stuck with 3,4, or 5 decades worth of crap like others on this board have done. More power to those of you who have hung in there like that, but I'm just not willing to do that if the university doesn't show the same interest in winning that we all want as fans. The clock is ticking... Also, you better beat UTSA. I don't care if they have been more competitive lately than anyone expected. They have three years of existence to our 100 years. That's an ender, too, just as Brett Vito mentioned at the beginning of the season by naming it the "Suicide Watch Game".

In my opinion, the goal for this is to never let anyone believe we are in good shape as far as being a legitimate FBS program... And he is so right, it's not even funny. For $hits and giggles, I want to hear what the BOR and College of Music have set for their goals for the future. Lets see if mediocrity is accepted there. I'll bet it's not even remotely acceptable to anyone associated with the College of Music or the Green Brigade. I have come to accept that this place looks at athletics in a whole different view than every other school in the region. We are only in a watered-down CUSA because SMU left and they went up the road to get a school with a big enrollment. I'm sure the league is thrilled that they replaced a 10k enrollment school in SMU with a 38k enrollment in UNT, just to see 14k show up for a game last week. It is what it is--and it's why so many UNT alums identify themselves as Longhorns, Aggies, Red Raiders, Sooners, etc... We continuously miss the boat on athletics, from budgeting, to personnel, to promotion. Anyone who argues otherwise is just deluded. If McCarney does turn it around here in the next two years, he will get offers from other places. And, just like Hayden did, he will leave for a school that likes football from the BOR down to the average student at that college. IOW, how it's not in Denton.

Great thing about this potential game is that Iowa would love it, too. They can get a New Years Bowl game in Texas, while playing a team on their schedule in a few years, and would give Hayden Fry a lot of love. Some AQ teams would absolutely avoid a bowl slot against a team like us in any way possible. But Iowa would probably love this game, considering all that it would be for them, too. In an even more ironic twist, if we played Iowa in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl, it would be like us having 2 for 1 with them. A game at the Cotton Bowl with strong UNT attendance (when we have played in bowl games or in the NCAA Tournament, "fans" who couldn't even tell you how to get into Fouts or the Super Pit would magically show up in New Orleans) could be a nice tie-into getting a big OOC game in Dallas at some point down the road.

Announced crowd of over 14k

Mean Green --$975,000 Uga--$0

I said earlier this year that if Coach Mac gets us to 6 wins, and I don't care when it happens during the year, he deserves an extension of at least 3 years. From what he has dealt with and is trying to improve, I just hope he feels healthy enough to stay around for the fight if an extension is offerred. I'm assuming he would love it, with his infectious enthusiasm and his strong will. The bad news for Coach Mac is that he only has 4 more home games, where he has made us a tough opponent. Actually, Rice is probably the toughest team we play there the rest of the way, since MUTS is not better than Ball State and UTEP and UTSA are both pretty bad teams. I begrudgingly admit that UTSA has been better than I expected to this point, but they will be decimated by the time they make it to Denton with that schedule they will have played. That says a lot about where we are now as a program--that the bad news is only 4 more home games!! Road games at La Tech, USM, Tulane, and Tulsa are all winnable games, but we have to show we can go to one of those venues and pull out a win.

The saddest part is that most of the faculty up there in Denton feel this way. It's just that ugly part of the culture. I've said it before, but if a guy like Coach Mac cannot turn it around here, with his enthusiasm and experience, I am not sure it can be done. He is that special of a coach, if he can just keep the program on the road to becoming a winner on a consistent basis.

It was a great win, but I'm not ready to say everything is going to plan. What do I know, though? I just live in the suburbs, raising mean and evil children that supposedly will never help UNT in any way, shape, or form...

This morning on the Ticket, our own "alum" Craig Miller said to Geroge Dunham that it was too bad he had to work the UNT-Ball State game at the same time the Alabama-Texas A&M game is going on. This is what so many UNT alumni hear (or read) everyday in their media outlets and why so many feel like it was right to never get into UNT sports. Changing this mindset is going take more than just winning games against non-AQ teams in CUSA, the MAC and the SBC. We are going to have to beat the AAC teams when we play them (SMU) and we are going to have eventually beat one of those AQ powers. Whether its Georgia this year or Texas, Iowa, Tennessee, or Florida in the future, we can only get the local media writers on our side if we beat one of the AQs on our schedule, since that is who most fans and media care about. Otherwise, it will continue to be much of the same as we move forward.

Can I give you a +100,000?

1. Aggie fans 2. Longhorn Fans 3. Rangers fans 4. Typical Denton residents 5. UNT community members that prefer music and arts 6. Insert any others that also don't care...

You're telling us that even the firefighters are apathetic, too? Man, this is worse than I ever even imagined... just kidding I think