untjim1995

I think your post is dead-on correct about each point. RV has it made here, since he does his job perfectly for the BOR, which is keep it cheap. It works perfectly with being a great "value" university. To me, the next few years look like this at UNT: 1.) Scenario One: Coach Mac Makes it happen here. He really is the next Hayden Fry at UNT and he turns us into the winner we have dreamed about since Fry left. 2.) Scenario Two: Coach Mac gets fired after 2014 because we don't win and we just go back and hire the next cheap, unexperienced coordinator to be our coach Either way, your AD will be the same person--Rick Villareal. RV has the most stable job in AD history at a FBS school. That extension he just got absolutely boggles my sports mind. Again, he's a great guy and fun to talk to. He gets lots of points because he went way out on a limb and decided that tailgating for a college football game might be a good thing to implement in Denton. Morons before RV that couldn't figure this out get no bashing for this--nope, nothing but high praise for RV for implementing a strategy that every other school in America engages in before and after games. He gets major credit for having a new stadium built on his watch, even though it was UNTFlyer that somehow get it done when RV couldn't anytime before that pivotal election. So the fans love him. And the university loves him, too, because he manages the AD is a very cost-effective manner that the BOR mandates. There is absolutely no doubt that he will retire here as the AD and will get the athletic office building named after him. No doubt...

I'd be on board with a two year extension, even if its after a 5 win season, since it would show improvement and his recruiting is really starting to pick up some steam. Add in some stability with McCarney as the head coach for a few more years and I'd like the way things would look in 2014 and beyond. I think the job he took over was the among the very worst in FBS after the Dodge debacle and the last few give up years under Dickey. That may be swaying my opinion to give him an extension after a 5 win season--if its just one year. In before I get crushed by the usual "We need to raise expectations around here" crowd, even though we haven't exactly shown that we give a damn about football over the 35 years.

Hey, what's your prediction for TCU this year?

I'm even more confused now. I guess I'm just not getting it, which certainly won't be the first time. Are you saying that by opening practice more than a few times will build a stronger fanbase from your season ticket holders? If so, the Dickey years at UNT would not necessarily agree with that assessment, nor would the Dodge years, when we closed almost all practices, yet saw our attendance jump over all those Dickey years. Seriously, though, I'm not clear on what you are trying to say, but I am very interested to see your answer.

I actually think that the BaylorFans thread has some realm of possibility to it. This is why: 1.) Eventually UConn, Cincy, and South Florida are going to go somewhere else, most likely the ACC or the Big XII. I could easily see Uconn and South Florida in the ACC to get to 16 and Cincy and BYU ending up in the Big XII to get to 12 again. UH and/or SMU may very well want to bail ASAP, since they will be traveling all over the country for non-AQ money, while playing games at Temple, Memphis, and East Carolina. Remember, they joined this league with the idea that it was going to be AQ, that it would have Boise State and SDSU also join, plus it would have Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, and Rutgers to play in football, as well as the biggest reason, that the Catholic 7 would be their basketball conference mates, along with Notre Dame. Literally, not one of those things has occurred. So now, they get to play in a new conference with the exact same opponents as they had in the old CUSA, but added Temple and Navy, and the three schools that everyone with a pulse expects to leave the AAC as soon as possible, UCONN, Cincy, and USF. 2.) With basically CUSA 2.0 fully in effect for the AAC, I could easily see the MWC trying to pounce to get some more Texas markets again real soon.They would love UH and SMU, for location and tradition, but either of those two programs may not want to go west, which would make no sense to me since the MWC is light years better than the AAC as they are built today for both football and basketball. But, if they won't go west, then the MWC will go after UTEP and one of the other two big Texas public schools, UTSA or UNT. If we keep losing, UTSA would most likely be the target, with their location, media market, and bowl game connections. I know many people think the MWC is just the Big West redux, but I'd love to have a membership out west with those teams. Even if Boise State and San Diego State eventually get into the Pac-12, I'd still love playing out west with another Texas team as a travel mate. But if UTSA got that spot, Texas State would just get moved up, so it would be a net zero situation for us, in terms of travel budget and visiting fans attending games in Denton. But it would give UTSA a huge advantage in terms of stability and perception over us and Texas State, with recruits, high school coaches, and the media. I hope none of this plays out at all, but its very possible if we don't get our stuff together and UTSA does over the next 3- 5 years.

He won't be back for 2015 if 2014 is a losing season. You rarely see a head coach coaching in a final year of a contract at the college level--it is official suicide for recruiting purposes, not to mention for your players who can easily tune you out if they want, knowing you'll be gone at the end of the year. A 5-year contract today, means you are probably getting 4 years to either get an extension or get fired. I think he will get an extension at the end of this year if we win 5 games or more. If its 5-6 wins, I believe he'll get a two-year extension. If its 7+ wins, I believe it will be 3 years for an extension.

What was Texas State's OL and DL like last year?

This...

What is the point?

You are really suffering from BMGS if you think UTSA will beat us this year. BMGS--Battered Mean Green Syndrome

Whining and complaining and name-calling will only make this worse with these sports media members. Silver's message is dead-on. You send out reminders, thank them for receiving your email or phone call, and just hope that it matters to them that you reached out to them politely. Otherwise, when the inevitable 72-0 score against our usual NFL-lite bodybag opponent rolls around, you'll see a ton of mentions--with added sarcasm and commentary. I've seen it happen to fans of every school in this state when their team gets pounded--"Well, all of you Tech fans out there that complain that I don't give you any attention as compared to UT or A&M, well, here ya' go. Today, at home in Lubbock, your fine team that you berate me about not covering enough, just lost a heartbreaker 65-6 to Oklahoma State. So there you go." It just makes it worse, in my opinion.

This is where I think McCarney is finally making some progress with the Texas HS Coaches. Its an uphill battle here, for sure, but he is making progress. His first few recruiting classes weren't good, but I think its just due to all the losing under Dodge. It takes time to build trust with these high school coaches, but Mac is a quality guy and I know that is starting to pay dividends with recruiting. It will all come down to wins and losses, as it should, but McCarney is just such a breath of fresh air as an ambassador of this university. I really want him to win here and be our head coach until he is ready to retire. We could use that kind of stability around here.

I hope its not our benchmark because tennis brings in no money or attention. Bad ADs always trump up non-revenue sports that are winning when your money sports suck. The Aggies had Bill Byrne as their AD for a while--they were awful in football, but good to great in everything else, even winning national championships in golf, track, tennis, etc...there is not one Aggie I know that wouldn't trade what they have now in Sumlin and Hyman as their HFC and AD for what they had previously. Winning in tennis and golf and other non-revenue sports is great--I just don't want that being trumped by the AD as proof that we are doing well in collegiate athletics. Those sports could go winless if it means that our football team and basketball teams are great. Those sports bring in waaaayyyy more money and attention than anything else the university does if they are winning programs.

That's really going out on a limb there.

Man, we have seen two mags that predict us at 2-10 and 3-9 so far, IIRC. I just don't see us being THAT bad...that would make 2014 about as hot a seat as a coach could feel. If that happens in 2013, and then we struggle in the first half of 2014, I could see a Dodge-like change at HC again in the middle or latter part of the season. But I don't think that's gonna happen--not this season, nor next season.

Who the eff is Soza? Is he your QB? RB? Punter? Honestly, I don't know one player on your whole team.

Just a plug for him because he's a great guy and fromer DRC sports editor, but Richard Durrett's show with Ian Fitzsimmons is really good. And they are planning to talk a lot more about college football than any other show in the market on any station. Just be prepared for AQ BS from Fitzsimmons--he loves the big schools. Their show is on ESPN 103.3 from 11:00 to 3:00 before GAC. Otherwise, just listen to the Ticket for the laughs. I usually switch back to Bad Radio when their show has a commercial break. All of those Ticket guys can talk sports, but its like a group of guys at a bar conversation--they usually get off that topic fairly quickly just too make everyone laugh. I don't take it too serious because they don't either. As far as coverage goes, we have to do two things here to get their attention--beat a big name team or at least play them close AND then win the conference. Anything less than that, as we have seen and heard, won't change anyone's minds about non-SWC UNT in the DFW media. Just as was mentioned earlier, the one time that UNT got any mention from anyone other George on air was when we gave K-State a game in Manhattan. Next year, for example, if we had improved enough to both compete closely at Texas and win CUSA, the coverage we would see here would be unprecedented. That's not out of the question, if we keep improving like I think we will.

This thread is gold on just about every level. First, we have UTSA folks showing off the effects of drug usage while predicting how their team will do in their first full year of FBS competition. Next, we have GMG members basically calling them out on this absolute stupidity. Then, we have GMG posters basically saying that the UTSA game is a "line-in-the-sand" game because they are so new to this and find losing to them as totally unacceptable. For that amazingly lofty belief, some of us get called out for being "Negative Neds", since we have over 200k living alumni in the Metroplex and over 36k enrollment and 500k in Denton County and won games in the 70s under Hayden Fry... obviously that huge group feels amazingly optimistic and supportive about UNT Football, even though we can't get 20k as an average attendance for a full season. But, never fear, us "Negative Ned's" shouldn't even post about our absolute lowest expectations to be able to step over or, heaven forbid, we say there will be consequences for being unable to beat a team that is about to enter its third effin' year of existence at home. Hell, the DRC should absolutely fire Brett Vito, too, for feeling the same way as these "Negative Neds" since he has coined this game as the biggest of the season for UNT and has even given it a nickname that can't be mentioned because it is not positive... Keep in mind that most of us in that "Negative Ned" camp believe that the chances of losing to UTSA are less than 1% and that we actually love Coach Mac and believe he is the best thing to happen to UNT Football in 35 years. Finally, we close with GL2Greatness giving his most succint post in his life, but still missing the complete point of well, everything, and then we get our very own board pinata, Froggy Style, shoe-horning TCU into this argument, even though they don't have either UNT or UTSA on their schedules for the next century. Gold...

Continue to go to games with the rest of the folks in your foxhole?

Hey, pal, let me clue you in on something that will be real important for you to remember. Last year ain't this year, and just as we played flat against new program South Alabama, so did La Tech against new program UTSA. Its not uncommon for better teams to look waayyyy down on teams that they should dominate. Just to repeat--last year means nothing for this year. We played K-State damn close on the road for the entire game--and it means absolutely nothing for our games against this year's schedule.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/22953443/are-we-really-sure-that-the-ncaa-tournament-is-safe

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/22953443/are-we-really-sure-that-the-ncaa-tournament-is-safe I know that this is the football board, but this hits on the worst part of a split, IMO. College Football separating is one thing--that's 66 teams out of 124. But if we lose the country's best playoff system--and its not even close--then you will have about 80 schools that will control March Madness, too, instead of it being open to the 300+ schools that are defined as Division 1 by the NCAA. The next thing you know, they will go after the College World Series as their own, too.

Two things--Tech got them in Lubbock, we played them in Norman. That OU team was the best one they've had since Switzer's thugs patrolled the siedlines in the mid-80s. They would have obliterated their teams that won the natinoal championship in 2000 and played in the BCS title game in 2004 and in 2008. They just had their Heisman winning QB, Jason White, who played on two very bad knees, get pounded in his last two games and suffer two losses to KSU and LSU because they knew that they could rattle him with pressure. Before those two games, I remember watching ESPN one day where they were discussing if that Sooners team was one of the greatest of all-time, like whether they were Top 5 or Top 10. They were that great, but then the balloon popped at the very end because of White's poor QB play. Call it a moral victory, if you want, but that is the best game we played against any of the NFL-lite powers (OU, UT, LSU, Arky, Alabama) that I have seen us play--even better than the ultimate moral victory game that gets celebrated around here (the 27-0 game against UT in 2002, where they didn't score in the 2nd half). That 2003 OU team was light years better than any of UT's teams, sans 2005.

Think about this for a second. There are 22 FBS teams in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Of those 22 teams, there are 6 teams that can do something like what Oregon and their Nike money just built with all the money they have--Texas, A&M, OU, OSU, Arky, and LSU. Sure, Tech, Baylor, TCU, UH, Tulsa, and SMU have resources that can help them compete with those other 6, from conference affiliation to location to just being plain ol' rich. But they cannot beat those 6 teams consistently over the years because of their inherit $$$ advantages in their states. Now, look at the schools in CUSA and the SBC and it becomes even more clear that the Power 5 are eventually gonna circle the wagons here. We can complain about it all we want or try and be defiant about it, but the reality is that the money and power in those 5 leagues and a few chosen others is too much for the strong majority of non-AQs and FCS schools. Let them go--we will still be playing a true form of college football and we just have to hope that we will get to play better recognized compettition during the year than when we were a 1-aa school playing those SLC teams that were labeled pissant by media and by fans because of their size.

No kidding. I'm sorry, but losing to UTSA--at home--in their first full year of complete FBS football scheduling, while you've been playing for 100 years is absolutely unacceptable to even think about the "big picture" involving regrouping, especially if we only win 1-2 games this year. Big picture, to me, if this occurred, would involve asking if the university can ever compete in this modern college football world. I think that's a very fair question to ask the program to contemplate if this type of loss occurred. Northwestern State beating TCU was a huge upset, no doubt. But TCU was coming off some very good years as a program under Franchione with a new coach, Patterson, in place. Not to mention, NW State had been playing football for many, many decades before that game. Besides, TCU wasn't going to buy out Patterson's deal after one loss, no matter what. Absolutely none of those issues exist in the matchup between 100 years of football-playing UNT and 3-years of football existence UTSA. A loss to UTSA is absolutely, unequivocably an ender for most of us--that's why Brett Vito is already calling this the Most Critical Game of the Year, the Suicide Pact Game. Lose to them, and your recruiting will get worse since another Texas FBS team will have passed us by in 3 freaking years. Its a Line-in-the-Sand Game for me--because UTSA ain't winning more than 2 games. I expect 1-11 or 0-12 to be honest with you. If we are one of their wins, its over for me.