untjim1995

Or Alabama/Arkansas/Florida/Georgia either... I get the Texas game, just because of who they are in this state and it keeps Texans' $$$ in state. I'd even understand--and fully expect--A&M to end up on our schedule in the future, too, for the same reasons.

I guarantee you this guy didn't even know TCU existed before 2000...

I agree on that final point. And I also agree on Iowa as a terrific $$$ game opponent, one that should be copied for years to come, instead of playing Southern teams from the SEC, Big XII, or ACC. I just thought Iowa was a team we would see at Apogee from time to time. When we didn't schedule them for a home and home series, I was very disappointed. But now that I see what Nebraska has done to NIU, we never had a chance to play them here. As a matter of fact, I believe that the Big Ten and the Pac-12 have a scheduling agreement to play one OOC game against each other every year, so that leaves two games left to schedule in OOC. Most of those schools are going to host two MAC schools for those games, so that is how it goes for those of us that are poor, I suppose.

I have often criticized RV for our poor OOC home scheduling, in part because I think our fanbase now has a stadium that can handle larger fanbases from bigger name schools. Nebraska was always a favorite target of mine to get down here for a game, since they no longer play here. After reading the link below, however, the Big Ten and SEC appear to be on the same page as the Big 12 in scheduling 9 games versus conference opponents for the future. If that is the case, getting a home and home series with an AQ team is going to be even harder for the future. As you will read, if NIU, who just went to a BCS bowl game, has to deal with Nebraska buying out their one home game (at Soldier Field, no less) in a series that will now have NIU travel to Nebraska FOUR times in eight years, then us getting Iowa for a return game in Denton appears to have been nothing more than a pipedream for an idiot like myself. I love college football. But sometimes, its stories like this that remind me why I am increasingly not liking college football. I know I'm in the minority on this, but the AQ schism from the NCAA that seems to be bandied about even more of late, can't happen soon enough. I'd rather these semi-pro factories just play themselves. http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/19/cincinnati-nebraska-agree-to-future-home-and-home/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs

I'm thrilled to death that SMU left CUSA for the Big East and that CUSA filled up their vacancy with us BEFORE the Big East blew up and the ACC and the Catholic 7 tore it apart. If not, SMU may have come back, since they would have had their private buddies still in CUSA and probably would have convinced Tulane and Tulsa to just stay put and keep their private voting block together with Rice. We would have stayed in the SBC, while we watched La Tech and UTSA join from the WAC and MUTS, FIU, and probably WKU leave the SBC. To be in the SBC still with Texas State, ULM, ULL, Arky State, Troy, New Mexico State, FAU, Idaho, and South Alabama would have been much worse than being in CUSA-West. Even with Texas State in the SBC, it still would be terrible. Plus, you'd have trips from the Northwest to the Southest in your conference. It would've been a killer for our budget. Texas State will see what its like to be the only Texas school in a low level, non-AQ league. It won't be pretty.

If we lose to Idaho, its not an ender to me, just because its that first game of the year. Weird stuff happens in early season games. FCS teams best AQ teams in early season games from time to time. Idaho is a bit better than a FCS team. The thing is that we don't recruit against Idaho. Its at a point where we cannot fall behind UTSA or Texas State in recruiting. A loss to UTSA does that. And that is why its my line in the sand for the short term as a UNT fan.

I think Todd Dodge truly believed that Riley could run his offense just as well, if not better, than Vizza. Problem was that Vizza was bigger than Riley and he could handle the beating that a sieve OL caused each QB to take. Vizza was a really bad fit from the start at UNT. He played at Alamo Heights in a stadium that was nicer than Fouts and they had more support financially for their rich suburban HS program than UNT had. Dodge was just in over his head. The AD should have told him that the idea of having a high school coach to come in as a defensive coordinator was not going to happen. If you wanted Mendoza to be your LBs coach or DBs coach, then fine. But since he was his own OC, having two non-experienced FBS coaches as your coordinators was a disaster waiting to happen. By the time that got straightened out, it was too late for the success of the program. Dodge could recruit because of his name recognition and his HS success, but it was clear after Year 2 that this was not going to end well and he went hard after JCs. You had to give him a thrid year if money is/was as tight as it apparently is/was at UNT after Dickey's buyout, but the true mistake--one we may not be able to ever dig up from--was letting him get a 4th year after he went 2-10 in Year 3. You knew what you had, but went for the most cost-effective choice by giving Dodge one more year so that the buyout to the university would only be one year. What it would've cost the program for a buyout , in my opinion, has been dwarfed by the continued hole we dug in 2010. I truly believe Coach Mac when he says that we were the smallest Division 1 school he had ever been around when he got here. He has just begun to get this thing up to a standard of just being bad--that is how truly awful we got. Remember, in 2007, we lost at FIU, which was their first win in two years, and in 2008, we got a late interception in the end zone to keep us from losing to Western Kentucky, which was our only win that year and kept WKU winless again. If Mac cannot rebuild it all here, I'm not sure anyone could have done any better from where we were at. The academics have improved, the size has improved, and the college coaching experience has improved greatly--that it has improved us to 9 wins in two years over the previous total of 8 wins in 4 years is proof that Mac is improving us and, more importantly, that Todd Dodge was truly the worst head football coach this university has ever employed.

There is absolutely no way that Southern Miss is going to hiure Rick Villareal as their next AD. They aren't going to buy out his contract here to hire a guy who has hired the worst hires in UNT's history in football, women's basketball, and what could easily be on pace to be the worst hire in men's basketball history. Other ADs at other schools will get hired long before RV at USM. RV has it made here, especially since he just got another extension from the BOR. He will be our AD until he retires.

Basically, he'd be the their version of Todd Dodge...

To me, there are threee scenarios that play out this year. 50% We win 5+ games. Our schedule is easier this year than last year, I don't care what anyone says. La Tech of 2013 ain't anywhere close to La Tech of 2012, Southern Miss of 2013 looks much more like USM of 2012 than USM of 2011, Tulane is still horrible, UTEP is still bad, Idaho is terrible, and UTSA is about as close to Texas Southern as a FBS school can be. There's 4 wins out of that group, IMO. If you win one more against the rest of the schedule (sans Georgia and Tulsa), that's 5. Should be doable and probably gets Mac an extension, one that is well deserved, even if we just get back to 5 wins. HE has had to rebuild this thing up from below the ground. At least we have big bodies to fill out an OLine now. If not, then... 40% We win 3-4 games. That probably means two things. Bad QB play continues and we have tons of injuries. We have two gimmees on the schedule in Idaho and UTSA at home. Winning at least one more game against the rest shouldn't be too hard. You have to pray Berglund can make some progress for the future. Mac will enter Year 4 clearly on the Hot Seat, with it being his make-it-or-break-it year. 10% We win 2 or less games. If this occurs, its the only way I could see Mac getting fired, but even that seems only feasible if we only one game. If Idaho or UTSA beat us, we really should fold up the tent, especially if its UTSA. That would be catastrophic. I'm on record that a loss to UTSA is the end of my fandom unless Mac is fired that following week. Idaho would be awful, too, but we don't recruit against them. It won't happen, though. UTSA will not beat us in Denton. I think a 2-10 season is the floor for this program this year, but I don't think Mac gets fired--the precedent is that Dodge got to come back for a 4th year following his second 2-10 year of his wonderful tenure here and the buyout of Mac's contract is about three times what Dodge's was, which is what truly matters the most in Denton when it comes to sports.

Texas A&M, Nebraska, Colorado, and Mizzou think you are the pot calling the kettle black. Enjoy the AQ Dumpster Fire until its no longer AQ. Big XII will follow the Big East into oblivion once Texas, OU, and KU hit the road. The MWC will take you back, though, so you'll always have Albuquerque...you can let your fellow Baylor fans know where the best places are too not drink in the Mountain West. Non-alcoholic ticks will need to find new blood, though...

I'm not so sure about your last paragraph--I still don''t believe that this school's BOR or administration believe its shake-and-bake time for its athletic teams. I think they believe that they did what they had to do to keep a football team, which was build a new stadium and get us into a new conference with in-state teams. I think they are more than content with these accomplishments, looking at them as the mountaintop of athletic expenditures. RV getting an extension when none of the money sports are winning--thanks, Benford--and some of his hires have been the worst in each of the money sports we have endured in our school's history, which is really saying something. Winning doesn't matter here, cost does. So until that changes, I won't buy into anyone at UNT being ready for shake-and-bake success or else type of expectations when it comes to athletics. Other schools within the university, certainly, but not athletics. Until proven otehrwise, I don't see how anyone can argue that point.

Let's just be glad they made the move--or else we are still in the SBC. If we thought the old SBC was bad, imagine one without MUTS, F_Us, or Western Kentucky. Talk about being the low conference on the totem pole.

It still amazes me at how many other Big XII and SEC schools have trolls on this website that scoreboard our program...oh wait, its just one, the new money of the BC$, Texas Christian University. That's the ultimate paradox, since TCU is known synonymously with Ft Worth's old money. Old money never flaunts, because they don't have to. New money always has to talk, though, usually because they know it can all vanish in a second. Doesn't that describe TCU in a nutshell--worked super hard to achieve greatness and get rewarded by taking A&M's place in the Big XII--only to still be a Texas bolt away from being back in the MWC... You'd better enjoy Lubbock, Austin, Norman, Stillwater, Lawrence, Manhattan, Morgantown, and Ames while you can. Because you and your Waco mates might just find yourselves playing games (again for you) in outposts like Albuquerque, Ft. Collins, Laramie, Boise, and San Jose.

I agree on the SMU thing, but only if it turns into a competitive series or we just thump them while they stay a rung above us on the conference ladder chain. If SMU runs a truck over us in that series, we will be permanently buried in ever getting any DFW media or fans attention. I don't think anyone on the football team or on the staff will underestimate the importance of those games. But it may not matter if we don't have the talent to compete with them. The people at North Texas who won't take this too serious, unfortunately, are the folks on the BOR or in the administration building. And as we all know, there's absolutely nothing you can do about that as a fan.

It costs to coach college football. It costs to recruit college football players. It costs to build and maintain failities for college football. Cost.Cost.Cost. That's all that matters here at UNT, folks. Nothing else...just cost. I mean, seriously, how could we ever be able to pay for recruiting costs when you are competing against UTSA and Texas State for recruits? Forget CUSA schools or AAC schools--we cannot even compete with most Sun Belt schools for recruiting costs. I'd love to know if its just simply due to lack of funds from the university--if it is, you'd be surprised at how much the alumni would help here. If you are afraid its going to cost the College of Music a scholarship or two, then why bother having the sport? After all, college football costs... I've posted it before, but I'll say it again. This thing has 5 years to turn around and to show me why it is going to be worth my time and energy, assuming we beat UTSA this year. I'm drawing my lines in the sand at two places--losing to UTSA this year without anyone being fired or if we still haven't had a winning season by 2017. I wish I had the strength of GrayEagle or PMG to stick with this for multiple decades longer, but I have given this place 22 years of following with very little payback in that timeframe. I'm tired of being around my friends and colleageus that went to every other school in this region of the country and having to be completely embarrassed when we get our asses handed to us by Western Kentucky or Florida International, while they are playing and beating schools people care about in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Apogee was supposed to change things around here. Instead, we play in a great stadium with a mindest and approach that just screams "Fouts-esque or FCS-like". The clock is ticking for me...

I hear you on the conference choice, but Tulsa and La Tech made their way without being in any big conference after the i-aa split in the early 80s, but they put resources into the program so that they could stay afloat as a DIvision 1-A program, even as independents. Now, they are doing better than ever. I cannot agree with you more on the hiring standards here. We care about athletic costs, not athletic success.

The entire DFW media is driven by two things when it comes to college sports reporting: 1.) Are you in the Big XII or SEC? You get the main coverage, if the answer is yes. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially in Ft. Worth, where TCU is their home town team with lots of civic pride. That's where the majority of alums and fans watch college football in these parts, anyway. 2.)If you aren't in the two major regional conferences, were you ever in the SWC? If yes, then you'll get coverage because you have tradition and still have older alums who still read newspapers. TCU was this way before getting into the Big XII. SMU gets great coverage from the DMN since its there in town. I'm fairly certain UH and Rice get decent coverage in the Houston Chronicle, too. Would they all like more? Sure, but the AQs with big enrollments, alumni, and fanbases in the region will always get more. Then you get to North Texas. If you are a sports journalist in this area, all you have ever seen is North Texas flail athletically. And, even worse, you know that the university didn't even care about football enough to play at the top level of college football for 12 years. And when they decided to move back upward, it was a case of putting lipstick on a pig at the worst stadium in the country, joining far-flung conferences full of teams that no one cares about, and always playing the part of the sacrificial lamb against the teams that everyone does follow. We did this to ourselves. We could have done like La Tech or UTEP did and play in conferences with lesser known teams, but still did well enough to stay at the 1-A or get back up to it as fast as possible. Instead, we literally just quit caring. Now that we are finally trying to care about football 35 years later than we should have, its no surprise that we can't get any decent coverage in the DFW media or that we can't get recruits to consider coming here that are highly ranked. Its the ultimate mountain climb and it will be interesting to see if we can pull it off. History says no, but the size of resources availlable here says yes.

In my opinion, here is what La Tech has done correctly over time: 1.) Focus on Money Sports--they have been good to great in football, mens hoops, and womens hoops at different points over the last 3 decades. 2.) Use the Independence Bowl Stadium to bring in bigger name opponents for their schedule. Playing Miami, Texas A&M, etc... is a great recruiting tool. 3.) Win in whatever conference they have played in. The only reason they are in CUSA is because they have won. In many ways, losing tough games against TCU in a bowl game and barely losing to Texas A&M last year actually HELPS them more than beating anyone they have played in conference play. Here's what they have done wrong: 1.) You cannot turn down a bowl invite. You lost your coach and now your AD over it. When North Texas State couldn't get a 9-2 team into a bowl game back in 1978, we lost Hayden Fry. Obviously, that set off a domino fall that we have never recovered from. Not saying y'all will fall that far down--your school actually cares about athletics that produce money--but it will stay with your program for a long time after this. Sonny Dykes >>>>>> Skip Holtz 2.) Sticking your nose up in the air against the rest of your Louisiana brethren not named Tulane or LSU. Your arrogance toward them is unbelievable. No one is saying you have to play ULM or ULL in anything, but to go around disparaging them in the public is bush-league. Yes, ULM doesn't belong in FBS based off of their budgets, but they have beaten Alabama and Arkansas in the last 6 years, plus they have narrow losses against Arkansas, Auburn, and Baylor in the same time. That's a pretty good bang for your buck return, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, I would argue that ULM has done more with less than anyone in the country. ULL has turned into a nice progam, as well. We have seen La Tech avoid playing ULM and ULL in two I-bowls within the last 5 years. That's embarrassing. And this past bowl fiasco just screamed "small man parts" to most of the country about La Tech's leadership, no matter what the excuses are. That stench will not go away anytime soon.

By the time this job is open again in 3 years, Kaspar will be coaching in a bigger conference. I'm willing to bet that he may very well be the Aggies coach in the next few years.

But, and this is the unfortunate part, Kaspar has never been known to carry around a binder...he didn't really ever stand a chance.

This shouldn't surprise anyone.

The money sports are all that matter to most of us--soccer, tennis, track and field, cross country, golf, softball, volleyball, etc...they are fine and I'm glad we compete in them. But they bring in no money to a broke ass AD (or cheap-ass AD, depending on your view) and are often used as a mask to hide from the hideous performance of the sports that really pay the bills. Even Women's Hoops is on the edge, but I get that it can be a money sport, so I have no problem including it. The media cares the most about the two main sports--when we fail at both, especially with what was expected in basketball this year, it just kills any momentum we want to build here, both in attendance and in PR. Bubas Cup or Capital One Standings are not the metrics we need to follow right now. We need to get to bowl games and to the NCAA Tournament, or at least the NIT. Do that and most of us will be very proud of our AD. If the other sports do well, too, then that is gravy. But we need to get the meat and potatoes cooked first.

PMG, The only thing that differntiates TCU and KSU from UNT is that their schedules helped them immensely, money wise. Same with Baylor and Texas Tech. They could be awful, but their coffers got filled by playing teams that brought fans of theirs, plus YOUR fans wanted to come watch those teams play yours. You know how hard it has been to convince someone to come watch North Texas play Louisiana-Monroe or Florida Atlantic. Plus, those schools bring very few people with them to a game in Denton. Those others never had to climb that hill. Now, your comparison to Boise State is on target, since they played teams that didn't bring many fans to a game at Bronco Stadium. BUt the teams they played had some name recognition and Boise had a pretty decent sized city as their own to follow. I have long felt that the one program that most resembles North Texas is San Jose State. They are a state school with a big enrollment, long history, and play FBS ball. But they are easily considered last among California FBS schools and they play in a market with two other Pac-12 schools that dominate the media market in Cal and Stanford. And their funding is never strong for the program. I've said this before and I'll say it again. For recruiting success against the SWC schools to happen more often than not, you are going to have to follow the Johnny Jones plan. Bring in transfers from other places, actually start winning, continue to win, have the others in the area (SMU and TCU) fall down, and you will then get a Tony Mitchell-type prospect that will consider playing here. Its the only way you can defeat that SWC mystique that both of those schools still carry with the local media and the Texas HS coaches, as well as their parents.