untjim1995

This. We need them to suck as much as possible. 0-12 would be just fine with me. I have nothing against Texas State, either, but I recognize that they, along with UTSA, could easily pass us by with the right string of winning seasons. And if that happens, we might as well kiss FBS football goodbye. Its been amazingly hard to build up a program with the SWC schools and UTEP as other Texas FBS programs. If we fall behind those two and stay as the 12th team in FBS in this state, we should just go back to FCS and call it a day. There is just no way that a school that is so new to FBS should surpass us that quickly from within our own state.

I think the thing about both of our lines is fairly simple. You have the OL being developed fairly effectively by McCarney, since he is known for this as his specialty. Dodge left him with some decent pieces there and he has actually been able to develop some recruiting pieces into nice parts on the OL. The DL is a different deal, just because everyone recruits this position so hard. Since we aren't very good at recruiting here, the key then becomes in development and in out-of-the-box strategies on this. Patterson at TCU has made his name on recruiting RBs or LBs at of high school as seeing them as projects that can be developed into DLinemen. This is how you turn 3 star kids into All-American candidates. Coach Mac is going to have to do something similar here. He cannot--for whatever reasons--get top talent here from high schools, and since this is the premier place that everyone targets in recruiting, we are going to have to get better at development, whether its getting DLinemen from high schools that are lowly regarded and can be developed by your coaching and S&C program, or by following the recipe that Patterson has incorporated at TCU. McCarney is a good caoch and I actually believe he will continue to coach up the talent on the roster that is improving with each year, at least as compared to 2010 when he took the job. He knows that this is a results business and that a good year in 2013 probably gets him an extension, or at least keeps him from entering 2014 on the hot seat. It was going to take a while to rebuild this thing up and his 3rd year should be a year that we see better results. His mentor, Hayeden Fry, won 5 games his first year here, then went 2-7-2 in his 2nd season. We all know by now what the thrid year and beyond looked like. This is what I think will happen here, too. But the DL and the QB are absolute musts to have better play from or this is all a moot point. And Coach Mac knows that, which I think is why we will see better results this year than last year. It wouldn't surprise me to see a slow start to the year, something like 1-3 in OOC, but to end up the year with 5-6 wins once conference play comes around. Idaho, UTSA, Tulane, UTEP, Southern Miss, La Tech, and MUTS are all beatable. For that matter, so are Rice and Tulsa if things fall the right way, but expecting 5-6 wins in 2013 is not too much. And this is coming from someone who predicted we would be lucky to win 4 games in 2011 and probably would finish with 4 wins in 2012. I'm usually as realistic as I can be about the schedule and the state of the program, which is why I truly believe we will see an improvement in our record this fall.

I'd be worried if I were you--UTSA will probably beat your ass at your new place. Then you'll have to fire another coordinator to put the blame on for another embarrassing home loss to a FBS newcomer (See Texas State, circa Sept. 2012). You guys have a good program and a nice plans for a new stadium in your ghetto, mosquito-infested, super humid dump of a city. Just like Cooger Queen and FroggyStyle, coming over to talk shiat to our fanbase about football is about as awesome as scoreboarding the homeless about your crackhouse in the 3rd Ward...go over to ponyfans.com or Rice's fan site. GO and talk shiat to the teams that have permanently kept you guys out of being in an AQ league (UT, A&M, and Tech)--oh wait, that would require you to recgonize that you are nowhere near as well off as you make yourself out to be on this website. That crackhouse you have doesn't look so good to talk crap out of when you are walking past the gated community known as the AQs...

What's really amazing about his quote is that Southern Miss for decades has been known for their attitude of playing anyone, anywhere, anytime. NO wonder they fired him after this past season. Going 0-12 is awful by any definition, but if you are building from the ground up, then it makes the investment worth it. To go from 12-2 with a giant-killer reputation for decades to 0-12 and making lame excuses is just pathetic. Southern Miss did the right thing--even if it was expensive.

PMG, I agree on the state of the program today under Coach Mac. I actually believe that we are very close to turning the corner and I know that he realizes he has to get things going here this year or next year will be his last one as a head coach ever again. He has too much self-respect to let this just fall apart. He took over a situation that in my mind is the absolute worst that a coach can take over. A program that was full of losing, with no defensive talent and very little depth, especially on the lines. Dodge's system is the polar opposite of his. That he has coaxed 9 wins out of this bunch with the injuries, lack of depth, and overall lack of talent is at least a step in the right direction. That is how low the bar got in Denton. But now that he has been here for the last 3 years, the strength and depth of the team have improved greatly, even if the talent on the team is still not where we need it to be. The program is at least competitive withother SBCUSA teams now. Remember when SBC teams would just beat the ever-living dogcrap out of us at Fouts? If it hadn't been for Western Kentucky moving up to FBS, Todd Dodge would've won two games in 3 years. FIU, MUTS, ULM, etc...they just urinated on us. Now, they may still do that, but we are at least competitive enough to tackle someone one and make them believe they aren't playing a high school team. To this day, that loss to Rice in Houston, 77-20, remains our low point. Rice could've scored a 100+ easy if they hadn't called off the dogs in the 2nd half. All of this is what Coach Mac had to take over. A mentality of not just losing, but that losing is who you are and that we cannot ever be better--that is the line of thinking that the administration has carried around here for decades, but when the players get that in their system, its disastrous. That is what Coach Mac is changing. His recruiting has been below par with HS recruits, but that may not be anything they can change until we win here. We do seem to do well with transfers, both from JC and other schools, so that has helped him. Johnny Jones did the same thing with his hoops program, too, in attracting transfers. I still believe in Coach Mac big time. I don't believe in his boss anymore, nor do I believe that the university's leadership cares about winning in football at a level that most of this board wants to see, but I do think Coach Mac can turn this around and be here for a long time if his health holds up. And this program needs stability in such a big way, that this would be ideal for our entire team and fanbase to have a winner in place that is at an age where moving on to the next job up the ladder isn't really that likely. I will say it again, because I truly believe it--if Coach Mac cannot fix this here, with his reputation for rebuilding Iowa State back up from the dregs of college football, then I am convinced that no one can rebuild this place up.

Think of it this way--you saw North Texas at its best in the middle 70s. Over the last 35 years, we lost our HOF coach, who managed to have 4 of the 7 winning FBS (I-A) seasons that we have had since 1970, hired 8 coaches since then, one of which (Corky Nelson) did as much as he could possibly do with absolutely no support during the ridiculous 1-aa years, only to be fired and replaced by a freaking high school coach (Dennis Parker) who would win 11 games in 3 years. Then, when we finally got a decent team again from 2002-2004, our program fell backwards and we replaced Darrell Dickey, who had the other 3 winning seasons since 1970, with another freaking high school coach (Todd Dodge) who won 6 games in 3.5 years. We have hired 6 assistant coaches (Jerry Moore, Bob Tyler, Corky Nelson, Matt Simon, Darrell Dickey, and Chico) who combined to go 112-154-2. We hired 2 high school coaches who went 17-57-1 (just makes me mad typing that...). And now, we have hired a guy who had been a previous head coach at a FBS school in Dan McCarney and he has a 9-15 record so far. That means we have gone 138-226-3 in the last 35 years, for a winning percentage of .376. Since we came back up to life from the i-aa purgatory in 1995, our overall record is 70-141, for a winning percentage of .332. I love PMG and others for posting about our glory years, but the fact remains that since 1970, our football program has had one great stretch of success and one good stretch of success that got some attention from the rest of the college football world (1975-1978 and 2002-2004). Otherwise, we are just a huge bag of suck at football, whether its pre 1-aa, post 1-aa, or all-inclusive from 1970 thru 2012. Can it change? Of course it can. But its easy to understand how we cannot get decent recruiting classes to come here--all these recruits have known about UNT Football, as well as their parents and coaches have known, is that we just don't win at football in Denton. Its going to take a coach who can literally turn no-stars, 1-stars, and 2 stars into guys who can become much better. That is supposed to be coach Mac's strength, which he did at Iowa State. If he cannot do it here, I'm not sure anyone can do it.

Marshall, Southern Miss, UAB, and Rice are in CUSA still because they don't bring the entire package that the AAC wants from their new programs that they plucked from the old CUSA. Rice is stuck because the AAC has UH, plus they are small. UAB has very little following or funding (kind of like UNT, but in a far worse football stadium). Southern Miss and Marshall, both with solid name recognition, still don't deliver a decent TV market. They know that they are stuck in CUSA and must make the best of it as they move forward. Ironically, Rice may be the team most poised for a big move up in the win column. Like we have seen with TCU, Tulsa, and SMU, a wealthy private school in this region of the country can really thrive in the right situation. They will still have a nice budget as compared to the other current CUSA programs and will always have the strong academic pedigree to use as a recruiting tool. It owuldn't surprise me at all to see Rice as the top CUSA West team for several years to come.

Some sport that brings in no revenue...

PMG, I admire guys like you and Gray Eagle and SilverEagle who have stuck with this program after seeing some very good teams in the 60s and 70s. Its amazing to me that anyone could have put up with what the last 35 years have brought, save for the 1988 and 2001-2004 seasons. But this is the part that just kills us for the current situation, keeping in mind that we don't have baseball, but I doubt it would've made this number any better. Below are the average of winning percentages for the major colleges in Texas in football, men’s basketball and baseball for the 2012-13 seasons: Texas A&M .641 Baylor .561 Texas .561 Houston .527 UTSA .505 SMU .492 Texas Tech .470 TCU .455 Rice .451 UTEP .409 Texas St .382 N. Texas .360 Its one season, but the money sports at North Texas were just abysmal in 2012-2013. Its a big reason that we cannot get decent media coverage and why so many just give up on even staying as a fan. Obviously, if we played UTSAs football schedule, we probably would've done a tad better, but that is not really the barometer that we need to be measuring against for our program. It just amazes me that the athletic director at a school with this record against its in-state peers isn't even remotely on the hot seat. Its like his opening up of tailgating and having the students figure out a way to build a new football stadium without getting him involved has made him golden in so many people's eyes around the university. To me, with the way basketball went after yet another awful hire, I am on record as saying he should be fired, or at least have a very hot seat that only cools if McCarney's team this fall finishes with 5 or more wins. But I know this is a view that is certainly in the minority, since RV is a helluva guy and people fall prey to helluva-guy-syndrome often, both in sports and in business. But there is no way that another school on that list would've kept the same AD in the timeframe that UNT has with RV. ANd that is why I'm giving this place 5 years to get this straightened out--unless we lose to UTSA this fall and nothing gets changed, which will end it for me at that time.

I think DallasGreen is solely referring to Denton's views on college football at its local university. In that vein, its almost impossible to argue with him. Denton, as a city, is fine and it does have a nice cultural scene. The city and its citizens just don't care for North Texas football, and they never have. That is DG's point, I think.

CUSA is a better fit for us than the SBC was, albeit a lot smaller advantage than what we envisioned when we first joined the league. Its still better for us. CUSA is not a good league, but neither is the SBC. It is what it is. The top end of the MWC and the top end of the AAC are very strong, and the MAC will throw out a NIU or Ball State BCS buster every once in a while, but the bottom of those leagues (or middle of the MAC) is not much better than anything the SBCUSA throws out.

There is absolutely no doubt it will work out better than it did here, unless the elder Stockstill forgets how to coach college football and hires the coaches from Murfreesboro HS to coordinate the defense and offense...Its usually not hard to win more than 6 games when you get the chance to coach 43 games.

Sometimes, after reading posts like this, I really wonder why we even stay at the FBS level. Just sad...

Do you know even understand how unpopular your post is in this town? I will venture to say that a great majority of the UNT family (students, alumni, administration, faculty, and local citizenry) cares MUCH MORE about the Green Brigade than they do about the Mean Green... We love music here!!

TCU will be better than SMU next year...just sayin' As for us, if we had kept our momentum going last year instead of the derailment that occurred, I could've see us matched up against Baylor instead of Colorado, who will bring no one to Arlington. But even that is questionable. People in the Metroplex just don't think of us with stuff like this--its the old SWC mentality that continues to haunt us when it comes to local media and promoters. We just exacerbate the issue by just accepting it as the status quo and not really fighting it. The 1-aa debacle from 1982-1994 sums that acceptance perfectly, in my opinion.

We never got invited because you and SMU already had the DFW market covered. Back when pro cities actually cared about private schools, SMU and Rice had it good. TCU always got the full support of FW residents, since it wasn't a pro town and they felt slighted by Dallas. TCU has it good now that they found their diamond-in-the-rough in Gary Patterson. He is a perfect fit for that school and town. It wasn't always that way, though. I don't know if it has ever occurred to you about this, but its not exactly hard to take $hit to UNT fans about our football team. Your rival is SMU, plus you have long histories with Baylor, Tech, and Texas, so you being here to talk crap about us is very telling. As a matter of fact, even SMU doesn't have fans coming over here to trash talk and they are actually on the schedule for a long time in the future. I find it funny that you spend your time over here doing that, though. It makes me think you probably do this sort of thing in other areas of life, too. I imagine you being the guy who scoreboards the homeless guy as you pass him on the street. Youre the guy who laughs at the special ed bus as it drives by your leased BMW. Youre a special kind of loser, to me. I wouldn't even think about going over to New Mexico State's board right now to make fun of them. It wouldn't have crossed my mind to have ever done that when we actually were decent in the 2002-2004 seasons, either, to any of the other SBC schools. If someone from SMU comes over here to trash talk, I would understand that perfectly, just as I would anyone from a non-AQ conference. But you guys did it right at TCU and built yourselves up from the ashes to a point where your status in today's college football world is on very solid ground. It just makes no sense that you would come over to make fun of our downtrodden football program. Baylor fans, Tech fans, Texas fans, OU and OSU fans, and Aggie fans don't ever come over here to do what you constantly do. Youre a troll, I know, but I'm holding out hope that you might actually read this and realize that you look like a true piece of crap when you post here in the fashion that you do. We know we have troubles here, both self-inflicted (mainly) and market-wise. But talking trash and making fun of a program that pays its coach 600k while you pay yours well over $2million is just a sliver of the difference between the two programs. Go talk crap to SMU fans on ponyfans.com--they actually play you and they pay their coach in the same financial ballpark, too. We get that you all are included in the AQ cartel and we aren't and won't ever be in that group. It sucks for us and its great for you. Just show a little class about it--like the other AQs seem to do when we read their posts over here.

I watched Arkansas State, under Steve Roberts, go into Kyle Field and beat Texas A&M in Mike Sherman's first year. It wouldn't surprise me at all if SMU wins this game and that Tech wins about 4 games this year. Tech had to gamble with Kingsbury to get thier Leach fans back on board--but the guy has never been a head coach ever. There 's a big difference between being a QB coach or OC over Case Keenum or Johnny Football and recruiting to Lubbock. I don't see this one working at well for Tech at all. They are going to look back on their days under Mike Leach as their golden years, even if they never won a conference title under him. They schedule OOC softer than most of our pillows each year, so that gives you 3 wins easy every year. They play SMU, Texas State, and SFA as their OOC schedule--that's awesome for UNT, but that's ridiculous for a Big XII school. Tech's best days are loooonnnnggg gone, and hiring a former QB who has zero HC experience from their "geinus" coach that they fired for insubordination screams desperation to me. Maybe it will work, but I suspect that Baylor, TCU, and OSU will benefit the most from Tech taking a number of steps backward from 2008.

If I could giuve you a +infinity, I would. You win the interent with this post!! We like arts and music and education at North Texas (State)--always have, always will. When you like those ventures over athletics, you get what you pay for. The majority of fans of the arts and music programs at the university don't care much at all for UNT Sports. Probably works the other way, too. I like that we have a great reputation for our music school, but it doesn't make me want to go watch a performance of those students with dozens of others. I like sports--like most guys. I like football and basketball--like most guys. I watch sports, both on TV and in person. I don't watch jazz recitals on TV or attend art exhibits--its just not me. BUt the university I attended and graduated from puts way more love and attention on those endeavors than they ever want to do on athletics. And so does the town that the university sits in. We like events that are pointed to gathering dozens, rather than thousands. And we attract donors in the same vein, in dozens rather than in thousands. And for a school with 36k students and the hundreds of thousands of alums in the area, it seems rather obvious that you could/would/should have so much more if you put an emphasis on an area that is known to attract those thousands, of which there are a high percentage of men, who traditionally like sports, pay to watch it, and become fans for life. Maybe its that way with these other areas, too, but I doubt you get many teachers, band directors, or artists that give much back to the university financially, as compared to the Texas schools that do put a high priority on athletics. All I know is that it usually from this subset of fans that we hear that UNT should stop funding barbaric football and that those students who like such a barbaric sport should just go to UT, A&M or Tech. Funny thing about that--they still go to UNT and give their money and fandom to the other schools because they know that UNT doesn't want their full attention as a fan. And the commuter school connection continues, even if the commuter school tag is finally dying off more and more as the years go by.

That logo is horrible...

The Southland included schools like McNeese State, Nicholls State, SHSU, SFA, Northwestern State, and Northeast Louisiana and Southwest Texas State. Not a fan in the Metroplex cared a bit about those podunk schools, especially in Denton. The SWC was still running very strong, as was the Big Eight, at that time. If you are forced out of FBS, a conference setup like I posted above is light years ahead of the Southland Conference. The 1-aa Southland Conference, while playing at Fouts, and being led by Dennis Parker straight out of Marshall High School is the low point for this university's football program. We were playing those schools mentioned, while our colleagues in the Metroplex and across the state were enjoying Division 1-a football. Today, unlike 30 years ago, many of those SWC schools and other close regional teams that were all i-a at the time and never even dreamed of playing UNT at Fouts, are now in a situation where they are going to get left out, too. Look, it sucks to be a have not--we have always been that. But those other schools, except ULM or Texas State, have any idea what i-aa was like in this area of the world during the 80s and 90s. This have-not status is really going to suck for them--just like it did for us in 1982. But they won't have to play against teams that literally no one had heard of before unless you had a family member attend one of those schools. If we have to find the silver lining on a dark cloud of reclassification, it should be that we will play teams that people in Denton have heard of before and only dreamed of being in a conference with for decades. The Top 70 or 80 schools may just get all of the attention and the rest of us won't get anything of any major note when that reclassification occurs. Wait, come to think of it, that's exactly how it is today. I just think that a new level of FCS that includes the bottom 40 schools at FBS and the top 40 schools of FCS now would still be able to garner some attention from fans today. Playing Western Kentucky now doesn't bring much in attendance to Apogee, but I doubt it would be much different if we play them as a FCS team again. The people who want to watch UNT play and win will still show up and the people who want to watch Texas, A&M, OU, Tech, Notre Dame, etc...play during our games will still do the same as well. Those teams have the fans that we won't ever have--they have had a 50 to a 100 year start on us. It is what it is--we aren't going to be able to gain inclusion into the AQ class with the ways are stacked against us, both from our own choosing (past and present) and because of the other schools that are near us that have protected their turf so strongly against us. If we hadn't let the first 1-aa catch us, or at least got out of it as soon as possible, we would not necessarily be considered a have-not. But that's water under the bridge now. We just have to accept that the reality for our university is as an outsider in the realm of big time college athletics. And with the way things are going in college athletics, being an outsider today is an even bigger group than it was back in 1981 when the i-aa net caught us and took so long to get out of.

The thing is that the Big XII is very unstable, though. All its gonna take is one the big schools to leave and you are going to have chaos. KU, OU, and UT are the big prizes, but OSU, Tech, and KSU may get included with their big brothers. West Virginia will find a home, too, probably in the ACC eventually. But for Iowa State, Baylor, and TCU, there is not much that any of them can do to make it into an AQ league. IF TCU gets knocked back out of AQ, at least they have been used to it. As I have said all along, no two schools are walking on banana peels over their graves like Iowa State and Baylor. ISUs new home is either the MWC or the MAC. Baylor is either MWC or AAC. Either way, its a far drop down from where they are. TCU could go back to the MWC and its fans wouldn't be happy, but they've been used to that league and those teams. Baylor fans may commit a mass suicide if this came to pass...Ken Starr might just sue every single team in an AQ league at that point, plus the NCAA, the federal government, etc...

Its even worse than what happened here, if you can believe it.

I think the biggest difference between the MWC and CUSA, from a national viewpoint, is that you have some teams in there that are very well respected and well regarded. Boise State will not get left out of an AQ system with the Big 5--they will get absorbed. I suspect that other schools in the MWC will get included, too. To me, the better comparison is between the MWC and the AAC. CUSA is to be compared to the MAC and SBC. These teams in non-AQ leagues still have a chance to be included with the AQs when the future schism occurs: BYU, Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, UNLV, Nevada, Houston, Cincinnati, USF, UCF, ECU, and UConn All 12 of those schools won't make it obviously, but I think they have a better chance of making the cut because of their size and their TV markets, plus their history of being good to great in the money sports. As TFLF has accurately posted many times, we were just too late tot he game. We built a fine stadium in Denton--it was just built about 20 years too late. The i-aa fiasco for 12 freaking years was the ultimate punch to the gut. We have gotten up off the mat, but we are still very wobbly and the decision of the judges has pretty much been made. The only chance you have at this point is to basically have a few seasons that are BCS Bowl worthy, like Boise State did, not like Northern Illinois or Hawaii did. started immediately. There is just no way our program is anywhere near that level. You have to beat everyone on the schedule and barely lose by less than a TD at Georgia to even have a prayer of a BCS bid. The brightspot in all of this is that this schism will force these conferences in a new FCS to be more regionalized, for cost purposes. If we end up in a conference with other regional teams, that would still create interest in UNT games, even if it was at a lower level, just because the names would be more familiar. Plus, I think the FCS playoff system is miles better than the bowl system, so you would have some added interest on that front, too. If you have SMU, RIce, Tulsa, Tulane, ULM, ULL, La Tech, Arky State, UTSA, Texas State, UNT, and UTEP, it would be a nicer setup in a conference than we have ever had. Even if a team like SMU just quit, you could add NMSU. It may not be what many here want to read, but the reality is that this scenario is 100x more likely to play out than us getting included in an AQ system that will tighten up its ranks very soon.

I am right there with you. Its sad to me that people expect that to be a dogfight. Even losing a ton of starters to injuries should put us at even with a team that just moved up to FBS. I'm sorry but this is like playing Sam Houston State. Sure, SHSU is a great FCS program, but there is no excuse for losing to them as a FBS program. Upsets happen, but a new startup program at this level shouldn't be able to even compete with a program that has been playing FBS ball since 1995.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/calipari-rails-against-ncaa-one-023044010--ncaab.html Another AQ big name that is expressing the idea of leaving the NCAA as a possibility.