untjim1995

UNT90 may be pulling out his hair, but he is right on all of this. I'm sorry, but Apogee has brought or is bringing us OOC games against UH, Indiana, Texas Southern, Idaho, Ball State, SMU, Army, and possibly Tulsa. We played all of those teams, except Indiana and Ball State at Fouts. And for comparative sake, we played Baylor and Vandy at Fouts to make up for Indiana, and we played Ohio at Fouts to make up for Ball State. When the dust settles in CUSA, we will host games against UTEP, UTSA, Rice, La Tech, MUTS, WKU, UAB, Southern Miss, FAU, FIU, Charlotte, Marshall, and ODU over the upcoming years to Apogee. There is no doubt that it is a better schedule than we had in the SBC. But it still isn't going to get people out to watch North Texas play if we are still mediocre or bad. Games against Navy and Army at Fouts were nice because they drew big crowds from the buying public and that was about as big as Fouts could handle in its decrepit state. Now, with a state of the art facility in the DFW Metroplex, the best we can do is SMU and Army in alternative years as the main OOC gem? There's just no way that Apogee couldn't hold and be marketable to a PAC school, a lower level SEC school, or other schools in the B1G, ACC or the MWC. I'm sorry, but we make it for SMU and TCU when it comes to local competition for the fans attention. The local media doesn't give a rat's ass about North Texas because we don't ever play anyone that they care about, which in turns gives the majority of fans a reason to keep ignoring us. SMU has been playing their old SWC rivals at home with a game against a local FCS school for balance. TCU has done the same in OOC scheduling for so long, too. But, as usual, we just settle for leftover status--"We weren't in the SWC, so we will never matter..." or "We are a school that doesn't like football--go to UT or A&M if you like sports" are the typical trash that we hear from the anti-athletics crowd or the anti-UNT media in the area. Just once, in my lifetime, I want to see UNT fight--you know, like in our fight sone, "UNT EAGLES FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT"--just to try as hard as possible to see if we can do what others have done before us and are doing today even though they have been around a tenth of the time we have. You don't have to get Texas or A&M here--but go after a long series with UH or Baylor or TCU or Tech or OSU, someone to compliment the series we have with SMU and Army already. You can still play your bodybag game and play something like that. Give something more to your season tickets holders than spare OOC games and SBCUSA teams.

I'd really hate to hear what she wants to do to you to keep you from attending games in Austin, Norman, Baton Rouge, etc...

That is the truth. The reality is that buidling Apogee was a must because Fouts was falling apart and couldn't even handle a 15k crowd very well, with all of the portable generators that had to be used. That's not even including the awful seating and terrible concourses. But one thing we heard over and over was that Apogee would help us get more recognizable opponents in OOC games to Denton than Fouts could ever get us. And in its first year, the games against UH and Indiana were a perfect example of what to expect from this. Then the next year produces one OOC home game against Texas Southern. Now, in 2013, Apogee gets us home games against Idaho and Ball State. I thought an opponent like Iowa would make complete sense to play here, at least as a 2 for 1, not a 2 for none. And, now, we find out that we will again have 5 home games in 2015, unless we buy a game against a FCS team or Idaho-type team again. I just expected that this would enhance the OOC home schedule for the season ticket holders, but it appears that I was mistaken in that belief. SMU and Army are fine OOC home opponents--very good draws, for sure. I just think its sad that they are considered as big name oppoenents for this AD. If you had Iowa and SMU playing here in the OOC portion of the schedule, that would be a great value to a season ticket holder. Same with playing a team like Mizzou at home in addition to Army. But that's not how it is done here, so it really is just crying over spilled milk.

Exactly. For this gal, she thinks that an AQ BCS bowl bid opportunity for the AAC for this year only, means forever. Its rough when reality runs into your dreams. All said, UH will be fine in the AAC. They'll probably win that league many times. But it will get them the same spare bowl spot that all other non-AQ champions get. If you think that the MWC isn't going to fill that spot most years (or the MAC), then you are dreaming even more than I thought.

Isn't that how you change a hockey line?...oh wait, wrong sport.

How is the football team's GPA? I haven't looked at any breakdown, but I know that was a big concern of Coach Mac when he first got here.

1999--we beat Texas Tech and Boise State. And lost to everyone else...go figure.

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.