untjim1995

I don't think so...Idaho has been playing FBS ball for awhile now. And becasue its the first game, a loss could be explained away in many ways. But if you lose to UTSA late in the year, after your entire team has been able to practice and play together for almost a full season, that would be the peak of embarrassment.

Nah, nobody would ever criticize that group around here...that is blasphemy in Denton. Some of us have no clue about marching bands or what they play each game, but even I wouldn't criticize them. I just think its funny how much this place revolves around them--I've never seen another school with a football team who has a band that is more important to the university than its football team. Nowhere else. Except in Denton.

You know, if we lost to UTSA, I think the following would happen: 1.) A majority of posters on this site will be really pissed, some of whom will immediately quit following the program if changes didn't occur ASAP. 2.) Some posters on here will say that this is a real opportunity for UNT as we move forward and that everything in Denton is A-ok, just as long as we stay positive and never complain about anything that happens to our athletic department. They will tell us that our grades are much better and that we are molding great future husbands and fathers. 3.) The worst part of all this is that it probably won't even register in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of alums, students, faculty, administrators, BOR, or citizens of Denton if we lost to a startup program like UTSA. It wouldn't even matter.

All that these FCS schools that are moving upward are going to accomplish is to pull down the bottom rung of FBS back to a level with them. MAC, SBC, and CUSA are going to be easy targets for the future culling of FBS. At that point, you'll probably have about 125 schools that will be in the new 1-aa. It will be interesting to see if that new level of football would follow a bowl system or go to a playoff system. If it were up to me, and assuming that we drop back down, I'd love to see a playoff system again. The bowl system is very antiquated, in my opinion, and I have always liked the FCS playoff system that the smaller schools use. If you were in a level of football that included the current members of at least the leagues mentioned above, I'd be more interested than I was when we were playing small schools in Texas and Louisiana, like SFA, SHSU, or Nicholls State. Keep in mind that I MUCH prefer us staying at the FBS level of play, but college football is such a mess right now that I just can't see us making that cut, nor do I see us ever having the resources to compete against the AQs of the world. I've posted this before, but I wonder how a dropdown in realignment will be felt here in Denton or in El Paso or at Rice. What would it do to places that realignment could eventually catch up to, like SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, or other AAC schools that aren't very big? Time will tell, but I suspect that a new i-aa is coming around the corner, sooner than most of us think.

I'd say it looks like this to me: 1. Texas A&M 2. TCU 3. Texas 4. Baylor 5. Houston 6. Texas Tech 7. SMU 8. Rice 9. UNT 10. UTEP 11. UTSA 12. Texas State Sadly, 9-12 are basically interchangeable right now. Of course, the choices between 2-4 probably are, too, as well as that next group, 5-8. I will say it again, but UTSA better be a win in 2013. If we cannot beat them, in this our 19th year back as a FBS program, not even counting our long history before that, we need to seriously look at whether FBS football is the correct level for our program. There is just no way that a school in its first year as a FBS school (and third as a program) should be able to even compete with a program like ours, home or away. I just don't see UTSA winning more than one game this fall.

What is the most realistic results we should see in 2013? I know that someone mentioned that one national publication has us going 2-10 awhile back. That seems awfully low. I would expect us to win 4-6 games in 2013, with wins over Idaho, UTEP, UTSA, Tulane, and a win or two over the following teams (USM, La Tech, MUTS, and Ball State). I am on record as preferring Berglund over DT at QB, but the more I think about it, the more I still believe that we should win no less than 4 games this fall no matter who is our QB, assuming we keep reasonable health across the roster. What is your realistic prediction for this year? If we win 3-4 games, does Coach Mac come back in your opinion? I say that he will, but just curious to see what the board thinks. If he wins 6 games or more, would you favor an extension? I would definitely favor that.

The only way McCarney gets fired after this year is if we win 2 games or less. 3-5 wins probably will guarantee a 4th year. 6 wins or more should get him an extension--one that would be greatly deserved at that point for building this thing up from the literal ashes of the regimes before him. The thing about a buyout is that this place doesn't have the money or the BOR support to buy two full years of the largest contract ever given to a coach in our history. McCarney makes $600k per year. We couldn't afford to buy out Todd Dodge after three years in which he won 5 games, including a wonderful 2-10 year in his third year. His buyout would have cost less than one year of McCarney's salary and we still decided that was not financially prudent. Instead, we were completely content with seeing if Todd Dodge could finally figure it all out in his 4th year, where he managed to win 1 game out of the first 7 he coached that year. We cannot or will not buy out a contract of that magnitude. I'll be shocked if McCarney isn't our coach in 2014. That will be his make-it-or break-it year. If we finish 2014 with less than 6 wins, his buyout will then be acceptable and we will get a new coach then, probably someone who won't cost too much, since we will have to pay out that final year of McCarney's contract. McCarney knows all of this. These next two years are his bread and butter years to turn this thing into a winner. We will see how it goes, but I believe in him and his experience. I also believe in his eye for talent. He will choose the guy at QB that he knows can become a winner. It won't matter who starts against Idaho or Georgia, those should be a W and a L, no matter what. Its the other 10 games that matter and I believe that Mac will get Berglulnd in the starting role as soon as he knows he's ready, whether that's in the fall camp, in OOC, or in the beginning of SBCUSA play.

This is just one more story that reinforces to me that a reclassifcation of FBS will get done sooner rather than later. No way that Liberty should be playing football at the same level, in theory, as the AQs. The AQs and their media buddies didn't like it when the number of FBS schools got in the 100s. We are going to be working on getting close to 130 real soon. The future 1-AA regrouping is going to happen.

I love it when guys from the hood come back around to laugh at their poor brethren and flaunt their recent success...when yall go back to your old ways, which will be to fight Baylor for last place in your conference, you both will find out something that your fanbases know deep down inside will happen to you both in the near future. When the big names in your conference figure out a way to join the other conferences they really want to be a part of, (IOW, not the Big XII), you guys are gonna get left behind. For TCU, that will be deja vu...all of those improvements to AGC will be awesome when you are playing teams again from the MWC or the AAC again. But for now, enjoy your time at the big table and all of the appetizers--I doubt you'll get to enjoy dessert, so I hope that dinner salad and the roll taste pretty good. But don't be surprised when Texas pisses on your main course, again. And then the sad reality will settle in for you all, just as it will for SMU, UH, UTEP, Tulane, Tulsa, and all the other "poors". In the end, none of us bring enough, cumulatively, to the table to be a future player at FBS. We don't have the combination of enrollment, fanbase, TV market, success, or political power that all of the big state schools and a very few private schools have. I know you don't want to believe this, but you guys aren't gonna get included either. You will get to understand the true feeling of the nut kick known as "reclassification". Trust me, we are the only ones in the state that knows how that feels. We aren't going to be that hurt when it happens because we haven't known anything better than what we have now. But y'all have--and the pain of your drop will be more painful than the combination of what both UNT and SMU have felt in the ways that we have been left behind in the course of history, both recent and past. Of course, by then, you'll probably just change your user tag to "Longhorn Style"--which will be ironic, since you'll feel as if you got "froggy-styled" by them when its all said and done. Mark my words--your gonna be right back where we all are now, only this time you'll get to bring the ultimate tick on the hound, Baylor, with you.

You have to remember that UTEP has a long history of being in a conference with almost every team in the MWC at some point over the last 50 years. They played in the old WAC with BYU and the others for decades. When the MWC was formed, UTEP got traded for UNLV, since that conference wanted Vegas and UTEP liked having UH, SMU, and Rice in their league. I haven't heard anyone out in El Paso complaining loudly about SBCUSA, which is different from Tulsa, Tulane, ECU, and others. Plus, UTEP has solid attendance for both sports. They are a big market for a city with no pro sports. CUSA is a fine place for us, whether we could even improve enough to be wanted anywhere else or not, but I would personally take a spot in the MWC over CUSA. I suspect that UTEP will go west in the next few years--my guess is that it will be with another Texas team. My guess is that the MWC will wait about two years to see if UH or SMU can be had. If they cannot be had, then the battle will be between us and UTSA for a 14th spot with UTEP. The MWC will want stronger Texas markets in the very near future, if only because it will help their TV package and open up recruiting. I've read many times on here that posters on gmg.com don't want to go back out west, that we tried that once before and it failed miserably. Well, that was the Big West that was full of recent startups (just like the SBC we found ourselves in after the BWC fell apart). Boise State, Nevada, and Utah State are much better programs in the two main sports than they ever were in the Big West. Plus, we would get games against New Mexico, UTEP, Air Force, Colorado State, UNLV, and San Diego State, all of whom are bigger names than anyone in our league right now. Only Southern Miss can compare with any of those listed in the sentence above. And, to me, this is the biggest reason--TCU already proved that a Metroplex team could win big in that league with Texas talent. Travel is farther, but you would have a Texas partner and New Mexico and teams in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah that would be in the Mountain time zone. Not every game is going to be at 11pm on the road.

Actually, the city of San Antonio runs the Alamodome and I believe they cut them a great deal for using the stadium, you know, since it sits empty for all but a few days out of the year. The city's leaders felt that this was a great place to help UTSA cut its teeth with its football program. And I'm certain that a part of their $20.hr fee helps cover the leasing cost, which, again, was substantially reduced for their local university.

You know, I'm not even saying that being focused on being the best value-oriented commuter school is dead-ass wrong. I just think that the university owes it to us to just explicitly tell us what they want for our athletics AND how they are going to fund it AND why they won't fund it as fully as possible. If its because of that first sentence, that's fine. If its because we want to be known for music/fine arts/education in this state and region instead of athletics becasue it costs too much, that's fine, too. But just tell us...for guys like me, that like sports and want to brag like everyone else in this state and region about my alma mater's football and basketball teams, if you tell m ethat you don't want to focus on my interests, I won't get mad or even hold a grudge. I just want to know where else to take my fandom, like the other hundreds of thousands of alumni who have been brainwashed into believeing that athletics are a waste of time, energy, and money at North Texas and now focus their fandom on other schools' teams and the local pro teams.

Well I doubt that either UTSA or Texas State are raising this fee to the maximum allowed under state law by also tagging it to some ratio of fundraising from the alumni. Its not a bad idea, but its not really effective to tie these two together. I just don't get it. We are charging $15/hr for a "Universities Center in Dallas", but only $10 (out of a maximum of $20) for an athletics fee, which I also believe we pegged against Apogee being paid for and then goes away once that is done. UTSA has no stadium to deal with this and they charge $20/hr. Texas State is renovating their stadium and they charge $20/hr. But I forgot--neither of those schools have been named as a Top 100 Value University!! Stupid UTSA and Texas State--who would want to go to a school for anything other just classes to get their degree and never look back? We are killing you at "Cost of Attendance"!! We are ranked as a Top Value, while you foolishly pay more for something worthless like athletics...you'll never get anywhere as a universiity in connecting with your alumni doing something stupid like that. I just don't get it. Seriously, this should be an outrage to everyone on this board and any alumni we know.

Imagine what a school primarily geared toward educating future teachers would be like in atheltics if they were located in Texas...oh wait!!

The folks in Denton and at UNT are just fine with this...

What else?

I think we look like we belong back in the SLC to these people for a lot of reasons. Losing big time to SMU won't add anymore fuel to that fire. Losing games to outlets called Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Florida International, and Louisiana-Monroe have done more damage on that front. Playing teams at home in Denton like Texas Southern and South Alabama make this SLC perception even more accepted. I'll say this--if we lose to UTSA this year, that will do it for me. I'll let everyone know that the SLC really should be our home if we cannot beat a startup program in its third year of existence.

So Texas State and UTSA are playing FBS football for all of what, two years now, but have in place a $20 maximum semester hour charge to tuition for athletics. North Texas, who has been playing FBS ball again sionce 1995, had to basically go "stealth" on the election to narrowly get approval for a fee that is half ($10) of Texas Freaking State and UTSA just to build a new stadium, which Texas State is just expanding on theirs, not building up from scratch, while UTSA doesn't even have to build anything right now due to playing in the Alamodome. HOwever, I do see that in 2013, we do charge $15/hr for the "Universites Center at Dallas" I just don't get it...if we don't want to play FBS football around here, its ok. Just tell us that directly. Don't implicitly sabotage the program by not giving it a full effort. How can you compete with schools in your own conference or at your same level but only charge half of what they do, even though their enrollment is not terribly far from ours? Please explain this to me...

Welcome to the unfortunate state of UNT Football in this state. If you weren't SWC--or the Oklahoma schools int he old Big Eight, around here, to students, alumni, and the local residents of Denton, we literally don't matter. I guarantee you that Texas, A&M, OU, and Tech have more interest in their games from Dentonites than we do. I like CUSA, even if has turned into SBC 2.0, but it is an improvement and we are in better shape playing La Tech than ULM, playing UAB than South Alabama, and playing Southern Miss than Troy as conference mates. Is it a ton better? Not really. But it is better. And it would be even better with Arky State and ULL, coming into replace Tulane and Tulsa here in the western part of the league.

OK--we played SMU in 2006 and 2007. In 2006, we killed them at Fouts. The local media didn't write about us being as a complete success because we beat SMU at home. In fact, that win cost SMU a bowl game, even though we only won three games that year. In 2007, we lost to SMU in Dallas by a TD, IIRC. We weren't written off as a complete failure after that loss to SMU, even though both teams should have been. That was SMUs only win of the year and we won two games. We will always treat this as a big game. You don't need to worry about that part. The only buyout that would occur here is if June Jones leaves SMU and they go back to losing, while we beat them in the first two games and are winning. That would cause the SMU cash to come to the rescue. However, if we lose to SMU in 2014, nobody is going to write us off then as a complete failure. They'll write that SMU got a nice Metroplex rivalry win. Maybe Vito will write a story that we are a complete failure, but not one word will be spoken about us being failure on even one sports outlet in DFW. That's part of the problem, no one even cares about us to talk about our lackluster performance. Even when we were winning the SBC titles, we almost always getting ho-hummed in the local media because we were basically only beating SBC teams.

NO problem--I just wanted to weigh in as to why SMU still gets more attention than they truly deserve...

I remember LaDarrin McLane for one thing only--the most depressing moment of my UNT fandom was watching him streak toward the winning TD in Lubbock only to see him caught from behind and fumble away the ball that cost us a victory over Tech. That would have been the fourth win in a row over Tech in Lubbock (1988, 1997, 1999). Never have I been more disappointed as a UNT football fan than at that very moment. I've been embarrassed too often to remember (Getting murdered by freaking Rice 77-20 was also a low point for shame), but nothing hurt like that donkey punch to the groin when he got caught and fumbled away the victory.

Well, they haven't gotten in the habit of coming up to Denton in the last 8 decades, so I suppose it might worth a try to bring a scrimmage or a practice in the springtime closer to some of our alumni and their friends and family. Or we can just keep doing things the way we have for those 8 decades...

He probably got a nice thank you letter from the coaches at Troy, too. See, you can play this any way you want.

The problem with this last sentence is that it really seems as if that athletics spending and support is counter-intuitive to a school that places a great value on being a "value" and heavily supports fine arts and education. I just don't know that you will ever convince the majority of UNT's core (BOR, administration, faculty, students, alumni, local citizenry, etc..) to fund the athletic department in a fashion that befits a university of our size because its not what the clear majority wants or finds acceptable. If the additional funding was to increase spending on the Green Brigade or on the Fine Arts College buildings and faculty, that spending would get ok'd in a heart beat by all involved. But sports is a differnet animal--at most schools in Texas, its used as a window to the university and it provides the university an opportunity to gets its core together. Here, it is the exact opposite. I just don't know if that is ever going to change.