untjim1995

I like this--do a practice over at Frisco in the soccer stadium. Go down to Southlake and have a scrimmage at Dragon Stadium. You go where your alumni are and get some future students to see the university reaching out to you. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing them schedule a spring scrimmage/practice in Sherman or Wichita Falls, either. We are North Texas and both of those cities are decent sized communities that are in our footprint, too.

Don't forget about the epic battle for Lamar that should get rolling very soon, too. They will be a terrific add to the SBC, in my opinion. I'm serious. The biggest thing that sucks about CUSA and the SBC adding these FCS startups is that having 124+ schools that are defined as FBS will just shorten the time until that future culling occurs within the FBS standard. It was hard enough for the AQs to accept the SBC teams as being considered FBS, even though the deck is way stacked against them. They still don't like that the number of Division 1 teams has gotten that high and will only get higher in the coming years. Just like they did in the early 80s, they will get the NCAA to reduce that number to a more "appropriate" number. HIstory may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes...that future culling will look a lot like the old 1-aa.

Both of them would be fine additions. Neither of them are going to make cusa worse than it already is with the AAC defections. Seriously, if you could've said that we would leave ULM, South Alabama, and Troy behind, but would be in a conference with the current SBC Teams (including ASU and ULL) in CUSA and would add La Tech, Rice, UTEP, UAB, Southern Miss, and Marshall to the mix, most of us would've been onboard with this. That list would be WKU, MUTS, FAU, FIU, Ark State, ULL, La Tech, Southern Miss, UAB, Marshall, Rice, UTEP, UNT, and UTSA would make a nice 14 team league that is a hybrid of old WAC, SBC, and CUSA teams into a better league for UNT, at least. I suspect that having them both with Charlotte and ODU would make for a decent league, even though I think Banowsky added Charlotte and ODU way too soon, as he thought he was buying off ECU to stay. He basically got played. To me, that was worse than watching Tulane or Tulsa leave after the other defections to the AAC had been announced. Losing those two programs was bad, but adding two teams that aren't even FBS programs yet just to placate a university (ECU) that had made it clear that they would take a nano-second to leave CUSA to go to the Big East is as poor a move as I can ever remember a confernece commissioner making. No one here in Texas was clamoring for UTSA to be added--but their situation made sense to take advantage of as a conference member. Maybe Charlotte and ODU will be that way, too, but they were simply added to placate ECU and its place as the big dog in the new CUSA to get closer travel mates in the conference. If you had just that 14 team league I listed earlier (including UTSA), that would be pretty stout. Charlotte and ODU would be nice adds for the new SBC, especially with Ga Southern and Appy State being added to the league. But we are stuck with them now. ULL makes for a nice replacement for Tulane and Arky State makes for a nice replacement to Tulsa, in my opinion. Bigger schools that have better attendance and support than those two small private schools, even if they are in bigger markets. I will say this, though. If you are still in CUSA, at this point, its because you couldn't find any other place to land. A 16 team league with more geographic rivals would be a smart plan. We all wanted CUSA with SMU, Houston, Rice, UTEP, Tulsa, Tulane, Memphis, UCF, UAB, USM, Marshall, and ECU. But they didn't want us. Once SMU left, then we had our chance to get into the league. But SMU, UH, UCF, Memphis, and, eventually, ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa wanted to remain together. If UConn and Cincy do leave soon, and I think they will within the next year or two, I think their replacements will come from the MAC, in the form of some combination of Ohio, Northern Illinois, or UMass. The 14-16 we have now should be in CUSA for a while, at least until the MWC decides to come back to Texas again. Rice won't get in with the AAC unless UH is gone since they are in the same TV market. Only way I see UH moving is if the MWC talks them into moving over with UTEP at some point in the future. RIght now, the MWC is better than the AAC, and if that continues to be that way over the next few years, as I suspect it will be, then a move upward for a school like UH will look better, even if gets better treatment right now in CUSA over most of the others. TCU and Utah proved that you can make your way to big time prominence in the MWC. Boise State probably will, too. UH will be very tempting to the MWC, but they'll need a travel partner. If that travel partner is SMU, for example, nothing about CUSA will ever change. But if its UTEP, or gasp, UTSA, then things in CUSA become less stable. If that ever happened, UTEP could be replaced by NMSU and UTSA could replaced by Texas State, but that's about the only possible changes I could ever see to the current mix of CUSA now. Its a stepup for our program from where we were in the old SBC, however you want to look at, from conference affiliation to stability in its membership within the league for years to come, if for no other reason than the fact there really won't be any other suitors knocking on the door anymore to the current members in our league. If you are still here, its because you either wanted to be or because there was nowhere else to go.

SMU's name carries a lot of cache outside of the state, especially with the network in Bristol. They see SMU's history, June Jones' success of bringing them up from the ashes finally after the Death Penalty, and, most ironically, the Death penalty itself has amazingly been morphed into almost a sympathetic reason for others (networks, conferences, other institutions) to want to see them do well. And of course, they see a team in the heart of Dallas, who does get much better publicity from its local media outlets than its attendance deserves. When we compare it to our situation, we just don't have their advantages (money, history, and media). Our attendance may indeed be better than theirs by a little bit, but other universities and media members look at our enrollment and attendance and history over the last 30 years and realize that we aren't really giving these better-known schools many reasons to want to be associated with us in a conference. In the end, though, it won't matter for either SMU or us. Major college football is dependent upon so many elements that have to be there--conference affiliation, statewide support, big financial support, larger enrollments, strong attendance, and of course, TV appeal. You have to have all of them. Eventually, this will catch up with the TCUs and Baylors of the world. If you don't have all of these working for you, then your future in FBS, once it gets redefined, will be on the outside looking in. SMU cannot do anything about this, just like we can't. And depending on how things shuffle out, TCU and Baylor probably won't be able to do much about it, either. Houston might have a slight chance, but I just don't see them being included in any major 64-80 team FBS. The best teams in CUSA over the last few years have been UCF, UH, Tulsa, and SMU and we haven't seen one AQ league even come after them. Once they got in the Big East, that league saw people leave as fast as possible and their AQ got removed. Its just how it is. The Big 5 conferences and ND control it all--that's 65 teams, with BYU being indy and supposedly being included in this, too, makes it 66. Depending on which conference survives out of the ACC or Big XII (24 teams), it isn't hard to see where teams like TCU, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Duke could get left behind, although Duke will probably make it because of UNC and its basketball program. I foresee 4 mega conferences with 16-20 teams in each league. Some may stick to 16 (like the Pac), while others could get to 20 (ACC/Big XII survivors) Ironically, there are MWC teams that have a better chance of being included in a move upward than SMU, TCU, Baylor, etc...Boise State will get included somewhere if they keep winning at the level they have been, since they are a national name. A school like UNLV has that chance, too. Eventually ND and BYU are going to get gobbled up by someone. But the rest of us will settle back into a new 1-aa type situation again. And how that will get aligned, conference-wise, or championship-wise, will go a long way in determining if we will finally get into a conference or division setup that would allow us and the former SWC non-power teams to play each other annually. Some might continue playing, but I suspect that a school like SMU would just drop football before it got to this point. Just my $02...

This. If we think that DT is fine and acceptable at QB because he's a nice kid and doesn't cause any trouble, we will win 3 games at the most this year. He doesn't have it. As meanrob mentioned, we have not seen stellar QB play here in a long time. Hall was a terrific bus driver, who I think could have been even better in a more open offense. Mitch Maher and Scott Davis were terrific QBs, but they had the misfortune of being here while we were at i-aa purgatory, so very few UNT fans know as much about them as they would today. I think Vizza could've been a great QB here, but the team absolutely sucked, the OLine was a sieve, and the head coach was a joke. Add in the coach's son element behind you, Vizza did what so many others would have done in that absolutely miserable situation--he kwit (see what I did there). Was it right for him to do that? No, but its not like he was by himself in leaving the UNT dumpster fire to move on with his life. Vizza, in my opinion, was a bad fit for this place from the start. He was from an affluent school that probably had a better stadium and better support than UNT had. Just like all those guys from Southlake, Austin Westlake, Alamo Heights, The Woodlands, etc...they were not ready for the absolute culture shock that playing at UNT in Fouts against SBC teams was going to be. He probably should've gone to Nevada and played for Chris Ault, whom we beat out for Vizza. Otherwise, looking back, I've seen Jason Mills, Jason Attaway, Richard Bridges, Andrew Smith (bus driver who could've been better for a lot of reasons), Daniel Meager, Matt Phillips, Woody Wilson (wrong QB for Dickey's offense), Riley Dodge, Gio Vizza, Nathan Tune, Derek Thompson, and a few snaps for McNulty. I'm sure I've missed some others on the list. That's your QB list from 1995 thru 2012. Take out Hall's time (and Andrew Smith, since he filled in when SH was hurt), you get a group of people that led us to a combined record of 41-121. That's a winning percentage of .253%. IS it all the QBs fault? Of course not--Vizza is the prime example of this point. But it is clear that other than line play on both sides of the ball, your QB play is the most important part of your teams' success or failure. We will never know if a QB like Meager could've been decent if he gotten the chance to hand off to Cobbs, Jamario, Galbreath, Wilburn, etc..behind those solid offensive lines that Dickey had. Maybe Hall would have been Meager-like without those running backs and the stout defense we had while playing against developing SBC teams in the early part of the decade. But one thing is certain--we haven't sucked forever, but if you look back at this program since 1970, its understandable as to why it feels like its been forever.

What kind of binder did he use?

What a depressing thread...that now makes this officailly the 1476th thread since November that has reached the depressing status. These are unoffiicial results, but more votes are continuing to be tallied, unfortunately... Benford'd and RV'd

UConn, Cincinnati, and USF will get ACC bids in the future. I see one of the other eastern schools also getting an ACC bid one day, either UCF or Memphis. . The only Pac-12 possible additions out west are Boise State and UNLV, but its extremely doubtful. If BYU couldn't get into the Pac, I don't see either of these two academic lightweights getting included.

Exactly--we never won the MVC so we never got into the big tournament, but also never made the NIT, in the 60s or early 70s, either. All of those MVC teams back then decided basketball was going to be their lead dog in the athletic department. North Texas State, being in Texas, where football is king, wouldn't make that same decision.

It will get fixed--in 2 or 3 years from now. No money to buy out the remaining 4 years--we'd have to raise funds on innocent students and possibly take away funding possibilities for other programs that we love alot more than basketball here in Denton//UNT BOR

I doubt we will see any improvement at all over Benford's next 2-3 years--he has that much time, people, whether we want him gone or not. But, if he got us back to competing for a CUSA title or got us to the NIT or the NCAA tournament, he would be back in full graces with almost everyone, even if he led the biggest waste of talent at this place in any sport, ever. Look, this guy is most likely the newer version of Vic Trilli. Trilli got 4 years to prove how bad of a coach he truly was, just like Benford will probably get. You will start seeing a mass exodus of the talented recruits we had over the next few years and we will see us barely beating teams like Alabama-Huntsville (which I guess would be "improvement", sadly). Just like Trilli's teams could barely beat some of the dregs of college hoops in his last year (seems like we barely beat either Tarleton State or ACU at home in his last year, IIRC), that's what i expect to happen in 2-3 years from now. I have no hope whatsoever that this will improve at all. If it does, I'll be the first to say I was wrong, but I just don't see it happening. Recruiting is ruined, as is attendance. Nothing we can do about it now, but just accept it. Absolutely nothing that can be done about RV's mistake now.

I think most people actually agree with your post completely. For me, though, if that means Berglund didn't win this spot, then I think we all know that this upcoming season won't be very good. We have seen DT for a few years now--the coaches don't trust his arm becasue he's not accurate and his throws are very "catchable" by the defense (i.e, ducks being thrown). He's not mobile enough to make a difference against a pass rush, either. McNulty should improve after his freshman year of being thrown to the wolves and getting a RS year. But he's a bus driver, at best, so you'd have to have a team that was like the Dickey teams that Hall led. Run the ball for 3/4 of the game and ahve a defense that was way better than most of your competition's offenses. We don't have any of those advantages right now. In a perfect world, you know the exact opposite of what UNT Football exists in, we would have a healthy QB that played up to his lofty potential in Berglund. His talent is way above the others on this team. But if he cannot show that in practice or in scrimmages, I'll be the first to say that he shouldn't play. But I'll also say that it means we win about 3 games in 2013. And, as far as who takes snaps at Georgia, whoever can run the damn clock out the fastest is fine with me. That's a game that should have never bee scheduled, as far as I'm concerned. Just make sure that injuries are limited and that their check doesn't bounce. Since 2005, games against OU, UT, LSU, Alabama, and Clemson haven't told me one thing about this team--its been games against the other OOC opponents that aren't FCS that have told me all that I need to know about where we are at as a program. Games against Tulsa and La Tech in 2005 told us what we needed to know about where we were really at as a program. Eventually, so did the SBC conference drubbings we took under Dickey at the end and under the entirety of the Dodge regime. I think McCarney's teams have shown some fight in them, but they have never had the horses to beat most of the teams on their schedule. Last year, if we had not played Texas Southern and South Alabama at home, we would have probably finished at 3-9 or 2-10 because of that lack of leadership at QB and lack of talent on defense. But I think Coach Mac is getting us there, especially on the lines. Games against Ohio and Ball State here in the OOC early will tell me a whole lot on where we will be for the year. Games against Idaho and Georgia won't tell me much, just like last year's games against LSU and Texas Southern didn't tell me anything. Last year, we competed with K-State very well, but we didn't compete at all with Houston. I think trading those two teams for Ohio and Ball State should be very telling.

I've got bad news for SMU--its pretty much over. I can't see any non-AQ moving upward to a Super Conference, unless the Pac-12 takes UNLV and Boise State, which I strongly doubt will ever happen. TCU only got into the Big XII because the Aggies left and most of the teams in the conference (anyone not named Texas) wanted a team in DFW to play, so Texas basically got talked into it. That won't happen for SMU, just like it won't happen for us or any of these non-AQs. UConn, Cincy, and South Florida get picked up by the ACC if they have more defections to the B1G or the SEC, but that's about it. Those are big public schools that have been AQ and have gone to BCS bowl games and represent big markets, while also getting strong attendance. Most non-AQs don't come close to this. The Big XII or ACC will cease to exist in the way we know of them within 5 years. It could be even less than that, like within two years if the ACC's exit fee gets dropped substantially, like the Big XII's did. Once that happens, the ACC is going to get jacked up. The B1G wants at least two more teams, probably some combination of UVa, UNC, Duke, and Ga Tech. The SEC wants Virginia Tech and NC State, since they don't have teams in those markets. Maybe that gets Miami, FSU, Clemson and Louisville to the Big XII, but it might not--if the ACC lost four schools, I could see them replacing them with UConn, Cincy, and USF, as well as a team like Memphis. From what I have read, no one has any interest in joining a league with Texas having the LHN, nor does anyone have much interest in signing on to that GOR that last for the next 12 years. The thing here, though, as we go back to the original topic, is that a school like SMU has almost no chance of ever being a major player again in the NCAA as it stands now. They are too small and have no decent following. Same with all of the private non-AQs and the same with almost every single public non-AQ not in the MWC. And the powers that be in the NCAA have made it clear that the MWC won't be included in the AQ future, even when they deserved way more than the old Big East did. For schools like SMU, their time has passed. Its fine that they are in a league where they can compete, but they don't draw flies anymore since they don't get the SWC powers on the schedule every year. The Death Penalty killed them, in that sense. And it revived TCU--because when SMU came back, they were so bad for so long that TCU eventually took advantage of their situation in the Metroplex. And now TCU has what SMU had--the prominent spot in the Metroplex hierarchy. As for schools now in MWC, AAC, CUSA, MAC, and the SBC, I think its pretty clear that the sun set on almost all of us ever being included at the big boys table. We all need the money from playing big name programs on the road in OOC. The inherit advantages of being in an AQ league are never going away, instead they will continue to get deeper. Except for a very select few, this "second tier" is our new home until the next definition of FBS gets remade. Then, you will see that group become the equivalent of the old i-aa again. Can't wait to see teams like SMU have to deal with that. We are used to it here in Denton, but a team like SMU won't handle that well. If they cannot draw flies now, whats it going to look like when they are playing Tulane at Ford Stadium as a FCS-type team? Wouldn't surprise me at all to see teams like SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, and Rice just quit football rather than acceptin that fate. They're pride is too high for that kind of slapdown.

I like this thread a lot because we really do need to define SOMETHING that should be attainable for our football and basketball teams. For me, I'd like to see the following: 1.) In football, compete for bowl games that are aligned with our conference. IOW, get to a point where you are winning 8 games or more. 2.) In football, win a CUSA Division title. 3.) In football, get to a point where your recruiting rankings are competitive with all of the upper end non-AQs. 4.) In football, average 25k or more per home game. 5.) in basketball, have in place a coach that can get you close to the top of your divsion each year. 6.) In basketball, make a postseason tournament 5 years from now. 7.) In basketball, average 4k per home game in 5 years Note, that in hoops, most of these were already happening, but I'm looking at what I HOPE will again be possible in 5 years. We have fallen that far abck in just one year. For both, I want to see better names for OOC opponents at Apogee and the Super Pit. That's my realistic list of hopes for where I think we could be in 2018.

Nah, KXAS--NBC 5 does that, since they in FW...

Well, I don't think CUSA had a ton of choices--WKU was the best of the choices. I think of MUTS as being close to Nashville, but I guess WKU is, too. But I also think that the AAC isn't ever going to take us unless SMU is gone.

Apparently, he wanted to interview but never got the chance. I, mean, really, how could he beat out Tony Benford? Who cared that if Benford did any good this year, he would be getting ready to go home to Lubbock and wear red & black at his alma mater? We really couldn't interview a UNT alum that has actually been a head coach at a university in Texas when you have the chance at a guy who has never been a head coach anywhere to coach your most talented team ever but also graduated from a school in the state that would gladly hire him away if was worth a damn. That's foresight!!

I just cannot see any conference in today's world adding two teams from the same immediate TV market. That's always going to be our problem when it comes to being associated in a larger conference that contains SMU. Ironically, if SMU hadn't jumped to the BIg East and stayed in CUSA, Tulane and Tulsa would be in CUSA still, too. Along with Rice, they had a nice private consortium. We would still be in the SBC, which would suck. But, In that scenario, if we were to become a winner again in the SBC, it might have gotten the attention of UH and others in the AAC, meaning we could have possibly jumped SMU, since the AAC would have no DFW presence. But TV matters too much today. No legitimate conference is going to have SMU and UNT or UH and Rice together anymore. It just doesn't add any value to their TV contracts, which is where all the money is for these conferences.

Well, to be fair, Coker is probably just greasing the skids for UTSA to get included in the AAC as soon as possible. I don't think he believes that SMU would ever be associated with UNT in a conference. I see them following the South Florida recipe VERY CLOSELY. Now, it will depend on if they win or not. If we win, we aren't moving to the AAC, even though its chock full of schools that we wanted to be aligned with in a conference. MWC, maybe, but not the AAC as long as SMU is there (like when they were in CUSA). UTSA is whole differnet animal if they start winning--their options will be much more open.

I guess my point in this is that Ft. Worth's support of TCU helped a small school in enrollment to have crowds that were around 25k or more. Even a 2/3rds full ACS cannot happen with just TCU students and local alumni who can go to games. Denton has never given UNT that same support--unless we brought someone to town that the locals had heard of or cared about in the season home opener (see Baylor, Rice, Tulsa, Houston, TCU, UNLV, etc...). I get that FW is much bigger than Denton and its surrounding cities, but a "big" crowd at Fouts or Apogee is anything over 20k. Its my belief that if Dentonites supported UNT Football or Basketball at a level that is similar to what FW has given to TCU, we would have crowds of 25k or higher at ever single game, when you factor in student enrollmetn and local alumni. Maybe winning would do the trick this time--but it didn't in the 70s, nor did in Dickey's heyday. Shaft, thanks for correcting me on why the program fell off under DD. I agree much more with what you posted on the reasons we fell off. Seeing Ramon Flanigan's name again reminded me of just how ridiculous things got at the end for the Dickey regime. Remember RF fighting SE in the stands over the reality that we were being outcoached (again) during some SBC game? And he didn't even get suspended for that...he should have been fired on the spot.

I proudly show off my diploma and a really nice framed sketch of UNT from 15 years in my office.

This is exactly what I wanted us to do last year--hire a winning head coach, even if it was from a lower Division 1 team. You get a Scott Cross, Danny Kaspar, Steve Shields, or Bob Marlin here and you let them coach with the resources and talent that we have here. It doesn't always work, but I think it gives a school that was in the situation we found ourselves in after JJ left to continue forward with the progression that had been made. Hiring people with no head coaching experience to take over a program that is on the cusp of moving upward is just a crapshoot. Unfortunately, we are stuck. No money to buyout 4 more years of this. Just gotta hope that he doesn't take us all the way down the drain, the way Trilli did. But I'm not holding my breath. Texas State made a nice hire here. I bet he will be somewhere else very soon. I actually think he will coach at A&M if Billy Kennedy continues to flounder in College Station. But, for Texas State, that is a great move.

Actually, MInnesota is a pretty good gig. They have a great old barn that they play in and get solid support. They have proven that they can be a big winner--they went to the tourney this year and were in the Final Four back in the late 90s. You can win there, if you can get the Minneapolis/St. Paul talent to stick around. If Wisconsin can win, Minnesota can, too...

If Parker had anything to do with hiring the guy who fired him almost a few months after he got here, he was truly in over his head even more than I humanly thought possible. And that is after watching him decide to try an onsides kick after passing up a 4th down chance to go for a td and instead settle for about a 25 yard fg to tie a game with about 20 seconds left in a game. Other team recovers said onside kick, completes a pass, and then kicks game winning FG as time expires. And that was in his 3RD year as the head coach... Back to the topic--yes, SMU will not be playing us ever again, as long as Jankovich is there. I doubt TCU will, either.

I'd love to play in a league with any of the teams that have left CUSA to go the America 12, especially those in Texas, OK, LA, and Florida. But at UNT, as we all know too well, there's not much you can do when the other schools that had options and were previously in CUSA literally want nothing to do with us as a conference mate. At that point, you just have to try and build a coalition of teams that have actually done something in the money sports. I don't care about the Bubas Cup--I care about the UNTJIM CUP: how have you done in football and mens hoops, with a small amount of emphasis on women's hoops. Arky State and ULL have both done well in a few of those sports.