untjim1995

I'm getting ready to get my haircut and I see a preseason college hoops magazine next to me. It was Lundy's, I believe. Who was their prediction to earn the lone SBC bid for this year? Must be MTSU, right? Or WKU, with all of the history? Or Arkansas-Little Rock with their solid coach? Nope...they somehow believed all these quitters in Denton were going to go to the tournament, since the greatest assistant coach with no head coaching experience ever was now the coach of the Mean Green!! Oh wait...I got that backwards. The most talented team ever assembled in Denton, even with a new coach, should win the SBC behind the great Tony Mitchell. How so many are convinced that this is on the players is beyond me...I'll be willing to be that we won't sniff a prediction of being tourney worthy within the next 10 years.

Sorry to be snarky here, but I just can't resist. If we have a rivalry with UTSA that is based anything on what you just posted, this will be further proof that our school really does care a lot more about music than athletics. I can only imagine the highlights from this "rivalry"--nothing on ESPN or Fox Sports, but great coverage on VH1!! Seriously, I may very well be in the vast UNT minority within our fanbase, but I could not care less on how our band matches up against another school's band.

Not terribly--I think that the American 12 won't take Rice into their league as long as UH is there. The overlapping of TV markets for the A12 won't be allowed like it was in CUSA. The only possibility I could see--and it is remote--is if the MWC decided to come this way to get some Texas exposure and they went after UTEP and Rice. Of course, the MWC could go after UH instead and Rice would then be the logical replacement for them if UH did leave the A12 to go out west. I just don't see it, though, anytime soon. Their baseball is great and they have been better in football in the last 5 years than they probably have been in the previous 50, but their small enrollment in a huge professional market won't do them any favors, IMO.

Its not any different than the new CUSA now being SBCUSA. I hate to say it, but Tulsa wants to be associated with their private brethren in SMU and Tulane. I'm sure Rice would prefer it, too, but I doubt they'll ever get to leave since UH is in that conference now. We definitely have gotten a better conference setup than we ever have had, even if Tulsa leaves. Getting La Tech, UTEP, Rice, and UTSA as conference mates is so much better than anything we have ever known. BUt SMU and UH, along with Tulane and ECU, and probably Tulsa soon, basically dropped trips to Hattiesberg,MS, Huntington, WV and El Paso for Cincinatti, Tampa, Orlando, Philly, and Connecticut. Even if they don't play Boise State, SDSU, Syracuse, Rutgers, Louisville, and Pittsburgh like they had hoped, I still think getting USF, Cincy, UConn, Temple, and Navy as conference mates is a step up from what they had. If they get Tulsa to join, they still have UCF, UH, SMU, Memphis, ECU, and Tulane, which is a better sell to folks in Houston and Dallas than they had before. Just as many people care about playing Southern Miss in football as they will Cincy, same goes for playing Marshall against UConn. Sure, playing Temple in football isn't gonna move the needle much for SMU or UH attendance, but it will be about the same as it was when UAB came to town. I still think they came out ok in all of this, just like I feel that way for UNT, La Tech, and UTSA. My biggest fear for the future of CUSA membership is that UTEP gets invited to go back west to the MWC and that the MWC decides to get back even more into Texas and they go with either Rice or UTSA, instead of us. Neither would make a lot of sense over us, but that has never managed to work out for us before, so I'm not going to hold my breath expecting it to somehow work for us in the future. I have said this for a long time, but I would do backflips to get into the MWC, especially if it was with another Texas school like UTEP. I just think that playing Boise State, SDSU, Fresno State, Nevada, and AFA in conference games at Apogee would be unreal. Getting home basketball games with New Mexico, UNLV, Colorado State, and Utah State would be awesome. Yes, we played a lot of those teams as conference mates before in the Big West, but Boise State, Nevada, and Utah State were nowhere near the programs they are today. I guess the MWC has been my favorite place to eventually land just becasue I watched TCU do unthinkable things while a member of that league. TCU was a doormat for 30+ years in the SWC, but when they got to play teams that they were more comparable with, they ended up going to two BCS games and finishing #2 in the country. I have my doubts that TCU will ever get there again in the Big XII, but they will find the $$$ they get from the AQ league to be enough to compensate for this (see Baylor). But the same competitive situation that existed for TCU with their MWC brethren still exists today--we could take advantage of being the team in the DFW area that hosts these programs and hopefully that would be the thing that helped increase our recruiting. I doubt that this will ever happen, though, even if I believe completely that it would be the one chance we have to really give our program a shot in the arm and separate from the other non-AQs in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. I've said this before, but I think the only chance for us to move up is that a conference is going to have to look at all of the advantages we COULD have here and say to themselves that UNT would soar if we got them in a conference like this (similar to USF in the Big East or UTSA in CUSA), rather than focusing only on the results on the field or the amount of spending on athletics that the univesrity has done --or not done--over the last 20 years.

There is no way that Mitchell stays here after this season ends. His stock has already taken a good hit.

Hell, at this point, I'd love to see 15 wins again...

I wonder if Stew Morrill decided to change out players like a hockey line during their games, too? You know, because of all of the injuries...

What I think is the funniest part of this email really doesn't involve Kingsbury and his cool factor. Rather, it deals with this guy thinking that there would be great demand for a combo DVD/T-shirt that commemorates their 1993 Women's Basketball Championship. I'm sure that combo will be in great demand...

well done, sir...(slow clap begins)

The thing about his play against LSU and KSU was that he never even came close to duplicating those games when we played anyone else. Its great to play up to the competition, but when you aren't going to beat those teams anyway, you really need to look at the teams you should be able to beat or compete with. DT couldn't throw the ball with any accuracy against the SBC teams or against Texas Southern and UH. Not surprising, as the year went on, the OC basically realized that he couldn't give the offense anything new becasue he couldn't throw the ball accurately or be counted on to run the ball if the pass rush came after him. Berglund may suck big time. Hell, he may be so bad that Derek Thompson will look like Johhny Football compared to him (like he does when compared to McNulty). Its just my belief that if that comes true, then we are going to be lucky to win 3 games next year. DT doesn't help you score points--he has proven that over and over. In college football today, you better score points and get turnovers. Our QB play has been subpar to atrocious and our defense needs to create more pressure to get turnovers. Its my belief that the defense will get there only when the depth of the lines gets better. But our QB play should be able to get much better with a mobile QB that is tall and strong. Berglund represents all of that. Again, he may suck big time--but I have to believe that he will be better than DT. I think that will be proven in the spring and in the fall.

If he does, I'd expect him to get overwhelmed with excitement at binders full of plans, as well as great success at being either a local school district superintendent or as the assistant vice president at another institution...

I totally agree here--that indoor facility makes much more sense than to add another non-revenue sport that won't draw flies to games. College baseball, in general, doesn't attract much attention. I can't imagine more than a few hundred ever gathering for a game there. I'm not opposed to it eventually being a sport here, but we have much bigger things to take care of first before we can add another sport that takes away revenue from the AD.

At what high schools?

I agree here. Sadly, if Kaspar was even in the mix for being hired here, people wouldn't have been happy with getting SFA's coach to come here, even if he was an alum. Most people would've wanted a sexier name. Danny Kaspar will get a better gig than here very soon--I would be willing to bet that Texas A&M will be his next head coaching job. But the point remains that a guy with head coaching experience and has won, even if it s at a lower level, is still preferable to an unproven assistant coach as a new hire to be your head coach. Assuming we will have to make a decision to go after a new coach in 2015, at the earliest, if I were the AD, I'd start with a list of guys like Steve Shields and Bob Marlin. Maybe even look at a D-2 coach who has won, as well. The key is to find someone who knows how to lead and has shown the ability to get the job done. Vic Trilli and Tony Benford didn't work--even Jankovich, who was an assistant at OSU before he got hired here, never got us over the hump as a program, even though he was more successful than either of those two.

I would so give you every +1 imaginable if you were only capable of receiving such accolades. Maybe he can go to Hot Springs and someone can convince UALR to make a trade with us to give us Shields as our next coach...it has as much of a chance of happening as Benford actually wearing four different suits in Hot Springs while coaching games.

I have a feeling that he will work out here. Berglund is a recruit that normally doesn't make their way to UNT, so no matter how it has happened, let's just hope he can keep it all on the straight and narrow. Being 6'4" with speed and a strong arm are attributes we haven't seen her in a long time. We need him to be good, even great. If he cannot play at a decent level, in other words, better than what we saw in 2012 at the QB position, I will go ahead and predict that McCarney will get fired before 2015. Decent QB play last year would have gotten us at least one more win, probably more. Coach Mac knows that he cannot have two more losing seasons before 2015, so I think he knows fully just how much Berglund means to this team and the future.

This is actually very cool--we have finally found a sport that we are excelling in. Gotta be proud of our Mean Green, no matter the sports. If only their success could be duplicated at Apogee or the Super Pit by the home team...

This is how I feel, for the most part. There are reasons to believe that the future should be brighter than the current malaise, but many generations of fans here have probably thought the same thing, too. These next few years have to be better. What I fear is that McCarney gets fired and we never go back to hiring an experienced head coach and pay him a competitive salary for a university of our size. We would probably go back to hiring an assistant coach that costs about $350k per year and is learning on the job. LIterally the only coach here who has sustained winning was an experienced head coach before he got here--Hayden Fry. No one else, except for McCarney, has fit that bill since Fry left.

I think that a winning season in CUSA would help us to at least get back on track for recruiting. It will take several winning seasons to get a solid fanbase increase in season tickets and attendance. But I don't think we will ever be able to pass the Big XII/SEC schools in this state, nor do I see us passing the Big East schools in the next 25 years. They have waaaayyyyy too big of a headstart on our program, from a money standpoint and a success standpoint. Everyone knows of the old SWC schools, even little ol' Rice. Our main competition right now is UTEP, a school with some advantages over ours in support and market share, but a huge disadvantage in location of that market. If we can surpass UTEP on this foodchain over the course of the next 5 years, then that would be progress. Maybe that means we have passed RIce, too. But, one thing it should definitely mean is that that UTSA and TX State haven't passed us by. If either of those two newbies pass us by in W/L records over the next 5 years, we should just quit FBS football--I mean it. That would tell me that playing in the Southland Conference again is really the place for this university's football program, if somehow one of those teams from that level of play can move up and pass us by within that short of time. For me, this next 5 years is very important for my fandom here. I need to see something tangible in terms of becoming a winner and helping to sustain that. When a fan like Emmitt, one of the very few that has shown to really care about this place, posts that his conscience has caught up to him about selling the MGC to other alumni due to the lack of results and support by the university, that should tell you a lot. If we turn this around in the next few years--say we get back to .500--and McCarney retired, hypothetically, we had better see the university do something 180 degrees different from what they just did with Johnny Jones replacement. I'm telling you that this anger from the remaining diehards here is not far from becoming apathy within the next few years. If you start losing those of us who have been faithfully following this program over the last 20+ years, only to continue to see mostly bottom of the barrel results, its gonna get ugly. If you are a UNT alum that graduated in 1970 or later, in most of your lifetime, you have seen some of the worst football seasons imagianble, except for 4 of Fry's years here and I guess 4 years of Dickeyball. That's 8 years out of 43 seasons. Not even counting the ridiculous i-aa years that nearly killed what was left of this program, our average w/l record since the black man was allowed to play anywhere he could is a robust 4 wins and 7 losses. Its because of this, that I truly believe that there has never been a fanbase that deserved at least a few years of winning seasons more than this one...

If you took every coach, sans Fry, since 1970, they all combined to produce a cumulative record of 90-187 at the I-A (FBS) level, for a .325 winning pct. I think this is what he's looking at...

Western Kentucky wouldn't be a bad pick for the conference, but it wouldn't be a good pick for UNT--too far, no one cares about them in this area, and they don't make as good a tailgate scene as them Cajuns!!

I really started following North Texas in 1990--I had known Corky Nelson was a good coach, but I never followed 1-aa football, so that was all I knew about him. Of course, as I started following UNT, Corky got fired and was replaced by Dennis Parker. In other words, since 1991, I've seen Dennis Parker go 11-21-1 while being completely over his head as a college coach. Then in 1994 we hired a pretty smart assistant coach in Matt Simon, but his paranoia and the university's lack of support for athletics really took the wind out of his sails, as he started off strong, but ended up with an 18-26-1 record. Probably could've become a great coach with more help, but its very telling that he never became a head coach at any level in college ever again. In 1998, we hired Darrell Dickey, who just finished as the OC at SMUs one winning football team (6-5) in between the Death Penalty and June Jones. Some highlights included 4 SBC conference championships and OOC wins over Tech, Baylor, Cincinatti, and SMU, but we usually got our butts handed to us in OOC games against teams we had heard of, as well as putrid efforts against OOC opponents we had never heard of in South Florida and Florida Atlantic. Once other SBC teams caught up to us, it was over for Dickey, and for pretty much North Texas Football since then. HIs overall record from 1998-2006 was 42-64. Dodge follows with his awesome 8-40 record in his 4 years here, which includes a 2-3 record by Chico Canales as head coach. Now, McCarney has run up a 9-15 record so far in two seasons, but has given us reasons to believe that we might be a path toward becoming a winner again. Whether that happens or not will be seen, but Fry's record at UNT of 38-25-3, with wins over Tennessee, SMU, Houston, Oklahoma State, and a ranked San Diego State, if translated into anything similar over the last 15 years would have had us playing in CUSA version 1.0 or 2.0, not SBCUSA, at the bare minimum. People think of Bill Snyder at K-State for great rebuilding jobs, but he obviously learned alot from Hayden Fry--and I think we all realize now that in the modern age of college football, since integration and scholarship reductions (basically since 1970), Fry's overall record here should very well go down as one of the best coaching jobs in the history of college football. He took over for a program that had won 7 games and lost 26 in its three previous years before he got here and it had just survived a vote from the student body to be dropped altogether. To put it all into perspective, if you took every coach, sans Fry, since 1970, they all combined to produce a cumulative record of 90-187 at the I-A (FBS) level, for a .325 winning pct. That list covers 24 years of FBS (I-A) and includes three seasons of Rod Rust, two seasons of Jerry Moore, 1 season of Bob Tyler, one season of Corky in 1982 as the last year before 1-aa, three years of Simon as a I-A coach, 8 years of Dickey, 4 years of Dodge and Chico, and now two years of Coach Mac. What Hayden Fry did here in Denton is truly unbelievable, given the circumstances and the histroy here. And how that fact has seemingly been given no press here in the DFW area is just a crime.

Berglund has just as much potential as this guy and he's already here on scholarship. And as TFLF posted, unless he can rush the passer or stuff the run, he would just be piling on to the position that we already have decent depth at, at least for now. I doubt that he makes UTEP much better than they were last year, unless they too, had a QB last year that couldn't throw an accurate pass more than 10 yards down the field, like we suffered through for 2012. If they did, then maybe they will be a loss instead of a win, but I'm still counting this as very winnable, at least until our team tells me something different once the season gets started.

Andrew/skiver/Green_dude, You should know something very important. No matter how ridiculous your posts are in support of the biggest flop in UNT athletics, you will never be as bad as CheckFacts/GL2Greatness. In summary, while considering gmg posting skills, you are still better than her...so you have that going for all of your handles/personalities. Sincerely, The Internet PS--Bitch less

This is so dead-on. The "North Texas Effect" only applies to sports, though. When the Green Brigade has a bad halftime performance, though, that band director better have his bags packed...we care A LOT about music!! Suck on that and your misguided funding for athletics, all you other Texas FBS schools #UNT BOR and typical NT Daily writer