untjim1995

I see absolute have-to-have wins as Idaho and UTSA. The I see likely wins against Tulane and UTEP. So that's four right there. If we can win just one more game against Ball State, Ohio, MUTS, La Tech, Rice, and Southern Miss, that gets you 5 at a bare minimum. I think the game at Tulsa is most likely a loss and the Georgia game doesn't count, except in dollars to the AD and number of injuries in the trainer's center. Seriously, 5-6 wins should be achievable if we are healthy and can continue to get stronger. If we could win 4 games last year and we left winnable games on the field at WKU and at home against Troy, we should be right about the same this year. I expect that the QB play will be better--slightly better gets us to 4-6 wins, way better gets us to 7 or more. I suspect that the OLine will be better, too. And I actually think the DLine will perform better than people expect, with another year under the strenght and conditioning program that McCarney has them under, which is uspposed to specialize in development of strenght amongst linemen. IN a pie-in-the-sky season, I would see as many as 8 wins and a bowl game. In a disaster, I can see us with a 2-10 record. Taking the middle ground should get us to 5 wins. If it doesn't, the next recruiting class may very well be the worst yet, since McCarney will either be entering his make-it-or-break-it year of his contract (Year 4 of 5) or will get fired and we get to try Coach Number 4 to build us up from the ashheap of FBS football.

I hate to break it to you, but telling recruits and their parents in today's world that we were once pretty good (as in ranked or close to it) when the only methods of playing music involved a record player and an 8-track isn't going to help your case. It actually hurts it more. Telling a recruit that we have been a ranked team when the only way to talk to someone on a phone was to use either a phone at your home or a payphone is not going to help. Telling thatm that we haven't been good since before the Iphone came out isn't going to help. I'm proud of the legacy stuff here, especially being the first school in the SW to be integrated. But that literally doesn't rank in the top 100 reasons that a recruit will come here. Heck, most of our recruits have parents that range in ages of probably 35-55, so they have known UNT to be absolutely irrelevant (thanks i-aa) or mostly just full of suckitude since we moved up to FBS in 1995. If I were a recruit today and I was looking at either Arkansas State or North Texas, this is what both schools tell me TODAY: ASU has gone to bowl games recently and has competed for conference titles over the last 8 years. UNT has no bowl games and has compiled a sparkling 22-73 record, which includes two wins last year over FCS Texas Southern and SBC newcomer South Alabama. ASU has hired coaches who have gone on to become head coaches at Ole Miss and Auburn after just one year at that school. They fired their previous coach, who had won a conference title and beat Texas A&M, Memphis, and almost beat Iowa, because they were not content with a 5-7 record. North Texas hired a high school coach that got fired ONLY when it was affordable to the school to get rid of him--at which point he had compiled a stellar 6-37 record. The last time someone hired away our head football coach was in 1980, when Texas Tech hired Jerry Moore. A 5-7 record at North Texas, since we moved back to FBS, has been matched or exceeded 6 times, which includes exactly 3 winning seasons from 2002-2004. ASU has sent guys to the NFL by being drafted--player development actually exists in Jonesboro. UNT hasn't sent a player to the draft since 2004, reflecting the next 8 years of pure futility. ArkStFan has been a great poster on this board. He gives us some very relevant information on a peer program that has surpassed us (like so many others) in the last decade. I actually appreciate the fact that he can tell us how fun it is to follow a program and a university that decided to fully support their football team. ASU is enjoying more success than they probably ever have as a FBS school. Maybe we can do the same again one day. But for now, in today's world, the only advantages that UNT has over ASU are supposed to be our location and our enrollment. But those advantages, whether they are legit or not, aren't being used by UNT right now. Our recruiting classes have just been awful for a decade now. Our attendance has jumped up some, but that was mostly due to hiring the head coach from a Metroplex HS powerhouse and from opening a new stadium. If we have a losing season again, I suspect that our CUSA games at the end of the season at home will be sparsely attended. For us to get back to being anything worth following to casual fans, we have to get back to beating and outrecruiting the SBC and CUSA schools. Until then, schools like Arkansas State will have full reign to come over here and tell us how it feels to be a winner. We want SMU and Tulsa to be rivals, but right now, ASU would be a much tougher game for both of them.

Exactly--the "weak" FCS isn't exactly that far behind the low end of FBS. Sam Houston, North Dakota State, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, and others aren't terribly far from any SBC, MAC, or CUSA team right now. But that doesn't make it fair for an AQ team with 88 scholarships to playa team with 65 or wahtever number the FCS schools are allowed. Those money games should, at the very least, be against teams with similar scholarship levels. IOW, Texas should play North Texas or Texas State, not Sam Houston State or SFA.

Thoughts and prayers for Lincoln University's fans and QBs...

I think 6 wins is possible. My benchmark is 5 wins or better for this season.

I am thrilled by this announcement and I hope that all other AQs follow this, too. I absolutely hate the September games between FCS schools and top AQs. Its bad enough to see SBC, MAC, and CUSA schools playing at AQ powers for a check, but they are all supposedly equal by being in FBS. Watching Alabama play Georgia State or Texas A&M play South Carolina State is just worthless to me.

Allow me to provide example number 1,000,000 of what kills any chance of this place ever being good at athletics. This is an alum of this place, who donates to the university, and probably lives near Denton. He loved his time at North Texas State College--it was just a perfect little college town and campus back then. We shouldn't even put a dime toward athletics because it hurts our music and arts and education programs, right? What a chump. The vote didn't occur before construction started--the construction couldn't begin until the funding became available, hence the stealth student vote, which, you are correct, hardly had a decent percentage voting for it. If we had a big turnout, it would've suited your mindset perfectly, because we would still be at Fouts with some unknown assistant making $200k as our head coach in the Sun Belt. To me, this is the mindset that cannot be defeated here--its too ingrained byt he faculty, administration, BOR, alumni, students, and citizenry. So amazingly stupid...

Helping to produce good citizens does cost less...

I agree with you about SLC being a pwoerhouse before he got there, but in his time there, they were absolutely phenomenal. 4 out of 5 5A State Championships in Texas is just incredible. It just didn't translate to anything but suck at UNT. The thing with Todd Dodge was that he would've been smart to have accepted a job as a coordinator first with someone who knew how to run a college practice. Art Briles was very successful at Stephenville HS when Tech hired him to be a position coach. Just a few years later, he'd become the head coach at UH and parlay that into a head coaching gig at Baylor. But he saw how Spike Dykes ran practice and how to recruit and coach college kids. Todd Dodge never had to do any of that. Part of that is his fault for not recognizing that, but the biggest fault lies with RV in believing that bringing in an inexperienced college coach would be just fine if he brings in mostly HS coaches with him. Ron Mendoza may be the absolute worst college coach I've have ever seen trying to run a defense. He had no idea how to coach a defense at this level. That 's what a gig as an OC or a position coach could have taught Todd Dodge, just like it obviously did for Art Briles. Todd Dodge will never get a chance to be a head coach again in college football, but under the right circumstances, his career path could have led him to being one for the rest of his life if he had been more prepared. Its a good lesson in life about thinking you are ready for something bigger in your career when you haven't paid enough dues yet.

Why is the New Orleans paper writing a story about a coordinator at Memphis who last saw success in New Orleans in 2004? We can't even get the DFW papers to write a story about one of our coordinators and they are just down the road...

Riley has great name recognition in this state. As bad as his dad was as a college coach, he was that good as the coach at Southlake Carroll. Their family name in Austin is golden, from both sides of his family. Plus, he is a very classy guy in the way he carries himself, at least from my vantage point. Great guy--should be a good fit for UT. His time here was awful, but it wasn't his fault. His dad's gameplan was a disaster, which included putting his undersized kid at QB here. Hell, he was undersized for FCS play. It wasn't his fault that Vizza quit--it was Vizza's fault and his dad's fault. But the fact remians that Vizza wasn't going to survive here, either. Our gameplan was built on the spread and the OLine here was just a sieve. Thus, we saw Vizza, Rodge, Nathen Tune, and Derek Thompson get crushed in the course of 2+ seasons. It wouldn't surprise me to see Rodge be a very successful coach, at any level. He'll be smart enough to learn from his dad's mistakes. He showed a lot of heart and fight for such a little QB. And the class he showed after his dad was fired midseason and still played hard for Chico and his teammates that season told me a lot about his character.

All I know is that we just gave the Ponies their future answer if they ever buy us out of playing any part of our future football series. "Look, y'all did it to UTA in their money making sport. So what's the big deal if we do it to you?" Cancelling a Metroplex rival in a game that creates local interest and doesn't require much at all in terms of travel expense is just soooo typical of this place. Who cares if UTA kills us again? Hell, they've made a living at doing that for a while. And last year, they got lots of company in kicking our ass up and down the court. We have to have the worst athletic department in America when it comes to personnel and scheduling. We keep people on payroll too long, we schedule worse than anyone I have ever seen for both money sports, and we don't market ourselves worth a damn. Frustrating. I've come to accept a long time ago that this place doesn't have the stomach for the fight in football because it just costs too much. But I've always believed that we could be something big in mens basketball, even when Trilli coached here, because the right coach and talent could really jumpstart your program. But when we replaced JJ with an unproven recruiter for our most talented and promising team in our history, then watched the team play worse than the local high schools in town, it is making me believe that this program won't ever be what I thought that it could be. We just don't have the leadership at any level that makes me believe that athletics really matter here.

This thread made me laugh--could we talk to SMU about a trade of Benford for Jankovich?

Whoever Dan Wolken is, he might want to apologize to Ryan Coatney...

I think we got Vic Trilli'd...

This thread is awesome--so we have TTG give the best post ever given on gmg.com in the same thread that has (above) what has to be among the stupidest posts I have ever seen. Seriously, raise taxes to support our colleges so that everyone can attend? What nirvana are you wanting to live in? Tuition tied to minimum wage? Seriously, they are a ton of ways to pay for college--you don't water down the value of a degree by letting everyone have access to it in an easy fashion. I'm glad you give to the Emerald scholars fund. Its a noble cause. But the state has much bigger issues, just as the country does, than figuring out a way for tuition to be tied to the freaking minimum wage. BTW, that's what junior colleges help with in terms of getting lower costs for your basic classes, if you need to take advanatage of that. You would immediately see a huge run on the professors and educators at the public schools in Texas who would just go teach at the private schools or in states that wouldn't cause anyone to have their incomes effectively cut in half so that they could teach thousands of extra students who would treat university learning the way kids in public schools already treat high school and middle school do--as something they get for free. That would kill the value of a UNT degree. The 61 part of your username suggest that is the year you graduated from here. Your mindset above seems stuck in that time. Over 50k students attend Texas and A&M. Over 35k attend UH and UNT. That's not counting the bigger enrollments at Texas Tech, Texas State, UTA, UTSA, UTEP, Sam Houston, SFA, Lamar, UTD, UT-Permian Basin, and so many others not listed. Our state educates a lot of people--the costs have risen greatly, but so have costs for energy, groceries, medicine, etc...its the whole supply/demand thing, you know, what capitalism runs on, even for government entities like colleges, hospitals, airports, etc. It is ironic, though, that you talked about whining...then went on to whine about how college costs should get socialized for everyone who wants to go.

Don't understimate the teams from 2005 and 2006. THey were also very JV-esque. That pillow fight between us and FIU that took 7 OTs with neither team able to make FGs was peewee football...

I agree with you 100%. With what we have on this team and the way the schedule plays out, 5 wins is what should be expected, IMO. Anything over that is gravy to me, but anything under 5 wins is either very disappointing or absolute dumpster fire...

TTG, Your post is so amazingly spot-on that I just want to give you a +10000000000000000000000000000 points. You win...seriously, best post I've read on gmg.com in all my years of posting on here. Admitting that we are f'd is not being against the university or having an agenda against the AD--its just calling out the truth in the way you see it. Here's something that all of you should know. By pure luck, I ran into Brett Vito the other night at a local restaraunt. Just started chatting up UNT Sports, football mostly. He spoke very highly of Dickey, too, and he also laughs at how much the fanbase didn't care for him. I didn't argue with him, although I don't hold Dickey in high regard for his "bowl run", but that's not the point we were getting at. He brought up how much he disliked working with Todd Dodge, "the high school coach" as he called him. He couldn't believe that he got hired AND lasted that long here. He talked positively and in hopeful terms about McCarney. But his last point is what should make us all cringe--the only media member in the entire universe that covers this school says the following, "If Coach Mac doesn't turn it around here, even with the improved facilites, they (UNT) need to really look at the situation to see if they belong at this level. Because it just isn't working." Vito, right or wrong, is more in tune with the thought process around Denton and how people outside of the AD view UNT Athletics, than anyone else out there, since its his daily job at the DRC. He hears it from others in town and at the paper. He sees it when he goes to the Super Pit and see less than 2000 people there to watch a team that was just coached to the most disappointing season we have seen from a UNT sports team in history (yes, it was that bad), but knows he cannot be fired because it costs too much. He sees a brand new stadium, but he knows that people in Denton don't go there because the team doesn't win and doesn't play anyone that they care about in any big way. The worst part about it all to me is that Brett Vito's mindset is what is shaped by being around UNT sports everyday in Denton. HIs view "that the university has to really take a look at what its wanting from its program" is coming from a place where so many people around the university don't want anything more put toward athletics. And he understands that for the minority that does care, that the manner in which we are running this program is not going to make it, unless Coach McCarney really can turn the 116th rated recruiting class into something down the road, which seems like a pipedream when you take an objective step back. If it weren't for Coach Mac's resume for building Iowa State up from the ashes, no one here would believe this thing has a chance of being rebuilt. At this point, we have to give McCarney our trust, because if we aren't even willing to do that, we all have to come to the realization that this place is f'd if we go 2-10, as one sports magazine has predicted. Its really come down to that. Because a terrible season probably means McCarney will get fired within the next two seasons, and if you trust RV to make the correct hire, after all we have seen over the last decade of him hiring coaches, you really should be working in the Athletic Department as official communications staff.

I totally agree about having local start times, for sure. But I don't believe that the MWC is locked out of Texas at all. That league did wonders for TCU. I believe it would still for anyone in Texas who joins again. Texas HS recruits are just too good, even at 2-3 star levels, when compared to what most of the other western schools in that league can get, even California recruits. The MWC will get back here in Texas--its just a matter of when. They will survey the lay of the land and figure out which schools would fit best with their league. If I were in their leadership, I would be looking at the increased TV numbers that the four major Texas markets would add, which would vastly improve their TV contracts. I have always maintained that UTEP will be included out west when they can get another Texas school to join them, which the MWC will watch and see who they can grab. But, its not out of the question, at all, to see the MWC add more than two Texas teams if necessary. These are the possible scenarios that see playing out for that league: 1.) BYU joins the MWC again and they add another team, UH would be their prime target, but UTEP would be very acceptable to their former conference mates. 2.) BYU joins the MWC again and they add three Texas schools to the league (some combo of UTEP, UH, SMU, UTSA, or UNT) 3.) BYU doesn't join and stays independent, but the MWC adds UTEP and one of those other Texas four to get to 14 4.) The MWC comes in and grabs UTEP, UH, UTSA, and SMU or UNT to get all the TV sets of the 4 big markets in Texas, that also all have bowl games in their cities. BYU is who they would take back in a heartbeat. I think BYU is either in the MWC again or part of the Big XII within the next 3 years. As a matter of fact, if the Big XII doesn't crumble, they would be very smart to go after BYU and South Florida, just for the added TV pull. The merry-go-round appears to have finally slowed for now. But it will pick up steam again. In the meantime, I am very willing to put my belief in the MWC being the league that will send its champion to a BCS game more often than any of the other leagues. Just from a scheduling standpoint, those teams have a bigger advantage, especially Boise State. Their teams schedule OOC games against Pac schools for the most part. If you beat them, then you are in decent shape to get into the top ten at the end of the year. The Pac actually schedules home-and-away games against non-AQs out west. The SEC, BIg XII, Big Ten, and ACC arent as open to those type of series. The SBC will never send anyone there, nor do I believe that CUSA will. The AAC has some teams that could get there if they catch fire in the right season. But I suspect that the MWC or MAC, which schedules Big Ten normally for OOC, will parlay that advantage into being the annual entry into the BCS slot. The SEC and BIg XII will continue to feast on SBC and CUSA teams in bodybag games, which really hurts your chances of making any waves at being in the BCS game.

But they got in. The MWC easily could have gone after UTEP or any other Texas school instead, just to replace TCU in its league. They didn't. Maybe for the reasons you mentioned, but the point is they got in. Its kind of like getting invited up to CUSA from the SBC. North Texas got to move up, even though they don't have the pedigree that Arkansas State has had in football in the last 8 years. Should we have gotten in there over y'all? Market wise, yes, but performance wise, no. But we got in, even it is just SBC 2.0. It will be better for us, even if it doesn't include some of the teams we thought would be there. The problem though, for UNT, is that this move isn't telling the local fans, recruits, or media that we are in great shape for the near future of FBS football. All its told them is that it is better than the Sun Belt, which is still considered the worst league in the country. With Boise State and SDSU staying in the MWC, SJSU actually got an even better deal than they could have imagined when they originally sigend up with the MWC, which was looking like WAC 2.0, especially if AFA had also gone east. Instead, they got a huge lift. Sure, they got lucky. BUt SJSU and Utah State joining the league didn't scare off anyone from being in the league. There is not one person who can claim the same thing about UNT joining CUSA--since we got in with the other teams in that first realignment, we have seen ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa leave, only to be replaced by FAU, MUTS, and WKU. SJSU had a great year last year for them and they are able to tell recruits and fans that they will play in a league that is just a shade below AQ. Their league will never be in fear of being knocked down to a new i-aa anytime soon. The other non-AQ conferences, except for the AAC, maybe, cannot say that. Time will tell, but I'm gonna bet that SJSU will benefit from playing in a very stable conference with very close regional schools that have both decent followings and histories in both money sports. They may have played in the WAC with Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, Utah State, and Hawaii before, and some of those schools were very good during that time, but keeping those teams and also gaining Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State, Wyoming, UNLV and New Mexico will help them in both football and basketball, from both a recruiting standpoint and in attendance. SJSU has told everyone that they belong by getting included in the MWC. It should help them, if their leadership wants to be serious about athletics. If California's funding issues become a problem, that's a different story, but that will affect SDSU and FSU, too.

Great post--the facilites improvements are great. But Apogee was a must, since Fouts couldn't even survive much longer. EIther APogee was gonna get funded and built or UNT Football was going to go the way of the dodo. The Mean Green Village, the Super Pit and its improvements, and Apogee are awesome. Very proud to see them and attend games at the venues. Love the tailgating scene and the Alumni Pavilion, too. Here's where we lack, though. When you make a mistake on a hire (or hires in our case), two things happen at almost every other university. 1.) The mistake is removed as soon as possible. If Benford wins less than 12 games next year (I think that's a given), he should be fired, period. I cannot believe he was kept after this past season, but that is part of the deal when you hire a coach sometimes is to give that coach a chance to right the ship, unless it is just too much. Southern Miss fired their coach in football after he went 0-12. They know that is just not acceptable to even try and give him another chance since he killed their momentum. 2.) The person who makes the bad hire(s) will pay a price--usually the ultimate price is the job as AD. In college sports, a coach makes the biggest difference in winning and losing. Look at the Aggies--under Franchione and Sherman, they couldn't get anything going. Then, they hire Sumlin, who had been a winner at UH, and voila, they find a freshman QB who redshirted under the previous coach, but once he gets to play, he wins the freaking Heisman. That coach knew how to put the right people in the right spot and now they are in the top 10. BTW, we saw the same things happened in Austin when Mack Brown took over and the obvious one was when Bob Stoops got to OU after John Blake. Both have taken a step or two back recently, but it doesn't take away from how important it is to bring in the right coach. We may have that in McCarney--I sure hope so, anyway--but what we have seen from RV in picking hires for $$$ sports--football, mens hoops, and womens hoops, has been below average at best. We've seen him hire Todd Dodge, Tony Benford, and Shanice Stephens--easily they may be the worst three hires for their sports in the school's history, which isn't all that bright to begin with. Coach Mac hasn't panned out yet, Peterson as the womens coach might, but we will have to see, and then he gets credit for Johnny Jones. That track record would never play out as even close to acceptable anywhere else that I can think of. In closing, UNT grades as this to me. Facilites=great job. Personnel=terrible job.

San Jose State is in the best non AQ league, though. Actually, I've always felt that SJSU is who UNT resembles the most when comparing FBS schools. But I'd give them the nod over us. San Jose is a big town, with SF and Oakland not far away. Denton is a middle sized town, close to DFW, but the city itself basically loathes UNT athletics. Even if San Jose feels the same way, at least you have a much bigger population to pull someone from to attend your games. We have 36k in enrollment, 100k in Denton, and are close to DFWs millions of citizens--and we are thrilled to get over 20k for a game. That screams out "difficult AD gig" to me, but maybe I'm just alone on this one.

MIchael Kelly should transfer from Texas-El Paso to Texas. Then he'll get to be a freshman for sure. I'm not even kidding.

Guys, just ignore the TCU troll. He's got it good right now--probably as good as it can get over there in FW. Hell, I'm jealous that he has seen his team win a Rose Bowl. I'm jealous that he gets to see actual teams that Texans care about as home opponents. But to entertain this idiot in any banter is nothing more than yelling at a wall. No one with a sense of class or sense at all of a true TCU experience would ever come over to a UNT site to engage in trash talking. If anything, ponyfans.com is where a douchebag like this should post his innane diatribes. After all, that's their rival, right? I mean they won't play us because they already play SMU, so why even bother over here? It doesn't add up. Literally, a TCU fan coming over here to smack talk us right now is basically the equivalent of having a homeless man win the lottery and then go back to the shelter to run down all of the other homeless people. They've sucked, too, for some long stretches. Other than 1984 and the best team TCU ever bought, leading to probation, they were losers for pretty much all of the 70s and 80s. They hired Coach Fran who knew how to use LaDainian Tomlinson and parlayed it into the Alabama gig, thus promoting their "lotto ticket" in Gary Patterson. He's a great coach, no doubt, and they have lots of cash around there to keep him in FW for a long time. But we haven't done anything to warrant anyone from their little school coming over here to trash talk us. We don't play them, they don't want to be aligned with us in any way, nor do they have anything in common with our school. If we did, then it would make sense to engage this dope. Otherwise, just we all do with GL2Greatness, just ignore her. They are going to get "froggystyled" when the Big XII falls apart and Texas can figure out a way to ditch them and Baylor. Then they'll be right back to square one again.