untjim1995

The reality is that this is a message board, which is meant for bitching and moaning. The losing part will stop people from coming to games, not the internet griping. And I do think that RV should be considered on the hot seat here. His hire has truly handicapped us for at least 5 years, if not way more. There is nothing that can be done about Benford--he will be here for at least three years of his contract, most likely four. There is no $$$ to buy this out any sooner than that, unless we whore ourselves out to a Trilli-esque non-conference schedule, which might be done anyway, to make up for the drop in attendance. This will go down as the worst hire in a money sport in the history of North Texas, at the rate we are going and with what we had coming back. Everyone can see that Benford is in over his head. Now, there is nothing we can do about it, except lay the blame on the person who brought him here--which happens to be the same person who hired Todd Dodge, Shanice Stephens, and Benford. That would be a fireable offense at so many other places to just make one of those hires. RV is just lucky that we don't care enough about athletics at this school to erase mistakes. We don't have T.Boone running things here. So, in the end, RV stays because he's a nice guy and says all the right things about the Mean Green and is fan-friendly. And Benford stays, too. And our basetball program, which had finally risen to a point that the local media actually cared about it a little bit and knew it was the best in DFW, will now solidly be 4th. And there is literally nothing that can or will be done about it. It sucks to be poor...

The OP of this thread may give tons of $$$ to the university, but that attitude of his is pathetic. I don't care if you are worried about being embarrassed if SMU wipes the floor with us--you still play the game. Besides, the OP knows as well as anyone that we don't exactly have the dough to go buying out any series of games against anyone, much less a team that is right down the road and doesn't cost a thing to travel to. I've lived in the Metroplex all my life, too. I'm 40 and in the business world, too. I deal with Longhorns, Aggies, Red Raiders, Frogs, Ponies, Bears, Sooners, Cowboys, K-State Wildcats, Jayhawks, CU Buffaloes, Huskers, Tulsa fans, La Tech Bulldogs, and UH Cougars, too. They all know what North Texas has been in sports and most of them would like to see us get better, just because most people cheer for an underdog. Not once I have ever been "humiliated" by someone else about North Texas' poor performance or lack of support at any level that was worse than what I already knew or felt at the time. Its like you are embarrassed of being an alum, or worse, you seemed just "shocked" that our school that is heavy into arts and education really never cared about sports until recently. Its hard to compete with SWC schools when you aren't even trying to compete with them, nor get the $$$ or media coverage they get. Just tell those folks that are "embarrassing" you that our band would humiliate their band. I'm sure they'll be just as embarrassed as you...

I cannot understand just how completely loyal this Andrew character is to Benford. He has to be a relative or family friend or works for him in the AD. I know that Dodge had his loyal supporters, too, even to the end. Guys, there is nothing we can do but bite down hard on the pillow. Literally, there is nothing we can do about this but watch it crash and burn for the this year, next year, and the year after. There is no way the university will buy out that much of a contract--if they couldn't afford to buy out Todd Dodge's last two years, they won't be able to do that for a sport that brings in far less $$ than football. If we are REALLY lucky, we won't have to endure a 4th year, although I suspect that the financial situation of the AD will probably make the a probability, too. Love RV's passion for the Mean Green, but you just cannot accept the hirings of Todd Dodge, Shanice Stephens, and Tony Benford. Just terrible...

Coach Tony Benford will be the Head Coach at UNT for at least two more years, probably three. The budget does not have the $$$ to buy out a coach for more then two years, if that. This guy is the coaching combination of Vic Trilli and Shanice Stephens. We have wasted this year, for sure. I suspect that this will be just like the Trilli experience, just without the absolute butt-kickings to OOC teams that we never should have been playing. Instead, we will just barely win OOC games against powerhouses like SE LA, Jackson State, Texas Southern, etc...while losing to the mid-majors we schedule in OOC and then finish at the bottom of the league. After the last game, I just cannot see any hope here--and that was a win!! Any team with at least a modicum of talent will kill this team. UTA and ULL are just like the other teams in SBC and CUSA play that we will not be able to beat. I remember that I thought Vic Trilli could turn things around after his first year here, even though we regularly lost by 30+. I am very much reminded of thos times today, and I suspect that we are in the same place again. You all can -1 me all you want, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe anything we have seen so far will turn out differently over the next few years. We have been Benford'd, just like we were Stephens'd, Dodge'd, and Trilli'd. Hell, we were Dickey'd, too. Pretty soon, we are gonna just call it UNT'd...

Any guesses on the O/U on attendance for this game? I'll go with 2800 and take the under.

Skiver/Andrew is the dumb-ass equal to CheckFacts/GL2Greatness on this website. Other than LOYALFAN from way back in the day, no one does more bits or gives worse commentary than these two. I would encourage you all to do what I have done and just ignore their posts. At least Andrew doesn't take up the entire website's bandwidth with diatribes on how awful UNT is because someone from our school was once mean to him/her, unlike GL2Greatness. Just to drive them both crazy: Benford sucks as a head coach (so far), SMU sucks at everything (even if they have $$$)

I think Stanford would probably have a few words to say about this...

This is why I always think that the SBC run we had from 2001-2004 was not considered anything special by the outside college football world. Dickey had 4 straight championships and couldn't even get a sniff as a head coach anywhere else above here. I'm still convinced that he thought he would move upwards after that 2003 or 2004 season. Not surprisingly, our recruiting went back down very quickly from where it had managed to get in the years before. A coach who pulled off what Andersen just pulled off, at a school like Utah State, even if it was against a conference that was not highly regarded, should be getting looks from the bigger teams. We have seen it happen big time now at Arkansas State and Western Kentucky and Louisiana Tech. But, for many reasons, it never happened here with Dickey--and it appears that the rest of the college football world knew what they were looking at, since he has never been hired again as a head coach anywhere. I think these ADs know that an offense like his and a personality like his would never bring in the attendance or $$$ in the way that you hoped a new hire would do.

I had us down for 5-7, so I finished a win short. Last year, I predicted 3-9, so we finshed 5-7 last year. In 2013, I'm gonna go with 7-5 in the regular season.

I think Vizza was a pampered kid from Alamo Heights and he never felt comfortable at North Texas, where his facilities and his surroundings were well under what he was used to back home. Knowing that the coach's son was going to challenge him at QB was enough for him to leave, since he was never used to being in a tough environment. Its the reason the Southlake kids never made it here and those kids from the pampered suburbs often didn't do that great while they were playing at Fouts in front of less than 10000 fans against a no-name opponent. The places that they came from had better stadiums and followings than we had as a college. Nowadays, that shouldn't ever be an excuse for any of these spoiled suburban football players with the new stadium and facilities in Denton.

True--the LHN didn't come into existence until after the first Pac deal went under. That was when Dan Beebe made a deal to get better TV contract money to the remining 10 and gave UT, OU, and A&M a bigger share than the other 7 Big XII teams. When A&M and Mizzou both left, shockingly, TCU and WVU were told that they could not get their full share until they had been in the league for a few years, giving everyone else more money. No other conference has ever worked like this with the unequal sharing--that's why I have severe doubts on whether the Big XII can really last long-term. If they can get some of those ACC schools to join, then I see it lasting. But, if they stay at 10, it will just be a matter of time before the poaching begins. They are too valuable of commodities in that league to be ignored--Texas and Oklahoma football, Kansas basketball, plus they all come from good TV markets. OU wouild do like Nebraska did when they claimed they would deliver the Kansas City market and a national following, which was the main reason Nebraska was taken over Mizzou. Oklahoma will claim the DFW TVs, as well as their national name. OU has to get rid of OSU, though, just like KU kas to do to with K-State, because no will take them in the B1G or the PAC. If those three can shed their little brothers, they will have options all over. Tech, OSU, and KSU may benefit from the names of their big brothers and also get included, but Baylor, TCU, and Iowa State are gonna be out cold if this thing ever breaks up. It will look like the Big East does today, losing its AQ status and falling into the abyss the other 5 non-AQs.

The LHN was the perfect excuse for A&M to finally get what they wanted back in 1989. They wanted to go to the SEC back then, but the legislature wouldn't allow Texas and A&M to be separated. Then, when the Big Eight offered Texas and A&M a lifeline to get away from the deadbeats in the SWC, Tech and Baylor used their legislative pull to get included in this conference, too. Basically, those last two were the biggest ticks that were allowed to stay on the hounds. The others got cut loose, without warning. The thing for A&M was always feeling like they were under big brother's control (legislatively, image-wise, and media-wise) and wanting to emerge from their shadow. They certainly had no interest in going west to the Pac-16, since they had no cultural fit to that area at all, whereas the SEC was a perfect cultural fit for them. The LHN is a miserable deal for all parties and it will have inflicted severe damage to UT before its all done. It gave A&M an outlet to join the premier conference in the country while being the only Texas school in that league. Now, especially after this first season in the SEC, they are cleaning up in recruiting. A&M will have the prestige of the SEC for a long time ahead. There is simply no way that Texas can tell Texas HS kids that they will play anything close to who the Aggies will host and visit going forward. Lubbock, Waco, Stillwater, Ames, Manhattan, etc...they don't excatly matchup with games against the SEC, IMO. If A&M can keep it up over there, they are going to make this decade look like the 80s and 90s all over again in this state, record wise and recruiting wise. The LHN will do one of two things for Texas--either it will get dissolved, allowing Texas to go join another conference, or it forces Texas to go independent to get ESPN the coverage they thought they would get for the channel to be included on all of the cable/satellite outlets when they first signed the deal. I truly believe that Texas going indy would only last a few years, because it would allow them to avoid the litany of lawsuits that Baylor, TCU, and Tech would file if they leave without them. The PAC doesn't want Tech, but UT wants an ally with them to also be the bad guy in the state, so the PAC is willing to take Texas' buddies without the LHN being only Longhorn-centric (Tech, OU, and OSU). OU found out real quick how little they really are in this argument, since they seemingly cannot get separated from OSU (see T.Boone Pickens) and the PAC told them to go on back because they were only taking OU if Texas was coming with them. Without Texas, no one out west will take Tech or OSU. This is where the B1G would come in to play--they would covet Texas, but Texas has the "Tech Problem", as an email from the Texas President to B1G leaders called it back when realignment first showed up in 2010., meaning that Texas cannot just leave the Big XII without Tech (at a bare minimum) to immediately join another conference. Of course, the B1G has nothing but CIC and AAU schools in their league, so Tech's academics won't play there either. Now that Texas has seen Baylor basically threaten to sue everyone to stay relevant in FBS, this must scare them to death, as TCU (and Tech to a certain degree) all will be ready to join forces to sue Texas to stay in their league or take them with them. The B1G and the PAC will never take any of those two private schools, so the reality is that Tech is the biggest tick on the hound now. But even they are susceptible to getting left behind if Texas looks at the landscape and goes indy. No one could sue them for leaving the Big XII for another conference and Texas could agree to play them for the years ahead. Then after a few years, Texas gets their pick of where to go without the threat of lawsuits being filed. Of course, the LHN, which is not even acceptable to any conference as it currently exists, would have to either go away or get altered. When that happens, then the options for Texas will be endless. But until then, they have just succeeded in giving A&M the best present any big brother could ever give to their little brother: relevance without any more interference.

I think that you'll get some reciprocity on this from UTEP and Rice, but UH fans don't want to be associated with us because we are like their version of UTSA or TX State to us. That don't mind scheduling us once in a while, but they have no interest in being in a conference with us. Obviously, SMU feels the same way, but the added spice to that mix is that we are both located in the Metroplex. They are never going to give in on this. TCU plays SMU regularly just because of the history of the rivalry, but they made it clear many times to SMU that they had no interest in being in a conference with them again. When we played TCU in the early 00's (some close games, BTW) TCU fans regularly questioned why their AD scheduled those games, that they shouldn't give North Texas the chance to gain an upper edge. Baylor and Tech have all basically done the same thing in regards to playing us, too, in OOC. It just gives them too much vulnerability, because a loss is a killer for them..

I want to win, too, but not at the expense of hiring someone like that. If you Petrino before his episode at Arkansas, I'd be with you on hiring him, but the Arkansas details were just the icing on the cake for how sorry the guy is. Winning big for two years and having it followed up by a PR disaster that sets your program back years isn't worth it to me. Arkansas had two great years, then had to settle in for the groin-kick of 2012. They'll be lucky if Bielema will be able to get them back to competing in the SEC in the next 4 years. I also feel Benford'd too, but that has to do with hiring a novice as a head coach with a talented team. There were other successful head coaches with no personal problems that could have been hired, or at least interviewed. But, as mentioned on another post, I wouldn't have hired Billy Gillespie, either, even though he has won at other places. He had just reached the point, as Tech has now seen, where his personal issues are just too deep to entrust him with a head coaching job. Petrino fits in that same box.

An absolutely great defense and solid running game--that night will probably go down as the highlight of my Mean Green fandom. Being there in person, watching my alma mater beat a good team with a recognizable name in a bowl game was surreal. Kevin Galbreath was unstoppable. People forget that Cincy was a dropped TD pass away from beating Ohio State that year--the same team that beat Miami to win the national championship. Kind of sad to say, but I remember seeing that we got 2 votes in the coaches poll that year. That's the closest that I have ever seen a UNT football team get to being ranked. What's really amazing is that the 2003 team was even better--they just lost a tough game to Memphis in the NO Bowl that year. I thought the 2001 team's season was neat, but we all can recognize that it wasn't exactly a great team, since we finished 5-7 in the SBC's first year and got blown out by CSU in that first NO Bowl. And the 2004 team, while better than 2001, won all 7 games against SBC teams and lost all 5 OOC games, with the NO Bowl blowout loss to a much bigger and faster Southern Miss team that just crushed Jamario and the running game. But those two middle years (2002-2003) were the best two years that I have seen out of any UNT football team. I got frustrated by the boring offense and the fact that we were running roughshod over a new league full of teams that no one had heard of or cared about, which caused attendance to marginally improve. But I do think that if Dickey could have gotten hired away after that, it would've been the best thing for us. It would have told the college football world and recruits that this program could get you places, that we were finally building something great here. Unfortunately, he didn't get any interest, though, and the recruiting really went south fast, as did his attitude and demeanor toward the university and the fans. But I really wonder if he had gotten hired away, who would've been interested in coming here and who we would have hired. There would have been more interest and we wouldn't have had a buyout that made Todd Dodge the most attractive option to hire away from high school. Of course, having watched how we replaced the opposite of Dickey in Johnny Jones, we probably would've still hired Todd Dodge, which is similar to what Tony Benford is looking like right now.

Petrino may win there, but I promise you that it won't end well when he leaves in 2 or 3 years for another job or because he has another motorcycle accident with another girlfriend. That guy is as sorry an individual as we have ever seen as a head coach. Just ask Louisville fans, Atlanta Falcons fans, and Arkansas fans. And, sadly, he's been the head coach at 4 places now withing the last decade. So much for staying power...

The most ironic part is that we have actually INCREASED our attendance in the last 8 years after winning the SBC four years in a row. Our fanbase has grown with a product that given us 22 wins against 73 losses. Of those 22 wins, 11 have been at home, against these teams: SMU, FIU (in 75 OTs), ULM (twice), WKU (twice), MUTS, Indiana, FAU, ULL, Texas Southern, and South Alabama. After doing this research, I'm surprised we have any fans left, too.

Great post--I guarantee that you can get better attendance for a game against Air Force or Colorado State than you can for UAB or MUTS. If the MWC gets back any combo of Boise State, BYU, and SDSU, that league would be awesome in both $$ sports. I'd love to go to a basketball game in Albuquerque or Las Vegas. I'd love to go to Hawaii or San Diego for a football game. A home game against BYU or Boise right now would get well over 25k to Apogee. No way that La Tech or Southern Miss can do that. If you had a Eastern Division of UTEP, UH, UNT, UNM, Colorado State, AFA, Wyoming and BYU, you cannot tell me that we wouldn't draw better and get more attention than playing in CUSA's Western Division. No trip to Tulsa, Ruston, or San Antonio would convince me otherwise.

This sentence in your post that is bolded got me thinking about this subject. What other school in the country has this same problem of complete and utter apathy of their own school and its teams like we have by a huge amount of our students and alumni? I know that their are lots of alumni and students from other schools that also don't care for athletics, either, but all of the other schools in this region, anyway, with our enrollment and living alumni in the Metroplex, have to be way under on this percentage. The private schools in the region are significantly smaller in size so I get where SMU or TCU or Rice playing in front of 15k isn't as bad as us playing in front of 15k with our numbers. The big metro schools have always drawn better than we have (UTEP and UH) and I am interested to see how UTSA does over the next few years on this front. I have read where we actually voted on ending football back in the early 70s and I know that Fry left here because attendance was never any good even when we were winning and ranked in his tenure. The only school that comes to mind is UTA, since they actually did abandon their poorly-supported program, but no one else comes to mind. I wonder if some of those schools in the MAC are like this, too? I don't know too much about enrollments of any of those schools in MIchigan or Ohio but I suspect they have good sized enrollments as well, but get ignored by the NFL teams in the area and the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, etc... It just amazes me that so many who got their degree here or even live nearby (especially Dentonites) just flat-out don't care about UNT in the least, whether they win or lose. I'll try to get some of them to go to games with me and it rarely happens unless we arre playing someone they know about (Baylor, SMU, etc..) I grew up in Ft. Worth and that town really supports TCU, even though its small and it is expensive. Even when they were bad, TCU has always gotten great press from the FWST and strong civic support from the City of FW. I just don't know that Denton will ever support UNT even half this much--and for that, I still will never fully understand. But I do believe that mindset is what permeates thru the faculty and the student body here. It can't just be winning that changes it, since the 70s and the early 00s never saw any huge jump in attendance or support from the dismal 80s, 90s, and later 00s.

I suspect that this is what will transpire if the BE basketball schools separate, as expected. I expect Boise State and SDSU to definitely stay in the MWC and then BYU should re-apply for admittance, which will be automatically done. That will give them 13. Add in UH, SMU, and UTEP and you have a pretty solid league of 16 teams and they get the Texas markets they want. The other question in all of this is what happens to the CUSA defectors and the rest of the dying Big East? You have Cincy, UCONN, USF, UCF, ECU, Memphis, Temple, Navy and Tulane. I suspect UConn and Cincy will be gone soon, too, to the ACC, so that leaves 7. Its not hard to imagine them adding USM, UAB, Marshall, Tulsa, and Rice to get to 12. I could also see 16 teams in their league, so that probably would get FIU, UNT, UTSA, and La Tech, too. If we somehow got included in something like this, it would be even better than the CUSA we thought we had joined to begin with.

No doubt about his success, but he never leaves anywhere on good terms.

UNT90--I'm really not trying to make excuses for our piss-poor existence in football right now. I'm just trying to figure out some reasons as to why recruits would choose to go somewhere else over coming here. I hate it too and it embarrasses me to no end. Another area of embarrassment that I know you and I agree about is the awful OOC home scheduling we see here, year-in and year-out. When we are selling recruits on big home games against SMU and Army, while UTSA gets Oklahoma State down for a game (as well as Baylor and Arizona State), its deflating to say the least. Same thing goes for Texas State getting a home game against Texas Tech last year. I will never understand how we can only get Texas Southern, Idaho, Ball State, SMU (sorry, they don't register to me as a big game other than being a local rival), and Army here for OOC games while others are getting Baylor, OSU, and Tech for home opponents. I know that we played K-State in Fouts to close out the building, but we played up there like 5 times in the time that they played here once. There is no reason whatsoever that we shouldnt be able to get a home game against better names. If Tulsa and UTEP can figure out a way to play Oklahoma at home, then we should be able to find a way to play a Nebraska or Colorado or Mizzou here. Hell, NMSU hosted BYU this year, if I remember correctly. And we schedule freakin' Texas Southern as the only home OOC game--what a message you send out to others (including recruits) about your program.

Its sort of maddening, isn't it? We'll call it the 4-year UNT Tenure Rule. Only Dickey did enough to warrant an extension since we moved up in 1995 and that was how he ended up here from 1998 thru 2006. As we all know, if that 2001 team hadn't turned it on in SBC play, we would've changed coaches then, too, after his 4th year. Simon was here from 1994 -1997, Dodge was here from 2007-2010, and now McCarney. 4 years gives the AD the ability to buy out a 5th year at modest cost to the university if they need to, which seems to be what we do here in Denton. Its almost like we hire HFCs in the same vein that we vote in presidents.

I wonder if there were a lot of MUTS fans who wanted to fire Stockstill after his 2011 2-10 season? That season followed a 6-7 year that saw a bowl loss. No matter what, he certainly rewarded their fans this year with a great season. I'm hopeful McCarney will do that here next year.

So lets get this straight. FIU fired the coach who built them up and put them on the map, which helped them move upward in the conference race game so that they can hire a guy who has never been a full time head coach and whose offensive numbers have been less than awesome in the last two years. Yeah, I can certainly see that happening...