untjim1995

He is a great coach, there is no doubt about it. And, I think they'll do well in the Big XII, at least for the next few years. But, I agree with you KRAM. I think he has stayed at TCU because he doesn't really fit the mold of the typical big AQ head coach. He's never going to be confused for being Mack Brown or Bob Stoops, just from appearances. Patterson looks very ruffled and rattled on the sidelines, always pulling his pants over his gut and picking up his hat that has invariably been tossed while arguing with a ref. Just to reiterate, Patterson is a great coach and TCU is lucky to have him, where he has been phenomenally successful and I can see why they don't want him to ever leave. I just don't think we will ever see a guy with his "look" and his "personality" coaching at Texas, OU, Alabama, etc...anytime in the future. Those schools need the CEO-type as the HFC, while TCU is doing fine with the guy who looks like the brains behind the operation.

Do topics about the Green Brigade's Marching style and Drumlines get hi-jacked by posters commenting on the football players on the Band Forum? I wouldn't know, as I care zilch about a band at a football game, other than them being present and playing the alma mater, fight song, and the occasional song that helps get the fans fired up. At North Texas, that means I am in the minority, but at all other Texas FBS schools, the band doesn't really get talked up, unless its A&M--and their band (school) is 180 degrees different from everyone else in the state. I go to a football stadium to watch a football game. I go to a basketball game to watch hoops. And its great to have them there while the game is being played, but other than that, you probably won't see me at the SBC/CUSA Band Marching Championship Game. I get the pageantry and all that stuff, but I have never known one collegiate drum major or the guy who dots the i, but I know several football players who have made their schools a lot of money because of their legacies. I choose to go watch them and saver those memories. I can tell you this, our drumline/marching band may be the best of all time, but I never left Fouts after a huge blowout loss to some spare SBC team, thinking, "Man, I'm sure glad our band was good today. Maybe that will get us into a new stadium and we can join a conference people have heard of before. Otherwise, today's 54-2 loss would REALLY hurt..."

Only problem with this is that TCU doesn't want to play us. Their alumni like the history of the rivalry with SMU, their administration and the AD like the coverage that the SMU-TCU game brings every year, which they haven't gotten when playing conference teams from time zones away, and their fans made it clear when we played them last time in FW (and gave them a dogfight of a game) to their AD that they don't gain anything from playing North Texas, and that was when we were good. Lastly, I doubt that TCU will reach out to play us anytime soon, now that they are in the Big XII and will play Tech, Baylor, and Texas, as well as SMU each year. Its why I would follow their own footsteps and schedule teams out west for OOC games, get BYU in here, play Colorado State or Air Force again, setup a series with Fresno State or San Diego State. Those teams are good names for OOC and you can get home-and-home series with them fairly easily. SMU only has Houston in its conference from Texas, so they will entertain playing us at least for a couple of games, or until they don't need us anymore. But TCU and Baylor and Tech are in much different places today than when we used to play them 10 years ago. I doubt we will see any of them on our schedules for a long time. And to be honest, we don't need them. We have in-state conference games now (finally!!), plus we need more OOC home-and-home series against teams from the MWC, MAC, and lower-rung AQ teams.

Ohio is a home game again? I figured we were going back up there, since they beat us in the downpour here in 2008.

I feel that 5-7 is right, too, with 4-8 possible. I see wins over Texas Southern, South Alabama, Florida Atlantic and Troy. Then I think we will get another win somewhere.

To most fans, outside of the few thousand hard-core fans we had back then, the reality of that time was that North Texas only won because they played in the Sun Belt, which has always been looked at as being FCS-like. During that timeframe, our teams for 2002-2003, though, were very good--and I think they should be the ones that we hold up in high regard. That 2001 team, pulled off a miracle, but it wasn't a legitimate bowl team. The other three were legit, though, for sure. The 2002-2003 teams didn't look out of place against anyone, including Texas, TCU, Baylor, Cincy, etc...We really killed ourselves in that bowl game against Memphis or we would have been two-time champs. The real issue for UNT is that you couldn't sustain anything from those two years with the funding and support that the school gave to the program. Literally, if the students hadn't passed the stadium fee for Apogee, I truly believe that we would have been back at the FCS level in due time. We had the worst stadium in all of college football, among the very lowest in salaries for coaching staffs in college football, and played in the worst conference (perception-wise). Imagine if we played in Fouts still today? We would be in an SBC without FIU and probably MTSU, while we would be watching UTSA go to CUSA. We would hear people "celebrating" the fact that Texas State would be in our conference now, so we would be getting our oldest "rival" back. We would probably have Chico as head coach, which is no knock on him, but it would be because he wouldn't cost much. Thankfully, today, we have seen progress that has given us a huge bump in realistic hope for our future. We are funding a program that is at least in the neighborhood of where we should be today as a big university in Texas, while moving up to a conference that people have heard of and has teams that actually have been ranked before...how amazing that will be the first time an SBC team pulls that off!! Coach Mac is doing it right, building for the long-term. I actually expect that we could see a step back this year, just because the schedule is much tougher this year than last year in OOC. But we have to give him time to build this up to a place where our lines are deeper and bigger, so as to compete against CUSA teams. I think that Years 3 and 4 of Coach Mac's tenure are going to be great years for our program, even as we move to CUSA's tougher competition. That's why I agree that Coach Mac is right to shoot much higher than anything that has been "glorified" in Denton in the last 35 years.

What amazed me about FIU is that they literally won their only game of the seaon against North Texas in 2007. From that point on, they have been better and better. Cristobal has done a great job down there. To go from 1-11 in 2007 to a bowl win in 2010 is damn near miraculous in and of itself, no matter who the program is and how long they have been around. Those kind of turnarounds aren't really normal.

I think the real line is about $750k+ to North Texas!!

The lines are the hardest areas to build quality depth and to recruit to. The previous regime couldn't do it, so you are going to see depth issues rear its ugly head for at least another year.

What was great about the Pony Excess documentary was seeing how SMU literally thumbed their noses at the NCAA until it was too late. It was also very interesting that it took a huge SMU upset of #2 Texas in Austin that really got the NCAA on their trail. So many non-UT fans believe that the NCAA has always been greatly influenced by Texas, so this actually feeds that thought a little bit. But, the SWC of that day cheated so badly (except Rice, which is why they sucked), that literally nothing could surprise you when it came to recruiting. Of course, the Oklahoma schools did it, too. I still think the SEC of today probably has lots of skeletons in the closet that would resemble the SWC of yesteryear if they ever get uncovered. The biggest advantage the SEC has with this is that all of its schools are in separate states, so there is less influence from a media outlet standpoint than the SWC had. Literally, the Dallas, Houston, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Austin media could "out" all of these Texas programs because the markets they were serving were all big and made up of SWC alums. It couldn't ever get to the Oklahoma schools and their cheating, though. In regards to the SEC, other than Atlanta, no other media market has ever really been that big in the old SEC, and its influence over Georgia and Auburn may have been big, but it wasn't going to get anything on Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, Florida, etc...

Just to make sure that I get this straight, you are mad at "cheating and covering up breaking the law" by a college kid smoking marijuana, yet the person in your avatar did the exact same thing, admittedly, while in college and he is the POTUS who you unequivocally support for re-election. I marvel at that reasoning even more.

What Texas State has going for it over us is that SWT/TSUSM was never a Division 1 (FBS) school until now. Their alumni and students have never seen them play anyone above a SLC level opponent, other than the bodybag game. Their school's administration never told their alumni and students to enjoy going back down to Division II for over a decade, which would have killed a generation or two of fans. At North Texas, we have stronger support from alums of the 60s and 70s for athletics than we do from almost all alumni who went here in the 80s and 90s. We will probably see a nice spike in lifelong interest from the graduates of the 00s because of the 4-year SBC run and the university actually acting like athletics matter. People still don't realize just how far behind we are even today. With Apogee and CUSA, we have a chance to gain back a lot of ground, but we have to win--and it can't be against a watered-down CUSA, one that loses Southern Miss, East Carolina, Tulsa, etc...and gets rebuilt with SBC teams. We have to beat those current teams in conference AND beat a big-time ranked program one of these days. Operation WINGFILL isn't a problem if you beat LSU or Kansas State, most likely. If you want to see a big crowd for the home opener against Texas Southern, the only way to do that is to compete closely at LSU (less than 10 points). Even that might not do the trick beause the OOC opponent is so weak, but if LSU beats us like they usually do (50+ to 7), that TSU game will be lucky to draw 13k. If we lose at KSU like we have in the past (40+ to 7), the home game against Troy will be lucky to draw 15k, even on Family Weekend. The good news is that this SHOULD be the last year we have as poor a home schedule as we do, which is still the biggest draw to get folks out to watch games in Denton. I still can't believe that our home schedule at APOGEE is made up of games against Texas Southern , Troy, Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State, and South Alabama. That would not have been acceptable to me if we still played in Fouts, much less in the stadium we just built for $78 million dollars. But, again, this should be the last time that we have such a poor slate of home game opponents to sell to North Texas fans.

Games at Texas, OU, LSU, Arkansas, Alabama, and Clemson have really been great nailbiters for our program in the last 10 years...I'm sure that our future road games at Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee will be no different than the results of the previous $$$ body bag games. Those OOC games against Iowa in the future look better and better all the time. We might get killed against them, too, but I'd like our chances to compete with a slow Midwest team than a fast Southern team.

I just can't see a scenario in place where Penn State will field a decent team for a long time. I doubt they'll even contend for .500 in the B1G, much less a championship. I get that you are worried that Penn State could still win big again and that their chance of that occurring should be stripped, but the cost to the Big Ten, to the Pennsylvania communities that benefit economically from Penn State games, and to those kids on the team all combine to make this level of punishment acceptable. And I disagree on the entire community being the monster here. Sandusky was the monster, Paterno and the other administrators that turned a blind eye were complicit in helping the monster so as to keep their reputations intact, but the kids at Penn State and their fans weren't monsters. If the entire community was the "monster", Paterno would still be on the sidelines becasue they wouldn't have allowed this to change anything. If this all would have come to light when it should have 10-15 years ago, Paterno and the admins would have had the same thing happen--they would have been fired and prosecuted. The kids there and the fans there would have recognized then what they do today or will soon enough--that this place is toxic because the "royalty" of Penn State turned it that way and kept it that way--not the students, alumni, or citizenry of Happy Valley, PA. They would've said then what they say today, "Now is the time for true change in the eladership of our university and athletic department and our football program". The citizens of Happy Valley, PA and the counties that surround it don't deserve to lose their jobs or lose governmental services (due to lack of taxes generated from the revenue spent during those home games) because of this, though. They'll all be hurt enough as it is by the fact that a stadium that holds over 100k probably will see its attendance plummet over the coming years once the losing really sets in. This will kill their program, its just a matter of killing via lethal injection instead of by electrocution.

I remember thinking similarly of Indiana fans when Bob Knight got fired, that their culture caused some hate to come out because of thier beloved coach being fired. But, as time went on, most Hoosier fans realized it was the right thing to do and they moved on. And IU basketball fans love their team every bit as much as Penn State football fans love their team. But I believe that time will change the mindset of those who are fighting this now. Time has a way of healing people and making them recognize their mistakes.

The key word in this is PRIOR. I didn't think that the NCAA would have the cajones they showed to punish Penn State even a little bit, much less as severely as they did. There is no way that a kid that talented will still go there or stay there. There's just too much stigma attached to Penn State University now--its not just football, either, its the whole university.

I think the 4-year death penalty would have been worse, but what they got hit with is very painful. No one with any talent will go to Penn State for a long time. Back when the Rust Belt wasn't dying, Pennsylvania turned out a lot of HS talent. Now, it has really dropped. Plus, most of the East Coast talent didn't really have a big option closer to home for big-time college football than Penn State. Obviously, Pitt, Syracuse, and Boston College had some great teams here or there, but Penn State was the program for the NE. They haven't been that program, though, for many years, and now, those kids aren't going to Penn State. Future Nittany Lions will not choose PSU over Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Michigan, rather they will be beating out kids from Maryland, Virginia, and Rutgers. In other words, 4-5 star recruits are going to go somewhere else, so PSU will get 2-3 star kids at best. The lifeblood of a program is winning AND recruiting--PSU is not going to build that back in the next 5 years, at a minimum, and probably not for a decade. Literally, Minnesota and Illinois just got a new program to beat up on. This isn't a speed bump--its a freaking highway bridge collapse. Penn State and USC are in two different situations, from demographics to geography to the reasons behind the sanctions. What USC did was awful--but everyone of us will gladly take what they did over anything Penn State has done. So will recruits and future students. I expect enrollment, attendance, and academic/athletic success at Penn State to drop like a rock. No one for the next few years will want to be associated with any of this. For decades ahead, when we hear the name Penn State, the Sandusky child abuse is what we will think of, ala SMU and the Death Penalty. To me, Pittsburgh and the ACC are the biggest winners in this whole deal. The ACC got a great AAU instituition for a lot less than some have gotten schools to join their conference and that state will send its best recruits that want to stay in-state to play in Pittsburgh. And, in a weird way, the Big XII could benefit, too, since West Virginia is so close to Pittsburgh, and if football is really the big driver of the future for college conference alignment, I could see a scenario play out where Pitt, Clemson, Ga Tech, Florida State, Miami, and probably a team like Louisville would move over to the Big XII. But without question, the Big Ten lost a lot here--Penn State was one of its big boys, with Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and the recent addition of Nebraska. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Big Ten change course here and go after those ACC/Big East schools it would like to get one day and make a move now to help mitigate the Penn State problem. I can see Maryland, Rutgers, Boston College, UConn, and the Virginia schools all being possible targets. And I wouldn't rule out the Big Ten going after Kansas, either. Even though they generally suck at football, they have great basketball, are an AAU member, and have a good market in KC to attract added viewers for the Big Ten network. Plus, I think they would have Nebraska's support, as well as Iowa, too. Lots to still sort out, but I think the dust won't settle in (un)Happy Valley for the next 10 years, IMO.

I don't think Baylor's religious/politcal views will ever allow them to get admitted out West. BYU couldn't get admitted and they are a geographical fit. Sure, Baylor will play on Sundays, unlike BYU, but BYU has been historically much better at football than Baylor and still never got admitted. No CA team or Oregon or Washington will ever vote to let Baylor in. If the Pac-12 expands, its because they finally get Texas and some combination with them, most likely Tech, OU, and OSU. KU and KSU would be ahead of Baylor, too Baylor has had an unbelievable year in sports, but that doesn't add alumni or enrollment to the TV networks.

All I can say is that they better pray very hard that Texas doesn't decide to go out west to the Pac-whatever. Because if they do, they'll take Tech, OU, and OSU with them and then it will be the nicest stadium in the MWC or CUSA.

I think the Freeh Report was basically the NCAA's investigation here. There was so litte to argue here. There will not be a time where Penn State will get away with anything again. I will say this about the death penalty and SMU. I think a death penalty for a place like Penn State would have been "manageable" for them--assuming it was just one year and there would have been the fine still. Even if the bowl ban was for two years and they got no TV, it would have been manageable for them to get back to being a prominent national team. I'm not sure that the penalties levied today aren't more stiff than a death penalty like the one SMU got. Remember, SMU go the death penalty because of rampant and continuous cheating (7 times in a 14 year span, IIRC). When they got the death penalty, SMU added a year to it themselves, then basically came back as a walk-on program. Then, the SMU administration went so far the other direction to avoid any connection to those days of old that they basically made it impossible to recruit and win over there. Penn State would never have made it that hard to recruit and admit football players after a death penalty--I think they would've been able to bounce back faster than SMU did and I am not sure if the death penalty here wouldn't have made it easier on Penn State. No matter what, though, Penn State will not compete for a Big Ten title for many, many years. Indiana, Northwestern, Minnesota, and Illinois are all going to have a new whipping boy. And I cannot even imagine what the Ohio State, Michigan, Michigna State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa scores are going to look like for the next decade. Penn State will load up with MAC and SBC schools in OOC going forward just to get a few wins, but getting more than one B1G win in a season will be very surprising to me in the course of the next 5+ years. Hello B1G basement!!

I actually think they got much worse than I expected. $60 million is chump change to a place like Penn State, but the 10 scholarship cuts, the 4-year bowl ban, and the likely transfer of most of its players to other places will crush that program for the next decade or longer. A death penalty at Penn State probably would have been a year at most with the scholarship cuts, but this will be a killer to their long-term competitiveness in he Big Ten. And it is all so very-well deserved.

They won't need us if a new league got set up, like the NFL, where you have playoffs, not bowl games. Tech schedules the way they do so that they can get into a bowl every year--its been that simple. Nothing more, nothing less. If you get rid of the bowls and get gargantuan money for being included in a Super BCS, then their schedule gets made for them every year. That's how the shift wouldn't hurt a Tech or Colorado right now. It would kill Vandy or Baylor, though--because I doubt they have the clout to be included in a Super College Football League. And, as far as hoops and baseball go, that same consortium of schools could easily just create their own March Madness and College World Series--and ESPN, Fox, Turner, etc...would be waiting at the door with checks in hand for them.

I hate to do this, since I literally have you ignored, but for the rest of the board's entertainment, I will answer this bs. Yes, their recruiting in previous years was higher ranked, but it is abysmal compared to the other Big Texas schools right now. Texas, A&M, Baylor, and TCU will finish ahead of them, and I wouldn't be surprised to see SMU and Houston close to them (yikes!!) Don't include OU or OSU in this or it gets worse. Tuberville is an SEC defense-first guy. His record of success was built on his great Auburn defenses and running game. Those aren't going to work at a place liked Tech. Lubbock isn't conducive to big-time recruits. Leach made his craziness work because of his offense, his ability to take low-rated recruits and fit them into his crazy system and, to be honest, his scheduling. Tech hasn't played an AQ OOC game in like 9 years. Their OOC has always included at least one FCS team and often has a WAC/MWC/CUSA team as well. His offense was genius, but his defense was mediocre to bad, as they usually had 2 to 3 star talent on that side of the ball. Now, Leach leaves, Tech starts sliding back big time, and Tuberville's hot seat in Lubbock is cooking. He can't get defensive talent to match his scheme because they aren't the "up-and-comer school with the cool coach" anymore, he cannot keep a DC, and his offense is some weird version of spread/3 yards of dust. Last year was just awful for them, with no bowl game, even though they beat #1 OU on the road (biggest fluke win in years). Most folks believe that they aren't going to do anything in conference again this year. This is what lies ahed for them in the Big XII in 2012: @ Iowa State--loss--lost big time at home to ISU last year Oklahoma--loss (no more fluke, like last year) West Virginia--loss--they won a BCS Bowl game last year @TCU--loss--Tech took them off the schedule last year because TT said "TCU isn't a team we are ready to play right now" @Kansas State--loss (got beat last year at home in Lubbock) Texas--loss (got trucked in Austin last year--Horns barely threw a pass and still crushed them) Kansas--win (KU is terrible) @Oklahoma State--loss (absolute prison raping in Lubbock last year) Baylor in Arlington--tossup. (Huge beatdown in Arlington last year, although Baylor had their Heisman QB) Its nice (pathetic) of you to find yet another non-UNT school to defend on our website, but this is one where the future is bleak. Tech may finish 6-6 at best, but my money is on 4-5 win season for them, and TT will enter 2013 needing a winning season to keep his job. I'll go back to ignoring your posts.

I thought for sure that this was going to be another thread about Fouts Field

I'll bet that Tuberville won't be coaching in Lubbock with two years.Their recruiting has dried up, their mad scientist genius got fired and took away their one advantage they had, and they arent exactly located within 4 hours of any major metropolitan area. I think that Tech will continue to fall back pretty hard in the Big XII in everything. They had the lowest amount of conference wins by an AQ member in the 4 big sports in 2012. They went something like 26-89. It was atrocious. That all said, I am still majorly jealous of them for finding a way to be the biggest tick on the UT hound all of these years. I guess when you have one section of a huge state all to yourself, its a bit easier to do that.