untjim1995

+1000000 here. Great post. College basketball has got to be th emost schizo sport in the world and its due to the fact that 18-22 year old men can really go off the reservation when it comes to focus sometimes. But that is why we love the game, because of its unpredictability. I will say this. This is bad news for us, because Doherty will be gone now for sure. Just hope they don't come up I-35 to offer Johnny the job and money-whip him. Fran Fraschilla is an intriguing name as a replacement--he lives in Dallas and his son is a point guard for Highland Park. Might be a good place to call home for a while. Plus, he has experience as a Big East coach, albeit long ago. He probably wouldn't be too expensive, either, although money is no object over there. I guess the 25 people who attend those games are all millionaires...

Why? Is it because SMU and UH left? Increased travel from the SBC? I just think that we would never have had a chance to be in that Alliance if SMU was still there and I am going to bet that this new conference will be travel-friendly to each of its members.

I could see Tulane being ok with La Tech because they don't really compete in the same market--assuming La Tech beven has a market. Anyway, the real question would be Tulane versus ULL, because they are both in southern LA and probably do fight a little more than Tulane and La Tech. I would compare it to SMU and Houston. Somehow, UH and Rice managed to see value in being paired together. Wish the DFW area schools could have managed to see a way to be in a conference together...

Sadly, we've been in their shoes on the failed drug test thing, too. Its tough when it rears its ugly head. I will say this, if TCU falls down in the Big XII this season, this will get used as an excuse in Ft. Worth.

I agree--if schools like FSU play road games against non-AQs, its usually because it is against a team in their region (see LSU at Tulane or A&M at SMU) or because the AQ team is desperate for a game for whatever reason (Texas at Wyoming a few years ago). Our goal for a home game against an AQ team should be some of those schools you listed. Indiana was perfect. Look, Colorado needs to get back into Texas for recruiting now that they don't play anyone here. Same will go for Mizzou. Those games would be good for us. Heck, get good and you can get Nebraska to come back this way for a game--they'll need Texas exposure, too. But the key is to get good again. Otherwise, you get two non-return games against Iowa on your future schedule, as the bigger AQ school doesn't have any interest in visiting your school if you aren't any good. It just doesn't help them much at all to give up the $$$ generated from a home game, even if it could help them with recruiting.

I have said this often, but building Apogee literally saved the UNT Football program from extinction, as Fouts was decrepit and literally couldn't function as a stadium anymore. Generators had to be used to prop that old dump up for a gameday. Apogee keeps us from ever worrying about losing the program, as it is beautiful and modern and cost a lot of money, so the university HAS to keep the program going. What Apogee can't do, though, is get us to move upward to a new conference and change our university's reputation regarding athletics from the last 50+ years. Sure, Apogee will help us if we were to move up, but having games against Texas Southern, Florida International, South Alabama, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Arkansas State will never drive attendance in this market. New conferences want TV sets and media coverage, along with a winning program. Our DFW market has the TV sets, but we have very little media coverage, and obviously, the winning hasn't really been there to create a buzz around the program. What I think about UTSA and Texas State is that they are solid fallbacks for the Sun Belt Conference. I don't think we should try to blackball them, ala SMU vs us, but I don't think we should go overboard to help them get included, either. Same goes for La Tech, and really NMSU, who abandoned our conference and forced us to take the two tranistional Florida Airport schools just to stay FBS. If the conference leadership decides for any of those schools to be admitted, it will be good for UNT, only because people here know of those schools and are somewhat easy to travel to. But, it will also be bad for us because we still have no one with any FBS skins on the wall to be conference mates with from Texas, which further perpetuates our problem that no one worth a damn to Texans will ever be associated with us in a conference. And, to me, the biggest gain from moving up into the merger is that I believe that the future first culling of FBS will be from the WAC/SBC/MAC. I realize that there could be a future culling after this that would take out the remaining Alliance teams, too, but I don't think that will happen any time soon. But I do think that non-Alliance, non-AQs, are going to get dropped back down to a FCS existence, and it will probably happen within the next decade. If we can get in with the Alliance and if we have even just a couple of Texas teams in that league, as well as Tulsa, Tulane, USM, etc. to be associated with, it would do a lot to help continue our progress as a FBS program, as it would probably cement us at the FBS level for many years to come. I don't believe that being in the SBC/WAC conglomerate will do that. I think it will just continue to make us an after-thought in DFW and eventually move us back to a non-FBS level in the future.

UNT Athletics wasn't mentioned one time in that article...not once. You all trying to understand why MWCUSA hasn't sought us out as the easiest expanion pick for their league, for those of you asking why you haven't heard a word from our leadership regarding seeking a step up in class, athletically, need to look no further than this. The university's main goals didn't clarify one thing about athletics. That is how you get to stay in the SBC--and as UNT90 has pointed out, probably means that the FCS level for football probably won't be avoided when the next shakeup occurs. The current Big 5 AQ leagues and some leftovers from the Big East and the MWCUSA leagues will have a place at the FBS-AQ table. The rest of us probably won't.

First off, FFR, I agree with what you are saying. The only thing is that if you are waiting for decades worth of apathy/hate of athletic traditions to go away--via the "culture change" that is often posted on here--you are going to be waiting for a loooooonnnnggg time. When you have a university that is centered around the arts and music, in a town that has loved its "independent" reputation, and has generally loathed UNT athletics in general, this is what you get. That mindset almost killed football off twice, IMO. The early 70s, when the school took a vote to quit playing football because no one really cared about it and in the early 80s when we just went down to 1-aa because our administration flat out didn't care what level we played out. Until about the last decade, we really just quarter-assed it in regards to athletics. I feel like we are up to about half-ass now, thanks to the new stadium and increased coaching salaries. But our conference affiliation absolutely stinks and our media coverage is piss-poor, compared to other Texas FBS programs. And our scheduling usually leaves a lot to be desired, too. Until then, stupid stuff like the albino squirrel as a mascot, adding copper and blue to the logo, and changing the mascot name to Eppy from Scrappy because it is "nicer" are things we are just going to have to grit our teeth about. Too many people agree with these stances at the university level than they do about the few traditions we do have to celebrate. It sucks, but it is what happens when you have a school that doesn't reaaly care about athletics. It doesn't often feel this way, but this board really is the vocal minority when it comes to supporting our teams. Its probably why other Texas FBS schools want nothing to do with being in a conference with us.

Just noticed that UTA got 1 vote in the coaches poll this week. I'm sure its because of their new arena...

I think even if the alliance get formed and stretches from coast to coast, if you receive an invite, you take it in a heartbeat. The TV money and the step up in conference affiliation would make up for the travel, which actually would still probably be ok if you figure we get games in Houston, NO, El Paso, Tulsa, and Albuquerque. That would make up for losing trips to Monroe, Lafayette, and Jonesboro, in my opinion. I don't know that UNT fans would show up for a game against Marshall, Tulane, Wyoming, or Hawaii, but I think that being affiliated with teams with more recongizable names will help us more than staying in the SBC, ESPECIALLY if the SBC gets raided in any way. The idea of watching La Tech and MUTS or F_U move upward while we stay here would be beyond depressing, especially if the SBC replacement is another non-Texas FCS move-up (i.e., Georgia Southern). One thing we do know for sure is that North Texas won't get much help playing current SBC schools in Denton, attendance-wise. That much has been proven for over a decade now. Rivalries don't form when you play teams hundreds of miles away and you rarely interact with the other school's alums in day-to-day life. At least in the alliance, that would still be possible to build.

Baylor will do the same thing they did when the SWC foldedin 1995--conveniently forget that others got left behind and watch out for ways to stay attached to the tit of Texas. Ken Starr knew that CUSA was their likely landing place if the Pac-12 took Texas, Tech, OU, and OSU. Imagine Baylor hosting Rice as a conference game again... Here is Baylor's (and Tech's) absolute nightmare: ESPN forces Texas to go independent because they cannot get anyone to broadcast that stupid LHN and nobody will play on that channel while they are in a conference. ESPN didn't pay Texas all that money to get to broadcast games against ULM and Kansas during the year. If Texas goes indy, its over for Baylor and Tech--and I mean over. In this scenario, the SEC would grab OU and OSU to get to 16. The Pac-12 wouldn't take the academics of OU, OSU, or Tech without Texas, who won't be taken as long as they keep that ridiculous LHN to themselves. I don't believe OU thought that the Pac-12 would turn them down, but they were basically told by the Pac-12, "We would love to have you, OU--as long as Texas comes with you. As a matter of fact, we'll even take Tech and OSU with you, just as long as Texas gets rid of or shares the $$$ from the LHN. If they won't, you all should just go back home, because we aren't taking any combo of the rest of you without Texas, sans the LHN." And they all went home, realizing that the way westward got blocked by greed and arrogance. In my opinion, the only other conference that OU and OSU will be offers from is the SEC. I could see KU getting an invite somewhere if there football team can turn around again, as their basketball program and AAU status would play well in both the Pac-12 or Big 10, as well as the ACC. All of the others appear to be left behind. If this scenario happened above, the Big XII would have West Virginia, K-State, Baylor, Tech, Iowa State, and TCU, plus probably Louisville and Cincinatti. It will be the equivalent of the Big East before this year's expansion. Sure, you can build something around it, just as the Big East is trying to do, but Baylor and Tech, especially, would just get monumentally screwed over from what they have known for decades. Ironically, just as it did for TCU, it might be the best thing for Baylor or Tech in terms of winning a football championship one day. But just like it has done for TCU, the dollars lost by not playing against top teams in the state, will take a deep cost. TCU basically made their way upward against non-Texas teams in non-AQ leagues, so they won big, but lost $$$ and media coverage, even when compared to the years Baylor went 2-10 in the Big XII. This is what would happen to Baylor and Tech, in my opinion. And before that would ever happen, you can bet your ass that Ken Starr will have sued everyone about 50 times to keep Baylor on the Texas gravy train.

Actually, this is untrue. The Aggies just got a transfer of a big-time running back from OU, who was buried on their depth chart. He was from SE Texas, I believe, so he transferred to A&M, which was allowed because they are now in the SEC for football.

To the OP, who later in this thread questioned why I would suggest that SMU might buy out of our series, read the above post, from one of your own. I truly believe that the strong majority of your fanbase--however many rich people that may entail--believe this whole-heartedly. Let's look at scheduling facts for a moment. SMU and North Texas played quite often during the 70s and early 80s. Then, SMU became "great" and we went down to i-aa. When have our schools played each other since 1981? Here are your answers, the first two years post-death penalty in 1989 and 1990, as well as 1992, or basically when you needed us. Each team won their home games, so you had wins in 89 and 92. The next time that we played? 2006-2007. In that span, North Texas moved up to 1-a in 1995 and SMU was literally terrible and couldn't draw flies to games at either the Cotton Bowl or Ford. But with Phil Bennett needing to somehow get a bowl game under his belt, he schedules North Texas in 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately for Bennett, the hornets nest he brought his SMU team up to in Denton in 2006 cost him the only chance he had at a bowl game (unforgiveable to old money SMU fans), and in his last year at SMU, his win over UNT was his only win of the season. But not once did we play during the previous 11 years of our regained 1-a status, including of course, the years where UNT was good, from 2001-2004. We wanted to play you guys--we bent over backwards to make sure we could play you in 2006 and 2007 just because you wanted to play us--but losing to little ol' North Texas would have been catastrophic to your fanbase, finally cementing to them that we really are far away from ever being considered a big-time football program again. Between 1995 and 2005, seasons when we were back up to 1-a level and didn't play SMU, we played the following: TCU, Texas Tech, Baylor, Houston, Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas. With the exception of Rice, you guys were the only SWC school we didn't play, even though we begged those schools for games ANYWHERE!! All we ever heard was how the Sun Belt Conference sucked, that beating us wouldn't do anything for SMU but would only help UNT, yada, yada, yada...In other words, in the last 30 years, SMU has played UNT when it has benefitted you, and we have been so desperate for a game with you that we would gullibly do whatever you wanted. In many ways, it speaks to just how much of a difference level both schools have competed on in their histories. Again, I will be thrilled if we get 2 of those games played in the future, but I will not hold my breath. I sure as hell don't think it will turn into 8 games in a row...

I'll join in on this. First off, SMU2006, you seem like a pretty good guy. I suppose time will tell if you post more on this site, but I hope you always feel welcome to do that. Secondly, the conference blackballing is real. The SWC hurts the most because we were very good at the time (ranked in the late 70s with a great coach that you guys discarded in Hayden Fry). To this day, I believe that bothered lots of SMU alums who wanted him fired on the Hilltop and then watched him go up the highway and turn around a program quickly into a big winner, which he couldn't do at SMU. In Texas, if you were SWC, you were gold--still are in some ways. Alas, if you weren't, then you were/are pretty irrelevant to many fans and media. Itsunderstandable--you guys got to host the Longhorns, Razoorbacks, Aggies, Cougars, Bears, etc...when they were ranked programs at the height of the conference's heyday. We got games at home against...West Texas State and others like them. When it became clear that there was no way we would get to join the SWC--unlike Houston just a few years earlier, who would go on to win the SWC many times once they gained membership--Fry bolted to Iowa for better support and opportunities. For Iowa and Hayden Fry, it was a match made in heaven. For us, it led to purgatory, or better yet, college football hell as a i-aa school. To this day, we deal with the acrimony and apathy that i-aa status did for us. Is that SMU's fault? No, but you all made it clear that we wouldn't be allowed in the Texas Big Boys League, which are administration literally took to heart. Decades later, as we finally began to build back up from the ashes, as a severely underfunded college program, SMU was also very down. Skipped over by the Big XII, left for dead in an obscure huge league called the WAC that would soon get pillaged, most on the Hilltop recognized the spiral that was going on was lethal, especially while your biggest rival, TCU, made their way upward by basically getting away from all of its non-BCS Texas rivals, except y'all. In no way, was SMU going to find themselves so low on the totem pole as to be associated in a conference with North Texas. So, as you guys migrated to CUSA from the WAC and we moved from the Big West to the Sun Belt, you all still lorded over us that our conference was a glorified 1-aa league. Fans and media have always looked down on the SBC, in some ways it is clearly understandable. But when CUSA finally had an opening, a chance for us to finally get the opportunity to be associated with other Texas school in a legitimate 1-a conference, where was SMU putting their support? Behind freaking La Tech, a school so small in a market so miniscule that no one would want in a decent league. Of course, UTEP wanted want we did, and they had the advantage of a decent market and a good basketball team to bring to the table, as well as a possible bow tie-in for your league, which still hasn't happened. What about UNT? Well, you kept us from joining a league with any schools within 600 miles of us, where our almuni still don't care about one of those schools, and we dream of getting the chance STILL to be in a conference with other Texas school. So why can't we get into CUSA now? You tell me, because I literally don't know, other than to assume that the membership and leadership have had it made clear to them over the years that we offer nothing. Amazingly, a school with this many students and alumni in the DFW market can't convine anyone in that office that we belong. And for that, I don't blame SMU totally--but I definitely assign much of that blame to the fact that the local DFW media, who still think that the SWC schools are gold, won't even help us get decent coverage here. And for that fact, us not being able to ever get into the Big Boys Club, I blame entirely on SMU. We could easily be like Houston or even Texas Tech now if we had anyone go to bat for us against you guys. Unfortunately, that never happened. And, by the way, I thoroughly expect you guys to buy out of our series if we get decent in a few years and y'all fall back. Money always win in this stuff. Y'all have it, we don't.

They have lots of cash, tradition, and name recognition. Because of Doak Walker and the Death Penalty, SMU is still well known across the country. Heck, there are some media outlets that show "sympathy' for SMU for getting that death penalty because of the damage it inflicted. To me, it was very well-deserved, but you hear this line all the time when another college is in trouble for violations: "The NCAA will NEVER issue the death penalty again after it saw what happened to SMU." SMUs location obviously helps them, too. They have lots of help from the local media in Dallas, esepcially at Belo owned subsidiaries. Add all of this together, and its not hard to see how they have moved upward--and help use their sway to keep other down...

None of these bode well for UNT. If we do stay in the SBC, we really need to talk to La Tech and NMSU in a very serious manner. Both would be good adds to the SBC. If La Tech won't get past ULM being in the conference, then the SBC should then reach out to Texas State and UTSA, which would literally force La Tech and NMSU to either choose to be independent (death wish) or join our league. We have got to kill the WAC before it gets the chance to build itself back up and use its only advantage (its name) to pass up our league again. Going from 10 to 14, but finally getting a division that would be made up of closer teams would be a lot better than what we have now. UNT, TX St, UTSA, La Tech, NMSU, Ark State, and ULL in the SBC West, ULM, USA, WKU, MUTS, FIU, FAU, and Troy in the East.

What was attendance like at Fouts during the 80s and 90s for game days for those drum lines? What is now? Louisiana-Monroe was a conference opponent for us during that entire period. How many people came to that game each year that we played them in Denton? Seriously, the drum line could have been the best of all-time in any part of that timeframe and added more pagenatry to the day than any other band or drumline in the country and I doubt that Fouts or now Apogee would see 20k people dare show up to watch the Indians/Warhawks play the Eagles/Mean Green. I do agree with greenminer a lot in this thread. His point is that this stuff is the icing to the cake. But if the cake is rotten or if the cake is a flavor that very few people like, they will avoid the cake and eat other desserts. You want to know why UNT alums and students are so apathetic? We have given the following conference mates for football in the last 30 years: NE Louisiana/Louisiana-Monroe' Arkansas State Western Kentucky Louisiana-Lafayette Florida Atlantic Florida International South Alabama Troy Stephen F. Austin Southwest Texas State Nicholls State McNeese State Northwestern (La) State Sam Houston State Nevada New Mexico State Boise State--pre big time Boise Utah State Idaho What is even worse that that is that we have had 3 winning seasons since 1995 when we came back from the 1-aa purgatory while playing in two of these conferences. Heck, we have had 6 seasons where we won 5 games or more. All the rest have been bad to god-awful bad. I will say this until I die, but if we cannot get in a conference with teams that people in Texas care about, our product will always be deemed inferior, by the Texas media, by casual area fans, and especially by our UNT community, all of whom want to be associated with some (any?) of the other well-known Texas schools. Its those schools alumni with whom we work and attend church with, with whom we are often related to and get to hear how awesome it was to be at a school where big-time games got played year in and year out. We can get 20-30k every game by playing other Texas schools that are currently FBS. We can't do that against the teams we play now--unless we do something gigantic, like beating a ranked opponent like LSU, KSU, or UH this upcoming season. And, to me, that would be the equivalent of winning a lottery ticket--because it would set us up to move upward and beyond the quagmire we are stuck in now.

Not really a secret source at all, just a good friend who works for a bigger media outlet than the DRC. If he gets any answers, it won't be secret at all...

Great music tradition and pageantry will not get people to come watch UNT play Louisiana-Monroe. If it did, we would have great crowds all of these years. It is impossible to get anyone outside of the 5000 faithful fans that we now seem to have to ever get excited about those schools. Recruiting will always be a tough sell here if we are bound to the SBC. There are just too many other schools with more tradition and support to beat consistently. SMU, Tulsa, Rice, and La Tech all have winning traditions and reputations of success to help with their recruiting pitch. Obviously, TCU and Baylor have the big AQ advantage in the name conference of this state. North Texas has a lot to offer, but I think its tough to beat out these other schools if it just comes down to the football program by itself. If its degree, location, women, or something else, then we can compete all day. Its just now that we can even bring up our football stadium to a recruit without it turning into a disaster. But when it comes to conference affiliation, overall scheduling, lack of success, and the complete lack of attention from media and fans for a school of our size and in its location, we don't stand up very well, IMHO.

I asked a good friend of mine who is a reporter here in town to look into this CUSA/Alliance deal and if UNT is a part of it, and if not, why not. He said its a good question and that he will give CUSA HQ a call about it. Of course, he has lots of other things to cover, but hopefully, we can finally get an answer or two to this from someone who probably carries a bit more credibility in the DFW Metroplex than Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle.

The optimist in me loves your thought on this--and would help me sleep better, too!! The pessimist in me suggests what I posted earlier about not being included. The realist in me says, "This is North Texas. Nothing in terms of conference affiliation or expansion ever goes the way we want or need it to go to build our program upward significantly."

You know, I think this is a great post for several reasons. Everyone keeps saying that everything big in a deal gets settled privately, so its good that we don't ever hear anything from UNT regarding this merger and to let people know that we want to got to CUSA/MWC. But, I like it when an AD comes out and says, "Yeah, we want to move upward and this is why we should be considered. Your conference would be much better off with us." Basically, what SMU did and what La Tech is doing. But here's another thought about us being quiet about it all. Maybe, just maybe, we have been quiet and aren't making a fuss about all of this because of one simple reason: we have already been told that we don't fit in these conference's plans for expansion. Obviously, I think that would be a mistake by those conferences if that has been made clear, but I wonder if that hasn't already been made crystal clear by Craig Thompson and Britton Banowsky. Part of me thinks that if we were going to be in CUSA, not only would there be "smoke" around this story, I would think there would be a full-fledged fire in the Metroplex about it. Someone from CUSA would leak out something to the media or would have been screaming from the rooftop about us being a perfect fit for membership. I am getting more convinced everyday that we are going to be SBC members for a looonnnggg time to come...

The thing about turning around apathy that has grown wild for about 100 years is that it cannot turn around on a dime unless you beat someone people care about beating. Beat Tennessee, not Middle Tennessee. Beat Louisiana State, not Louisiana-Monroe. Hell, just compete with Alabama and lose a close game, don't get blown out and then trumpet your blowout victory over South Alabama. People in this locale have been trained very well not to care a thing about North Texas athletics for a lot of reasons. What they have rarely been given is an opportunity to care about the football team. With the exception of Hayden Fry's teams, there has not been much excitement with the program, with a few exceptions that were very short-lived. Beating non-Texas non-AQ teams won't do it, nor will losing to those old SWC teams help your cause even if you win out over SBC teams. The apathy isn't going to get turned around this year unless we compete/beat LSU, UH, or KSU. The other teams on the schedule provide absolutely nothing from an interest angle, even if Arky State has a fun new coach and a solid team, or Troy bounces back from a terrible year. People here in this area just don't care about those teams. To be honest, they didn't seem to care about those CUSA or MWC teams, either, but you could at least get the casual fan to go watch a game against Southern Miss or the Air Force Academy. To me, the only current hope that North Texas has is for the following to happen: That CUSA and/or MWC will take us in and then we start winning in that league and get to schedule and beat teams in OOC that people care about (i.e., SMU, TCU, Baylor, Tech) which leads us to being ranked. I think if we played in a better conference and finished ranked, after beating someone that people care about, then the apathy would start to go down. But if this scenario doesn't happen, I don't see any way that anything ever changes here, other than we still will have a great place to watch a game for years to come.

In my opinion, the very best thing that can happen for UNT in all of this is for both leagues to just stay separate. It gives our level of football a little more sway than it would if they get combined. Also, it leavs open the very real possibility to gaining admittance into CUSA or MWC, which would be huge for us. So with all that said, considering the luck we have in this stuff, I expect them to combine in some stupid alliance that won't help their cause at all and will cost them lots of money. Meanwhile, we will stay in a reduced SBC and watch somebody else move upward. Its what I am preparing myself for...