untjim1995

To get access to bigger TV markets. Grabbing Houson and DFW would be huge for their league. Get UH and UNT and you get the biggest public schools in two huge markets.

It was just a matter of time before this all happened. The western schools need to be in the MWC--and they now know it. My guess is that Boise, SDSU, and BYU will definitely go back to the MWC and I bet they add UH to get to 14. Now that CUSA has added the likes of ODU and UTSA, I think the former CUSA schools may just try and form something new, even if it means starting over without NCAA Tournament bids or bowl bids yet. I could easily see UCF, USF, SMU, Temple, Memphis, and Navy going to Tulsa, ECU, USM, Marshall, Tulane, and Rice to form a newer version of the old CUSA or Metro Conference. If that occurs, I would see UTEP heading back west, which would give the MWC 15 teams, and I would hope and pray we would get the 16th spot, especially since there wouldn't be too many other options left for additional markets that the MWC would want to get into for TV exposure. Either way, I'd think we would be ok. What would crush my soul is if the MWC added UTSA for that last spot, just because of their untapped market, bowl game tie-in potential, and being a destinationi city.

Two things about your post: 1.) if ECU and USM leave, it would stink, but you'd probably see Marshall go back to the MAC and we'd still have our legitimate travel partners in Tulsa, LA Tech, UTEP, and UTSA, so if we picked up Eastern Belt teams like MTSU, FAU, and WKU, I'd be ok with that. 2.) If UTEP and Tulsa got poached by the MWC and the other Eastern CUSA teams got poached by the BE and we were to see a CUSA left of us, UTSA, La Tech, UAB, Tulane, Rice, Old Dominion, Georgia State, and other SBC leftovers + NMSU, we might be a bit better off than the current SBC, but not much. What it would do is that it would add this hypothetical CUSA to the MAC and SBC as conferences that would be easiily culled from the FBS, leaving the BE and MWC as the only non-FBS conferences for the others to chomp on during non-conference play. If that happens, and we get downgraded again, I just don't know if the UNT program could handle that...it has damn near killed our program that it had to spend 12 years down in 1-aa (FCS) purgatory. I doubt a second turn at that level would go any different for us if it happens again. We have to keep swimming upward--starting to actually win would ensure our membership at this level if this dommsday scenario all played out and we would still be in the FBS business.

I will bet you that UConn goes to the ACC. But the big questions are if the ACC loses some of its bigger football schools or if the Big East shifts back to being a basketball-only conference. Its not hard to see the ACC lose FSU, Clemson, Ga Tech, and Miami to the Big XII to get more money--Pitt and Louisville would also be nice targets to get to 16. The SEC and B1G would take the rest of the ACC's best parts (UNC and UVA to the B1G) with NC State and Va Tech to the SEC. That gets you to 16 for each of those three leagues and then the Pac-12 probably stays at 12. Then, Uconn, Duke, Wake Forest, BC, Syracuse and Cincinnati make up a new Big East with Houston, SMU, Memphis, Temple, USF and UCF. I still think Boise State and SDSU will go back to the MWC when its all said and done. In this scenario, not much will change at all for CUSA. Now, if the ACC gets UConn to replace Maryland and can hold the line with its current lineup, I wouldn't be surprised to see the ACC poach Louisville and Cincinnati to get to 16. Then, the spotlight goes back to the Bevo12 and the stupid LHN, which I still believe will be the downfall of the Bevo12. I see Texas, most likely, taking Tech, OU, and OSU to the Pac-16. Then, the B1G goes after Kansas and K-State to get to 16 and the SEC holds ground at 14, maybe making a move for two of those ACC schools, knowing that the ACC will just fill back up with two other BE schools. This scenario would greatly affect CUSA, since the Big East would probably replace them with CUSA and MWC schools that have been playing there for quite sometime. It wouldn't be hard to see Tulsa, East Carolina, and Southern Miss as BE repalcements, nor would it be hard to see the AFA, Colorado State, or Fresno State also invited. Hopefully, at that point, we would get an MWC invite with UTEP. I don't care much for playing in CUSA if all of the teams mentioned earlier are gone and replaced by SBC and WAC leftovers.

It wouldn't surprise me for this to happen. Assuming that Rutgers leaves for the Big Ten and that UConn looks to be the replacement for Maryland in the ACC, as well as Louisville and Cincinnati both begging to get into the Big XII, I could see the Big East doing one of three things: add a few more teams, hold the line with who is there so that they don't have to share anymore $$$, or the basketball schools in that league just breakaway and keep the Big East name, which fits its original status. If they add teams, look for them to go hard after CUSA and MWC teams: ECU, AFA (again), Fresno State, and Southern Miss will be decent targets. Who knows who would join, but I know that ECU would love to go there. Maybe USM, too. If those two teams leave CUSA, I'm certain that MTSU and another SBC team would get a lot of attention to move up.

I bet we go to the Elite Eight, too... of the SBC Tournament...

Yeah, but as far as the NCAA Committee is concerned, our RPI might as well be 300 IF we are so lucky as to win the SBC Tournament later this year. This is a travesty that really will haunt us, unless we beat Lehigh, Saint Louis, UVa, UTA and then get 15+ wins in conference. Only then can you hope that lazy basketball writers won't bring it up when they see a very good RPI number next to North Texas. If, however, we lose all of those OOC games listed above, I can't see us going more then .500 in SBC play. Then, the Tulsa 54-2 football raping at home in 2005 that led to a 2-9 year and a major decline that we have never recovered from since will finally get a companion in most disappointing season ever by a UNT team.

The real suck about this, is even if it isn't counted in RPI, if we somehow win the SBC Tournament (I realize the cart is now about 1000 miles ahead of the horse), the committee will certainly use it as a reason for us to be nothing more than a 15 seed. IOW, you get one of the top eight teams right out of the gate and try to help yourself believe that you will be the next Lehigh or Norfolk State. Not exactly what we expected from a team with Tony Mitchell on it.

5.Acceptance 6.Apathy

Well, Shanice Stephens did lose a game against Texas Woman's University, which is D-II. NOw, Benford has done something similar. If he pulls out a binder on the sidelines in the next game, watch out!! In all seriousness, Benford may be just fine here. He's learning, too. But this goes to the reason that I felt Fraschilla would have been a great choice. He wanted the job, has skins on the wall as a head coach, and he would have brought some nice ESPN cameras down here to Denton. But, as is the MO for North Texas in so many hires, we went with the unproven assistant that didn't cost too much, hoping we catch lightning in a bottle with a great new hire. Only problem is that those hires often don't turn out very well. I'm always of the belief that you hire a proven winner, even if it is from D-II or D-III (not high school). Again, maybe this turns out to be the low point for Benford and this team (I doubt it), but I still think that you have a better chance to take the next step upward when you hire someone who has actually won as a head coach, whether its football or basketball.

I have no idea who you are, but you have made two ridculous posts in this thread, and since you are a young man still, I'm gonna hope that one day you will look back at this thread as an example of tolerating stuff in your 20s that aren't so easy to tolerate when you are 40+ or when you have young children. Trust me, my 7-year old isn't going anywhere near a tailgate, but if we pass one on our way to the car or the stadium, having to explain words that he doesn't normally hear isn't funny nor fun, even if you are in the mindset that cussing kids are freakin' hilarious. To put it another way, how would you like for your tailgate to be next some bible-thumpers that are blaring Christian music next to you and praying extremely loud as you and your pals are trying to drink and have a good time? If you tell me that it wouldn't bother you, you are lying through your keyboard. In other words, it all goes both ways with stuff like this.

I agree with Tasty and wardly alot in this thread. I, too, posted often last season that if Coach Mac got us to 5 or more wins in Year 1 of his tenure, that he should be Coach of the Year in the SBC. He did it, somehow, but didn't get the COY award. This year, I figured we would be a 4-5 win team and that is where we should end up. Next year, even with CUSA being a tough league than the SBC usually, I suspect that we will get to 6 wins or more. Then, you get to 2014 and I think you are working on 7+ wins. What Coach Mac needs, obviously, is for Berglund to win the QB job and get his stuff together to actually be the QB many thought he would be coming out of HS. And then, quite honestly, this team will be only improve if its lines get bigger and better. Nothing else will do it, especially if you are going to run Dickey-ball, which I think he is only doing now out of necessity. The only other thought that keeps running through my mind, though, about our lack of success is this. Can you win here? I don't really think the three Dickey years in the early SBC can count as big-time success, since we mostly sucked in OOC games and then went back to being typical UNT again after that run. Maybe this is just not a place that you can win at. Granted, there doesn't seem to be any valid reason to believe this, but maybe there are just so many barriers that have been created over the decades to never really allow for a sustainable successful football program. You have to admit that since Fry was roaming the sidelines in Denton, we have done just about everything wrong as a university until fairly recently. We hired poorly (including two HS football coaches to become our HFC), we let our team play in decrepit facilites for decades, we kept alumni from really even being able to donate decently to the AD, we dropped off the face of the earth when we went down to i-aa and stayed there for 12 years, we never got to play in a league with teams that Metroplex fans and media care about, and we really have never had a strong connection to the residents of the city where we are located. It may just be a reality that none of us want to accept or admit could be the truth--that you just can't win here, with what we pay and with the cultural and historical issues that are at play here at UNT.

I think that the Cotton Bowl or Jerry World should be reserved only for a home game against the biggest names in college football. I actually think that a team like LSU would do this against us if we signed a 2 for 1. Hell, they are playing TCU there next year. Give Nebraska, Ohio State, or Michigan a call and offer up a 2 for 1. Call USC or Florida State and offer this up. But, no one else is even worth that kind of game or deal. I'm of the belief that you should always go for a 2 for 1 deal no matter what, but Apogee would more than support almost school that would want to play a game in DFW. Obviously, Texas, A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tech, and Baylor have already scheduled games in the Metroplex, which only hurts us from ever playing them in the Metroplex, much less Denton. But I still believe that Nebraska would do this deal, since they lost their games down here in Texas when they left for the B1G.

That game you speak of was in Waco. UNLV had beaten us the week before in Denton and they were losing 24-21 against Baylor with like 8 seconds left. Instead of taking a knee, Baylor ran a play to try and score a TD to run it up and the RB had the ball punched out from behind and it went straight into the arms of a UNLV DB in the Baylor end zone. That DB took off wunning and never got touched, as he ran it back 100+ yards for the winning TD. It pretty much ended any chance of Kevin Steele ever staying at Baylor after that debacle. His explanantion was that Baylor was trying to create a new "mindset" by running the ball and trying to score instead of taking a knee. To this day, it ranks up there as the most bizarre way to see a team lose a game. Only game that ended that crazily, to me, was the infamous Stanford-Cal game with the laterals and the band on the field.

My thoughts exactly--he has to be trolling here, right? I'd be willing to bet that the OP knows that ULL has never had goal posts torn done after they lost to anyone...I applaud him for getting this to 5 pages!! Just in case this is serious, though, I think you should really go big and plan to tear down those goal posts, NO MATTER WHAT, when we play South Alabama at home. Just Do It, pal, Just Do It!!!

Indiana, for sure. It isn't close, either. Indiana's name and conference affiliation make it much bigger than any win over a SBC team. Do I think that ULL is better than Indiana--no question, but the typical media member and fan know of IU, no matter how bad they are in football. It be the same if we played Kentucky or Kansas in football, as well. Back when we annihilated a bad Baylor team at Fouts in 2003, that was considered our second biggest win during those "glory" years (CIncy in NO BOWL was #1), just because of their name and conference affiliation. Could Troy have beaten that Baylor team back then? Absolutely--but no one really knew much about Troy back then. On another note, we drew 17k with a great student turnout over a good SBC team last night. Yet, when I picked up a DMN yesterday, I saw big front page stories about Texas A&M and freaking Kansas State, while our game was on page 6. There was literally nothing else going on int he Metroplex and the DMN still couldn't put us on the front page. I get that the local talk shows and TV stations really don't care about us and our geared toward pro sports talk usually, but the biggest newspaper in the area relegates us to page 6 with a little column on the game is just pathetic. Maybe the FWST covered us on the front page, but I didn't see their paper. I would totally understand it if this was Sunday's paper or even if the Rangers/Cowboys/Mavs/Stars had played that night--but literally, there was nothing else. Yet the top of the page story in the DMN on Wednesday morning was Rick Gosselin going on and on about K-State before their big conference game against that very local school in the Big XII known as...WVU. Its really great that a school that is about 8 hours from here and not even in a neighboring state is getting ready to play anohter conference game against a team that is oh, about 1000 miles from DFW, yet they get top billing in our local rag, all while the biggest public university in the Metroplex barely gets mentioned. Below that column, we get a story about A&M/LSU, which I totally understand and know is worthy of front-page status. Its stuff like this as to why I always talk about the advantages that UTSA and Texas State potetnially have over us. Their media down there may be UT-centric, but other than the Spurs, there isn;t anything else to cover and their local media don't turn up their noses at them like the DFW media pretty much does at us. Again, I know we got some mentions and even coverage in different outlets on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. But if you think that coverage would have been the same if SMU or TCU were hosting ULL, you are fooling yourself.

Dickey Ball worked great in two instances: when he had a great defense and when the opponent was from the Sun Belt. Otherwise, during his 9 years here, it usually just amounted to a boring loss. Right now, Mac's offense reminds us of Dickey Ball because our QB is not very consistent. Coach Mac will throw more when he gets a QB that can throw it effectively. Think about Iowa State with Sage Rosenfels and Seneca Wallace. Next year, he might get his wish if Berglund can play and can keep out of trouble.

I think that the up-and-down nature of this team will continue. They got a good win last night, but our QB play is very inconsistent and our defense doesn't put a huge amount of pressure on the opposing QB. I think that we will still end up around 5-7, with a sure win against South Alabama and we will probably get another win out of MTSU and Arky State. I don't see us beating ULM or WKU on the road with their speed. Still, even if the record remains the same as last year, there is no doubt that we are making progress, since this year's schedule has been much more difficult than last year's.

A few points: A.) Let's talk improvement--the last time we went to Houston, Rice beat us 77-21--only because they took the 4th quarter off. This year, we lost to UH 44-21. We are 33 points better in just 4 short years (sarcasm alert, but the point is we are better). B.) Recruiting at UNT will always be a challenge until we actualy win. Nobody else that we recruit against in Texas, Oklahoma, or Louisiana have had the negative issues that hang over us still today. Apogee, McCarney, Rawlins, RV, tailgating, CUSA, etc...they all are light years better than what most of us dealt with at UNT Football as fans, but the negative view of UNT football from its own alumni, the lack of support from the students, faculty, and citizenry of the town, the local sports media, and, probably, the worst of all, the negative views of our football program with Texas HS coaches, they all combine to give you classes that are subpar comapred to all of the schools mentioned earlier. Texas State and UTSA don't face anything close to the negative information that UNT does. Texas State sells their future under Coach Fran, UTSA sells their future under Coach Coker in a big city ready to support them, all while North Texas deals with the outrageously negative view that most outside folks have of this school, city, and program. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the predicament that we are in with our W-L record. From never being in the SWC club to dropping down to 1-aa purgatory for 12 looonnnnggg years to playing in the perceived worst FBS conference for the last 11 years in the SBC, it all has combined to put us in this situation. The good news is that McCarney is a good rebuilding coach--this is his specialty. He has energy (at least for now), which helps on the recruiting front. He may not get many decent recruits from Texas HS right now, but he is helping to show the all-important TX HS coaches that it is a different day in Denton. Apogee and CUSA will play even bigger roles in selling our program in the future. I will say this, because I believe it with all my heart, but if McCarney can't turn it around here when he is done, I'm not sure anyone can do it here. It takes a special kind of "involved" coach here in Denton--you have do a LOT MORE than just x's and o's and recruiting. You have to CONSTANTLY sell the program and try to change the minds of the students, faculty, and citizens in Denton that have been told not to care about UNT athletics, for many different reasons. I believe that Coach Mac is that guy, though. I think that Year 3 and beyond will show all of us that he is definitely the right guy for our situation.

This game should be played in Shreveport. Seriously, they'll get about 20k MAYBE for this game in a stadium that seats over 90k.

No matter what you think of UTSA and their fast rise up, no one can argue about those home games in OOC. They have two good OOC home games every year going forward, if this listing above is correct. To me, they are taking advantage of their location and situation perfectly. They may end being the laughing stock of FBS, but I actually think they will become a good program in the next decade. The San Antonio media will prop them up big time to give them support.

As I read this thread, this is exactly who crossed my mind. Famous thoughts while watching his UNT teams play: Run the ball all three downs before punting. Take about 10 decent passing attempts per game. Run out the clock. Have defense get some stops and turnovers. Finish the game as quick as possible. If our fans are bored now, then a lot of them would have felt like they just took sleeping pills during the last two years of Dickey's tenure here. Those were some really boring games. As bad as Dodge's teams were, boring might have been the only term that you couldn't use to criticze the ineptness of their play, which is probably why Dodge enjoyed higher attendance averages than Dickey did while HFC.

I just think the biggest jump that a program makes isn't from bad to mediocre, its going from mediocre to good. The players have to find a way to win these games and not to accept losing. The hardest part to that is the fact that this group of players has only known UNT as a losing program. At some point, you either turn the corner or you go backward. This team has the ability to win out--and they have the same ability to lose out. Two close games in the last two weeks have gone against us because we couldn't make enough plays on all sides of the ball to win in the 4th quarter. Once we make those plays consistently and start winning those close games, we will make that jump to being good. UNtil then...

Maybe I didn't make my sarcasm very clear. I don't think that will ever happen here, but to get the culture change Silver was talking about, that's the only way he will ever see what he wants from a support standpoint.

At this point, I'd take 2-4. Just don't come into that ULL game at 1-5.