untjim1995

Its not hard to understand what SMU is trying to protect here. Not only do you not want the big public university not to be in a conference with you, you also don't want any funding or educator losses to that university to occur. SMU has the local media on their side because of the SWC connection, as well as the money advantage because of the university's location and status, not to mention its connection to business. Here at North Texas, we made our way via education and music--awesome endeavors for the greater public good, but not exactly profitable, nor athletics-friendly usually. It is really the apples vs oranges argument here. I really believe that most SMU folks have recognized our "potential" for MUCH longer than the typical North Texas admin, alum, or fan. It really helped SMU and TCU that the old Denton mentality for years sold the "small, teachers college that loves the arts and music" theme for so long that most people feel completely disconnected to their alma mater in general, but especially in athletics. When we have been terrible in football or when SMU needed us badly (after death penalty) are the only times we have played them. That upcoming series we have with them will get bought out in a heartbeat if June Jones ever leaves and Coach Mac gets us winning again. Its just their way--they do a great job of recognizing advantages and keeping them as strong as possible. In reality, I don't blame them for looking out for number one--I just despise the fact that the local media act like they are still something bigger than they really are. When their sorry basketball team gets their score mentioned first on a local sports newscast while ours may or may not even get mentioned, it burns me up. But, as one local sports once told me, if you were ever in the SWC, you were royalty with the Texas media. It is what we have to fight against every day.

That happens when you are basically the only college in a huge town. The paper, TV stations, and local radio stations would love to have UTSA get off to a strong start just to help add coverage to their Big XII teams. They have the potential to be like UH in their market IF they can find some success. UTSA is a true wildcard, as far as I am concerned. I can see them failing badly, but I can see them being Texas' version of USF/UCF/FAU/FIU, too. They are not weighed down by decades of losing and apathy by the media and their alumni. Trust me on this, if UTSA somehow hits a homerun in this new WAC and starts winning big, CUSA and the MWC will drool over the idea of adding the San Antonio market to their footprint. You get a huge TV market, a bowl game possibiility for the future, and a destination city that other teams' fans would love to travel to. Just to be clear, I am not saying that this will happen, but it is definitely a possibility. Neither Denton, nor San Marcos, offer all of those advantages.

I can't imagine a worse stadium than Malone Stadium in Monroe, LA for FBS football, but even that dump looked respectable next to the old toilet bowl of a stadium we played in. Sometimes, I still can't believe we managed to keep a program at a FBS level with Fouts as our home.

Also, LaTech openly received SMU's support for admission to CUSA last time, but the Miners got their spot because of total support and market. If SMU gets Tulane, Rice, and Tulsa to vote with them as as block, which I believe is how they operate collectively within that conference, then La Tech may very well get into CUSA if the right things shake out. I'll say this until the day I die--we will never be "allowed" in a conference with SMU. For us, our road will continue to wind thru southeastern cities or it will move to the Rocky Mountains. Either way, it won't involve SMU and it probably won't involve another Texas school.

I really just wondered why they fired Steve Roberts...

I am still surprised Arky State fired Steve Roberts. He beat A&M in College Station, almost had Iowa beat in Iowa City, not to mention winning the SBC back in 2005. I guess its probably for other reasons than we know.

I want to ask this after just about each post you make, but why do you follow North Texas when it would seem that the university ALWAYS falls beneath your expectations and NEVER comes close to making you anything but jaded and disappointed? Serious question.

Any of you that think we will win 6 or more game this year, just because this is the Sun Belt, want to make a new prediction? This is a killer, especially when you are breaking in a new QB with a OLine that doesn't meet the head coach's own standards. I had us at 4-8 and I will make it 3-9 now. Carey was the one guy, besides Dunbar, that had game changing capability for the offense. This will hurt big time.

Dickey gets credit for two things to me. First, he recruited well when he tried hard to recruit. Kennedy, Buckles, Craig Jones, Jamario, Scott Hall, Cobbs, Kevin Galbreath, Awasom, Hurd, Quinn, etc..are great examples of this. Secondly, he realized that we could actually beat these SBC teams by running a simple gameplan and he accomplished it regularly for 4 straight years. However, no one will ever convince me that after we won the NO Bowl in 2002 that Dickey didn't believe that he would be coaching somewhere else. I am certain of this and the recruiting--and blasting of our alma mater afterwards--seems to supply the proof of this. When he let his OC fight an alum in the stands and never even reprimanded him (much less fired him), we should have known what was going on. Again, Hutch Black Jersey Night confirmed most of this. The NO Bowls were great times for all who follow UNT, especially since it validated us being at the 1-A level. But when you look at the fact that attendance never improved during his tenure, which it did under Dodge, and that his record against OOC teams was atrocious, the rest of the college football world seemed to look at Dickey with an asterisk. That is how I feel about him. He could have accomplished even more here than what he did, but it really appears when looking back at the end of his tenure as if he knew that he would get fired and that he was pretty much ok with that.

If you think it was fun watching that from the stands, you should have been standing right next to Coach Simon as the ball landed at the back of the end zone, and miraculously, rolled out of the end zone for a safety. Simon was a bad guy in his day at UNT, but I hope that time has changed the guy today (I'm sure he has). He got fired here because of ego, nothing more, nothing less. Yes, he had a terrible AD, but even that AD knew that Simon was a timebomb. Maybe things will get better for him in Buffalo now.

This is what we are facing still as a program. Getting decent people to come play here in the future seems like it should be easier because of the new stadium, but looking at TFLF's post about possibilities for other games here, we are going to have to go outside of the area most likely. That isn't all bad, as seen by Indiana coming here in the fall. But those openings, I fear, will just get filled with more one and done road games if the athletic department needs more funds. Look at next year's home schedule. The only OOC game in Denton is against Texas Southern, then we get 4 SBC home opponents. That will be tough for us to have a huge year in attendance, since we know how fickle the Denton residents/UNT fans are regarding the opponents that come here. The snowball turns into an avalanche if you have another losing season in 2012, because attendance starts falling back down and you have to schedule another $$$ game to pay the AD's bills. It really does make it seem more realistic that we set up a series with Texas State to get a name opponent in here that will bring some people. I think it makes a lot of sense.

I still believe that the Rice game in Houston was the low point for our alma mater since being back at the FBS level. There is just no way of trying to explain how little ol' Rice could beat our football so badly. The scariest part about that game was that they SHOULD have scored 100 points that day. They basically took the 4th quarter off. If Texas, OU, LSU, Alabama, etc. beat us like that, then you can easily chalk that up to their resources, status, and talent, all while enjoying a nice check. That Rice game basically told every HS coach in Texas that Todd Dodge was not going to ever make it as a successful college coach. As I said in another thread, Thank God for Western Kentucky being in the SBC.

I think 3-9 or 4-8 seems very reasonable for this first season, if for no other reason than the lines are not where Coach Mac wants them to be, not even mentioning the QB position is up for grabs. I see wins at home against WKU and FAU and at least one win on the road at either Arkansas State or ULL. The home games against Indiana and ULM are both possibilities for a win, too. I don't see us winning at FIU, Tulsa, or Troy, nor do I see us winning against UH or MUTS here (even though we beat them on the road last year). Our bank account will win at Bama. Best case, to me, is 6-6, worst case is 1-11 (so glad WKU is in the SBC).

THIS. X 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000!! What I want badly for UNT is to do one of two things. Upgrade the conference affiliation. If we can get into the MWC or CUSA, then great. I have no doubt CUSA will not be an option anytime soon as long as the private schools are in it together, so that leaves the MWC, which is a better league anyway. I would love to see us play Boise State and Fresno State at the new stadium, not to mention a road trip to the Air Force Academy or to watch our hoops team play New Mexico at the Pit in Albuquerque. I think the MWC would be a good fit for us, but that we would be a good fit for them, too, just like TCU was. If we can't upgrade to a better conference, than make the SBC the best it can be for us. Texas State would give us a rival that we have played more than anyone, has a lot of alumni who can help fill the new stadium when we play, and we would get a nice market for the SBC to become a part of in Austin/San Antonio. If I were Wright Waters, I would be calling Texas State and New Mexico State right now to come aboard and get us to 12 members. If anyone else ever leaves, then you can look into adding La Tech or UTSA--otherwise, those two ingrates can die on the vine as far as I care, although I still think UTSA has way more potential than the rest of the possibilities out there.

I think that the more wins we get, the further this group teams wants to get from us. Our way upward in this world is really going to come down to two ways: 1.) Win again constantly in the SBC and make noise against OOC teams 2.)Join the MWC and become a winner there, just like TCU basically did. That league has teams that are well-respected and beating them brings attention and support. Basically, when TCU decided to leave their fellow Texas schools behind, conference-affiliation wise, they also left them in their dust in football, not to mention their former SWC colleagues as well. This can be duplicated--we just have to hope that the MWC wants to take a chance on us at some point. We have a poor history of success, support, and administration that hangs over us big-time, but we are almost 180 degrees different from where we were even 10 years ago. We could help the MWC out alot, too.

I understand the argumnet about Fouts being memorable to our fans becasue it was our home place to watch the Mean Green/Eagles play over many decades, but... 1.) That the university allowed that place to be our home for so long is why we are in the predicament that we are in today. It was such a poor facility that even on the rare visit we got from someone that people cared about (i.e, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Rice, UH,etc..) their fans immediately bitched about what a dump the place was and we rarely ever got a return visit. Imagine trying to convince these people that are already against being in a conference with you to begin with that we really do belong in your conference, even though we play in a toilet of a stadium. Trust me, it screamed small time to the entire college football world. 2.) Seeing a toilet of a stadium get "enhanced" by adding aluminum bleachers that are even further away from the field than the rest of the stadium (which was further away from the field than any other stadium in America) was just awful. I realize the university had to do it on the cheap just to get back to 1-A in 1995, but, again, Fouts, to most of us, was a testament to doing things quarter-assed in regards to football and athletics. Seeing that dump across the street makes me realize just how far we have come, but it also makes me mad to think about how long this took to come to fruition and how it still may not be enough for our alma mater to ever be included into any conference affiliation with schools that our university should be aligned with. That's not even talking about the very real possibility that waht currently gets defined as FBS or AQ will most certainly change, probably for the worse, over the next decade, if not sooner. If we get relegated back to a new 1-aa type level again, we can blame this completely on the administrations that hated sports and wanted football to be abandoned here by just leaving us to play in an absolute dump for decades. To me, I would be just as happy as I could ever imagine being as a UNT fan to see that dump blown up ASAP!!

This isn't close at all, in my opinion. The early 200s teams we had barely drew 2000 for games in conference, with about 700 showing up for games against Panhandle State if we were lucky. This was at the same time that the university's football team won the SBC four years in a row. Our attendance today is wayyyyyyyyyyy better than it was even 5 years ago. Is it anywhere close to where we want it to be? No, but it is getting better. Yes, a win in the NCAA Tournament would be a huge boost, but we are making our way there slowly but surely.

For those of you who think we just play in the Sun Belt, not the SEC, listen to what Coach Mac is saying. The depth and strength is going to take awhile to build up here. He is getting the academic stuff back where it needs to be and now he is going to get after the strength and conditioning program for this team. That stuff will pay great dividends in 2012 and beyond, esepcially as the guys get more used to Coach Mac and his staff and their expectations. 2011 may not be a great year, but the foundation is being poured for the future, which is brighter than it has been here in Denton in the last 35 years.

Skiver: 1.) I have never seen a person get more self-pwned on this website than you have in this thread. 2.) Learn when to just say, "Oops, I was wrong." 3.) Are you related to unt_playmaker? That is all.

This is your best post ever. Nice work, emmitt!! I agree with every point 100%. The number one problem that this university has is that the school's fans cares more about other schools than we do about us. We pack our stadiums when we play someone we have heard of, particularly from other Big XII/Texas schools. I don't care for the SBC schools, either, but I go to watch the Mean Green-at hoops games that is with about 2500 of my fellow fans--because they are my team. But, I will say this, our Aggie friends just saw what attendance issues does to good coaches. Turgeon couldn't wait to get out of town because they never got good support, except when Texas, Baylor, or Kansas came to town. And that's at a school that has very strong connections with their fans.

I agree with this range, although I think that 7 wins would be absolutely outstanding in Coach Mac's first year. I think 3-5 wins is probably the most likely range, though.

Helwig will foreve be known to me as the guy who thought it was just fine to schedule all of our OOC games on the road to fund the athletic department, as well as the guy who thought the answer to our unviersity's basketball program was to fire Tim Jankovich (probably still laughing about this still today) and hire Vic Trilli (who is also probably laughing about this still today). Steve Sloan did hire Dennis Parker, though, who was then fired by Helwig. At least he got one thing right in his tenure here.

This. I don't see FIU or Troy taking a step back in the SBC, at least not the way FAU did this past year. I suspect Middle will be better this year because the QB issue shouldn't be a headache for them like it was last season, which still ended in a bowl. Those three schools are the SBC gold standard right now. I look at our situation like I did FIUs from a few years ago. They hired Cristobal at a time when they were about the worst program in America, paid him nicely, he recruited very well, and in three years got them to the top of the league and won a bowl game, as well as not embarrassing themselves when playing any AQ OOC games (see bama and A&M from last two years). This is what I expect to see from Coach Mac--strong progress over the next few years that gets us back to the top of the SBC. I think all of our wins this upcoming year will be in conference, as the OOC is very tough for our current situation. Bama is obvious, but UH (esp. with Keenum) and Tulsa are both very good teams that will probably challenge each other for the top spot in CUSA. Indiana will be more even, and it could be the one we get in OOC, but I see our 4 wins coming against WKU, FAU, Arky State, and one of the LA schools. Coach Mac and his staff will get us from being in the bottom three of the SBC this year. My belief is that by next year, we will be in the top three, and then be at the top by year three. That's what I expect.

History suggests that you will be giving away said life savings...