untjim1995

Man, that is both sad and scary that we are still this close to being punished for APR.

That seems too simplistic to me. Darrell Dickey was the SBC Coach of the Year 4 years in a row, then in his last two seasons he won a total of 5 games and was fired. Recruiting matters in this league, especially on the lines and at QB. McCarney says we aren't there yet, and frankly, I agree with him. You can be disappointed at 4-8, but most of us look at that number as solid progress. If we get to 5-6 wins, he will be a shoo-in for SBC Coach of the Year. Every publication that we have seen a prediction for our record this upcoming year has been consistently between 3 and 4 wins.

I tend to agree with this assessment. I just don't see how, with our current line issues and QB uncertainty, not to mention a new coaching staff, how anyone could expect a heckuva lot more than this in Coach Mac's first year. If we won 4 games, that would be our most wins in a season since 2004, so I do agree that it would represent solid progress.

Or Louisiana Tech for the matter

If you want to find anything good from the Todd Dodge era at UNT, look at this. He may have failed miserably on the field, but at least the APR problems that started from the latter DD years seem to have been completely rectified. Coach Mac certainly won't have to deal with this issue the way Dodge had to. It might be a small silver lining to a dark cloud, but at least its something!!

Not a bad idea, but don't do it for the Houston game. Give them tickets for a home game against either WKU or ULL.

UNder their college football section, they have an article about the MWC's success over the last 6 years and how they are up for possible AQ inclusion if they pass three criteria. 2 of the 3 are already passed, but #3 looks difficult based on the low rankings of the bottom of the conference. The author's suggestion is let them be AQ becasue it is for two years and you can re-assess who belongs again when the BCS contract expires in 2015 and will avoid any antitrust lawsuits. Looks very plausible from lots of vantage points.

I posted on your facebook page just how crazy this is. I have to say that I think that part of your success at making the hole-in-one was from me setting up the garbage cans at practice each day for you QBs and Coach Kragthorpe so that you would have to practice throwing the football into the can each day for accuracy!! See, I figured out how I helped you get a new car!!

http://eye-on-college-basketball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/29531857 What would this mean for the Frogs if this does occur? Anything bad? Would they continue to be an AQ-league since the current football-playing universities are already in? Might be better for TCU if it becomes a league that is made up of full athletic programs, not a hodge-podge of some universities that field football and some that don't. Any thoughts?

I will say this. Our facilites and location are now on par with us being at a much more level playing ground with the other non-AQ teams in the country. But without any winning seasons that really further more support from the alumni/community, it all could just be a matter of being "too late" to the party. IMHO, the next 5 years will determine what level of football we will be playing at in the future. We could be anything from an AQ conference, a top non-AQ league, a better non-AQ league for our budget, stay in this league and hope it continues to be FBS, or play in a situation where some of the non-AQs like the SBC, MAC,WAC, and maybe even CUSA get lowered down to FCS-type status even more than they are now. You could make a case that there are not many schools that have so much potential for their athletic programs to go up or down as we do right now. Its why I think the university has done the trifecta of building better facilities, hiring presidents that are very pro-athletics, and now (finally) hiring and PAYING for quality coaches in the major revenue sports--they know that this is the time to either get in or get out when it comes to being included at a higher level of athletics. If I'm wrong about this, then the $78 million dollar stadium we are building may go down as the worst financial decision ever made at UNT--because we will never come close to filling that place if we are back to playing at a level that resembles the old 1-aa. I doubt that this scenario will play out though. I trust that Rawlins, Neinas, the BOR and RV know what is at stake and that we will be playing at the highest level of NCAA football for years to come.

Normally, I would agree with you--and I might still--but I think this has legs because of the fact that the MWC's success has been so much better than either the ACC or the Big East over the last few years and the antitrust lawsuit could get more legs. Losing TCU and Utah hurts, but replacing with Boise State alleviates alot of that pain, and I think that most people realize that gaining Hawaii, Fresno State, and Nevada covers the loss of BYU. I don't think the MWC will drop off that much, if at all, and I think this will be the big boys way of saying, yes, we are open to new members, especially if it is just for two years. As another poster mentioned, Boise will probabaly dominate anyway, so they most likely would get one of the BCS spots anyhow. The best scenario, by far, for our university's athletic program, is for this to play out and then they add 2 more teams to get to 12. Of course, all those CUSA teams that swear that they love their current travel and rivals will change their tune in a second to get BCS money, so that could derail our chances to get that MWC invite. But then that could open up a potential CUSA spot and...you can see where this goes (offseason topic #1 rehashed). Knowing our luck, though, this will play out this way and Houston and UTEP will go west, SMU will stay in CUSA, and then CUSA will add MTSU and one of the Florida schools, leaving us in a watered-down SBC. That would be the worst-case senario for our athletic department.

http://www.cbssports.com/#!/collegefootball/story/15093404/does-the-diluted-mountain-west-pass-test-for-aqstatus If this occurs, this could explain why the MWC stopped its expansion for now, after adding the teams to replace TCU, BYU, and Utah.

I believe that the Rahr and Sons are TCU folk...

These are all great--I remember most of them. The Oregon State game was so great because that was our first win back at the 1-A level and we never quit that day, even though OSU really blew it late in that game on some bone-headed calls on the offensive side of the ball. The Utah State game in 1997 was great just because Jason Mills ended his career with a win at home with a huge day. MTSU, NMSU, and SMU were all great wins, too. For me, as a 1-a team, I agree with everyone else about that Tulsa game. Tulsa had done something that we have finally caught on to here at UNT--they hired a guy with great enthusiasm that could recruit and gameplan against anyone. Kragthorpe knew that he could win at Tulsa and he knew how important it was for recruiting purposes to absolutely crush UNT anytime they played each other. That game single-handedly marked the end of our days as the best team in the SBC, even if it was OOC. Everyone else knew that our offensive gameplan was too vanilla to stay at the top, along with the fact that our recruiting dropped big time. Looking forward to games in our new stadium and making new memories, just hoping for a lot more good ones than bad!! I just hope we can get more OOC home games in future years like we have scheduled this year. I know that Army and SMU are scheduled for games in Denton in years to come, but I hope that we don't get stuck with only one OOC home game again, like we did most years at Fouts. I fear the home schedule that includes one mid-major or FCS school as the only home game, but hopefully RV is ont he horn to other schools like Indiana and Houston to get games here. Not that the SBC games are bad, but lets face it, we aren't going to see a full house for most of our conference mates. To get the attention of the apathetic alumni/Denton County resident, we need wins over OOC teams that people have heard of, and getting them at home would go a long way into making those great game watching memories!!

I considered this Northwestern State Homecoming game, but we had a decent crwod that night because it was homecoming. Winning or losing in front of hundreds of people seems more embarrassing, although the Tulsa 54-2 butt-kicking in front of a full house was really embarrssing, too. All are top candidates for sure.

I'll get it started. My fandom started in my freshman year of 1991, so I missed the famous 1990 SMU game. Best: Watching UNT pound Baylor in front of a full house in 2003, 52-14. This game served notice to the local folks that we had a really good team, since we demolished one of the sainted-SWC teams. If only the momentum from this game would have lasted. This may have been Dickey's high point at UNT, along with the win over Cincinatti in the NO Bowl. Worst: Watching UNT beat Nicholls State on a Saturday night in 1992 in front of a cool 500 people, including the band. It was a terrible opponnent in a terrible conference in a division of play that we had no business playing at for so long. I always thought that this game was proof of what poor leadership from the university and city had given to us. It was so empty that you could hear the Cajun accents of the coaches for Nicholls State without any problem. Click here to view the article

This will probably annoy the music-types here, but I wouldn't know if the Green Brigade was the best or the worst band out there. Sure, I want them to play the fight song and entertain us during the game with songs that get the crowd involved, but I am nowhere near the stands for halftime because it just isn't something that matters to me. I have always laughed at the people who claim that their band has never bean defeated at halftime. Its a football game. If I ever went to a UNT Music Dept. concert, I wouldn't expect to see our football team show up to practive hiking the ball during intermission, even if they were all there to support the university. I realize that lots of people here love the Green Brigade and a huge part of our attendance is from people who are there just to watch the band march at halftime and then leave. I don't mean to begrudge you of your efforts or your support. Its just that I believe that North Texas will have reached its fullest potential when most of the people at the stadium are there to watch the football game, not the halftime march.

If we did a post-game show on the student station, then this additional programming would interfere with the eclectic music shows on KNTU. Did you forget what people know us for? /sarcasm alert!!!!!! Seriously, this should have been done years ago.

Let's say that we do win 5 or more games this upcoming year, but they are all against SBC teams. Would the caravan really draw tremendously more than 75 people in Dallas? Maybe so, but I doubt it would be significantly more. You can't erase decades worth of apathy in a few years unless you do something amazing here that has not been done since Fry was here--beat name OOC teams. We got more attention for beating Tech and Baylor than we did for beating any conference team back in the late 90s and early 00s. This year, beating Alabama is not gonna happen, but beating Houston would get attention of lots of Texans. Beating Iowa in a few years would grab lots of attention, even though beating Louisiana-Monroe won't. Its kind of like Fresno State under Pat Hill. They are well-known and still well supported because of the big OOC wins and close losses over the years. In my opinion, this is what it will take to get attention and increase attendance at these functions quickly.

A lot of people here act as if UTSA won't be a factor at all when it comes to our situation, but I think they have great potential to really make some significant progress IF everything they are doing right now works out. From an outsider's perspective, this is what I see: 1.)They already have a recognizable facility in the Alamodome, which is attractive to OOC teams because of size. 2.)Their market has appeal. San Antonio is a great tourist city and since it is has no other FBS team, it could lead to good support from the locals IF they win. Not to mention the fact that other teams would love to come here and play against a team that they believe is both beatable and gives them in-roads to Texas HS recruits. If UTSA does find success quickly (not saying they will), I could easily see CUSA coming after them, just to get into a new market that has lots of TV coverage. 3.)They have a name coach in Larry Coker. Granted, he won at Miami with Butch Davis' kids, but he does have a MNC on his resume and the TX HS coaches will have interest in listening to him. He was a good hire for them. 4.)Media coverage for them will be solid. The San Antonio newspaper and other media outlets will cover them closely, much like the El Paso media covers UTEP closely. With no other team in town and not other pro football team to draw away coverage, they will have an advantage that Texas State or North Texas will get. We know that Texas and A&M will always get strong coverage, as they should down there, but UTSA will get solid media coverage just because they are local. I do think that UTSA could be like any of the Florida start-ups of the last 20 years if things fall in line. It will be tough, but I think they have a legitimate shot if their conference stays afloat and stays intact with the same teams already. Like UCF, USF, FAU, and FIU, they have a model to work from and absolutely no history to weigh them down from a fanbase and media perspective. It will certainly be interesting to see how well UNT, Texas State, and UTSA fair over the course of the next ten years. It will go a long way in determining who we will be in a confernece with in the future.

This is what I fear will cause the next defections of the top 60 or so teams from the rest. If a playoff ever gets instituted, I can see it being only AQ teams, thus scheduling against lower rung teams will be a thing of the past. The bigger thing I fear is the AQs leaving the NCAA to form their own coalition for all sports. TV networks would drool at this possibility if the biggest draws get their own football playoff, basketball tournament, college world series, etc...

This x 100. Our line depth, especially on the defensive line is really slim. Plus, our QB situation will take time to get better. These two issues keep me from feeling that 5 wins as a minimum for next year is where expectations should start. Now, by 2012, that's a different story, but progress will be getting to 4 wins this year, then getting to 5-6 wins the following year, and then competing for the SBC title in year 3. If the SBC Championship run starts earlier, than that is gravy to me. That would be the exact timeframe that it has taken FIU to get to the top of the SBC.

I am afraid that you are setting yourself up to be disappointed if you feel that 5 games is the minimum number of games for us to win. We don't have the line strength or depth yet to proclaim that we should be close to or on the verge of a bowl game in Coach Mac's first year. He has said repeatedly that our lines need a lot of work and development. Our OOC schedule is still really tough for a program like ours, which has basically been run into the ground over the last 6 years, so to see us win any of those 4 is pretty difficult. Can we go 5-3 in the SBC this year? Its possible, but I still think a 4 win season would show amazing progress, seeing how we haven't won that many games in a season since 2004. As a matter of fact, we have only won 3 games in a season twice since 2004. If Coach Mac gets us to 5 wins or more in his first season, he should be named Coach of the Year. Even he knows that will be a tall order this upcoming year. Just remember that the "genuises" at the DRC editorial board that say that the rose will lose its bloom if we don't start winning there soon are the same people who gripe about the fact that a new stadium was even built and that UNT even has a football program still. They just like to stir the pot, especially when they know that the majority of their readership could care less about UNT sports and aren't that thrilled that a new stadium has been built.

Nicely played, FFR.