untjim1995

No, I wouldn't have typed that after Dodge was hired. As a matter of fact, I may have been the most excited fan about getting Dodge here. I expected great offense and a coach that interacted with the fans in a better fashion than DD. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case on the offense. I can't really speak to the interaction part, but I haven't heard Dodge call us MFers, so he's got that going for him--which is nice.

Here are my thoughts on all of this: 1.) Vizza and his buddies from the "privileged" areas around the state are not a good fit here, in my opinion. IIRC, there was a really good thread about this a few months ago that talked about the kids from the rural schools and the inner-ciy schools being more tough-minded to deal with the situation here at UNT. 2.) Vizza is a great talent--he will do well at whatever school he attends because of the fact that he wants to be there and the coaching/talent at the other place will be much better. That leads to #3. 3.) Riley was probably going to be the starter here anyway...in other news, we need oxygen to breathe. Coach Dodge didn't bring his son here to not play QB. Whether he can or can't is to be determined, although I don't think anyone could succeed here at QB with the line play that we have. 4.) If we go 0-12 or 2-10 next year, both Dodges will be gone after next year--no way I can see Riley staying here if Dad is gone. But the problem won't ever go away here at UNT until the Board of Regents, the President, and the Chancellor beleive that the funding for the program needs to be increased dramatically. The head coach here should not make $250K when the two private universities that you recruit against down both sides of I-35 make $2Million or more. If you can't pay the head coach a package of at least $500k, the trend will continue. Remember that we don't get to be a part of a start-up conference again like DD got the benefit of doing in 2001-2004. Its gonna take a lot to CATCH UP to other SBC teams--I can't believe I just typed that. That alone is depressing and makes me wonder if we really will get back to beign a winning program again in the near future.

Interesting information on what probably lies ahead in 3 years. http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/11238522

If you go to the MWC and say that you will be invited to join if you take on Boise, Hawaii, and Fresno, then the BCS just eliminated the top three non-BCS challengers to their party. That is why I think that the MWC will eventually get in to the party--and it will be with 12 teams, not 9.

This is the exact reason that I think either the BCS will expand to include a new 12-team MWC, or they will "ask" the PAC-10 to expand to include Utah and someone else. Too much litigation risk that is still out there. http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/11230586

I would rather us drop football than go back to FCS-level football. We are a huge-freaking school--we should never be playing in a conference full of SFAs or Nicholls States again. If the school doesn't want to fund the program properly, it will eventually fold anyway. The costs of running a legitimate FBS program is expensive. But, again, how many folks are lining up to attend the big Jazz concert that the school puts on or the big Art Exhibit? Nowhere near 17K. But, if the school just always wants to be a liberal arts oriented university first, I guess its their prerogative. But, to the anyone who thinks athletics costs to much, there is a cost as well in the missed opportunity that we should have had for years with a school of this size and location. There is no reason that UNT shouldn't at least resemble UH or UTEP right now. Heck, there is no reason that our program shouldn't at least resemble Tech's either. But moving down to I-AA knocked us backwards for so many years, that trying to make our way back now during this time period is going to be an uphil battle--especially if we can't get decent coaches to come here.

CBL, I am assuming that reply was sarcasm, so I will attempt to defend the answer. When I mean "trap"--Maybe the wrong word, but what I meant to say is the risk of going on the road to play a bad team is a lot less than playing an FCS team at home and getting the huge gate for a home game and a sure win. Not that going to Fouts has ever made anyone feel "trapped", but I think that the BCS team (ala Mizzou or K-State) would say to themselves, "What do we really have to gain here? We can just buy out of this game and get a better game on the schedule for a home and home series or get a very winnable team for a home game." That was what I meant by that. Jim

I just hate this about the BCS schools--more so than the exclusionary rules they place on their bowls. If you sign a contract, then honor it. Mizzou should honor their end of the bargain--who cares if SMU sucks now. There was a reason you signed the deal in the first place. As for SMU, they also show A&M playing in Dallas in the future (2012? maybe)--there is no chance that game will ever get played, especially now that A&M will be playing Arky at JerryWorld every year. Sure, the Aggies will play them in CS, then bail. Easy to see this one coming. To make it UNT related, don't be shocked to see K-State bail on coming down here. I guess those guys look at road games against us as too much of a trap.

The answer to your question begins with $$$$

This has been my contention for a long time. And instead of having the national championship site having a meaningless game a week before, use the Cotton Bowl as the 5th BCS game. If the MWC is willing to expand to include Boise State, Fresno State, and either Nevada or Hawaii to get to 12, then the league would become an AQ league. The you can keep the Rose Bowl with the Pac- 10 vs. Big 10, the Fiesta would get the MWC champ, Cotton Bowl would get the Big XII champ, the Sugar Bowl would get the SEC champ, and the Orange Bowl would get the ACC Champ vs the Big East. That still leaves three spots open for the three "next bests" (i.e, Notre Dame when the finish in the top 12, second best team from Big XII and SEC, etc.). I believe this will happen long before a playoff will be instituted or the "And 1" scenario takes place. It will be real interesting to see if the BCS would expand so as to keep the government watchdogs off their ass or if they would use a power play move to enforce the BCS membership by making their leagues a Super 1-A or something like that. Sadly for us, I don't see any scenario where it would make one bit of differnece for the ol' alma mater.

Seriously,admins--how long do we all have to put up with this kind of post? Aren't we supposed to stray from personal attacks? I know that Dodge and Company haven't been great here, but to consistently see this kind of post is inappropriate. I mean, really, we aren't all Dodge apologists here, but I hate reading posts from this guy trying to stand up for his pals on the team by running both of the Dodges into the ground. Totally inapproriate.

I think it's more likely that a total restructuring of what teams are FBS teams and what aren't will happen before we ever see a playoff in FBS football....ie, the Power 6 break away or are recategorized as FBS I-A and the rest as FBS I-AA where the money wouldn't be split so many potential ways. But that's just my HSO.

Very interesting thread and posts. It sort of reminds me of what I would expect a team from Texas to do if they were going to have to play UNT in a bowl game. The fact that La Tech has that kind of "power" or "prestige" is a little surprising to me, but what do I know. It just shows how little regard anyone has for our conference.

Nope--Oregon lost at home to Boise, Oregon State lost at Utah

It is humorous how things canc hange in such a short amount of time--2 years. BTW, I felt that the Dodge hire was pure genius, too.

I might just "bump" this thread for the next year--what a great reminder of how quickly things can change.

That is certainily possible, I suppose, about the money and they could form their own playoff system, but I guess I just feel like we are all ignored anyway, as it stands. But, maybe if we started our own playoff system, the NCAA would take over the playoff system as it does for all other levels, thus causing the AQ-BCS to look into a playof of their own. Remember, if a playoff gets formed, the NCAA is officially in charge. Even with all of their money, the Big 6 can't out-vote all of the other members of the NCAA. Just like with March Madness, there is a place for the smaller conferences--it probably would go that way with a football tournament, too. I can't see a way where the NCAA cannot be over a big football playoff, since they are over all other sports tournaments, including many football playoffs already.

You don't think a Ball State--BYU semifinal game wouldn't garner interest at all? I disagree completely. A while back, there was a report done about the media's views on non-AQ-BCS schools. Basically, they didn't care about them, nor followed them very closely. At this point, you are probably thinking that this makes your point, but in fact, if a playoff got put into place, there is no way that the national media could ignore these conferences because it would be the only game going on in early and mid-December. The ESPN networks would jump at the chance to fill air time with these games. I am just saying that this could gain so much popularity amongst media-types that the pressure to make a BCS playoff become a reality could really heat up. Keep in mind, that if we keep the system we have, there is basically no chance at any of our schools getting to say that they are national champs. The Boise State victory over Oklahoma was awesome and it put Boise on the map, so to speak, but I still think those kids at Boise deserve a chance to win a natinoal championship after the season they have had. They can always play OU or USC in non-conference and you still get David vs. Goliath. I just believe that any form of an FBS playoff would garner a lot more attention for the non-AQ BCS than what we have now.

Sometimes, I wonder why the non-AQ-BCS schools don't break away from this mess and just create a playoff system for themsleves. Make it a 16 team deal with home games the first two weeks and then use bowl games for the semifinals and final. I know that the money that we all get from the BCS system would go away if we pulled out--and that might be why this could never happen--but it seems that home games and the term playoff would create such a frenzy that the the non-AQ-BCS leagues might actually garner some major attention. There is a big faction of folks out there that want a playoff--this could lead to just that for the entire NCAA. Even if it didn't, at least the SBC, MAC, WAC, CUSA, and the MWC could get some major attention for the entire month of December as they would own the college football fandom for a full month basically. Again, this may not be feasible, but imagine for a second if the top 16 non-AQ-BCS schools did this. You would have TCU, BYU, Utah, Boise State, Ball State, Troy, Tulsa, Houston, Rice, Arkansas State, Central Michigan, Fresno State, Buffalo, Colorado State, Nevada, and Hawaii as participants. That would be a lot of fun to watch the "tournament" play out. Compare a game between Boise and BYU, for example, with the Insight Bowl between Kansas and Minnesota. There would be so much more attention paid to the non-bowl game, it wouldn't even be funny. Heck, even put this game up against a good bowl game, like the Holiday bowl, which might be Tech versus Oregon State. Again, no comparison. Don't know if this could ever happen, but it would be very interesting if it was feasible.

It seems to me that if you have the ability to get into SMU and can play at that stadium in the heart of Dallas, that the choice between them and us is not a hard one to think over. June Jones gets paid a million dollars. We pay a coach about 75% less. Their stadium is very nice for their situation. Ours sucks--and will still be ours for the foreseeable future. They play teams people have heard of around here, often at home in both conference and OOC. We, ahem, don't. We get Middle International Kentucky most weeks. Ditto on all of this for Baylor, especially with the fact that you get to play in the Big XII. Comparing our sitaution to any of theirs on a recruiting front is apples-to-oranges, IMHO. Compare us with Louisiana-Lafayette or Louisiana-Monroe or Arkansas State when it comes to recruits--that is who we, as a university, chose as its athletic peers. SMU and Baylor, as well as Rice and TCU and others should out-recruit us every year. The only reason they all didn't the last season is only because of Dodge and his ties to Texas High Schools. Now has it paid off or will it ever? Doesn't look like it. It appears that he is in over his head. But to just say that Dodge doesn't know how to recruit and that SMU and Baylor are just kicking our tails is a bit misleading. Let's say that you are a high school lineman from Irving MacArthur and you get June Jones, Art Briles, or anyone from UNT to come and talk to you. You have great grades, so academics are not an issue here at all. You get offered a full ride to Baylor of the Big XII, a private school with very influential and supportive alumni. You also get offered a full ride to SMU of CUSA, a private school with a terrific academic reputation and is in the heart of metro Dallas. You also get Darrell Dickey/Matt Simon/Todd Dodge of UNT to visit and offer you a full ride at our very large, widely apathetic-to-sports school, that has the worst stadium in America, and the schools you play are not located within the state you live, nor are they anyone that you dreamed of playing growing up in Irving. What are you gonna choose? Think about this--the problem has much more to do with what UNT has done in the past versus what the head coach says in his pitch. You may be right in that a new coach can come and succeed right away like at FIU or MTSU, but until we get a stadium that is something to recruit to, as well as to play teams that recruits want to play, this scenario that you are talking about is not going to go away. The fact that UNT ever had more success than either of those two schools says more about their leadership at that time than it does about who our coach is/was. And, unfortunately, those schools' administrations understand that football in Texas needs resources and they have the alumni and the conference revenue streams to do that--we don't. And never have. That isn't Todd Dodge's fault--and he has plenty of other faults to look at before blaming recruiting on his ego.

Don't forget Alabama, either, because I believe we play there next year, too. Its feasible that we will play--on the road in OOC, two undefeated teams from the previous season.

thank you for your courage...

They will be just fine. They have only dropped recently because they had an inept coach. Snyder will bring back more talent, especially from the jucos. The thing is that only Mizzou is really doing well up north. They need to get back to beating KU in games and for recruits--this could happen. They start beating Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa State up north, they will be bowling again. Sure, they may not get back to the top of the Big XII again, but they can get back to bowling. That alone brings in enough money to justify the change.

Somehow, I am guessing that if he gives up just one of those over the next 10 years and Texas is in the Top 3 of the BCS every year, then most UT fans and alums will be ok with that. Just a guess.

Blake may have recruited a lot of talent, but as far as a game-day coach, I still maintain he was the worst big-school coach I have ever watched. It was amazing to watch all of those 4* and 5* recruits look like they couldn't make it on a 3A JV team. When Stoops got there, he recruited Heupel from a JC and he had an amazing defense. That team was 4-7 in 1998 under Blake. Two years later, undefeated and national champs under Stoops. Of course, with their resources, their recruits, and their facilites, I guess that kind of turnaround wasn't as miraculous as it would be at a school with an awful stadium, little support, and limited resources...