untjim1995

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...

To me, the best parts of DD years at UNT were winning the SBC 4 years in a row , winning a bowl game (this was giant and should have led to so much more over the next few years), and his teams beat Tech, Boise State, Nevada, Cincy, Baylor, and SMU during his tenure. He also gave an offense that allowed Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas to become rushing champions, producing amazing publicity for the program (again, this should have produced even more than it ended up doing). And last, but not least, he got us Mattress Mac's million. Now, lets look at each of those positives. The SBC back then was so weak that rarely did anyone else have a winning record--hell, even we, as champs in 2001 didn't have a winning record. When we were winning games against those teams in the SBC, the rest of the area, state, and country just thought that we were playing basically a glorified D-iAA schedule. The win over Cincy seemed to grab a lot of attention, though, and the following year when we pounded Baylor at home and won the SBC again easily, we went to NO and lost a tough game to Memphis. There was really no shame in that loss, either, as Memphis was really good. To me, this is where Dickey mailed it in. I think he thought there is no way I am not getting another job at a better school. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the country seemed to say that although he had picked us from the dirt, it was because we played in the SBC. His personality and offense were not going to be sellable to other schools' fans and alumni. At this point, he really got into the woe-is-me BS and the recruiting started to suffer. Of course, he loses Andrew Smith tragically and then loses Byerly via ignorance and he had really nothing left at QB. At this point, the SBC really just passed us by. And while the losses started mounting again, the absolute boring-ass style of offense really began to wear on us. But, when he didn't do ANYTHING to his OC for assaulting a fan in the stands--not in private, somehere, but in front of those who still managed to care, the writing was on the wall to me. I couldn't believe that he got to even make it to the next year after that when he RETAINED the idiot OC. (Only at UNT ) The running game that had given us those great years could no longer work, as most teams followed So. Miss's bowl strategy of 9 men in the box and dared them to run, which led to predictable results. BTW, those third and 10 draw plays were really awesome the first six dozen times we saw them. After that, they got pretty old to watch. Then when he gets fired, we MFer fans get Hutch Black Jersey Night at Fouts. And to top it off, the guy that donates us the million decides that he can't handle it with class, but instead demands that the university name something (anything) after his buddy or else he was gonna take his cash back home. With that, we have the DD Practice Field to memorialize a losing coach. Hayden Fry must be so proud of that. All that said, this is completely separate from the Dodge hiring, which looked promising at first (and cheap) and now looks just ridiculous (and expensive to correct, i.e. buyout and hiring someone new during the worst recession in 35 years). Only at our beloved UNT!!

I was a student manager during those days and Tim and I would always cut up during the offensive drills, which were the last hour or two of practice each day. Basically, the guy only deep-snapped, so he just kinda hung out with all of us during practice. He was very funny and the stories about Simon were all true. Believe me, you couldn't make that stuff up. Simon was literally crazy--I am not lying at all. He was always convinced people were spying on our practices, hence Tim and I were always sent to go check why the student who was enjoying a great afternoon outside while watching practice and studying were really at Fouts!! You couldn't begin to understand the looks we would get from these people when we would be forced to ask them why they were here and that our coach thought that might by a spy--for the likes of Sam Houston or Nicholls State or even Montana!! Various head coaches would just get blinsided before games when they would go to meet Simon for the handshake and he would just blast into them for spying!! Unbelievable--and true.

I have read quite a bit of input from the board over the last few days and here is what I see happening to Dodge if we go 0-12. Nothing--zilch--nada. Is it because he shouldn't be fired? Nope. Is it because the AD really wants to see him do well? Nope. Then why will he still be our coach next year, even if we go 0-12? Fairly simple... We have no money. There is no way we can eat 3 years of his contract. We barely could take on Dickey's contract when we offered Dodge next to nothing to come and coach here (by FBS standards). Look, we are what we are. We are a school that really shouldn't stay at this level if we don't vote yes for the stadium AND substantially raise the salaries of our coaching staff--not just the head coach, but the whole staff. I think that we need to really drop the program if we can't fund it right. This has become the ultimate embarrassment. I just don't think that the university wants to have anything successful on the gridiron because it costs too much and takes away from music, arts, the education department, etc. This upcoming vote really proves this to me--there seems to be a mindset that the students will have the final say and the leaders can just sit back and say when it gets voted down that they really tried, but the will (apathy) of the university has been stated. The crazy part about all of this is to think of where UNT alums that have followed the program will go to follow college football if we do abandon the program. It will be very interesting to see.

Actually, TCU and SMU have home games scheduled against Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the near future. The questions of whether OU/A&M will actually play them on the road or just buy them out is yet to be answered, but both stadiums seat less than 45K, I believe. I still think that we could get an LSU-type game here if we have a nice stadium, just for recruiting visability. This is also why I think they should try and get Iowa, Mizzou, Kansas, etc on the schedule for the future. If K-State ever plays at Fouts, I will laugh at their stupidity. Playing here with all of the stadium's issues would not be worth the buyout, IMHO.

The real question to you is why are you supporting a VP candidate who makes policy decisions based on old reruns of Dukes of Hazard episodes.

I agree with you on the list you had. We probably won't get OU, Texas, Michigan, or LSU here for a game in a new stadium, but getting the Mississippi schools (Ole MIss, Miss. State, USM), the Kansas schools, Missouri, the Colorado schools, or the Iowa schools should/would happen fairly easily. This doesn't even count the idea of getting CUSA/WAC teams here or the occasional BCS game against teams like Georgia Tech or Louisville. I think this would be great. I just don't know that I am sold on the new stadium happening, though.

wow

Good-at least I know that Ron Mendoza hasn't tried to attack him again. J/K

I alwyas enjoy FFRs opinion, but I noticed that he hasn't posted anything since the Tulsa game--at least nothing that I noticed. I hope that everything is ok. Anyone know what he thought about the game on Saturday--other than the obvious point of the game being repulsive?

SMU will score some on Tech--their defense is still suspect. E.Washington scored 24 on them in Lubbuck. Tech's offense will score on almost all of their possessions, so I will say 66-24 Tech. As for the LSU-UNT game, well, they can name the score. They will score at least 70--bank on that. The hard part about this is the fact that in previous trips down to Baton Rouge, we have scored 1 touchdown--in 3 games. The last time we played there, we scored 3 points. I don't have the energy to look this up, but I believe that the most points we have scored against the Big 3 (UT, OU, and LSU) over the last 10 years has been 10 points. LSU will absolutely annihilate us--no surprise there. But I doubt very seriously that we will score a point down there. I guess we will see. I think LSU wins this 73-0 or something like it. Be prepared for the "We need to fire Dodge" voices to really pick up after this, which is still ridiculous. This thing is gonna take awhile to get turned around. 0-12 or 1-11 are not out of the question.

We were also coming off of our 4th straight conference championship team when we last played them here. Trust me, though, I want you to be right and for us to have 25K or more. That would be great.

How many games have we ever been over 25K for in the history of the stadium since it was added onto in 1994? I think 20K would be great.

Best positive--game is over with no more Big XII teams on the schedule and only one more BCS ass-kicking to take--albeit with a nice check. Other positives--no turnovers, decent running stats, some young guys got experience, SBC play is only about a month away Worst negative--Another season-opening ass-whipping that makes general fan/student look at us as an after-thought (again) Other negatives--The O-line couldn't keep pressure off of Vizza and the rest of the offense just fell flat, defensive line registered little to no pressure We knew that the lines were going to be troublesome, and when mixed with a BCS team (Greenminer alluded to this often leading up to this game), we all pretty much knew that we would have very little chance of competing. Tulsa, although not BCS, is still very good and will give us trouble because their offenses is great. With very little pressure from the defense, Tulsa will score a lot. The good news, though, is that Tulsa's defense is not great, and we will score some points. I think that we all get mad when a name team pounds us, but it is what normally happnes to the non-BCS teams on the road--not always, but normally. Lets see where we are when FIU and ULL come to Denton in October. If we are still having problems after that, then there will be cause for worry. Again, if we win 4 games this season (FIU, ULL, WKU, and another somewhere) that will double our wins from last year. Its gonna take awhile. It is just unfortunate that the stadium vote comes during this year. I fear what happens to this program if this vote goes south again.

Oh, come on--that was so three days ago!! Many folks may have already changed their minds!!

What does everyone think for this weekend's game against K-State? We have just over 2 days before kickoff.

It really bothers me when I hear people say that we should just be like these programs if we could start winning. Both K-State and South Florida had the luxury of already being a part of good conferences when they got their programs going in the right direction. With K-State, they literally needed to show their fans that they wanted to get better. It was so easy to get them whipped into a frenzy when they started winning in OOC as they got ready to play their Big 8 rivals. How easy could it be to get your program really growing fast if you always got Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Colorado to come to town when they were all ranked in the Top Ten at various times along the way? So showing success to their fandom was really all that was needed--they had monied alumni who loved their university. Our situation is just so different from them that to compare the two is not really fair. South Florida's situation was similar to Western Kentucky when they got their program rolling. USF was already in CUSA for all sports but football and when they got good they were doing it against teams that had name recognition. The conference realignment bug really hit them at the perfect time, too. The Big East was barely afloat, but continued to be a BCS conference, so getting a presence in Florida and giving those kids the chance to play for BCS bowl games made their situation almost 180 degrees from ours--the only way it could become comparable is if realignment brought UNT to the Big XII (don't hold your breath). South Florida's administration took advantage of their situation to maximize the potential to become what they have become--a very solid program that has big-time potential. This is what UNT leadership could have done back in the late 70s and early 80s. Instead, we went to I-AA and it has been our albatross ever since.