GrandGreen

Why in the world would anyone from NT want La Tech in the Belt? Other than them being the closest to Denton, what do they add? Forget all their delusional fans and administration, they probably are the biggest direct competitor to NT for recruits. One Northern Louisiana team is enough for me. If you are going after anyone from the WAC, NMSU is the best choice, at least they would up the basketball profile. If you want to go based on potential go UTSA. They like La Tech would be a big recruiting rival but at least games in San Antonio would be better than Ruston. I have stated I like La Tech ability to do a lot with relatively little, but the Belt already has a North Louisiana representative as well as the Cajuns. I see all the Louisiana schools ex LSU having a difficult time as they all depend heavily on state funds. I'm not sure even if La Tech lowered themselves to the Belt level, that they would get the support from the other Belt schools for entrance. UTSA has not played a down of football but being located in one of the largest cities in the USA gives them greater potential than TSSM or La Tech. If I had my preference, I would have the Belt stay as is. The only real reason I see for expansion is to kill the WAC and I'm not sure that is worthwhile and it is certainly not the best of causes.

Not sure what a game like this means, other than the obvious; NT is not a top notch program. Only got to listen, but it sounded like NT was totally intimidated. Not sure what NT was thinking when they scheduled this game, But in the scheme of things, it means little. NT should recover quickly but it is disheartening to know that NT can't compete with the top teams. I would have been happy with a 20 pt or less loss, but NT was non competitive in this one.

You haven't been around long, this would be a close game in the Trilli era.

Can we now stop the crazy NT to WAC discussions? Phillips, Vito and the Bleacher Report all had articles about that possibility recently, despite to any one's knowledge; NT ever showing any interest and it being a very bad idea. Although there are more than a few La Tech fans still singing the WAC praises over the Belt, they have passed from delusional to demented. The WAC will be lucky to even exist in any form in 2012, If I were UTSA or TSSM, I would be rethinking the WAC and maybe even fb division football. Their risk has been magnified at least, and at most their move ups may be in jeopardy. They may have gone too far to turn back but they may want to take a more cautious long term approach then getting involved with the WAC.

Yes, being put on probation for years and probably a non-factor in college football for years won't bother Auburn a bit. Awards that are tainted and will probably be taken away are worth being looked down on by the whole college football world as both a cheater and stupid at it to boot. The NCAA has a history of being lenient to the big boys, but I don't think it is going to be that way this time.

My guess is that Neinas has been working for NT for weeks, probably a verbal deal till they could get full approval. So Canales performance has nothing to do with his hiring, the Neinas agreement was probably made before Canales' first game as head coach. Why would NT terminate Dodge and wait a month before hiring a head hunter, that makes no sense. Canales is definitely a candidate based on his performance, and his success will be based on two factors. How he performs until a decision is made, and what other coaches are valid alternatives. The hiring of Neinas is certainly not positive for Canales no matter when the decision was made. The tendency will be for Neinas to promote his own candidates not someone already here. However, the final decision IMO will be made by Rawlins and I really believe he is going to do what ihe thinks s best for NT football. Secrecy is a component in the decision to use Neinas, but any consultant could provide that function. $40,000 by the way is not a lot of money for a search firm, but NT is paying primarily for his expertise in choosing a hc. HIs involvement tells the football world that NT is serious about this hire. Although it may not be a big signal that confidence in the AD's is lacking, it certainly won't hurt to have Neinas behind the decision when it goes before the board for approval. The Dodge hire was popular at the time, but RV has to live with the results forever.

Very confusing live stats, looks like something so glaring would have been caught and corrected. Good relatively easy win for the girls. Now they go against the mighty MUTS. NT will definitely be the underdog but they can play with this team.

Last night games: Chris Jones had 18 in a Garland Centennial 66 to 54 victory over the Colony. Forrest Robinson had 29 as Eastland won over Early 59-33. Trey Norris led S. Grand Prairie with 17 in a win over Southlake Carrol 61-47. Brandon Walton is averaging 16.6 for 2-3 Casper CC.

Was not a legend, he purchased I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was in the thousands of cheap end zone tickets.

Well another record setting game for the Green. ORU is good but, not that good. This NT team seems to have more depth and some talent but again shows no defense and tons of turnovers. SS's 94 feet of heat was supposed to be by her team, was it not? SS whose trademark was supposed to be a pressing, fast break style; not only can't play it very well; but seems defenseless against teams that can. It is early, but this eight straight road games may be more than they can recover from. At some point, this team has to develop some defense and ball handling.

Winning over losing teams is something NT hasn't been able to do in a long time. Also to downplay those wins you have to be over looking the injury situation at NT. Canales is not a shoo in at this point, but another win and he is going to be very hard to ignore. I have no idea who the other candidates are but it is going to hard to pick another candidate if Canales is 3-1 going into the KSU game. Some of you seem upset that Canales has ignited and obviously as a lot of support among the team and has moved himself into serious contention. If it comes down to Canales versus a name coach on a downward slope, or an assistant with no hc experience than Canales should have an excellent chance.

Only stated the obvious, the game was NT 33 to 34 with about 5 to go in half. It seems most coaches would have at least called a time out to try to stop the momentum. ORU is a good club, but don't give them the game.

Well ORU goes on a 20 to 5 run to end the half, it seems SS could have at least called a time out.

A few late thoughts. NT has looked very suspect against two lower division teams. The score against Henderson State was deceptive, a lot of that point margin occurred late with HS playing their subs. NT also had to start a full court press to get control of the game. Johnson looked great, you would think based on the games this year that he is the returning all conference player. Thompson continues to be the best at creating a shoot and had a good game; not Kansas State good, but he is performing the best of the big three. Shorter kind of disappeared after having a breakout game in the exhibition. Odufuwa and White still looked a little sluggish to me. I think O is finding it a little difficult trying to be the inside scoring force. With A. Williams out, the guard rotation is suspect. Hall did look ok as a walk on, but I hope we don't have to rely on him a lot. By the way you can't compare what Holman, Edwards and Hogans did versus Tremel when Tremiel didn't often or ever play the full 40 minutes. Also NT played at least part of the game with Holmen playing outside. Holmen was much better this game but he didn't come close to making any of his outside shots. Hogans also had a better game, lots of hustle as usual and some great blocks. NT did what it had to win, but doesn't get any style points for this one. The next two games will be very interesting, if they play like they have so far; they will lose both. However, I look for much better play and for White to come up big in the marquee games. On another topic, the crowd other than the kids was terrible. Less than two hundred students and likewise other fans. Enjoyed the kids until they started the wave.

Good win for Stephens and the team. Blowing an 18 point second half lead was not good, but held on at the end. I may be in the minority but I hate those 5 player line changes, Stephens or Jones teams are not that deep. Veterans Godbolt and Kellum had great games, newcomers Nelson and Evans look real good. It is really unfortunate that NT scheduled such a stupid and rough oc schedule with all those away games. If they can survive that, they should have a descent year.

This is fairly common, it is an exhibition game for one team and regular season for another. I would imagine it makes it a lot easier to schedule lower division schools as their official record is not effected.

my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/articleid/387662/newspaperid/1722/Like

Disagree with your point. First, Fry coached until 12 years ago, not exactly in the leather helmet days. How is the world of football totally different these days? I can look back decades and I don't see the big changes you are referring to. The game is basically unchanged. The favored offenses and defenses run in cycles, but the fundamentals are the same. It is my guess that good coaches of old would be good coaches today and the reverse. The ability to lead, motivate and relate to staff, team and fans has always been paramount to success.

It is foolish to put much on an exhibition game, but that doesn't stop me. I am very concerned about the play of NT's bigs. Edwards injured or not did not show anything and Holmen looked like the same player that spend most of the last part of the season on the bench. Knox at least got a few rebounds, but looked slow and lacking confidence. Was Spencer even suited up? Hogans certainly looked a lot better than the others, but he still looks like he would be better coming off the bench. I just cringed when the first thing that both Holmen and Edwards did was shoot a three. NT does not need a post player that can shot 30% on threes, it needs one who can play defense, rebound and score around the basket. I was not surprised but still disappointed that Holmen looks no better than he did last year and the Edwards recruitment still remains a mystery. The guard play is going to be fine and could be even great. Thompson and White did not show much this game, but we know they will be very good. Shorter's offense was a pleasant surprise, he could be a major factor this year. Williams and Johnson both had very solid games. If it was not for lack of depth at the guard spot, I could see NT going to a 4 guard offense. NT is going to be a good team this year, but I still lament last years' lack of recruiting. Yes, there are numbers at the post positions; but with WKU and others adding big good inside players; it is asking a lot of Odufuwa to carry NT in the paint. We will obviously know a lot more in a week, but right now this team seems to be missing a big piece.

What a lackluster effort, a real bad game by the Green. Sure didn't see anybody close to earning Tramiels' minutes. Holmen and Edwards both didn't show anything. White kind of sleepwalked through the game. Good showing by Shorter and Johnson.. Hogans was ok but based on this one game, has not upped his game much. White, Odufuwa, Thompson, Shorter, Williams and Johnson will all be fine, but I am concerned about the other post position.

Generally, basketball signings don't come in all at once like in football. However, this year; I would not be surprised if NT gets all its commits signed early.

I assure you, that you don't want to even think about comparing music schools.

Well I am glad you know my background, besides that if most people waited to be an expert on the subject before discussion than there would not be much conversation. For your information, I was in a high school band and I don't ever remember performing the same half time show at home. I guess the fact that we were younger and not as talented made it easier to do in high school and I just bet we put more time in than most college bands. I have seen some questionable posts before, but yours may be up at the top. I assure you, I don't hate on anybody (I am however, old enough and educated enough to hate that expression); particularly my school's band. I sure hope you are not a member of the band because the comments you expressed are infantile. I always watch the band perform, ( i.e. I don't run out of the stadium at half) and enjoy them, but I would like for them to have more consistently good performances. They always get a good response from the crowd no matter how uninspired their performances are and when they are really good, they are rewarded by the crowd's reaction. Kill the messenger is always a easy response. Again I don't know what smoke and mirrors the Troy Band used, but they totally upstaged the home full band. Anyone in the West stands would have to agree. As an aside, NT used an amped bass guitar in the past and I liked that sound, they have also amped their drum lines on occasions. A traveling college band will always show a lot more spirit than a home band, it is just human nature. If you read their message boards, Troy takes a lot of pride in their band and although they have roughly 1/6 of the enrollment of NT; they do a very good job. Frankly, the point I would like to get across is with all of NT's resources: they should not have just a good marching band; they should be the very best. But it is obvious, that if many have an attitude like you have expressed, that is going to be a long climb. I've been to many of the music schools concerts and there are few even at the profession level that can compete with the talent there. The focus is on quality music. A football venue is entirely different, the focus is always on the game. The band or bands IMO add greatly to the atmosphere but the majority did not come to hear the music. Loud and playing popular music with enthusiasm is going to trump musical technique and skill every time.

I highly doubt Leach would have any interest in NT and likewise that NT would want him. As you point out, a guy out of coaching less than a year from a job making $2m+ is not likely to jump at a Belt job. Conversely, I can't imagine too many schools and AD's wanting to deal with Leach. There are not many out there like Gerald Myers who would take on both Leach and Bobby Knight. However, to imply that NT is some how not worthy of Leach is baseless. Someone will eventually hire Leach who is desperate for wins and I think he will once again be successful, however he is far from a hot commodity.

I have a problem with this thread and many others that seem to want to debate the head coach origin more than the coach himself. History at NT as well as in general will illustrate that great coaches come from almost all backgrounds; assistant, smaller college programs, recently fired, from current staff, and experienced head coaches. NT's last hire was from one of the few along with never coached anywhere that have an almost non-existent success rate. One of Plum's posts enumerated all of recent hires except Fry as being failures. It definitely was not his purpose, but it illustrated how difficult it is to hire a star and how no path is sure. Tyler and Fry were fired hcs, both with a few great years. Simon was a journeyman assistant, Moore a promising assistant at Nebraska and Nelson & Dickey young coordinators at near by programs. Parker another failed high school experiment that actually did much better than Dodge. There is one universal connections between all the aforementioned coaches at NT, they all had to work for substandard salaries and with substandard resources. Even Nelson whose career was primarily at the fc level was hired as a fb division coach as was Parker who was hired at the fc level but was supposed to lead NT back to big time football. That means that they came from a relatively limited pool of candidates. Although, not at the top of even non-AQ universities; NT has a lot more to offer this time around. A coaches salary structure that is not rock bottom but should be competitive with the majority of the non-AQ's, likewise highly competitive facilities at that level and most importantly a school administration that believes that NT's performance in athletes is an important part of the University mission to become one of the premier institutions. Perhaps within these parameters it will not take a miracle worker to be a success at NT. NT can cast a wider net with better bait than it has ever had but the coaching decision is still paramount. It is in fact too important to limit to any one experience group of applicants, so it is imperative to look at the best individuals available. Charismatic young upward mobile young coaches, experienced and successful journeyman assistants, and guys with good head coaching background. NT needs that perfect combination of someone who has the fire and drive to build and sell a program but also the skill and experience to make it happen.