FirefightnRick

Got it. It just didn't seem correct standing there seeing the ball brought back so far. It felt like the personal foul facemask, which occured out of bounds would have been ruled as a dead-ball foul negating the offsetting, but the whistle wasn't that quick to call him out yet I suppose. Possibly that was what our coaches were argueing over. It cerainly doesn't seem fair, otherwise you can continue to tee off with late hits, yank a face mask or whatever if you see the first foul occur after post-possession, and actually get away with a free foul if the interception is advanced your way from the 1st foul, which they did? The block in the back was incidental at best due to the quick action of the interception and the reciever, and I believe Jamal Branch, collided in a way that it looked as if Jamal might have gotten the back half of the recievers shoulder . But the face mask was really bad and Weathers was lucky he wasn't severely injured. Rick

Anyone see this in the paper? http://www.onepeat.com/index.html Seems like their leaving off Utah and Auburn in there on the Billboard as well but still pretty funny to go to such lengths to stick it to another school? Says the Billboard will go up next to USC's campus. Rick

Good news. I look forward to seeing Esteban play a tune on the MUTS offense next season. Rick

YES. Wouldn't even think twice about it. Rick

The Malt Shop is the F5's fav too. Excellent, thick chocolate malts made with homemade ice cream. Rick

I saw the Emerald Express make some blocks on the West's second possession and his kickoff return was for 19 yards. But I assume his catch and run was in the 4th? I didn't get the vcr programmed right when the game was live, so I recorded the rerun of it at midnight, and they freakin skipped all but the last couple of minutes of the 4th. Rick

As I stated earlier: The banquet was pretty good, food was good and coach Dickey, George Dunham and RV did a very good job presenting the awards and speaking positively about the program. Not an easy thing considering the past season. I have no idea which recruits were there. We got to watch some of the Hula bowl on the big screens prior to the program starting. According to the team, coaches and the program overall, Andrew Smith's jersey is now retired and will never be worn at NT again. They then presented Andrews' parents with his jersey. It was a very moving night concering the loss of Andrew, and his parents seemed surpised by it all with what was said and presented. DD's comments were very emotional and brought a lot into perspective. Mrs. Smith said Andrew loved NT, it was where he wanted to be. Very few of the seniors were in attendance. During one of the funnier parts of his presentation DD called me out in mentioning that he had an apology to make concerning tortilla gate. He said earlier in the season the AD dept had decided that we would not throw torts, that we only threw them when we scored a TD, and considering we didn't score a TD for so long that people had forgotten the rules once we did scorre 6 or so games into the season and that was why the mess occured. LOL! Overall it was a fun night and I'm excited about Spring ball, which starts Mon, Feb 13th, and runs through the spring game which will be Thursday 6 p.m., March 9th. Rick

Tonight at the banquet I got a chance to ask the coaching staff what on earth happened at LSU on the interception we got that ended in a horrible face-mask call, that we ended up declining, forcing me and everyone around us, including all LSU fans scratching their heads? We intercepted the ball and immediately a block in the back occured, and was called on North Texas. Aaron Weathers I believe intercepted the ball, took the pick up field and out of bounds on the LSU end of the field and nearly got his neck broke as he was yanked out of bounds to the ground by his face mask. The SEC zebras converge for several minutes then announce both calls, and that NT had declined the personal foul face mask on LSU. Then stated, it was NT's ball 25 yards back up field and behind where the interception occured. They went to the spot of the foul, then marked off 10 yards more against NT. I started to pull my hair out for sure. As it turned out, the zebra's told our coaching staff in a very confusing manner that someow if North Texas kept the penalty it would result in giving LSU the ball back, stating that the block in the back occured prior to possession recieved from the pick? So our coaches declined the face mask. I have understood all along that if the block in the back, or as it would have been correctly called "Pass Interferance" would have been offsetting with the face mask, but there wasn't a soul in the stadium that would have seen it that way, Pre-possession pass interferance. It was clearly after the pick so I had always wonderd what in the heck was the call there. The Sunbelt refs were not the only ones to have a down year. Rick

Hey, I got Booger to sign his after a game, and then realized his mom was standing there. I apologized about 3 times to her and she laughed it off, said no problem. Uncomfortable moment for FFR. Rick

The banquet was pretty good, food was good and coach Dickey, George Dunham and RV did a very good job presenting the awards and speaking positively about the program. Not an easy thing considering the past season. I have no idea which recruits were there. We got to watch some of the Hula bowl on the big screens prior to the program starting. According to the team, coaches and the program overall, Andrew Smith's jersey is now retired and will never be worn at NT again. They then presented Andrews' parents with his jersey. It was a very moving night concering the loss of Andrew, and his parents seemed surpised by it all with what was said and presented. DD's comments were very emotional and brought a lot into perspective. Mrs. Smith said Andrew loved NT, it was where he wanted to be. Very few of the seniors were in attendance. During one of the funnier parts of his presentation DD called me out in mentioning that he had an apology to make concerning tortilla gate. He said earlier in the season the AD dept had decided that we would not throw torts, that we only threw them when we scored a TD, and considering we didn't score a TD for so long that people had forgotten the rules once we did scorre 6 or so games into the season and that was why the mess occured. LOL! Overall it was a fun night and I'm excited about Spring ball, which starts Mon, Feb 13th, and runs through the spring game which will be Thursday 6 p.m., March 9th. Rick

Good point. And since someone has added some good advice, allow me to also remind you to slow down on the road as it will be slicker than owl you know what the first couple of hours. Although it represents job security for me I'll never understand why people forget this fact when it rains for the first time in a long while? Rick

That's a great, freakin article. Thanks Silver for finding that. SO EXTREMELY DEAD ON! Thank you Ritchie Witt. And my favorite: Your wrong Mr. Aikman, it's a winners state! Rick

For me I would pitch the talent that we currently have in the NFL instead of what we can win here, but offensively, other than Waters at KC, that's not going to help much. Look at Miami OH, Marshall, ULL and other schools that have placed some of the top QB's currently playing in the NFL. These schools can go after a broader range of offensive talent because of that. At least it seems to me they could? I wished we would change offensive systems because of this, and because of a few others of course like boringness...blah blah blah Rick

Dick Webber Classic I know it's a strange post, but I thought of you my friend, last weekend while watching the Dick Webber Classic on ESPN2. Norm Duke is my fav, but I like Machuga's style as well. I really thought the way Duke took him down so easily he would go further than he did. I meant to ask you last weekend if you watched it but forgot. We don't get to watch much bowling on TV these days. I love the sport and have been taking the F5 whenever I can. As luck would have it, I have to drive to Mineral Wells to go to the nearest alley since they closed the one down here in Weatherford many years ago. I would love to have a classic style, Mean Green bowling shirt but I'm certain, as I always have to do with everything else, I'd have to make the damn thing myself? Rick

That's funny E. I keep reminding the tU followers I know to hang onto all that garbage their buying up in the stores because when OU lay's another big one on them some time in the future I want to see them wearing it then, as they are today. Rick

Funny you mentioned that, my father-in-law(Retired FWFD) was telling me last weekend about the 5 year drought of the 50's. Crazy! Rick

91, how long did you say it took to get the tags after ordering them? Mine(NT WINS) are on the way. Rick

No reason to sweat this too much. TxSt lost their starting tailback to graduation so they probably told this kid he could come right in and possibly start? The guy they lost finished 5th in conference in rushing. Their QB, Nealy, happened to finish 1st in rushing in the conference. You think they mentioned that to the recruit when they brought up the type of system they use? Rick

Wow, Big Mo? That guy was probably one of our last best ball-handling big guys. If you got the ball to him he alway's seemed to work to the inside with the dribble better than most. Beautiful touch off the glass as I remember? He was the SLC freshman of the year, then had grade and health problems and ended up leaving NT early. Last I had heard he went to Europe to ply pro? Good to hear his boys are doing good. Rick

Yeah, if you'll go back and re-read my post your so upset over, you will see that I admitted to that, eliminating you having to. I knew I would get a historical perspective of your team if I said ANYTHING. STUPID ME? Congrats, now there's about 10 of us that know about them and I'll do my best to try and spread the word! THANK YOU. Rick

It's just my oppinion.. Not sure I understand that part of your post about an "inferiority chip" CE? My chip is bigger than yours And yes, there are some who I do ignore, and others I don't. Just because I post about it here doesn't mean a thing. But I do have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to the Mean Green. Anyone who riticises my Mean Green can expect it right back. We all need a little more of a "chip" on our shoulders I suppose? Thanks for the info GATOR. So even North Texas has had a RUN at the dance more previous than UALR has? Hmmm. With that, I stand by what I said in the first place, that you would have a hard time finding many around the DFW area that know about ARLR's basketball program. We all do, because we are in their conference. WE, are also the team in Denton that has around 1,200 people or less, showing up on average the past few years. If we only have that many who know about our own team, and look at our numbers who showed up for the tournement last year, then how many do you truly think gives a rats behind about Ark Little Rock? Very very few. It's my oppinion. If you don't agree with it too bad. Rick

Yeah, and plumbers need to stay out of the rest room too? A simple I disagree will do. What year was that run without looking it up? What's the name of the coach with the hot wife? You don't remember or you would have stated it. I got up this morning at the station and three people hit me with cracks about NT playing D2 because they've never heard of Arkansas Little Rock. "When does North Texas start conference?". Football recognition in the Belt is bad enough. The other sports is worse, and getting blown out by a Belt basketball team is even that much worse. Again, crappy loss to a ZERO name program. Rick

We were down by 19 at one point in the second half. Crappy loss to a team in which, you could drive 100 miles in any direction of Denton and be hard pressed to find anyone who knew there even was an Arkansas Littlerock, much less know anything about their basketball team. Of course, you could probably do the same around Littlerock about NT as well? Rick

Don't forget Jesse Ratliff, one of two NT athletes to ever have SI's player of the week. Rick

We have the biggest window of opportunity in years to make some noise that would be heard throughout the country this coming September. We need to take advantage of it. Rick