Green Otaku

Great info and reps all around to those who posted. SUMG that is some great backstory, wow.

I should have said decent, and yes at least well known. I'd still much rather play them as well as teams like New Mexico/WKU than some of the teams we've scheduled in the past. When did Texas come the Denton? I was curious to when that was and couldn't find it listed.

We gave up the last two years of conference revenue in CUSA and it wouldn't make sense to still be making anything from that conference after we left. I am curious on what our AAC situation is. From what I understand is we would be getting half shares, so $3.5M. What I have heard is that the AAC will also take a cut out of that as an entrance fee. This article sites that our revenue is rumored to be $2M a year: https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-the-aac-close-to-massive-6-school-expansion-to-reshape-conference-014015069.html This article that sites that one says: https://www.agent49.net/the-charlotte-49ers-are-american-athletic-conference-bound/ Also the half shares are just media payouts, not total conference revenue from NCAA credits, CFP distribution, and other payouts. I tried to find a UNT document that had that listed last year, but could only find fiscal year 2023. It seems UNT does things from Jan. to Dec. for reporting? https://meangreensports.com/documents/2024/1/11/2023_NCAA_Financial_Report.pdf Page 26 says we had $0 in media rights, but page 28 says we had $1.13M in conference distributions. I did however find a UAB document that covers 2023-24 that had $3.5M figure, but I'm unsure if that is conference distribution. Page 48: https://www.uab.edu/financialaffairs/images/documents/reporting/Budget_Summary_Book_FY24.pdf

I didn't say elite, we aren't ever getting those types of teams in Denton unless they are forced to come here like Virginia in the NIT. It's still a step up from the LSU Shreveports and Angelo States we've been scheduling. The bar is pretty low, which is sad.

Finally some welcome news, credit to the AD where it is due. Very good opponent, and happy for this series.

QBs and linemen are the crucial building blocks. Let's hope we've improved on both.

Commendable to admit an error, not often it happens on the internet today. Respect.

I've been assuming that it really means we don't have the money to bring teams here, otherwise our department is really poor at negotiating. People argue that we are a tough team to play at home, but at the same time not good enough to lose to. Those two things contradict each other. Like you said other teams that have been worse and better have no problem filling out their schedules. My post on the previous page highlights the types of teams that we should be getting in the Pit, since our conference mates can.

You have to give him at least the full 2nd season to see what he can do. Even as someone who thinks this year is crucial.

UTSA was 4-8 the year before Traylor took over, the year before that they were 3-9. When Traylor takes over they go 7-4 in conference for 2020. Contrast that with UNT going 7-5 in conference the year before Morris takes over, but going 5-7 his 1st season. If anyone did not inherit a bad team it was Morris.

I get it's a lot of money. I just wonder what the threshold of the fanbase/department is? 3-9? 2-10? I'll refrain from continuing to hammer the woes with Caponi until we see how they look this year. IMO Morris really needs a much improved defense or this will be a huge red flag about his ability as a head coach.

Fingers crossed, we need some good news coming out of the scheduling front.

Another 5-7 season and Morris should be gone. We don't have the time to waste on a third year to "see what happens."

For a quality opponent to come to the Pit.

I was hoping for Herman or Fuente. I thought UNT needed a name hire this time around and not an up-and-comer. IIRC THE highest paid assistant in G5.

Hell of a coach too. I wouldn't mind of we hired him on for a 2nd tenure.

We are punching bellow our weight with the amount of students and alumni we have. Agreed on the marketing, the other thing is people need to have something to cheer for. People don't turn out because the reputation of the football team is poor, but when they did have something good we did see fans show up. I think back to the LA Tech game under Littrell, it was the first time I genuinely thought there was a positive buzz around the team, then we took that momentum and rammed it into the ground, and never recovered. We need multiple years of that kind of success to make people change their attitudes about FB.

You do know the term isn't literal right? What I said in quotes, "commuter school stigma." noun: stigma; plural noun: stigmas; plural noun: stigmata 1. a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. "the stigma of having gone to prison will always be with me" We can't get away from acting like a commuter school, not that there are literally no dorms on the campus. 45,000 students and 324,000 alumni in DFW, but we can't fill a 30k stadium?

No doubt that having Law and Medicine on campus would be a good boost. The school of Business has 9,000 students, and 2,012 graduates. That's not a small number. So I ask again if these majors are sure fire supporters then there should be plenty of them going to games and donating money, right? "Mattress Mack" is one of the notable UNT business alumni, does he donate to the school? The School of Business has been around for nearly 80 years, they should have plenty of donors to pull from. Like I said the School of Liberal Arts & Social Science and the School of Music only make up 27% of the graduates, you can find the numbers in the PDF I linked above. Music is small, it only graduated 362. Your last sentence is the real answer. UNT can't shake the commuter school stigma and struggles to get donations/fan support across the entire campus. It doesn't help that the FB team dropped to 2A, and outside of the run Dickey made there has been no sustained success. We have had no fan building momentum in 2 decades.

Engineering school was founded in 2003, that's over two decades, plural. Before that other engineering programs were offered: I'm not going to say our school has a crazy depth of alumni like some other schools, but days of UNT being a simple teacher's college and music school have been gone for a while. My main point is that people using the "art and music kids don't like sports" doesn't make statistical sense. Those students are outnumbered nearly 3 to 1.

I'm a film major, yet here I am as well. That hasn't been true for quite some time. I'll give you Law since that has been around a 10 years only, the other schools have been around for decades. The school of Business has been around since the 40s, there is no shortage of alumni that the school has produced. The reality is people like to use this excuse without any real facts. From the numbers here, the number of graduates should closely match the size of schools. https://institutionalresearch.unt.edu/images/factbook_dair_2022-2023.pdf Taking the graduation numbers on page 36 and 37, UNT gave out 10,946 degrees in 2022. Even if you combined the School of Liberal Arts and Music that's only 27% of students. Are you really telling me the other 73% care about athletics? Where are those other thousands of students and alumni? The reality is we have low fan engagement across the board from years of mediocrity and no sustained success.

If this theory were true wouldn't there be a strong core of business and other "sports loving" majors that have been fans for decades? Where are they?

This is the answer, poor pick after poor pick for head coach have wasted decades and countless fans. Littrell was close, but ultimately didn't get there. All of the teams you named invested, brought in great hires, and made big runs to improve their reputations. If Morris fails, we need to open up the checkbook and get a real name head coach, or poach someone like JMU had last year.

Agree, and I theorize it's one of two things. 1. The AD schedules soft so the teams can rack up wins and inflate their record. They are trying to build the fan base by showing we have "good teams" that win, hoping people don't care about who we play. 2. They AD is strapped for money and doing things on a shoe string budget, or they are horrible at negotiating.

Perhaps, but people forget if things start to get dicey these conferences have the power to dial it back. They will adjust the rules and payouts to keep things going. If revenue does start to lower they will adjust and keep the golden goose going, at least they will if they are smart.