SilverEagle

....how can I forget.

Those are probably the same people that believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. On a lighter note. If the sports world gets any crazier, North Texas might actually have an OCC win this fall........... ........ to continue the lyrics There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware

I'm not touting him as a starter. But he went through the whole spring without injury (or getting his bell rung etc), and he took hits just like all the other RBs. I believe that Maldonado is listed as being 171 lbs. I don't know what his forty time is, but I'm guessing that it must be pretty close to 4.4, otherwise the coaching staff would not have allowed him to walk-on. He was offensive player of the year at Sachse HS in 2004 (a 5-A school). In the early drills, he was firing through the line just as quickly as Robertson. BTW, I believe that there is a pro RB from Oklahoma who is about 5'6". And furthur. In 1981, the North Texas team leader for all-purpose yards was Carlen Charleston (#42 on your program). His total was 947 yards (run 420, rec 94, rtn 433). In the 2002 media guide, Carlen Charleston was listed as #6 all time in total career yards (2997 total). That puts him ahead of such players as John Love, Bernard Jackson, Leo Taylor, Erric Pegram, Troy Redwine, Ron Shanklin, Hut Allred, Barry Moore, and Malcom Jones. Carlen Charleston was actually 5'5" X 155lbs. Part of his jersey number was tucked down into his pants, and his name on his jersey drooped on each end because it did not fit across the back of his shoulder pads. Do I have to dig out that old saying about a dog fight? Of course, all this discussion may be moot since the coaching staff has demonstrated a propensity to invite players to walk-on, and even when those players out-perform some of the "ship" players (Scott Wissel last spring comes to mind), they don't invite them back to walk-on in the fall.

Ok, lets review the situation. If, and that's a big IF Ja-Mo were not available to play this fall then the team will be in capable hands. I would guess that either (and possibly both) Devin Cox or James Mitchell (remember him? he got 166 yrds in 04 when Ja-Mo couldn't go against Ark-St.) would start at RB. Kerona Henderson would start at FB. After that, I would use either Evan Robertson or Joshua Moldonado.

“We have three guys we feel good about and a fourth guy who shows flashes of doing things, but at times shows he has a long ways to go, and that’s Jonathan,” UNT coach Darrell Dickey said. “ First of all. That's a charitable assessment. Second of all. Assuming that it's accurate, that's what you say about someone in their freshman year....or RS freshman year. This guy is still hanging around, while the coaching staff didn't bother to invite Scott Wissle to walk-on last fall (after a very good spring) when he was clearly a better QB than Ieans.....and Haynes too for that matter. That reminds me. What happened to Kellen Haynes?

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Wilson. However, throwing the occasional long TD pass is not what leadership is all about. I'm hoping that whoever steps out on the field to play QB this fall against Texas has it all together as a leader. The TD's, via passes or otherwise, will then follow.

......confirms the observation that I already made. But then, no one ever listens to me.... ............... ......

What concerns me these days is that we don't seem to have athletic personnel that want to (or are able to) get out into the public to share their vision about North Texas athletics. I rememeber when Hayden Fry took over (yes, I'm going to bring him up again, so all you younger people stop rolling your eyes). One of the first things he did was call a "town meeting" in one of the main auditoriums and invited everyone to attend. Hayden shared his vision of North Texas athletics with the crowd, and he talked about what he was going to do. He then talked about ways in which the student body, faculty, and anyone else who wanted to get on board, could help. He then went on a speaking tour of Denton County to do the same thing. I don't remember that Corky did the same thing, but he did make some speaking appearances in the community, and was more than willing to talk to any group that invited him to make a presentation. I'm not sure that North Texas will ever "drive a Cadillac". But we will never even drive a mid-sized Buick if we don't start getting out into the community and getting more involvement from the community. We also need to get more "bang for our buck" when it comes to hiring people.

OR! It could be cultural inertia. Just like the object that will continue along it's path until enough force is applied to change it's direction. The same thing happens with cultures, families, and individual habits. The "We-just-want-to-be-the-best-little-teacher's-college-and-we-don't-need-anymore-money-for-athletics-than-we-already-have" mentality that has gone on for decades (even before Dr. Matthews) at North Texas hasn't had enough force applied to it (and for a sufficient amount of time) to change it's direction. ...or it could be a conspiracy.

The Green trailer hitches are finished and they look GREAT! I have mine, and Rick has the rest. If I knew how to down-load a digital picture onto this site, I would post one.

I liked U LaLa's stadium. Their tailgating is great. Air Force has a pretty nice stadium. I hope the earth opens and swallows it up, ..........but it's nice.

Decent? Wissle out performed two of the QB's who are currently on a "ship".....especially the one that was/is about 6 or 7 inches taller than Mr. Wissle. Of course, everyone (including the coaches obviously) likes to talk about (and salavate over) bigger players and what great potential those players have, and they ignore the ones that are out there actually getting it done....like Mr. Wissle did last sping.

Casey Fitzgerald (#87) from Red Oak made a very strong run at not only making the team, but hopefully getting some playing time. I don't think I saw him miss one pass that was thrown to him (of course, I wasn't watching the whole time), but the most impressive part of his game yesterday was the "YAC". Now, either this guy is the most underrated, hardest working receiver out there, or our defense lapsed into some pretty sloppy tackling yesterday. Considering his tenacity after he catches the ball, I'd give him a look at punt and kick-off returns. This young man really wants to play football for us. I agree with Mad Hatter about Burruss (#89). That guy is making a case for getting into the DL rotation. He's listed as 252, but he looks a bit heavier than that to me. I'm also impressed with Gillmore (#9) and his pass rushing/blocking abilities. Some of us on the sidelines were salavating over the thought of Burruss (6'7" and every bit of it BTW) and Gilmore (6'5") being in on obvious passing downs this fall. And then, shortly after that discussion we see Jonathan Stewart (#61) crash in and swat a pass down. Stewart is listed as 6'2", but I think he looks a little taller than that. Anyway, If the classification that is listed by each player reflects their eligibility this fall, then we will have Burruss for two more seasons, and Gilmore for three. If Willie Ransom and Jeremiah Chapman (our DE starters last year) fully recover from their off-season "proceedures", then we are very well stocked at the DE position. In the DL yesterday, I was seeing a lot of Joseph Miller, Jonathan Stewart, and David Adams. Adams is listed as 5'10" X 265, but he looked more like 275 to me. The DL was not being pushed around yesterday. I'm very encouraged by that, since we need them to be pretty solid this fall. I hope that Sky Pruitt is working hard in the off season. The aforementioned players will really be pushing him this fall. Plus, there are some very talented freshman coming in this fall in the DL. I hope we can red shirt them all. As far as the QB's are concerned, if we lined up against UT (central campus) tomorrow, I would rate the QB's this way. Based on emphasizing the "read-option" offense 1. Wilson, 2. Meager, 3. Phillips. If we are going to try and mix it up evenly between run/pass, then I would rate them as 1. Wilson 2. Phillips, 3. Meager. Based on what I saw of the QB's in the early days of practice I would rate Prince pretty even with Meager with Prince having a slight edge in the passing department. In the OL, Venegas was not suited up. I didn't see Stanley being inserted in his spot however. I still see Stanley playing with the 2nd group. The 2nd group is looking pretty good though. We are going to be pretty deep in the OL this fall. I had a chance to meet Robert Peachy at the BBQ after the scrimmage. He confirmed that , right now, he's playing at about 285 (instead of the 270 listed on the roster). This young man can easily play at 300 or 305. RB's The only fully healthy RB's are James Mitchell, Kerona Henderson, James Thokey (#34) and Joshua Maldonado (#39). Ja-Mo and Devin Cox were out there playing, but it was evident that they were not running at 100%. Evan Robertson is still out with a ankle injury. It must be more serious than first thought, because Ja-Mo hurt his ankle last week but is still out there playing. James Mitchell got off a very long TD run, as did Joshua Moldonado. Ja-mo ripped-off a long run, but was caught from behind. I don't think that I saw Kerona Henderson carry the ball even once yesterday. I just don't understand that. And before someone lectures me about our running scheme, I do understand that we are primarily a running team, and that just about everyone out there is supposed to be a blocker for the RB. But (IMHO) part of what makes a running game successful, is the defense knowing that either back could hurt you, and not knowing with 100% certainty who's going to get the ball. The TE's were not doing well yesterday. Someone really needs to step-up/get healthy......whatever the issue is. From the video presentation after the scrimmage it is apparent that this class will have some very good athletes. If the TE situation doesn't greatly improve by this fall's practice, then (IMHO) we could see a freshman out there.

I can't argue with you about that. But since you are talking about history, you might have mentioned some of the reasons why "giving" to the athletic program is not at the level of some other schools. GreyEagleOne (or some others) can confim some of this (or adjust the information), but until Hayden Fry arrived there was no mean green club, nor anything like it. It has been stated that Dr. Matthews even discouraged such an organization, even when some greenbackers talked about starting one back in the Joe Greene days. Fry was shocked to find this out when he arrived, and began organizing the mean green club (or whatever it was called back then). To add to this, GreyEagleOne has also mentioned that it was his understanding that Odus Mitchell also didn't want such an organization. Mainly because he didn't want alumni telling him how he should run his football team. When Hayden Fry left, the "Fry haters" (aka the "Old nesters") took back control of the athletic dept, and anything that smacked of Fry was frowned upon. This was the group who's only official response to the Hayden Fry era was "Fry left the University 1Mil in debt". In fact, that is the final and basically only statement about the Fry era in the updated (for the University's Centenniel celebration) "Story of North Texas" by Dr. James Rogers. As an indication of how far we have to go, the University has only recently started seriously checking student ID's when they come into the games. I believe that other Universities, whom we would like to be like some day, charge their students to get into games. When I was attending North Texas in the mid-70's most of the student body had an "entitlement" attitude. They wanted the University to give them many more goods and services than their tuition and student services fees could possibly have covered. From what I've seen of the current student body, that "entitlement" attitude hasn't changed much.....and the University obviously isn't doing much to change that attitude either.

I like the photo taken with the sun setting behind the press box. I think it was taken at the NMSU game a couple of years ago.

....let me remind everyone (for the umpteenth time) that we used to BE a 1-AA program. Now, if losing to a 1-AA team would kill the fan base, then what would being a 1-AA program do? From the early to mid- 50's until 1981 North Texas played D-1 football. In all that time of D-1 football we never sold out Fouts......even with such famous players as Abner Haynes, Spider Lockhart, John Love, Steve Ramsey, Ronnie Shanklin, Cedric Hardeman and Joe Greeene playing there. Our first sell-out at Fouts was as a 1-AA program against SFA! So obviously being 1-AA didn't matter THAT much to the casual North Texas fan. Now, I am NOT advocating that we drop back into division 1-AA (some have already argued that we are already there in the SBC). SO, here's a test in logical thinking folks. We had a smaller enrollment and alumni base back then, so since we sold out Fouts for the first time ever, being a 1-AA school obviously didn't kill the fan base. We also didn't have the game day experience (tailgating etc) back then that we now have. So then what is/are the real difference maker(s) in motivating the casual fan to come out and watch North Texas football?* *hint* it starts with a W and the other starts with a P......

I'd like to know which NTSU game that is. I hope it's a certain favorite game of mine in 1978 .

The alumni vs varsity spring game in the late 60's was my only opportunity to see Abner Haynes play in person. I believe that it was at that same spring game that I first saw Steve Ramsey and Ronnie Shanklin. I think that Corky Nelson put on the last alumni vs varsity spring game.

....and more to the point, which of those is a more attractive draw for the casual/fence-riding NT alum who is trying to decide how to spend his/her entertainment dollar during the fall? As my son (a UNT grad) pointed out (when I was talking about our four bowl wins) "how many of those bowl games did we win? When was the last time we beat a D-1 team that amounted to a hill of beans?" Having said that, I tend to believe that we need to get some OCC wins any way we can.....and that includes scheduling some 1-AA schools.

.....and what do we know about Mr. Chamberlain?

After watching practice last week, as well as the scrimmage Saturday, I'd rate B-Jax ahead of Mr. Nwigwe. I don't know if B-Jax has more straight-ahead speed, but I do know that B-Jax is a threat to turn any pass into a significant YAC play.

Sounds like Coach Malone is quite the opportunist.

Jack, you address a potential long term issue in this post regarding scheduling "big-time" opponents coming to Fouts. Your surcharge is the immediate (and potentially long term) solution to this issue. I firmly believe that if we are going to get "name" opponents to come to Denton then we are going to have to pay for the game. Jack's suggestion is $25 for the BYU game. Keeping in mind that students get in free, and allowing for 10K students, we would make $500,000 on ticket sales. If we bump it up to $30 per ticket, then the the gate is $600,000. Two issues come to mind. 1. compared to going to Oklahoma, Texas and LSU and paying their prices, $25 & $30 per ticket is a bargain. 2. Early speculation about our new stadium was that the capacity would be anywhere from 28K to 32K. So, unless we build a new stadium with at least a capacity of 45 to 50K, we are always going to have to look at the issue of raising the price of tickets in order to get "name" opponents to Fouts. And IMHO, even if we do build a stadium with a 45 to 50K capacity we will still be looking at raising the ticket prices....so we might as well start now. Again, $25 to $30 per ticket to get a "BYU" to Fouts is a bargain.

If the faculty really believes that athletics negatively affects their pocketbooks, then they should see what would happen if it went away at North Texas. Can you say lay-offs of teaching staff?