SilverEagle

Worse players? You mean players that play worse? Or do you mean players that make worse decisions and get us more penalties? If disciplining a player this year means we are forced to play WORSE players, then God help us next year. Because if Dickey is NOT going to demand that players be more disciplined on the field, then he's certainly not going to require (expect ?) them to work in the off season to make themselves better players.

I know that I can find stuff at various stores around Denton. But my point is that the McNeese St's and Nichols St's of the world are making themselves "accessable" to ol'joe 6-pack" and we need to do the same. We also need to make our product available to the "casual" North Texas fan/alumni who lives in the metroplex, but isn't particularly motivated to drive up to the Denton Mall to buy a hat or sweatshirt.

In the case of players like Michael Pruitt and possibly T.J. Covington, that may be true. However, "improving quickly" usually involves a four or five game "learning curve" for most JUCO's. As I've pointed out before, Ransom didn't make his presence known until about the fourth or fifth game. BTW, doesn't it seem odd that this article came out when we've been talking about this (recruitment, or the lack thereof) for the last two weeks? Looks like someone in the sports writing profession reads this board and finds some of our points credible enough to write an article about.

So, I'm looking through the usual array of post-Thanksgiving ads and I come across the one for Academy (sports and outdoor). I'm thumbing thru it and come to a page that has "NCAA SWEATSHIRTS" (page 4 btw). Now, I'm used to seeing the "usual suspects" being offered (most B-12 and SEC schools) but the "others" really pi$$ed me off! Other NCAA sweatshirts listed in the Academy ad..... Tulsa, McNEESE, NICHOLS ST, UAB, LAMAR, ULL, JACKSON (I assume Jackson St.) LA TECH. So, I can go the my local Academy sports and outdoor store and buy ANY of the sweatshirts list above and I CANNOT BUY A NORTH TEXAS SWEATSHIRT?!?!?

I'm not aware of Joe Greene applying for any college coaching positions. I seem to remember reading in the newspaper at the time that Bob Tyler was let go and/or fired, that University officials had contacted Joe Greene about the head coaching job and he politely declined. You have to have at least a Bachelor's degree to coach at the college level. Many coaches do not have a masters. In reviewing the press guide for 2002, I noticed that only about half of the North Texas coaching staff have Masters degrees. Dickey was not one of them. So, if Eric Pegram has his Bachelors degree, then he is able to coach at the college level. I'm still a bit skeptical however. Being a personal trainer doesn't mean you would be a great, or even good coach.

National TV?

You are going to have a difficult time selling North Texas to a freshman who thinks that UT is great. I would suggest that you make sure that he notices the "dancers" (bring binoculars if you have to) and tell him that they (the dancers) are a "pretty good" representation of the female population at North Texas. Keeping him away from the Eagle Angels (at least this year) is probably a good idea.

Sweet!

I guess not anymore. I was looking on their site for hats and found what looked like a pretty good black hat. Of course, Rick and I could have had a better one made for them, but they declined. I'm being told that another vendor sends them e-mails wanting to make stuff for them, but he gets no response from them at all. Not even a "thanks but no thanks".

I would LOVE to have a jacket like that. I'm wondering why the Exes don't get the same people to produce a similar jacket for the Exes.

At least before half-time anyway.

Since we all seem to agree that our greatest weakness this year is in BOTH sides of the line, here is what I found in the latest program. Returning starters (and back-ups) OL Joel Foster, 6-4 X 268 Josh Alexander 6-3 X 282 Adam Venegas (?) 6-3 X 305 Chad Rose 6-3 X 285 Dylan Lineberry 6-3 X 310 Frank Gray 6-1 X 285 Jeremy Brown, 6-5 X 299 Waiting in the wings ? Ajani Banks, 6-3 X 325 Brian Amacker, 5-11 X 267 Drew DuBose, 6-2 X 244 Bryan Glass, 6-0 X 280 Jack Crumes, 6-4 X 270 Now DL Joseph Miller, 6-3 X 275 (DL) Sky Pruitt, 6-2 X 295 (DL) Montey Stevenson 6-2 X 267 (DL) Jeremiah Chapman 6-4 X 245 (DE) Blake Burruss, 6-7 X 252 (DE) Willie Ransom, 6-3 X 250 (DE) Waiting in the wings ? David Collins, 6-4 X 210 (DE) Jonathan Stewart, 6-2 X 260 (DL) Chad Cooley, 6-2 X 228 (DE) Robert Peachy, 6-5 X 270 (DL) Issac Thomas, 5-11 X 290 (DL) T.J. Raymond, 6-2 X 310 (DL) Coming back???? Chase Pistole, 6-3 X 260 (DL) Raifu Durodoye 6-1 X 237 (DE) The average weight of our RETURNING OL starters is 290. The average weight of our "waiting in the wings" OL is 277! If you took out Banks (who is 325), then it's 265! The average weight of our RETURNING INTERIOR DL (minus T.J. because we don't know if he will be back) is 279 lbs!!! The average weight of our "waiting in the wings" INTERIOR DL is 270! Recruitment wise, I don't call this progress. We either have to get these guys serious about working out in the weight room during the off-season, or we need to pick up LOTS OF BEEF during the next round of recruitment.

I totally agree.

I think that it has to do with NCAA rules about the number of "official contacts" that a recruit can have with school officials, as well as alumni. It wouldn't take much effort on the Angel's part, or on the part of the University for that matter, to explain the situation to fans at the game. Did I say "effort"?.......OOPS! What was I thinking! ........

Do you think that we could get our "all-pro-lineman-one-time-player-of-the-week-in-the-NFL" alumni to come help us recruit O-linemen this year?

He'll get his recruitment abilities put to a severe test now. Let's see, selling a player on playing in Florida and playing in the Big East, or selling a player on playing in Kansas in the B-12. WTH? Why would a B-east coach who has basically built his program up from scratch, go to the plains of Kansas where it's a constant struggle to get quality players to come and play?

He certainly does! You just haven't lived until you try and pitch a new idea to our old (and some new ones for that matter) University officials. Their first reaction is almost always no.

I'm always a bit suspicious when someone does self-promoting, when they were just being interviewed as a courtesy to a returning former player/alumni. Where has this guy done any coaching? Being a personal trainer doesn't make you a good coach. If he wants to coach at the college level, he needs to enroll in graduate courses and be a graduate assistant, just like the Chris Hurds and Tommy Harrisons of the world.

He'll be in the new trailer parked in the orange lot, right by the entrance to the "village".

Cure-all? Can you give me one example of a cure-all.......anywhere?

If Corky had ever been given six turnovers in a playoff game, he damn sure would have won it. And THEN they would be even on that count.

Please tell me what sort of "noticable" promotions have been going on to get people to come out to our games. And to make it worse, you don't know how much of a fight FFRick had to go through to convince some pencilheads in the administration that our battleflag was NOT ILLEGAL. The same aforementioned pencilhead(s) kept telling the Talons that they could not wave the battleflag at games because it was an "illegal flag". Rick finally had to talk directly with one of the University attorneys who said that IT WAS NOT ILLEGAL. Even then the aforementioned pencilheads were reluctant to let go of that stupid opinion. If you left it to all the leftover "old nesters" and the morons that they've trained through the years, this University would still be 1-AA, and "tennis applause" would still be the standard for fan behavior at games. And that doesn't even address the issue of non-North Texas graduates trying to tell us what our traditions should be. And non-North Texas graduates who are in charge of promotions. The best promotions ever at North Texas, and the best North Texas icon ever created were done by NORTH TEXAS GRADUATES. And these people were NOT part of the "old nesters" group.

Damn! That was my next question........

Are you the one(s) with the foreign jets? If so, were the pictures taken from one of them?

Well, "letting out practice early" and "practices are a joke" are not the same thing. It could be that DD has decided that his usual "grueling" practices (especially in the spring and fall) haven't produced the results that he had hoped for. So maybe since the championship is no longer a possibility, he's trying something different.