NT80

2006 MTSU football schedule Aug. 31 Florida International Sept. 9 at Maryland Sept. 14 Tennessee Tech Sept. 23 at Oklahoma Sept. 30 at North Texas Oct. 6 Louisville (Nashville, Tenn.) Oct. 14 at Louisiana-Monroe Oct. 28 at Louisiana-Lafayette Nov. 4 Florida Atlantic Nov. 11 at Arkansas State Nov. 18 at South Carolina Nov. 25 Troy full story about schedule and OU $$

I mostly agreed with your rant, except the above part. If UNT had SMU's 2005 schedule of hosting Baylor, TCU, Tulane, East Carolina, Rice, and UTEP I would glady saw we'd average close to 30K, not 18 like SMU. If however, SMU hosted Tulsa, Troy, ULM, ULL and Arkansas State like we did, I doubt SMU could fill 10K much less the 17K UNT had. And try it in a fan-unfriendly facility like Fouts instead of posh Ford Stadium. SMU has fewer students, but they also have better games to attend and in a nicer facility.

This was the kid everyone was touting as the next sure-thing in kicking for us. We bypassed other great kickers to suppossedly get this kid and he goes to SE La.? We lost 3 games last season by 3 points each, and now we have no placekicker? But everything's GREEN.

That's pathetic, and they signed 2 kickers.... Les Mulkey, K, 5-10, 175, Independence, La., Parklane Academy (Miss.) Jeff Turner, K, 5-9, 170, Houston, Texas, Cypress Creek HS Losing recruits to McNeese and SE La. shows how little recruits respect our program. Have we fallen that far?

Copeland's successor will face lackluster fans 01:27 AM CST on Saturday, February 4, 2006 UNIVERSITY PARK – At a casual function not too long ago that brought together some SMU boosters and coaches, a booster asked a coach about the nonconference schedule that was being put together. The booster wanted to know what school he could get excited about seeing. The coach laid out the schedule. Then the coach suggested to the booster that he should be excited to see SMU play, against whomever. The anecdote popped to mind Friday while watching SMU president Gerald Turner discuss the challenges for whoever succeeds the gentleman seated to his left, Mustangs athletic director Jim Copeland. Copeland was announcing that he planned to retire at this school year's end. Turner mentioned the need to do for basketball what had been done for football under Copeland's 12-year watch – improve the facilities. It was not a revelation. Anyone and everyone who has been around SMU athletics know as much. What was interesting was that Turner noted why it seemed to be such a long, hard slog – my words, not his – to build a much-needed basketball practice gymnasium and have ancient Moody Coliseum brought into the 21st century. "We don't have the fan support and donor support to do everything at once," he explained. "They have to be done sequentially." SMU isn't FSU. SMU isn't even TCU, which is not a knock on Fort Worth's flagship private university. The regional rivalry won't allow SMU folks to admit it, but they would love to be the Horned Frogs right now. TCU appears to be home to a perennial football bowl team despite not having football facilities as nice as SMU's. Its men's basketball program, although experiencing tough sledding this season, made the NIT only a year ago and has a new facility in which to practice. Its successful baseball program has new digs, too. And what TCU has that SMU doesn't is fan support through thick and through thin, which is most critical. Football at TCU's Amon G. Carter Stadium drew an average of 31,254 fans last season, according to the NCAA. SMU's fantastic Gerald J. Ford Stadium attracted an average of 18,630 for what turned out to be a scrappy 5-6 team that upset TCU. Basketball at TCU last year drew only 4,344 per game, but that was still more than the 3,345 that supported men's basketball at Moody. So it doesn't matter who succeeds Copeland. Whoever it is will still have, first and foremost, the unenviable task of trying to wake SMU's moribund fans (if they can be called that), be they alums or, even more disconcerting, classmates of the university's athletes. (There may not be a campus in America with a less-supportive student fan base than that on the Hilltop. They're an embarrassment.) Copeland's departure will be yet another litmus test for all this. After all, SMU fans, whose bark belies their bulk, have grumbled that they haven't turned out in recent years because they came not to like the athletic director. Their greatest football player of the second half of the last century, Eric Dickerson, not long ago blamed the football team's woes squarely on Copeland and his coaching hires and said he wouldn't cut the athletic department a check because it wouldn't help. Well, Copeland's last day on the job will be May 31. That means the Mustang Club can expect Dickerson's first check to arrive on June 1. That's the biggest problem for SMU athletics. It isn't the administration. It isn't the AD. It's excuses. Everybody's got them. The coaches say they can't recruit everyone because of academic restraints. There is some truth to that, but the Hilltop ain't quite Harvard Yard, either, and Copeland got some of those restraints relaxed. Alums say don't come out because they don't like the AD or the coach. Tell that to Texas fans, who came out when they didn't like Longhorns AD DeLoss Dodds just to fly banners expressing as much. What SMU needs more than a hotshot new AD who can shake hands and kiss babies like a presidential candidate is a reality check. The Southwest Conference is long gone, and it isn't coming back. The truth is that the only reason a private school of a few thousand students was running with the big dogs in the biggest of sports, year in and year out back in the day, was because it cheated. SMU now is where SMU always should have been, and people who went there or go there need to acknowledge that. That doesn't mean the school doesn't deserve support anymore. It means it needs it now, the legitimate kind, if you indeed want to see winning football, a new basketball facility and all the pride that comes with it. A new AD won't be able to do it alone like some magician.

Doesn't look like Malone is going to Arizona State.... ....................................................................................................... ASU Names Al Simmons Cornerbacks Coach Simmons joins Dirk Koetter's staff after spending last season with San Jose State Feb. 3, 2006 TEMPE, Ariz. - San Jose State University Cornerbacks Coach Al Simmons was named Cornerbacks Coach for Arizona State, according to an announcement by ASU Head Football Coach Dirk Koetter Friday. Simmons takes the place of Mark Carrier, who was named Secondary Coach for the Baltimore Ravens last month. A 20-year coaching veteran, Simmons' diverse background includes coaching experience at both the collegiate and professional levels. He has nine previous seasons of Division I coaching experience, including three at California (1998-2000), two at Oregon State (2001 and 2002) and one at San Jose State (2005). In addition, he has also served on the coaching staff of the San Francisco 49ers for two seasons and has participated in the National Football League's Minority Fellowship Coaching program in 1993 with the Oakland Raiders, in 1996 with the Arizona Cardinals, in 1999 with the San Diego Chargers and in 2000 with the Dallas Cowboys. "Arizona State University is a place that I have always wanted to coach," says Simmons. "I am extremely excited to get back into the Pacific-10 Conference once again. I have always admired ASU for having a consistent football program. It will be great to work for Coach Koetter. I think the defensive staff and I are a good fit. There are a lot of good things in store for this program." "We are excited and fortunate to have added a coach of Al's experience and reputation to our staff," says Koetter. "With Al, we have added a proven West Coast recruiter with contacts in Northern and Southern California."

What a $ham. They probably bought their way back into 4A.

Passing on 3rd and 8 is more passing than when we ran effectively and needed only 3rd and 2, but it is NOT better passing. As some have mentioned, there is a difference in passing because you want to vs need to. I think you'll find that although we passed more we scored a lot less, thus indicating inaccuracy and/or short passes for yardage instead of long passes for points.

Monday, 01/30/06 Bad grades bite MTSU in football By DAVID CLIMER Senior Writer When Chris Massaro took over as athletics director at Middle Tennessee State, he wanted his program to be an example. But not this kind of example. The Blue Raiders' new coaching staff hits the final days of football recruiting with one hand tied behind its back. Because of some embarrassing academic shortcomings on the watch of Coach Andy McCollum, MTSU is short eight scholarships this signing period. "Unfortunately, we're going to be the program that a lot of people are going to point at and say, 'Be careful. You don't want to put yourself in the position they're in,' " Massaro said. It all centers on those three little initials that mean so much — APR. These days, the NCAA is keeping score via each school's Academic Progress Rate in every sport. A score of 925 equals a 50-percent graduation rate. Suffice it to say, Middle Tennessee's football program did not quite measure up in terms of graduating its players. When it was announced last August that the Blue Raiders' APR dragged in at 812, the piper had to be paid. For MTSU, that payment came with a pound of flesh … make that several pounds of football flesh. Under the NCAA formula, the Blue Raiders were docked eight scholarships — the maximum allowed — for the incoming signing class. "We knew we were going to be penalized, but we just didn't realize the severity of the punishment," Massaro said. "It was a shock. Losing eight scholarships is a very serious matter." It also is a very embarrassing matter, particularly when MTSU President Sydney McPhee is a member of the reform-minded NCAA Executive Committee. Everybody knew the day was coming when a sub-standard graduation rate would carry dire implications. The NCAA made a test run by compiling data a year earlier, putting on alert those programs not measuring up. But like so many things in college athletics, we sometimes push these mandates to the back burner, assuming that legislation will be altered or delays will be forthcoming. For years, the NCAA has talked about putting teeth in its academic reform package, only to lose its bite. This time, though, the NCAA left teeth marks on enterprises like MTSU football that failed to get with the program. "You're always thinking something like this is down the road," said Massaro, who arrived at MTSU last April. "Then the reality of it starts to sink in. You say, 'This thing is for real.' " While nobody wants to get into specifics, it is safe to say that the APR issue factored in to the decision to fire McCollum. It is also safe to say that some potential candidates to replace him got cold feet when made aware that they would enter the job with a shortage of available scholarships. Credit Rick Stockstill for embracing the challenge. His attitude: "We'll take our punishment, get past this and build a solid program that we can be proud of." The university has filed an appeal in hopes of regaining some of those lost scholarships. There's no indication if/when any might be restored. In time, Massaro hopes he can point to a situation where his school took its punishment, got its academic act together (the APR already is up 80 points over last year) and turned the corner. "Right now, we're an example of what can happen when you lose scholarships," he said. "But two years from now, we have a real opportunity to say, 'Look, we managed it and made it work.' " For now, though, MTSU recruiting is behind the 8-ball. •

You got a good one as you'll find out; sometimes I wonder if UNT even scouts the Metroplex. ............................................................................................... Arkansas State Football Recruiting Class for 2006 1. Tom Castilaw : OL / 6-4 / 270 / Flower Mound, Texas (Flower Mound) 2. Kurt Delt : LB / 6-2 / 228 / Fort Smith, Ark. (Northside) 3. Chris Diggs : RB / 5-10 / 175 / Hamburg, Ark. (Hamburg) 4. Marlon Douglas : DB / 5-10 / 170 / Memphis, Tenn. (White Station) 5. Darious Glover : S-LB / 6-2 / 210 / Bossier City, La. (Airline) 6. Bryan Hall : DL / 6-2 / 260 / Paducah, Ky. (Tilghman) 7. Gregory Hardy : LB / 6-0 / 215 / Memphis, Tenn. (Melrose)* 8. Rudy Harrell : OL-DL / 6-6 / 280 / Monticello, Ark. (Monticello) 9. Drew Hilton : OL / 6-4 / 295 / Batesville, Ark. (Batesville) 10. Tyson Holligan : OL / 6-2 / 315 / Carrollton, Texas (Newman Smith) 11. M.D. Jennings : DB / 6-0 / 165 / Calhoun City, Miss. (Calhoun City) 12. T.C. Jennings : QB / 6-2 / 185 / Brentwood, Tenn. (Ravenwood) 13. Maurice Langston : DB / 5-10 / 180 / Meridian, Miss. (Northeast Lauderdale) 14. Alfred Louis : OL-DL / 6-3 / 280 / Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Fort Lauderdale) 15. Dean Madison : DE / 6-3 / 230 / Colleyville, Texas (Harvest Christian Academy) 16. Javon McKinnon : LB / 6-0 / 205 / Memphis, Tenn. (Melrose) 17. Danny McNeal : FB / 6-1 / 227 / Osceloa, Ark. (Osceola) 18. Rob Ramage : DE / 6-4 / 230 / Hernando, Miss. (Hernando)(NW Mississippi CC)# 19. Erick Stone : S-WR / 6-3 / 198 / Little Rock, Ark. (Parkview) 20. Brian Sheffield : K / 6-2 / 180 / Plano, Texs (Plano) 21. Levi Thompson : DL / 6-4 / 245 / Peculiar, Mo. (Raymore-Peculiar) 22. Jeremy Wallace : DL / 6-5 / 225 / West Memphis, Ark. (West Memphis)* 23. Jonathan White : WR / 5-11 / 175 / Franklin, Tenn. (Battle Ground Academy) 24. Marquette Williams : DB / 6-0 / 185 / West Memphis, Ark. (West Memphis) *- Player originally signed with ASU in 2005 and sat out for a year to concentrate on academics # - Mid-term junior college signee and is available for spring practice

Is Brian Sheffield (K) still available? From DC Texas Football: ...................................................................... 2006 North Texas Signing Class Breakdown 02/01/2006 North Texas Mean Green Facts and figures Signees: 18 Offensive Breakdown: 1 QB; 1 TE; 3 ATH Defensive Breakdown: 9 DL; 1 LB; 2 DB; 1 ATH Randy Rodgers' quick take: A pretty big list of players for the Mean Green. Bryan Seidle and Marquis Sykes are two players that are really good who haven’t received a lot of notoriety. Jewel: As Randy mentioned, Sykes didn't get a lot of attention, not with Emmanuel Moody as a teammate, but he was dominant this year with nearly 90 tackles and double-figure tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Sleeper: He played for a team that went through some ups and downs, but Kail Kreider of Leonard was a solid presence for three years. He was also a standout on the basketball team, showing his athelticism. In a nutshell: A sour 2005 season didn't seem to affect North Texas in recruiting. Like all classes, time will tell which of these players will become the diamonds in the rough, a la Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas. Signing Day updates: A player UNT had banked on, Galveston Ball's Avery Curry, was a late defect, opting for McNeese State instead of UNT.

DMN: Under the threat of NCAA sanctions, ULM president James Cofer has accepted the Mascot Committee's recommendation to retire it's 75-year-old mascot and choose a new one by June 1. ........................................................................ I suggest the "Mean Maroon".

Can media influence a kid at the last minute? It couldn't hurt. If a kid is really undecided maybe if the town's paper calls he will think they really want him bad?

It made me sick to watch.

Briefly ... Dave Denison of Stratford, a company that co-owns the 3,400 acre M.T. Cole Ranch outside of Denton with the Cole family, said his firm has a deal, in principal, to donate land to UNT so the university can build a golf course near Tom Cole Road, perhaps in five years. UNT leaders did not confirm the deal.

Wrong! The attendance is TOO small.

Not in the same league.

With all the focus on DT's I think DD needs to remember the offense...points are what we were short on in 9 games.

If anyone saw any of Plano's playoff games, one player stood out with a booming leg, Plano's K/P Brian Sheffield. He finished as the first team ALL-STATE 5A punter and second team kicker. Recruiting Buzz with Todd Wills: Here's my prediction: kicker Brian Sheffield, the best I've seen at the high school level in 25 years, will kick on Saturdays, with or without a scholarship. SMU was looking at Sheffield and Carrollton Creekview's Kellis Cunningham and went with Cunningham. I'm sure Cunningham is an excellent kicker, but it would just be flat out foolish for someone not to offer Sheffield.

Sturns was hanging on after going for a rebound to keep from coming down on top of another player (which is legal and is no foul). At the same time another NT player tipped the rebound toward the basket and it went in while Sturns was hanging on. The refs at first ruled offensive goaltending then changed to a technical for hanging on (wrong) and awarded USA 2 shots. I don't know why NT got the ball back. I also don't know why our coaches didn't challenge more calls like that one. Maybe a coach getting ejected would have inspired the players more? The refs were inconsistant and tried to control the game too much while letting some blatant fouls go uncalled. But USA was quicker overall and we couldn't handle their backcourt press at all. Too many turnovers and poor shooting percentage doomed us. Another lost opportunity to gain and keep some new fans.

Denton has a large history of Outlaws around it. From Bonnie and Clyde to hideout hill now called I believe "Pilot Knob" along I-35W where outlaw gangs used to hole up and watch for the good guys.

RV responded to this question from a poster recently: I think many people are wondering about the baseball field. I understand that it is dependant on the owners of the Outlaws participating. Will they still be building a baseball stadium and if so when? RV: It is no longer dependent on them although I believe they will be a part of it. Look for good news soon.

Alumni apathy? Where were the students the past 10 home games? The alums were nearly the only ones in the stands in the past games. And don't give me the excuse they were gone for the holidays (what about the games before the holidays?). The DFW and Denton area students could travel back for a game just like alums have to do for every game. 31,000+ students, where are they???

North Texas Has Just Enough Against Troy, 84-77 Jim Stephan 01/25/2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DENTON, Texas – North Texas shot 46.8 percent from the field and dominated the boards with a 50-33 advantage to post an 84-77 Sun Belt Conference victory over Troy Thursday night at the Super Pit. Bobby Dixon scored 28 points to lead the Trojans, who had a three-game winning streak snapped in falling to 10-8 overall and 3-3 in league play. Todd Martin topped double figures for the first time with 12 points on four three-pointers, while Cedric Jackson added 10 points. Kendrick Davis led three Mean Green players in double figures with a career-high 27 points. Troy fell behind by as many as 21 points early in the second half after North Texas (12-6, 5-2) turned a 46-33 lead at intermission into 51-33 and 55-34 with a 5-0 that extended to 9-1 by the 16:27 mark. The lead stayed in the upper-teens until back-to-back threes by Dixon and Martin cut the lead to 12, 68-56, with 7:28 remaining. The Trojans had a chance to close to within single-digits after a missed three, but Martin missed one of his own. The next three times Troy trailed by 10, the Mean Green was able to answer with a basket or free throws on the next possession until Martin again struck from behind the arc. His three with 2:49 to play made the score 77-68, but five straight points including a banked three-pointer by Davis as the shot clock sounded, pushed the lead back to 14. A Dixon layup and a steal and dunk by Sharp in a six-second span in the final minute put some spark in the Trojans, but they could never get closer than the final margin of seven points. “We played a good basketball team in North Texas,” said head coach Don Maestri. “It was just one of those nights when we missed wide open jump shots and they hit a lot of threes. I expected a tough game on the boards because they can jump and they have good size.” The first half was a case of hot shooting by the Mean Green. They hit nine of 18 three-pointers and 48.6 percent overall. With the score tied at 22 near the nine-minute mark, Calvin Watson hit one of his three first-half three-pointers to start a 5-0 run. After a jumper by Jarvis Acker, Watson hit another trey to start an 11-1 run that built the lead to 13, 38-25, with 3:45 remaining. Acker and Martin hit three-pointers in the next minute to trim the margin to seven with 2:24 remaining, but North Texas outscored the Trojans 6-0 over the remaining time to rebuild a 13-point lead at the break. The halftime deficit was the first in five Sun Belt Conference games this season, while the 46 points allowed were the second-highest all year. “I thought Daryl (Davis), Todd and Jarvis played well off the bench,” Maestri added. “We have to keep battling and keep fighting, not just in games, but all season. I was proud of the way we kept after them after falling behind more than 20 in the second half.” Troy’s three-game road trip continues Saturday night at Denver. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. (CST).