PlummMeanGreen

"TCU has also planned for a possible expansion to 50,000 should the need arise." (Its funny to read in all these new stadiums or stadium re-dos as far as how much larger the next possible expansion could be). What do you mean, TCU, should the need arise as a Big 12 school member for just a, uh, 50,000 seat stadium? For a Big 12 school TCU's expansion 2 years ago should have started at 50,000 and the number "60,000" be put in place of the 50,000 as in the above italicized quote from the article Interpretation or possible moral of story? TCU has no idea if the Big 12 is going to be a keeper for the true Big Boys who are presently in it? Just get this months Texas Monthly with "Johnny Football's" caricature on the front cover and read how "UT, OU, etc, etc, etc, " are looking at TAMU's rise in the SEC." (or words to that effect). And all this while they go play schools in much smaller stadiums of 40K to 50K. The Big 12 Big Boy schools I predict will one day want something (or a conference) like TAMU now has. Some have said the PAC 12 would still be interested in UT and OU and a big hunk of the Southwest TV market that comes with those 2 schools. Coach Fry left UNT (among other reasons) because he wanted to go coach in front of larger audiences which a Big 10 job would allow him and all his UNT assistant coaches that he took with him such an opportunity. He did not get those kind of audience at SMU or UNT as he would in Hawkeye Country. Some of you would also remember Fry's quote that "I always wanted to coach at a school that had "University of" at the beginning of its name." (While at SMU, Fry's Mustangs actually played a highly ranked Navy that would play UT for an NCAA N.C. that same season. Of course, Navy had a QB named Staubach and that game was played before a terrible crowd of approx. 20,000 on a Friday night. I think it was a UT/OU weekend or the Cotton Bowl Stadium already had a planned Saturday game. BTW, SMU won that game against the Staubach-led Naval Academy. Seems those 2 play this weekend at Ford Stadium, right? Before he took the Iowa job, Fry was said to have been in total awe as to how Hawkeye fans had sold out its Kinnick Stadium year after year after year without even having one winning football season in almost 2 decades. (And look at us after "ONLY" 8 losing seasons in a row). Yet word came back to many of us back in that day that it was U of Iowa's impressive attendance and undying fan support which hooked Fry into taking that Big 10 job. TCU's Coach Patterson will one day want to coach before much larger audiences than Amon Carter Stadium will ever allow. It's just in any upwardly bound coaches DNA to want to coach before audiences of 70K, 80K and now over 100K. As Dallas Green once related to me the story that at Fry's first introduction ever to Iowa fans at a Hawkeye basketball game all ol' Hay' Boy said was "We'll Win" and those 2 words alone brought the house down. We've been running in motion for much too long in MG Country, but I feel we are now on the cusp of finally getting out of that mode and moving both upward and forward. We really had to have a new football stadium like Apogee Stadium to have any chance of getting out of that standstill mode, too. We do have a nice college football stadium, folks, and one I'm sure can be easily expanded to 50,000 should the need arise. ​

Good post, untjim1995. Yet Norh Texas does have more directly tied to its constituency; that is, a projected to keep growing enrollment plus over 200K UNT alums in DFW than TCU will ever have and to me that is much more a plus than a negative. TCU has to literally convert many to their constituency and fan base but they've done a good job of it, yet it was their finally winning which made much of what they've done in this millineum possible. One can only imagine how great (and fun) it will be when UNT gets back to its winning ways. Like you, untjim1995, I have also been a keen TCU observer post-SWC implosion because (quite frankly) I really wanted to see how they handled getting kicked out of Big Time football. It was easy to see at the time that TCU was doing a much better job at it than their other former SWC mates. I lived in Fort Worth from 1977 till about 1995 and had many friends connected to TCU so I heard first-hand from many Horned Frogs of their post-SWC dilemma. Many of them blamed ex TCU Prez' Tucker(?) along with (then) TCU AD Frank Windegger for what they felt was their dragging of their feet to turn loose much of their enourmous endowment and in getting TCU involved with the athletic venues arms race that had been going on everywhere except Berry and University Steets, Cowtown. . One TCU alum told me had they done as AD Grant Teaff at Baylor had been doing with BU's facilities several years before the SWC broke up, that it may have been TCU getting an invite to the Big 12 over Baylor. That, of course, could be debated since Ann Richards and Bob Bullock down in Austin took care of their alma mater down in Waco. Yes. I do remember TCU doing all of this below in bold from your post and admired their pro-activity in doing such. They most definitely had a plan to recover from not being invited to the new Big 12: This from your post: "They created the "Group of 100", who were among the biggest civic and commerce leaders in FW and asked for their help in getting TCU rebranded and making a connection to the town. So they came up with a slogan "Your Hometown Team", marketed heavily toward getting youth to games in the end zone, had businesses buy season tickets to give to their employees and clients." Seems much of the above laid the foundation for them to eventually get a Big 12 invite but fact remains, they could not get it all done based merely on their small enrollment and small state of Texas and FW area alumnus base. North Texas could do so much more with its enormous DFW based UNT constituency and then getting Denton County citizens (almost 800K strong) involved would merely be icing on the cake and cause for Apogee Stadium expansion plans. What has been a way too long missing ingrediant of winning football seasons will make our road to success so much easier, too. GMG! Addendum: Anyone else ever think that had North Texas had similar success winning and drawing fans as East Caroline U did the last 30 years that it could have very well been our alma mater who would get a Big 12 invite; maybe even over TCU? Think about it. GMG!

Hey, Tyler Maryak! Welcome to GMG.com! Now in the famous words of Betty Davis in the YouTube below, well,, uh.................................(no, not really, it's a fun place to exchange HSO's).

You may be too young to remember the TCU many of us do back in the 60's and 70's. TCU was terrible. I will say this once again for some of you newbies but............TCU simply would not schedule North Texas during 3 distinct eras of Mean Green football history: (1) the Abner Haynes Era, (2) the Mean Joe Greene Era and (3) the Hayden Fry Era because Mean Green football for those 3 decades had it really going on for the most part. For proof of that, merely ask College Football Hall of Famer Arkansas AD Frank Broyles what North Texas had during the 60's and then ask ex U of Tennessee HFC Bill Battle and even former UH HFC Bill Yeoman about the 70's at North Texas. We kicked UH's butt 28 to 0 the year before they entered the SWC and then their going to the Cotton Bowl in their first year. U of TN ex HFC Bill Battle (basically) got fired at seasons end mostly because North Texas had defeated his team but you talk about a lemon that turned into one helluva' lemonade stand windfall for Bill Battle? Well, he got out of coaching and most likely his brainchild, ie, College Licensing company's labels are on most of your sports gear maybe still in many of your dirty clothes hampers from last weekends doings at Apogee Stadium. Fort Worth had become Dallas Cowboys Country and had the Horned Frogs not had the usual big SWC schools traveling fans coming to Amon Carter Stadium their stadium would have had no fans. Fort Worth back then was turned off to TCU. I remember a snow game at Amon Carter Stadium against the UT Longhorns during the 70's which drew a tad over 20,000 (and most of that group were wearing burnt orange). I've often wondered where our attendance would be today if we had had a regular staple of Longhorns, Aggies, Bears, Razorback, Red Raiders, etc, etc, etc; that is, if we had had them coming to Denton every other year over a half century's timeline? Seems to me we would have built a pretty size-able fan base with such opponents. How could we have not done such? The funny part of all this now is how TCU acts as if they just joined the big leagues albeit they had been part of that scene in the Southwest Conference for almost 100 years. Amazing....

Control the clock....keep their offense off the field and therefore, defense on the field..........kick a field goal and win 3 to 0......then high tail it back to the Lone Star State singing Stevies hit Signed, Sealed, Delivered as our post game victory song. If we win, any score will do. Yes, most of us want a pull out all the stops offense throwing to 5 or 6 difference receivers and having 4 of our RB's committee get playing time, too; but still.......if we win, any score will do. GMG! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbhKem5icdw

What kind of students are DaJon Williams and even Brock Berglund? What is presently a cupboard full of QB's can quickly disappear for various reasons in college football One play during a season opening Clemson game a few years ago and Derek Thompson was out for the year. Dajon looked great in the few minutes he played. As many say...he seems to have it. I'd still like to see what Brock Berglund can do, also. . Again, we cannot have enough QB's. GMG!

North Texas once hosted Texas A & M at Texas Stadium before right at 50,000 fans. So should have North Texas played all our games at Texas Stadium and scheduled more schools like Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Kansas State and other schools who have a nice bevy of traveling fans to make it look like we were one goat ropin' son of a gun college football fan pleaser of a juggernaut? We could have probably even gotten more fans in the late, great Texas Stadium back in the day had Chicken Express, Golden Chick or Joe's Twice Regurgitated Chickity Doo-Dah had only worked with us in distributing thousands of free tickets, too. So anyone get my point here; especially those from other schools who frequent this board who need to be the ones who do get that point? North Texas has a great & loyal fan base from which to build onto and I, for one, can't wait to see it grow with even more cash paying customers. GMG! PS: I do wish we had more group ticket sales, though; that is, to kids groups and even big kids groups. After all, groups fill stadiums quicker than individuals. I noticed reading their board that Ohio U has a Band Day this Saturday. Hmmmm......

Playing on the road has not been our friend for awhile. These Bobcats will be coming out of their tunnel like the Mexican blitz on the 13'th and final day at the Alamo. What I would tell our Mean Green players pre-game is....... "just act like all those people in the stands are yelling for you." That should un-do any home field crowd advantage, right? Like most of you, I didn't give us much a chance with this game in the summer but that was before I saw our team with more talent coupled with speed than what we've seen for awhile. I like our chances, but our players should know that they will be playing a very angry football team. If we can match their anger with the kind of ball control offense and improved defense we could surprise a few in the Buckeye state. GMG!

Most of us would settle for DT/#7 to become a CUSA' All Conference 1'st team QB. If that happened then that means other good things would come along with it. GMG!

2 or 3 of us on GMG.com predicted this would happen even when it looked like it would never happen. Congrats, Brian Waters! GMG!

There are over a million of us in the Greater Fort Worth West O' Plex. Is there not even one radio station out here that will carry the MGRN? Personally, I like our MGRN guys broadcast quality over TCU's. After all, look at the school north of FW and Dallas from which they got their training and experience. Someone even told me a local AM station manager out here in Parker County was a Mean Green fan. That station can be heard over in Fort Worth, too, if its the same one I think it is. GMG!

John was very effective in his first ever college football game. We are so proud to have him on "OUR" team. And, yes, an unfathomable and terrible tragedy for Denton Guyer and the entire Denton ISD. For certain our thoughts and prayers.

In the VT video in this thread's first post I noticed they had a huge "Start Jumpin" graphic. Sometimes our fans have to have instructions to follow and most will follow them--even at Big Time programs that have 70,000 fans in their stadiums. GMG!

As Bill Mercer used to say......."we never lose a half time show" and that still stands today albeit the Green Brigade had no opponent last Saturday. This should change when some CUSA West Division schools bring their marching bands to Apogee maybe starting with Rice's Marching Owl Band aka "the MOB? The GB's rendition of "Carry On" is one of my all time favorites. It really brings out the greatness of what we all know we have with this college marching band. IMO....the UNTCOM should make a Best of the Green Brigade CD available for purchase to our fans at the Apogee Ticket Office and Sports Merchandise Store. I have their 1997 "best of" CD and it absolutely superb! Great job last Saturday night to the: Best Damn Marching Band in the Land! (Been a huge fan of your organization since the Maurice McAdow era). GMG!

What is backassward is someone posting something that a poster did not say. In fact, I would call it quite stupid. I am not a fan of your numerous cheap shot posts which are usually coming from the far side or beyond and are unfounded. Are you on meth or Jack Daniels when you post? When and where did I put Denton down, Einstein? In year 40 of following all this I have a pretty good handle on what and who our problems have been. And short-sighted naive fans without a clue is one of them. Don't you ever use my name in any more of your posts. Comprende?

We've started out this season 1 and 0 instead of 0 and 1 and how many years has it been for that? I've run out of fingers and toes to count em'. Hopefully, we will have more season openers at Apogee. Obviously more team speed on this team, especially on the offense. When we played Rice U at Fouts a few years ago, it shocked me (but not that much) how so much more team speed they had than UNT. It was the main difference in their winning that particular game IMHO. Who said you cannot coach speed? I think Coach Mac's experience as an NCAA FBS level HFC in the Big 12 would have him recruiting more speed even when some of the recruits don't have as many Rivals stars as alums would want them to have. Yet whose to say that many of our recruits can't develop some of those stars while their official residence is inside a Mean Green Village dorm and on the DD practice fields? QB's? You just can't have enough of them at the NCAA FBS level IMO and is a reason Brock Berglund need not get discouraged (if he is discouraged, that is). DT/#7 has a bevy of receivers to throw to this year who can (1) catch the ball and then (2) do something with it after they catch it. Jub commented on the MGRN post game show how he saw our offense getting off plays quicker Saturday night compared to last year and he felt DT/#7 functioned better because of that. Year 5? I think Derek is fitting in quite nicely into his role as a 5'th year senior QB. Yes, true freshmen Dajon Williams showed he has "IT" to all of us in so short of time Saturday night, too.

UNT90...with that we do agree!

I do think some confuse one being straight-forward not pussy-footin' around but getting to the point as being arrogant. IMO, I don't think the 2 are hardly related but I can see how some might think they are. Dodge was a bit too dogmatic IMHO to keep fans off the DD practice fields but upon further review, that seems to be the case at most all other NCAA FBS outposts. I don't think its a good idea for a program like North Texas to be that way; that is, a program which is trying to re-build, build and then build onto its fan base, but FWIW no one asked me my opinion on the subject, either...because they know I would have given them one or two or three or four, etc, etc, etc,. Dodge is gone and we should all really let him be gone but I will add this one thing (and that's it for me....promise..... but...the DMN once said Coach Dodge could have had a job with Bill Parcells and the Dallas Cowboys and best I recall we've had no coach in UNT history lately that have had similar offers of late. (Yes, I know Rod Rust was HFC of the N.E. Patriots at one time, too). GMG!

And I guess you'd also say the Battle of the Alamo was much ado about nothing, too?

Houston Klein used to be on my HS alma mater's football schedule back in the day and before they grew lights out as an ISD. Coach McCarney used to recruit Texas for Hayden Fry when they were all at U of Iowa and I trust Coach Mac's ability to identify talent most all of the time. Of course, there will always be exceptions for any coach to not get em' all right. Early on when Fry left North Texas for Iowa, they had to have coaches who could identify future NCAA FBS level talent since the Hawkeyes were rarely in the Top 75 rankings of recruiting classes. Of course, that would change after Fry's Year 3 at Iowa when he took his team to the Rose Bowl. Year 3 seems to always been a lucky year for Fry's football teams....hopefully it will be for his coaching tree product here in Mean Green Country, too. Back To UNT Recruiting: I think all of us so-called recruiting experts may have judged and underestimated Coach Mac's first 2 classes a bit too quickly using Rival'esque stars (attained at a HS level) as our own barometers for success or what we may have thought would be failure if they didn't (in our opinions) have near enough.

If UNT Promotions, Marketing, the Denton Chamber of Commerce, Denton HS Bands Association, Computer Geeks United (CGU), Catholic Charities, Baptist Relief Services, the Garden Clubs of Denton County or WHOEVER would get this part of Apogee as seen in the pic below filled for each Game Day then we would hardly have reason to discuss attendance concerns for Mean Green football in the future. Also, because of our enormous UNT constituency and strategic location; that is, our school's locale in a very densely populated part of the North Texas Metroplex, wouldn't this really be quite do-able? (Of course, adding more season wins and consecutive winning seasons would make all this much easier, too). What better focus for ticket sales than this one section of Apogee Stadium some call the Wing Zone? Like in sales of which some of us know a few things, sometimes you merely focus on one territory (or in our case) a stadium section rather than having another giant swath of a few words in print that say..........LET'S FILL THE ENTIRE STADIUM type of focus which we know what that and a buck will most times produce in Denton, Texas, America. BTW, all this is also "OUR" problem, too, and not just a UNT Athletic Dept.dilemma, either, because aren't we all in this together? I have no idea how many Family Plan Tickets For 4 they sale up there and am not ever going to ask, but if we get Denton County kids and their families in the Wing Section of Apogee Stadium much of our attendance problems would be solved; especially in light of the fact that we're now in a conference where many of our CUSA West Division foes will be bringing some traveling fans along with them to fabulous Apogee Stadium. An Apogee Wing Zone Ticket Sales Focus! Some will say "Why"...Others...."Why Not?"

As I recall, many on this forum had already penciled in this game as a loss or at best a 50/50 chance. I don't think we knew when we scheduled them that they might be up for a 2013 MAC championship (of which their league's champion last Fall went to the BSC Orange Bowl). A North Texas on the road win would be huge no matter how badly Louisville man-handled Zero U yesterday. BTW, North Texas all time football series record versus the U of Louisville Cardinals is: UNT 10 W's................Louisville...........7 Wins Why our alma mater went into such a deep multi-years slumber while others went forward I will never know (although we have several pretty big clues as why); but it's finally a new day and new era in Mean Green Country and the timing of all this could not have been better. GMG!

I was mostly busy during his UNT coaching tenure building a new business which required many work day Saturdays, but I still say he was the one who put the UNT admininistration to task in fulfilling their promise to him when hired to have a new stadium built by 2010 (albeit was one year later and when he would no longer be UNT HFC) because he basically told Prez' B and her BOR's to git'r done. He did so in light of what most who follow college football already knew what was going on and that was a coast to coast athletic venues arm race which was also going on in Texas (and still is for those who think we can take a vacation on that subject for another 60 years). Todd Dodge and many others knew that if we didn't get the hell out of Fouts Field it was eventually going to fall down on top of us, its power grid would continue to embarrass us and falter (as it did when electricity went out on the Baylor Bears at half time in their dressing room) and then future recruiting using Fouts Field as "recruiting fodder" which would have eventually turned into sardonic comedy at its best. As I mostly listened to MG football en route to DJ gig sites or between musical sets and on the MGRN (when I could pick up the broadcast), it was becoming apparent to me that Todd Dodge had one of the most unlucky streaks of near wins and/or last minute losses as any NCAA coach I could remember in over 4 decades of watching or listening to NCAA football. Yet just like anyone in sales who doesn't get to keep their jobs with "almost" sales, Dodge understandably did not keep his with "almost" wins. He was also as classy an act leaving Denton, too, as he was his first day at the UNT job unlike most others at any other college football outpost as I could recall. Yes, he does get blame for much of our problems of which Coach Dan McCarney inherited, but Todd Dodge did not blame anyone else but himself as he rode his horse out of Denton one final time.