PlummMeanGreen

His height and weight is? GMG! PS: Now that's the kind of speed that took our former conference mate, ie, Boise State to the next level. ______________________________ Celebrating 100 Years of Mean Green Football....1913-2013 This is North Texas Mean Green star J.T. Smith and a, uh, neighborhood friend. J.T. Smith played for the Chiefs, Redskins and Cardinals and I believe was an All Pro for 1 or 2 years, too. John Thomas "JT" Smith is in the North Texas Athletic Hall of Fame.

Yes!

Did anyone ever think Coach Mac would not start a senior QB in the home season opener of his last Mean Green football rodeo? We've all seen senior QB's in college football put it all together their last season and we all hope DT#7 does just that. If he doesn't then guess what? We have coaches who want to win as much as we do (obviously) who will go to the next QB whose earned playing time. If that QB performs well, moves this offense and scores enough to win a game, then "WALA!" that QB will start the next game. I think DT#7 will start but I think another QB or 2 will also get playing time, too. We need to have 1 or 2 other QB's who can step in at any time and we not lose a step come our conference schedule. We have a situation here and it's a good one. We have more than 1 or 2 or 3 (or more) QB's who can most likely start at any time in this our CUSA inaugural season. No doubt that that is a good thing. Let's just allow all this to play its way out. GMG! _______________________________ A Dad Caption Joke of the Day: (insert British accent below) "Hurry up, Froggies! Get off the field--and now! The bloody' jousting begins in 5 minutes! And Lady Guinevere! Save me a plate of Queen Mum's shepherd pie--I'll be in my seat shortly, love, after I take care of this gol' darned flesh wound and--it's just a flesh wound!" Signed: Sir Lance' (and some think our Wing Zone end zone seating looks weird)?

When I have allowed North Texas athletics to become more than just the toy department of my own department store of what most of us call, uh, L-I-F-E, then a self-thrown cold glass of water in my face sometimes has to be the kind of wake-up call to reality that tells me I am taking all this Mean Green business way too serious. Sure we all want to win every game, but if we let all the ancillary things that we sometimes allow to surround us for what others are getting paid to bug us or if we let all the other things we have no control make our lives miserable or an emotional shipwreck, then we are no longer allowing Mean Green athletics be our toy department, right? If all this becomes more than just a leisure and recreation kind of thing to enjoy, then aren't we taking all this much too serious? So maybe just enjoy the tailgate fun, food & fellowship, sit back in a very comfortable Apogee Stadium, enjoy and look for an occasional silver lining while we go through a losing cycle? If we can no longer find those silver linings then we have ceased from letting Mean Green football to be our toy section and (subsequently) one could allow himself to become very miserable because of it. This? NCAA athletics is a multi-billion dollar business for some who choose it as a profession but it isn't for any of our respective pocket books and is not intended to be; yet we are the ones who to the person have to decide if we want to contribute or invest any part of our leisure time budget into any of this but at the same time trying to keep uppermost in each of our minds that such an investment is for a part of our lives we really need to find a way to enjoy--good times or bad. "Whoa Nellie!" (oft' quote of ABC TV's Keith Jackson): I think about all those fans who filled stadiums for decades to watch losers like the University of Iowa (pre-Hayden Fry), Kansas State (pre-Bill Snyder) and many of those 2'nd division Atlantic Coast Conference basketball schools whose football teams just don't win much, either, yet whose fans still fill their stadiums to watch....losing football teams almost annually? Just what has been the glue that kept all their alums and fans so involved with their school's football teams since you know they want to win as much as we do at North Texas? GMG!

Bump...Good YouTube video from the UNT Athletic Dept.mean't to encourage ticket sales.

Coach Dan McCarney and Zack Orr Talk

Without a doubt this is very upsetting to those who give a damn about personal freedoms, but I think a large part of America has become drugged on self importance and greed and will just let happen to them whatever happens. Fortunately, we are not all part of that crowd and my money says we out-number them 4 to 1. This thread will be moved or removed....too controversial for this crowd but some in D.C. will pay for all that is happening with their hides because even they cannot overcome the patriots that still exists in America today. All they do has to be intertwined with lies, deceit and behind the scenes tomfoolery but like the Good Book says..........."be sure for your sins will find you out." (And no, I am not a Baptist or Methodist preacher--just a simple believer, that's all).

Dead U.S. Commie' community organizer Saul Alinsky and inspiration to all happening now is smiling in his grave. My ancestors left England and King George III to get away from the crap happening in the USA today--both sides of the Congressional aisle I will add. The colonists had their guns--they used their guns and the Founding Fathers told them to always keep their guns just in case. Who would be stupid enough to come to Texas to try to take ours away? Wonder if Homeland Security would sell back some of all that ammo' they purchased behind our backs like most everything else that has been going on behind our backs? Read the link below and weep and then get mad as hell and be prepared to do something about it. http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the competition at QB is as real as Coach Mac says it is. 1. Coach Mac has said he has "created competition" in the past. 2. Coach Mac is very secretive about letting anyone see practice. Surely he would think it's a great advantage that opposing coaches will not yet know which QB to prepare for. 3. Have you ever heard of a 4-way competition for starting QB this late in fall camp? With any team, at any level, anywhere?!? 4. Even if there isn't clear separation between QBs for a starting position, usually by this point you pick someone and go with it anyway. He may already know very well who is going to be starting August 31st against Idaho. At the least, I imagine he has a very good idea, and has made at least tentative plans around that QB. This... Coach Mac out of loyalty to a senior QB will start Derek Thompson this I believe. Now DT has to shake and bake and make things (like TD's) happen early on in this game. If we are fortunate to build a lead, then he will rest #7 and put in the #2 QB (?) to "save DT for next week's game." GMG! A Different Take On UNT's Apogee Stadium

On the way to Shawshank, Rick? Hope they brought their "non slippery" shower soap along..

Newspapers are having tough times with the internet and all. That is why the Fort Worth Star Telegram is now mostly a shadow of its ol' self as far as number of pages per daily paper plus less emphases of DFW area sports coverage outside of FW. SMU gets less than we do if that is possible. Star Telegram also cut their sports staff down, too, which relegated UNT to almos blurb coverage and now with us many time included with the Sunday AM paper roundup of Texas college scores with short stories. I wish UNT had a special correspondent to cover the Mean Green for the FWST and maybe an apprentice from the North Texas Daily? GMG!

Well, that makes about 200,000 (give/take) northern Texas UNT alums who don't get it and have never gotten it, either. As we know, others of our entire UNT family who buy our gear don't necessarily go to athletic events. A Sad Story I'd Bet Many Others of You Have Also Experienced One Very Similar: Years ago, I was out at what is now the Sports Authority across from Hulen Mall. The previous year they had 2 or 3 racks full of North Texas gear from which I bought a couple of articles and apparently UNT sales had gone very good but then the next year.............NO UNT SPORTS GEAR! I asked a young lady where the North Texas gear was and she said: THERE IS NOT ENOUGH INTEREST IN NORTH TEXAS FOR US TO STOCK IT! I told her I felt she may be wrong about that and told her about the 2 or 3 racks that had been at this very store the year before that apparently had sold out and you know what? It almost seemed as if what I had said actually pissed her off. Then ....A BRIEF MOMENT WITH THAT SPORTS AUTHORITY SALES STAFFER OF SOME UNT EDUCATING: I told her we had the largest of all Texas-based universities group of alums than any other single school including UT and TAMU and she looked at me as if I didn't know what the heck I was talking about. All this taking place less than 50 minutes from the Denton City limits, too. MORAL OF STORY? What all this above means to me is that North Texas needs someone of an official capacity educating our very D-FW area sports gear stores managers, corporate buyers, shoppers etc, etc, etc, even if you have to bring them & their families to an Apogee Stadium luxury suite or prime seats (if available) on a Game Day to wine, dine and entertain them. it is still so amazing how you can catch flies with honey (and an open bar, too). Addendum: I was told that it was the corporate buyers who call on all these sports gear franchise stores who made the big and final decisions on which schools to puff or promote with their respective gear. GMG!

I think Coach Chico is in an extraordinarily great mood of late because I think he has a good reason to be with this upcoming Mean Green football team. I have a good feeling about this team (as I know many of you do, too). GMG!

Also, maybe because it was like about 79 degrees for much of the early morning made everyone extra frisky, Coach? I can never forget my HS 2-a-days down on the Gulf Coast near Houston town because you could count on: (1) Early morning heat (2) Early morning humidity (3) Early morning mosquitos bigger than they shoulda'-oughtta' ever been. Bottom line was.................we all survived em' and then we had those evening practices with: See Above ! LOL! Go Mean Green!

Bump.... I would hope UNT will have an official representative at this funeral down at First Methodist, FW.

Mr. Rainbolt was founder and owner of Tarrant Concrete Company. He was a Mean Green basketball star and letterman back in the day. I asked Mr. Rainbolt several years ago if he could have one of his concretes trucks covered with the Corky Nelson era NT eagle logos all over it to one of our Fort Worth get-togethers at the Coors hospitality room. He made sure one of those special "UNT" trucks would be there along with himself. It was a popular conversation piece at that Mean Green gathering and Dr. Hurley especially got a big kick out of that truck. Many of you in the Metroplex will have seen one of his numerous concrete trucks at some point. UNT Health Science Center huge construction boon became Tarrant Concrete's boon as well. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dfw/obituary-print.aspx?pid=166416606

Since we have finished so high up in CLC's sales rankings, I wonder if at some point we if can get brandings, logos, etc, that catch the imagination of the actual consumer....not just the UNT branding committeees who seem to think every branding cycle that they have a winnner on their hands but one that doesn't sell? The U.S goverment of late seems to define "winner" the same way. I think that the CLC and UNT seem to mostly have a detente sort of relationship at best (if there's a relationship at all), but still....we need those who can fix all this rather than just more of the same ol status quo'. Ol' Mr. Status Quo' is UNT's worst enemey--most always has been it seems. Talk is cheap and we can have another 100 GMG.com threads on this very subject but....... who can fix all this? Really.....who? Who on our campus is in charge of this? GMG!

Out of the last 15 or so years UNT has many of those years had record-breaking freshmen classes (no small number with those classes, either, folks) and if you've ever been in the University Book Store or Voertmans first part of those Fall semesters you'd think you were in the middle of a stampede of new students (and their families) buying UNT gear left and right. I don't get it with CLC's numbers at all concerning UNT. And FWIW.....I don't think our pistons are running in sync from our end of it with this particular problem, either. Just sayin' what many I know are and have been thinkin' for awhile now, that's all. GMG!

Again, Texas State-SM had a unique situation to spike their sells and that mainly because they had a dramatically different lettering change when they changed their school name from "SWT" to "TSU". Now if you are an alum or fan of their program how many are going to show up at their expanded stadium against a never before in their history NCAA D1 foe like Texas Tech with "Southwest Texas State or SWT" on their team's sports gear? Also, TSU-SM probably has someone on-campus who is hustling like crazy with the CLC officials to see that their gear is easily accessible to their fans and alums, too. Out of all our entire UNT constituency (students, alums, home city/county/DFW/etc) which is much larger than TSU-SM's, I do find it difficult to believe that UNT is not on the radar. Still, on the other hand wherever I go in most of the West O' Plex (that's what they call us out here in Fort Worth and west of it), you cannot find North Texas gear to purchase hardly anywhere so how do we add to our CLC numbers when that is the case? Now whose fault that is we will probably never know and if we did the guilty party would probably do or say what our crack (or on crack) politicians of Washington D.C. today say as in................"I (or we) have no idea what you are talking about or............we plead the 5'th." (Wonder what some of them will be saying from their jail cells)? GMG!

Sorta' being retro here (what else is new with that, right), but we also had a John Holmes on our team back in the day. Seems he played his HS ball at Longview Pinetree but don't quote me on that. The word back then was if we needed a first down by only 12 inches just to hand it to John Holmes--he'd find a way. GMG!

So sad if the allegations are true because if it's true then there go one life down the crapper, not to say how it will affect the 4 year old boy the rest of his life, too.

Young Means has already had a full Welcome To UNT thread in the Recruiting Section but you can't welcome this kind of talent enough IMO. Welcome QB Means to Mean Green Country! GMG!

Isn't that the same group that picked ULaLa to finish last (or close to it) in the Sun Belt the year they won it and then beat San Diego State in a pretty darn good New Orleans Bowl game? North Texas will be the surprise team in Conference-USA and we have a whole bunch of Texas HS football products who will play a huge part in that happening. (And along with all you non-Texan players, too, of course)! We are mostly all positive this time every Summer but this time is different. Just check out our team roster and many of our transfers, RS frosh and true frosh YouTube videos for proof. GMG!

Top of page: #28... former North Texas NCAA Division 1 All American and (then) Dallas Texan's Abner Haynes vs Houston Oilers at Jeppessen Stadium aka "The Rob" for 1962 AFL Championship Game won by the Texans (later to become the KC Chiefs) on a field goal by Tommy Brooker in that game's 2'nd overtime . The late Lamar Hunt called Abner Haynes "the American Football League's first superstar." HARRY: If you can make these 2 pics smaller feel free to do so. Varsity, whoever your ex Oiler late father was I would probably know his name and his position. I know you are very proud of him with such a pro football legacy among I'm sure many other reasons. For certain not many get to ever play at that level. "V"...I was at a Dallas MG Club meeting many years ago and ex North Texas NCAA D1 All American/KC Chief's great Abner Haynes along with our late, great Ron Shanklin were in attendance. I think that MG Club meeting was at Big D's One Main Place as I recall--pretty high cotton sort of digs, too.. As Abner and Ron were sitting on a sofa in the foyer, I walked over & asked Abner if he remembered a particular game at Rice Stadium when he and his KC Chiefs were playing the Oilers; that is, a game which Houston Oiler/Future NFL Hall of Famer QB "Father Time" George Blanda had started. (Of course, Blanda made the NFL-HOF on his field goal kicking talents rather than his QB skills but he was no slouch as a QB, either. Ask Oiler receiver Charlie Hennigan about that, right, Varsity? Anyhow....I mentioned to Abner a very funny incident that took place at Rice Stadium that particular Sunday afternoon and he started laughing as he already knew the story that I was going to repeat to him and Shank'. This: Oiler QB Blanda had just received a cheap shot by one of the Chiefs and was back in his offensive huddle and then......the next thing many in Rice Stadium (except the refs) would see was George Blanda slowly walking over to the Chief's defensive huddle (of all places) and he proceeded to kick the Chief's cheap shot artist squarely in the butt and then......Blanda slowly (very non-chalantley) walked back to the OIler's huddle and called the next play. Funniest darn thing I've still seen at any level of football. Oh yes, you mentioned dirty Al Jamison and the great Bob Talamini. Talamini was on a local Houston radio station for a lunch time show and was quite good. Then Houston's version of Darth Vader, ie, owner Bud Adams had him traded to the NY Jets, but at least he was on Broadway Joe's Super Bowl winning team. Question For You...Varsity: How did your dad feel about Oiler's owner Bud Adams?