PlummMeanGreen

But how long would it really take for AD/RV to straighten out our home OOC schedule? A Big 5 Conference school here and one there; maybe even a MWC school, too, (Boise, San Diego St. Air Force, etc) and doesn't that mostly straighten it out? Any school can only have so many home OOC games as it is. I think more home and homes with Army and Navy would be pretty cool. I still think of that exciting Navy game at Fouts Field a few years ago with that pre-game fly-over. While a school is in a losing cycle is a good time to do such scheduling, too. BTW, I think I could identiify several CUSA and Sun Belt schools who would kill for a 12 game home and home with SMU. TSU-San Marcos for one will soon lose their key Texas-based game with UTSA (if they haven't already) and who doesn't think they would love to come to Gerald Ford Stadium 6 out of the next 12 years? Heck, Baylor would probably even like more games with SMU, too. I have not yet given up with our future OOC home schedule. Our AD knows what our fans want (since he's heard it enough from many). I hope he never schedules any more Sun Belt Conference schools (ever) unless one becomes the first Top 25 ranked 'Belt school. When you get out of the sticks to a much nicer neighborhood, how many spend their time trying to get back to the sticks? (Sorry, the 'Belt served our purpose for awhile but being the only Texas-based SBC school really sucked). CUSA is not to be confused with the (now defunct) Southwest Conference by any means, but for North Texas at this time of our history it may be the 2'nd best thing for us with all the Texas-based CUSA rivals we will have along with others not so far away, too.. I merely point to my new, updated signature below for future UNT recruits--even some who just committed to a Sun Belt school or 2 that North Texas just might change their minds when they see our CUSA destination cities and areas of the USA for away games, compared to most other Go5 conferences destinations. GMG!

Remember the 2002 North Texas vs. New Mexico State game at Fouts Field for the Sun Belt Conference championship? The best game I saw at Fouts Field during any era, too! I cannot remember a game (ever) at Fouts Field when our crowd was so into the game and this was a game that went back and forth till the end; it was a real nail-biter of a college football game. I have the official 2002 North Texas "Champions" DVD and wish I knew how to take some other highlight plays from that NMSU Aggie game and somehow put them on YouTube. Below is just 1 YouTube play from that game featuring BOOGER KENNEDY & COMPANY! The one I cannot find on YouTube was a defensive series in the 2'nd half with the entire Fouts Field crowd chanting.........DEFENSE (stomp-stomp)! DEFENSE (stomp-stomp)! DEFENSE (stomp-stomp)!..............and when Mean Green LB Cody Spencer takes out the NMSU Aggie QB, he, the team and the crowd at Fouts Field go absolutely nuts! I will give this DVD video to any of you who can put that one play of Cody Spencer on YouTube for Mean Green football posterity MEANWHILE........... HERE IN THE BELOW YOUTUBE VIDEO IS THE GREAT BOOGER KENNEDY DURING THAT NORTH TEXAS/NEW MEXICO STATE GAME OF 2002....and just a hint of how much the crowd at Fouts Field really helped the team in green toward a conference championship that night plus a trip to the NO's Bowl versus the Cincinatti Bearcats and.............a Mean Green bowl win!

Posted on YouTube 2 days ago:

Actually, I long for a repeat win such as occurred during my junior year at North Texas in 1975 with our upcoming game at Tennessee in Knoxville in the next year or 2. And if we were to go up to Iowa (next year?) and beat the Hawkeyes I could then say "that's it for me, baby" and go on to my heavenly Mean Green reward in the sky. The SMU 12 game series could actually turn into a real bonafide local rivalry that would probably make SMU want to renew the series. SMU wants us because they know we will bring a crowd to Gerald Ford Stadium; of course, we will get more SMU fans at Apogee if for nothing else they will want to come up and see our new digs. Pretty damn exciting times I would say. GMG! PS: I'm getting too old to be a sour puss and the health just ain't what it used to be, either.

Back post-Indian wars and depridations, I called the UNT athletic dept. one day and suggested to former SID Doug Ray that the Denton Kiwanis Fireworks would be a great place to introduce the then "new" UNT HFC....one Corky Nelson. He concurred and Fouts was packed more than I'd ever seen it--Corky received a very, very nice ovation and even seemed to blush a bit it seemed to me. (I was on the field along with Doug and Corky and could see the blush) ! FAU or no other CUSA newbie will have as many at their CUSA coming out party as UNT will at the Kiwanis fireworks at Apogee Stadium. Now a giant Apogee jumbotron and creative video production on the subject of our new CUSA membership by the video department over at UNT athletics could go a long ways in putting on a most positive presentation with this captive yet 'in the mood to celebrate" audience with UNT as guest host. I think it will be a great intro to Denton and Denton County to our new era in Conference-USA. We want big crowds at Apogee, right? Well, we are getting one on the 4'th of July----make it count. GMG!

Agree, we need to win but........UNT90, SMU entered CUSA as a new member with almost a 20 years in a row football seasons losing streak. We ain't even close to those kind of dismal numbers, but long story short....even SMU turned it around after well over 2 decades of losing. And anyone else notice which DFW Metroplex school now has a 12 game home and home series with those 'Stangs and it ain't TCU (who word on the street says will be dropping the Stangs soon from their future schedule). Thanks to UNT AD RV for negotiating that SMU contract which many of us older nestors thought would be next to impossible to ever get that many years of a "home and home" football schedule commitment from SMU most our adult lives. GMG!

What will do it for me when I'm at our fabulous Apogee Stadium for our 8/31 game versus Idaho are those throwback unis and helmets coupled with a very, very convincing win over those Vandals! That will then make us 1 and 0 with many more to go (to put it the "W" column, that is).

And clearly you get to stay on this board and in "OUR" living room to keep on depositing steamers on "OUR" carpet and to revel in our occasional disappointment. Honestly? Is this your true calling in life, "someone" (his name on the MWC board) and whatever the hell GL2Greatness stands for; then if it his it hardly seems anything close to what most would ever call a high calling at any rate. Yet what a pathetic life inasmuch that the only thing that makes you happy is when other people are not happy. You on lithium or anything stronger............yet? Harry, I'm sure you have your reasons to allow this poster to stay; that is this one who hates & taunts all things about UNT in every post but whatever those reasons seems to elude my very simpleton mind. He plays by the rules? Well, so does Lucifer I presume until he yanks one's soul away. GMG! PS: BTW, Harry, congrats on having such a popular message board...........almost 500 on GMG.com in the last few hours.

As far is getting all the relevant sports information out (not just statistics of games, etc...) during the Fry era and out of the respect for the deceased.............well, as I said............out of the respect for the deceased. Still A Subtle Hint: Hayden Fry and Fred Graham were never drinking buddies and I will leave it at that.....out of respect for the deceased. Add yet another Fred and the drinking bud's story would be the same with that particular Fred. too, but that was yester-year and yester-year's gone. Personally, I liked all 3 of those fellers. Our alums back in that day wanted SID Fred Graham to be a "Mean Green Sports News Promoter" and Fred just did not see it that way and he was probably mostly correct in that regard as far as the old function of SID's before the 70's.. Yet Sports Information Offices were beginning to change back in the mid 70's, though, from one functioning as almost a bookkeeper, statistician to what SMU's very successful Mustang Mania promotion efforts showed many SID's across the the NCAA the kind of news that would soon begin to be expected to come out of their departments back then up through today. I do think Fry and Graham parted friends, though, but they still never became drinking buddies last I heard. GMG!

We let him down for about 2 years as far as his research staff's predictions were concerned and he seemed hacked off with us for it. too. He seems to be the most accurate, though, of all the summer college football magazines and I know some of you who agree.

Late UNT Sports Information Director Fred Graham's wife "Sidney"?" might disagree with their story about the Mean Green. Drex can probably add to this subject. Amazing how historical fact can change just because someone is too lazy to research the truth or they might even have an agenda--truth or no truth be told? GMG!

For certain North Texas took the much more difficult road less traveled while other schools you mentioned (some in Texas) who only recently had to expand their stadiums to immediately move up to NCAA FBS level. And apparently not even be held to any serious NCAA attendance criteria to boot. Wasn't quite as easy for North Texas....we had to work at it but we made it work! Some of us have talked often about the 1994 football season being one of our all time favorites in Mean Green Country and it was a special season because: (1 ..............we "ALL" had to have a shoulder to shoulder solidarity" with massive purchase of football tickets as the major objective; (2) .............we had the Eagle-Dome, ie, a humongous circus-like tent with great live entertainment. food and beverage; (3) .............probably our wealthiest UNT alum Charn ????? from SE Asia bought thousands of football season tickets which I'm sure were obviously distributed around Denton County and (4) ...........with the best part of 1994 being how we drew around 20,000 "real butts' in seats" per home game to regain our NCAA D1-A classification. (Almost forgot this..........the previous winter UNT officials added those Fouts Field end zone seats to meet stadium capacity criteria). The 1994 MG football season: Remember George Dunham of the Mean Green Radio Network's famous "See Ya' Later McNeese State" radio call-out at Fouts when it was raining and our fans were still all over the place with an assortment of rainbow colored umbrellas in hand still sticking around for a darn good football game? Is it time to "tow the line" again on the eve of our CUSA membership? Because of our CUSA membership, I plan on making 3-4 games this Fall and have already turned down DJ gigs (mostly weddings) around some of those home game dates. Conference-USA membership is a pretty big deal and is special to me as I know it is for most of you on this forum. I personally hope we win the whole damn enchilada not 2 years from now........not next year, but this year! We have a good assortment of special talented Texas HS football products mixed with some from other states so...why the heck not? GMG!

Back when Bear Bryant was at TAMU he once said Baylor could be the best college football coach's job in Texas because of all the Baptist in the Bible Belt's largest populated state. The part of all this he seemed to not be aware is how Baptist are known (even humorously at times) for their theological in-fighting amongst themselves and thereby many times one group splitting from said church to establish yet another Baptist church in Texas. Not exactly the unity Bear Bryant had in mind when he made his statement about the Baylor job back in the 1950's.

untjim1995, I hear what you are saying (posting) but in the 70's there were a whole bunch of people in these parts who didn't care too much about TCU Horned Frog football, either. Only time they drew crowds at ACS was when the power schools of the SWC came to FW along with their traveling fans. Hell, TCU wouldn't even schedule North Texas for well over 30 plus years during the Abner Hayne's Era, the Joe Greene Era and the Hayden Fry Era and it doesn't take a rocket scientist as to understand why they would not play us. (Of course when it would be obvious our program would be down TCU would very subtlely put us on their football schedules, then). Also, the same thing could be said for Kansas State prior to 1989 and Bill Snyder. Boise State another prime example of what at one time looked like a college football wasteland. North Texas? Just never say never is what i still say. Even local sports icon Norm Hitzghes said after Apogee was built: "North Texas...why not North Texas as the next Boise State?" And Norm is not one to throw such bouquets around to any area school unless he means it.. GMG!

Phil is back to saying nice things about North Texas Mean Green football again and..................WE'LL TAKE IT! GMG!

In deed they do have that tradition, DG. My first ever game at Kyle Field was when they still had a track inside it, DKR was coaching for UT and it was Gene Stallings last game as aTm coach (since he had been fired). . I remember how funny it looked that day to see Ags putting folding chairs near their track to accomodate their sellout which back then would have been about 45,000 or so. Then someone apparently pulled TAMU officials aside back in the early 70's and told them they were 1 of 2 elite Texas-based schools that could use PUF (permanent university fund) monies because it seems they never really did ...............but then first thing I recall was just how quickly Rudder Tower would soon be built. And then the rest of the 70's TAMU took off with enrollment and new facilities like a skyrocket and it hasn't stopped since. UNT's growth will continue in a similar way but we just have to get those on campus who can capture the imaginations of all our new faces, new students and new alums...........I think we all hope that and I think most on this forum don't really care who gets the job done at UNT as long as the damn job gets done. USM has no where to go but Ha.ttiesburgh, MS. and to their old and new CUSA opponents football stadiums in the Fall. This Carlisle guy would probably like to back step what he said but he and their new prez' now are just probably just singing to the USM choir just to shut them up and make them think.........."the future is bright!" Seems we have the last few decades had a few choral anthems sung to us from many of our past presidents, BOR's and AD's. too. And we fell for most of theirs hook, line and sinker, too! LOL! (Hey! Just sue us all for wanting good things to happen for our school and for our Mean Green athletlcs program, too). For Southern Miss, even any future move to the AAC by the time they might do such would probably merely be considered a lateral move by that time because i see some winning cycles coming back to some and others will soon start their losing cycles and that happening at schools in both CUSA and the AAC for that matter. BTW....North Texas will be one of those schools whose winning cycle returns. GMG!

Not making excuses for Coach Mac, but Fry had his first over .500 season in Year 3 in Denton; Dickey in Year 5 since we went to the first NO's Bowl under .500 as I recall. No biggie there since Fry took SMU to a bowl one year when his team was (as I recall) 4 & 6. Go figure. Not sure why the football gods never smiled on our school in the past and let one of our past coaches go bonkers their very first season at UNT with a winning season (Fry was 5-5-1 in 73'); which some schools we know of seem to have pulled that rabbit out of their hats quite successfully. Oh well... GMG!

Being a 6'th generation Texan with a few historic family ties to pre-Republic and then the Republic of Texas I just cannot publicly say on a family-oriented forum like this my first thoughts when I think about the state of Missisiissiisiiisisisisipppppiiiiisisisiiiippis. double hump back back hump or however the hell that spelling thing goes with that state. AND..........it's with the white population of that state which inspires those less than positive thoughts, too. 0 and 12 last Fall, too? What do they do for an encore fpr............THAT? In your best Boss Hog white suit, Colonel Dr. President Carlisle, go back to sipping on your mint juleps while you sit under your magnolia trees in that sultry humidity and have your pipe dream fantasies of the Big 12 all you want, Big Boy! Surely that score of North Texas vs S-u-u-u-u thurn' Mississippi in the link at the bottom and back when we had it going on and they didn't could possibly be correct, now could it? Did You Know? There are almost 5 million more population within one hour of Apogee Stadium and the Mean Green Village than what is in Miss's entire state's population of 2.8 million? When North Texas gets back to its winning ways (and we will) there will be more who know about those Mean Green wins than when USM wins in their beloved Hater's burgh as well as their entire state. And when "OUR" multi-football seasons winning streaks begin many of them will be inside Apogee to view all those wins,too. Take that and mix it with one of your clabbered up mint juleps, good guv'nuh ol' chap. http://www.databasefootball.com/College/teams/teamyear.htm?TeamID=72&Season=1977 GMG! PS: I think I know some words that will be up on the Mean Green locker room bulletin board come SMU, I mean USM game week. And just what is it about those 3 specific letters that breeds such arrogance, condescending'ness and just downright stupidity in the expression of thought sometimes? Such words as those which came from Buford T. Pusser Carlisle will not too soon be forgotten. Who the hell is this guy's publicist who obviously didn't proof read one of his main boss's first speeches anyhow'?

There hasn't been that many wins over TCU and SMU, but when we did beat the Frogs and "Stangs I think most would agree that we beat them with players they (for the most part) didn't seriously pursue or recruit. Yes, there are a few exceptions with a few recruits, but very, very few. GMG!

Rivals stats say that almost 162,000 kids play Texas high school football. That is larger numbers than any state in the USA. For Starters: Why can't we use social media and networking to get the word out about our stadium to TX. HS coaches and beyond, fellow UNT alums and Mean Green fans? Doesn't cost our alma mater a plug nickel for us to do this on our Facebook. I know, this is a probably a hokey idea but after I post this message I'm going to my personal Facebook page to post what I've posted below the red line: Hokey? By all means this is hokey but so was the hoola hoop, the super ball and the pet rock and those guys who invented those back in the day laughed all the way to the bank. ??????? How many Texas HS coaches from your part of Texas know many of of you OR even your Facebook friends? And how many of them have ever even seen a photograph of Apogee? Maybe mostly....none? I rest my case: ______________________________________________________________ I will put this heading in bold letters on my Facebook front page: So Proud of UNT's Fabulous Apogee Stadium: My College Alma Mater's Fantastic Football Stadium! Check Out This Video! (If your'e not a UNT alum but rather a MG fan? Then this header for you............................................................................................................................... So Proud of UNT's Fabulous Apogee Stadium: My Favorite College Team's Fantastic Football Stadium! (then on your Facebook post a link of the HKS architectural firm's official video of Apogee Stadium as linked below which I still think is a pretty neat video) End of hokey idea!

My answer to E01's question: When we get out of this generational losing streak we've been in for, well, uh, a generation and just start winning and finally convincing all these potential recruits that all the finished NCAA Division 1 FBS top shelf venues they will see on their visits to UNT and the Mean Green Village combined adds up to one thing and subsequently their eventually thinking: "Hellsbells! I guess North Texas really does want to win!--I think I'll give them another look." I like the fact that TCU and SMU can still only sign (is it) 30 'ships per year (and many times not even that number) but moral of all that is............it still leaves an awful amount of great Texas HS football talent out there for us to sign, too. OK, I hate it as much as the next guy does when we lose recruits to SMU and/or TCU, but you know what (?)............... we've been doing that all my UNT student days and post-student days life and yes I know...............it still doesn't make it any easier to swallow by any means. GMG! PS: Some of these early verbals with UNT connections could still change their minds albeit none say they will, right? Best recruiters out there are like effective salesmen..........just dust your feet and move on to the next big possible sale.

In the link at the bottom of the page....scroll down to the 1977 football season. This is just more of the same o' same o' for many of you, but for many of you newbies' it will not be at all. Yes, it was the UPI poll but I assure you that no one coach's vote could ever get his team ranked in that poll based on his voting for his team exclusively. Such a football program had to have other votes among those in NCAA Division 1 for our 1977 North Texas Mean Green football team to get such a lofty final Top 20 ranking and this particular UNT team had those other votes, but lest we also forget.......... we also had a darn good football team to boot. For 5 out of 6 years in the 70's we had some good Mean Green football teams and others besides the 1977 team should have been in 1 or 2 other final Top 20 rankings, too.....in my most unbiased opinion, of course. Wish we would have had more bowls games back then, an Apogee'esque kind of stadium back in that day along with 200,000 plus DFW UNT alums in the 70's, too, but we didn't. Timing is everthing? Timing "IS" Everything And Lady Luck Along Our Side At Times Would Help, Too, But---We Seem To Rarely Get Either Working For Us At UNT At The Same Time--maybe that will change soon? The shame of the Fry Era at UNT was that there were not as many bowl games as there are today. If that had been the case, 5 out Fry's 6 Mean Green football teams would have gone bowling using the criteria presently used AND THEN..................SOMETHING, IE, A VENUE, PART OF A VENUE OR WHATEVER AT NORTH TEXAS WOULD BEAR HIS NAME (becaue at present nothing does). Shall we all mostly agree how much this guy did in 6 years at UNT others would not or could not do in twice or more the time? And....wasn't he also the last coach we had at UNT who left with over. 500 in wins? So isn't there..................Something/Anything worthy of his name adorning it in the MG Village? North Texas would gain more from such a name connection or association than Fry would truth be told. Didn't his/ours 6 years with him play some part of his being named later in the College Football Hall of Fame? After all...........if there had not been a North Texas for Coach Fry there very well may have never been a Big 10 Iowa for him, either. Is it revisionary historians on campus and politics keeping Hayden Fry's name off of any of our venues or what? Back To Top 20 Polls: If you peruse the polls of the 70's you will see that North Texas was one of the few non AQ (Go5) schools that got a Top 20 (not Top 25, mind you) final ranking and there were some pretty good non AQ schools back then, too. http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/polls_1936_present_e.html GMG!

But still............will that make the "super elites" of the "Big 5" happy? No, I don't think anything that is money or greed-driven really ever has happiness as an end result scenario. So Here's The Plan: Have about 14 or 16 of the "Really Big Boy" elitist schools break from the rest of the Big 5, let them form their NFL 2.0/minor league farm system schools, pay their performers those "forever" stipends some of their presently bored out of their minds for new and bigger high dollar projects (creating more separation from the "have nots"); that is, those future NFL 2.0 Super Coaches who just cannot wait to see "THEIR" players get paid even now. Yet for certain make sure their special, elite NFL 2.0 students will have to occassionally go to class to make the faculty happy and give them that "student/athlete" appearance of old but "only" go to classes part time less it interfere with their future careers in the real National Football League and then.............. .....................just let the rest of us play intercollegiate amateur sports the way I actually think all this was set up to be played in the first place; that is, before self-serving politics .....ie, such politics that make some of our enormously high paid yet still "NFL 2.0 Super Coaches" seem more important than they actually would be in most any other profession. And you still have all their schools getting the big time TV revenues while choking to death the majority of the rest of our schools who actually comprise most of the entire NCAA membership; that is, those NCAA programs which do not quite fit in their NFL 2.0 elitist group..............and with their forever...... "me...me....me.....me first" attitudes which seems to have taken over and literally permeated to the core that which used to be a fun to watch and (mostly) innocent NCAA inter-collegiate athletics (save a few habitual NCAA rule breakers who have proven to not be so innocent). So who was it that said that money was the root of all..........now what's that word once again? GMG! PS: You who know me well know I'm being facetious as all get-out about the above idea.

That would be Chuck Curtis, r-p. and had he been given time he would have built a football program at UTA but unfortunately for him............they pulled the plug. Curtis was an assistant coach for a time when Fry was at SMU. He is a member of the Palo Pinto County (Mineral Wells) Sheriff Possee and in good standing. Not sure he was always in good standing among his Texas HS football coaches peers, though. Rumors to the affect that he liked to recruit kids from other districts over to whatever district he would be in? That strictly a rumor, of course. GMG!

Ahhh! "THAT" Honey Grove! Thanks for that info, unt_rocket09. I went from 1'st grade to 12'th grade in the Danbury ISD with pretty well the same classmates in each grade. Can any of you find anyone under age 45 years old today that has done that? It's another part of Americana that is also disappearing. The old home town had approx. 1,000 population but when they turned on our Friday Night Lights at the HS football stadium it sometimes grew to about 2,500 to 3,000! Our Danbury ISD high school stadium is named in honor of Coach Harold Humber, our head football coach of about 8 years, but during my senior year, Coach, his wife June, and their daughter Gaye were all 3 killed in a head on car wreck as they were en route back to Danbury with this tragedy happening near Missouri City and Stafford, Texas. Coach and his family had been visiting with the Houston Alief high school football coach as well as his family on a Sunday afternoon. That tragedy happened on March 9, 1969 and my senior class graduated 2 months later. It was a sad time for a small Texas community and to this day I often think of my football coach/friend, June and Gaye.