PlummMeanGreen

Breaking news on subject of MWC expansion!

So, Harry, is the TSU-SM A.D. blaming "Bush" league fans and alums for their apparent shortcomings?

How about the Marrriage of Figaro? Saw that one evening at the Dallas Civic Opera in what now seems like another life. Happy Birthday to a great UNT alum like letsgiveacheer! GMG!

Welcome to being the only Texas-based football playing school in the Sun Belt Conference, Bobcat Nation. We gladly pass that torch to your school. UTSA has dropped the Bobcats from their football schedule and cannot think of re-scheduling them until 2020 which adds insult to injury. Only time TSU-SM may ever get to play a CUSA school will be in some bowl game. Still, LBJ's alma mater's road to the NCAA D1 (FBS) level has been so much easier than ours ever was. They should be glad with how easy it became which was: Expand Your Stadium To NCAA D1/FBS critieria ='s NCAA FBS level membership; and average 15k per home game with a minimum of 4 home games every 2 years). Coach Fran will one day have 2 winning seasons in a row at TSU-SM and then boogie once again to another outpost unless he decides he wants to break that cycle and stay more than 2 or 3 years.. GMG!

I've had this theory for quite awhile as to why North Texas seems to get the short end of the stick with the College Licensing Company as far as its Mean Green sports merchandising in places and for our school a dearth of such products where schools like Slippery State, Grambling, Towson State, U of Buffalo have even had merchandise in places you'd least expect it....like various areas in the state of Texas? Read the link below and just check out the man who actually started "College Licensing Company" as a business and what part North Texas played in his career as a head football and even what influence our school had on his having a last stop as an NCAA D1 head football coach. Conspiracy here? Oh, probably not, but hell hath no fury as a person who (perhaps) for a lifetime may have had the propensity to carry a grudge toward someone or some school who had a negative affect on a prior career. http://www.clc.com/About-CLC.aspx

Wow! Losing their best RB and now their top receiver? Having visited UH's coogfans.com many of their alums only see a 4 or 5 win season this Fall by the Coogs. Losing good players is not any fun because that usually translates negatively in the W/L department, too. GMG!

Well, you're right about Trilli. He was something else! As nice a guy as you could meet but could not coach if his life depended on it. From the outside looking in on this and knowing how desperate we are at North Texas to have success in anything athletically, yet I am not sure 1 year is enough time for anyone to even unpack all their luggage. I mean look how much time we've given others across the board in UNT athletics to not succeed over past decades and they all to the person had much more than just 1 year. Having an NBA caliber player who for whatever reason could not lead our team out of the losing or could not mesh with the talent we had was a frustration for all of us who call themselves Mean Green. I used to watch Elvin Hayes down at UH be "the leader" of that team and his supporting cast all looked good because of "the Big E" but more important is how they meshed as a team. (Of course, many of that group other than "the Big E" such as Don Chaney, Theodis Lee, Kenny Spain, George Reynolds, etc, were talented and even more important they all seemed to stay healthy as a group, too). Being facetious here, but it seems all Coach Guy Lewis had to do was throw out the basketball to these guys, chew on his famous towel and watch players who meshed and had great chemistry do the rest. I think Benford is looking for that chemistry factor. Even during Coach JJ's last season in Denton it seems we had the injury bug or the "no pass/no play" bug as well in Mean Green Country and that has not helped, either. Hope all is well for you in TinselTown, CMJ. GMG!

If Benford becomes successful won't it be so easy for him to want to leave Denton? Can we count (maybe) on one hand any of our past UNT HFC's or HBC's who want to come back to our campus because they had such a wonderful experience while here? I hope Benford succeeds for himself and for us. GMG!

Absolutley, untjim1995, we are exactly what our program's progesss (or lack thereof) has us. If not for our school's DFW location we would have really been in bad shape with even the new CUSA no matter how it has shaken out. I will get the white flag out and get ready to start waving the darn thing, though, if TSU-Aquarena Springs or even UTSA gets a MWC invite, though. If the MWC comes to Texas, I still think UH and/or SMU gets first dibbs on that one based on their old SWC connection. GMG!

I wish we could make Army a regular home and home staple. Y'all who have been to their place have always been duly impressed. Iowa? What took us so long to schedule this game anyhow beings that we supplied to them the very one who took them out of their own NCAA wilderness walk. Also UNT which played a rather large role In turning around Bill Snyder's Kansas State fortunes, too.

This huge financial gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" has been going on for quite awhile now. In fact, it seems the elite of the NCAA are trying to close all future membership to their club. GMG!

Doesn't seem to be a top priority from Big 12 officials the way I read it. If it were why would they sign with CUSA and the Heart of Dallas Bowl game for the next 5 years? This sentence from the article in link below seems a tad different attitude coming from Jim Delany: Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said there are too many important athletic voices outside of the power-conference structure that shouldn't be ignored. http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/jeremy-fowler/22328001/big-12-voices-ncaa-concerns-to-mark-emmert

This is #52 in this video, ie, Mean Green linebacker Jeff Rodgers famous dad (that is, in recruiting circles)--Randy Rodgers. UNT is noticeably missing from this list of Randy Rodger's recruiting camps this last winter:http://www.randyrodgersrecruiting.com/_d_programDescription.asp?id=7 More about Randy Rodgers recruiting services: http://www.randyrodgersrecruiting.com/_s_about.asp ....and this video from Rodgers:

And C-USA Commish' Britt Banowsky would probably also remind all that the new Conference-USA has 5 million more citizens or population in its footprint, too. GMG!

Hey, rws69, we got the much covetted "knock out" accoustics with what we got from HKS architecs and Manhatten Construction so it worked out well for UNT. Coach Sumlin was a bit surprised himself with Apogee's accoustics and even made comment about how loud the crowd became. (Didn't he call at least 2 timeouts because of that crowd noise)? That same crowd at Fouts Field you would have thought you were at a Wednesday night prayer meeting it would have been so quiet. I wonder how deep UH can actually dig because having grown up down there you can hit water pretty quickly in some places down on the Gulf Coast. I concur with another poster who said we could not build Apogee today with all its concrete and bricks for less than $100 million and am shocked UH is only spending $105 million for their's if those figures actually hold out. GMG!

Addendum: What I think the Kansas State YouTube video I posted last week and the one above this post showing a North Texas Mean Green nationally televised win over the NO's Bowl champion U of L Rajun Cajuns says is that our 2013 Mean Green football will hardly come into Conference-USA as something tantamount to chopped liver. Again...I feel dog'gone' good about Coach Dan McCarney's 3'rd year as our HFC and I know many of you feel the same or are beginning to feel the same. ______________________________________ Oh what the heck, here's that Kansas State Wildcats/North Texas Mean Green video again.

Good point, DG...I hardly think UT AD DeLoss Dodd after perusing Central Florida's new stadium back then would have ever said: "We can't schedule UCF, yall have an erector set stadium." I think we would all agree the cosmetics of a stadium's look is important as it does seem to also create perceptions among the fickle'd fan masses, but I think if we sold out Apogee with 35,000 (counting standing room only) they could have built it with legos and none of us would have given a darn.. GMG! PS: This lego football stadium has some great sponsors!

Perhaps less initial seating capacity at Apogee Stadium (31,000) freed up more monies to budget in that more "solid and permanent" look? And............was the final building cost of Apogee really $78 million as projected? GMG!

This game from the 2012 football season. Also, an ESPN nationally televised game from Apogee Stadium with the MGRN boys calling the game on YouTube. 6:40 on the time frame is still my favorite Mean Green "Jim-Jim" touchdown from last season. #7, ie, Mr. Derek Thompson looks as sharp in this nationally televised game as he did in the Kansas State game earlier in the season. Are you ready for some football?

It's been our hirings at North Texas which have kept this program barefoot and pregnant (so to speak). We could have actually hired SWTSU Coach Dennis Francione but our football Einsteins in Denton chose Dennis Parker instead. It's just been decade after decade of a comedy of hiring errors except few of us on this forum have done too much laughing. Funny thing now is how I'm feeling real good about Coach Mac's 3'rd year at UNT. I think the major college football experience as a HFC in the Big 12 is beginning to show even if he had a slow start recruiting Rival 3 stars. Lest all have forgotten, we should all remember what lion's den this poor guy came into with a whole bunch of sludge left behind by a few of his predecessors. GMG! PS: And letsgiveacheer, your fellow older alums (and I'm sure many younger ones) do admire your tenacity in following all this in Mean Green Country, too.

The words "likely to enroll" in the thread title gives me a bit of an anxiety attack. GMG!

Yes, a giant mess in deed ensued, A_V, but I am from the old school that says if one group cannot make it happen as far as North Texas athletics is concerned then another group might sure can. There is really quite a bit of talent out there in NCAA land. Yet one, ie, anyone shouldn't give up our entire store because of one group who cannot make it happen in Denton. Our constant losing has caused many to give up on just about everything that pertains to North Texas like....even the cheerleaders don't look as pretty as they used to, the Green Brigade doesn't sound quite as good as it used to; the color green we're using now makes me want to puke, etc, etc, etc, (and I only use those aforementioned as examples because I don't personally feel that way about each)................but on the other side of the coin is how winning will make all quite well on the northern Texas front. Only last decade we did go to 4 NO's Bowl games in a row. North Texas has also not had the same kind of football seasons losing streak SMU did when they first entered CUSA (like in a 2 1/2 decade losing streak)................... nor the almost 80 years of bad luck Kansas State football had before Bill Snyder took over. NOTE: Bing or Google the Wildcats W/L records back then if you think we've had it so bad. Southern MIss gave a recent football coach 1 year to make it happen until they knew they had made a mistake in that hire and fired him after 1 year. (I guess those "0" wins last football season got their alums and fans dander up a tad, right)? GMG! PS: Commuter school? UT-Austin is more of a commuter school than North Texas according to the father of a Texas Ex who posts on GMG.com.

I tend to develop chronic laryngitis with this disc jockey business so...... I'm out. And I think Tim does a super job as the PA guy and voted that way in the poll. GMG!

untjim, because at some point we will all see what actual consecutive winning football seasons will do to cure most every form of cancer there is now in Mean Green Country. Many of us became Mean Green fans under such a scenario of multiple winning seasons; yet I realize many of you younger alums have never witnessed more than 3 winning seasons in a row, but it will happen again. If "Ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas." (Dandy Don Meredith, MNF) (1) If only we would have had the present over 700,000 population in Denton County (instead of 99,000 as Texas almanac reported as they even called Denton County "a rural county" back during my student days); (2) if only we would have had the approx. 120,000 (last count) city of Denton population (instead of the 39,000 when I was a student); (3) if only we would have a UNT student enrollment of over 36,000 with more living on and near campus than ever (instead of the 17,000 enrollment it was when I was a student with a large number of commuters) NOTE: Any of you remember those Transportation Enterprise buses unloading and loading students near the Baptist Student Union area back in the 70's? (4) If only we would have had over 200,000 North Texas exes in the entire North Texas Metroplex as records now show (instead of whatever we had yester-year because quite frankly I don't think our school really got serious about alumnus record-keeping until about the time Fry left SMU for UNT...........as I do understand it, though, there were somme futile or failed efforts to form a North Texas alumnus associatoin before the Fry Era from what I've been told by older alums); (5) And when we do win-baby-win before audiences commensurate to our present day growth compared to the 50's, 60's and 70's, then our daily critcs who at the moment love to strut their stuff and rub it in will slowly one by one disappear from GoMeanGreen.com and another reason which could facilitate an even earlier exit by our daily critics could be because some of their own schools may have fallen on hard times in the W/L columns. Amazing how the pendelum seems to turn creating such scenarios in the NCAA....heck, look at the USM Golden Eagles albeit I believe they will turn their around quite quickly. They just don't sit too long on bad hires in Hattiesburgh. GMG! PS: North Texas still needs to swallow a little pride and learn what they can from upstart UTSA's football marketing program especially because in the Metroplex there are 1,000 other things you can do on Game Day..

Who would from all of us who came to UNT as students after this group ever be kidding about any kind of debate concerning "the greatest team in North Texas history?" With all the NFL draft choices that came from the Mean Joe Greene era in Denton they would without a doubt be the all time best team we ever fielded. Few (if any) of the present g05 schools ever produced so many #1 NFL draft choices along with all the others as North Texas did in the mid-to-late 60's. I was lucky enough to see that North Texas Mean Green football team as a high school kid down in the greater Houston area on the ABC-TV regional Game of the Week and that was when we last beat Tulsa U. And for all those SBC and CUSA newbies's who only recently played at a different NCAA level along with all the new upstarts, being televised in that game mean't North Texas was playing at the highest level of NCAA football as far back as the 60's, too. If only we would have kept hiring UNT leadership who would have sustained all this at such a high level of NCAA competition we would not be a Go5 school today. We can no longer afford to take 1 giant step forward and 3 backward at UNT in today's NCAA and that's for darn sure. GMG!