PlummMeanGreen

Dallas Green is one of the most giving and "gives a damn" alums we've had at UNT. Not many on this forum can come close to topping his financial contributions to North Texas and all that since the 1960's. (He also gives to other areas of the UNT community, too). Some of my favorite SMU/UNT game memories Dallas Green, Rick Spears and others were part of. One of my favorite SMU/UNT game moments was an early 80's game at a pre-game tailgate at Texas Stadium when D.G. addressed "then" SMU AD Bob Hitch! What a moment! NOTE: We didn't know it then, but we were playing against a $emi-pro college football team. Like many of us older alums we have seen way too many down times and too many "start over all over again's " at North Texas and to all you Young Gun Alums, it just has an effect on you (hell, just look at me) when many of us older types have seen too many schools once at or even below our level pass us by.......... but as Bill Clinton used to say............. NOW LISTEN TO ME....................if SMU can turn around their dismal football program of the last 2 or 3 decades of which the link below shows has really been worse than ours.............then...................so can North Texas turn its fortunes around, too. The sad part about SMU is that they don't draw fans with winning football teams. I guran'darn'tee you that North Texas will draw quite nicely with winning football teams in the stadium we now have and most all of you on this board to the person will even agree with crusty ol' phart PMG on that, too, (I think). You really have to see SMU's year by year W/L link below to still be able to appreciate how we can "count our many blessings" here during the Christmas season in Mean Green Country. Even many of their winning seasons at one part of their football history were with players that were paid hence their Death Penalty. The most amazing part to me is how SMU can still get by on the capital it gets with all this re-alignment business and that from a 1939 NCAA N.C. and the Doak Walker Era now close to 70 years ago. http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/teams/smu.shtml

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, too.

Darn, I must have had my first stroke because I'm actually agreeing with most of Cougar King's post. CK, I was at some of those Astrodome UH games when Bo Burris, Warren McVae, Paul Gipson, Jerry Drones, Kenny Hebert, etc, were all wearing the red and white. Even then had there not been a Bluebonnet Bow game many of UH's best teams back then would have never gotten any bowl invite, ie, pre-SWC era. Much of what is in this link below indicates why North Texas is mired in quagmire of mud. Even if we had even been offered a Big East invite which we know would never happen; but still, I am not sure we would have even accepted. We really didn't make CUSA happen (before it became a shadow of its self) and for what it's worth...............SMU made CUSA happen for us--we merely backed into that conference. And the MWC? I am not sure some of our leaders even know what those initials stand for. After a lifetime of all this you sorta' have trends to go by as to what you can expect in Denton. (We REALLY need Coach Mac to be a raging success...and I actually think he has a chance to do that; for other areas of UNT athletics I am just not nearly as confident). .http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/teams/nt.shtml

If those 2 schools leave the MWC then their Commish' CraigThompson might have to get with CUSA Commish' Banowsky and revive their old Alliance idea for survival. Thompson seems to have avoided "the Alliance" subject but may be forced to live with that idea now becaue it might be his last card to play. GMG!.

And recent rumor has the Longhorn Network going belly-up which would open up new discussions that UT and OU might go PAC 12? I'm sorry, but I get the feeling that UT thinks TAMU has "one-up'ed" them with their SEC move and that UT could use the PAC 12 to even that score? All this is like those old time Saturday movie serials where you have to wait till next weeks episode to see how the present one plays out. Of course, all that was well before my time. GMG! PS: Like many of you, I hope somehow North Texas will stumble into the MWC with our #5 (soon to be #4) ranked TV market but with 3 or 4 other Texas-based schools which would still give us our regional schedule but at a higher level. Say what you say (and maybe ask a few Horned Frog's opinions, too) but the nMWC would be at a higher level.. The nCUSA has fallen from grace about as quickly as any league could have ever done in the space of a few months. All this is incredibly frustrating (but interesting at the same time). The schools that have been "has beens" and "used to be's" for way too long with their long past traditions and the interest in those schools from folks 1 or 2 time zones away is to me the most intriguing part of this whole re-alignment affair. I stand amazed at what a school did well over 70 years ago in NCAA football but really not much else since still have so much capital with all these conference commissioners. GMG ! !

SilverE, I think the nBE was bordering on fraud when they invited the first wave of B.E. schools (SMU, UH, Boise, etc,) because I question if those doing the inviting back then knew that there was no way that they would be able to put together a large enough TV package to make coast to coast travel for both men and womens' varsity teams cost effective. And during that time the B.E. included all the basketball schools who will soon leave that league. GMG!

SMU,UH and others just need to understand in their exclusive little world of self-importance that all this still amounts to is just more re-arranging of the ship's deck chairs but problem is all of us who are not in one of the Big Boy Conferences are still in the steerage section of the Good Ship NCAA. I don't think even in some of you Young Gun Alum's lives that this attitude from that "most exclusive" group will ever change. Circumstances and no other choices in re-alignment may change it for them but they will go down (which is how they see it) scratching and screaming to keep from being with schools like North Texas. On the other side of that coin: Our school has not in most of our older alums lives actually given the SMU's and UH's any real reasons to change their attitudes about us, either. Our school and constituency grew with warp type speed yet our support remains the same as it was in the 80's, the 90's and even 2003. 2003? That was one year after a Mean Green bowl game win. Still amazing how we were once in a conference with Boise State and then looking at the direction the Broncos took comparative to ours (and our direction mostly because of poor hirings who to the person had a one helluva' line of BS and "as always"--stayed on the payroll too long) while most all these years later our school's leaders still seemedly having no clue as to what Boise did different than North Texas to make such a dramatic difference. At some point, you have to look at the idea of copying other's success, how they attained it and with the kind of personnel they accomplished it. Hiring those with superb lines of BS and false promises needs to become a lost art at North Texas. GMG!

The One whose very birth our calendars even go by and who is celebrated in the USA by mostly giving our country's retailers it's largest sales cycle of any year (and then the ACLU types makes sure He's placed back on our country's back-burner of insignificance after all have made their bonanza because of His birth) once said: "He who is without sin let him throw the first stone." I just think everyone deserves a 2'nd (sometimes even a 3'rd) chance in life for their mistakes. I hope these 2 guys get that kind of consideration. GMG!

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/556801/Southern-Methodist-University-SMU

North Texas is not a hard sale once kids actually take a walk thru our campus and the Mean Green Village. I don't think many of our biggest critics on some of these message boards also have a clue as to what we have going on across our main campus after years of new construction. We just need to start having some consecutive winning seasons again because that is the missing ingrediant at North Texas. GMG!

Harry, because SMU and Houston don't think like we do. Those 2 schools are forever jaded (and most bitter) becaue the SWC imploded and they were never given a consideration for the Big 12 so their take is to take it out; that is, take it out on those of whom they deem lesser. Just my observation of both those schools after about 40 years of observing UH (who was my first college team to support as a youth growing up in the Houston area) and observing SMU the same since transferring to UNT in January of 1973. (What you say, Harry, makes too much sense for it to ever happen in the senseless NCAA of today, though). GMG!

Uh, make that SMU location University Park, Texas, brother Gerald, like Denton, Texas, is, uh, UNT's location? I just saw it in my Rand McNally map--honest to goodness I did, brother Gerald. GMG!

Have you ever heard as much unadulaterated bullshit coming from so many higher-ups presently in CUSA (all soon to leave) that when it rains are most always in danger of drowning? GMG!

First offense? Then a slap on the hand and community service hours to be served and they suit up for Spring football. I hope this is the scenario anyhow.

Year 3 will be the program-changer for Coach McCarney and staff as many of us have been saying even before Year 2. This is a great start toward a great 3'rd year for all. I hope there will be 3 or 4 more JUCO's that will complement those coming back which will get us jump-started toward getting a multi-season winning streak airborne and that begins with Year 1--our first in CUSA. Congrats to the Mean Green coaching staff! Keep up the good work and quality of signees that other quality NCAA FBS level schools wanted. GMG!

BREAKING NEWS WITH THIS MOST SERIOUS MWC INTERVIEW ABOUT EXPANSION!

As Chester (William Bendix) on the Life of Riley sitcome post Indian Wars oft' said: "Now isn't that a revolting development?" Some of the Big East football refugees new theme song: I'm trying to post the song "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" from the movie Cold Mountain and sung by Jack Black but it won't post. Check it out on YouTube as it appropriate for those who constantly look down their noses at UNT and for whom I do NOT feel sorry for their plight one iota. And hellsbells, some of the athletic dept. slackers or those who approve of such slacker'dom (and the poor souls that they are who never have anyone wanting to hire them away from UNT for almost forever) and who "never" read this board; anyhow, they (or their sphincter sniffers) give me red numbers before I can finish a freakin' post! Moral of Story: I don't like the depths that they keep our athletic program year in and year out while they keep BS'ing you who drink suds with them "and call you by your first name" how such a superb a job they are doing. One day some of you, too, will tire of the unadulaterated BS you are fed from the powers that be at North Texas but you will finally wake up (I think) and see that..............the W/L records across the board never change and no one still comes to Denton trying to hire them away (a red flag) from us (for whatever possible reason that could be). GMG!

Wasn't much of this happening in the soon to be late, great Big East all but predictable even before UH and SMU accepted their invites? Maybe if they'd only looked beyond the day they accepted as well as looking beyond their noses with the greed which made them leave this region with all their men and women's varsity sports that I think even a novice could have seen some major traveling budget concerns? The AD's at UH and SMU had to know the B.E. basketball schools could do what they are obviously going to do if they'd done a bit more research on the history of that northeastern seaboard league. Of course, had the SMU and UH AD's not shown pro-activity in all this they would have become Sunday's after church roast for the next year or until they retired if that is something AD's ever do. Then again...it's that old 20/20 thing in play here, too. Wild horses will not drag UH and SMU back into CUSA. Seems they feel we of SBC 2.0 have all (to the school) regained our cooties tag once again. Thurston Howell, III, would say, "Oh Lovey, there are just some in our most high social circles that we just cannot be seen or associated with." Wonder if SMU will do with UNT what it appears UH did to La Tech with their future home and home football schedule as in.........cancel it? We who've been around the DFW college football scene for 4 or 5 plus decades know that is always a possibility with those 'Stangs. Negative? Hardly not, some of us in SMU's most recent neighborly gesture aimed at us remember the present SMU Prez' talking up La Tech over UNT for CUSA membership in the Dallas Morning News during the last CUSA cake walk or expansion talks. We might as well all get comfy' with our new conference surroundings because tradition once again rules. SMU's 1939 NCAA national championship is all but closer to the era of Indian raids out here in Parker County, Texas, than the present day but those are the kind of things these over-paid NCAA conference moguls and geeks seem to still go by. They seem to forget that all those 1980's great SMU football teams were Dallas' 2'nd well paid off pro football team AND................nevermind those endless photos of Gerald Ford Stadium on Game Day with less than 5,000 fans in their stadium and then those numbers most always getting reported in the DMN as either............ 18,000 or 22,000. Hey, I know we have our own att. problems but I don't think ours (even in an 8 season losing streak) can trump the ones on Mockingbird Lane and those during winning football seasons to boot. So I guess the NCAA's version of social climbing Cinderellas-ugly-sisters-in-waiting continues and I don't see this round being the last one, either. Be nice if North Texas at some point of all our lives would actually be athletically postitioned for advancement with good W/L records across the board to complement our extremely advantagious North Texas Metroplex location. So all non NCAA Big Boy Conference schools start reforming the lines once again for the next round! This whole thing is all but turning into comedy sit-com if you sit back and think about all that has transpired. GMG!

Happy Birthday, fellers! Of course we care, Phil, and one reason for that is that we don't want to make you have to call your cousin Guido over in Sicily. GMG!

When I was a student at NTSU in the 70's, I can honestly tell you that I knew very little of the schools which would later make up the Sun Belt Conference. They could have been called anything, ie, start-up, NCAA newbie or whatever. I know we seemed to have a recruiting advantage on most of them early on based on one of Dickey's recruiting hauls which had approximatley 10 Texas state Top 100 recruits in his best (and last) good recruiting class. DD pretty well coasted on those players till they graduated and then the rest of the SBC passed us. AkrStFan, I did know about your Larry Lacewell's successful run in Jonesboro, because of what I read in a Dave Campbell's Texas Football newsletter that he sent out back in the day and one of those that even had a feature on Lacewell, but outside of Arky' State all the other SBC schools who would make up our schedule very few of us now in our 60's would most likely have known very little about. Now we are having to call some of those schools "daddy" the way they have "beep! beeped" past our program, beginning in Dickey's last 2 years in Denton. GMG!

The MWC still has us beat in the perception department. Even the WAC had us beat in that area, too. Ask some recruiting experts on this board why La Tech was able to out-recruit North Texas most times in our own backyard. It was because they joined the WAC with Boise State and Nevada and that was when Boise started making their NCAA presence known. La Tech was still able to ride the WAC name until the league just petered out (like others seem to be on the way of doing). Little history of the WAC: http://www.wacsports...0&ATCLID=537066 The MWC would be a good conference for North Texas if there were a 2 or 3 more Texas schools in it along with Tulsa and/or Rice (as one of the Texas schools). Probably not going to happen but who'd ever believe other NCAA conference scenarios in play now. If Tulsa and Rice leave for the MWC, then North Texas is left with very much unsolicited egg on its face because we would have made the equivalent of a lateral conference move and would truly then be in the SBC 2.0. This whole thing is getting very tiring. I wish the NCAA had a baseball type commissioner like the old timer Kenesaw Mountain Landis who would take the bull by the horns and create some sanity in all this going on today. http://en.wikipedia....Mountain_Landis Just looking at the guy would scare the be'jesus out of most and help others regain their sanity. GMG!

Cooley, you are being so blatant and negatively....truthful. I do think Coach McCarney has some tricks up his sleeve, though. Best and most celebrated coach in North Texas history only won 2 games his 2'nd season in Denton, but even then we felt he was getting some players to build with. Just wish that new stadium would have given us more star'ed recruits than we seem to be getting but lets just see what happens with that, too. As long as they are recruiting some kids with speed and good quick feet on the line they can get coached and can be developed in the weight room. We can no longer say its about our facilties any more and that is a positive; albeit was over-due in finally getting done for those of us getting long in the tooth. GMG!

You have to give the coach credit applying for a HFC's job coming from a football program that has had 8 losing seasons in a row. (Take your blood pressure meds now). The 40 plus years I (even as an admitted novice) closely followed NCAA football and how programs function, ie, who makes them work AND who doesn't make them work it seems most programs normally hire from programs that are winning, but reading this board would probably even cause an unobjective reader to think that "normal" is not the oft' used modus operendi with most things connected with North Texas. Now is that being negative or just blatantly truthful? Lets debate that the next 10 years while nothing changes up at the Mean Green Retirment Center while many of you who profess to care about all this now may not care 10 years from today to give a damn to even post an opinion. Some of us old phart alums can count endless numbers of NT Exes who no longer read this or any board (have probably never seen it in some cases) and no longer give a hoot or a holler about whatever happens to theirs (and our) alma mater's athletic program. This group you can kiss off forever and are long gone from the Mean Green scene and some of us have seen this from many eras up there but one in particular when North Texas was demoted to NCAA D1-AA back in 1982 many of our (then) regulars were dropping out like flies and we haven't seen most of them since. I guess the moral of that story is to never become the kind of North Texas Ex as to where you don't care to opinionate about anything at all? With over 200,000 NT Exes in the northern part of Texas we already seem to have our fair share of that group already. I wish Coach "Chico" (whom I've never met) good luck in this endeavor and hope him to be the exception in getting such a job coming from from a multi-year losing program. Many of you say he would be a good NCAA FBS HFC. GMG!

And if we're not bud's with those in charge, how could any of this be construed as personal or at the vendetta level? On the other side of that coin, being "buds" is the very thing that could create a bias along with an unending approval for any staffer at UNT no matter what their record is up there in "Little D." To me it's the still about those who get hired to create success (not just keep promising it) is what you look at after they are given a fair enough time to make it happen. Let's face a blatant fact here, North Texas more than any other NCAA FBS level program I've observed in 40 plus years of being a college football fan gives more than ample time for one to succeed or fail. And as for as this message board is concerned..............America has this 2'nd Amendment thing been going on for about 300 years now that most of us still really appreciate. If we all agreed about everything on GMG.com, Harry would have had to have found another hobby. GMG!

+1 Upgrading in today's NCAA is the name of the game. Those who don't play that game will eventually not be happy with the results for each of their respective schools. Since 1973 I count only 3 revenue producing (football and basketball) head coaches from North Texas who have moved up to better jobs than the one they had at UNT. So we're to be thankful so many UNT coaches well under .500 in career wins after spending years in Denton "hung in there" with North Texas" showing such loyalty while someone else could have been doing better in that same job and maybe even in a shorter time? Also, upon further review..........there are probably less than 5% (+/-) of those registered on this forum who have actually seen a football program at UNT that had its head coach leave Denton with a at least a .500 W/L career record. That alone tell us how slim the pickings have been for fans of the Mean Green. In a nutshell, this UNT alum just does not want in what is left of my lifetime to see even one more school pass North Texas on the NCAA FBS totem pole that we were either above at one time or at least their equal. That is what my posts have been about from the git-go and not one time have I mean't to offend anyone, ie, fellow UNT alums or Mean Green fans. Not wanting to get mushy here, but too many of you I've known for years (and decades) who I appreciate what you have done for dear old alma mater dwarfing anything I've been able to do most years, especially of late, but for North Texas...... "it really does take a village" to make all this work in Mean Green Country and our village (or constituency) is so much larger than most at the NCAA FBS level, but for too many year that just hasn't translated in the areas it should to give us a better position in what is going on in today's NCAA. Right now having any semblance of athletic success on the playing field would give North Texas a much better position in future re-alignment which we've seen up to the present bite us in the butt because of the way this most recent re-alignment scenario has suddenly developed; that is, with what appears to be a Sun Belt Conference 2.0 in the making. And if Tulsa and Rice U leave now or in the near future, what else could you call it? GMG!