PlummMeanGreen

As usually is the case in the Fall which is my busiest time of the year as a DJ, I was at a Wedding Reception last night out at the Parker County Sherrif's Possee event center but... ....when I got home around midnight I watched a replay of our game and when it came to the half time show (and I've seen many since 1973) what I saw was one of the best Green Brigade performances I'd ever seen bar none. I have no idea how it translated to you who saw it in person, but what I saw in the replay was simply amazing. Their band unis' looked great, too, and I am glad it was cool enough for them to get to wear them. It was also interesting that UNT alum Dave Barnett interviewed Bill Mercer during part of the game. I have no idea what age Mercer is but he is still quite sharp and still has that humor about him. GMG!

No contest! Even Hollywood could not screw up this Texas HS football scene.

Granted, but Coach Fran recruited Ladanian Tomlinson out of Waco University HS and that has always been his strength IMO. His weakness has been "the grass is greener" syndrome and leaving programs too soon by choice or not by choice. I don't think he will stay in San Marcos once he gets his coaching credentials updated which he is doing now nor do I think La Tech's Coach Dykes will be in Ruston in all of our's first year in CUSA. If Texas Tech is looking after this season common sense says they will first look at Dykes. Many of us figured that UNT would have a new recruiting competitor when Coach Fran took the TSU-SM job. Our main advantage over the Bobcats is that CUSA is still a step ahead of the SBC in the all important perception department while the SBC has yet to have any team ranked inside the Top 25 in its entire history--that my friends is pretty strong recruiting fodder when comparing the 2 leagues to future recruits. CUSA offers UNT regional rivalries and Apogee Stadium with its location in a most impressive olympic type village will always be a positive as well. Even a Pedestrian Bridge over the interstate will be such a positive for the entire school and campus. Talk about your basic glue'ing of one side of our campus to another side of the campus and for our fans it will all but be a true godsend when finished. (And FWIW....I don't think its going to looks so bad, either). Like many of you I have been looking over my shoulders, too, to see how the Bobcat recruiting has been going and they have quite a wagon load of 3 star recruits--more than UNT last count. Those Rivals stars can be deceiving in the recruiting wars but most of us would still rather have as many of those 3 and 4 stars than the 1 or 2 star projects. Jury is still out since its still so early, but I think Coach McCarney and staff probably do a good job of evaluating talent that will fit into our system and after last season most of us would agree that Coach Mac and his staff can coach. At Iowa State he was used to a similar situation as ours not getting all the Rivals 3, 4 or 5 star recruits but being able to develop what he did have. Getting prospects with speed and quickness will be a priority for North Texas because I feel our coaches can add all the other necessary ingrediants. GMG!

Dennis Francione when he was first at TSU-SM in the early 1990's was said to have all but been at begging stage for our North Texas HFC job before we told him "NO" and continued our multi-decade amd most uncanny un'Midas touch of hiring HFC's in Denton. So yes...we said no to Coach Fran and picked, uh..................... Dennis Parker. Francione was on many of this board's poster's top of the list "most wanted" early on in our search before Coach Mac was picked. So yes (again)....Coach Fran who wanted our job once again received another stiff arm and a big fat "NO" from North Texas' HFC hiring experts. For the sake of our school and its football program, we really, really, really do need Dan McCarney to suceed for more reasons than one now. I think he has the support of most of us, but one has to wonder and even think "what if" we would have hired Dennis Francione the first time before we chose Dennis Parker instead? Nothing so profound with this, but who you hire can really make or break your athletic program--from top to bottom, across the board and decade to decade since that extended timeline seems to be at UNT our barometer of how and what we're doing . Winning is normally the main criteria at most NCAA FBS schools. GMG! Addendum: Sadly for TSU-SM, few in the Lone Star State will schedule them and they will continue in the role we know so well of being the "only' Sun Belt football member in Texas with no local rival in sight. UTSA will eventually drop TSU-SM from their future football schedule since the Road Runners now have other Texas-based rivals. You almost have to feel sorry for the Bobcats if not for the fact that we have played a similar role for way too long ourselves.

Not good. CUSA needs Tulane to rebound and be one of its top programs IMO.

The skinny on where TSU will now play their games. http://meacswacsports.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-dynamo-texas-southern-football.html

I still say it will by McCarney's 3'rd season which will be his breakthrough season and it will have come at a good time with our 2013 C-USA inauguration. For 2012 I think breaking even or near that will be a good season but (like all of you) I still hope for the ball to bounce our every direction like it did that season when North Texas hosted the first NO's Bowl. The "almost" losses of that season were uncanny and as I recall we won 5 games that season but still went to a bowl game. GMG!

A terrible tragedy. Thoughts & prayers for his family.

Admittedly, we all take too much of this Mean Green business way too serious at times when there are actually more pressing things happening in our world today but.............tweak the bass on your speakers, sit back, enjoy and.............. let this stick in your craw all day long! (I only linked this for the music content, of course). What 'ere the score or situation...we're always, Mean Green

Since 1981 per this link North Texas has had few winning football seasons. http://football.stas...eam=North_Texas We can piss this little pissing contest right into the next decade and on GMG.com personalities will eventually be isolated and demonized (per Saul Allinsky's tactics and from his now famous book on how to screw up a democracy) and this will happen when the non-stop Kool-ade drinkers have no real or viable answers (least of all solutions) to our athletic department's overall performance as it relates to our #1 revenue producing sport (football). (Kool-ade drinking? Nothing wrong with green kool-ade drinking (we've all done our share) but at times you just have to sit back, look at the situation, take the alcohol out of that green kool-ade and start thinking soberly on some very important or crucial matters). First of all, allow me to diffuse the first (probable) Alinsky'esque isolation and demonization of one UNT alum. I was very involved with UNT athletics as a student (Fry Era) and then as an alum in my 20's, my 30's, my 40's and my early 50's. Then health concerns (which few would ever advertise because most of us prefer privacy on such) became an issue, is still an issue and with no health insurance my med bills now are right under $30,000. Unless an unexpected inheritance comes through or I win the Texas lottery, most of the rest of my life will be spent working (like most other Baby Boomers now realize they will have to do) and paying off as much of my health bills as I can. (Hey, shit happens in one's life and I've had a steaming pile share of it in mine--some deserved and some not deserved and you just deal with it). Yet what would any objective observer not connected to North Texas or on a first name basis with North Texas employees ask and maybe beginning with these questions or thoughts? (1) How do North Texas officials justify the perserverence with pay raises to multi-year employees who have been part of this so few football winning seasons programs since 1981 effort? (Obviously, there have been several regimes since 1981 and the present one represents most of the last 10 or so years). (2) And UNT's new stadium? The UNT students made this happen (after the 2'nd referendum as I recall). No New Stadium--No Program? If UNT would have had to stay in Fouts Field another year or 2 with today's NCAA FBS climate we would have had the choice of dropping football, moving down to the NCAA FCS division or worse, NCAA D2 (or whatever they call it now). As we all know none of those were ever an option but continuing at Fouts Field would have created an enormous problem for us. It did last time CUSA was looking for a new member. (3) Why does North Texas seem to be a retirement center for those who keep persevering this kind of overall performance per the above link and with our higher echelon leaders seemingly rubber-stamping it annually and apparently believing there are no fresh, new vibrant talents out there who could dramatically change our direction in football season ticket sales and booste club memberships? Check out how UTSA, Texas State, Old Dominion, UNC-Charlotte and others in the SBC and CUSA as far as how they are performing in the 2 biggest barometers of any athletic department, ie, football/basketball season ticket sales and booster club memberships. By now, I would think most of our elect know why our present athletic officials have annually avoided revealing season ticket sales numbers. For those of you who give whether it be truly sacrificially because of your own tight household budgets or because you have the extra funds or means to do so, I can only say how much you are truly admired. For most of my adult life I was part of that group. Others of our 209,000 DFW alumnus base will adopt the "no way I will throw good money after bad" attitude with our present crowd on payroll and when that becomes even more epidemic it will only be then that North Texas officials (beginning with Dr. Rawlins and the Board of Regents) will be forced to start seriously looking at new resumes of those who have actual NCAA FBS level credentials and success at other outposts to strengthen the 2 main areas that North Texas must improve to succeed and be successful in CUSA, ie, season ticket sales and increased booster club membership (which usually translates to larger donations). UNT's CUSA membership beginning in 2013 will automatically cause a much greater focus on what we have than any time in our school's athletic history and for now, the numbers are just not supportive for our #1 revenue producing program and haven't been for a very long time truth be told. I'm just sayin' (what I know many of you have been thinkin'). So swing away to you who have no problem with what we've been getting for 3 plus decades, specifically the last 10 or so years. Apogee Stadium has already proven to us all even for its "non sellout" first game that it's obviously going to be more than just about a new stadium. Put your microscopic vision on this link once again--it is very telling of what we have even now. http://football.stas...eam=North_Texas GMG! PS: None of the above has anything to do with our present coaching staffs in football and basketball but they cannot do all the other ancillary things needed to complement their (winning or soon to be winning) programs.

If he's cat scratch fever quick then his dimensions won't matter as much. GMG!

I think we'd all take a 'Larry Byrd/Indiana State" type of Final 4 finish even as the one hit wonder that ISU became that magical season, but we'd have to mesh pretty quickly as a team and have Lady Luck smiling on us, too. GMG!

As a real Texan, the main mental visual I have of an armadillo is a dead one laying on its back on the shoulder of one of our highways with a Lone Star beer fitting quite nicely on top its belly. Is this for real for TSU-SM to change their mascot? GMG! PS: Little did we know how that Paramount sports movie classic "Necessary Roughness" would play in the future of (then) Southwest Texas State U.

______________________________________________________ Of course we don't know all the details but it's even more interesting that an AD who could not effecively raise ample funds for athletics has been "re-cycled" and kept on the state teat to raise monies for their university? Is he expected to turn over a new leaf and suddenly become an effective fund-raiser because of that lateral move? Are the leaders of these state tax assisted outfits (universities) fearful of firing outright an obvious non-productive employee and if so...............why? Firings and hiring fresh new (eager to please) talent who insist on being customer service savy employees happens every day in America's normal business community but I suppose normal is the key word here? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand the business workings or M.O.'s of so many of our public universities. They sound more & more like how our federal goverment runs its business which as of today has our country trillions in debt with more expected credit rating losses on our national horizon. And then do some public university officials have a real fear of terminating those multi-years on the state payroll employees yet obvious non-productive employees? CUSA will be a godsend for North Texas--and thank you SMU for leaving for the Big East which all but made this possible for our school, but it is surely going to put a high powered microscope on our own UNT officials who will soon enough have to answer questions from higher echeldon UNT officials and BOR's one of which I'd wager would be : "We're getting more & more feedback from our alums concerned with what our ultimate competition level will be in CUSA (compared to our present Sun Belt Conference status which has not set the woods on fire in football of late) and with more and more alums/fans asking: Why aren't we competing with all the other new CUSA schools (especially all those presently in CUSA) in fundraising and ticket sales?" NOTE: Would it be easy to predict that the blame game will run rampant in Mean Green Country in the next 12 or so months? Yet if all goes according to Hoyle, North Texas will typically need another 10 years to come up with an answer to the above question, but in those 10 years we could also find ourselves in the same position competition-wise in CUSA where we've been in the Sun Belt Conference the last 8 or so years with our #1 revenue producing varsity sport, ie, NCAA FBS colllege football. Looking at past M.O.'s at UNT, our higher echelon leaders could very well run a few "inside" studies or maybe even hire and pay a nice sum to an outside consultant to find answers the UNT community really thought our higher echelons had been hired to make. GMG!

Texas State U-San Marcos I understand has reached their goal of a bit over 6,000 season ticket sales for this Fall. Quite frankly, I think most of us on this forum and beyond are impressed with that and they only piece-milled an end zone add-on to their stadium---not a completely new stadium. Since no one seems to have posted what our athletic departments season ticket sales goal were for this Fall, UNT should merely try to fill the Wing Section every game this Fall and hope their usual annual promotions, ie, Family Weekend, Homecoming, etc, will fill most of the east and west sideline seats. To have the end zone filled for each game would be quite a feat not to mention the accoustic effects there would be from that section of Apogee Stadium with the fabulous accoustics this stadium has. If not a goal for every game, for sure make it a one time reachable goal this Fall for the Tuesday night nationally televised game on ESPN with the Mean Green versus the Rajun Cajuns. Just sayin'... GMG!

As I recall the story back in the day when it took place, Len Bias tried drugs for the first time ever and he tragically died after that first time. Bias took a dose of cocaine which likely induced cardiac arrhythmia. ESPN's 30/30 has been running a documentary on Bias. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/jack_mccallum/06/17/len.bias/index.html

I would think our Game Day stadium attendants would discourage any of our fans excercising some semblance of squatter's rights in the concourse area. There are presently enough seats for all to sit in without pitching a tent on the concourse. Don't stadium rules forbid that from happening anyway? If Apogee Stadium is sold out, then maybe allow it then, but only then. GMG!

Harry is right. Also, any promotions that has time to be a real success this Fall probably needed to have begun its planning early this last Spring. I recall reading an article years ago in the Dallas Morning News about how SMU's Russ Pott's and Brad Thomas' highly successful MustangMania promotions program would actually begin their planning in the early Spring. I do like the idea of setting reasonable goals and filling the Wing is a most worthy goal basing that on our history in promotions the last 10 or so years. The Wingzone really needs to be filled especially for the week night ESPN game against the RajunCajuns because those national TV cameras most always pan the end zones in their camera shots and we don't need a half-filled Wing. Still defer to the fact that had UH not brought their fans to Apogee last year for what was (only) its Grand Opening we would have had a very anemic 24,000 fans and lest we forget it was also our new HFC Dan McCarney's debut game, too. That should have been (and still should be a year later) a glaring statement of trouble with a capital T in River City (so to speak) of which our upper echelon powers that be at North Texas should have been able to identify a definite problem and then rectify it with some real answers. Seems UNT operates much like our U.S. goverment in so many ways in how slow it seems to recognizes problems visible to all over a period of years and then with a snail's pace getting around to eventually solving them. Have our powers that be at UNT even seen or are aware of the data listed in the below link? The facts and data in the link should be a red flag indicator as to what could happen the next 20 years if we're not careful and as per what the link reports for North Texas..............4 winning seasons in the last 20 years. Yes, I agree, those numbers sorta' snuck up on me, too. Not sure about the industry you work presently or worked in before retirement, but the one I worked in for 25 years would had very many "OUT OF BUSINESS" signs going up with a similar 20 year record shown in the link below. I'm pretty sure I know how many of our UNT alums who have been employers would have handled such. I like our direction with the 2 revenue sports hires of football coach Dan McCarney and basketball coach Tony Benford but they absolutely cannot do all this by themselves. http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/teams/nt.shtml

Proud alumnus of Texas HS football but I'm surprised as many of us Baby Boomers made it through 2-a-days. Back in that day, you were not tough unless you had almost dehydrated all your bodily fluids and had organs closing down. Hell, I remember in the mid-60's when I first started playing for Dear Old HS Alma Mater how we used to pop salt tablets like they were M & M's. Today, that would be on one of the Top 10 "no no's" list. I remember Coach during 2-a-days bringing out a pouch of some green powdered stuff they called Gator-Ade. We call called it "green shit" back then but little did we know how much better it was than a water break (or multi-salt tablets). Now keep in mind my dear ol' HS alma mater was 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico so (like many of you) we had the good ol' Texas heat, high "Houston'esque" humidity and mosquitos that seemed almost bigger than cows at times. I know we all concern ourselves with all this for our own Mean Green football players and wish we had that indoor facility more than ever with all these annual Texas heat spells. Hell, I worry about our own HFC being in this damn heat with his health concerns of which I think he made one helluva' miraculous recovery. I do feel our North Texas coaches will do the right thing for themselves and our players with this extreme heat.

hanky-panky - Definition of hanky-panky www.yourdictionary.com › Dictionary DefinitionsCached - Similar informal trickery or deception, orig. as used in tricks of illusion or sleight of hand, now esp. in connection with shady dealings or illicit sexual activity. Webster's ... GMG!

There are lots of Texas HS football players out there like the Cedric Hardmans and the Drew Brees, but it still is nice to get a few 3 or 4 star recruits just to create some semblance of a comfort zone for this year's recruiting class. Dennis Francione is kicking our butts out there on the recruiting trail and is one reason many of us wanted him at UNT at one point, but Coach Mac is the Man with the Plan and it started out OK last season. At Iowa State, he had to take on many projects as did Bill Snyder at KSU and lest we forget, many of Boise's recruiting classes were most very unheralded and this, too...................how many times back in the day did we play Texas tight games? Compare the recruiting rankings of UNT versus UT even back then and it still may give us a true perspective of all this. Like Gray Eagle said, I take some heart in the fact that the commitments thus far seem to be good physical specimens with speed. GMG!

As a dog owner and dog lover I hope there was no hanky panky involved with this. I just recently lost one of mine & it's still killing me.

Jerry Jones commented in a weekend press conference in Oxnard that most doctors think it not very sensible to practice in extreme heat. Had a friend and his wife take a week vacation near Oxnard last week and it was 65-70 degrees the whole time. http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-08-03/nfl-needs-to-set-example-stop-practicing-in-extreme-heat

The perfect scenario (IMO) would be to shuck a multi-level eye-sore of a parking garage near or where Fouts is and rather build the Hotel and Conference Center in that same area. This would allow UNT to keep more green space near Apogee Stadium (and the tailgate areas) which could start looking a bit too " way too many buildings in one area busy" if they end up putting the H & CC near Apogee inside the MG Village. Of course, I'm sure they've already thought all this out thoroughly, right? GMG!

Again...and for the doubter let its message sink deep inside your obvious gray matter. When the Promise-Keepers group had a 3 or 4 day convention in Denton (and as I recall) they were allowed to use dorms from both universities for housing that were apparently empty for that time of year. When this hotel is built I believe it could cause other motel/hotels to trickle onto the Denton horizon. Also, the Alliance area (I35-W) motel/hotels are only 15 minutes from Apogee Stadium so not quite sure why they are not being figured into the equation after reading a few posts on this subject. Recalling one photo of the P-K's event they had 35,000 plus inside Fouts Field for one of their events in all the seats and in chairs on the field. Denton seemed to handle their large crowd quite well, The 2 Real Deal-Makers For Some Convention Similar To Promise-Keepers? This new UNT/Denton Covention Center/Hotel will still have access to a 31,000 outdoor venue (35,000 with seating on the field) and a 10,000 seat indoor venue within walking distance so I would see that as a positive for Denton. In fact, how many other Texas cities convention centers can tout 2 such large venues within walking distance from their own convention venues? Now I may be wrong, but any one group who can bring 35,000 into a city's sports venue for a 3 or 4 day meeting is a pretty good sized convention even for cities the size of Fort Worth, Dallas or Houston. This is a smart thing for Denton and UNT to form a partnership. Next thing you would need is somone with the skills to book small or medium sized conventions and hope for more like the Promise-Keeper's group. GMG!