PlummMeanGreen

Sounds like that pending Big East membership has truly taken SMU's football program over the top Wonder if CUSA Commish' Brit Banowsky really knows (or cares) how different it would be for a "winning" UNT football program in CUSA versus the one who plays before stadium attendants on Game Day over in University Park ? Yet.........anyone else notice during this whole re-alignment process there has been a strange silence from Brit Banowsky's office? He ain't sed' sheat 'bout no one (or school). As I feared, this damn MWC/CUSA alliance will be their excuse not to expand but ..............not even in the largest TV market in the whole damn CUSA and where their offices are headquarted? Sorry, I just don't get it. GMG!

Traveling fans? eaglecat, North Texas once took almost 20,000 traveling fans (4 plus hours away for most of us) to play the Texas Longhorns and then several more games with UT around 10,000 traveling fans--give or take. We took about 10,000 traveling fans down to the Astrodome to play the Houston Cougars back in the day, too. I know you have been drinking the maroon and gold kool-ade, but know your other alma mater's "traveling fans" history before you make one giant swath of your paint brush when it concerns anything about North Texas and its traveling habits. Didn't get to go myself, but New Orleans was quite pleased most years with our very nice contingency of thousands of Mean Green fans that travelled quite well to the Big Easy, too, on their way to the New Orleans Bowl. North Texas has had 8 losing seasons in a row now and are still drawing a little over 20,000 per game. Now I can get on google and find out for myself, but have the Bobcats ever averaged close to that even in a winning season? Seems around 14K or 15K has been their all time best to date. And when UTSA has their own string of losing seasons, I don't think they duplcate even close to what they are drawing now. The Road Runners will only have one time to have 2 or so years to maximize all ticket sales into one grand opening inaugural season and if they can still draw after 5 years of losing what they are drawing now, then the Big 12 may have made a mistake with TCU. GMG!

PS: This stadium just needs a conference that fits it better than the one we are in.

Now wait a minute and although your goat f'er response was mean't for another poster but....I "RAISE" goats. LIke a cuss word here and there, I think name-calling has its place on a "smack board" unless it gets too vile. I've deleted post where I thought my own might be a tad over the line, but I don't think think they were of the "vile" variety at all. If you are a peitite petunia, you probably shouldn' t be on a forum like this in the first place. I am amazed at the number who just cannot handle others opinions, though. That sound more like a question of maturity (or lack thereof) than anything else. At the age of most on this board, that part probably cannot be helped now. I have yet to have anyone except one very major player on this board tell me I (and others) were right about what kind of coach we should hire over the one who many wanted instead that helped my red numbers count immensely all the way from California to the Lone Star State. (I wear those numbers proudly because they are a hint that I am probably right again when it comes to our decades long poorly run athletic program and one only has to lookk at across the board varsity won/loss records in those past decades to easily prove that point. That aforementioned statement alone will piss off some who live in some kind of Mean Green dreamland where reality is a most unwelcome visitor to them most the time. If we don't get a better conference this time around, I still think the North Texas Prez' and BOR's need to figure out why; that is, why we didn't get the call (if we don't) with the investment this school has made at the Mean Green Village and our location in the #5 ranked TV market in the USA. Those on campus can tell us they've been actively circulating our name during this whole process till the cows come home, but the proofs in the pudding (so to speak) and the pay-off part of those efforts need to show when we were told that North Texas was a finalist last time CUSA expanded. Kind of like sales, your sales manager does not want to hear: "But I almost got that sale, boss." And on the Sun Belt Conference: Sorry, but the latest addition of South Alabama does nothing to stir my loins whatsoever because they are the very symbol of what the poll voting media thinks of our league like in "WHO IS THAT SCHOOL AGAIN AND WHERE THE HELL THEY LOCATED?" GMG!

We had absolutely no chance to build a fan base in each of our 4 bowl seasons because we started almost each one of those seasons at 0 & 6 or 1 & 5, etc....Doesn't take a genius to understand that by the time the SBC season began for UNT, many fans were already thinking basketball. So yes, the SBC was good for North Texas during that time for sure until it passed us by with better recruiting and the maturing of schools not too far removed from a lesser NCAA classification. Dammit folks, we have to get out of this league because of the perception it has with most of our alums and apparently our student body, too, who (granted, in the midst of our 8'th losing season in a row) but still ignored coming to the best college football stadium in this region and chosing not to attend a Sun Belt league game. No, its not the culture we want, but it is the one we have at present. GMG!

New conference name: LDGA: League of Dreams Gone Amuck Texas Southern U? Actually, I had Tarleton State U more in mind. I mean we'd need a real cowboy school in the LDGA and after all, this TSU are the Texans!. (But probably moreso....Texas State University, right)? GMG! PS: I'm sorry, my head is still spinning over what appears to be the last true kick in the ass I will probably see for North Texas in my lifetime in the area of so-called "good ol' alma mater trying to improve its lot in a better conference." I despise SMU even more but not for the obvious, but for the fact as to what happened for them was tantamout to how you feel when just read in the newspaper that a multi-millionaire just won the $10,000,000 lottery. You look up to the heavens and cry out: "WHY THEM, THEY DIDN'T EARN IT!" (And jealousy has absolutely zero to do with anything with me when it pertains to Smoke & Mirrors University, either). I also know that a new conference has about a 99.9% chance of never happening and probably even shouldn't at this stage of the game. I am just pissed and probably need to take a whole bottle of chill pills right now. Our leadership has not helped us for decades and that rears its ugly head just one more time with this apparent "turn down" for a golden opportunity. On thing good would be if the AQ term is completely drop kicked into orbit--then there would be cause for celebration and maybe even a little smirk aimed at some to boot.

Obviously, just killing time watching the debates... The Sun Belt Conference as Wright Waters has envisioned it might as well be called the South Belt Conference. Nothing wrong with Wright, but for a non AQ league it really is too far spread out IMHO. Folks, we are not going to make much in TV revenues now or anytime soon, so regionalize into a new conference with a few metro areas in it. I know we lose more in basketball points, but the Big Boy are on the verge of really making us lose more than just points. A consortium of college presidents at some (or all ) of the schools listed below would hire a good "experienced with conference TV packages"" associate commisioner to be this league's new commish' (probably one who is presently employed in an established conference)............. then............. turn him loose. He (she) might then get a consortium of schools in a 4 or 5 state region (Texas, La, NM, Ark, ???). If Wright Waters can get the SBC a bowl game in its 1'st year, I think history can repeat itself in doing that again with a strong, new commissioner. (Maybe one of our new schools already has a bowl in its city or could get a 2'nd bowl a la New Orleans Bowl)? Conference Name? The name "Southwest Conference" is not available and is now housed or headquartered at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, Waco. YOU NAME THE CONFERENCE AND WHAT CRITERIA THAT EACH SCHOOL IN IT SHOULD FOLLOW WITH FACILITIES, ACCESS TO AIRPORTS, ATTENDANCE STANDARDS, ETC, ETC, ETC The ___________________Conference (1) UTSA (2) TSU (3) NMSU (4) Ark State (5) La Tech (6) ULouisiana (7) Middle Tennessee (8) North Texas (9) "You name the school if we have to have 9" I know starting a new league has not been the thing to do of late, but what do non AQ programs have to lose at this point in time or in the near future?

OK children, recess is over. I just love it when a few on this board get offended with a dose of how the way things really are or have been and in the opinion of someone who has followed this 3 ring circus of clown hirings for close to 40 years now. We are where we are (and apparently will stay) because of who we have hired during most of those 40 years and most of those years those hirings seemedly having no one to answer to but themselves. Pretty damn cushy w/o the need of too many wins. I am pissed about what is not shaping up for North Texas while 1 other non deserving school gets royal treatment and a pass at every f - - -' n turn. I hope they get found out for the fakes that they are with photos in every eastern newspaper with this caption: "How a winning program in dallas still can't draw flies even if they were a horse shit factory."

Like most any other AD in the era of realignment would most likely be as far as beating the drum for their damn school to get out of a cesspool of a league that is stable because its schools have no where else to go because they ain't being asked to go any where else? North Texas is in the SBC, ie, the CAC (Catch All Conference) today because we have too many wussified alums who still act like they graduated from a freakin teachers college, never demanded more as a collective group (outside a smack board) and wouldn't know the difference between beating Tennessee or Middle Tennessee unless someone told them the allah-damned difference.

http://meangreenworld.com/ Pretty good stuff here.

If you've ever been to a college football game at another campus whose stadium is shoe-boxed inside their campus with no up close stadium parking for visiting fans but rather you have to take a shuttle bus which is about 2 or so miles from said campus stadium, then you would think that we are land rich with our North Texas Athletic Complex (Mean Green Village) and then this whole thread about our stadium location being a problem is about as silly as they've been of late. Just win, baby..............win. That will solve so many of our problems. GMG!

http://alumni.utsa.edu/page.aspx?pid=489 No, I don't think free tickets will build a fan base, either.

We lose a game, have a modest crowd here in our 8'th losing season in a row so we go into over-analyzing mode now? The Pedestrian Bridge from Fouts to Apogee which is projected for completion this next August will I think still solve many of our problems. The 29,000 plus fans who showed for the UH game didn't seem inconvenienced. UT-Austin according to the father of a Texas Ex friend said data confirms that the state's flagship school in Austin is more of a commuter school than North Texas ever has been. UT could play Slippery Rock and they will fill DKR Memorial Stadium. It's (to use Silver Eagle's terminology) just their culture to do that while North Texas fans want to pick and choose which opponents are worthy for them to show up at Apogee Stadium--that is our culture but losing season after losing season, ie, coaching regime after coaching regime with under .500 career wins just compounds our problems in Denton. Coach McCarney was probably told exactly what he was getting himself into when he took this job. His personal hero Hayden Fry probably told him what he would need to do to be successful at North Texas then get out as soon as he could if he could beat a few "somebody" schools. Coach Mac probably just didn't realize how much of this would be on his shoulders, though--even the promotions part. Through the years, many new enthusiastic coaches have been shot down by what some call the Denton malaise; that is when said new hire just falls prey of the "just mesh in with the rest of us and don't rock the boat up here, we have a very cushy situation and these people will buy into anything we throw at them that sounds progressive (even though we can't deliver on it) but seem to still not care if under our watch we win or lose--but whatever you do....... don't rock the boat. If North Texas does not get into CUSA this time around, then there probably needs to be a very serious on-campus intraspective as to what are we doing that is not making us attractive to even that league as the only non AQ school in DFW that just happens to have a new stadium setting out there on that rolling Texas prairie. For certain, North Texas could hire another consultant for $100K to perform a very comprehensive study as to what is wrong, but some of us on this board could probably tell them for free what the problem is with losing being the "always" common thread at North Texas. In sales, if you are not selling then you are looking for another job. I really don't know what the criteria is at North Texas as to what keeps some who have never been part of a winner continually on the payroll up there. I know some up there are quite adept in the selling of themselves, but at the end of the day, if your program (across the board) is still not winning then what do you really have to sell (other than yourself)? GMG!

When I saw the word "bowling" in the thread title, I had a quick flashback of Verne Ludnquist hosting the local "Bowling For Dollars" show on WFAA TV. (Vern never looked like that was a gig that was totally satisfying for him). And boyhowdy how I miss the "Lets Speak to the Manager" show with Channel 8's GM Mike Shapiro. Remember local TV weather gal Jocelyn White when she turned sideways how the entire map of Texas would disappear? Remember Harold Teaf and Bobby Wygant, too? Bobby spent her last 10 years in front of the camera trying to look like she was still in her 40's until she couldn't do so any longer. You Houstonians remember Chris Chandler who had a bit part as a TV newsman in John Wayne's Hellfighters movie filmed down there? Hey, I turn 61 on Thanksgiving Day so it only gets worse, folks.

Again, I think SMU was in the midst of a 15 season in a row losing streak when CUSU invited the 'Stangs. Of course, like Dana Garvey, ie, the Church Lady from the old SNL series would most likely say about SMU then and now: "Of course, their "speciallllllllllll." GMG!

If after UTSA's 4'th losing season in a row they are bringing in these kinds of turnstile numbers, then the freakin' Big 12 should be knocking on their doors, but I don't think that will be the case. There are several CUSA schools not getting UTSA's kind of attendance numbers at this time in their history.

I can say with all honesty that when I was a student at North Texas (early to mid 70's) I didn't know any of these SBC schools even existed except for Coach Larry Lacewell's Arkansas St football program and University of Louisiana. North Texas (just out of the Mo' Valley) was pretty well one of the pioneering schools of getting on the schedule of many of the true Big Boys. It was truly a big deal in our state when UT's Darrell Royal scheduled some first time ever games with North Texas. We've heard alums from schools who have sinced passed us by even say that North Texas was their model for dramatically upgrading their own schedules (and thus their programs) as Fry was able to do with great consistency. They just kept advancing their football programs--we went back into our usual retreat mode. I've heard UNT AD/Rick V even say Southern Miss at one time looked up to the North Texas of the 70's because they, too, at that time were beginning their march into unchartered waters of a more big time football program for themselves which they knew they'd have to upgrade their schedules for that to happen. Their ex football coach (Bobby Collins) in an old Southern Living magazine annual football edition even had a full page photo of Coach Collins standing in front of their newely expanded football stadium press box side when he said "we now have an impressive football stadium which will help in our recruiting." Those familiar with their program's history will know that it did just that. Folks, that was over 35 years ago and we all know which stadium we spent that same number of years in. Seems even back then that your stadium determined who your conference neighborhood would be. Most of those years we did not have the leadership who would say: "We must have a new football stadum at North Texas--Fouts Field has out-lived its usefullness." (Fry sorta' put a strangle-hold of the importance of a new on campus stadium by his wanting to use Texas Stadium--but his plans were that we'd need that stadium for his program to grow with the schools he wanted to play). Also, I think some past leadership at North Texas thought football would eventually just be dropped so they certainly would never talk about the need of a new stadium. (Anyone else think Gretchen Bataile got canned because of her leading the way for a new stadium)? GMG! PS: Isn't it amazing the mood & attitude this board takes when we lose a football game? GMG!

That means probably 95 per cent on this forum and for whatever reason that thought just ran past my (getting more) feeble mind. For us 5 per centers it's been so long it almost seems like a dream now. Yet, you of the 95 percent group are in the eyes of many of us Old Phart Alums most special because of what you have dreamed and hoped for with this program and have yet to see with any North Texas HFC to date.. We BS back and forth on GMG.com on things that are so trite and almost sillly too many times, but In all seriousness and candor, you all are really special people to have hung in with all this and UNT is lucky to have you thru every coaching change and "starting all over again" scenarios. . North Texas "MUST" catch the same break other schools are getting to get in a league that we would all be able to tell in our first game in a such a new conference that the tide is so much higher than any we've spent years in hoping to see it happen there---but it won't where we are now because the SBC probably has another 10 years of schools beating up on each othe with mostly the same level of recruits; albeit we have had some great individual talents who could play major college football anywhere. Over 17,000 in late November with a football program that doesn' tknow how to win is a win in itself for North Texas. Another crowed similar and we (I believe) set our home season att. record. Sorry to have been so syrup'y here, but just wanted to let you Young Gun Alums really know how I and many other of my generation and beyond feel about you. GMG!

Is our stadium fee negotiable or is it set in concrete? Honestly, though, look around many Texas 4A and 5A high school football palaces and then tell me that 2 play-off schools spltting the difference of our Apogee fee is still too high. Does North Texas get parking and concessions with these games? GMG! PS: UNT's undergrad admissions should make sure there are some great propaganda brochures or leaflets about our school. These games will get many non-athletic general students on our campus of which some will be future North Texas students.

Group Hug Song For TTG! http://www.youtube.c...h?v=86IRDaru1Sg PS: As always, I stand to be corrected, but didn't North Texas beat Texas Tech and Rice in that same season we almost beat Texas? GMG!

Cause for classical musical celebration! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm1PEfCA2-U Go Texas High School Football! GMG! <br><br><br><br>

Exactly who I had in mind because those pesky Owls would be in the NO's Bowl another (was it) 13 years later? Actually, our 1976 game with Texas was as much fun as the 1988 game (minues the bad calls) and we probably took our largest traveling crowd anywhere ever (outside DFW ) to DKR Memorial with what I believe Dallas Green said the Austin American Statesman wrote the next day was almost 20,000 North Texas fans. The calls were OK in that game as I recall but Earl Campbell's long run for a late 4'th quarter TD squelched our chances with a 17-14 loss.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7248953/bcs-proposes-only-handling-national-championship-game-sources-say Why don't they just require a 35K to 40K seat minimum seat stadium and a 25,000 per home gave average once every 4 years and just see who is left standing and then from that group form their Super Conference; that is, after all schools have had a chance to get their stadiums expanded or to hit the 25K per home game in one of those 4 years. That could prevent an anti-trust lawsuit if it appears that all 5 non AQ conferences have had equal opportunity to meet the above criteria (or something similar). Some of these Big Boy Conference leaders are still (seemedly) trying to say said "up and coming" football programs will not have a place to advance once they go up and beyond what some of their Big 6 BCS schools are not doing now. In CUSA, USM, East Carolina and Marshall really have a cause to complain because they are being judged on one criteria that is completely out of their contol. ie, the TV market their schools are located.

They can do all they want to do (which will undoubtedly & ultimately be all about the Big Boys) but dammitt, wait till we get in CUSA or MWC. We have to improve our neighborhood and perception model as soon as we can. Is the timing of Neinas' article just another kick in the butt for us if it slows down a re-alignment process that can actually help North Texas?

I think Lance Dunbar has been injured all year because he looks to be a half step slower than last year. That is a shame, too, because he has been a special, unselfish talent on this team.