PlummMeanGreen

If UNT Beats Tulsa This Saturday....the increasing bowl talk buzz for our next home game at our new on campus Taj Mahal football venue (with will include a very big crowd) will include..... "golly, is this team getting that much better and therefore all this sudden bowl talk might not be so premature after all?" If UNT Loses To Tulsa This Saturday...a bunch of NT Exes & Mean Green fan's family dogs better start running for cover! (just kiddin'--I love my doggies). GMG!

One may wonder if UTSA will have the same success as USF albeit the NCAA climate is much different today than when South Florida was getting started. UTSA: Great City + Known Stadium With A Dome (which also serves as a bowl) + upstart program. Time will tell but they have started in a league with a name but after Boise is gone might the WAC be gone, too? Guess some might say we of North Texas have done all this with our football program the "old fashioned way?" Forward ho the wagons! Beat Tulsa! It's Time...

No school will most likely never leave a league like the SBC, WAC or MAC and catapult to a league like the Big 12. Some school(s) from a league like the Mountain West Conference or even maybe CUSA most likely will, though.

We Know How We See Us But How Does Everyone Else See Us...is the question? Yet Tony, back in the 1940's we didn't play for a mythical national championship or have a Sammy Baugh or Doak Walker in our football program in Denton. No one even looked at us twice during our legacy building period when North Texas literally had one of the best teams in NCAA D1 the year we had Arkansas beat and then with that same Frank Broyle's Hogs football team only a few weeks later playing for a national championship in the Game of the Century versus Darrell Royal's UT Longhorns. Where was (and is) the love from the media powers from that era which featured Mean Joe Greene? I've never heard of such a quality NCAA football team being swept under the national sports scene carpet as that one North Texas Mean Green football from 1968 during the Joe Greene, Ron Shanklin, Cedric Hardman, Steve Ramsey, etc, Era. Of course, during the Greene Era we were a Missouri Valley Conference team and the conference we were in even back then kicked us yet again in the butt--perception-wise. If any of you think a win over a lightly regarded Indiana U last Saturday night has done a whole lot for this young program this season with "bowl talk" only a few days after our Hoosier win, then many more will understand moreso the impact that our win over a respected Southeast Conference UT Vols football team did in 1975. That year, we didn't have a conference tie for the sport fans masses to roll their eyes back in their heads and say..........yeah, but look at that crappy conference those poor people play in. We were a Major Independent in 1975 and no, this is not any kind of suggestion saying we should go that route again, either. As conference re-alighment talk rears its ugly (and always for us) untimely head, Lady Timing is still reserving the right to smile on us based on much of our last 7 years of not much happening; even worse, not much happening at the Sun Belt level. Apogee Stadium is a godsend and couldn't have happened at a better time (unless it had been built 10 or so years earlier). Coach Mac has said we shoulda' built it sooner but it is what it is..........we can do great things now at Apogee and get ready for the next re-alignment merry go round, but like every other school on the NCAA FBS block, we need to keep looking for something better. TCU deserves Big 12 on what they have done lately (and did while spending the big money they actually should have been spending like former BU AD Grant Teaff & Baylor were spending pre-Southwest Conference breakup). TCU I think was the most surprised when the SWC imploded, but TCU did better than any of the non Big 12 Texas schools post SWC split, too. Easy to predict that TCU is all but a sure thing for Big 12 as they rebuild ACS to become a 40,000 seat stadium cramped in on the TCU campus, but the jury could still be out on who the other would be albeit UH should get a strong look if they take more than 1 school from Texas. It really seems the Big 12 does not want to become another heavy Texas school-laden Southwest Conference'esque kind of league. This is what kills North Texas with our chances for CUSA quite frankly and others on this board have expessed the same opinion on that). SENSE OF URGENCY SHOULD BE NOW! We need to make a bee line toward the Mountain West Conference like there is no tomorrow. It is our only chance to be in an ACQ in the future IMO. GMG!

Lorenzo's photo of our guys in the end zone with the QB pointing toward the crowd is absolutely the best photo scene of any I've seen of Mean Green football since the black and white of Fry being hoisted on his team's shoulders after our Tennessee Volunteer win. Lorenzo's photo has the same effect on me as an NT alum as the "Iwa Jima" photo has on all of us as Americans. I know, I know, I know.....,a bit over the top with that comparison but that is one helluva' photo for us who bleed green! Great work, Cerebus! GMG!

Come on Denton, get Entrepreneurial! Run a weekend version of the North Texas State Fair and.....just for the Sooner faithful......... but jack up the price of tickets to get in. On a more serious note, just when does that new luxury hotel and convention center planned near Apogee Stadium and in the Mean Green Village start turning dirt?

Just breathe in real deep...that's what I do. But I think the space is much better than any other stadium I've visited. The late, great Texas Stadium was terrible when someone had to get up and go potty or to the concession area. SIMPLY TERRIBLE! I'm sure that is why they had to implode that sucka' in fact. No gol' darn leg room.

OK, lets go to a couple of sources on wind power problems for those who want to see the other side of all this. I'm sure wind power has its positives, but which outweighs the other is what our campus leaders really need to study. http://www.wind-power-problems.org/ http://www.huffingto...s_n_826028.html (The above article from the very liberal Huffington Post) Wonder if our UNT BOR's would be interested in reading these 2 articles among many, many more such articles on this subject? Addendum: Not sure how our Denia neighbors will enjoy a certain degree of noise polution wind turbines also create. Anyone know a UNT regent enough to share the ups and downs of all this before they strip mine our former golf course?

Uh.....I only jest about a home and home with OU? But......I believe UNT athletics would make sure that there would be more green in the stands with the opponent allottment process? First of all, the Student allotment could be all but doubled for starters. (I wish we could have this kind of problem to contend with with an OU on our future schedule. These are the kind of "problems" we need in our home scheduling future.

If we can beat ULM and Troy it becomes very probable that we go to a bowl and maybe even as SBC's football champions. Even any tie for the conference championship might even go to North Texas, but I need to do more research on that one. GMG!

But we do get a home and home with the crimson and cream for this, too, right? Let the expansion begin!

The wind turbines have been getting some bad press of late. One I read said they are more trouble than they are really worth and are not that great as a provider of energy. Bird and American eagle lovers have a case that the windmill like turbines kill thousands of birds of all species, especially eagles. Maybe our UNT BOR's need to take another look at this before they get too green on an idea that may not be so keen?

Moral of Story: When you beat "ANY" team from one of the Big 6 major conferences you start getting some recognition--even bowl talk for your team. Hint: Schedule more school like Indiana rather than LSU or Alabama albeit we will eventually need to beat some Top 25 teams for us to get back in a major college football poll since 197_? This Mean Green football program can do this. Bowl talk might be a year or 2 ahead of schedule, but Coach Dan McCarney's hero he has framed on his Apogee Stadium office wall and when his hero was in his first year at North Texas (circa, 1973) would have had a bowl team had the Missouri Valley Conference had a bowl tie-in back then as every conference does now. (Fry took SMU to a bowl game with only 4 wins one year as I recall). Yet.....man O man, what if this team improves each week from here on out and gets those 6 wins? Tulsa will be a major challenge but would be a great milestone win for our football program's entire history as we have not beaten the Golden 'Canes since I was a senior in high school--right after the Ice Age. . GMG!

Bump... PS I didn't know the walk-way over I-35E next Fall is going to be glass-enclosed. How cool will that be?

Green Brigade Band unis' when we don't have a 95 degree heat index at kick-off, perhaps? We don't need any heat strokes among some of the finest musicans in the known universe. Just sayin...

I'm sure there is a reason and it very well may be our 5 year record under "another" coach, but why haven't either of our home games at Apogee Stadium (best stadium in the 'Belt and for televisng games, too) not made the SBC Television schedule? Is Wright Waters still goo-goo eyed over his forecast of "the next Boise State" located over in Mobile, Alabama, or what? O God, please, please, please, please get us out of all this (clean wordage, of course)......................." Amen.

Thankfully, dimensia has not completely over-whelmed me yet, but I do recall watching North Texas/Tulsa in that 1969 game that was televised by ABC-TV as a regional game and even shown in our Houston TV market where I resided. I thought NT was located in Denison, Texas, at the time. Folks, the SWC was the darling of Texas back then, too, and for us to get any game on ABC TV back then had to be some kind of miracle. Like my friend Denny Kalk told me years ago & I liberally paraphrase DK from back then: "NT never had the infra-structure to keep building onto some of our better times." I agreed with Denny back then but now we can all agree that we have our infra-structure in place because of Apogee Stadium and that fabulous athletic plant of athletic venues at our Mean Green Village. What a godsend for North Texas to have an approx. 1,000 acre former golf course to be able to build all this on, too, and between those 2 Texas interstates to boot. To quote Harry: "Good days ahead." GMG!

Steve, I had a mother call me last Monday asking me to change the contract of her teens birthday party from Saturday to Friday night instead and I told her: "No problemo, dear." (as the pupils in my eyes started changing over to a shade of green. First thing that came to my mind was "YES!, I can actually make my 2'nd game in a row at our fabulous Taj Mahal of a football stadium!" Sorry I missed not seeing you pre-game, stebo, we really have something to look forward to with Apogee, eh? Hope all is well and how bout' that first win over a Big 10 school, right? GMG!

No bigger Pat Boone fan than I but here is a YouTube of him in a very embarrassing moment which our fellow alum handled quite admirably. I will probably go to to the bad place for posting this but here it is anyway. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=a9aBeRVToGk PS: Actually, I am very quickly becoming a candidate for a little "extra" hair myself. Amazing what the family genes can award you with later in life, eh?

Newbies cannot appreciate a large number of "oldies" on this board who for decades said: "Can't we just hire another former D1 coach with D1 HFC experience since that seems to have worked best for North Texas?" We also suggested before some of you were born that we really needed the impact that a new "non track" stadium could do for our program and (subsequently) some better conference options because of it. There were many deaf ears on our campus for decades who heard none of our group. NOTE: Bob Tyler (1 terrible year as our HFC) was a non-vetted resume' 1 year non-Wonder for North Texas and doesn't count. We got zoomed on his hiring when all our then HFC selection committee had to do was make a few well placed calls to Miss. State officials that would have prevented his hiring. We have too many times been our own worst enemy at North Texas because of who we hired. "DAN" McCarney was not the typical North Texas hire and many on this board would have prevented that if they had had their way. PS: Yet we've all had our hit and miss moments with HFC searches for North Texas. If we were not going to go with the D1 HFC experience last hiring go around, then I (with many of you) was in the Todd Dodge corner upon his hiring so....

NTXCOOG, we just won our 6'th game in about as many years. Give us some time to come down to earth, right? . Congrats on your season thus far. You know when my blood is not green who my 2'nd favorite school in Texas is & was as a young teen living in Brazoria County. The 1966 UH-Michigan State game (&big UH win which made Coog' football a national program for the first time ever) our HS football team was listening to en route to a rare Saturday HS FB game in Halletsville, Texas, when we played Sacred Heart HS. My late HS HFC was as much a Coog fan as myself. He used to invite some of our team over to his house to watch Cougar basketball on his UHF TV station when you had to have a special antenna for such a cable station. We hope our own Johnny Jones will be our "Guy Lewis" once he gets all the recruits he needs. APOGEE DEBUT......I really enjoyed meeting many of you UH'ers at our stadium debut game. A friend & I invited the gent who is head man of your "H" Association to walk along with us to Apogee and in the 14 minute walk we had a really fun discussion on UH athletic history. I cannot recall his name but he was a very cordial person and appreciated our leading him over the interstate to the Mean Green Village and Apogee Stadium. I look forward to seeing your new stadium begin construction. GMG!

Without really having read much on the "why's" of such a merger but.....why does it matter for these 2 leagues to merge? It just seems like more shuffling of the deck chairs yet on the same mezzanine level. I just don't get all this re-alignment business at all of late. I still wish the SWC were around and we were in it. GMG!

Been attending North Texas games since 1973 and I'm not sure I remember us ever beating Tulsa in football. They seem to always have our number. I hope this Saturday breaks that streak.

Gol' darn those senior moments! I know I told him "Dan" but I just posted Bill because I am dog tired MG 93-98. It has been a busy weekend. DJ'ed a birthday party in Granbury on Friday night that earlier in the week was moved from Saturday to Friday; then I spent time with my Mean Green & Friends at the Mean Green Village from 3:15 PM till I got back to Weatherford post-game about midnight and today...I DJ'ed a 50'th Wedding Annivesary at a venue between Wea'ford and Mineral Wells. I'm not sure I know my name at the moment, but thanks for the correction anyway. lol! GMG!

A few of us were talking with Rick V at a tail gate and I believe I understood him to say he was still trying to do something for next years OOC home schedule. I am not one who wants to play any school below our division as Texas Southern U is, but at one time we were 1-AA and on the D1-A UT Longhorn's football schedule several times (and others similar as well). Might be in our best interest to adopt Bill Snyder's old Kansas State "schedule a few potential patsy schools" scheduling formula until we can get this team some confidence and some wins. I know we have been the patsy in the past, but man can't you feel that will soon be a thing of the past? Spoke to an IU alum who drove down from Bloomington at half time and he was very, very kind about all that he saw at our Apogee Stadium and what he sees as a true program on the rise. He grew up in Iowa so he for certain had nothing but praise for Pope Fry and I told him we had one of Pope Fry's, uh, Cardinals with our hiring of Bill McCarney. He was really a nice, cordial Hoosier and we wished each other's teams a good year. It is so great to be able to experience major college football with all the ammenties in Denton, Texas, America. Looks like the Denia-ites are probably happy about it, too, after looking at a few of their yard signs with "Park Here" written on them.