PlummMeanGreen

Thanks for your post, CAM. We've needed what is happening in Denton for a very, very long time now. GMG!

I know I need to do this as much as anyone on GMG.com but...we are finally in a position (with our new stadium) as to where we really don't need to give 2 iotas of mental exercise as to what SMU does with anything. Their "Fill Ford" promo with 17,000 showing up for what they all knew would be a bowl team sorta' lets most of us know where they are with "Dallas" fan support yet.......let them worry more about what UNT is doing from now on like they probably should, right? In the campus master plan, there is a wide pedestrian bridge (for trolleys, too?) which appears to start close to where the Fout's concession area is. Wonder if some stimulus money would help fund that "bridge to, uh, somewhere?" Any of you know Congressman Burgess to ask him? Like OU does from Noble Coliseum with it being so far from Owen Field and thus their trolleys; I think UNT will be creative enough to come up with shuttle buses or trains (like 6 Flags Over Texas has--or used to have). With all those things working, from East Campus to the new stadium may enable more fans quicker access since most of those trolleys or shuttles will deliver them near the stadium entrances. When all the pieces of the puzzle are in place with all this, we will have quite a sweet deal going on in Denton with this new stadium. The greenway aspects of all this with all the ponds in play is a quite intriguing feature to me. (And won't all that look quite nice when the ESPN TV cameras pan all of that, too)? GMG!

The deal with Leach will be easy and it comes from whats stated in his Maryland contract of services as in: Zero Tolerance! ... ...and then Maryland campus lawyers who put the Leach contract together merely list all the things that got him in trouble at Tech and say "no can do" here, Coach Leach. Zero tolerance warnings have turned devils into angels in some cases and in others, it became a job-ender. GMG! PS: Personally, I'm glad Leach did not end up down here in the Southwest although I'm sure he will have some presence in Texas recruiting, but my guess is he will go more toward Florida than Texas.

...the National Chamber of Commerce? After TCU goes east, they will not be hosting a MWC bowl game--neither will CUSA member SMU. In this era of "green" UNT will most definitely have a "green" worthy stadium for the first time in our history with wind turbines in the distance showing all that American spirit of "can do" as most American cities Chamber's of Commerce all promote. Our bowl would be just as large as Boise's Humanitarian Bowl, too. UNT and city/county officials from Greater Denton/Denton County, respectively, meet with MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson and tell them we can get the right Texas-based Fortune 500 company to co-sponsor this along with the Nat'l C of C and our tremendous major airport access to our new football palace and with UNT as a "new" Mountain West Conference member/host school would be more than honored to take up the slack the Horned Frogs leave behind as they go Big East. (SMU's cracker box location with no access or legit parking will probably get them out of the bowl business sooner than later and what the heck......and, after all, Dallas already has the Cotton Bowl game). Why not? In 1986 if anyone would have told most of us that it would take TCU having to lose membership in a soon to be defunct Southwest Conference (with no Big 12 invite) and after all that would become a Top 10 ranked school who would also host a MWC bowl game in Fort Worth, Texas, and then they have a pending date in the Rose Bowl--most of us would have thought that as crazy & insane as most on this board will think the theme of this thread but............we cannot move up till we start thinking up. (Of course, MWC membership for UNT is the main hook for any of this to happen--but still look back at TCU and ask yourself the question: "What is it that cannot be done in the NCAA upper statusphere any longer by even a school that Frank Broyles called a "have not")? What the heck, the other threads were getting a bit worn the last few days and I still need some more red numbers to meet my goal. But let us not forget that this new stadium was instrumental in allowing us to schedule our first ever Big 10 school in UNT history this Fall before we start falling back into our pattern of thinking what cannot be done in Denton. Let's think forward and try to forget all the things that made us appear backwards. GMG! And new UNT HFC Bill McCarney used this in his opening speech to our constituency quoting a favorite of his which was: "I dream things that never were and say why not. ...(Robert Frances Kennedy) so....Why Not UNT? Why Not Greater Denton? Why Not Denton County? Why Not the MWC? Now it's time for the meds... GMG ! !

FFR, you mean we could actually get something that is unexpected and "so very wrong" like the infamous foot short olympic sized swimming pool proved to be at the PEB? More on that...the idea with that pool was for UNT to start a varsity swimming program for the girls. One foot short killed that chance until the Pohl Rec Center changed that I believe. Amazing what can happen when you short change yourself on a facility that you've already gone out on a limb and spent multi-millions to not get what you should have gotten for the price, now isn't it? To those with your glasses half filled, some of us had those half full glasses emptied by things totally out of our control for most of our adult lives and we just don't won't UNT to screw up this --- dream like they have so many times before because someone on campus got a freakin' wild "uncreative" hair (and that someone probably not on staff for years now, either). Like someone used to always tell me: It takes just a little bit extra to go first class. Personally, I think our "foot shy" at the stadium is how much could have been earmarked to add another 5-10K permanent seats because rest assured, the NCAA Big Boys will probably use 35-40K to cull out those they do not want to share their quite wealthy family farm with. Former conference mate Boise will be part of their group--if Boise, then not why UNT? Our enormous and growing UNT constituency (unlike so many others) could hardly be described as a shrinking violet. Oh, I know our football palace could be expanded, but we may have had the wherewithall to do the extra seats now with the funding formula we had. Oh well, just another opinion I'm sure shared by few, but there has to be some prime reasons our past non-progressive left footed thinking has us where we are now in the total scheme of the NCAA neighborhood we presently reside...and think about that before you hit the red number. GMG!

Stebo, you now have the distinction of having the longest post ever! Great research, too! GMG! PS: I think UNT will tweak theirs to be more like FAU's in due time.

Go Pearland Oilers! Go Maroon/White! (They are from my home county--sorry bout' that, Trinity) GMG!

Would They Put A Lone Star Beer Billboard In Front of The Taj Mahal? O Lord, don't let them turn our new stadium into another PEB olympic-sized swimming pool that was one foot shy of being olympic size and one "heckuva'" boo-boo that was quite conveniently covered up to where few ever knew about it, too. Amen PS: This program will turn you to religion in due time.

And on the eve of new unis's for a new coaching regime what better time, too? I hope we don't go too dark with our shade of green only because of TV cameras panning our crowd; otherwise, I like the darker unis'. I also hope that with the debut of a brand new stadium that UNT branding experts will come up with something special for all Mean Green gear this summer. Most schools change theirs periodically as to promote new income for their school from Collegiate Sports Licensing. GMG!

Recruiting has always been the name of the game. Great recruits have made average coaches become great coaches. Speed is the the other major variable of recruiting. Speed with talent is better than slow with talent; but it's the former which has taken Boise's program to the next level. Of course, coaching has had much to do with the Bronco's successes, too, and most of us now believe UNT has taken care of that variable with our first hire of an experienced HFC with FBS experience since Hayden Fry. GMG!

Oh yeah! Texas North! Just kiddin' jperg2, but this interlockin' discussion has been going on on Harry's board since Day 1. I kinda' like "we are" Marshall's green unis' the last few years. Maybe a variation of those? I love SLC HS as one of our great Texas high schools, but I think their unis' look best on them and them alone. drex, we commission you to come up with "the NT unis' design" that incorporates your idea of the different shades of green. GMG! Helmet? I like "North Texas" on the helmet just about any way you font it. Why confuse our "never saw the Mean Green" TV audience with anything else on our helmet?

Will there not be other mini-scoreboards for anyone sitting in any seat inside that stadium to have a good visual? We can't allow a freakin' scoreboard to be a pink elephant in this stadium. What happened on the planning part of this that there is such a 180 degree turn on this so suddenly? Addendum Question: Wherever they put it, will it be a High Def screen because I know many out there are not.

Would the roof be too high to put it, though? Good idea if that worked.

Agree...UNT fans and the students who approved the referendum were I'm sure polled on this, too, right (which would be a first)? Who on campus is the go-to guy on these kind of not so small decisions? Surely not an $80 million PEB olympic sized type boo-boo of major proportions we're working on up there. A few interviewed on the MGRN have already suggested its "smallness" already but we knew that would come. The PEB olympic sized swimming pool which became an expensive pink elephant because it was one foot shy of olympic size and that made it virtually un-usable for projected varsity competition. Sometimes--not all times, but school folks just ain't the best business folks or construction experts, either; but like many of our present Congress, they seem to sometimes do what they pretty well damn please forgetting the ones who will pay for their projects (and sometimes goof ups--like in....the taxpayers and in North Texas case for this stadium--our students who are the ones who got this project going in the first place. The deck if the scoreboard is placed there to loom over it would have basically been a waste of monies, a wasted concept for what we were told it would be for and a whole lot of concrete and steel which could have been used elswhere. On this veranda they hosted Chamber mixers and other community groups who were meeting there, too. So in the future they meet there and look up to see the steel girders backside of a scoreboard? Heck, why don't they just build a warehouse where the deck is located or put a bunch of storage buildings there, too...that would be very nice for our fans to get to look at the next 50 years. Thy need to build that scoreboard just where all the renderings show it will be built. And please, no more bait and switch deals at our alma mater. .02 GMG!

And I just know with Utah being a pretty small market that they will still deliver the Utah market--and counting all the mountain goats in their vicinity as numbers, too. Sweet deal for the Mountain West Conference. Who's next? Pompei? Now I think I really know now about what delivering a market to a new conference is all about! Hell, it was right under my nose the whole time and in the deserts of Utah to boot! (please) Just get MWC Commish' Craig Thompson (?) to Denton, Dr. Rawlins, he'll have a new insight on other larger market options than Utah if he does make such a trip. North Texas and fans have been brow beat to thinking we're next to nothing-ness for about 30 plus years now, but we still have an upside that an effective sales person in Denton may be able to close a deal with. SMU came into CUSA as a loser program, but with a new stadium. GMG!

Congrats, Rocky Mountain High guy! Yet another Mean Green fan who will help us deliver the all encompassing DFW market! GMG!

You say, uh, nonsense? Do you project everything about yourself onto others all the time? Look in the damn mirror. The important ones on this board who I've known for decades and who I respect know I have a pretty long history of being right about most things concerning UNT athletics and you know what........they are the ones that count in my book--not a bunch of upstarts who think Bottom 25 athletics was just hunky-dory fine for North Texas. I don't think Coach Mac will buy into Bottom 25 as his cup of tea, either. And I hope all the ancillary staff types in the athletic department (if you can count each & every staff member of their small army) will get out of their own long time mode and attitude of "the bottom rung of FBS is just fine" because that attitude seems to have been quite contagious in Denton. How would one know? Just read this board for about the last 10 years and some of its posts, that's how. Moving on...(but don't forget to give me those red number because I'm sure I've infuriated others with another dose of reality, one who doesn't buy into the acceptance of a Bottom 25 athletic program and just how it is from the perspective of one whose seen it all in Denton and North Texas since 1973--pre-Ice Age. Note: UNT did deliver the dinosaur market in DFW until they all started getting a bit frigid and then quite stiff as in rigor mortis stiff). GMG!

And to remind us all, just what sources were those? Since you don't seem to believe a source from the Dallas Morning News that 2 of us on this board have seen; a blurb that showed what UNT could do with all its alums in this market when UNT had a much, much smaller constituency and you can't seem to fathom or understand how much larger our numbers are today compared to 1982; but since you don't believe a blurb from the Dallas Morning News, you are actually going to believe an article from a Salt Lake City newspaper? Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways, but we all know by your responses to many posts that you will still try. And your judgement call on one coach's careers at UNT? You are the one who still thinks a particular coach at UNT who had 3 winning seasons out of 9 should have received yet another extension to his contract--and by suggesting that on this board recently you lost much credibility with most on this board with most anything else you will post or respond to from others posters. Can you fathom what I just posted on that subject or is that something you will try to respond to with something from way out there and from........the far side? And you say you are actually an administrator of a message board? Tell me if the rest of the administrators on that board actually visit this one to see one of their fellow administrators in action? Sometimes reading posts from some on this board, its so very easy to understand why we've been in the NCAA wildnerness most my adult life, specifically the last 15-20 years. GMG!

Look up the article in the Dallas Morning News archives yourself--2 of us on this board saw the article if your questioning that it was ever written. And then you say: UNT brings access to the DFW marketing, but its doesn't bring the market. You care to explain what the hell you mean with that? UNT brings far more to the table than you seem capable of mentally absorbing. Go back to your DD worship.

As posted..."if" he adds schools like UNA. GMG!

IMO, SBC Commish' seems to want a deeper Deep South presence in the Sun Belt Conference. I think he is smart enough to realize that North Texas will "probably" not always be a 'Belt member in the future. If he adds schools like UNA, he is just making sure what happened to Karl Benson of the WAC does not happen to Wright Waters of the SBC. It would be a smart move for Wright Waters, but not one that would excite many of us. GMG!

Didn't know there was a title like Assistant Head Coach when you already had an Associate Head Coach on staff. Oh well....learn something new everyday in Mean Green Country. GMG!

Would be curious with the entire recruiting circumstance surrounding DE Sean Brown and how he'd choose any school in the fast fading WAC over North Texas. Hell, did he even visit us to see that new stadium and the Mean Green Village? He must have a girl friend enrolled at Las Cruces! I know we won't get them all, but now who we recruit against for these kids should even start showing "school name" dramatic differences across the board. It's always been difficult for non AQ conference schools to get the better linemen and is why a coaching staff's ability to evalute talent that will be able to develop once on campus is so important. GMG!

Thanks, Charles... That new sign by the former Radisson Hotel property should read: "UNT: Where You Can Help Us Build Something Special!" (or something much "shorter" & probably clever). In fact, such slogans should probably be on a very readable from the interstate electronic sign. It's an easy prediction that our stadium's strategic location will help us recruit some in the future who will have their dad's exit Bonnie Brae as to get a closer-up look--all unofficial visits, of course. Recruiting? I am hoping for some last minute surprises like we have gotten in years past. With 2 or 3 of the right JUCO's who enroll this Spring, we could be competing for an SBC championship next Fall. GMG!

It seems our blink took 3 1/2 years, but TDodge did get the academics in order from all accounts. Surely many still left on staff who were part of that success, too? GMG