PlummMeanGreen

First of all: God I just love re-alignment talk for a change! #1 MWC #2 CUSA For the same reasons TCU wanted to not be in the same conference with SMU I suppose is one reason to consider plus.........a reason that seems to have worked out quite well for the Horned Frogs, eh? The MWC will need a Texas school to do what Boise and TCU have been doing of late and North Texas should aim to be that school no matter what conference we're in. And for any possible unbiased study done for the MWC on this, they might want to consider UNT for these 7 big reasons : (1) North Texas just brings far more to the table with a larger fan base, (2) UNT with an enrollment that all but quadruples SMU's (3) Approx. twice as many UNT students now living on/near campus than SMU and TCU's combined enrollments. (4) With close to 100,000 NT Exes in the DFW Metroplex, we dwarf SMU's alumnus numbers (5) Our football stadium and basketball facility combo? No comparison with SMU's (6) Easy major airport access from either DFW Airport 25 minutes from Denton) or even Alliance Airport (15 minutes from Denton City Limits sign out near SUMG's house)! (7) Big Mac Attack On The Way At The New Mean Green Stadium (with I hope a Chico style offense run by Chico the Man himself as Asst. HFC/OC--this could really be a win-win for all & I hope Coach Mac offers it & Coach C accepts)!. What is the MWC waiting on anyway?!? GMG!

If an unbiasied study would do a study on behalf of the Mountain West Conference for a new Metroplex school to replace TCU North Texas would win this hands down over SMU based on our much larger UNT constituency, ie, student enrollment, DFW alumnus numbers, students living on campus (which has sky-rocketted), best overall facilities and to quote UNT grad/ESPN commentator Dave Barnett, "UNT upon completion of the new football stadium takes a back seat to no one in the facilities department anymore." I don't know how much that SMU 1939 NC still figures into these kind of things here in the year 2010, but it sure has helped them in the past. Of course, that past is becoming even more distant as the years roll by, too. Might it be time to retain Neinas again on this new development from TCU and the Big East today? OK, OK, OK....I know the man does not walk on water but his credentials are still impressive to most of us I think I can say. GMG! CUSA or MWC--doesn't matter to most of us.

This from a source in Dalls-Fort Worth that most the time has been reliable. Still don't know how that breaks down in permanent seats but there will sure be lots of green space and even the verenda (1,000 fans?) connected to our Athletic Center near the south end zone that would be included in that number I would guess. Any good photos and architectural renderings of our new stadium? Some first time "visitors" from other conference boards may want to catch a peek of those. GMG! PS: 1 or 2 of JJ's Landing, ie, the SuperPit, too?

This is Big! UNT must start getting our business in order. The Coach Mac attack may work eventually in our going up the re-alignment ladder, its just the last 6 years that may haunt us with some but we are no worse than SMU was when they entered CUSA.; in fact, I think we are better off now than they were then. Coach JJ has basketball rising to an apparent new level and that will be a plus for North Texas. GMG

Someone who knows please give us the contribution scale so we will know how much influence X amount given to this particular UNT Athletic Dept. gives a UNT alum: If I Get Only 1 UNT Alum A Year To Use Our DJ Service That Is Still $400 For UNT's New Stadium Fund............I still have my DJ deal going with half of * $800 for a 4 hour event (not just Wedding Receptions, either; partys, birthdays, reunions, karaoke-fest, corporate events, etc.); yet with half of the amount for a 4 hour gig going to the New Stadium fund and even in the name of my client if they so choose and that will be ongoing no matter who our UNT AD is or who is working in the UNT Athletic Dept. That is a personal (and signed by both parties) contract betweeen this UNT alum to any other GMG.com poster or UNT alum or Mean Green fan in general. I can't do much more than that on a larger scale until I perhaps win the Publishing Clearing House $10 million then I guess I will give enough to UNT after their first fat check comes in as to really give me a big, big say at UNT--is that how it works now? My answer to that is: No............and go ahead and start some more GMG.com-based urban tales if you wish just like the one that sprang from this board on what would get Chico hired at UNT as far as number of wins was concerned? Quite frankly, I liked my response letter with a real signature from Dr. Rawlins from a 2 page letter that I sent to him certified mail about 3 weeks ago and you know what? He seemed sincerely interested in what a 35 plus year alum had to say and he didn't even ask me how much I was worth or how much I had given or if I was a Democrat or Republican or member of the Tea Party or whatever the hell else. (Those kind of personal questions seemed to be reserved only for a few on GoMeanGreen.com to ask and not the Office of the University of North Texas President--there is a huge difference among the 2 styles, too, for what thats worth). I would like to think any UNT grad is considered a stockholder (if you will) at our alma mater and has an opinion to share. If 1 or 2 on this board start getting back into that very (condescending) legalistic air of that "how much do "YOU" give compared to what "I" give" crapola again you will run off more of the kinds of fans that will help us fill our new stadium than you will bring in. Unless there is an agenda or just in general a whole bunch of sour grapes of the way things are going, we know that no sincere and well-meaning UNT alum would pull that kind of stunt, right? GMG! * Most FW area DJ's charge $1,000 to $1,400 for a 4 hour Wedding Reception or other events.

Speaking of Tune...how many of our season ending injury players of this past season can we expect a med RS? I know the NCAA is pretty stingy with schools like us to give em' out but I wonder who might still get the med RS at UNT? And now long till we know? GMG!

cyrocksmypant, never mind us, we are a strange and peculiar people here who just haven't seen much as far as the usual barometers of success most NCAA FBS schools use to judge as far as what they've really got with their athletic program. Much of the frustration you read from us is mostly because of that, too.

Pretty darn impressive, Rick, on the City of Grand Prairie thing and all! And I do agree with you on... "It's Time!"

Hey MGHomer, for sure don't remind Joe Paterno how old he is, you might make him stroke out. Seriously, I was a bit taken back when I found out my own preference of Coach Fran was already 59 years old; but that in today's world is still considered young although when I was 21 or so age 59 mean't older than God to me. Trust me, Baby Boomers are going to be doing things in the work world much longer than our retired parents did. Some by choice and some because they have to. I like Coach Mac because his W/L at Iowa State was almost identical to Coach Fry's at SMU in 11 years on the Hilltop and as a result of that, Coach Fry came to Denton hungrier than a wolf and we were the winner of that mindset by Hayden. I predict Coach McCarney will be equally hungry and we will all benefit from his tenure here, too, and if Coach Mac retains Coach Chico (which I hope he still does) Coach C will eventually be a beneficiary of all this, too, with more opportunities and choices. I hope Coach Chico made friends fast with Chuck Neinas as that would have been the best marketing he could have done for himself with that connection. GMG!

The new stadium will get many more casual/borderline fans out no matter who our coach would be because many of that group wouldn't know old Dodger baseballer PeeWee Reese from PeeWee Herman. I agree, GrayEagle, I think "any" coach would win 4 next year, but I expect a HFC with the experience that Coach Mac has to win a few on his own like FAU's Coach Schnelly' probably did against us at least a couple times a few years ago before FAU became 'Belt elgible. A question mark with Coach C was we didn't know much about his recruiting even in 1 year at UNT and that question mark will be the same with Coach Mac until we see what he and staff can do, but he did hone his recruiting craft from one of the best when he was an assistant coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes. GMG!

I think most all this board were for someone else before we even knew Coach Mac was part of the mix; even after we knew we were all kinda' hanging in there with our personal preference of which Coach Fran was mine. Coach C has too much talent to not be a HFC but sometimes timing is everything and the timing of all this was not on his side this time (speaking of, uh, time); but good things come to those who wait? Having been a UNT student since 1972 right before the Ice Age hit us, I'm beginning to feel with this Coach Mac hire as I did when North Texas announced Hayden Fry. I just felt Fry would do better in Mean Green Country than he had on the Hilltop and I guess "many" of us (in deed) had the right hunch with Fry. I would love it if Coach Fry were at the Announcement this Tuesday because after all, this is one of "Fry's Guys." It could make the Irish tenor in me get all watery-eyed. So upon further review................. Welcome To Mean Green Country, Coach Mac! GMG!

My delete post thingy is not working, Harry.

Welcome Coach! We want you to succeed as much as we know you want to succeed at UNT. What more could either party ask for than that? UNT may be the best job match you've ever had your entire career. We know Coach Fry would tell you how North Texas turned his career around and I'd bet he's told you that already--maybe once or twice? GMG!

This could have all been prevented the Monday after the week of Dodge's firing with a simple press release: "We appreciate the efforts of all our assistant coaches hired by Todd Dodge but because of similar reason(s) he has been let go it has been decided by our administration that no one from this coaching staff will be considered for our next HFC's hire for the Mean Green. Instead, we now have typical North Texas mayhem that should not have ever happened but that is what happens when our leaders don't take care of business in a timely manner. I was proud of Coach C and the team yesterday as I was setting up for a DJ gig in Santo, Texas, and barely picking up the MGRN out west but as another posted today we still only have a small sample as to Coach C as HFC which includes all the other things that go with the title of HFC of which 2 are: (1) Recruiting (like it or not, most all those players yesterday were recruited by the most snakebit HFC I've seen at the FBS level--namely Todd Dodge. Consider all the 4'th quarter games last year that had we only won those then what we would have been talking about last season like, "finally, Coach Dodge has turned the corner in his 3'rd year---Dickey was still under .500 in his 5'th year as I recollect. (2) We now know that the transition from Texas HS to the FBS level does not work at North Texas--we even now know that twice as you also have to count Dennis Parker in that hiriing mix. But what would be the transition to one with "no" FBS HFC experience to such a new lofty position turn out? We will never know at North Texas. I said if Coach Chico beat KSU he should have our job--he damn near beat KSU yesterday but now yesterday is just that.......yesterday and in 10 years that loss against the Wildcats will still show up as a loss in future online media guides. STILL..........Rawlins wanted a new direction with this hire and he will get his new direction with this hire at the announcement on Tuesday AM. I wanted Coach Fran and Son of Fran at UNT--I will not get my personal preference and will be duly pissed if TSU shows us we (once again) screwed up by not hiring Coach Fran BUT...............I am a forgiving sort and have had to do that (like many of you) too many times in my life with some of life's uglier events, but I will support Coach Mac 110% no matter what he has done because my belief system of Christianity (as I use the same illustration offered to me as a fellow alum) says we are to forgive and forget; you know, like some of us want our Maker Above to do with our respective "mess ups" in life? There has been a joint statement by Coach Mac and former wife which is on this board somewhere and if that was good enough for those who hired him after all that took place it sure as heck is good enough for me some 15 or 16 years after all that allegedly took place. Seems Urban Meyer at Florida also had no problem as he gave Coach Mac the position of Assistant Head Football Coach to Coach Mac. I hope if Chico is intested in the job that Coach Mac will offer him the same position he had with Urban Meyer. Many of us have been posting that before we ever knew who our new HFC would be. Some of us merely wanted our next hire to be from a different kind of coach's title of which we had not had since Hayden Fry came to us as the former HFC at SMU; many of us even tried to explain it was never personal with Chico although some did their best to fan that flame of blame to almost the point that it could have become personal with all the PM's some of us got that pissed us off with some of the barbs (and since, very classy PM apologies have been received from those concerned). We all seemed to get caught up in the emotion of the moment, but at North Texas we need something not predecated purely on emotion but with one who has been there-done that as an experienced HFC at the FBS level. Coach Mac's Iowa State years might make North Texas seem like a cakewalk with what he will hopeully be able to do in Mean Green Country. All of us who wanted someone different need to act like Coach Mac was our man the whole time if at all possible because he will get that from this one alum who is ready for bigger and better things to start happening at UNT once again.

Anyone have a YouTube of Elvis singing "Memories?" I will be DJ'ing a Barn Dance in Santo, Texas, but my trusty radio with earphones will be handy. DeepGreen, great photo of the Taliban apparently helping us out with Fouts? GMG!

...how can anyone ever know when such hires from prior losing programs will be successful at a new outpost? Wonder how many times its actually happened? Are there some sports oriented univesity presidents (as Jitter Nolen was at North Texas) and sports enthusiast and new UNT president Lane Rawlins just know things that even some AD's or we posters on a college smack board just don't know? Sorry, RV, didn't mean to compare you with us. Look at all the successful NCAA FBS hires who came from winning programs who fell flat on their faces at their next stops? How do you ever know on these things? Is it in the tea leaves or what or.......do you just pull the trigger, make the hire and just see what happens? I think we know the answer to that one. If its McCarney come announcement time, we just show our class and give him a hardy congrats and good luck because we need him to do what Chizik is now doing at Auburn and what Fry did at UNT and.........WIN! He may not be that new XJS forest green Jaguar we may have all wanted, but he could very well be that new Chevy that gives a school like North Texas the mileage we need with a coach that when he leaves UNT will have more wins than losses for on his next resume'. BTW.........we haven't said goodbye to any UNT HFC who met that criteria since 1978 so maybe its really just time to lay all our cards on the table and shoot for the whole sweepstakes? For those who fear a 5 year contract goof up with whoever we hire, it is still our school who has let coaches go anywhere between 1 to 3 years so its not like it would be a forever mistake if it were an obvious mistake with whoever we hire. New stadium? Anyone ever heard of effective sports marketing or promotions directors? We may have them now at UNT--I don't know. They will have a new face to present to the kinds of fans, ie, the casual fans who will no longer know the difference betweeen one coach to another in the majority of that group's case. Although we need some beating of the drums and much hype until the debut game, this new stadium will all but sell itself the first year of which I feel coach Todd Dodge left enought talent on the table (and when all healthy) to be competitive in the SBC next Fall; who knows, maybe even win it. We just don't know how we will fare in OOC play in 2011 starting with the Houston Coog's who I fear like most our OOC foes will have more team speed and overall talent as we've seen with most our OOC oppoments of the last 10 years in the SBC but still...............isn't all this the reason they play the game? (Rumor has it UH may be soon looking for a new HFC as theirs is on a few checklist of AQ schools in the NCAA). UNT once they figure out the new seating format at the new stadium, IMO should start selling tickets for the stadium debut game sometimes around the Spring Football Game. Early Bird Gets The Worm (or the sellout & possible SRO in our case)? It's a shame our season opener is not in the new stadium as to create even more curiosity with the casual or borderline fans. GMG!

All of us were for someone else other than McCarney and if he is the one all of us will support him after we take that deep breath you mention in your post. I don't know how with our past failed coach hires how any of us are suddenley experts here as it is? Hellsbells! I pushed for the hiring of Todd Dodge (who I think will rebound elsewhere and be successful--but not as a FBS HFC, I don't think). As I think back, I can now remember talking to an old timer at the old Winchells Donuts which was near what was Selby's Flower Shop and this right after Fry was first hired. I remember how that "expert" predicted doom in Denton from what he said something to the effect of "that SMU coach who didn't do that much over in Dallas and he was fired for some reason." I was mostly happy that UNT had not dropped football and seemed to be showing with the Fry hire that they wanted to try something different than they ever had in Denton. It turned out to be a marriage made in................UNT President Jitter Nolen's office. Coach Mac (if hired) deserves a honeymoon period and for the sake of recruiting and potential recruits who might read this board, we all need to act like we're unified; and if that doesn't happen, then we have more problems than just who our new UNT head football coach is. GMG!

And Hayden would have probably done it for free since it was North Texas! The guy still loves our school and makes no bones about it, but we did play a very important role in giving him a 2'nd chance.

One of the great phenomenas of our school (and we've had a couple) is how we seemed to never consult with Fry on these kinds of things, ie, the hiring of a new head coach of which we've floundered most of the latter part of last century and into the new one. With all of Fry's other assistants who moved up to my knowledge we never checked with him on even 1 or 2 of those we probably should have hired at the time. Look at all the ones we picked instead? Well, we do have a great College of Music we can always point to until we get back on track in other areas long unattended. GMG!

Yeah, Harry, everyone needs to lighten up on all this. If he's hired, we all need to make him feel welcome and forget about Coach Fran or Coach X or Coach Y or Coach Z. Whoever we hire needs to be successful for the sake of the cause and the cause has not been doing well most many of our adult lives. One told me today (now yesterday) that he wasn't sure that even "Jesus" would be acceptable for this hire. AND........in light of #2 (or #1 next week) Auburn hiring another Iowa State ex head coach with an abysmal W/L record with all the Auburn alums thinking their administration had fallen off their proverbial rockers in hiring their present coach shows that it can still be a successful kind of hire; after all, many of us will still allude to Hayden Fry's SMU career W/L record. Some schools mesh better with some coaches who had previously been put out to pasture. I mean we all have to come up with our own spins that make us accept whatever we get at North Texas because we know life is like a box of chocolates (or something like that) because we never know what we are going to get. Last 6 hires have been fairly predictable, though, because they were all similar in their previous coaches roles and titles. Box of Chocolates? I know, we would have some hacked because there were no chocolate-covered strawberries inside that box. Only at North Texas (as I hear more saying that of late).

If you've followed Mean Green football for more than 15 years you are automatically already insane. I know...in fact, all 3 of my inner friends know! Dr. Phil!

The part I highlighted in bold letters I like about Coach Mac. At UNT we need a whole staff of coaches who can evaluate Texas HS Class A, AA and AAA talent at the smaller high schools and not that we won't get the 5-A kids, too, but the hidden gems are usually in the smaller Texas high schools. U of Houston seems to have done well with recruiting smaller Texas high schools, especially with some of those smaller east Texas towns like Tatum, Hallsville (which I think is, Newhouse's HS alma mater and the like. A thing not to overlook here is that Urban Meyer did make Coach Mac his Assistant Head Football Coach and that is not a title thrown around for the hell of it at the larger schools. Coach Mac just would not get us the great statewide pub that Coach Fran would have but..........that is why they have talented and successful NCAA D1 marketing and sports promotions people out there. I don't even know who ours are now but at least they will have a new stadium to promote which will make Fall 2011 much easier and maybe even a slam dunk. UNT must squeeze as much out of this new stadium' first year as they can. I hope it will cause many of our fellow DFW alums come out of the closet; well, you know which closet I'm speaking of here. Coach Fran will probably wait (again) until a much better coach's scenario opens up but he and Mrs. Fran live outside Austin as it is now. (When does Mack Brown's contract at UT run out)? GMG! A Weird Thought: What had we hired Coach Fran and UNT would have been his first failed job?

It won't once someone on this board reports that Coach Mac was also a Nazi War Criminal being chased down by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of Women Against Drunk Drivers, too!

I posted 2 weeks ago that we of GMG.com are probably some much needed comic relief to many over at the UNT Athletic Dept. because some of them know now what Neinas hath begat for our next new guy. Meanwhile, we seem to chase the unholy grail of who it will be while seeming to change our minds every 24 hours!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/09/02/gene-chizik/index.html A Partial "dated" Article, Harry... And not changed my mind on Coach Fran... Gene Chizik's 5-19 record as Iowa State head coach made him an unpopular hire among Auburn fans. The most fascinating coach in America seemed excited Tuesday. "It's one of those first games," Gene Chizik said, "where you get a lot of questions answered." No, Auburn's season opener against better-than-advertised Louisiana Tech will not prove anything definitive. It will, however, begin to answer the question that makes the Tigers' first-year coach so fascinating. Is Chizik a Peter, or is he a Pete? In 1969, a Canadian teacher named Laurence J. Peter teamed with journalist Raymond Hull to pen The Peter Principle. That principle, according its namesake, is this: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." In other words, any competent worker will continue to be promoted until he eventually reaches a job he isn't capable of performing. Chizik's 5-19 record in two seasons as Iowa State head coach led many underwhelmed Auburn supporters to suggest he was the living embodiment of the Peter Principle. Maybe Chizik reached his ceiling as the defensive coordinator at Auburn and Texas. Maybe his next job, as Cyclones head coach from 2007-08, was above his level of competence. But before anyone throws in the towel on the Chizik era, consider another possibility. Sometimes an employee doesn't fit in one job, but fits perfectly in a slightly different one. Let's call it the Pete Principle. In 2000, USC fired Paul Hackett after three lackluster seasons. A nationwide search for Hackett's successor commenced, but it didn't take long for USC officials to learn decades of beautiful tradition weren't enough to lure the hottest candidates. Oregon State coach Dennis Erickson turned down the job. So did Oregon coach Mike Bellotti. San Diego Chargers coach Mike Riley, in the midst of a 1-15 season, wasn't sure he wanted the job. After failing to hire nearly every coach who had worked or would work in the state of Oregon, USC athletic director Mike Garrett turned to Pete Carroll, who had been fired after leading the New England Patriots to an 8-8 season in 1999. The Patriots, who made the Super Bowl in Bill Parcells' final season, slid a little further in each of their three seasons under Carroll. The reaction to Carroll's hiring came swiftly and decisively. Writing for The Orange County Register, reporter Janis Carr painted a vivid picture of the vitriol. "In the days leading up to Carroll's appointment, the athletic department was inundated with an estimated 2,500 similar phone calls and e-mails -- thanks to someone who posted Garrett's e-mail address on a variety of USC-linked Web sites -- mostly blasting Garrett's decision to hire Carroll," Carr wrote. "Some even went so far as to threaten to donate their money to academic programs rather than the football team." Meanwhile, The Los Angeles Times published several letters similar to the one submitted by reader Ron Chandler. "USC hires Pete Carroll, a former small college assistant who has been fired from two pro teams," Chandler wrote. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this appears to be a net loss, but then Mike Garrett is not a rocket scientist. A rocket scientist would at least make sure the rocket was pointed up, not down, before lighting the fuse." If that sounds familiar to readers in Alabama, it should. The tone is nearly identical to the reaction from Auburn fans after the Chizik hiring. Only this time, the fans had blogs. At the Joe Cribbs Car Wash, author Jerry Hinnen filed a post titled "No Words" within hours of the hiring. "I don't know how to react," Hinnen wrote. "It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem like they could possibly be so shortsighted. I'm going to spend tonight trying to figure out how to react. That, and drinking." One respected former Auburn player was equally mystified. "I have a lot of respect for the guy," Cole Cubelic told The Birmingham News in December. "But you look at his record as a head coach and you have to scratch your head and wonder what Auburn was doing and why they think it's a good move." Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/09/02/gene-chizik/index.html#ixzz16Qx7R6Bx