PlummMeanGreen

A comparison are NFL owners who give their head coach the "vote of confidence" one week and then we read where said NFL owner fires their head coach the next week. Today's NCAA? Don't bet your next pay check on what is being said from college presidents or some athletic directors. There are some you probably can believe, but the upper echelon of the NCAA is about jockeying for position at the expense of your fellow conference-mates. The very reason UNT needs to to whats best for itself since no one else is going to help advance our cause or future. Our main sin(?) at UNT is that we didn't win a national championship back during the Depression and that we were not part of the "now defunct" Southwest Conference at any time of our history. Merely having 1 of those 2 (or both) seems to give some out there today some amazingingly undeserved and even unearned respect in my humble opinion. But...it is what it is and few seem to want to use other more sensible criteria when looking in a different direction for new league members. GMG!

Great idea! But don't even dream about calling it, uh, Band Day.

Another wrinkle: The Mountain West Conference has been the one league that no one wanted to leave (or everyone wanted in) until BYU came up with their Indy/WAC song and dance. No matter what happens with BYU, it shows that there are some cracks even in the MWC dam. Will still be interesting if BYU does leave in the next year or so (which I think they will); anyway, it will be interesting to watch the NCAA's version of musical chairs begin all over again among all schools trying to improve their conference setting. For sure its a great time for UNT to have an ultra-modern football palace ready for 2011 and if this year's team gets our winning cycle back on track, it will be a great timing for UNT all around. GMG!

How long does the WAC & Benson have to figure out who they want to add to their league? Anyone? TCU's Gary Patterson almost blew a gasket when he heard all this BYU/WAC possibilities and then said he had some inside on what would happen if BYU left or whatever. (Seems as if he were all but personally threatening BYU the way the article read). Yet, I think the TCU coach semi-paniced when he saw one less perennial Top 25 school (BYU) in his league, ie, one of which a TCU win over the mormon school has helped him get to a BCS bowl. Without BYU in the MWC, TCU has to all but schedule a non-MWC Top 10-15 school which they'd have to beat to gain schedule respect. Just my 02.

Keep these gold nuggets coming, MG61! I've always enjoyed your online finds across the NCAA. Shall we wonder if our UNT athletic consultant Chuck Neinas is indirectly involved in these discusions from a distance? To quote "The Fans" Grego Williams, "I HAVE A TWENTY DOLLAR BILL...." Folks, if you think all this with BYU ends with the deadline of September 1'st you might want to know the Tooth Fairy will visit you tonight.(Don't extract a tooth just to insure it, though). Any defections of schools in our region only gives us possible new opportunities. BYU has new high def broadcasting capabilities from their "Mormon broadcasting empire" and I think its just one of the things for their wanting to flex their TV muscle on a more national basis. For whatever reason, they don't seem pleased with the Mountain West Conference, either, but like so many of us, thats what it is for them at this moment in time. You do have to give WAC Commish' Karl Benson a thumbs up as he just doesn't seem to want to give up on any of this BYU business. (I think BYU will eventually pull the trigger but not until next go around--they have a dream of more TV and more money and that dream will not disipate in the hot Utah sun, either. Doesn't greed have that kind of effect in other areas of life, too? GMG!

If we could ever stop all that confounding campus construction at our main campus we might have some actual time to do some decent land-scaping to beautify our burgeoning, sprawling campus. And just look at what those UNT students of recent years have done to us? Those guilty ones who had the audacity to pass a referendum for UNT students to significantly help fund a new football stadium. JUST LOOK WHAT THEY DONE TO US!There's a gol' darn sink hole just east of the Athletic Center at the MG Village with concrete and steele beams strewed all around that hole. How we going to beautify our campus with this kind of non-sense happening all the time at our campus? Dastardly UNT students! ............................... (we applaud & are indebted to you all--the benefits of what you did by passing that referendum in terrible economic times in the USA will happen sooner than later--you all are the true heros in this stadium project). GMG! TEXAS! ! ! ! !

If Dasher had been at UT, he would get a slap on the hand and full NCAA clearance without the loss of any game. GMG!

Tony, thanks for the invite. Yours will be my first stop. (Mind if I bring some ol' friends alone, too? Just have some Geritol available with some JD in case we need a, uh, pepper upper)! I may be able to make the Sept. 11 (I have a wedding on Friday, Sept. 10'th and on Sunday, Sept.12'th, I am going to try to make the Rice home season opener if I'm not worn to a frazzle. Right now, the Fouts finale with KSU looks do-able, too. Hope to get more Friday and Sunday gigs this Fall so I can join my friends on Game Day at venerable ol' Fouts Field. GMG! PS: BTW, you shot some great campus photos from your plane! I use one as a screen-saver on my desk stop at home.

Put a little classic *Alan Parsons Project music as a background to TFLF's post at a reading and we may have our first Grammy nomination in the category of: College Football Message Board Post With Funky (yet sexy) Background Music. Hellsbells! I think I'm feeling this post even more as I whistle the instrumental part of Eye in the Sky. Superb post, The Fake Lonnie Finch! * Even some of those "what the hell are they trying to tell us now" mysterious Moody Blues songs of the past would work, too, with your prose postings. GMG!

Tony, I wonder what the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has "requested" that TAMU--College Station cap their enrollment? Probably 45,001? SUMG and I were marvelling the other day all the real estate at and near the New Stadium @ The Mean Green Village which UNT still has to work with for all our future construction and growth. Of course when you're doing your piloting thing you can see all this better than anyone, right? GMG!

OK, emmitt01, don't get SUMG started now! GMG!

One reason why I like college football so much is how anything can happen at one's home stadium on any given Saturday, especially one's Grand Opening of a new stadium. (UH will lose their CUSA Player of the Year QB afer this season albeit they will probably just reload--but it appears to me that we are "slowly & surely" reloading, too). Many of us on this board watched the Mean Green powder the UH Coog's 28-0 the year before they won the SWC and went to the Cotton Bowl. Yes, we do drink a lot of green kool-ade on this board but why the heck not. It beats the hell of that green sheeee-t Jim Joness flock were drinking on that fateful day. (Jeez, I can't believe I just said.....THAT!) GMG!

These stories will continue in this era of uncertainty across the NCAA. Speaking of Utah State, what was it UNT did for them that made their powers-that-be in the 90's say: "We owe you a big favor, North Texas?" (I cannot remember what we did so special for them).

We will pass UH at the official Grand Opening of the New Stadium @ Mean Green Village and on the scoreboard! (Just playing with ya' my UH Cougar friends! Look forward to having you--hope you bring your great marching band so we can have 2 great marching bands in the stadium that night, too). Good grief, what am I doing here, that game is more than a year away! GMG! PS: My first college team to support as a youth was Bill Yeoman's UH Cougars of whom I saw many of their games in the Astrodome. Ran into one of Coach Yeoman's former lineman, ie, David Bourquin, in Mineral Wells (TX) the other day who just retired as the MWHS Rams head football coach. GMG! PS: Harry Miers, can you and your crack gang of computer experts on GMG.com super-impose a nice photo of our football stadium rendering on top of this "Mean Green Football" page? You will have many new visitors (and lurkers) this year who might be interested in seeing what we've got going on every time they log on to the Mean Green Football section. Just a thought, buddy.

I'll, uh, go outside the box here, but in the old days of extended (late) enrollment at NT we have added as many as 1,000 additional students. Don't know if late registration is at it was back in the day, but what the heck--the more the merrier. No "potential" UNT student could ever visit our campus now and not feel that special buzz of excitement that all our latest wave of expansion along with all the very noticeable construction creates--especially that huge edifice of a new football stadium that looks so-oooooo sweet up close and from a distance. GMG!

So now is the time to get back inside the safe confines of the box? As written, probably a short thread here but was still mean't for pure speculation in the future. The SBC is the only shoe that fits North Texas right now and we all seem to know it. Thankfully, the climate in the NCAA is about conference change and that at least gives us a reason to dream forward, right? Fact is, the Indy' route in the 70's was not a fun ride at all, in fact, was frustrating for us all who were around, but in the present NCAA anything can change on any day. At large berths for a possible "growing" coalition of Indy' schools would IMHO be possible, but that (again) is thinking outside the box, merely speculation as this whole thread ideas was actually mean't to be. In fact, this whole thread was inspired by the FWST writer saying 'the SBC will never be a BCS bowl buster" and most of us with ties with the SBC would probably silently say "hellsbells!" the guy is probably (unfortunately) right. (Boise Staters--lets us, ie, your former conference mates in on the BCS buster formula, OK)? YET........how long do you think it would take Troy or MTSU or FAU to jump on the re-alignment bandwagon train to flee the SBC if they had the opportunity? Then are we all glad that we "hung right in there" with the Sun Belt Conference? Coach Schnelly'burger said years ago they were needing to get out of the SBC. The MTSU people were giddy about leaving the SBC for the MAC at one time; Troy could probably fit in the eastern footprint of CUSA but their liberal admission standards might prevent that from ever happening. UNT's main problem with CUSA is that we are located in Texas and the spoken sentiment with those from CUSA who would vote seems to be "not another Texas school in our league"; but the unspoken part would most likely be "especially one that is progressing & growing with warp speed like the University of North Texas." Everyone is trying to get an inside edge among all our fellow schools in Texas who did not make the Big 12 cut. TCU doesn't want to be in bed with SMU any longer because they want the inside edge of not being in a conference with SMU which the MWC gives the Frogs. U of Houston's location (away from DFW) may create for TCU a traveling partner since the Frogs probably (for the moment) don't want to share their MWC connection in the Metroplex with SMU or UNT (and that would be the case with us if we had a "lights out" program selling out our new stadium every game IMHO." So yes, NCAA politics suck because it keeps aspiring schools on the outside looking in and keeps those inside knowing if they didn't have 75 years of a past big time football conference affiliation that they would be right down here with us. Indy? Probably not a good idea based on our past, but lets see what BYU does if & when they go that route and then we carefully measure Independent status as a vehicle for UNT to get in a better conference situation as well as a better chance to be a BCS bowl buster school; that is, the part of the Sun Belt a reporter says collectively never be part of being in the NCAA neighborhood that produces BCS bowl busters. NOTE: I don't think comparing UNT's situation to the Fry era of the 70's makes sense any longer in light of the ever-changing league climate of the NCAA. TAMU's almost pulling the trigger to go with the SEC a few months ago and leave their bobsie-twin sister & fellow PUF school University of Texas says as Bob Dylan wrote "the time they are a-changin'. So...........nothing ventured--nothing gained? (Mr. Neinas, we are patiently waiting for your suggestions of which I'd bet most of us would respect and accept). GMG!

Yes, I know, probably another short thread here and I realize this is way outside the usual box of past (recent) thinking for us, but what BYU might (still) do this year (or better yet next year which is when I think they really pull the trigger on this Indy' thing); nevertheless, their serious talk of going the Indy' route in football is intriguing to me to a degree as to how might UNT do the same down the road and even in light of all negatives about being Indy' yet during another era of BCS football when leagues all stuck together never thinking about forsaking the other for brighter lights and TV contracts. Today's Fort Worth Star Telegram "giant" Football Pre-Season Preview had a Sun Belt Conference blurb with one of its writers saying "...the Sun Belt Conference will never be a BCS Bowl Buster league." Well, sorta' pi$$ed me off with the "NEVER" attitude and the writer may very well be right with his assessment, but what about when: A...UNT moves to its new football palace, we start fielding 1970'esqe Mean Green football teams who could get in Top 25 polls annually like former conference-mate Boise State has established; B...play names schools even at home because of our new fooball palace and beat a few name schools who have some really decent, competitive teams; C.....we start having lights out attendance numbers because UNT alums/Mean Green fans finally have a football stadium to hang their Metroplex & Beyond bragging rights onto. What if one day one of our leaders wakes up and suddenly has the bright light bulb "a-ha" experience and we see that just maybe we have really been staying loyal to the wrong coalition of schools for too long with (still) no foreseeable percs for us by doing so or...........that we have really been fartin' in the wind while planning to spend yet another decade in the SBC as it keeps sending Bottom 50 conference champions to bowl games, ie, bowl games that will NOT even be close to one of the Big 4 BCS "money-makin" bowl like TCU & Boise State get into or like the "non BCS buster kind of conference the writer said of the SBC in today's Fort Worth Star Telegram Pre-Season Football Edition. WHAT IF................BYU goes Indy' and proves it (a la Notre Dame) to have been a success for even them.............nevertheless, would being a Major Independent with a winning football program make it easier for UNT to get us to a BCS bowl much, much quicker (not mentioning a better "known" overall football schedule, better name schools coming to Denton unlike we have in the Sun Belt? Couldn't we probably keep scheduling Army, Navy, and now even an Indy' "Brigham Young?" Don't all 3 of these schools want a trip to Texas every other year playing a fellow Indy'? NOTE: After all, we have scheduled Kansas State as late as Nov. 27'th this Fall so they are out there to schedule at unusual times of the season for those who think an Indy' schedule could be difficult. I know this idea will without a doubt not be popular, but once you get through that initial "just say no to Indy'" phase and then start thinking "just what might be positives toward the idea in light of today's annual re-alignment talks, list any reason (if you have even one) that this might be worth a look-see. IMHO...BYU will declare their Independence next year and why not.....they are not joined at the hip with TCU or the MWC. Addendum: Folks, Texas A&M came within a gnat's whisker of shucking their over 100 year tradtion and association with UT-Austin to go to the SEC, so lets not get too much into this "be true to your conference" phase of this. Moral: There has to be a way for us to move up without depending on the CUSA or other Texas schools who forever have thougth we had leprosy or something. Just thinking outside the box while we wait on the Clemson game.

Could It Be the, uh......Denia Neighborhood Association helping UNT officials come up with a "standing room only" crowd extra parking lot (their yards) strategy? Just kiddin' for heaven's sake! Wait a minute! Can I also hear them singing: " We Are Family...." Whoever it is.......doesn't the construction look nice even in the photo? GMG!

I'm going to make a small wager, Eastwood Eagle, that the pre-Navy game 3 jet fly-over made a "small" impression, too, right? (I still get goose bumps thinking about that moment). GMG!

...that would be their annual football section. Talk about a newspaper that has gone down in size and scope and number of inches of wordage. For Starters: The city of Fort Worth is now annexed to a degree inside the Denton County line near Alliance. The FW S/T used to have full sports coverage with their good neighborhood 35 miles north (which has now become even closer when you count the Fort Worth northern city limit existence in Denton County. YET.......now that have almost 40,000 UNT students in sight; now that the City of Denton has grown substantially and now that Denton County's population is larger than the city of New Orleans was before Hurricane Katrina; anyway, the larger our UNT community and constituency (and those who buy or would buy the FWST); our coverage is now next to "almost" blurb-status--sometimes not even a blurb. Lets see now, we do seem to have a significant Fort Worth presence with our UNT Health Science Center At.......Fort Worth. We know we have a presence with all the NT Exes living in Tarrant County and the West O' Plex (adjacent counties like Parker County where I live): so.......... This thread will soon be on Page 10, but I do wish the FWST folks would reconsider what they are doing and just give us a beat reporter for Mean Green athletics. UNT is not going to disappear because they are not covering the future 2'nd largest university in Texas (according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board down in Austin, Texas). Such numbers as ours buys newspapers, but if they don't give us a reason to buy the Fort Worth Star Telegram anymore--we won't. Just my .02 GMG!

Only the shadow knows? How's the band, Joe? Yall still playing? If so.....where? And I challenge anyone else on this board to do as I did many years ago and go buy yourself a top shelf bicycle at greenjoe's Denton Bicycle Shop! I'm sure he'll give you a good deal as he did with my Raleigh 10 speed of which someone else latter borrowed without me knowing and..not returning it, either. Judge Joe, I'm sure all your fellow Dentonites are all but getting giddy about what's going on between those 2 major Texas interstates which now border our campus. It's an exciting time for all of us in the UNT community. Glad it's finally happening and our UNT leaders are to be canonized for their leadership with this humongous project--even all the Protestant ones on campus who are usually not used to getting canonized? Addendum: And to the rest of my fellow alums & NT fans, thanks for the words of kindness & encouragement. GMG!

My trip to Denton today was almost like a trip to the Holy Land (of which I've only seen in photos). I'll try not to be so melodramatic than the title of this thread suggests I might be but let me start from the beginning..... Firstly, I met up with SUMG at his beautiful home in Argle early this AM, got to see all his latest Mean Green memorabilia and of course, his 2 girls (dogs). I first insulted John by calling him the 2'nd Coming of Mr. Clean and then I took my own cap off to show him I had gone retro, ie, back in time to my days as a student on Fry Street, circa 1970's and was (in fact) on my way to growing an eagle-tail (strike "pony"tail) as my hair in the back had become longer than its been since I was a youth. (Of course, some of my hair toward the front had become, uh..........a bit thinner, too. So SUMG & I visited a bit more at his Argyle hacienda then got in his car and headed to Denton, Texas, America with our destination being the Mean Green Village. The towering new stadium construction was becoming quite visible from Interstate 35-W so I began to get excited about this trip northward from Parker County, Texas, and what I would soon see firsthand. John, ie, SUMG had been telling me for weeks that I just had to come up to Denton and see the stadium construction in person. He had been telling me that the photos we see on Harry's GMG.com did not do it justice--so we then crossed over inside the Denton City Limits and headed toward the Mean Green Village. SUMG had to park across Bonnie Brae as the Visitor's Parking had been roped off but that was OK. And then it happened...I began looking at the construction of our future new football palace and honest-to-goodness really could not believe what I was seeing. The photos from Tony and GMG.com (in deed) didn't compare to seeing this magnificent edifice in person. As I waited for SUMG to park and join me, Drex and friend, Mike, drove up. Our former MG athletics promo man looked at me almost 3 times and said...."Jim Plummer?" I pled innocent to all charges! As SUMG arrived, Drex, Mike and myself simply marveled at our look over into the Mean Green Promise Land! We could see the shackles of Fouts Field would soon be loosed from us all and what that (alone) would mean for the University of North Texas. TOTALLY AMAZING! The depth of the Press Box side blew me away as photos only showed the front of the press box side. Ladies & Gentlemen! There is a massive bunch of steel and concrete all over the place and I told Drex I felt like I was going to tear up looking what was before our eyes. I felt the 4 of us were literally on some semblance of a UNT version of Holy Ground (you know, kinda' like Ground Zero) and that we might eventually want to take our shoes off the closer to the construction site we got. Folks, if you have not seen all this in person--do so. I was blown away and you will be to once you see all this up close. Some of you had already posted that the photos didn't do justice to the real thing and you were all right. First time visitors will be amazed with the progress of this Mean Green Village construction you can't see in photos and if you close your eyes, you can only dream how the final product will be when it will also be full of Mean Green fans. (I hope Chuck Neinas will encourage our UNt powers to consider more seating even in this Phase 1 because the top schools we will now be able to get into Denton will require this to happen sooner than later and construction cost will not get any cheaper later on). ANYhoooooooo......afer we left the Mean Green Promised Land site, SUMG and I went over to New York Sub Hub(?) where I had the same sandwhich I've been eating for 30 plus years at this eatery which is the #3 pressed ham on white bread, cut the cheese but load it down with everything else with some Lays classic potato chips and a dill pickle (sliced in half) on the side. Afer we finished our early lunch we then met up with our longtime friend Rick Spears at Voertmans where the 3 of us had a great reunion of laughter, a few old jokes and our giggling like young teens over what is happening at our alma mater with this new stadium in the Mean Green Village. On a sad note, many of us can list a few pages of fellow alums & friends now passed on who had dreamed of this happening one day in Denton long before many of us; that is, this group who who didn't get to have the same experience as my own "mountain top" look today over in the Promised Land located at the Mean Green Village between those 2 major Texas Interstates as it rises like the Phoenix on the rolling Texas prairie--for all commuters driving north and south to see (and to be more than impressed). A special thank you--thank you-thank you to all those on the UNT staff who have made this their own personal labor of love for the entire UNT community & what they know--in fact, what we all know will be long term benefits for the University of North Texas--both athletically and even more important, academically. Our time has finally come, fellow alums & fans & for what its worth--we have long deserved every bit of this exciting new chapter at the Mean Green Village. GMG!

Great photo, Phil! Is there someone still in that pressbox(?) calling the "never-ending" Utah State barn-burner of several years ago? GMG!

Addendum: I think the scheduling of the University of Houston Cougars for the Grand Opening of our stadium was an act of genius by Rick V. Why? Instead of us getting just a "blurb" in the Houston Chronicle if it had been any other school, we will get a full write-up of our game for all down there to read with many of the Greater Houston population (including HS coaches & potential recruits) will be finding out for the first time about our new football palace. We can't pay for that kind of publicity we rarely get on the golden Gulf Coast of Texas.

Smash? If the pee'in wall were still in the Men's restroom, I could see that going down like the Berlin Wall. I would have provided the necessary sledge hammers (Thanks for removing that, Rick V). Souvenir? I would not mind a cut out of the first seat I sat in at Fouts Field Student Section (although it was a wooden seat back in the day). First Memory? I cannot forget those lime green unis' in my first attended game at Fouts Field