PlummMeanGreen

Jeez, ADLER, spoken like a, uh, Old Gun Alum?!? Hellsbells! How are some of our fans/posters going to react when we announce a real (hopefully Texas-based) Big Time U that will help us debut our new stadium out at the Mean Green Village?!?!? No numbers or codes for this post, but I totally concur with our youngest Old Gun Alum on this one. A Big Fan of Big Time College Athletics (& schools with high ambitions to get there), PMG GMG!

...what used to be called "Harry's Mean Green" to hit registered member #3,000, that's, uh... THREE THOUSAND! Who will be the next 13 newbies to register? Better yet--who will be that magical #3,000? There is something very messianic about the number 3,000 so you have all been forewarned. Seriously, congrats to Harry & his all volunteer GMG.com staff for all your perserverance with this when patience many times had to be a virtue.

Reader's Digest Large Letter Edition Nothing can be done about those injuries, but as an outsider looking in & after watching last year's Memphis game in the 1'st round of the Big Dance & even watching this season's UT game at the Super Drum via FSW (a few days after the Horns beat UCLA); but if JJ can recruit 2 more to add to the kind of talent of his freshmen guard, then that is when the Mean Green will win an SBC basketball championship a few years running and will get much further into the Big Dance than has ever happened in Mean Green basketball history. Coach JJ (IMHO) is still the right man at the right time for the Mean Green basketball job, but I just hope he gets all the recruiting budget he needs to get those 2 extra special players of a similar caliber of our true freshmen guard,ie, Mr.White; of course, we do need a little Lady Luck to help us out with the old injury bug-a-boo, too, right? Totally Unrelated To Mean Green Basketball: This last Sunday was the 40'th anniversay of a college basketball event I was lucky to have been a fan participant, and that was the UH/UCLA matchup tagged the Game of the Century in the Astrodome. Speaking of having a nucleus of 3 good ones to build a team, UH Coach Guy Lewis had Elvin Hayes, Don Chaney and Theodus Lee with a good supporting cast which got them to that Game of the Century. It also got them to the Final 4 that year. Phi Slamma Jamma came a few years later for UH. This last Sunday's Fort Worth Star Telegram had a great (almost) full page coverage all of all the things that came out of that one game which played a huge part of making college basketball the national sport we know today; which it really had not been of such a level before that one game in the Astrodome. Dick Enberg still calls that game his all time broadcasting highlight. Wish I could link that Sunday page from the FWST, but......................I just don't know how!

One small detail left out of the story on Cantly, like, uh, the speed factor? Anything listed on his speed anywhere? Of course, quickness would figure in, too. I concur to the Larry Lacewell theory (and always have before he said it) when in his interview on the MGRN he said most non BCS schools (I hate that combo of words, too, GrayEagleOne); but most of us from that group are most always going to recruit "projects" when it comes to the "big boy" OL and DL recruits. FWIW, so will several schools from some of the Big 6 conferences if you think about it. Of course, every once in a while we'll hit solid gold (Rival's 3 stars and up) recruits, but get used to "projects" all you young gun plumminci's if you want to stay in line with the rest of the stars in this universe. Hmmm? plumminci some of you are saying? Who knows, I may now just start a fake (cult) christian religion & run for president of........................... the Teamsters Union. Who knows (but the shadow) how far up to the next level our recruiting will go when we build a true NCAA D1-A football palace out at the Mean Green Village. I make the motion that our fundraisers get Mark Cuban out to a local watering hole, make sure he has his check book on him and then get him drunk as a skunk! Hellsbells! He is paying individual players what we need to more than get a 40,000 seat stadium jump-started, folks.Just "WHAT" are we doing wrong with our fund-raising here in a Fortune 500 mecca of the universe?!?!?! It just makes no, uh, cents. Jeez!?!?!?

Surely the NCAA offices have printed materials they send to all HS programs across the USA which educates the "would be" signees of the kind of scenarios that can take place when there is a head football coache's change at a NCAA school. It should make sense to most recruits that when there has been a coaching change that all bets are off from the prior or out-going coaching regime.

Question: How many outright conference football championships has Texas Tech won since they were first admitted to the old Southwest Conference in the mid-1950's? Just curious...

Horton quote: "It's close to home," he said of North Texas. "I like the town it's in. I really felt like I fit in with the guys there. It's pretty even between the two schools now." Another UNT coach several decades ago said if he could just get the blue-chippers on our campus that most times he could sell the rest. He cited UNT's very diversified student body as one of the big reasons for much of that, too. Isn't recruiting time at North Texas a tad more exciting than our under-the-radar days?

So the Sun Belt is the only 1-A football conference with basketball-only schools in its league, SUMG? If so, probably even more fodder for those who think we're bush league by allowing that. John, maybe we just expected too much from our alma mater the last 40 years in the area of actually climbing up the NCAA D1-A ladder, you think? Strong leadership is really needed at UNT more than ever to lead us out of all this & bust up some athletic trends that will only keep us in the company of schools that a school our size & scope should have no association. One can only use small-time style thinking to guess what schools the SBC will have in line for replacements if the schools GrayEagleOne suggests have to drop out of the Belt because of annual turnstile deficiencies. And to only think that in September of 1976 many of us witnessed the Mean Green almost upsetting the Darrell Royal-coached and Earl Campbell-led Texas Longhorns. Such talk today would be considered "sputnik" talk from some quarters on this board who've only read of such things. Will such future expectations only be squelched by those who only know (and readily accept) lower levels of competition with schools that will never excite or sell tickets starting with the fan base or group that could really make a huge difference at the the turnstiles in Denton, ie, the DFW UNT alumnus base of 100,000 (give or take)? It's more than nice to have all these rabid fans that post regularly on GMG.com, but our entire group together would still only fill parts of only one section at Fouts Field. So with that in mind, do we just keep on with our business as usual approach to satisfy the few who like their accessibility to some of our athletic staff and/or those who will accept most anything dished down as long as they get to tailgate and do some name-dropping/ "pal'sie/wals'ie" kind of thing with a few from the UNT Athletic Dept? Don't many of us wish they (UNT staffers) didn't really have that much time for all that but (rather) were doing other more significant things that could get us out of our 2 1/2 decades of mostly "non-Top 25" nothing-ness? We need strong leadership at UNT to take us out of this quagmire that even Coach Todd Dodge said it's time to change in Denton; you know, as to cease all this almost half century of "huge potential at UNT" talk for starters & our start actually doing something about it for a change? Some of us are running out of time to see all this happen in Denton; and FWIW.........many of you Young Gun Alums are going to find out one day just how fast this thing called life goes by, too. Just my .02 from one who (like many of you) lives in a Top 10 major sports market who likes his college football a bit more Big Time (and Big Time thinkin') than we've had of late, that's all. If we can dream it, then can we eventually attain it in Mean Green Country? As previously stated, we really do need some very strong leadership at UNT at this time even beginning with whoever the present Chairman of the UNT Board of Regents is because if truly advancing this program beyond where its been for way too long doesn't't start at the top, then we can expect even more years (decades) of a Bottom 25 co-existance--football wise?

Who knows but the "shadow" as to what will happen with the SBC, the MAC or whoever, Jack, but if the SBC imploded because a few of its present members could not cut the mustard at the turnstiles, might an expanded "eastern" WAC with 2 or so other SBC schools than just North Texas then become a real possibility? Frequent Flyer Miles in the SBC? Seems like an expensive budgetary boo-boo that while our basketball team is on the road this very minute playing one of the Florida SBC schools that the other SBC school in the Sunshine State was not a part of that same road trip, too. After all, isn't it 1,800 miles from DFW to Miami? If it is around 1,800 miles to Miami from DFW, by our not scheduling both SBC/Fla. schools on the same trip UNT will add 3,600 (round trip) flyer miles to the travel expenses part of our UNT Athletic Dept. budget. (And how many miles is that trip to Honolulu for those flying out of DFW Airport)? Someone please correct me on the mileage numbers from DFW to Miami if I'm wrong. (FWIW...........another fellow alum of ours, Jack, brought that present Florida/SBC schools basketball scheduling quirk to my attention just today).

QUOTE(GrayEagleOne @ Jan 17 2008, 11:52 PM) I really bleed for Louisiana (Lafayette). They're my favorite opponent (I grew up about 100 miles from Lafayette. They used to have perhaps the best average attendance of the eight current members. My how they have fallen, Their best attended home conference game was against Troy which drew 14,091, They should be in the SWAC...their home game with Grambling State drew 30,000. Louisiana-Monroe only averaged a hair over 10,000 for their home conference games. That's totally unacceptable. When their deal with Arkansas runs out then they won't even be able to make up the 15,000 criterion in alternate years. Please FIU, do something now. We need you. Well, Jack, if the SBC were to eventually implode or replace some schools with those even UNT leaders would see as unacceptable, then what do you see as UNT's option(s)? I think Karl Benson might have an idea that La Tech would (still) probably concur.

And this a most interesting quote from one of their posters: "We should have UNT in our rear view mirrors post-haste. Looking forward to the day when we aren't scheduling the SunBelt teams except for an easy win, and scheduling UNT is not even under consideration. Am hoping that is only about two years away." For certain SMU should schedule those schools whose traveling fans will have problems gettting allotment of tickets at Gerald J. Ford Stadium; you know like one of their OOC foes in years past--University of Calif--Northridge. We need to really think of NCAA D1-A life w/o SMU, too, albeit would only make sense (& cents) for both schools to regularly schedule each other since the Longhorns, Aggies, etc, etc, etc, will hardly be making any trips to the Hilltop any longer (least of all on a regular basis like in the day of the now defunct Southwest Conference). Wonder if some of the 'Stang fans understand the SWC is (in deed) no more? Also wonder if some of our alums realize the future "2'nd Largest University in the Lone Star State" can most likely co-exist w/o SMU on our future athletic schedules, too? Who knows, maybe even that (our projected booming growth) is a reason some of their fans want to cower down to a future schedule with UNT? After all, our campus growth even with so few wins last season seems to already be translating to the turnstiles at Fouts Field; can't wait to see even more of this happen for us when we debut a new stadium at the Mean Green Village. SMU'ers, unless you haven't noticed, it truly is a different era we're all in these days &............... maybe its time you all adapt and maybe even do so in a way where you actually have a few thousand traveling fans show up at your stadium more than once every other year when TCU visits your campus? Just an opinion from a longtime DFW Metroplex college football fan who would really (sincerely) like Metroplex college football to thrive in spite of all 3 of our wagons being surrounded by the Big 12, that's all.

Steal may not have been the best choice of a word to u$e by someone from $MU, ya' think? Yet it almost sounds like the kind of atttitude of one that could (possibly) usher in some other old problems $MU has had in their rich pa$t when it comes to recruiting. Just my .02 on that. PS: I hope we haven't burned all our best leads to get a Big Donor for our new stadium (sooner than later) because the stakes are quite high even moreso to get that huge project started in the Mean Green Village. Do you believe in miracles? Well, we may need one before all this is over with; yet the best part of all this is that it (still) only takes one "YES" from one potential Big Donor & with that decision of a big "yes" changing our football future forever in Mean Green Country.

You are making me blush, Mean Green 93-98! I would like to re-post this from one of our Young Gun Alums (at the suggestion of one of my fellow Old Gun Alums from the golden Gulf Coast of Texas). A great post (below in bold) from ADLER! (And "A-Man" be watching for more proof of conspiracy and codes, pal)! North Texas has dug it's own hole over the last half century. Is it time to climb out of it? Do we have the right people in place to accomplish that? For decades the university failed to promote itself through investing properly in athletics. Subsequently, there was very little student loyalty which later resulted in alumni apathy. Instead of gaining publicity through self promotion, the university quietly boasted that it was a 'best value for your money' alternative. The university quickly degenerated into being generic brand X of colleges, reknowned for cheapness not quality. Athletics were funded on a shoestring budget, enough money to fund the existence of teams, not enough to make them successful enough that they weren't forced to sell 'guarantee' games which are almost certain losses. A perception has been created that North Texas can sometimes be competitive against Sun Belt level schools but routinely gets demolished once it competes outside the Belt against more familiar schools. Is it time for change? North Texas was recently listed by the Federal Department of Education as having the 10th largest full-time undergraduate enrollment of all Division 1 colleges in the nation. The numbers are slightly skewed by the 600 or so students at the Dallas campus, but the message is clear that North Texas is easily one of the twenty largest universities in the United States. When it comes to having ability to support athletics size does matter, at least it should. Link Which schools are larger than North Texas and what are their athletic departments like? Other large schools around the nation have faced the same dilemma. The Sun Belt's two Florida schools FAU and FIU, also colleges with very large enrollment figures have recently decided on plans to build new facilities and create an identity for the schools much like South Florida and Central Florida have done in the last decade. The initial investment was created by increased athletics service fees and the newly created spirit has resulted in massive amounts of before unseen alumni contributions and corporate sponsorships. Here in Texas, UTSA faced the same dilemma, a large school in a major metropolitan area, having no national image, and being viewed by it’s own community as strictly an educational appliance for students for students that didn't have the opportunity to go elsewhere. UTSA has responded; UTSA has solicited the city of San Antonio and Bexar County for financial support to build UTSA athletic facilities. The Bexar County bond alone would provide $15 Million to the school. UTSA has also ditched the idea of marketing itself on being cheap to attend. This school year UTSA voted to increase their student athletic fees to the maximum allowed by state law ( $20.00 per credit capped at $240 per semester per student.) Link Should North Texas also start escalating the athletics fee towards the state maximum? At $240 per semester North Texas athletics would already be able to budget $16 million before a singe ticket is sold, donation is solicited, or corporate sponsorship is made. Is it what North Texas needs to start correcting an issue that was created decades ago? Is there added costs for the students? Yes. Is it a deal maker/breaker for the students? No. North Texas will still be one of the best values among all colleges. Should North Texas make a simlar financial commitment? Can it afford not to? Should alumni and the business community be expected to make a financil investment in something that doesn't seem committed to helping itself? Nobody wants to donate their money towards something they view as having a future of futility. Will Dr. Bataille strive for making the university into a 'name' university or let it continue to toil in anonimity as a generic educational appliance that invests just enough in athletics to claim they exist.

Hey, thanks for all the MG "huggles." (Is that even a word)? Thanks for the emails the last few weeks from both the progressives and the, uh, regressives (and you know who you are, right)?!?!? Seriously, I've been taking a sabbatical at the suggestion of SUMG who said my material was getting a bit old, a bit trite and all but sounded like the kind of lagniape that you might expect from someone who had dimensia. I did tell SUMG that I agreed to the point that I was even getting tired of reading my same ol' crap myself and so I have taken some time off to start working on my next 9,000 plus posts! GMG! PS: I hope everyone's recent holidays were happy ones.

Just responding in the same attitude my posts were a bit condescendingly answered, Harry, that's all... I don't answer questions that I know the "all knowing" Emmitt already knows the answers to, uh, stupo. NOTE: Was it the Denver loss comment that got you going with all this, Emmitt? I think so....(Will I get another "huh" with that, too)? Hey guys, all this is all about the cold harsh stark reality & fact that I think the Sun Belt Conference reeks and that there has got to be a better home for Mean Green Athletics that gives us a chance to be ranked AND actually play ranked teams in Denton (something most of you have never seen). Should I be piled on by yalls little "UNT think tank" for having such "non-convincing" feelings? And stebo, I know I'm not quite in the league you seem to have created for yourself as our latest new spokesmen; that is, our latest pseudo-official spokesmen for all things UNT &................. what "North Texas really needs to do--BUT ONLY AS A SUN BELT MEMBER" but........ "O ye who will from time to time revise UNT athletic history a tad" when you think it fits your theme, when you find it convenient and when (I suppose) you feel no one is reading some of your own non-sense that only a few of the same o' usual ones would agree. And such a "staying of the course" that would ultimately (and probably) keep UNT forever stuck as a SBC/Bottom 25 athletic program with no way out of all of this quagmire of a cess pool. What many of you guys are suggesting we stick with could very easily give UNT Athletics another 30 plus years of basically what we've had the last 30. In other words, a bunch of NCAA D1-A "non-ranked" zilch. Yet I will tell you, Emmitt and all the rest of your buds, ie, those Denton ISD-educated elitists that sometimes don't know their shit from their oatmeal when it comes to what direction UNT athletics should really take to get out of our present quagmire yall can't seem to see that its been in most all your lives and much of my adult life. But fellas, why not try something different for a change that might actually wake up 100,000 plus North Texas Metroplex NT Exes who are still quite duly un-impressed with what the Sun Belt Conference and 4 bowl games hath wrought for the UNT athletic program? More non-convincing talk there, Stebo? And on what you say is more of my non-convincing ideas? Trust me, I am not wasting my time casting pearls before those on this board who have no problem with a UNT athletic program that just continues to (here we go again) stay the course (which has been a multi-decade course of not on Top 25 ranked football or basketball team (sorry Emmitt, I know that hurts). Well, sorry boys, but the very night I received a Ulyss Knight Spirit Award (there's you a real big, "HUH", Emmitt); neverthelss, a UNT System Chancellor/President pulled me aside for several minutes to personally thank me on the many (of what he called) excellent ideas I had done a bit of research and thought to be convincing all the way to the top, stebo. Some of those ideas had been forwarded to the Chancellor's desk because his administrative underlings thought them "convincing" enough for that particular UNT Chancellor to read them--and act on a few as I recall the Chancellor telling me. So I'll just suppose, boys, that at times I've been convincing to those at UNT that I classify as those who really count? (Honestly, I don't waste too much time with those who I think don't count). Still............I know some of you much, much smarter Young Gun Alums have a pat (sometimes cute'sy) answer to almost anything posted on this board Yet what would be obvious to many who read GMG.com is when some of you just don't happen to agree with a poster who doesn't meet yalls "UNT think tank" quality of ideas, yall go into a "pile on the poster" mode to try to lessen the poster in order to raise yourselves up, but I think such things creates the opposite effect to our more mature readers. BUT SOME FREE ADVICE TO YOU WHO ARE UPSET WITH ME FOR EXISTING RIGHT NOW..........Just maybe yall should actually be a bit more accepting to other's opinions from time to time instead of taking the "Junior High'ish fit throwing" route while attempting to pile on any poster (not just this one) who posts different themes or ideas than you own? In many quarters to do such would be called.To do that in many quarters would be called..........maturity? So Stebo, do this for many of us--- simply go look in your mirror, give yourself one big self-hug, but in the future, please do a bit more research and please quit trying to revise UNT history in our own lengthy diatribes (the Southern Miss & UNT in the same conference thing was a one helluva' big blunder, stebo). And while you post your own "not a paragraph in site" epistles, try to show a bit of humility and respect for some who just might know more about what they are talking about becuase maybe they've spent about 20 more years around all this than you, Emmitt and the rest of those Denton ISD elitists may ever want to admit. Comprende or, uh just another.................."huh?" And this question: Stebo, are you somehow related to Wright Waters? (And you don't have to answer that question, but I'd bet you would get the jist of it for sure). This Post Has Been Approved By One Who May Have Forgotten More About UNT's Decades-Long Athletic Journey Since He Was There Most of the Time Than Some Others (Who Weren't There In That Era) Seem To Be Posting of Late...

Come on now, Emmitt, you (and a few of your fellow posters who seem to most always agree on everything) have that superb Denton ISD education and yall can figure most anything out when it comes to "all things North Texas" right? Hell, just last week I found out that UNT had actually been in a conference with Southern Miss. Pardon me a few minutes, while I go out & (actually) feed a couple of quarter horses--2 of Parker County's finest matter of fact.

I don't know, Emmittt, but I think I've lost count on how many of you own dead horses you've beat up a few times yourself on GMG.com. And I would "never, never say never" on the WAC, because that one just might come back to bite you one day. (Hey man, don't worry now, Johnny Jones can have just as competitive basketball program in the WAC than the SBC if & when the time comes and FWIW.......... the WAC has no Denver-type programs to come up and bite us in the butt from time to time such as the game we should have never lost last week). Coach Jones is really lucky to have you as his front man, Emmitt--really, he is. And FWIW (again) and as a non-basketball guy, I have most always had (and posted such) much more respectful things for Coach Jones (who doesn't yet have the overall cumulative record I feel he will someday have in Denton) than what can sometimes be a blatant lack of respect some exhibit toward Hayden Fry. UNT's success record since he left Denton still has yet to be duplicated and non-ranked bowl teams playing other non-ranked opponents will still not come even close--sorry. Still sorta' funny that at UNT how some things are named after one particular former UNT HFC and Hayden Fry's name is still only listed in media guides and on a plaque in the Super Pit. I'd bet many on this forum might say to that scenario: "ONLY AT NORTH TEXAS..."

Yet greenjoe, the part you left out is how Coach Howie wants to do all this as a "non-member" of the Sun Belt Conference. He has made no bones of his trying to find an alternative and if he were coaching at a school located in our region, I bet I know which conference Coach Schnellenberger (or most any other progressive thinking coach) would prefer over the 'Belt. They would jump at the chance and let their athletic administrators work out all the details. Wright Waters has performed a minor miracle with the football portion of the Sun Belt Conference in many ways, but even he has been shopping himself of late (which is normal for any upward bound thinking kind of commissioner) but the thing I don't think Waters has been able to do (or will ever be able to do as an SBC Commish') is change the old perception bugaboo that the SBC still has an apparent national problem with. Like SUMG posted recently: How many in the SBC would jump at a chance to join CUSA? How about all SBC schools for starters? Then SUMG's 2'nd question: How many CUSA schools would beg to get into the Sun Belt Conference? Well? Staying the course has been an oft' used & popular term of late on GMG.com. One of our oldest posters who has been watching MG footbal since the 1940's even said that if UNT has had a problem in its athletic past that it has been "staying the course" too long on impossible situations that will not help UNT rise from the depths of a non-Top 25 ranked varsity sports programs co-existance. Wouldn't even having a minor varsity sport in the Top 25 be a most welcome site in Denton at some point? I don't think it wise for UNT to "stay the course" with (whatever) consortium of schools it may be in bed with in our future if its annual champions in football (and even basketball) are not Top 25 ranked programs (or somewhere close such national rankings). If we saw any trends that indicated the SBC had a Top 25'er on the near horizon, I would, too, say "stay the course" with the Belt, but I just don't see that from any of our schools the next 5-10 years because I don't think we have the voting bloc in place that would give us the votes.................and in many ways, isn't 5-10 years as a NCAA D1-A member almost like a lifetime for any D1-A program?

I rarely get into all these "UNT in the CUSA" discussions because it just conjurs up bad memories of my own NT student days when we had all the "UNT in the SWC" discussions. We are still (basically) talking about the same schools in CUSA today who didnt' want UNT in the SWC back in the day and while on that subject, other than getting a few scheduled games with some of those ex SWC schools the last few years and some in the future, do any of you really detect a dramatic change in their overall attitudes toward UNT? If you do, then you might want to think again because many of us who have been over all this time and time again do not. Perception and politics in the state of Texas may be the hardest things of all things to change in the Lone Star State. Do we give up trying with diplomacy toward all the ex SWC schools? Of course we don't...but how many other dreams could we be missing out on by merely dreaming of being in bed with all the ex SWC schools now in CUSA? If the WAC has continual BCS Championship Series Bowl participants and the MWC does not, why should we ever dismiss the WAC as even a remote possibility since the miles are about the same? Yet.............I think the WAC only works for UNT if there is an eastern division of which UNT would be a part because if that were the case that would cut down on travel tremendously. OK now, someone/anyone put that WAC Eastern Division together right now!

TWAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS... Will UNT Be Pro-Active or Always Re-Active To Things That Can Make or Break Us Now & In The Future? I fear SMU & TCU will only solidify their own relationships & still feel about UNT (the red-headed bastard step-child) the way they have forever. (SMU feeling this way toward us has really not hurt us in the broad scope of things, now has it)? Yet...........no one on GMG.com or at UNT are going to change our 2 DFW neighboring school's attitude by merely wishing it were different, either. Hey all, TCU & SMU just don't see us as a neighborhood football rival and some of that on their part probably based on the fear that if they play us (especially as we grow 3-4X's their combined enrollments), that they could stand to lose more in future recruiting versus DodgeBall than they can gain)? After all, wasn't it large state universities in the state of Texas that put both of them out to non-BCS pastures as it is? So.................can we just move on beyond SMU & TCU, too, for our own future as a a legitimate NCAA D1-A player? AND...........as some of you already know, perception & politics in Texas are very, very, very slow things to change and TCU/SMU are apparently in no hurry to change what some of them most likely fear is their own (false) perceptions of the UNT System and moreso of that system's main campus in Denton. If you hang around the Lone Star State long enough, you, too, will understand all this perception & politics thing in Texas which we have to continually deal with at UNT. As has been stated ad nausem, perception is reality to way too many in our American society--past & present. I understand how many can still feel this way with Jerry "Frat Boy' Jones now getting into the college football business to fill some dates in his new stadium but...................I still tend to disagree on how this could completely cripple our own upper echelon football plans in Denton, though. FWIW.............UNT (still) doesn't need to continue another practice we've become quite adept of basing our future on other gol' darned freakin' ex SWC schools based in Texas. STOP ALL THIS ALREADY, OK?!?! We've just have to be pro-active for a change concerning our future & not let anyone, specifically Jerry Jones play a part in controling any part of our future in Denton, Texas, America . For sure Jerry Jones may have thrown a slight monkey wrench into some of our future scheduling plans, but the kind of crowds we need to draw in a Denton/Denton County which will soon enough have 1,000,000 citizens will not depend any handful of schools, specifically UT, TAMU, Arkansas or Texas Tech. Can we not use our most positive Denton-based location for our alma mater as an advantage for once and let it be such for the same reason some of these schools located in College Station, Lubbock and Fayetteville see an apparent need for each of their respective schools to annually lose "ONE HOME GAME" on their annual football schedules to play in the North Texas Metroplex? Hmmm? Must be something they see to do such that we haven't yet discovered (or won't get our heads out of the sand to see)?NOTE: Of course, I'm sure $5 million per team guarantees for TAMU & Arkansas has something to do with this, too. Just think, if we played in such a series for 10 consecutive years, we could have most of our new stadium's cost payed off with just those, uh, 10 games! Gee-willakers, folks, think how many schools Jerry Jones won't have in his JerryDome that we can still sell a bunch of tickets on a Game Day at our school located in Greater Denton/Denton County and schools who would also travel many of their fans to Denton as well? For a reminder to some, annual State Fair of Texas/Cotton Bowl Stadium visitor OU Sooners did come to Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth not so many years ago and last time I checked, Fort Worth is still only 30 or so miles west of Fair Park where they play Texas each year in the Cotton Bowl. We can still schedule some of these schools in our future new stadium because we are in Denton (and not...........Dallas, Fort Worth or Arlington). Lest we forget, since former UNT AD/HFC Hayden Fry first scheduled UT with (then) UT AD Darrell Royal, the Longhorns of Austin have been very "schedule-friendly" with North Texas most times we've actually approached them for future games. None of the ex SWC schools who will play in the JerryDome are going to approach us in this new era of the BCS Championship Series Bowls, etc, etc, etc--yet they didn't in the era preceeding this as I recall. Many of you on this forum would have to admit that in UNT AD Rick Villarreal we do have an AD who will go to any of the above schools for a future game in a legit NCAA D1-A football stadium once completed in the Mean Green Village no matter what Jerry Jones is doing in Arlington. AND..............with the elevation of our recruiting in Mean Green Country (and the fact that we are even aggressively recruiting Dallas/Fort Worth high schools again), we could have some future Mean Green football teams that would actually be competitive against many of the aforementioned ex SWC schools and now Big 12 schools (excepting SEC member Arkansas). So lets not give up again in Denton & start waving the white flag or even stumble all over Jerry Jones because of his own plans to market his new stadium and make some buck$ doing it or............we will only set our school back yet another giant step in our future planning & upward bound endeavors, too. We need to start acting like we are no longer a school with the scope of merely a normal college as our's was established to be its #1 mission in 1890. Such thinking will only cause us to see other schools pass us by in NCAA D1-A while we stay the course of whatever you want to call what we've been staying the course for all these years. Why is it so difficult for a hardy handful to see bright things for the future "2'nd Largest University in the Entire Sovereign State of Texas" and such a school located in a Denton County population center that is still booming in growth & already larger than the city of New Orlean's was even before Hurricane Katrina tragically hit their fine city?

I know you jest, UNTFan23, but by the time we get all this underway, it may be $100 million with the way construction costs & inflation plays a part in all this. Said it on Day One when we knew we would move all football operations (including the need for a new football stadium) at Eagle Point Campus, but UNT will need its own mini-version of a T. Boone Pickens to get this done or (sadly) this just ain't going to get done in Denton. Interesting that FAU seems to have to sell only $8 million in bonds to get their $75 million stadium jump-started (if I read the article correctly). At any rate, no one on GMG.com has everposted that any of this was going to be easy. One fine morning, though, I still feel we will all wake up to some very big & important news on our new football stadium--just one helluva' gut feeling on that, too.

The Cowboys do everything right," Mr. Byrne said. "We're excited to have a long-term relationship with the Dallas Cowboys and the Jones family in particular."

dodgefan, it is a theme that has been expressed by many posters several times on GMG.com the last few years, but it is a theme we still do need to remind ourselves from time to time. (I believe you actually stated the same thing in a post several days ago as I recall).

SUMG's post: Also, the reason why Hayden Fry left the Missouri Valley...is that the conference expanded. He wanted the league to add USM. Instead, they added Southern Illinois (and I think Indiana State). So, we wanted to be in a league with them...back in 74....but the MVC had other thoughts. I think the Belt has gotten better, but to say that it's better than the CUSA is a heckuva stretch. Of all the Belt teams...how many would jump at the chance to be in CUSA? Probably all of them. Of all the CUSA teams...how many would jump at the chance to be in the Belt? NONE of them. OK already, please do leave out some of the WAC "discussion" of a few weeks ago (since that was all it was as is anything on this sports forum of HSO's) but........ ...........for all of us who call themselves UNT'er's a simple question: Did perception have anything to do with the fact that an area CUSA school president went completely across the border of Texas (ignoring a neighboring school) and in a DAmn blurb recommended another non-Texas NCAA D1-A school over UNT for CUSA membership back when they were looking for another member to replace TCU? UNT could very easily find itself staying the same (similar) course of recent decades with "short-term thinking" kinds of decisions that could keep Mean Green football land-locked into what we've basically had the last 30 or so years. Any of you really want the next 30 years in Denton to be like the last 30? Talking to another fellow alum recently part of our discussion was this: It all but seems that UNT has a decades long mandate to pretty well keep things business as usual as far as staying the course (a much oft' used phrase of recent weeks). We've all seen our alma mater hire thru the decades some very well-meaning employees albeit apparently & obviously without the necessary talent to deliver us out of what they themselves inherited when they arrived in Denton (and that for most of the last 30 years wasn't much on a national NCAA stage if we would all review media guides); yet it seemed to all but be a perpetual and unbroken cycle that most always fed upon itself from one hired group at UNT to the next group (and on and on and on and on). You all but had to feel sorry for the mess many of them inherited, & then get pissed with the mess some of them left. We've seen few of our past athletic staff members go higher than UNT once they leave Denton (abeit I believe we have a handful on our present athletic staff who could go up the ladder to the next step when the time comes). Yet (present group not included) our past upper echelon leadership seemed to set a course for UNT which most always seemed to keep us or future athletic administrations from being able to catapult Mean Green football (and thus, athletics) to the kind of dramatic upgrade we saw schools that UNT used to be at a similar level pass us by and (once again) I list those schools: ......begin with UNT's former conference-mates of decades-past such as UHouston, UCincy', ULouisville, UMemphis & UTulsa; we now can also add UTEP, South Florida, Southern Miss, Central Florida and even a Florida State Seminole football program of the early 1970's. God help us that we don't see even 1 (or even 2) SBC schools do the same although I think it could be highly probable for such to happen if we don't take care of business in Denton now. We really do need to stop worrying about what SMU, TCU and all the other ex SWC schools are doing or even have plans to do. We can't control their destiny--but we can control much our ours. WHEN WILL WE BE ABLE TO SAY OUR OWN MESSIAH HAS COME? Some of our UNT community I've talked think the only thing that will change the last several decades of whatever you want to call what we've been doing football-wise in Denton (with the real barometer of any NCAA D1-A program's progress, ie, Top 25 ranked varsity programs even being near our radar)..... ......yet some think what has many times seemed like a contiuous non-direction of MG football many of our adult lives as UNT alums can only be changed the 180 degrees that it really needs to be changed for us to be successful in NCAA D1-A can only be accomplished by a Big Donor-type few on this board think possible. Yet isn't it sorta' funny how the Dallas Cowboys signed just "one" of its players to a services contract ($63 million) of which such similar monies would so dramatically change the course of Mean Green football history (and UNT athletics, in general)? With all the mega-monies being spent in sports-crazy America, many cannot fathom why UNT can't seem to (at this point) reel in just one Big Fish--because one is all we really need...............but don't many of us still have hope above al hopes that the future 2'nd Largest University in Texas will soon get a new college football stadium financially jump-started by merely getting the kind of monies that just "one" Dallas Cowboy will be making in the next few years)?

Way to go FFR! I will have to remind all on GMG.com which Texas county FFR & family reside, of course. My hat is off to all our public servants on this board like FFF, Emmitt, the Houston MG firefigher (moniker?) and I'm sure others on GMG.com as well. Hey, so we don't always agree with the methods we'd like our alma mater to use to rise to the top (sooner than later) athletically, but that is most immaterial to what these guys (and gals) lay down on the line every hour of the day to give us all safer living environments. My Mean Green Hat Is Off To You All! PS: Rick, I'll be off Mineral Wells Hwy (and your abode) tonight at Willow Gardens dee-jaying Brock ISD's Faculty & Staff Christmas party tonight. If the music gets too loud, you've got my mobile phone number!