PlummMeanGreen

Way to go emmitt and overcusser! Some real good stuff! And isn't this what good ol' college feudin' is all about? At some collegiate outpost, this kind of feudin' actually sells more football tickets. Get ready SMU, the Mean Green Nation is comin' at you this September at Fouts Field-University Park.

Haven't some of these kids heard of "stealth" recruiting visits? UNT is so conveniently located to DFW area recruits that many of them can take "unofficial" visits to UNT; you know, like to take a stroll down Fry Street and think they will run into the next Norah Jones? Or hellsbells! Maybe even sweet Norah herself since she's on that Save Fry Street Businesses Committee (or whatever its called). SMU brags about their pretty co-eds. You think it might hurt all those 'Stang feelings if they were to discover for themselves that at UNT we just simply have more of them?

And I suppose we can all keep our fingers crossed that the Goldfield family keeps getting impre$$ed? Hearsay is this fine Denton County family has no shortage of the kind of bucks that can build a, well, uh.....................you know.

With all apologies to the great Texas sports columnist Blackie Sherrod I will use a word he made famous with his Sunday column in the Dallas Morning News back of years gone by: SCATTERSHOOTIN' Wasn't last night with many of our Mean Green Nation watching the Tostito Fiesta Bowl just simply a great television sporting event and one college football game none of us will soon forget? Did this BCS Championship Series win by the Boise State U Broncos over a Big 12 champion just make non-BCS recruiting a tad easier and more legitimate to those recruits we may not have gotten return letters of interest in past years or into their living rooms as well? Could UNT's hiring of Coach Todd Dodge have been timed any better? Yes, it will still be non-BCS versus the more established and higher budgetted programs out there in the recruiting wars, but BSU showed the world last night what can happen when you set your goals high. Obviously, BSU had to set their goal much higher than WAC football championships and WAC bowl appearances for their non-BCS football program to reach the pinnacle they reached last evening. It will be interesting to see if they can continue this momentum with their 5'th head football coach in 9 years. BTW, Coach Peterson, another non-BCS coach who said in USA Today a few weeks ago that he does not get "goo-goo" eyed with the prospects of getting a Big Time U job. He said he and his family love it where they live and work now and he wants to continue to help BSU Bronco football grow. BACK TO RECRUITING: Yes, we all know the same ol' group who are going to keep getting the same ol' majority of the 4 and 5 star recruits as well as Texas state Top 100 recruits (which has anyone else noticed has turned very BCS program-oriented the last few years with less non-BCS schools even being listed besides the names on our state lists); but (still) its like one of the Fiesta Bowl broadcast team said last evening and I very liberally paraphrase: "You get some of these 2 or 3 star recruits, they get well-coached and you can see what happen with the Boise State Broncos proving such tonight." It's been the opinion of several on this board the last few years that UNT would really need to go well beyond SBC championships and NO's Bowl appearances in order for this program to grow, especially grow into a Top 25 type of football program that would help our fan base grow well beyond where we seem to have been land-locked the last several years with our average home attendance. Yet winning the SBC football championship and impressive NO's Bowl wins is the first part of what could be our own journey to a BCS Championship Series bowl berth and I think most of us would agree with that. I think we all know of one particular coach who would have received some BCS job interviews and possible job offers if our goals had only been higher and reached (yet like that old rock and roll song's lyrics say: "...but that was yesterday and yesterday's gone." NT80 keeps posting that UNT needs to "strike while the iron's hot" with our hiring of Todd Dodge and I think we are all on board with that. GrayEagleOne has posted that MG fans are coming back by the droves with the hiring of Todd Dodge and that was a (necessary and much needed) big start with our Mean Green iron that is getting warmer and warmer as the days go by. In a sense, that iron got even warmer last night with a non-BCS win over the OU Sooners. One can no longer drive around Denton anymore without being blown away with all the new faces that are living in all those new housing additions up there that used to be farm and ranch land. That area off 380 East (heading toward McKinney) completely astounds and amazes me because how many of us remember when all that multi-miles of land was mostly just pastures after pastures where horses and cows grazed? We all know what potential is and what the University of Texas former coach and Lone Star State icon Darrell K. Royal once said about it and we all know what our "the sky is the limit" potential is at UNT; but do many of you also feel the beginnings of a groundswell of support toward a UNT football program by every era/every age group that will take us to places that the Hayden Fry era mostly just gave us a glimpse and made it to where many of us who got a taste of all that back in the day have just merely wanted our school and its newer alums and MG fans, in fact, our entire Mean Green Nation to go well beyond the Fry era tasting stage? God Bless Betty Ford & Family &................ God Bless America...

I REPEAT: JUMPIN' JEHOSAPHATS! BRONCOS WIN!

JUMPIN' JEHOSAPHATS! BRONCOS WIN!

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!

Such a sad but dumb pass by a good BSU QB. OU acts like they just won an NC or something! But FWIW............No Texas players on OU teams of the past/No NC's for OU teams of the past! (Sorry, had to get that in).

Rick Villareal, Todd Dodge and the UNT New Stadium Committee Visit A Texas Fortune 500 Chief Executive Officer: Texas Fortune 500 CEO: I've enjoyed meeting all of you, but doesn't your football program only compete for SBC football championships and New Orleans Bowl berths, right? UNT Response: Yes sir, in deed we do just that, but we have (along with the hiring of former UTexas QB and the coach of the USA Today national champion Southlake Carroll HS football team, ie, new Mean Green Coach Todd Dodge, have added a new addendum to our football mission statement that says: Henceforth, Mean Green football will use as a model for our own football program's success programs such as Utah and Boise State (of which BTW, Mr. CEO, the Mean Green has an all time football series record of 3 W's and 3 L's versus the Broncos); also, UNT will annually shoot for Top 25 rankings and (like Utah and BSU) have as a Mean Green football goal to be participants in BCS Championship Series bowls. Mr. CEO, we feel UNT because of its boom enrollment growth which has been projected by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to be well over 40,000 at our main campus in the near future as well as UNT's location in one of the fastest growing Cities/Counties in the entire USA has all the necessary ingrediants to reach all the aforementioned goals. Texas Fortune 500 CEO: If such lofty goals as that are now where you want to take your Mean Green football program, then our company would like to make a rather sizable investment toward the football venue you all have (most impressively) showed me today in the virtual tour video with such a new stadium which your video portrays and will help your school reach those kind of lofty new goals you have set . Hey! Myrtlee, get the company check book out will ya'! Sorry, guys, I know I'm supposed to be a bit more professional than that but you guys have gotten me pretty gol' darn excited about all this you have going on up in Denton--please forgive. We have to have our dreams, now don't we?

One major concern, NT80, if we dig too deep is by some quirk of nature the Denia Duck Pond will somehow drain into what will be the flooring area of our new stadium whick will then give us the worlds largest water volleyball venue. A convenient time to schedule the Oregon U team, eh?

I HESITATED WITH THIS, BUT WHAT THE HECK: First of all, let me preface this post with one small fact and detail of my own life that 2 mos. ago (November), I "celebrated" (I know, a very poor choice of a word) my 20'th year of having sufferred from depression and have been taking (expensive) medication during all that time to treat such. To be honest, some of the intensity of the posts and attitudes you get from ol' PMG here are probably because of one of the meds that I take. In fact, I actually once asked my doctor during a visit if some of this medication is even some form of truth serum which seems to makes me be a bit more expressive with opinions than I ever used to be BD (before depression). That doc only gave me a strange $mile of which he charged me for even that, too. To say the least to you who have had the "D" word at one time or another in your own life or have someone in your family who does, it does (in deed) alter one's personality to an exent and with others to a great extent. To some of you who knew me when younger, I probably fit the latter. Yet this is my own personal cross I have to bear in my life of which my own personal faith has sustained my perservance and given all hope and reason as to want to reach this end of this adventure we call life. Personally, I hope that comes at age 100 for me so I can keep posting on this forum! Seriously, my late sainted mother had this depression thing, too, so I guess this was one of those things that was transferred to me with that ol' DNA thing or whatever. Oh well, at least I got this from a most wonderful person who I dearly loved and think of every day since her passing in September of 1995. I also know the road she had to travel with her own personal cross. Enuf.......................if this part of the post has offended some of you, I do apologize. A New Years resolution of mine is to just simply try to get over it; that is, to get over the fact that our alma mater's athletic program has mostly disappointed me for most my adult life which seems to be passing me by like that Road Runner cartoon. I know, there are many of you much older, but I think I will now be close to 60 years old when we finally get this new football stadium (I'm 56 now)--and age 60 not exactly the age I wanted to be when this would happen because, hellsbells, by then, one of you may have to assist me to my seat by then. Nevertheless................Happy New Year To All. PMG UNT Class of 1976

But why is it that from this article I still detect a little "ruler smack" on the hand for our even wanting to replace a coach that had a 42 W's<>62 L's career record at UNT? FWIW, some of our Big Donors of late have been on UNT's address lists for years (even before Darrell Dickey arrived) waiting for those who get paid some pretty nice salaries to have a passion for UNT to go outside the Denton city limits, cultivate all the Mattress Mac-types (of which many of us have heard for years we do not have a shortage) and then raise the kind of Big Money that comes from such potential Big Donors. Each of us will do what each of us can do with donations and ticket purchases, but the real key to all this is how this is orchestrated by those staff members in charge whose efforts as paid staffers will determine if our numbers significantly grow or we just keep seeing the same ol' faces plus a few new ones because of Dodge's presence. Of course, this has been the case all along even before the hiring of Todd Dodge. Not sure Todd Dodge's hiring will take away all the spots off some of our leopards who will probably still do businesss as usual no matter who we have as HFC. Yet Dodge's hiring gives UNT many new reasons and opportunities to got ouside our past usual box and become very creative in all facets of a NCAA D1-A program, especially in our athletic department's fundraising and marketing areas. But what Todd Dodge cannot do as Mean Green HFC are all the day-in-and-day-out ancillery things that our ancillery athletic staff member types must do (and most likely different than before) that has had us stuck with 15K per home game averages the last 9 plus years, even with all the growth at our main campus and in Denton County. If you keep doing things the way you've been doing them, you will keep getting the same results? I think most have believed Rick V has always been very pro-active in mostly positive ways, but how many of those around him are not which might have impeded his and our alma mater's forward progress? In spite of some negative public relations aspects of the past in MG Country that have kept this program down and (ultimately) prevented significant growth at the turnstiles, many of us now think the future is unbelievably bright at the University of North Texas with Todd Dodge as the new man at the helm leading our Mean Green football program.

Add 1-2 more additional games to those 3, BIG DAWG, and that's because we do have Todd Dodge as our new Mean Green HFC. Even Sun Belt Conference media-types in our league's offices in New Orleans knows that it needs to get in on all this going on in the Mean Green Village aka North Texas version of Dodge City as to garner more attention (Nielsen ratings) for itself in the 6'th largest TV market in the USA with UNT having more potential collegiate viewers with UNT ties in our 6 million DFW Metroplex population center than any other college in Texas; and that includes our state's 2 Permanent University Funded schools. It would excite this alum as well as I know like others just to see the annual Green/White Spring Football game moved back to a Saturday like it had been most of us older nestor's adult lives.

Well, the hiring of Todd Dodge was the #1 hire in the Bankhead Hwy Gazette out here in Parker County. After reading TSN article, I think UNT officials (of which some attempts had been made by MM/DD to try to make them or even to a certain extent anyone associated with UNT look like fools; anyway, our officials need to go ahead and officially name the practice field after Andrew Smith (whose good name IMHO didn't need to be a part of or associated with this whole charade as it was in the first place); but come on now UNT officials, put that Board of Regent's tele-conference together and make all this official ASAP. No need to let all this contintue to festor by the national press. I don't think MM would change his mind (again) on his latest (very sensible) suggestion to have the practice field named after #12 and to have something in place before new UNT HFC Coach Todd Dodge starts his version of Mean Green Spring Football. Wouldn't hurt if all the media in DFW, Texas and beyond received a press release on this new and updated request (by MM and DD) for the best name submitted for the re-naming of the practice field at the Mean Green Village, either. Of course, I guess that wouldn't persevere the original story on all this or sell as many newspapers, either.

I think Riley Dodge will be a very good college QB if he's in the right system, and I think we know of one particular system that might be just what the doctor ordered for Riley Dodge's future college career. Does anyone have access to the personal stats on Riley, ie, his, height, weight, 40 yard speed, passing arm strength, velocity of his passes, how he throws the long ball, etc, etc, etc, that you could share with all of us? (Thanks in advance).

Thanks stebo..................my bad. (I've also always been an admirer of Timmy Macks journalistic work as I know many of you out there have). Guess there are just some subjects that are a bit sensitive to some of our old fart NT alums?

I'm just speculating here, but it'd make a lot of sense for SMU to woo Dodge if new AD Steve Orsini decides to can Phil Bennett. That's a hire that would create tremendous buzz for the Ponies, and I guarantee Dodge could recruit offensive players and score a lot of points in C-USA. Riley Dodge might be able to start at QB for SMU right now. Posted by Tim MacMahon at 9:21 PM (E-mail this entry) | | Comments (1) ..........................................................E Even in just Tim MacMahon's speculation, why all the "what if" SMU talk now? We can "what if" anything till the cows come home, now can't we? "What if" it takes UNT 5 HFC's in 9 years to get into the BCS Championship Series just like it did the Boise State Broncos (GO BRONCOS!)? "What if" SMU put some resources together and bought our main campus in Denton making it SMU-Northern Exposure? I know how utterly silly and ridiculous! Only thing SMU seems to have ever affected us is getting in at least 2 conferences that I can think of. SMU has Phil Bennett for another year and he's a pretty darn good coach who just might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone think Todd Dodge might even look at that scenario that a very well respected Phil Bennett is right in the midde of now? HERE WE GO AGAIN................. Hayden Fry has been head football coach at both SMU and UNT. Anyone else want to venture a guess as to what Fry might tell Todd Dodge if this very remote chance or scenario of SMU-comes-a'-callin' in Denton to snatch Todd Dodge away from us even materialized? The best thing with this happening would be that Todd Dodge would get a rather hefty pay raise in Denton because I don't think even our leaders would want to lose face to losing Dodge to SMU over a couple hundred thousand bucks. Now if $MU want$ to get downright $illy about all this most unlikley projected scenario McMachon has brought up (albeit an unrealistic one to even consider at this juncture of Todd Dodge as he begins a new career as a D1-A head football coach); yet, if $MU made a most unrealistic (for a non-BCS program such as theirs) finanicial offer to T.D. that would be another thing. But FWIW and something to consider with what seems to be the moral personna of Todd Dodge the Man that we are all beginnning to observe as the weeks go by, he is (after all) a "PK"; that is, a "preacher's kid" with his dad being a Methodist minister where in most environments as that one would usually be taught that it's just not always about money in one's life and for darn sure money should be never become one's God. Seems like some SMU'ers (and, who knows, maybe even a handfulf of UNT'ers) could learn a little something from that Sunday School lesson. I still defer to my signature below and will till those cows do come home:

Nice, Zeke and Smitty.... Wonder what this would look like on a pearl white helmet w/o the silver hardware on part of the letter? This is close to being the kind of "inter-locking" anything I would feel very good with; right along with the "N T" that VaTech somehow stole that idea from us before we even had a chance to debut it on our own helmets years ago.

I still don't see any one logo design getting that "ah ha" response from the majority on this board. No, not all on this board will ever be on the same page with whatever (hopeful) "new era/new logo" our leaders may need to go back to the drawing boards to come up with. I do hope new Mean Green head football coach Todd Dodge will have some say in all this since that has been the trend at other NCAA D1 outposts to allow their HFC's to make creative recommendations; after all, he and his upcoming new staff will be out on the recruiting trails the next few weeks and years trying to explain to parents down in Clute, Texas (near Freeport, Alvin, Angleton, etc, etc,) what all this UNT business is all about because trust me, way too many folks down on our Golden Gulf Coast of Texas don't have a clue as to even what city UNT is located. Hellbells, as a high schooler down in the Houston area back in the day, I thought NT was located in Denison, Texas, of all places! In fact, whatever Coach Dodge would possibly have a say in on all this logo business would I bet unify most of us on this forum of which I see now has 2,500 registered members last time I checked the other day. Congrats to Harry and his GMG.com staff!

Good research, ColoradoEagle... Shouldn't we all really be more concerned that our leaders find a Big Donor who will help us get jump-started on our eventual new stadium sooner than later than how we decide to connect 2 letters in a way that will satisfy a simple majority? BUT WHILE ON THIS RATHER NEW SUBJECT The above 2 letter combos of all the other schools who we would (yes, I'm afraid) be copying and those that have some semblance of separation or where a letter is slightly to the left of another would (IMHO) still be less confusing to those we really want to know who we are, right? But.................we could obviously go on with all this until the next milleneum sneaks up on our school and then we later find out that our leaders have changed our school's name for a 9'th time!

One problem with our (sometimes) lack of identity is all the name changes our school (and all its alums) have had to endure during most of our lifetimes. I believe there have been 3 or 4 names changes with NT during my entire lifetime and I'm "only" 56 years old. I guarantee anyone in Texas that SMU grad, SMU Mustang letterman from the Doak Walker era and former Texas governor Bill Clements knows we are UNT because he signed the bill giving us that official name. Unfortunately, it was "NTSU" that nationally known (because of his SWC past) and the high profile Hayden Fry coached when his teams had some pretty impressive wins during his 6 year career at NT. Some in our state who I suppose cannot seem to embrace "UNT" inside their (apparent) pea-like brains say "NTSU" because many of that group actually think it hurts all of our feelings when they call us that. My bachelor of science degree still says "NTSU" so I guess it doesn't bother me as much as those who have "UNT" on theirs; but when some lady gets married most of us or topical or keep ourselves aware enough of whats going on around us to know she has a new last name and then we call her by such. We have some even here in the DFW area who still refuse or accept our "16 year old" new name of the University of North Texas for whatever the reason. Amazing how many of the local and regional Texas sports media types could probably reel off position by position the starting line-ups of the 1960 New York Yankees American League Championship team but still cannot seem to remember that NTSU changed its name to UNT back in 1988. No excuses for Texas sports media types to be that ignorant, IMHO. But FWIW and to amplify on this part of the subject...............there is still absolutely no excuse for any sports media person (expecially in Texas) to ever call us "NTSU" any longer (especially those who broadcast our football games and we've have many of those broadcasted even nationally the last several years in spite of what DFW ESPN 103.3 radio's Little Ball of Hate seems to be aware). Yet media types broadcasting Mean Green football in their pre-game/pre-broadcast research times in those hotel rooms are supposed to be studying our "UNT" football media guide for "UNT-type" info, correct name pronounciations of our "UNT" players, interesting facts about "UNT's" ie, location, our rich and famous, etc, etc, etc, when there is down time in a TV game and time to discuss such........................BUT FOR THE LIFE OF ME...............on UNT graduate Craig Way's Texas HS Play-Offs TV Show he has hosted for years and his show right after the SLC Dragons had beaten Austin Westlake to win the 5A state championship, the dude of the left side of Craig Way with all the pre-mature gray/white hair called us "North Texas State" and his calling us "NTS" seemed to even produce a funny kind of look from "UNT" graduate Craig Way (who also just happens to be the radio Voice of Texas Longhorn football). Wonder when Todd Dodge has a Top 25 ranked "UNT" in the BSC Championship Series (a la Boise State) if the local, regional and national sports media will have it all figured out by then?

Well, eeally, I'm not one who gambles, but I do like our chances for a father to recruit his own son next year. I like our chances with most any players from SLC who have D1-A (or even borderline) D1-A talents. We probably won't get them all over the course of the next few years, but I think we'll get our share and......................many of our Texas HS Friday Night Heros have attended Todd Dodge's summer football clinics in past years and that group of potential recruits will be just that for UNT, too, that is--potential recruits.

Jack aka GEO, you are truly one of our Mean Green Nation's national treasures. If you will, whats the skinny on NT Ex Mrs. Lamar Hunt who I believe you and/or your lovely wife, Jessica, told me you all also knew when yall were galavanting around Denton? Hope you and the Mrs. have a very Happy New Year! Looking forward to seeing yall soon.