PlummMeanGreen

pollock, I'll try to simplify my posts from now on so that even you can understand them, that a deal? And I (somewhat) think what I post is pretty black and white in what I am saying albeit some of you Dickey Worshippers of SBC/Bottom 10 Mediocrity @ Its Best attempt to make black and white turn some shade of gray. It may be our alums who keep us small time even more than those we are hiring is what one of the MG Clubs former "large" contributors recently told me and I am beginning to think he is (sadly) close to being right.

Disagree... What is the closest we've played UT even before they were of national championship caliber? Some of you already forgot the worse home loss in our school's history just last September against the Golden Hurricane of Tulsa? What about a school many thought we had been out-recruiting the last few years (or to their equal at worse) and that being La Tech who also schooled us last Fall. Why some seem to have no problem with our direction or present status worries some more than even the idea that we might just keep on maintaining our schools status as RNYACC"U", you know, uh, "RE-NEWED YET ANOTHER COACHES CONTRACT U!" Now go out and drink another beer, fellas while some in our athletic departments fiddle right away wondering when one of the Big Boys (or Little Boys in some cases) hires them away.

Why killl the spirits of a bunch of young men by telling them to BEAT TEXAS (after TEXAS just came off a national championshiop? Have any of our coaches had any college psychology? What many of us want will not be attained with the present crowd in charge and I believe we have recent history to base that on. Never-minding that the PR aspect with all this with even some of our long-standing fans is not the best many of us have seen, either. illustrious32, you ain't seen what many of us have seen so you don't have anything to compare to other than what you've heard about. DD wasn't even a successful offensive coordinator at SMU and you people get excited when he asks you out for a beer? Whatever floats your boats but it takes more than a beer to float this boat.

I'd like to be C.E.O. of Chevron, too, but I think that is just a tad out of my reach so I have to get back to setting more realistic goals. We have some players at UNT who I feel could start for several Big 12 schools, but our recruiting efforts of late have been such that they just don't have enough quality surrounding them for us to be competitive against the defending national champions. Our problems at UNT are much more far-reaching than the 2006 football schedule and how we do in that schedule in the opinion of many. I defer to the next sentence. When UNT starts receiving end of season Top 50 football rankings among the other 117 schools in NCAA D1-A, then we'll know we are making marked progresss in Denton, but many of us don't see this happening with those presently on the UNT payroll. I would think anyone outside of UNT who knows their college football would 9 X's out of 10 confer with that, too. If we win the SBC, go to the NO's Bowl but still finish with a #95 on up ranking, who are we kidding about the progress of Mean Green football and with our even being the 4'th largest university in the Lone Star State (of which most Texans have little or no respect for our program or our bowl tie-in). Granted, there are many things at UNT we have no control over (like the Texas Bowl snub among manay and others that will come), but there were many things out of UTEP's control as far as the progress of their football program was concerned, too, until a high ranking UTEP official went outside their usual box (football-wise) & finally had a big light bulb to turn on in his/her brain). 2 years later after that light bulb came on with that high ranking official, the Miners would have a Top 25 ranked football team. There is no doubt in many minds that Coach Dickey is actually doing the best he can with the job he has and for him I know we all wish much better health, but can this man after years on the UNT payroll ever reach .500 and have a football program that ever gets ranked in the Top 50 (or 75 for that matter)? These questions (and others) would be the questions for many that could even determine some of that groups intere$t in this program under present conditions.

Kill us in respect to what? Our actually being competitive in a UT/UNT game or keeping the Horns under 100? Take the money and run on this one (and then tweek the staff & raise our recruiting standards to how they used to be before we suddenly starting majoring in Inferiority Complex 101 in Recruiting Those Other Than Projects again with this football program. Back in the day, when we thought we could----we did. I'm sorry, I just long for the days when our coaches even had a swagger when they walked into the living rooms of some Texas HS blue chip athletes, ie, Milton Collins (never-mind his bust status because he was still nationally recruitied B4 anyone knew he would be a bust), Burks Washington, Kenny Washington, etc, etc, etc) and because we signed some of them to national letters of intent, we then went out and beat a few people your grandfathers have all actually heard about). QUESTION: Wonder who Middle Tennessee was playing the same day we beat the University of Tennessee Volunteers? In fact, how many of us even knew there was a Middle Tennessee State U on that 1975 October Game Day in Knoxville, Tennessee? RAISE THE STANDARDS BACK TO WHERE THEY ONCE WERE INSTEAD OF TRYING TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL ACTING AS THOUGH WE'VE NEVER HAD SUCH STANDARDS BEFORE. PS: Sorry about the letter size, its just some of us now need the Reader's Digest large letter edition.

If it's OK with you, GrayEagleOne, I'd like to expand on what you posted and (in general) the difference between whining and just being down-right disenchanted with different situations or scenarios in Mean Green Country:

I speak as one who has not been to any of the 4 NO's Bowl due to (basically) the nature of a tech school recruiting job during an intense time of recruiting that part of December and the fact that the NOs Bowl was never played or tied to a weekend (but was played almost in the "middle of the week" with its Tuesday night schedule). BUT............buff64, I beg to differ with you inasmuch as I believe UNT fans did for most of these 4 years travel in very impressive numbers to the Big Easy and that with a Tuesday night game to boot! I don't think a handful of the former non-Big 12/SWC schools would have traveled any better (truth be told) and especially for a Tuesday night bowl game. With the old SWC gang, though, if UNT had travelled 30,000 to each of those 4 bowl years that just wouldn't make a difference with the leadership of most of those ex SWC'ers because they (for the most part) are still bogged down in their own self-serving traditions that took a big kick in their respective a$$e$ when they suddenly discoverd that the Longhorns and Aggies (and thousands of their fans) were not coming to their respective stadiums every other year. YET.................UNT and Mean Green fans could not help the fact that the SBC folks never really (effectively) got the general populace or citizenry of greater New Orleans to buy tickets for this bowl game (and thus the reason for most of the empty seats in the Super Dome for a Tuesday night bowl game). SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE IN TEXAS : UNT has been the whipping post of some of the old SWC/non Big 12 gang of schools for years and we will continue in that role until we build a better football stadium (or at least one equal) of the stadia of most of that former SWC group but more important than a new stadium in Denton..........when our program becomes a higher profile program than all the Texas non SWC'ers/non Big 12 schools year in and year out and we start beating the kind of (OOC) opponents that they themselves cannot beat. UH received membership in the old SWC because they exceeded most of the SWC school's football (and basketball) programs and all but elevated themselves on even par with UT on the gridiron starting with their infamous 1968 20/20 tie game the first time UH ever played the University of Texas in football. Darrell K. Royal soon after said "lets get em' in so they have to recruit under the same rules" as the Horns and the rest of the SWC. (UH did have a renegade repuation in recruiting to many SWC'ers in that day although the Coogs' probably were breaking no more rules than most of the SWC back then). FWIW & in a sense, the coalition of ex SWC/non Big 12 schools took a bigger kick in the butt than UNT has ever had to endure because it was their schools who got jump-kicked out of the (true) Big Time when they were (basically) told "thanks, but no thanks" by the Big 12 coalition of schools when it was time for each of their schools to be considered for membership to the new Big 12. As we all know now, only 4 former SWC schools made the Big 12 cut. UNT in our entire history "NEVER" had to take such a kick in the butt as the SWC schools who didn't make the cut because after all, you cannot lose what you didn't have, right? Not even our being demoted to NCAA D1-AA in 1982 was as traumatic an expericence as what UH, SMU, TCU, Rice had to endure the day the SWC died AND................other than TCU, which former SWC school that didn't make it to the Big 12 has really ever recovered from their being ostracized? So in all this regard, UNT does not have a complete corner of the market of not being invited to the party in matters relating to to preferred conference affiliation; and especially a party of such significance that the Big 12 became for UT, TAMU, TTech & Baylor.

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REVISED FOR YOU FIRST CUP OF SATURDAY AM COFFEE Sadly, Varsity, we have heard too many stories of late like the one about your blue-chipper nephew who even got a brochure from TAMU-Commerce. All this will continue (unfortunately) until there are (most likely) massive changes made at UNT and hopefully our next selection committee won't be a one man ram-rodded committee with no NT degree who has a buddy who is a fellow alum who just happens to have a son, nephew, old family friend or whatever who wants to be a head football coach. This happened at UNT because we allowed this to happen at UNT. We were an easy place for such a thing to have happened. Too many things are allowed to happen at UNT that even one committee member recently erroneously emailed to one on this forum and I liberally paraphrase his email when he said : "We don't have to answer to those people." ("THOSE PEOPLE", folks, that that UNT committee member was talking about was us! Yet it is "those people" on our campus who say they want to see all of us show up at our stadium and to throw good money (after bad) with "going nowwhere" programs. Yet, FWIW, if an Idaho U can hire a Dennis Erickson, can't we do so (again) in the future OR have we in Mean Green Country become so beaten down that we don't even think we can do something similar as what those vaunted Vandals have done with their hiring of the very high profile Dennis Erickson? Seems UNT has actually done what the Idaho's, the UTEP's and other similar have all done. W/O Fry having had 6 years to revive his career at UNT, there would have been no Iowa Hawkeye head football coaching job for him to go to to continue an illustrious career that ended up in the College Football Hall of Fame for the great Hayden Fry. Many of you I've heard or received emails have expressed: "Give us 5, 6, or 7 years of any coach or ancillery athletic staff member who gets hired away from us at a Big 10 or Big 12 school any day of the year; that is, give us that scenario over the one we seem to have gotten used to in Denton. Can UNT afford lifetime career employees who keep us at our present standing while buffalo'in some in Denton into thinkin' they are really the best thing to happen in Denton since sliced bread? I defer to 15,000 empty seats at home games in a time of unprecedented growth on campus, Denton and Denton County if you are one of the ones buying into their self-serving bunk. But it's amazing all the B.S. NT Exes have to accept from non-North Texas educated employees on our campus who make all the key decisons and the kind of decisions that we who attended UNT will have to live with long after these decision-makers are long gone with their dream jobs or in some of their cases, completely different careers. Most of the athletic hires many of us have seen at NT post-Hayden Fry have mostly been counter-productive. Have been terrible fits in Denton and to Texans in general. So.................ANY DAY OF THE YEAR give us UNT employees that schools with much higher profiles than ours knock doors down to hire away from us because that usually means they've done a knock-out job in Denton. And just maybe after they take their new jobs, hopefully, our leaders would look at the good traits our departed UNT employee possessed and try to duplicate his/her replacement with someone of similar talents? Duh? So is this really all rocket science that it (sometimes) seems our 6-figure paid leaders want to make out of all this when it comes to who they hire that really fit in Denton, Texas, America? Is it so difficult a thing for our present UNT leaders look to simply observe what other schools have done to make their 180 degree turnarounds? Other NCAA D1-A schools who were way down the NCAA D1-A food chain (like UNT is at the present compared to all our other collegues in NCAA D1-A); yet weren't those schools leaders pro-active in making the Big Decision to merely spend a little bit more salary-wise to go first class? And at some of those schools we have all observed how some of their new hires have come in on the run (no 10 year plan to reach. 500 in W/L's for them) and with some of those higher profile hires we have all witnessed that within 2 or 3 years their programs (seemedly) over-night have a Top 25 ranked football team? Really, how soon can we expect a Top 25 football program in Denton? One such school with this Top 25 success just this week made Houston's Texas Bowl's short list among 9 (sadly, not 10) other Texas D1-A schools who are elgible for their bowl. So, yes, FFR, to respond to what you said in another thread the Houston-based bowl's snub of UNT was (in deed) a big kick in the ass for all who call themselves Mean Green on or off campus. It affects us all from each academic department at UNT-Denton to the one who has just become a Mean Green fan. Yet.............. haven't we all sorta' been conditioned to just lay down and accept such treatment at UNT thru the years? A question some might ask is: Do we keep on allowing those who persevere all this low profile conditioning in MG Country get their nice, comfy' retirements in Denton?

Pardon me while I chuckle a bit with that one!

UNT vs SMU? Come on now, folks, if the first home game for UNT and SMU's first game in the Metroplex (since they open at Texas Tech the preceeding week) and if this one doesn't draw well......well, we really do have deeper marketing problems than we have anticipated. For the upcoming 2006 football season, it's not the SMU game that should be of great concern anyway, its going to be the last 3 home games at Fouts Field that will tell the tale concerning this program--good or bad. We know we will most likely do our annual traditional thing of having zero wins coming into October and the majority of the SBC schedule so that will not create any semblance of good MG football attendance momentum in Denton. Looking at our OOC schedule and being realistic about the talent differential (and also based on our recent recruiting especially that of last winter which was ranked last in the SBC by some in the media); also, couple that with already having lost 2 or 3 of our top recruits from that recruiting class while having lost a DL that most everyone on this board had penciled in as our next Mean Joe Greene; anyway, I guess someone needs to enlighten many of us just how many of our players became All Americans during Spring football and during the course of the summer? We do have some good football players on this team with a few who I feel could start for most NCAA D1-A schools, but we just don't have enough numbers-wise (as was our big problem last year) Yet UNT at some point (soon) should start using how we finish among the other 117 NCAA D1-A schools as our barometer than our being the best of the worst. That tune is not playing as well as it did during our first few years in the SBC. I think some of the brighter light bullbs on our campus have finally begun to realize that about Mean Green fan expectation, too. UNT/SMU attendance: 23,500 Don't forget that we are coming off a 2 & 9 season with some poor customer service incidents on the radio and now even in the stands of Fouts Field last season AND also don't forget that we only drew 24,000 versus TCU at Fouts a few years ago in a home season opener and that with many more Horned Frog fans in the stands that SMU fans will not come close to duplicating for our home season opener). NOTE: Another record-breaking UNT freshmen class this Fall could increase that 23,500 UNT/SMU crowd prediction if they come out in large numbers. PREDICTION: By mid-season of this Fall's MG football campaign, the rumblings among our fan-dom will really begin by those who have been previous "non-rumblers." Hide, Watch & See!

ALL THIS JUST MAKES US BLUE........... OK, Deep "G" I've just heard the entire skinny on this whole Texas Bowl situation from a Houston source so here tis'...... Amazingly, the Texas Bowl officials have been using the "early commit" list of both Texas state and area 100 lists from the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Telegram and..........................since we haven't seriously recruited DFW for awhile now and since we also keep all our committments (both early and even day before national signing day) under the radar (if we have any to report at all) UNT has (once again) come up short and therefore has become the only Texas NCAA D1-A school out of 10 to not be included on the Texas Bowl's check list. I just knew this under the radar thing would come back to bite us in the arse one day and I'll be doggon' if it took this Texas Bowl chapter of our school's illustrious athletic history to make it happen ! Anyone else be glad when we have leaders we can be proud of that hire the kind of personnel that won't need maps of DFW as to make regular visits into Fortune 500 territory (Dallas & Fort Worth) AND the kind of leaders whose efforts produce frequent news announcements of a school whose athletic program is upwardly bound like a school our size should? Whoops! Sorry, my bad.......... we did have an announcement today that made one of the DFW newspapers today in a small blurb which reported that a gymnasium at the former Liberty Christian HS our alma mater purchased is going to be converted into a, uh, practice gym. FWIW, what else could that particular gym have been used for? Guess we are grasping at straws with that announcement, eh? O Lord of those whom some call the infidel, please deliver us from every bit of this. Many are tired of playing the role of Job with things that pertain to anything Mean Green.................Amen. PS: I'll be in church this Sunday...

There are many of us, uh, "Slicks" out here Phil. Didnt' take this to create us, either. I'm afraid our lambs of UNT will continue to let our present officials lead them to the low profile existance slaughter house--no questions asked. What's sad to me is how I know some of these "lambs" who at one time would never be part of this as to accept anything that present UNT officials dish down to them. Honestly, I think their spirits have been broken by all the non-stop mediocrity and are now at a point that they would support anything at this point even if we were in a league with Tarleston State. Real nice, eh? We all know what those 12 years at the NCAA D1- AA level did to the pysche of our alumnus base. Have present UNT leaders done any research or asked about those 12 glorious years and how our alums really did feel like 2'nd class Texas inter-collegiate citizens at that NCAA level? Maybe they should just get out of the branding business and check on things that really do make NT Exes proud of their school, eh? Not sure their branding ideas really caught on with our masses, either, eh? I suppose we could all just lay down and accept all this if it just weren't for the fact that we are the 4'th largest university in Texas (& will be 3'rd largest one day in the future); and (after all) we are in a state where football is supposed to be King especially at schools our size. We just seem to operate like a damn JUCO at times, I swear we do. ADDENDUM: I guess the other side of the coin with all this is will this bowl even be in business after next year or the next or the next?

This is just the tip of the "kicked in the nutts" iceberg for us, FFR, and this kind of thing will continue until someone in Denton wakes up and understands what 4 bowl games as SBC champion has not done for us at all AND what it has not done for us even in our home state, ie, the great sovereign state of Texas to boot! Hellsbells! Even a school that has experienced the NCAA Death Penalty and has been on NCAA probabtion more X's than Carter has pills is on the freakin' Texas Bowl list. TRIVIA QUESTION: How many times has UNT been on NCAA probation? (Answer at the bottom in 3 inch headline type) I hope some of you young gun alums (in your 20's and 30's) don't wake up one morning and suddenly find yourselves in your mid-50's (which I and many others are now), and you find all those non-stop letters from AARP, then you start having pre-planned funeral folks eye-balling you a bit closer and then you all figure out that our alma mater is dedicated to hiring the level of personel that are really good ol' boys, ie, very hunky-dory salt of the earth type people (in most cases--not all) but personel who don't have a clue (or the ability) how to get us out of our present state. I think for those we have on campus who probably do have a clue on how to get us out of our situation will be squelched by all this new leadership that have more important things on their minds than the very thing that excites more NT Exes than 1,000 One O'Clock Lab Band concerts will ever do and that is a higher profile NCAA D1-A co-existance than presently exists. Our "low profile-ness" kept us off that Texas Bowl list, folks. We talk a helluva' good talk at UNT,in fact, we specialize in it, but rarely have many of us who kept thinking our messiah would come and lead our most impressive very large UNT constituency into the NCAA D1-A Promise Land; anyway, we have just not had those on payroll who can back up their talk the talk with the walk the walk. (I am talking about fund-raising and finding Big Donors, you know, like, uh, Troy U did to build their new football stadium? Its a matter that we can all take our share of blame, but none of us are ever on selection committees to choose those who set our ship's direction. None of us are ever on selection committees of which I really feel even a novice would have to do very little research to figure out that a Coach Price (UTEP)) type hire and similar ancillery personel to go with such a hire are the kind of hires who get a school like NORTH TEXAS out of the bottom of the NCAA D1-A barrell doldrums and onto selection lists of possible bowl-worthy schools such as the Texas Bowl officials have drawn up. So as most always, FFR, you are right inasmuch that that was a royal kick in the ass to anyone who has just started out following this program or to those who have followed all this for over a half century. Where does it stop and who will be active enough from campus to insure that this kind of bullshit gets stopped? We are fartin' in the wind with our present crowd folks and in your hearts you know I (and many others who have expressed the same on or off this forum) are right about this. So in Mean Green Country we once again defer to a saying used often: This too shall pass (or at least we hope it does before we lose this program at the 1-A level). A subtle hint to new UNT leaders or those who've been around awhile but who seem to have forgotten: UNT and Denton, Texas, America, is in a major league sports market and we expect no less than major intercollegiate sports (or a direction that is actively pointed that way) "even" with Mean Green varsity athletics). Now excuse me while I make a return call to a funeral pre-planner sales-person who has been circling my abode like a damn buzzard over some road-kill! Answer: NONE! ADDENDUM: Granted, the Texas Bowl folks may know the SBC champ (presently) has a contract to send its # 1 team to New Orleans if they even considerred us in the first place which I doubt they did), but one day the #2 SBC team will acutally be bowl-worthy quality and that #2 team could be UNT some year. Anyone think TCU would go to the Texas Bowl if they won the MWC? Folks, UNT Chancellor Lee Jackson's alma mater's fellow alums are laughing their Mustang heads off over yet another kick in the nutts to UNT. One day, we will have the last laugh with the SMU boys, but it won't be with our present officials in charge in Denton I'd wager.

flyonthewall, having been one of thousands of NT Exes who have worked in DFW since the 1970's, it is still Fouts Field that is the (negative) focus of many non-North Texans many of us have worked with or have had the occasion to run into with our Metroplex-based jobs. The focus of some of our critics most always seemed to be that UNT was really not serious about being a player in NCAA D1-A because of Fouts Field and our continued use of this venue in this new milleneum we find ourselves. Hard to believe that the Dallas Cowboys (who began NFL play in 1960) will be playing in their 3'rd stadium over in Arlington while our alma mater continues to chug-a-lug like an old Papa John Deere tractor with our venerable Fouts Field . Had only Fouts Field been built in the middle of our campus back in the day rather than within eyesight of the tens of thousands who drive by it daily off I35-E; anyway, had Fouts been built blocks away from I35-E that may have very well served as a buffer from many of the jokes about our track & field stadium with poor sightlines and a football field way too far for our fans; but, of course, that was not to be. MORE HIND-SIGHT..............Even a matter that many of us have questioned while in some of our hindsight modes of decades gone by is why the old Texas Highway Department (now callled TxDOT) ever planned and built I35-E so gol' darn close to Fouts Field in the first place. Of course, back in that day we were in the midst of achieving 4 NCAA National Golf Division 1 Championships with the old NT golf course as headquarters for our Don January/Billy Maxwell lead NT golf teams so I'm sure that piece of UNT real estate was probably (and totally) off limits for interstate expansion in Denton.

Jeff, the gut feeling of those I've spoken (or emailed) as far as the reason we are hip deep in this (very expen$ive) waiting mode is that Norval Pohl is longer in charge at UNT-Denton. Yet those who are in charge just don't have a new stadium for UNT-Denton anywhere near the top of their priority wish lists. Why couldn't Judge Lee Ol' Boy have been a graduate of any other school in the USA except SMU? SMU and UNT are like gas and water and most always have been as far as matters of athletics are concerned. We do have some history to go by on that, too, now don't we? Too bad we cannot have both Board of Regents manned by a majority of NT Exes (which we seem to have now), but also positions of leadership who will be making all the key decisions and such key decisions that they will probably not even be around to see the end results of such); yet those who will be making such decisons that will affect the rest of the "NT interest" part of all our lives. Seems almost counter-productive at times with such a set-up as this albeit is the norm at most other US colleges and universities since rarely do graduates of said universities get to lead their alma mater in its key positions.

Phil, its like UNTLifer posted in his post (and I expand a bit on that) that there is a dire need for a whole army of Mean Greeners to write those non-stop letters, emails and making telephone calls to voice their concerns that we are of the opinion that we are just not operating at a level that a school projected to have over 40,000 students in the next 10 years should be. The "paltry" (good choice of a word, Phil) $40 million war chest for the entire UNT System concerns me that if we cannot hire fundraisers who can double and triple that quickly, how do we ever expect dear ol' alma mater to turn loose (lose ) $50 millioin (if that hasn't gone up now) for the construction of an NCAA D1-A football palace out at our Eagle Point Campus and its Mean Green Athletic Village? Of course, that is still where the, uh, a Big Donor must be secured and one who steps up to the plate with his mega-millions and says: "Mr. Jackson and Madam UNT-Denton President (what the hell is her name anyway)? ; anyway........... "This $30 million seed money is to be used for the company who will implode Fouts Field and monies that will be used to start on the construction of a new football stadium." And no, no, no..........no matter how hard you try to change my mind on this donation, it cannot and will not be used for anyone's pet projects at UNTHSC @ Fort Worth or UNT-Dallas or even UNT-Denton ( madam president)!" Then..........................NT Exes and Mean Green fans of all eras and decades meet for one helluva' implosion ceremony at Fouts Field with much celebration and revelry to follow the explosion and subsequent disappearnce of a symbol we've need rid of for decades with all the hoopla heard even as far away as Dallas and Fort Worth and after the settling of the dust a bright new future that will affect everyone in the entire UNT community!

Couldn't have posted it better, Bill, except you know I would have posted it, uh, much longer of course. What disappoints me is how so few seem to be objecting to the general direction of our athletic program of today and even with the low status (among all of NCAA D1-A) it had even during the bowl years. There are some, Bill, who will never want to hear anything but "PollyAnna is coming to visit Aunt Myrtlee, Mom, how nice" type stuff and to some extent even on this board when strong opinion makes some get tense or (in general) pissed off that someone has bigger goals or ideas for UNT other than their own. Hayden Fry dared to challenge many of the "well situated with state retirements in hand" nestors on our campus back in the day and he pissed many of them off. Some of the lagniape we've heard about "how bad" Fry was for NTSU from some of this group is almost laughable; but you know the best way to not ever piss anyone off at UNT, Denton and even GMG.com and I'll put it in 3 inch headlines: DON'T DO OR SAY A DAMN THING TO ROCK THE BOAT! Hope this era of low expectation (and general acceptance of it) ends much sooner than later up in Mean Green Country. Many of us are just flat out running out of time to watch our 3, 4 and 5 decade dreams for this football program come to some semblance of a much higher profile than the one we're in at the moment and seem entrenched.

Just do your best to endure all this, Jeff. I guarantee you that all this won't last forever and as some like to put it: THIS TOO SHALL PASS? Wonder if UTEP's Coach Price if he were at UNT would walk into a DFW Metroplex high school hat in hand with his eyes looking at his shoe strings & all but apologetically saying: "Awe shucks, you guys don't happen to have any players that would really be interested in us, now do you?" We are one of the largest universities in Texas that sometimes operates like we're one of the smallest and that part is a shame for all who attended UNT like many of the ones on this board and beyond who have gone on this "non-stop" roller coaster ride for more years than there ever should have been. Yet at this point in time and IMHO, we have become is one of the strangest college football programs I've ever heard of, read about or seen the 40 plus years I've followed college football with this recruiting thing being just one BB in a bucket of other oddities in Denton. One of the strangest parts of all this is how we always still seem to average 15,000 empty seats per home game the last few seasons no matter what our W/L record and all this during a time of unprecedented growth not only at UNT, but in Denton & Denton County as well. Had UNT football attendance grown (accordingly) thru the years and decades with all the boom growth on campus and in greater Denton, in a perfect & normal world we should now be at a point that we would never have less than 30,000 per home game & would have needed a larger stadium years ago. . So it's just very difficult for one to to put a finger on what it is that is making all this annual "non-significant growth" at the Fouts Field turnstiles occur during a time of boom growth within a 20+ mile radius of our main campus. So NT80, hang in there with the rest of a growing army who feel the same because: This too will most definitely pass.

IMO, everyone really does deserve a 2'nd chance. If Bomar were your son, brother, cousin or friend--wouldn't you tend to agree & give him that 2'nd chance? I would wager that those 2 young men from OU have punished themselves over and over again as it is with all this and I'm sure they don't need others pouring salt into their (already) gaping wounds? Both lost a helluva' lot of face over their predicament with OU in the news media alone. It was (quite frankly) national sport news. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, BRING BOMAR TO MEAN GREEN COUNTRY IF HE IS INTERESTED. WE NEED SUCH TALENT TO HELP US GET THIS FOOTBALL PROGRAM AIRBORNE & JUMP-STARTED WHILE HELPING US GET OUT OF OUR PRESENT POSITION AMONG ALL THE OTHER 117 NCAA D1-A SCHOOLS! FWIW, IT TAKES SUCH HIGH PROFILE TALENT COUPLED WITH HIGH PROFILE COACHES WHO USUALLY ARE ABLE TO PULL SUCH THINGS OFF & I DEFER TO WHAT COACH PRICE HAS ALREADY DONE AT WHAT HAS TRADITIONALLY BEEN A BASKETBALL SCHOOL.

CafallenStang, please do tell your Stang collegues that it was your very own SMU alum, ie, Governor Bill Clements who actually signed the bill that created the name of, uh, the University of North Texas. I notice a few on your board still get some kind of rush by calling us NTSU? To quote NT Ex Dallas Green from days, weeks, months and years gone by: "Who is this NTSU anyway?" {:>)

The reason we can't, Jeff, is............oh, never mind.

POST # EIGHT THOUSAND! ********************************************************** REVISED As one posted on another thread, the gap between UNT (& the SBC)) compared to the upper echelon conferences of the BCS, the MWC & now even CUSA is growing. How many more years of good ol' venerable Fouts Field and what it really symbolizes (especially to the thousands who drive by it daily and form their conclusions); anyway, just how many more years can we continue to call Fouts home while power-brokers among NCAA D1-A who still perceive what we are bogged down in at UNT (decades later)? Also, what our critics (or would-be sponsors for a better conference) most likely judge what they still see as our apparent (non)committment to an upwardly bound future in NCAA D1-A. Even the most ardent UNT supporter would have to admit that if we were in all our critic's shoes we, too, would probably still focus on what we are doing in Denton now as for as any future plans we would have in the upper echelon of the BCS or................. will those NCAA power-brokers still see us in our (seemedly always) continued holding pattern, ie, standing still pattern (if you will) along with our present SBC/toward the "Bottom 10" business as usual attitude in MG Country (which at the NCAA D1-A level usually means your athletic program is in a backwards mode). I think many might agree that SMU even in the midst of all their losing seasons was invited into CUSA ahead of UNT (in the midst of our bowl years & having more televised games in our history) because they simply put their money where their mouths were and built Gerald J. Ford Stadium. Also, (and what those on Mockingbird Lane might even admit) it helped SMU's cause inasmuch as they also coat-tailed into CUSA with the other WAC schools who joined CUSA. UNT will need to make or break its future while most likely not depending on SMU to give us any semblance of a positive nod that would help us get into CUSA. After all, our 2 schools do have some history to go by with all that, right? YET.............UNT still really needs to do this new stadium deal much sooner (I know, it i$ $till a ca$e of Big Donor--where art thou?) than later or will we of UNT find ourselves in yet another familiar scenario we have seen in past decades, ie, when there were opening(s) for an improved conference address yet we would still discover (once again) that upper echelon conference leaders really still need to see (from UNT) more in the area of visible results rather than just more talk of what our tremendous potential is or all we have to show them are what we have on those (forever) drawing boards and/or virtual tour stadium video of a "would be" stadium at our Eagle Point Campus? SAY WHAT? If CUSA somehow (and suddenly) found themselves with an opening and need for a new member, does anyone else feel there may now even be 1 or 2 Sun Belt schools (plus La Tech) who would be ahead of us as a CUSA potential member?

Bill, the part you post about our attendance being about the same as in previous decades is the very part of this equation in Denton that continues to confuse and baffle some of our best and faithful long-standing alums and MG fans (of which you would be part of that group, of course). Many thought record-breaking freshmen classes the last several years in a row would translate to higher average attendances of over 20,000 per home game no matter who our opponents would be and no matter who was calling the plays on Game Day (and FWIW, the record-breaking freshmen classes the last few years still may translate to more support in due time) but for the moment it just hasn't shown up at the turnstiles. Yet................a school with 33,000 (and growing) enrollment in a college town of over 100,000 headquartered in a (Denton) county that has a larger population base than the city of New Orleans had even before Katrina hit their proud historic city should be showing up in positive numbers in the attendance section of our area newspapers Sunday AM box scores but.........I think we can all agree that they just aren't. (NOTE: Forgot to add our over 100K NT Exes in the Metroplex in the aforementioned numbers count). As far as the part in my, uh, epistle about Chancellor Jackson saying athletics was not one of his great passions but his also saying that he would not stand in its way (and we'll all see about that in the days and years ahead by his actions), but that information on LJ's quote came from a source in one of our UNT alumnus support groups whose words I've come to be able to trust and hang my hat on in decades past. In other words, from one who is extremely close to the scene of what is going on with UNT leadership, that is. I'm sure there are answers to many of our questions that all of us looking from the outside will not be privvy' to know and that is the norm at most universities since university leaders don't publish (nor do they need to IMO) every detail of what goes on or whats said behind closed door meetings in the Hurley Administration Bldg. Although our endowment coffers at UNT is one for us to be perplexed and a bit red-faced about, UNT's biggest advantage still lies within its numbers, ie, our huge constituencies of which we have to work with. Just like in the sales game, it always comes down to numbers & I really feel at some point ours will work to our advantage in Denton. Yet its just that UNT needs to start letting those numbers work for the positive and good of our program now and take all of those numbers off the "potential" back-burner and turn many of them into butts-in-seats-----now. Still amazing to many (and a bit of UNT trivia for some of you young gun NT alums) is how it wasn't really until right before Hayden Fry was hired (the early 1970's) that UNT after all our years of existence even started to record names, addresses and phone numbers of its alums. That would be the guess of many as to why we are behind in the university endowment business as compared to other Texas public universities of like-size (and even other Texas universities much smaller than UNT, too).