PlummMeanGreen

And the purpose of this map?

Basically just responding to those who have suggested post-La Tech loss that we "never" had a football team of such quality that could have ever beaten an SMU, Tulsa or La Tech, that's all. Timing is everything and right now, our timing is off at NT. As we all know, these things also go in cycles and we just have to hope that our down cycle is short-lived. IMO, DD and staff have recruited some outstanding talent and I think most would agree with that, but I think we would also agree that they just need to recruit more of that good talent in larger numbers because that is what will make the difference on the scoreboard. Just my two cents. GMG!

I respond to the red highlighted part: Now Green Nighmare, did "YOU" read my post? I referred to the fact that had SMU, Tulsa and La Tech been on our schedules during the 4 year Booger Kennedy era as to how they would have fared against NT. I think Baylor actually beat SMU the year we slobber-knocked the Bears as I recall. GMG! And thanks for the compliment, but there are many on this board who would I would merely be in their shadows in supporting the Mean Green; now when I was in my 20's and 30's I might have kept up with some of them.

The gap between the BCS and non-BCS is (in deed) getting wider. Where it all stops no one knows. Are salary and budget caps needed in the NCAA? And now the ND head football coach's contract takes it to a new (ridiculous) level, but in Mean Green Country we really do need to (with great haste) make up for 30+ years of football venues neglect. (Brother, can you spare some dimes that adds up to about $50 million)? GMG!

NMG, with your permission, I highlighted the part of your post I really liked. WE need more alums like NM Green who will stand up for the Mean Green instead of cowering down like a whooped dog, folding the tents, offering non-stop "what all our problems are at NT" w/o any viable solutions (except trying to fill a position that is not vacant) and then doing the T2SFRF, you know, the "Texas 2-Step Front-Running Fan" routine of becoming most visible Horn or Aggie fans all of a sudden. (Never have been able to understand that phenomena when such fans who graduated from other Texas colleges and universities never attended either school in College Station or Austin). Now you who have kids who attended our 2 flagship schools have many reasons to support either because much of your hard-earned monies probably ended up in College Station or Austin, but those with no connection to either one has to question such support. NORTE' TEJAS! MI CORAZON!

And MG61, if you look real hard you can see "Trixie" just typed a "T" with his back paw to finish these 2 words: BUILD IT! GMG! PS: A little orange and black lettering for Halloween for you all. Also, I have 4 barn cats out here in the boonies that may not appreciate the cute little critter, MG61. BTW, the "Travel" channel has some great ghost stories going on in their programming (or they did before they put the Britts on with their funky show from London).

And this is why I feel our new future stadium will be so important to address some of the subject areas you have listed, UNTFan23. Football is still king in Texas (sorry, round ballers) and I don't think with what NT pays its coaches now or probably even post-Darrell Dickey when he one day gets another job would ever really be enough for us to significantly raise ourselves much further than where we are now. Now if we ever get to the point of annually being competitive with Top 10 schools is another thing, but lets start with with our mid-major OOC opponents we have for now. Again, ths is why joining the Mean Green Club is so vital for us all (at whatever level one can budget) because by doing that it actually frees up monies to do other things, one of which would be helping in getting our NT coach's their pay raises? How many assistant coaches did NT lose to other programs becaue of salaries and some of those very assistant coaches who helped DD recruit "The Class" a few years ago and that group that led the way in taking us to 4 bowl games? At NT it needs to be the full meal deal type of thing, ie, firstly, you need an honest coach (and nobody has ever accused Darrell Dickey & his staff of writing checks to potential NT football recruits that they could not cash OR (in other words) being cruelly deceptive to high school kids during recruiting season promising them the moon); secondly, we have a booming enrollment and superb campus to recruit toward and anyone who would visit the University of North Texas today would have to be visually impaired to not see all that; and we are finally addressing our football related facility needs and have already (basically) finished 2 out of the 3 major Mean Green football oriented venues which are: (1) The recently completed Athletic Center/Practice Fields which a 2004 NFL Pro Bowler recently toured and said was better than some in the NFL. College Football Hall of Fame/ex NT football coach Hayden Fry, ESPN play by play/NT grad Dave Barnett and ESPN color commentator Craig James also visited all that at Eagle Point Campus with Craig James calling all of that happening at the Mean Green Athletic Village, uh, "top shelf." (2) We have a new athletic dorm with a cafeteria that has all the latest amenities that an NCAA D1-A football team needs. There are enough general NT students living at Victory Hall as to meet NCAA requirements that say you cannot have a dorm exclusive for scholarship athletes only....................AND we have a fundraising staff with a most pro-active Athletic Director at NT who as I understand it are all feverishly working to find the Big Donor(s) for our future new football stadium which will complete this trilogy of football facilties. We can keep on polishing up and tweaking Fouts Field with cosmetic changes here and there and they are certainly needed for now, but our Mean Green football future has already all but moved across the interstate over to Eagle Point Campus . We only await a new football stadium to be attached to its already completed south end zone facility. Ain't that all going to be real nice? GMG!

ADDENDUM: I posted the 1977 La Tech example of our beating them yet they going to a bowl game in 1977 because even as I post, on their Bulldogs, Barks & Bytes forum they have a thread running about how maybe they should possibly be the school who goes to the New Orleans Bowl since they think none of the SBC'ers are going to finish with 6 wins and be bowl elgible. It had also been suggested to them that their "supposed" on-going abrasive or bad feelings with SBC Commissioner Wright Waters just might prevent a NO's Bowl appearance by the Bulldogs. GMG!

FFR, just listening to the game on the Mean Green Radio Network was encouraging to me. I really liked Flanagan (or DD) putting in the West Coast quick offensive passing plays AND bringing the tight end back into our game plan. I hope this will continue for the next 10 years! LOL! Also, it sound like for the first time all season, Super Jamario Thomas' hammy' is not nagging him and he is picking up steam from where he left off last year. Can anyone imagine if we'd had last year's running game in some of our OOC games how that could be the difference between a W or a L? Last 3 games at Fouts will be quite interesting to say the least. GMG!

The part of all this non BCS business that should keep us all (somewhat) excited and from going into full clinical depressioin is how many of our non BCS teams can look real bad one year and then look real good the next. For example, just look at Tulsa U and Univ. of Houston this Fall. Remember how badly TCU got beat by Texas Tech last Fall? The Red Raiders running up 70+ points againt the Horned Frogs in what had to be the Frogs worse defeat of all time? Now just look at TCU? TCU was a team-in-development about this time last Fall and if most will recall, the Frogs didn't go to a bowl game last year, either. GMG!

Much has to be done with more improvement at every level of this young, developing team, and BTW, we as fans/alums are going to allow this team to move on--move up and improve, right? : (And we as fans will do the same)? Yet why should we as fans all start serving slices of humble pie with some thinking with a possible "awe shucks" we didn't beat this or that team in the first part of our schedule with our team (who were merely trying to mesh) so we don't deserve a bowl game? NOT! I think whoever the SBC champion will most likely have 6 wins if I am reading much of this correctly. I know NT has to win the next 4 (which would give us 6 wins) to win the SBC. Any other formulas on this? Question: In 1977, NORTH TEXAS went to Ruston, played a fine La Tech Bulldog FB team yet the score ended up: NT 41 LTU 14 But guess who went to a bowl game in 1977 and guess who stayed home even after winning 41 to 14? Back in that day and for the life of me, I don't recall La Tech officials coming to NT officials saying: Yall beat us quite convincingly, fair and square, so yall take "OUR" Independence Bowl invite, OK? GMG!

The NT offense is only doing what some of us have been suggesting for awhile now, like 3 steps back--quick passes from Meager, more quick hitting slant pass plays and utilizing the tight end who has suddenly come out of no-where back into the NT offensive game plan. Some call it the West Coast-type offense. (Of course, doing all this against prior lesser competition would have been most advisable). I don't think those who have been suggesting these things for more than this season are going to put Bill Parcells in danger of losing his job with the Dallas Cowboys, either. If one has played any organized football beyond Pop Warner you just get a feel about trying some things when other other things have not been working. FAN SUPPORT? Just staying on either side of the fence would be more admirable than all the non-stop vascillation with a Mean Green win or a loss being the determiner of that. For some reason, I don't think the Iowa Hawkeye football program before Hayden Fry took over and a program that had sellouts after sellouts in the stark cold of winter for a few decades of under .500 seasons; anyway, I don't think Iowa had such fans who were up one minute and down the next. I think many would agree that it will be our fans, alums & NT student's repsonse to winning (and losing) that will determine our school's conference future and its always been that way anytime we've had a chance to make a conference address change. I merely defer to UTEP with their fan support and having a real college football stadium to hold that support AND with all the characteristics and attibutes they have if they were somehow magically re-located in a heavily popluated DFW, like say, a Denton, Texas, type of college town, hellsbells, they'd be in the Big 12 today. The next 3 Saturday's of Game Days at Fouts Field will be interesting to say the least. If it were announced in the Denton Record/Chronicle Sunday that CUSA consultant/NCAA mover and shaker Chuck Neinas was going to be at each of our next 3 home games at Fouts for reasons relating to future conference re-alignment, I wonder how many of our elect would show up at Fouts Field en mass the next 3 Game Days rather than choosing to do one of a thousand other entertainment offerings one can pick from in the DFW Metroplex and beyond? Fall Back: Don't forget to set your clocks back tonight.

Is anyone going to win the 'Belt (outright) this year?

Actually, I don't know about some of you, but I've heard this "we like to give ourselves a chance by staying in the game up to the 4'th quarter" from other NCAA quarters as well. I know I've heard player's from other schools media interviews say that because I recall thinking how that was NT's philosophy as well. Of course many of us have also heard at NT that "with our offense we cannot afford to get too far behind" and so I guess keeping it close up to the 4'th quarter is sort of a, uh, "we don't really have a choice but to do this" type of deal, right?" As far as tonight's game, let's enjoy the half million we make and play a whole bunch of NT football players and chock it up for experience. I still can't get excited about playing Top 10 schools. Most of you may recall some of our best games against higher profile schools that we won even in the Corky Nelson era were against schools NOT ranked in the Top 10 or Top 25 best I recall. They were still nice victories, but not to be confused with wins against the NCAA's elite. GMG!

No matter how long we have Fouts Field as home of our football team, we still have a varsity track and field program we have to maintain and they need a functional track in order to do that, thus the reason for the expenditures on our track @ Fouts Field. I believe its been stated before that once we move the rest of our football program (since the football offices and players are already there) across the interstate to Eagle Point Campus, the plans are actually to demolish Fouts Field. Although, TxDOT doesn't need their highway frontage property near the press box side of Fouts as quickly as was previous thought, nevertheless, they still do need it no matter their time-table. NT needs the new football stadium if it serious about finishing out what we have already begun at the Mean Green Athletic Village (and I think we are serious about that) and in spite of the usual few Doubting Thomases, I really do think NT officials are really serious about finishing out what they've already begun. In fact and FWIW, I'd say several NT official's personal reputations and one particular DFW university's reputations are all on the line if this new stadium is not begun and finished in due time; plus the advancement of Mean Green football at the level all on this board seem to aspire to want it to be would also be jeopardized if we don't pull a, uh, Troy U and............JUST DO IT. GMG!

H-towngreen, NORTH TEXAS has a unique advantage because of our being located in an area of almost 6 million population that many DFW area kids come up to Denton (on their own) for what the NCAA calls an "unofficial" visit that is not counted among their number of official visits (whatever that number) a recruit can now make. GMG! PS: Sorry about our Astros.

Seems like we have had our usual group of potential recruits who all sit with our Eagle Angels.

MORE QUESTIONS HERE THAN CARTER HAS PILLS... (Get the caffeine in your system now for this epistle) AND...........if you haven't figured it out by now with some of these multi-colored posts, I was also a big fan of the old Houston Astros rainbow colored unis'. OK, TIME TO GET SERIOUS: Can we look back to that era before Coach Dickey and staff signed one of NT's top 2 recruiting classes ever (the Joe Greene group with numerous NFL draft choices from Mean Joe's class were quite exceptional); yet can we all look back with the way things were before "The Class" who "only" took us to 4 bowl games? Remember those bleak days before DD and staff signed "The Class" how we seemed to be going nowhwere fast with most wanting DD gone even back in that day? Seems like we have most always wanted poor ol' DD out the back and down the track in Mean Green Country. What if we would have fired him before he and his staff signed "The Class" and we hired yet another NT coach who was no more a fit at UNT, Denton or our Lone Star State environment than most of us from Texas would ever be a fit in a New Jersey locale? DD seems to be much more resilient than we as fans seem to be at times. Seems we have both pissed each other off in the past (understatement there?) He has brought some of the controversy unto himself, yet we have created much for him to be pissed off at us, too. In our microwave society of most NORTH TEXAS fans/alum's demand for instant success (of which even 4 bowl games wasn't enough for some of our fans), it really must be sometimes difficult to be an NCAA D1-A coach in Denton, Texas. We all want champagne and caviore yet we in the past have given our athletic department just enough to have beer and pretzels. But isn't it still about the Big Picture, ie, the future? Shouldn't we all look past all our noses and be looking at the Big Picture in Mean Green Country rather than a few Polaroid snap shots taken this Fall during this particular short vacation gone bad thus far? Remember those bleak days in the era before DD and staff signed "The Class" of Texas "state" (not local) top 100/Oklahoma Fab 55 recruits when many of our fans/alums even before then were throwing hands up high in the air with disgust (which I may have had my hands as high as anyone back in that day)? Can we remember that that was the scenario before DD and staff signed "The Class" when we had incommodius fans/alums and maybe the worst overall football facilities in the the entire NCAA Division One? Aren't what we are building now (as impressive as our new athletic facilities are to present players/new recruits) still more a "catch up" for NT athletics than a luxury? Still most ironic how bad facilities back in that day did not prevent "The Class" (who took us to 4 bowl games) from signing with NORTH TEXAS. Now we have new facilities (others on the way) with higher expectations, too, but isn't the 119 member NCAA D1-A an even different and more difficult horse to saddle than it was back when we signed "The Class?" Have we as NT fans and alums made our own necessary adjustments to this new era by giving more to our athletic coffers than ever before and buying season tickets non-stop? I think we all know the answer to that question at this moment in the history of our school. Undoubtedly, most of your reading this manifesto have stepped up to the plate. Yet aren't we as fans/alums an integral part of NT's formula for athletic success in what really seems to be a new era in NCAA D1-A even since we signed "The Class?" A complete different era when new, impressive "WOW" facilities (as TAMU's Coach Francione calls them) are being built non-stop in many D-1 outposts during this present NCAA facilities arms race of which NT is as involved as any in the non BCS? Other than all our free opinions we all offer on GMG.com, have we really all done our parts as each of our household budgets allow? Again, I know most of you who are still reading this post long ago stepped up to the plate as far as NT athletics is concerned. Some of you (who I am most honored to have as aquaintances) have gone the extra mile or 2 or 3 with all this for years at NT. Please, please, please don't forget to pat yourselves on the back from time to time because you are supporting a Texas university whose colors are NOT burn't orange/white OR maroon/white. Anyone can support those 2 Texas flagship schools without having to do much in the area of personal sacrifice. FWIW, can't anybody who has never even been to the locales of our state's 2 flagship schools in Austin or College Station go to a Wal Mart or a Loves, buy a UT or TAMU T-shirt and say they are (suddenly) Longhorn or Aggie fans? Hellsbells, I've seen po' white trailer unfortunates doing that! : Yet, at the University of North Texas, we all get to be an integral part of something that is in the midst of a very exciting journey (and doesn't any journey have detours from time to time?); yet, we are all on a Mean Green journey where we (individually) can make a difference AND............where many of "YOU" have made that difference. Again, pat yourselves on the back and please, please, please (James Brown singing here) don't under-play what you have done. Will a few OOC losses this Fall have more affect on NT than what we are doing with the Big Picture that is evolving before our very eyes out at our Eagle Point Campus and the new Mean Green Athletic Village? How many of our OOC opponents at the non BCS level can come even come close to matching what the University of North Texas is now doing and will continue to do until all is finished on those 200 acres between those 2 Texas interstates? Won't our upcoming new Mean Green recruits prefer to know what they will be an integral part of than what has happened with a few Polaroid snap shots of this season at hand? When you ask the girl of your dreams out for a date and she confirms, approves and says yes, does she immediatley go into delving into the past non-stop as to your social life? Most likely not, but rather she looks to a brand new day and era of new and exciting possibilities for herself now wouldn't she? So will it be for all of NT's new recruits we sign this February who will look ahead to their own new and exciting possibilites and how they can make a big difference at an upwardly bound and booming enrollment university in one of the best business centers in the USA. How many of our NT football lettermen stay in the Denton/DFW area to pursue their life's profession? ? ? With over 100,000 NT Exes in the Denton/DFW Metroplex, how many NT alums from that huge reservoir help our NORTH TEXAS Lettermen get their careers jump-started? So aren't there many other reasons even beyond playing Mean Green football for a recruit to affiliate with NORTH TEXAS, ie, the university who has the single most largest group of alums in the North Texas Metroplex than any other single university in the Lone Star State and that includes UT and TAMU? As former NT football coach Hayden Fry used to say, "IF I CAN JUST GET THEM TO DENTON AND ON THE NT CAMPUS, I HAVE AS BIG A CHANCE OF SIGNING A KID AS ANYONE." So have any of you lurkers/visitors of GMG.com living outside the Metroplex been on the UNT campus lately? If so, then you know more than anyone that we do have an extremely marketble commodity and about 30,000 co-eds in Denton, Texas, America (which includes Denton's Texas Women's University) does not hurt the Mean Green cause come recruiting season, either. GMG!

Good News For the White Sox Fans: They won the World Series... Bad News For The White Sox Fans: Texas is cutting off all the natural gas lines to Chicago this winter. Anyone else get the feeling if the Astros would have scored 15 runs tonight that the White Sox would have somehow scored 16? Last time White Sox won the WS was the year my father was born, ie, 1917. That was a loooonnnnnngggggg time ago, folks.

The culmination of this newfound cooperation that is obviously not of the lip-service variety of the past; but a great way for both NT Athletics and the College of Music to really gussy it up would be if they would do like Baylor, Texas Tech and others in the Southwest do and that is with (here we go again) holding an annual NT Band Day on a Game Day each Fall. Anyone else think we might have some room at Fouts Field for 4-6,000 Texas/Oklahoma bandsmen at one of our last 3 home games in November? Might even that 4-6,000 if we had a Band Day this Fall even be the possible difference of our having our NCAA butts in seats average this year or not? When NT discovers the joy of "large group" promotions they will see what other schools have known for years (and what we've been neglecting for years since Maurice McAdow was the marching band director). Those of us who grew up in the Houston area and attended a few UH Band Days would tell you they are quite impressive promotions and with the new NCAA rules for attendance, you can count the butts of each bandsmen whether they had a ticket underwritten for them or not. 100 students who would enroll at NT because they attended an NT Band Day would make any annual band day in Denton more than cost effective. LONG LIVE THE MEMORY OF 'FESSOR FLOYD GRAHAM! GO 'STROS!

True, pollock, but how many of the schools we deemed beatable OOC schools this Fall seemed to not want to put us on their football schedules when some of those schools saw all those Texas state 100/Oklahoma Fab 55 recruits we recruited that one year a few years ago? Anyone don't think that was not noticed by those schools on this Fall's OOC schedule? Anyone think that they probably all knew how many of that group would be graduated when they finally agreed to tee it up with NT? Our football program hit an apex of having beat a CUSA co-champion in a bowl game in only the SBC's 2'nd year of football existence; but just maybe we all ought to set back and look at those kind of peculiar scheduling quirks, that is, when we have had good teams certain schools don't won't us on their schedules? Anyone out there don't think Rick V didn't try to get such schools as La Tech, SMU or Tulsa on our football schedule during those years after we had that superb recruiting class that translated into 4 bowl appearances? Sure, all those schools can all say their schedules were full back then, but how many of those same school's schedules would not have been filled had we had "so-so" teams back in that day? How many of you really think SMU or Tulsa or La Tech would have beaten our football team in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004? I think we might give Tulsa and La Tech one win in one of those 4 years but I'll give SMU "0" wins during that 4 year period. So come on people, lets quit beating up on ourselves because some schools were gut-less to play us when they knew what we had after that strategic recruiting class (the one with Roy Bishop) and what they probably knew we would have going on in Mean Green Country compared to what they had going at the same time. Another question: This is a "what if" but WHAT IF: NT runs the table, wins the SBC this Fall and even beat the CUSA opponent we'd have in the NO's (Lafayette) Bowl? Yes, I know, a very big pipe dream but if that scenerio were to unfold, wouldn't there be a helluva' lot "Sylvestor The Cat" "whoops" grins from many on this message board who have been playing their fiddles non-stop Nero-style? In the non BCS, teams have gone from nothing one season to a bowl game the next. Look at Tulsa U who had nothing before Kragthorpe arrived, went to a bowl game his first year, were terrible his 2'nd year and are back on track this year. This can happen at the level we presently reside that we all eventually want to leave behind once all is in place at Eagle Point for us to do so. GMG!

Great post, Huff, and one coming from an NT alum whose opinions I respect and whose friendship I have long valued. Stability is a trait I admire and you and many others on this board are at the top of the list as great examples of such. Thanks for being that way because (quite frankly) it is a refreshing (and as of late, a rare) thing on this message board where emotions and attitudes (and I presume now, even some so called friendships) can change 180 degrees in the matter of minutes over quite trivial and small things compared to the things in life that really count). Sadly how much of that is happening on what really should (still) be the toy section of all of our's department store of life--namely anything relating to the University of North Texas. Yet, it is with fans such as you and many others similar that we build our sold fan base. Thanks for that inspiration and example. My regards to your whole family and (again) congrats to you and Mrs. Huff on yalls new grandchild of which I know you two are quite proud. Jeez, Huff, it seems only like yesterday that your 2 (now grown) son and daughter were kids running around on the concourse at Fouts Field. So I guess that means we are getting older than Methuselah? GMG!

Didn't know you even read my lagniape, eagle60. I really just thought it was my lurking nephews and nieces who did. This is a high profile money game and I will pretty well leave it at that. I do hope that part of the $500,000.oo we make from this game will go toward our football recruiting budget and give us the extra gas our coaches need to get to that next town to recruit another Booger Kennedy, Scott Hall, Adrian Awassom, Jonas Buckles, etc, etc, etc, They say it really does take money to annually compete in NCAA D1-A and I think I am a believer of that. Yet you want me to give my score prediction, eagle60? I really don't know, I do remember once when I was walking around campus over near Willis Library as a young NT student listening to Bill Mercer call our game with Tennessee (and as many began to listen with me in amazement as to what what happening in Knoxville) and I always hope that history will repeat itself in some form or fashion for such an OOC win for us in this decade. I think we all know we are well over-due for that to happen. GMG!