PlummMeanGreen

I'd love those 2 new stadiums, too, pollock. One for day games and the other for night games! LOL! Hey, my first poll in many weeks and my (probably futile) attempt to change the recent thread themes of trying to fill a coach's job position at NT that is not vacant. I love new stadium talk! I have dreams about our new stadium (like I'd bet many of you have but won't admit to). You all can blame Green Grenade II on my non-stop new stadium over-kill postings because I've looked at several renderings of his projected new stadium for NT for decades! (Just kiddin', Rick, as I thought each had merit IMHO). What I did always like about GGII and his renderings was that at least he dared to dream big and that is something we have not always been accused of doing at NT for the the last half century of our athletic existence. Even a verse in the the book of Proverbs says (and I paraphrase): "A country without dreams will perish." Ex NT AD Steve Sloan on a rare occasion (I'm sure) when he was not on a Denton area golf course gave me that verse in a letter he sent me years ago when we were entertaining the idea of trying to get back to NCAA D1-A. I have remembered it ever since because it represents many of us on GMG.com who do dream some pretty darn big dreams for our alma mater. GMG! PS: If our stadium in its initial phase seats less than 40,000 I think you'd find many disappointed NT Exes on this board and beyond. I like what our new "adopted" UT Longhorn fan (LongJim) posted above. You know, if we get about 10,000 more "non UNT" affiliated fans like LongJim then we better not build that new stadium with less than 50,000 seats.

IMO, NT lost 2 vital cogs to our defensive line wheel when we lost one to grades and the other to all but a heat stroke. Few non BCS schools like NT could ill afford to lose the quality we were told those 2 had (and what some of us have seen ourselves)l. Not saying those 2 were going to be our DL messiahs, but I would have loved to have seen this Mean Green "D" with both of them on the defensive line this Fall. I think things would be different from a defensive perspective, now about that (hopefully) developing NT offense?

The longer we wait the more this new stadium will cost NT is what most construction experts would tell us. What is your take on this? With your choice in this poll, what would be the seating capacity at our new football stadium at the Mean Green Athletic Village located at our Eagle Point Campus?

This is one of the few things about NCAA D1-A athletics I don't like as a fan because I know few life-changing human beings who are worth a $2 million per year contract, that is unless they are a CEO of a company that produces billions in annual revenue. Virginia Tech doesn't seem to me to be one of the programs that one would have expected such a contract, but we can all be rest assured they did it to keep up with the Joneses. I know its all about suppy and demand and a handful of NCAA D1-A programs literally have money to burn or throw away which I think a $2 million per year contract is doing, but I think these kind of contracts for any collegiate employee sort of makes our college administrators seem to not be too smart or (even moreso) not very responsible stewards of their campus coffers. God only knows to what new levels the Big Boys go from here. GMG!

Only at NORTH TEXAS do we try to find replacements for jobs that are not vacant. Darrell Dickey ain't going anywhere folks! I repeat, Darrell Dickey aint' going anywhere except to the next big sale at the Denton Wal Mart! What if the entire University of North Texas Athletic Department staff could post on a public forum similar to GoMeanGreen.com and judge each of our job performances on a daily basis? What if they tried to have us replaced when we are still on our company's payroll? Hmmmm?

I don't know which ranking system ex NT/future TAMU president Frank Vandiver was referring to but he all but told one reporter that our College of Music was merely a local legend it its own mind (so to speak). I cannot forget Vandiver's comments on this because I remember how it both pissed me off and surprised me to hear him say it. Yet we all know that we have a fine College of Music at NT. Hellsbells, I even took a couple of music courses as electives and with NT College of Music icon 'Fessor Floyd Graham as one of my instructors. We have numerous NT ensembles (starting with the multi-Grammy nominated One O'Clock Lab Band) that gives our school national and international recognition as individual groups, but where we seem to not get our respect is with publications such as US New & World Report and other such rags who rank colleges and universities. Most of those kind of magazines give NT modest marks "as a fine music program" but not what any North Texans would expect or what we have always been led to believe about our COM. I'm sure there would be some publication out there that would give our College of Music its due, but it seems that when that NT academic department is mentioned it usually has more to do with how large it is, not necessarily its quality. I would welcome from anyone how we compare "academically" with other schools that seem to always get the national publicity, ie, Berkely College of Music? Even the arts magnate school in Dallas in a Dallas Morning News article a while back mentioned how many of its students were busting their butts trying to get accepted into Berkely with not one mention about the NT College of Music only 45 minutes away from this special Dallas HS for the gifted. BACK TO BAND DAY: Anyone else think a couple thousand bandsmen would have looked nice under our Daktronics at Fouts Field during our recent (and only) nationally televised game ever 2 weeks ago vs Troy U? All NT has to do is just look around what other SBC schools have done during similar national broadcast and you can start with Troy U and their game vs Missouri last year when their entire main scoreboard end zone area were full of HS bands (and on a weeknight). It looked nice on national TV. Have you seen a tape of our game vs Troy and the glare of all that aluminum under the Daktronics? But my personal observation of Troy U is that they seem to have more "can do" about their school than others in the SBC seem to have. Band Days have been around NT much longer than I ever started my letter writing campaign to Chancellor Hurley about having this promo continued in Denton back in the early 1980's. As a youth in the Houston area, I was fortunate to attend (probably) the largest Band Days in Texas (or America for that matter) when the University of Houston would have as many as 14,000 bandsmen at their promotion on Game Day back in the 1960's. Could NT stand 14,000 HS bandsmen in our upcoming future football stadium at Eagle Point on one given Game Day each Fall? Is the Pope Catholic? Is Billy Graham Baptist? YET.............It will still take an NT College of Music staffer to get the religion concerning this kind of promo and then he/her proceed with the confidence that the 2'nd largest College of Music in America can really pull this off much easier than 99% of other NCAA D1-A schools whose music departments are dwarfed by ours. QUESTION: What if we just invited (along with the local HS bands) other HS bands whose band directors graduated from NT? Surely we would have a long list of such alums and wouldn't they prefer to bring their bands back to Denton than Lubbock or Waco or wherever? NO FREE RIDES (or free game tickets even for HS bandsmen)? How about if 100 of them come back and enroll at NT because they attended an NT Band Day? Doesn't that make it more than cost effective whether they had to have a ticket under-written for them or not? Even a novice mathmetician could tell you that that a Band Day in Denton would be most cost effective. In the past and up to the present most likely, we just have those on campus who did not want to do much more than their 9 to 5 routines. Sadly (and IMHO) from first hand experience as a committee member of a Band Day, that is the #1 reason we don't have a Band Day at NORTH TEXAS post-Maurice McAdow era.

In 1982 I was on a "Bands OverTexas" committee of 3 (Dr. Robert A. Winslow, Dennis Fisher and yours truly) in a promotion that then NT President Dr. Alfred F. Hurley Hurley wanted to see take off and to even happen on an annual basis. The problem was that Green Brigade marching band director Dr. Robert "A" (figure it out for yourself) Winslow and Fisher did not want this to happen on an annual basis so the 1'st annual "Bands Over Texas" became the last annual "Bands Over Texas." Like that name? Well, you can blame that one on me. Anyway, if anyone on campus wants to throw a monkey wrench into any idea from alums or elsewhere, you can count on it not happening whether the NT Chancellor/President wants it to happen or not. That is the power and influence of the NT College of Music at work. BTW, the NT College of Music (albeit a fine academic dept. on our main campus) is not yet at the level of quality that they have advertised themselves to be all these decades. Short-term NT President (future TAMU President) Dr. Frank Vandiver even pointed that out to th NT COM as I recall which was among many other reasons he never gained popularity in Denton. Sometimes when you tell it like it is at NT, you don't get invited to the better cocktail parties on campus for those that such things are of such vital importance in their life. When the NT College of Music receives a ranking such as Berkely College of Music and similar, then they can start doing some good ol' fashioned Texas bragging. I think NT's College of Music doesn't even have that as a goal, though, and may be too large numbers-wise to really ever attain it. The 1'st and last annual "Bands Over Texas" was (according to many oustide of the COM) a success with about 2,000 bandsmen in attendance in Denton on a 1982 Game Day because we also had marching band contests that Fall morning at Fouts Field. BTW, guess who won that competition? How about the Highland Park High School Highlanders marching band who even stayed for the Mean Green football game to get their trophy at half time. Band Days happen at numerous college outposts in the USA but not at UNT (the 2'nd largest College of Music in America) because we still have those on in our COM who say this is impossible to do in Denton Well, maybe the 2'nd largest College of Music in America should go to Lubbock and see how Texas Tech does theirs). FFR, I think Silver Eagle can tell all of us on GMG.com how successful Band Days were at UNT during the Maurice McAdow (then Green Brigade director) since SE attended a few when he was in an area high school. With Dr. McAdow we had one on campus back in the day who said "we can do this at NT." Amazing what a little "can do" can do, eh? Maybe one day, a new crowd of officials at our NT COM will see that a Band Day can still happen in this millenium. Another project on a short wishlist that I wish the the 2005 Green Brigade would take on would be the initial organization of an NT Green Brigade Alumnus Band (just like they do at UT-Austin). That would be fun to even see that group come back home on a Game Day. How about each NT Homecoming for starters? GMG!

Well Rick, my late sainted mother said after the doctor slapped my butt upon birth, I didn't stop crying for 3 hours. So I guess I can blame the, uh, doctor?!?!?

I think the Super Pit has been a prime example to all North Texans everywhere as to what having a state-of-the-industry basketball facility cannot always do unless you provide good coaching/consistently good recruiting and a decent budget to go along with such a modern athletic venue. I don't know if NT has ever had all of those components in place at the same time even when Bill Blakely was our coach because I certainly don't recall him having a budget that was comparable to those we expected his teams to be competitive. Of course, every once in a blue moon a program like NT will luck into a super recruit (Indiana State and Larry Byrd, for example) that takes your program to unexpected heights, but even ISU hasn't done much since Byrd was ISU's "one hit wonder" taking them to a Final 4 back in that day. Of course at NT (and all these years later) we are still waiting on our Larry Byrd and a Final 4 appearance. New football facilities w/o all the other working components will produce the same results we've had with the Super Pit whose length of existence represents the same number of years I've followed Mean Green athletics, but NT being located in the Lone Star State that has 9 other NCAA D1-A schools mandates that we have no choice but to have such prime facilities because the alternative in today's NCAA D1-A facility arms race is totally unacceptable (unless you all want to go back to those glorious days of NCAA D1-AA and all the great perceptions (NOT) that era helped give our school). Still ironic how we beat some pretty well known regional D1-A schools even when we were D1-AA but we still had those 2 scarlet "A" letters branded on our forehead and made many of our fans feel 2'nd class during all our work place water fountain sports discussions. We lost fans during that era that I've not seen since, either. NOTE: I will add that we did use Texas Stadium as our mythical 2'nd home and as a prime recruiting tool beginning with the Hayden Fry era all the way thru most of our 12 years in D1-AA; and I believe most on this board would admit that it was a huge "perception creating" perc with our potential recruits, but one that is no longer part of our recruiting pitch since TS is no longer a 2'nd mythical home stadium for the Mean Green). We have fans who get pissed when we can't be competitive with schools who have a $65 million athletic budget. I am not one of them because I know our annual budget pretty well helps us stay in the neighborhood that we're in. I also know my measley $500 a year MG Club donation/4 season ticket purchase is (for sure) not going to help us get up to a $65 million athletic budget any time soon, either. I may be wrong about this since I don't know all the posters on GMG.com, but I don't know of anyone on this board who will help us get to that mega-buck athletic budget level, either, nor do I know anyone on this board who will provide the monies to buy out a coach's contract which is what I think part of the theme of this thread is about. What I do remember of the last 4 years is how many of our fans have most of the time been at this same level of frustration, but our team has pulled out a Sun Belt (no, I didn't say Big 12) football championship each of the last 4 years and its been at those times you sure do see a whole bunch of "Sylvestor the Cat whoopsy" grins on a bunch of faces when only weeks before during most of the last 4 years the tar was getting heated up and the feathers were all in place and ready for use. LETS FACE A BASIC FACT HERE: We are all a bunch of control freaks (at different levels of intensity, of course) but it will still be the NT Board of Regents chaired by NT alum Bobby Ray who will make all decisions concerning any high profile academic or athletic employee at the University of North Texas. So maybe we ought to just let them do their jobs and the rest of us just hang on to our roles as SMQ's ? SMQ? (Sunday Morning Quarterback). Furthermore, I don't think any of us will be summoned by Bobby Ray or any of his regents to be much more than that after all the smoke clears with all this. Yet the best part of all this is that none of us particularly enjoys it when our alma mater's football team loses a football game--any football game; and we do have those who give a damn enough as to voice concerns over such and there's not a gol' darned thing wrong with that IMO. We have great fans at NT and most of them I know even post on GMG.com. and a football program like Notre Dame would IMHO have a difficult time matching some of the Mean Green fans I know.

Many of the players on the Troy U Trojan team that beat a (then) top ranked Big 12 Missouri football team in Troy's new stadium on ESPN last year should tell us all that they still have players with talent who have played the Big Boys in the national spotlight (and won). Troy U' defense vs the Mean Green last week reminded me of the USM defense in our bowl game last December. I suppose every opponent of NT's this Fall has that video tape of the New Orleans Bowl. We are all pretty impatient people in today's microwave society of "take your time--but hurry" type attitudes, but we are all going to have to wait for this Mean Green team to mesh, blend and come together. I hope all that begins this week at FIU and then continues the next week at La Tech, but if it doesn't we just have to all suck it up and still support our alma mater's football team because what is our alternative? GMG!

AV, this thing is way beyond the architectural paintings or renderings stage. I am most content from what I am hearing of our campus fund-rasier's efforts with who they are talking to and so forth, that is all I am going to say about this subject. Unless the USA goes into a complete economic depression, I think NT is on schedule with building a new football stadium at Eagle Point Campus that our students/alums/fans will all be proud of. One campus official has publicly stated 4 years to be in our new football stadium. My gut feeling still says we premier the thing in 2008. GMG!

I will just have to agree to disagree with you on that part of your post I've highlighted, AV. Stay tuned....

But having read some of the Southwest region CUSA school message boards this last summer (including Tulsa's) they all know what is going on at our Eagle Point Campus with our construction and that has more than just a few of them more than just mildly concerned about us as future "tougher" competition on the recruiting trails. One Tulsa poster after commenting on our facilties already completed and those on the way questioned "what are we doing at Tulsa to keep up with that?" Whatever Dickey and Company did the year they recruited all those Texas state top 100 recruits that carried this program for most of the last 5 years (and are now all gone) I do hope they are getting back to duplicating that same recruiting mode of operation again. GMG!

Of course, any poll on GoMeanGreen.com has to be posted with the understanding that maybe 1/3'rd (or more) of those registered with GMG.com are in no way affiliated with NT whatsoever; in fact, many of them would have to be considered our competition, our arch rivals or our just plain out ol' collegiate enemies and would probaby vote in such a way in any poll on this forum that would help fan the flame of discontent among our faithful. FWIW, these "non NT affiliated" poll voters don't want there to be any kind of harmony in Mean Green Country. You know, the old "a divided house will not stand" thing again? So any semblance of a scientific poll on GMG.com is almost next to impossible and should be compiled with that in mind. The Meager/Philllips poll is so slanted with voting choices as to get Phillips into the football game that its almost humorous. GMG!

Math was not my strong suit, either, but last I counted, we did go to 4 bowl games in a row and it seems many who are discontented now were at the front of the Mean Green parade during the good times. Tough times don't last, but tough people do? GMG!

Anyone else ever get a feeling that the big money people of NT who will ultimately take this program to the next level (because of their big money or who they know who has the big money) might be amused with just about everything they read on this message board? From all that I hear thru the grapevine, there is no groundswell of discontent from any of those folks who want to make any changes at all in Mean Green Country. At NT we seem to always take everything in small steps. Sometimes we go 4 steps forward then 5 back, but we usually get back on track. The best thing that has happened thus far at NORTH TEXAS with a great part of that being because we have (in deed) gone to 4 bowl games in a row is that we've finally decided its time to start building some big time football-related facilities that a school our size and ambition will need to have to keep up. Most of you are right inasmuch that its not just about facilities but that will give us a chance to compete against those who use their quality facilties against ours on the recruiting trail. Nevermind how you feel about DD at this moment in time, but we've needed these facilities long before Darrell Dickey arrived in Denton and even when I was an NT student back when we used apple green as our primary shade of green. That my fine feathered fellow alums/fans and friends was a long time ago. Some fans need to go back to the times when they had those good feelings right before each bowl game we played the 2'nd Tuesday of each of the last 4 Decembers and then decide if they want to piss off all those good feelings over 3 losses this football season (and that with a young football team). God help us all, but we are in a rebuilding year at NT this year whether most want to accept that fact or not. 8 out of 11 new faces on defense sort of suggests it and it looks like we also have some new faces on this Fall's Mean Green offense (compared to our 2004 NT offense). IMO, there needs to be improvement across the board at NT starting with our coaches to our players and even with us, the fans. We are all in this together in so many ways and we all need to discern if what we are posting on this messsage board is of a constructive or destructive nature and then question ourselves if we have become a destructive force on GMG.com because of what we post, then what is the reason behind that? Who really is to gain by playing the blame game? We are not a large enough program with a solid enough fan base to be divided because it really is like one particular Book says and I quote: "A divided house will not stand." Performance during a given period of time will be the ultimate determiner of who stays or who goes at NT, but sometimes a respected outside source can make suggestions to our powers-that-be (our NT Board of Regents, for example) because sometimes even a high profile group such as our BOR's cannot see the trees for the forest. GMG!

The non-BCS is one helluva' strange fraternity. Look at TCU who didn't go to a bowl game last year in an era where there seems to be bowl game around any street corner; yet here are the Horned Frogs possibly fixin' to win the MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE for heavens sake?!?!?!? Without a Big 4 BCS bowl game in sight for the MWC winner this year, anyone think there may also be some disappointed faces in Cowtown with that one of the major reasons they shucked the CUSA in the first place? (I still think it was a long-term smart move by TCU and I think time will prove this to be the case). Also, anyone else think when we finish "ALL" projects at Eagle Point Campus that we will reduce (significantly) the number of non-BCS schools who would pass us in any year? (I do)...........Right now, this seems to be taking place every other year with said non-BCS school down one year and then up the next. With this current trend, NORTH TEXAS should have a banner year in 2006! GMG!

Yeah, but post-game (what'ere the score) our team and fans still get to come back to the North Texas (and vibrant) Metroplex and yall still have to stay in Ruston, LOUISIANA! No matter how you slice it, the NT/LT gridiron series still stands: NT......5 Wins LT......4 Wins BTW, since when has the latest version of UHawaii become a football juggernaut?

And no marquee or name school on NT's home schedule, either. The proof in the pudding for our fans will be our last 3 games. If we are able to maintain that 20K per game average thru the balance of our season, then we will have made some very impressive progress this year (and during what looks like may be a down season up to this point, too). The Saturday after Thanksgiving game at Fouts will be a toughy buts lets wait and see what happens.

Anyone else beginning to see a trend with many non-BCS football programs of up one season/down the next. Tulsa U and UHouston seem to be doing that this year when they were so BAAAADDDDDDDDD last year.

But also..............................LESS FANS?!?!?!?

All points well taken, but we are asking QB Meager to be the next Joe Namath behind the same offensive line that is presently not allowing much success for 2 Mean Green RB's who have given our school more national publicity than anyone I can remember in 30 plus years of following all this. (Here's hoping that our NT offensive line will still mesh before this season is done). We need Meager to stay healthy this year so he can get us ready for next year AND............Dickey and company need to desparately recruit 2 or more notable JUCO offensive linemen who can be enrolled this January.

Funny how most of the last 5 years (with the exception of this year) I think we beat the Ponies 9 of 10 X's each of those 5 years, but the 2005 Mustangs have me as confused and bewildered as the 2005 Mean Green. Also just as frustrating that we get these upcoming games with SMU when they are on the rise and we (for the moment) seem to be going in a down cycle. So what else is new? SMU wasn't about to schedule the Mean Green during the Booger Kennedy era, now were they? The biggest thing NT can do (besides recruit more classes like the Booger Kennedy classes) is take care of business out at Eagle Point Campus and do that now with warp speed. As they say, time is of the essence. We cannot afford to stretch those plans out much more than 4 years now and let this program flounder and that because we can't keep up with complete football facilities at outposts such as Troy U, SMU and even Howard Schnellenberger's FAU with their planned domed stadium, etc, etc, etc. Anyone don't think MTSU is not ahead of us in the "stadium department", too? Who in the SBC isn't? I know any football program still needs to have the full meal deal of good coaching, good recruiting and so forth, but the "so forth" part at NORTH TEXAS is our future new football stadium because that is the missing link in Mean Green Country no matter who our coaching staff is today, tomorrow or in the future. Who knows, Dickey may get his dream job in due time, but FWIW, who would it be who would come to Denton to succeed him in today's NCAA D1-A facility arms race era and want to recruit at a school who has no quick plans to replace Fouts Field (if that turns out to be the case with a hopefully "not delayed" time-table)? Personally, I feel we are in a new stadium by our home opener in 2008 but that is for another thread. BACK TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND: DD is presently under those lack of "complete" football facilities circumstances now, but we still expect miracles from him even as some "SBC" schools have passed us by with their stadiums? Not really fair to him no matter how you feel about him as NT's coach. If you go over to Westover Hills (neighborhood for the rich and famous in Fort Worth) to buy a house, just what is it that makes you want to make a purchase? Is it the tennis court, the polo grounds, the equestrian area, the swimming pool or the the well-manicured lawn? No, it's none of those things because its the actual house that will ultimately cause you to want to seal the deal. Same thing when Texas/Oklahoma HS recruits visit most schools we compete against on the recruiting trails, except its the stadium we are talking about with that group. All the ancillery facilities related to football are nice and things a school must have now, but its when most recruits step inside the football stadium for the first time that is the clincher with many of them because that gives them a big hint as to what a school's real committment is to its football program. Thankfully, NT is going to take care of its football stadium situation, but we need not tarry on that project while others already have a head start on us in that department. GMG!

Never would I have believed we would not be having those long TD runs by Cobbs and JaMo by this time of the season. Of course, its still not even half way thru the season, but we need to start making something happen with this rushing offense very soon. I, too, made the mistake of playing much of this seasons schedule with last year's Mean Green football team. We can only hope for improvement across the line (so to speak) because we need to start thinking about putting things in place for next season at this point. I believe we also better get some key JUCO signings in the next few months starting with an offensive linemen or 2. GMG!

Point taken on their overall W/L record, NT80, but some of our posters have been trying to make the 2002 Cincy' team seem like no competition at all in that NO's Bowl game and all but a team at the level of an SBC bottom-feeder. Even looking at many of Cincy's 7 losses shows that they were within a few points of some of those games being wins without any real blowout losses. Still, they were "Co-Champioin" of a league that has been established much longer that the SBC and that is the part that impressed me the most. All in the 2005 SBC seemed to have slipped a bit from top to bottom, though, and I think most of us would agree with that.