PlummMeanGreen

Humor is medicine for the soul. We have plenty of it on GMG.com. Craig James and his family now live in Celina (which is Mean Green Country by geography and since NT grad/TX HS football icon G.A. Moore coached there for a zillion years one time, too). Craig James was in the documentary movie Power, Passion and Glory and was even quite affable in that DVD flick. I do hope a handful of our nestor's forecasts (& almost a gleeful forecast with some) of our attendance next Tuesday night is (somehow) way off the mark; what we don't need is SMU ex Craig James telling everyone in our living room and on national TV audience and telling anyone who has ever been connected to NORTH TEXAS in any capacity how bad our alums/fans are because of too many empty seats. We (obviously) expect much from our football team so why shouldn't they expect much from us as fans in return? We all say we want to be like a Texas Tech (which at one time would have been attainable, probably still is down the road) but for the present we don't do the things that proves we want that next level that we as Mean Green fans do have control and that being attendance at Fouts Field in good or not so good times. We have about 250 (give or take) on both our men and women's varsity athletic teams at NORTH TEXAS, so there is no way they, their parents and all their relatives can fill Fouts Field. Team North Texas is everyone of us from every constituency of UNT from the maintanance crew employed by NT all the way to the Chancellor's Office and what we all want to happen at NT will have to be a team effort from each one of our constituencies between those 2 aforementioned, too, which pretty well covers us all. Showing up at Fouts Field is (in many ways) the easy part even for those who haven't invested in our school with a donation or two or three in the past to the academic dept. of their major or the MG Club. Yet we need everyone (donors and non-donors) to make all this work the way we all want this to work. We are a most diversified Mean Green Nation where our football team's wins and losses affects each of us in different ways with various extremes of emotion and most of that probably having to do with the era one attended NT; also, probably having to do with what each of our short-term & long-term expectations for our alma mater's football program are. Yet wouldn't most agree that things are gettting better, things are getting better all the time in Mean Green Country? For proof, one only has to take a tour of those 200 acres at our Eagle Point Campus and see dirt flying all over the place with steel beams and concrete being poured non-stop and with more of that to come. How many of us even as short a time as 5 years ago would have thought all there'd ever be on those 400 acres (total) but a "burnt' by the Texas sun" golf course (and some most scenic duck ponds)? GMG!

Texas State hired the TCU Def. Coord. from over here in Fort Worth who may have even been their recruiting coordinator if I recall. NT needs to first take care of business and that is making sure our assistant coaches are the best paid in the SBC. Lets reward all of them from top to bottom for taking our Mean Green football team to a bowl game the last 4 years instead of crucifying them for 2 losses. Somwhere up there, Pop Noah and Theron J. Fouts have tears in their eyes over some of this bandwagon jumping. Someone said it earlier today in a post, but lets all leave those 2 behind and just ook at the Big Picture. GMG!

Same place as always--sitting in the row in front of Mr. and Mrs. meanjoe. Anyone who can make this weeknight game should try. We need to show support for our alma mater's football team, but we also need to set some visible examples for yet another record-breaking NT freshmen class and for those who were freshmen last year and for those who were freshmen the year before that on and on all the way to your class. They are listening and watching to all that we say and do. GMG!

Back when I would board any kind of airplane, I was riding in a twin engine Cessna type plane from Easterwood Airport outside Bryan/College Station back to DFW so I could get back in plenty of time to listen to that Fry-era NT/Oklahoma State game which we lost 61-7. Following that game in Stillwater, I almost wanted to get back on a sky-divers plane to make an unscheduled jump without a parachute. Seems like we may have had our biggest win (back then) in school history that same year of that terrible loss if I recall. My how those make us quickly forget these lop-sided losses. Our day to shine in the sun will come again--it always does. Great post, untgeorge...and BTW young gun alums, as long as I can think back of anything that I ever attended (starting in the 70's) relating to NORTH TEXAS, untgeorge had already had about a quarter of a century head start on the rest of us from the 1970's; but what I was going to say is that untgeorge seemed to always be at most any of those events. By now, he knows how many of us appreciate his undying and most loyal support for NT and Mean Green athletics. GMG!

Everyone's been down on a head football coach all the way from Pop Warner to our Friday Night Lights heros of (I say this with almost religious reverence) "Texas High School Football" but eveyone who is normal in our society goes thru tough times. How does the saying go? "Tough times don't last but tough people do?" Lets jump on the DD bandwagon no matter what has been said or thought at one time or another from all of us on this board. Getting an ulcer may be the only alternative for some. My ultimate Mean Green dream is that when we open up our new football stadium over at Eagle Point Campus is that we debut that modern monstrosity of a facility against the Kansas State Wildcats with Darrell Dickey as the NT head football coach and we pulverize those purple & white-clad sumbichs! GMG!

A new football stadium for NORTH TEXAS is not exclusively for any one person or any one group, but I sure as hell know a bunch of older nestors who will sure enjoy all the modern new amenenties that our future new stadium will give to all of us, no matter which era you attended NT. Folks (you get tired of "folks") you cannot fire a head football coach who has taken your school's football team to 4 bowl games in row. Some of you have already brought up this point, but which coach would come to a school who would do such a deed that has any semblance of pride and ego (and allegiance to the coaching fraternity)? We need to give Darrell Dickey all the NCAA D1-A facilities ammo within reason for a school whose alums have chosen the level we compete (our attendance figures have determined that) because he has not had that at NT compared to 99.9% of the other NCAA D1-A schools he has to recruit and compete against. If after he has all that and it doesn't happen in Mean Green Country, then you probably have a case. We are even losing some kids to perennial loser SMU because of their faciliities (Gerald J. Ford among others they built with it) for those of our elect who don't quite understand or can fathom the cold harsh reality that there really is a NCAA D1-A facility arms race going on out there. NT has been behind with football related facilities since Fry left Denton (and even before that). We are (finally) slowly but surely catching up. What about you? You get excited about driving the hand-me-down Ford Maverick over a bright new shining dark green Jaguar XJS? Well..............do you? GMG!

Exactly... In fact, I just got my monthly MG Club statement in today's mail. Funny how I love filling out the check to the MG Club over my other bills. 1-800-UNT-2366 will get you to someone who can sign anyone up for the Mean Green Club and that call is even on the NT Athletic Department's 1-800 nickel, too. GMG!

The football team has annual W/L records to serve as its baromenter for success or lack thereof , but we Mean Green alums/fans only have to look at our annual football game attendance figures which are turned into the NCAA office to see what we have been doing. I think we would all admit there is room for improvement. And why don't we adopt the concept of supporting the Mean Green no matter who they play OR no matter the W/L record? It seems the most successful Texas D1-A schools have done such. Honest-to-goodness, though, weren't we all impressed with the enormous NT student turnout for our home season opener and not worrying how many of them come back for the Troy U game? Not sure I've ever seen a larger NT student turnout. I am hoping that our new generation of NT students and future NT alums are cut out of a different mold compared to what I've mostly seen for 30 plus years in Denton. Yet I am not sure I've ever seen our NT students fill out as much of the east stadium as they did for the Tulsa U game; hellsbells some of them even had to sit in the endzones. The last 5 years of NT's record-breaking freshmen classes have not been around all us jaded old nestors for all that to rub off on them and I hope they start a whole new spirit of loyal fan support at our alma mater. When you have about 6,000 new NT frosh' and transfers each year (as we have the last 5 years in a row), a football program can build a pretty good broad base of new fans and gol' darned quick, too. This is one of the silver linings around the last 2 week's dark clouds and irony of ironies, it also involves our youngest students on campus. GMG!

Some very good points, Emmitt... We have some very unaccepting, unrealistic fans that I just guess cannot read some very young NT player's bios in our 2005 MG FB media guide that ( in essence) tells the whole story about this Mean Green FB team up to this point of this season. I bet they will show some most noticable improvement. Any taker$ on that? Darrell Dickey is not the anti-christ and he is not the whole problem here. It is a team effort that also includes too many of our penny/ante "want it all for free" alumnus base that has much to do with this as anyone. How could that be? Just look at CUSA budgets compared to ours for starters? Anyone think if the Mean Green Club were contributing $2 million per year (which is really where a school our size should be) that NT would be taking an athletic budget back seat to "ANY" CUSA school? Most of you reading this do your part in giving and attending games where it counts the most and those are the ones at Fouts Field. Yet why the need for a larger athletic budget at NT? How about where we can start paying our coaches more so they look at recruiting more than want-ads at other NCAA outposts? Did yall see today in the DMN where SMU Coach Bennett makes over $400,000 per year? Has DD done more than Bennett? Hell yes! He deserves to make as much as Phil Bennett. Sue me! Yet, salaries raises should also focus on our NT assistant coaches, they do have to feed their families. Why more athletic budget at NT? How about having more football recruiting budget as to allow our coaches to be on the road longer (and further down that road) than what a small NT athletic budget presently allows? Lets quit comparing our budgets to SBC schools, folks, because most of you say you want out of that league. Well, it will take money to do that. It's really always about money in NCAA D1-A, fellow Mean Greeners. But still, this is just as much about our NT alums and fans who have kept a 32,000 plus enrollment Texas university (you know, Texas, where football is King? barefoot and pregnant (so to speak). It is this constituency who have kept NT somewhat stuck in a time warp of not showing the kind of dramatic growth at the turnstiles you'd expect a school that has as many students and alums as our school has would exhibit. It is about the kind of attendance habits at Fouts Field games after the team has had some losses and the MG fans choosing to not show at Fouts Field based on such losses that keeps some conferences from really seriously looking at us when they are looking for new members. Do any of you really think it was "going on 60 years old" Fouts Field that kept us out of CUSA? Twasn't Fouts at all, but it was the empty seats at Fouts Field that cemented our not getting key votes from all the right CUSA schools that kept us out. If our school had been averaging 30,500 the past few years (and we all know we have the reservoir of fans to do that), there is no way CUSA Commissioner Brit Banowsky could have conjured up real bonafide (believable) excuses for a few select private schools (who probably draw less than half that number) to even think about black-balling a large Texas public university from CUSA membership. Well, we make sure almost every Fall that they don't even have to exert efforts to do such in those smoke-filled rooms, our fans will jump off the Mean Green bandwagon for all to see in the Sunday Dallas Morning News boxscores attendance section of our games. And FWIW, for all these years if we had done our part as alums/fans instead of always pointing fingers other directions than opposite where our thumbs always point and playing this constant annual blame-game, it might be NORTH TEXAS in CUSA instead of 1 or 2 others AND (amazingly) we would have done all this W/O a new football stadium for crissakes! GMG!

That's all it seems to take in, uh, Mean Green Country. Maybe some need to look at what may be even more negative than what they perceive 2 losses have been and that is how many on this board's attitude have gone way south? One cannot stress enough all the different constituencies that are reading all this, too, ie, our own football players, potential recruits and both of the aforementioned families? Maybe some may want to examine the reason for this continuous urge or propensity to turn on the very passion and football program they love 99% of the time albeit during happier times. Maybe even a little self soul searching under a microscope as to why too many of our Mean Green fan base seems to bail out way too easily or quickly just about any year when this football program takes a (usually) short detour on the road to where we all ultimately want to go. Hey! Nobody in their right mind can be happy right now--that's a given. Coach Dickey has never run the offense I prefer as a college football fan--he never has and probably never will nor will he consult with any of us about this subject, either ; but we as alums/fans cannot ignore what he has done in Denton (with arguably the worst football facilities in NCAA D1-A most of the time he has been at NT); that is, what his teams have done with 4 bowl games in row that one MTSU fan just a day ago on GMG.com said his school would literally kill for and do all that with a coach like Darrell Dickey. Also during the DD era at NT, we've had more TV games (national and regional) than all the other NT coaches in the history of our school combined and that from the very beginning of when football first started at North Texas Normal. Yet just look at all the new faces on this football team, folks, and then think again (before posting more of the direct or subtle Negative Ned stuff) if all that has happened should be that much of a surprise to any of us. At any scrimmage you may have attended during 2-a-days should have been a very large clue as to tell many of us that we might be in for a different kind of season than what all the pre-season publicity on only 2 of our players suggested we might have. Many of us (including yours truly) bought into all the national pub and assumed way too much on the basis of national sportswriters about our team without looking at the 2005 Mean Green media guide that had way too many new and inexperienced faces within its covers. In many ways, we are all still trying to have happen this year vs the Tulsa's and KSU's with last year's football team. Last time I checked the 2005 NT football media guide, Hall, Awassom, Buckles, Nwiege and others are no longer a part of our football team. Another strong clue we should have picked up early on during 2-a-days was this: Many who have little or no experience have taken most all of the aforementioned NT player's places. too. We are more than just blessed to have Sir Patrick Cobbs and Super Jamario Thomas at NORTH TEXAS and the last 2 years with both of those guys have really put NT on the college football map like we've never been before in a different sort of way, but football is a team sport and that is what makes it so great with every working component of the engine needing to work in complete coordination with each other as to allow such talents as Cobbs/Thomas/Quinn and others to have success; but also part of the "Team North Texas" approach should even be us, ie, the Mean Green fans themselves. Fans at most other NCAA D1-A collegiate outposts are considered so vital to their school's football team's success that even one such school calls their fans--"the 12'th Man." At NORTH TEXAS, none of us should ever want to play the part of the "un-12'th Man" or that is, play the part of a fan that helps break the spirit of any player on our very own alma mater's football team by what we post or say on GoMeanGreen.com. GMG!

If our defense wasn't on the field 51 of the 60 minutes, wait until we have an offense that gells midway through the season, right around LT. If you haven't noticed, the scores of the first quarters against TU and KSU were 2-2, and 0-3 We can hang tough if our defense isnt on the field the whole darn game. Let's get some offense and finish 8-3! (quote by ntmeangreen11) So if we could get NCAA approval to end our games after the first quarter we'd be in good shape, eh? Seriously, we are getting clobbered on both sides of our lines. Anyone who has played any semblance of organized football knows it is usually won or lost in the trenches. Let's hope both our offensive and defensive lines show some improvement and mesh as units in the next few weeks. I believe most of our fans have forgotten that most of these guys were not lined up side by side last year. Some (in fact) were in HS or just getting out of HS as I recollect. Let me check my media guide on that. See yall at the Troy U game when both our Mean Green team and our Mean Green fans get a fresh new start. (And from reading this board the last 2 weeks, I'd say that a new start is a good idea). GMG!

Your welcome, untangel4... There is also a moral to this real life tragedy that people really do need to leave when one of these hurricanes are coming towards our shores and when they are told in advance by our goverment officials to get out of harm's way. I wish more New Orleans citizens would have listened to their fine mayor when he said well in advance of Katrina: "People, this is the one we've been dreading all our lives."

KAjunRaider, we have a whole lot of free advice and opinions on GMG.com from people who have never give a dime to the Mean Green Club (or even to the academic department of their majors) or even from some who have never bought a football season ticket. Of course, there are many on this board who have, but this board is getting a very bad reputation as a board that is expertise with "knee jerk" reactions based on short term events. KAjunRaider, this group long forgot about 4 bowl games in a row (of which many from that group were fortunate to attend and were "Super" DD supporters and his buddy in the Big Easy). IMHO, this is what NT should focus on: (1) With 4 bowl games in a row, our head football coach and his assistants should be be highest paid coaches in the SBC (and over some schools in CUSA who will never go to a bowl game in our lifetimes). Again, a prime example of NT being penny-ante along with some of its fans who have been that way forever even with all these "free" opinons on trying to can DD, ie, burn the barn down to kill the mouse? (2) Lets finish off our those 200 acres at Eagle Point Campus which (BTW) is not so much a luxury or even getting our program light years ahead of any D1-A athletic program, but rather is NT catching up with other SBC schools (for crissakes') in football related facilities. When finished, though, we do pass many, many schools in the non BCS and a handful in the BCS. (3) Lets support the Mean Green football team while their down. Lets not kick them in the groin while their down. Some on this board are showing some very weak character flaws with their unbelievable propensity for this non-stop jump on/jump off the bandwagon reactions based on short term events (like even the last 2 weeks could be called). Compare the last 2 weeks events to the last 4 years for those who have already forgotten those last 4 years. (4) Lets all go outside the box in this down time and show up for a Tuesday night nationally televised game at Fouts instead of playing Super-Duper Negative Ned forecasting how many won't be at this game. Anyone else think this young football team may begin to mesh just like that storied NT football team finally did against MTSU back in 2001 at Fouts Field? Game Days are now an event at NT no matter what the scoreboard says at the end of the football game. Let it be a time for food and fellowship among fellow like-minded NT alums/Mean Green fans if for nothing else. We don't need empty seats at Fouts Field for Troy U, folks, unless you want all those Texas & Oklahoma HS football recruits (and their coaches) who'll be watching this game to really "X" us off their list for: Poor Fan Support? KAjunRaider, DFW Metroplex sports fans want it all and many want it all for free and when they get pissed over short-term events such as 2 losses in 2 weeks, all they contribute is free (negative) opinions and threats to take away their already non-financial support to NT ; and all this while our NT assistant football coaches are still not even the highest paid in the SBC. So as an outsider, you tell me what NT fans could do to help raise assistant coaches salaries? We lost other NT assistants who helped us recruit a bowl winning team and some of them merely over a few bucks. Most of them really don't won't to leave Denton, but they are forced to because of lack of money in their home budgets. In no way am I happy with the last 2 weeks events and score differentials, but lets give this young football team (3'rd youngest in the NCAA according to the MGRN) some time to develop instead of wanting to shuck it all and start from scratch after 2 losses. What will impress NT's potential Big Donor types out there more than anything is how NT alums/fans support their football team when things are in its down cycle and didn't even Tulsa U have their own down cycle last Fall? Most of the Big Donor types out there became successful because they learned from their own businesses' down times, took the info from such a time and then solved their problems as to take their business to the top. Some of you want to give NT Chancellor Lee Jackson some fodder for him to not be impressed with NT athletics, then don't show up for the Troy U game and he will probably have you just where he wants you; that is, right in his back pockets. GMG!

I am not sure complacency is the word for it, Got5onIt, its just that the reality of this is that if DD were ever going to be fired at NT, it would have been after our ULM loss 5 years ago. NT BOR chairman Bobby Ray will be the determiner of the future of Coach Dickey (as he was in Monroe 5 years ago) and I feel Mr. Ray really wants to see what Coach Dickey can do when he is finally on an even playing field (facility-wise) with of all the schools that we feel we should be beating in OOC play on a regular basis. As a fan, I am more interested in how our NT coaches and football team respond to all the adversity they have faced on the field of play than all this other stuff on GMG.com that is not going to do anything except give a whole lot of of this forum's membership some pretty good keystroke practice.

We will need a new stadium before we can go to any substantial new level that will really mean anything long-term no matter who our head football coach is. I really feel DD wants to win OOC games as much as the next D1-A coach because I think if he has plans to move up and on, he knows he will have to start winning some of those kind of games. Until then, we should support our young Mean Green football team because they are probably hurting about all this about 10 X's more than we are. GMG!

This is true, NTEagle08, but didn't the "lightly regarded" UH Cougars almost beat UTEP in El Paso 2 weeks ago? I think many of us now believe Tulsa has a very talented and well-coached football team. I think OU's Coach Stoops would also tend to agree with that, too. There is a reason they (TU) are in CUSA and we are not, too. (DD made a similar statement such as that about 2 weeks ago that I agree with). While NT was floating around for 12 years in NCAA D1-AA purgaotry while not improving its football related facilities for an even longer period of time, Tulsa still maintained their NCAA D1-A status and the percs that come with that, and many of our NT elect forget about such things as that. We lived off the well-recruiteed Roy Bishop class all the way to a bowl win in the Big Easy and FWIW for those who even take that "W" a bit too lightly, that bowl win was over the co-champion of Conference-USA no matter how anyone felt about the quality of that Cincy' football team. For those who have forgotten, Cincy' beat a very good TCU football team that same Fall. It might be pointed out, too, that those key NT assistant coaches who helped DD recruited the "Roy Bishop" class are (for the most part) all gone and one reason for that is that UNT still seems to be a litttle bit too "penny-anti" with our assistant football coach's salaries.

I guarantee you there will be some in CUSA who will say Tulsa will win that league's football championship now. To quote meanjoe: Join the Mean Green Club Buy Season Tickets (as they are still on sale minue one game in the package).

Well put, chomp... I stand amazed at how fickle some NT fans can be. Granted, no one is singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" based on our young team's performance the last 2 weeks, but the key word is still just that..........young. Are we just not going to ever allow NT to have a young team again? Our NT offensive line is not so young but just about every other part of our team is. Our team is taking their knocks this season and that is probably what this season is going to be all about. For those who threaten to stop their support and/or attendance for the balance of this season, that ultimately only hurts those who were here before DD arriived and those who will be here once DD moves on; in other words my fine feathered Eagle friends, that would be us--the fans and the alums. Some of you get off on self-inflicted wounds? Well, just stop supporting this Mean Green football team with your financial gifts and your regular attendance because THAT is the very ammo that Chancellor Lee Jackson and the anti-athletic forces on campus need. It has nothing to do with the last 2 week's score of 2 football games. And FWIW, NT Board of Regent Chairman Bobby Ray is the main cog in the wheel at NT and it is he who has more to do with LJ or DD's future than any 10 influential NT alums. If there are intentions from anyone on this message board to actually think they can hurt DD by with-holding financial support or by ceasing to attend our remaining home football games, then you are being very naive because don't forget that it will be DD who still collects his pay checks no matter what you do (which on some of your parts I'm afraid may be more about working on an ulcer than anything else). Hey, we have very well organized Game Day activities in place at NT no matter our W/L record and no matter our oppenent. What about this concept: Lets just support the Mean Green football team now just like we would any family member who might be going thru bad times, that is, unless you enjoy kicking any of your family members in the family jewels when they are down, too. AND....Lee Jackson is too late to stop what has already begun on those 200 acres at our Eagle Point Campus. Come on, people, lets give him some credit for being an intelligent man who would merely be showing complete abject stupidity to tamper with the toy deparmtent (varsity athletics) of the 4'th largest university in the Lone Star State AND where the largest group of NT alums will ever gather at the same time and place on campus, ie, a Mean Green home football game. Anyone think he wants to get rid of all that and still hang onto his job and his scalp? GMG!

The power of positive thinking. This 2005 Mean Green football team are young, we lost some key players to grades this summer and some key players are still out with injuries. There is no one on this board who is happy with what we have seen the last 2 weeks. We just need to act like fans who support our school, win--lose--or draw. If we don't show for football games, we are ultimately only hurting ourselves and all of our long range dreams in Mean Green Country. Lets all enjoy this open week and be glad that most of us aren't 3-6 hours away from our own beds tonight because of this gal named Rita. GMG!

That is really one of the funniest posts I've read on GMG.com! Folks, we've all been here before with this program. Did anyone think it was going to last forever?

Just like its the way we as a Mean Green football program get to the next level by beating the Tulsa's, KSU's, Colorado's, etc, .......It's the way they get to the next level as coaches. IMHO, we may have had an NT assistant coach or 2 or more who may have spent way too much time in off season trying to get their next job rather than trying to recruit as many Texas state 100/Oklahoma Fab 55 recruits as DD and staff did with the Roy Bishop class. On the other side of the coin, we really do need to raise the salaries of all our NT assistant football coaches to give them security and so they can concentrate on the job at hand. FWIW, I think its already been proven that SBC wins are just not going to be enough for an SBC coach at any SBC outpost to get to the next level if that is his goal. Of course, you have some SBC coaches who may want to stick around and build something significant, too. GMG!

I would think most (99.9%?) of our NORTH TEXAS elect would not trade places with New Mexico State even if they fronted us $10 million to do so. When we finish the 200 acre Mean Green Athletic Village (and we will sooner than most think) and those 200 acres topped off with our new stadium (its on the way, folks), we will have an total intercollegiate athletic plant that few non BCS schools (& maybe even a handful of BCS schools) will ever match in most of our present NT student's life times. Patience is a virtue..............As I've been feeling with my 6'th sense the last half year which I've posted more than a few times, I really do believe....the 7'th Calvary Is On The Way at UNT! (And not the one that was at the Little Big Horn, either). GMG! ps: UNT_playmaker, we all luv' ya' man, but I'm sure glad as hell you are not in charge of FEMA.

Jeez, are the seats in that model somehow made out of, uh, Spanish tile?!?!? And wouldn't that model inspire the phrase: "Thinking inside the box?" GMG!

Of course, our Athletic Center will be in the south end zone of.........our new football stadium (of which few in the non BCS will ever possibly be able to duplicate). My 6'th sense of the last few months still tells me we are in our new football stadium by the 2008 or 2009 football season; but I am not going to be the type who says "I told you so" when it does happens! BEAT THE HELL OUTTA' KANSAS STATE! (Is Todo their mascot)?