PlummMeanGreen

And is this "Don Baker" the same as Hollywood actor & North Texas graduate Joe Don Baker of Groesbeck, Texas? I knew Joe Don "Buford Pusser" Baker was a College of Business graduate who got bit by the acting bug while in Denton, but I don't recall ever hearing that he played football at NORTH TEXAS. I would bet a little money he played for the Groesbeck High School Goats, though.

Besides NT's Dylan Lineberry this pre-season, who else in Mean Green Country has had an Outland Trophy nomination? This trophy came along years after Mean Green greats (and NFL first round draft choices) Mean Joe Greene and Cedric Hardman had left Mean Green Country or they certainly would have been on it, with 1 (maybe both) probably winning the award.

If I can get a copy of it from Rick Spears aka Green Grenade II, one such favorite memorabellia for me would be a Summer of 1973 Denton Record/Chronicle photo of Coach Hayden Fry, Jim Fincher (aka Dallas Green), Rick Spears and myself at the Denton Center parking lot. Rick was Fry's promotion guy and we were all standing in front of a mobile unit Rick had very cleverly put together to get the Mean Green message out to Denton County area towns that year. Rick, how can I get a copy of that photo? Wonder if the DRC would even have it in their archives?

Of course, I totally agree, Silver... And James Mitchell had that superb performance on one of NT's several TV games last year. It was quite an exhibition from JMitchell in that game. Kevin Moore has also turned into quite the kick-off return artist as well. Still pleases most of us how we recruited him right from under U of Houston's nose. UH had him projected as one who would have been one of their top signees (if not their #1 signee) the year Kevin was a HS senior AND then would later sign with us. We are most blessed in the RB Department at NORTH TEXAS. Now that NT offensive lineman Dylan Lineberry has made the Outland Trophy nominee list is really spicing things up for NT this pre-season. We do have some talent on this team. Too bad the recruiting gurus haven't figured it out yet.

Come on now, lets go with the GMG.com spelling as in "looser". If we had more like you who just came to Fouts Field games our budget short-falls would be way much less. I used to travel more to away games back in the day, but my single income budget cannot afford giving to the Mean Green Club/buying 4 season tickets AND going to several away games per year. I have often wondered which of the 2 aforementioned our athletic department officials would prefer our constituency chose to do and I can probably guess pretty close as to what I think they would say to that.

I think of all the former Big 8 powerhouse schools the formation of the Big 12 hurt the Big Red NU Cornhuskers the most. If all will recal, NU's Tom Osborne really fought the idea of the the formation of the Big 12 and I think one can probably come up with many reasons as to why he might have. I think they really lost their exclusivity of decades past when they added 4 Texas schools 2 of whom (UT and TAMU) will always be hard for Nebraska to compete against in the next few decades.

Strangely enough, 5:00 PM seems very attractive to me as a kick-off time at Fouts Field, although I still wonder how many soccer kids/moms/dads will be wrapping up their day's events a bit too close to that 5 o'clock kick. Also, could the 5:00 pm kick-off have possibly been a, uh, mis-print?

Oh how I love collegiate message boards where you can tell someone you are going to pulverize them to a limb-less state and then tell them in the next sentence............ "Oh, I was only kiddin'!" I still think NT wins against LTU because of the time of the season our team we will be playing them (among other reasons), but heaven forbid if for some reason we didn't it would really make many of us question the direction of our Texas/Oklahoma HS-based recruiting, but I just don't think it will come to that. We have 2 RB's that the very prestigious Maxwell Award's people have placed on their check list and that is not a list to be taken with a ho-hum attitude. NT is the first school to ever have 2 RB's on this list the same year as I understand it. NORTH TEXAS also has 2 running backs who can score from anywhere on the football field at any time of the game with NCAA D1-A schools that are ranked Top 50--119 and maybe even a few inside the Top 50. Any 2005 NT opponent who thinks we strictly play paddy-cakes should see how effective the 2004 Mean Green rushing attack (w/o Patrick Cobbs) was against Big 12 Colorado AND when the Buffalos rushing defense was ranked #5 in the nation before that kick-off in Boulder. That alone would tend to bother me about the Mean Green's potent rushing offense in 2005 if I were an opponent of North Texas. NT will have a QB who will be playing with all cylinders by the time we get to Ruston. But again............I guess that's why they play the game?

And NT basketball Coach Johnny Jones was exonerated from all alleged charges by the NCAA office. I think it important that that gets pointed out, too. Good luck, LSU, with your 2005 season except-----------well, you know. We are glad to have all your other ex-employees here at NT, too, except they could probably utilize more monies that people like us on this forum could help them get by joining the Mean Green Club. They are all very talented but (I have always felt since Day One) a bit short-handed and staffed in the athletic department for which they all serve. When I want our Rome built over-night in Denton, I have to keep pinching myself to remind myself how far we've come and how little money these guys (and gals) have had to get that far. Even in the area of athletic marketing which is a prime interest area of mine (since my own career is involved in that area somewhat) I just keep having to remind myself of this and is the very reason SUMG was able to talk me into doubling my own MG Club donation this athletic year. I encourage all who have never given to the MG Club to start no matter what amount because it will truly give you that warm, fuzzy feeling doing so.

Now we didn't do too bad on the road in Lafayette on ESPN national TV last Fall, Ktulu7. We hope history repeats itself this October.

There are some from La Tech (including one of their unofficial message board's administrators) who a few short years ago went as far as to say that their school's leadership sold them out in making the decision to join the WAC knowing full-well they (ulitimately) could not afford that league. La Tech needs to do whats best for La Tech, but a few decision-makers at their school have some pretty big decisions to make in the next 2-3 years after all the monies left on the WAC table from the schools who vaulted for CUSA runs out.

I don't think NT has really ever put an intense blitz on this NT Texas license plate project except I think I recall something about it in the NORTH TEXAN alumnus magazine a few years ago. (BTW, I received that magazine at my Post Office near the UNT Health Science Center just this morning). On our alumnus numbers, I don't think officials on our campus even know how many living alums we have since we didn't start keeping such records until (believe this or not) the early 1970's For the last 10 years, though, if we count how many annual NT graduates we have and multiply that number by 10, it will give us a pretty big clue of just how many alums we have produced in that 10 year period of time. We have a helluva' whole bunch of alums is what I think we could all agree.

One question to Wright Waters (and I loosley paraphrase): Mr. Waters, why doesn't the SBC office and our 8 schools actively seek a 9'th school for full membership. Waters response: "This will take care of itself in due time." Of course, if one reads between the lines of that statement there could possbily be a few interrpretations but I'd bet we might know where WW was coming from with that response

greenfrog, there are so many deserving (like Bill Eschenbrenner) who have fallen thru the cracks and I think its like SUMG said, ie, the selection committees are from eras that many times have no idea who were playing varsity sports at our alma mater in other eras. Just curious, but do they take NTAHOF suggestions from our general UNT populace or is it just a closed-door meeting of committee members? And surely all NTAHOF committee members would be NT grads, right? Please tell me I'm correct on that one someone?

GreenBat, NT has close to 100,000 (give or take) NT Exes living in the 6 county Metroplex alone according to campus officials awhile back.

ALSO....Honor system in place here, folks, so no borrowing of any of our poster's license plate ideas BUT........ ..........What would you have the state put on your University of North Texas license plates that represents your NT spirit, ie, either your graduation year or just some very brief Mean Green spirit phrase? You are allowed a total of 6 letter/number combinations on a Texas license plate. Also, don't forget by the purchase of these NT license plates, you are contributing for our alma mater as NT gets a portion of the money we each spend on these tags. ............................................................................................................................................ ADDENDUM: Lets add "if" you like the new plates designs coming out soon, will you still consider buying the new NT license plates? AND....what would you put on your plates? Remember, just 6 combinations of letter/numbers can be used.

Denton is located between 2 very large Corp of Engineer lakes, ie, Lake Lewisville and Lake Ray Roberts. The latter is great for fishing as I understand it. Lake Lewisiville is good for recreation and is said to be the busiest lake in the Lone Star State. Be careful if you are boating on Lake Lewisville. Both lakes have nice picnic grounds. You can get maps of both lakes at many large interstate truck stops

The Sun Belt Conference office is doing its best to get a new host for the New Orleans Bowl, made certain that the game which will probably determine the SBC football champion would be: (1) ..........played early in the season probably because of our team's reputation of being slow startin' most seasons. As one said, we usually start our march to meshing as a football team our 4'th or 5'th game of the year. This year probably even moreso. (2) ..........played at Middle Tennessee (its our time to go to the Boro' anyway)--yet play there in the 2'nd game of the entire football season? If UNT goes to its 5'th NO's Bowl in a row this December, there will probably be gnashing of teeth, bare white knuckles and under-the-breath cursing from some in the SBC's offices located in New Orleans. We seem to always finish 3'rd or 4'th in the SBC recruiting round-up each February, but it seems Coach Dickey's Texas and Oklahoma HS products always finish 1'st on the football while the others win the recruiting beauty contest. I know which competition we prefer to win at NORTH TEXAS. Troy U? Read the pre-season college football magazines and most of those rags would tell you the Trojans lost a tremendous amount of talent off last year's team. Don't know who they are reloading with but when they come to Denton this Fall I guess we'll all find out. Its an ESPN national telecast from Fouts Field.

Agree about the late Walter Chapman. IMO, all 3 should have been in years ago, but I guess you can't get em' all in at one time. Hayden Fry's first nose-guard at NORTH TEXAS, ie, the great J.C. Garrett, should be in the NT Athletic Hall of Fame one day, too. He seems to have fallen thru the cracks like so many. J.C. was on Coach Fry's 1'st NT football team that finished first in the Missouri Valley Conference only in his first year as coach in Denton, circa 1973. On that team was a pretty good little receiver named David Kervin who should get NTAHOF consideration, too--gutsy little receiver as some of you might recall. What about a place in the NTAHOF for athletic trainers? Present Denton ISD Superintendent and NT grad Dr. Ray Braswell was ever present as a very good football trainer during the mid-1970's. Seems to be doing a good job in Denton as its ISD's head honcho. Maybe Dr. Braswell can give us some tips on building a new football stadium? Too bad the old Mo' Valley Conference didn't have a bowl tie-in back in 1973 because if it would have, Fry's first team at NT would have been in that bowl.

That can make the difference of averaging 30K per home game vs 15K. This program is ready for prime time and we have 6 million North Texans to draw from to get that prime time so lets just do it.

So very original for a school that I think around 1975 discovered they could actually spend monies from the Permenant University Fund (which had "only" been available to the Ags since an 1870's Texas legislature made it available)! Just funnin' with that but it seemed it was about that part of that decade that their significant enrollment growth really started to take off AND they started building some very nice campus facilities. I think Rudder Tower was built in the early 70's as I recall. ........................................................................................................ How 'bout....... "Fouts Coming Out Green Bash/ TU" ? (Could be used twice this Fall against both TU's we play, eh)? ........................................................................................................ Of course, no school has a corner on the market on large groups inside a stadium wearing the same color t-shirt. We just need a name for this "worst idea yet for a promo" I suppose. I think one could contact some specialty marketing firms and get 5,000 t-shirts the same color for less than $2. You don't need expensive Grade A quality t-shirts for a one time promotion IMHO, but it's already July 1'st and football season begins in 8 weeks, so this promo is not likely to happen this season and probably would not have if it were 18 weeks from kick-off. This idea for it to really work would take some hustling. I wish some student group who is effecitve in "getting the job done" with such projects would take the ball and run with this. "Fouts Coming Out Green Bash/TU" ? Whadda' yall think? And to be worn at both TU (TulsaU & TroyU) games this Fall? OR......take our opponent's name out and use it as an annual 1'st home game emphasis for all our new 1'st year NT students (6,000 frosh and transfers this Fall?) to wear this shirt. Who know, maybe even hand out the t-shirt at Frosh Orientation each Summer? Wearing the same color t-shirt en masse sort of a way to build NT student fans comraderie for a new NT students first weeks on our campus? I know, one of the worst ideas yet!

Uh...........Huh?!?!?!? Maybe its Fresno State and Boise State who are a step up, but if they left the WAC, then we would have Doo-WAC-A-Doo-WAC-A-Doo-Doo-ed on ourselves had we elected for the WAC. I think NMSU is (undertandably) glad to be in the WAC because of their location, but if the WAC fell apart, how long would it take for their school's fine president to call SBC Commissioner Wright Waters? At present, the WAC has about as many in the Bottom 20 as the Sun Belt. It's basically FSU and Boise who are the big difference-makers in all this, but these days with the stability of non BCS leagues who would take any chances in joining league so far-flung? If NORTH TEXAS had had our new Mean Green Athletic Village completed (with new stadium) during the last conference shake-ups, I don't think CUSA Commish' Banosky allows SMU to even hint of black-balling us. Our out-of-date facilities seemed to have always kept up barefoot and pregnant (so to speak). BUILD IT!

Why would any of us be so surprised about this? Seems like we should have done more pre-planning before we had the official unveiling of all this branding business. I am still curious to see if our Mean Green football team's new green is anywhere close to the Green Brigade marching band uniforms new green. I hope we are all pleasantly surprised on that. Still.......really much more good than negative going on in Mean Green Country and one only has to look out at those 200 acres of prime interstate real estate located between the 2 Texas interstates adjacent to our campus to remind one's self of that.

And yes to your last question!

No smack mean't to either school, but Tulsa is the game I really fear the most. Seems we've always had trouble putting the Golden Hurricane away in the past; of course, its a different era now, the players how have face guards on their helmets.