PlummMeanGreen

Begging’ some fellow Cowboy fans pardons, but charismatic is not a word that I ever heard Tom Landry described as. Hot shot coaches come & go. Many fizzle out once the players learn their game & charade. Landry stayed a long time. Others similar did to. Coach Bill Belichick seems a grumpy old man to me, but he has more damn super bowl rings than anyone. GMG!

It seems the closer we get to what can be some really good stuff happening the more critical & pissed off at our school we become. God help us if we ever win a national championship. Many will have nauseous stomachs. Durka! Durka! Durka!

Is Fouts parking lots still available? Anyone? That’s only a 7 minute walk when I’ve used it.

Like many of you I never saw Seth Littrell as the Great Evil. Yes, there was a time I thought he might need to be replaced, but that’s somebody else’s job to do that or to re-sign him. Whoever the Mean Green coach is he (but especially the MG football team) needs full support from most because of our being on the eve of American Athletic Conference membership. We all anticipate how difficult that’s going to be. GMG!

Remember the light fixtures at the McDonald with flying worm helmets as the light globes? What an era! Just wish Fry would have had the venues we have today.

I’ve heard about this game. Wish I could have been there, but I was in high school. Imagine watching a Mean Green football team that would have 8(?) NFL draft choices on it & 3 of those which were #1 draft choices? Did I miss the true golden era of Mean Green football? I once heard Dandy Don Meredith extol the virtues of that Mean Joe Greene led football team at North Texas.

A green flashlights march in order here (until all this is rectal’fied)? You know, like the townspeople marching up to Frankenstein’s castle? GMG!

Denton & my group of non-Dentonite North Texas Exes will show at Apogee in great numbers if we can ever (consistently) give them something entertaining & impressive in the number of annual wins department. Just 3 Things: Wouldn’t hurt for us to have consecutive winning seasons, wins over schools with notable NCAA name recognition & national rankings. In my lifetime as an alum best we did was 4 “W” seasons in a row that included wins over Tennessee, Houston, SMU, Memphis, 2 close games with Texas (blowing Longhorn fans away with almost 20,000 traveling Mean Green fans in 1976; in fact, the Flying Worm & apple green unis’ never looked better). The year 1974 Fry’s team only won 2 games, but we still beat a #19 (?) ranked San Diego State Aztecs football team. It was his only under .500 season. He then took the Iowa Hawkeye job & our roller coaster ride would begin the next 40+ years with some strange non-sensible hirings across the board. (We had one Coach who I hear apologized to the Nebraska coach for us even being there). Few staffers in my 50 years as a fan would ever leave UNT directly for a P5 job & I do mean few. That alone says something about that roller coaster ride. Sometimes it even surprises me with the fan support we do have in light of that 3 ring circus of hirings we’ve seen in Denton since 1978. Note—Don’t take me wrong because there has been some good hires at UNT thru all the decades. ▶️ If thru the years we had retained most of the fans as seen in these two 1960’ish photos below, Apogee would have had to been built at a minimum of 45,000 seats, but consistent winning & ranked teams with wins over a few Big Boys would have been a requirement for that. Like it or not Denton is located in a major league sports market & fans just expect more because of it. A D-1AA classification was never going to work. •••We already know how UNT students will show up en mass for a winner, but outside those 4 winning seasons in the 70’s they (UNT students) from decades following the 70’s have not seen any consistency. That’s my take on the situation. ______________________ See y’all at the Unity Plaza Dedication Ceremony (for Abner & Leon) 1:30 pm Saturday & the Homecoming football game which follows. GO MEAN GREEN! GMG!

The Flying Worm—-In memory of our friend Richard “Rick” Scarborough Spears—the “flying worm” creator. He first created it on a cocktail napkin then showed it to Hayden Fry who liked it back in 1973. Rick told his “worm” story to many of us & the official color number of the apple green that he chose (which Fry also approved). That color number escapes me now. ••• By the way, ol’ Rick never liked the name flying worm. RIP, Rick Spears.

•••UNT Homecoming Saturday ••• Weather: Sounds like a perfect Fall Saturday. https://meangreensports.com/news/2022/10/27/football-unt-athletics-to-dedicate-new-unity-plaza-on-nov-5 _________________ Homecoming, Fouts Field, 1985 (a very nice crowd that day) Photo is Mean Green broadcast team of Bill Mercer (Rt) & UNT alum Craig Way (who is now the Radio Voice of the Texas Longhorn Network).

The TAMU game canceled because of Covid has not been rescheduled, either, best to my knowledge. I believe that game had a $1.2 million guarantee, too. Didn’t a G5 almost beat the Ags this year?

I think it was the great DKR who started the “????? has “it.” We saw “Mr It” in the last play of our game in the AlamoDome 2+ weeks ago IMO. Aune is having a fine season & who knows—maybe the entire team is jelling now with the kind of quality we’ve all waited on the last few years. (I think player evaluation for those who transferred to NT from lower divisions of the NCAA is impressive & any G5 program will have to have that along with a good Portal Transfer program.

Most all on GMG have set their own criteria for SL to be able to stay, but I still wonder what Smatresk, WBaker & the BOR’s is? If he stays he has to have a (minimum) 5 year extension because recruiting is fixen ‘ to get nasty in the American. If he only received a 2 year contract extension, UNT would get hammered in recruiting the next 2 years & beyond.

Your Sicilian Cuzzin’ Guido told several of us at KingDL1’s last Big Balls (of 🔥 fire) Tailgate Gathering that his favorite American cousin (namely you) was just—that—kind—of—guy, DG. Then we told Guido we were just damn proud to have known you all these years. 🥶

Hmmm? Let’s see if all those psychology courses I took at North Texas while Dr. Phil was even a UNT student helps me with this Trailor profile: 👍👍And El Paso🦅Eagle, good to see you picked up on his back-handed comments, too. You know the one like “They’ve been playing football a 100 years?” Ouch!😆 ••• Trailor has an ego bigger than the Lone Star State. He sounds so full of himself with bullshit that comes oozing out of his ears even probably in the middle of church.😳 Contain yourself, man! There is a time & place. ••• 18 year olds sitting in their home living rooms with mama are the perfect target for Brother🧡Love aka Coach Miracle Man! He truly is a Texas High School Coach phenomena—truly! Texas mamas all over will worship at his feet & in his presence; especially when he tells their sons how lucky 🍀 they will be to be under his miracle-making tutelage. Kinda’ all reminds me & makes me want to quote what the warden said in that prison movie••••••”IT’S A MIRACLE!” 😳 •••The utsa coach recently said “no one had ever beat… “him”…as bad as Littrell & North Texas did last year. 🤔OK, did “him” actually play in that game? I guess the cold rain that day clouded my glasses & I must have missed it. •••Coach Miracle Man’s ego could cause him to crash & self-destruct in time if he’s not careful. He will eventually wonder why in hell did he ever sign a long drawn out 10 year contract with a G5 start-up school. You see, Brother Love & His Salvation Show was really meant to be at a school with a stadium that seats at least 100,000! (30,000 fans audiences will just not be large enough). •••Most of his present players are still from his predecessor’s recruiting including their present QB who seems like he’s been in SA as long as the school’s been playing football. Oh! I get it! QB Frank wants to beat Austin Aune’s record-breaking age 29? What a competitor! Some of you on GMG need to understand that you are taking yourselves way too serious. Don’t take 50 years following all this before you know that. Full disclosure: Some of us did just that. GMG!

Who is the 2’nd string QB at UTSA? Is it supposed to rain in Birmingham this Saturday?

Not sure some of you even know who Darrell Royal was. 🤣

I think it was about 1966 when Tom Landry & his coaching staff thought Murchison & GM Tex Schramm were going to fire all of them. Surprise, surprise, surprise! Instead, Landry got a 10 year contract to keep building the Cowboy’s fortunes. In 1965, 1966 & 1967, the Texas Longhorns under Darrell Royal had what (probably) their Board of Regents didn’t think measured up to UT standard & word was there was a move to fire DKR. The next season the Horns with DKR started a college football record-breaking win streak with their new wishbone offense. In 1976, the Mean Green “almost” (I hate that word) beat DKR & Earl Campbell’s Texas Longhorns. •••That would be Royal’s last year as UT’s head football coach. He remained as the AD. Seth Littrell? TBD…. A successful 2022 season will all but guarantee a 4-5 year extension because a 2 year extension would all but destroy our recruiting the next 2 years & beyond. Heck! UTSA’s head coach already has a set speech when it comes to UNT. Word on the street is negative recruiting against North Texas is his forte’. He is a smooth operator. Go on now—“All their facilities; they’ve been playing football a 100 years; all their wealthy donors, etc, etc, etc••• OH THE HUMANITY! This below is what you get in front of the TV cameras. Same words probably “mysteriously” change 180 degrees in a blue chip recruits living room. ▶️▶️▶️ Start at 7:50 in this video. ________________________ Plaza Dedication Ceremony For Leon King & Abner Haynes During Homecoming This Saturday.

😱 whoops! Best party of the Tulane story is how fast they got into the Top 25. Didn’t they only win 2 games last year?

PARK IT OR DRIVE IT! (There is no in-between). My dreams for this program all but went south that Saturday morning in December, 1978, when while laying in bed listening to KRLD sports it was announced that Hayden Fry had taken the Iowa job. If I had known just how south all this would go the next 50 years I would have probably done like most of our other 400,000 NT Exes & just merely go dormant. In those 50 years, we who stuck around saw about 10-12 schools we were once at the same level go beep! beep! right past North Texas. Other than the 50 year roller coaster ride of mostly non-winning seasons, watching all those schools say “bye, bye” to North Texas has been the worst part of all this but amazingly— I still think UNT’s upside is still better than many who passed us by. I guess what one man (namely) Bill Snyder did at Kansas State is still my own inspiration as to what UNT can still do. Bloom where planted & just enjoy the garden we have now. Hell, we were never going to get “the next Vince Lombardi” to come to Denton anyhow. ••• See most of y’all at the Abner Haynes & Dr. Leon King Plaza Dedication this next Saturday. This is history, folks. Liberal or Conservative, it’s important that we all be at this event & show our support for those 2 State of Texas integration pioneers.

#2?😳 How in hades do we know Phil Bennett is not a recruiting asset already for crissskes? Seems to me PB played a huge part in helping to “re-recruit” K.D. Davis who last Summer looked like he was all but headed to TAMU or Ole Miss. Bennett seems to have more coaching contacts in East Texas than anyone we’ve had in awhile. We’d be lucky if he chose not to retire after this season. Did anyone see our “D” against App. State in that pathetic bowl game couple years back? That’s what Phil Bennett inherited, folks. Case closed. •This forum at times would I believe honestly cause the Pope to cuss on Easter Sunday. (No offense if you’re Catholic).

Frank Harris has the “it” factor working for him as we did a few short years ago with the great Mason Fine. Some have “it”—most do not. (How soon can Mason be voted into the NT Sports Hall of Fame)? GMG! ABNER HAYNES & DR. LEON KING PLAZA DEDICATION IS THIS COMING SATURDAY!

Our football program having been at the time in the former “rarely ranked in football” SBC & now with over a decade in CUSA it just seems we hit a particular plateau in our recruiting & development that kept us shy of having outright conference championships. For 2023 in AAC football I see us behind: •SMU •East Carolina •UTSA •Memphis & then the next level being UNT•UAB•Tulsa• South Florida•Navy•Charlotte•Rice & Temple. Like many of you I’ve watched AAC TV games throughout this Fall. Whereas the (then) SBC to CUSA move it’s easier to see today that it was mostly a lateral move. Even a novice (which I profess to be) can see that the American Athletic Conference is going to be a tougher football conference to compete in so without a doubt—if we don’t work NIL & Portal Transfers to the max we will stay in the middle tier of the AAC. We will not move up unless the overall football quality of the American is lacking. Looking back that seems the only time we ever really competed for a football championship in past conference affiliations (not counting the then throw-together SBC’s first few years). It just seems to me UNT will need a definite expansion of its NIL program & shoot to be in the American’s top 3 in that department & maybe even an increased recruiting ancillary staff to zero in on the Transfer Portal. Just my five cents. GMG!

Congratulations to our favorite college football team who wears••• 🟢M🟢E🟢A🟢N🟢🟢G🟢R🟢E🟢E🟢N GMG!