PlummMeanGreen

..out of 127 NCAA FBS Quarterbacks. Criteria? https://www.pff.com/news/college-football-ranking-all-127-fbs-quarterback-situations-ahead-of-cfb-week-12

I have a soft spot in my heart for Rice U. First college football game I attended as a 9 yo kid was at Rice Stadium. It was Jess Neely’s Rice Owls vs John Bridger’s Baylor Bears. I can still smell the mixture of pipe & cigar smoke in that stadium. That aroma was common in college football stadiums of that era. ••• Baylor QB Don Trull had a good game tossing the ball to All American Lawrence Elkins in that game. I think my home county (Brazoria) hero QB King Hill of Brazosport HS had already graduated from Rice U. ••• I’ll be 70 next week so I seem to be looking back moreso than forward. Please forgive.😊 GMG!

Cooley, what about the great Fred Mitchell & the great Melvin Davis? They were on that team, too. GMG!

Bump!

One has to consider the era North Texas was in during the 1970’s under Hayden Fry. I remember well as a young Cougar fan UH’s success as an Independent. That time for the Coogs was a catapult toward their eventual invitation into the SWC. UH hardly came into that league hat in hand with a winning football program & basketball which was 2’nd to none in Texas & once in the SWC it raised the basketball quality for that entire conference. (Remember when college basketball in Texas was what you did between Spring & Fall football)? 😊 I always believed Fry patterned our going Independent because of the success it had produced for UH. I think he saw what UH had accomplished was a good model for UNT as far as preparing to get into a better conference. •••In Fry’s 6 years in Denton I always thought for 5 1/2 years he stayed unpacked & really wanted to build something at UNT. As a former UH fan from the Houston area, I had no problem with UNT’s entire athletic program copy-catting what the Cougars had done, but then 1980 & NCAA reclassification took place. NCAA I-AA was where we belonged budget-wise, but the perception or low impression it created for our fan base we still suffer today—an entire generation later & UNT being located in a major league sports market made it worse. This gets old talking about it, but with our location & now our venues which would (IMHO) match a few Power 5 schools; anyway, that puts us on a good road but our recruiting has to be good annually for us to be competitive & win CUSA football championships & thus—be a Top 25 football program. GMG!

A good time was had by all us Mean Green fans this particular night at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum on the TCU campus. •••George Riba of WFAA Channel 8 doing the reporting. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1128480/m1/

The SEC is shut down this weekend so...how do we play this game? GMG!

Best crowd during the Fry era happened 2 weeks after we beat the Tennessee Vols against Cal-Poly Pomona. 19,000 & some change. A fellow alum told me advance sales for the Florida State game at Fouts indicated it would be SRO & then Texas got hit with a snow blizzard. (That was also Bobby Bowden’s first season as the Seminoles HFC). Yes, it was a different era, but Game Days at Apogee Stadium are so much more entertaining than they ever were at Fouts Field—except (maybe) when Fouts Field hosted a Band Day.🙄 GMG!

San Diego State was 19’th ranked (or tied for 19’th) & (you’re right) they were the last NCAA D1-A ranked team we beat, letsgiveacheer. GreenGrenade aka the late Rick Spears told me the HFC of the Aztecs kicked the visitors locker room water cooler off the wall post-game & AD Hayden Fry sent him a bill for damages. GMG!

* This was a thread from 2017 that present UNT students, new alums & new member additions to GMG.com might find interesting if not informative.

Truth be told, I’ve been a secret admirer of La Tech’s football program for years. Even in the 70’s when they were bragging how much better they were than our favorite schools football team; that is, until Hayden Fry took his team down to Ruston & beat those Dawgs’ 41 to 7? Then a few years later some of us saw UNT beat the Bulldogs in a closer game at Louisiana’s Fair Park Stadium In Shreveport. (The W/L series has been close, but they probably lead it now by a game or 2). ••• I told Harry 10 years ago that we should have hired their best recruiter, but what do alums know about such things? ⚔️🦅⚔️ GMG!

Then hire the SBC Commissioner? He’d probably like to live in the 7 million-strong populated North Texas Metroplex. Trade mint juleps for Texas BBQ? No contest!🙄 GMG!

Yet at the G5 level can’t these conference things change dramatically from year to year? Wasn’t that long ago when CUSA was the toast of the town with several schools with bowl wins in one or 2 seasons. And Top 25? Come on now, Slippery Rock U could make this abbreviated covid 19 football seasons Top 25. GMG!

So have most of us.🙄

UNT recruiters needs to plant a flag in Louisiana (as LaTech has done in Texas) & recruit the hell out of the Pelican State. 2 or 3 key recruits from there could take us over the top & keep us competitive annually in CUSA. GMG!

••• We’ve not seen much “live” college football this Fall during the Chinese pandemic & there’s no guarantee what the balance of our season will be now so.........maybe good Mean Green football memories from these videos will help negate negative ones that can crop up during this COVID-19 idleness? •••The year was 2017 & the Mean Green traveled to Ruston to be La Tech’s opponent at their Homecoming game. GMG!

Thanks a jillion for those 2 videos, UNT 90 Grad!👏👏 Didn’t one of Denton’s high schools have a play-off game in Denton the same time as our NMSU game? #12 Andrew Smith...RIP GMG!

Silver, Tolar was popular with the locals because he was so doggone’ small, but he could most always get the 1 or 2 yards he’d need. Oiler games in old Jeppesen (later Robertson) Stadium were fun to go to as a kid. Hoyle Granger (pron. “gron’jay as I’m sure you’d recall) would take Tolar’s place. 🤔 W. Cherry? Before my time, but of course you are so much older than, uh, me.🙄 GMG!

I found this video vignette of Booger Kennedy & the Mean Green “D” shaking up the NMSU QB into a fumble. ••• The Aggies had 2 very good QB’s all season long & went with the one who had the hot hand. ❇️ The Mean Green won this game & would go to the New Orleans Bowl. GMG!

I was 10 when the AFL began, “J.” Bud Adams & the Houston Oilers.....The team I followed being from the H-Town area had on jersey last names like: •(George) Blanda•(Billy) Cannon•(Charley) Tolar• (Don) Floyd•(Charley) Hennigan•(Scott)Appleton•(Sid)Blanks• (Bob)Talamini, etc. My take on names on the backs of jerseys is mostly when the MG are on TV that viewers can more readily ID our players. GMG!

You da’ man, NorthTexasSportsNetwork! 👍👍 If I can find them I have all the DVD’s from that era & will send them to whoever can put the highlights of the 2000’s on YouTube for all to see “the bowl years” at North Texas. •••Another game highlight that could possibly be put on YouTube would be when Super Jamario Thomas ran for over 200 yards against the Big 8 Colorado Buffalos. Back To 2001 MTSU Game: I’d given up on the concept of “crowd noise” in ol’ Fouts Field until that MTSU game in 2001 & then the bowl-deciding game vs the NMSU Aggies. •••One fellow alum told me at half time of the MTSU game that a UNT official (RV?) had a “come to Jesus” meeting with Dickey & told him “Man, open it up—what do you have to lose”— so DD did. (Wasn’t it post-ULM game the week before that DD had actually been fired on the bus trip back to Denton & then rehired)? GMG!

Don McGee was a favorite of many Mean Green fans. GMG!

I all but guarantee all would love to see the highlights of the UNT vs New Mexico State Aggies game at Fouts Field in the most exciting game I can ever remember watching in that stadium. ❇️The winner would go to the New Orleans Bowl. ❇️ That game was like a see-saw as it changed leads several times. ❇️ Booger Kennedy had a field day & brought the large Fouts Field crowd to its feet. •••The whole MG “D” created the same sensation throughout the game. ❇️That was the game Mean Green fans rushed out of the stands & tore down the south end zone goal post at •venerable Fouts Field. Anyone still have that photo? •Venerable was a favorite adjective of Bill Mercer’s back in the day. ❇️❇️GMG!❇️❇️

With UNT football games being regularly televised, I think our players last names on their jerseys would be a good thing.

Correction: UNT 24–-Cincinnati 19 ❇️ Many Mean Green fans & familiar faces celebrate on Bourbon Street in the video. ❇️Thousands of other Mean Green fans fly or drive into New Orleans in big anticipation of a Mean Green win. ❇️ The Green Brigade Marching Band put on a great half time show. ❇️ Late UNT President Dr. Pohl is presented a birthday cake the night before the game. ❇️ RB’s Kevin Galbraith & (now UNT RB Coach) Patrick Cobbs both had great games versus the Bearcats of Cincinnati—a former Missouri Valley Conference-mate of UNT’s. •••(How many of you saw Cincy’ Bearcats Oscar Robertson in the UNT Bahnsen Gym back in the day)? GMG!