GrayEagle

Henry is undoubtedly one of the best players in the state and I would love to have him. But, I don't understand how Rivals can be so wrong. Their information comes either from the player or his coach. Who's giving the false information? Or does Rivals just make this up? What I can hope for is that once Henry plays with and gets to know his new teammate then he might be sold on continuing that relationship in college. There would have to be something lucky about having the #7 and #11 players from the same team in the same class.

Maybe he just read gomeangreen.com for his information. All of those names, including Frazier, have been mentioned at some time.

Yep, Todd had name ID in this area alright. The difference is that the other "name" candidates earned their reputation at the FBS level. There's no guarantee that they can repeat it here but I like the odds much better.

Jordan Williams...you bet your boots. Jarion Henry??? Jarion Henry lists 13 universities where he has medium interest on Rivals. Baylor, SMU, Texas and UTEP are the only Texas schools that he lists. It appears that he has no love for us and I have no love for the four listed.

I was fortunate enough to have several sessions where I could listen (mostly) and talk to Bill. He may be the most entertaining conversationalist that I've ever heard. I never tired of Blakeley sayings or stories. Another of my favorite Blakeley mannerisms was to see him tilt his head back and grab his nose as if to say "that call stinks". Yet, I can't recall his getting a technical for any of his antics. He remembered nearly everyone that he ever met and always had a kind word. Even if he told a crazy story about some of his players you could tell that he still loved them. He never condemned them because he was crazy himself. He was every kind adjective that you can think of...kind, thoughtful, entertaining, loyal, cheerful and reverent. I will deeply miss you, coach.

Frankly, the WAC should take all three football-playing schools if they get the opportunity. As long as Hawaii's membership is tenuous they need at least nine members.

What's that?

Now that's a list. There are at least a dozen outstanding coordinators that I would salivate for in most years. There are too many good candidates to interview them all. Maybe that's why RV needs a consulting firm to narrow the list.

Where did T-Mac get McCamey's name? And why?

Or Old Crow which could all use a bottle of.

All of the coaches on meangreenbob's list except Major Applewhite would be acceptable to me. There are a few others who I believe could do the job as well but I'm afraid there's little likelihood of getting them. Initially, I didn't have a #1. Of the five, I have doubts that Mike Leach would be a serious candidate. I just don't think that we are high-profile enough for him. As for Bower, I'd have to be convinced that he has the fire in his belly to continue coaching. Jim Leavitt would be an excellent choice but the fact that he could be distracted by his lawsuit and the negative publicity that surrounds it gives me cause for alarm. If he could get that behind him he just might do the best job of any of the candidates. Terry Bowden has been, and is, an excellent coach. My only concern with him is that he has only coached within the state of Alabama and to my knowledge has never recruited Texas. That gets me to my #1...Dennis Franchione. Coach Fran has produced winners everywhere that he has been. The only stop where he had an overall losing record was New Mexico (3 games under .500). When he went there the Lobos were dismal. They had three winning seasons in the last twenty). In the six seasons that he was there he had three winning seasons. He took them to a bowl for the first time in 35 years. A possible plus that I can't erase from my mind is that he might be able to lure his son, Brad, to join him as his DC. Brad has coached NJCAA Blinn College to a national championship. Another plus is that Franchione is better known in Texas (except for perhaps Leach) and has done an excellent job recruiting in this state. A major consideration is who can best fill the new stadium. Who will draw the casual fan to the new green palace? Franchione, Leach and Bowden all have name identification around these parts. Leavitt is a Texan by birth and a Floridian by upbringing. That should eventually give him good standing in recruiting both states. Bower would have the least name identification but he may be more talented at finding raw talent because he had to at USM. While Coach Fran is now my favorite, I'd be happy with any of the above five and if somehow Tommy Bowden decides to unretire I'd be happy with him as well. The rest are, well, who we don't want as a head coach.

I do think that this is a step forward for the conference. We don't do it in football so why should we in basketball? Playing in your same classification can improve both attendance and RPI and thus the seeding in the NCAA Tournament. I'm too old to drive a 100 mile trip, half of it through rush hour traffic to see us beat Langston or Henderson State. But for Division 1 teams within a 500 mile or so radius who come to Denton I will make a concerted effort. But, unless you can get Denton County residents and most of all students involved, the 5,000 attendance average is going to be hard to do. It's not impossible. It was done under Blakeley who did not have the MVC for glamour home games. This brings me another gripe with Division 1 basketball. It is simply too big. If we can divide football then why not basketball? We have Division 1 teams whose home arenas are smaller than many Texas high school gyms. I haven't studied how it could best be divided but I'd like to see two 160 team divisions with 16 conferences in each. Sorry, I needed to get that off of my chest.

North Texas comes much closer to mirroring Boise State than it does Colorado. Boise State is a member of a non-AQ conference; Colorado has long been in the upper hierarchy of college football. The Broncos has had the nation's top conference winning streak (as has North Texas). Both have stadium turf which matches their school colors. Boise and North Texas have been in the same conference. There are no exact matches among universities in the FBS but there are far more similarities between Boise State and North Texas at this juncture than there are between Boise State and Colorado.

I'd rather hire Muffin.

Dan Hawkins would certainly be a candidate were he available. His overall FBS record before this season was 69-44 in spite of the bad years at Colorado. In fact, Boise State more mirrors our profile so I could cut him some slack if he was less than successful at the BCS school. However, since our selection should take place in a few weeks and he won't likely be shown the door until the end of the season, I think that the idea is moot.

Not to besmirch anyone who has been a successful head coach below the FBS level but we are in too deep and have to much at stake to take a chance on those as long as there are some outstanding former FBS coaches available. After six disastrous losing seasons I'm afraid that Rick V would be run out of town on a rail if a lower ranked coach or coordinator were hired and failed; and I'd likely lead the charge.

I'd wager heavily that SMU counts tickets sold, not the number actually there. In the latest report to the DOE they show football revenue of $11.1M compared to our $4.4M. Someone is buying large blocs of tickets so that their attendance is never embarassing. When you have money you can buy your way into almost anything.

I'd say no to Nix also. If we were coming off of a few decent seasons then I think that he'd be worth the gamble but with as few wins as we've had in the last six years I believe that we have to nail this one. We know that he'd be a good coordinator but he needs head coaching experience for this particular opening.

I simply pointed out four areas where I thought that Todd Dodge did a credible job. Winning is the main thing and it cost Dodge his job because he couldn't do it. But, there were other areas of building a winning program where he did quite well. Did you see any signs of an undercurrent to build a stadium before Dodge complained that he had been "promised" a new stadium before he signed on? It was my observation that nothing happened before that statement. I think that Flyer probably had more to do with the success of getting the students to agree to the athletic fee than any other individual so maybe he can clarify the timeline. I felt that he had a hard time getting higher caliber recruits with the albatross known as Fouts Field. Yes, those guilty of using drugs came from both the holdovers and Dodge's recruits. In fact, the only one who left because he wouldn't submit to a drug test was one of Dodge's recruits. The fact is drug usage is a cancer that can destroy a team and it had to be cleaned up first before a program can become successful. I don't think that there's any argument that Dodge cleaned up the APR during his time here. It's another area that continually affects the quality and depth of the squad because it makes it even harder to work with five less scholarships a year. The attendance was purely speculation on my part. Tailgating may have played a part in keeping the attendance up but not that much in my opinion. There was tailgating during the Dickey years and attendance continued to drop when the quality of the team dropped. If you believed this board there were a lot that stayed in the tailgate area and never entered the stadium, yet the attendance held steady at 18,000+. I think that it was in part because Todd did not alienate the fans and partly because we felt that he was close to turning the corner (which he never did). "Good Hire" is subjective. If he had won but had an underlying drug culture that wouldn't go to class and continued to play in a crappy stadium would you say that was a good hire?

Dodge was a good hire in that 1) we have a fine new stadium under construction, 2) we have the full complement of scholarships in football, 3) we no longer have a drug problem and 4) he had love and respect for the University of North Texas. Had he not pushed for the stadium I don't think that we would have it today. We lost 15 scholarships during the first three years of his tenure and now academics is a plus. He was able to get the drug problem corrected (allegedly more than 20 users) without having to identify any abusers. I believe that his love and respect for North Texas helped keep attendance up in spite of perhaps the worst won/loss record in FBS history.

I didn't read that into it as a Freudian slip but guess what? Both Bower and Franchione last coached in 2007, so each has been out of coaching the same amount of time. I've heard from several sources that Bower is content to stay in southern Mississippi and not uproot his wife's successful business. Parties seem to think that he's through with coaching. I don't know the amount of his annuity and if it's adequate so that he can remain retired. He has yet to apply at any of the several openings since his last season.

Tommy has been mentioned. It's Bobby that should not have been mentioned. He's retired and from what I hear plans to stay that way. Forget that he didn't have a single losing season at Clemson, when you can take a Tulane team that had won five games in the previous three seasons and go 7-4 and then a perfect 12-0 he should get more than just mentioned.

In light of what TFLF has uncovered I think that it would behoove us all to forget our passion for Jim Leavitt as head football coach at North Texas. His lawyer's persistence may forever damage Leavitt's ability to get another FBS coaching job. As long as the litigation is pending it just doesn't seem wise to go down that road. BTW, good job of researching the controversy Fake Lonnie.

According to a blurb in the DMN this morning, Leach said that he hasn't been contacted by North Texas. Although he didn't come right out and say it one would get the impression that he's not interested. He was quoted as saying something to the effect that at some point he would return to coaching for the right opportunity. I don't think that we are that opportunity.

He applied at San Diego State and UNLV. I don't know what they were offering but it could be in the ballpark of what we may have to offer. Maybe he'd take less if we could double his coordinators' salaries. Thank you, students. We couldn't consider this without the athletics fee.