DJstars21

haha I don't think he's working on anything but a hearty serving of Xmas leftovers!

Initially attendance will probably spike, because of the new conference appeal. When the new car smell is gone, they'll be back to their typical attendance...

Is that sarcasm? You're aware JJ isn"t allowed to run on the court and score points himself, right?

I can go with that.. Benz rides like a tank, holds a straight line on its own, rarely needs readjusting. BMW is much more responsive, so it wiggles more on the road. Porsche holds a straight line without sacrificing responsiveness, but they get you on the creature comforts that come standard with Merc, and Beamer. I maintain Porsche is a race car in street clothing, perfect blend of the the aforementioned two..

I've owned both Beamer and Benz. IMO Benz is all status symbol, BMW is far superior when it comes to ride quality. My first car in high school was a Merc., then my first car in college was a Beamer. Shortly thereafter I purchased my first car(with my own money), a Porsche. To each his own Lifer... P.S. There is no substitute for Porsche. No others come close, Fact!

You sound jaded. You definitely don't speak for me or UNT.

So it's safe to assume they are making an announcement about a plan,to make another announcement in the future about actual progress. Instead of making an announcement about something that has already been achieved??

Attendance??

To an extent I agree with rj.. Winning will solve some problems, but not all. Winning will bring some students and alum, but we need more than that to pack Apogee. Casual fans have never heard of the teams we play in the Belt, they have no athletic history or academic prestige, so beating them really does zip for UNT's image. Notoriety brings fans, people will go see teams that are known, for any reason. Rice is known academically, teams like SMU are known because of their athletic history, Marshall is known.. Even though these teams arn't good they are known by most. We draw the city of Denton by beating these known teams and generating exposure. When you watch espn and see UNT coverage, you will be encouraged to see UNT play because were relevant. Attendance to the games is about more than just football, its perception of our school. Beating known schools is like saying our school is better than yours, this makes non-sports fans associated with UNT attend the games. Thats how we build the UNT brand.. Known teams+winning+media coverage=Notoriety=>Sell outs. A Belt team becoming ranked(or any ranked team), followed by us beating them would do more for attendance then us going 10-2 in the belt. Winning the Belt, imo, will not solve our attendance issues. Knowone cares who wins the Sunbelt...

Imo, Chris Jones is a real player. My only concern is he may play more like Iverson than say, Chris Paul or J Kidd. Great individual stats, not so great record. Either way I am/will be referring to him as CJ5 from here on, he's an outstanding 1 guard can't wait to see him set loose again. I am not a fan of Jordan Williams at this point. There is no excuse for getting what 3 fouls in the last 8-10 mins of a game when your team is down, not to mention his other mistakes.. He's gotta step it up. Considering or fg%, sloppy passing, and weak ball control this was a damn close game. Throw T Mitch in the mix and we are dangerous, I can already invision him and CJ5 hooking up all game long. This team will be a beast, you can bet the farm on that!

Two weeks ago when we got hammered by A State I made some knee jerk statements regarding the guys on the team and the effort being shown. As a result I received some much deserved -1's. I stand corrected and humbled! These guys really went to work and left it all out there on the field this week! I hope this is the start of something great to come! GREEN NATION STRONG!

I know this was a second rate team we played, but I'm feeling good about the squad! Can't wait for T Mitch to hit the line up! GMG!

You're right I did not see the explanation but it does not change my point. There are several different ranking systems; Carnagie, AAU, etc. AAU is the best with only about 60 schools, second would be Carnagie. Carnagie has three classifications for large national research Universities. RU/VH being the best, RU/H being second and then DRU. UNT is RU/H along with SMU and several other familiar universities. Oakland university is ranked DRU.. http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/descriptions/basic.php As far as US News goes, it is concidered the least reliable of all. Reason being, outside of the top 25 or so it's very difficult to ascertain an accurate numerical ranking. Many factors outside of academics and overall education quality play a large role in their rankings. So they should be taken with a grain of salt. @plumm: The $400mm endowment req. is only 1 of about 6 different reqs. To obtain tier 1 a University need only satisfy 4, any 4 of the 6 to be clear.

If this is true, I'm confused. I think one thing we can all agree on is that we are clearly an excellent candidate for realignment. Not being mentioned as a candidate makes no sense, maybe it is a leadership thing..

That is incorrect. UNT is currentlty ranked tier 2 by US News. UNT is actually close enough to obtaining tier 1 status that it could become a reality within the next few years or sooner. Not to mention there are several rankings and US News is one of the least regarded. I would'nt worry about the Golden Grizzlies. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/unt-3594

Alright, Im confused. I was under the impression being in a non-aq league was and has always been the lower class? Please explain how the word "never" seemed appropriate to you? How many times have conference shake ups takin place in the past? What makes this one so unique?

That my friend, is a great question. These conferences and universities are for all intents and purposes a business. The rock on which a business stands is its market share. Con U and MWC have lost their biggest assets. These programs are in essence a product, and their geographic location is their market share. For a business to remain competitve in a monopolistic market such as FBS football it must maintain market power or your long run profits will eventually be driven to zero and you will be pushed out. CUSA/MWC are merging to increase their market power in an attempt to make up for their losses. There are only 3 DFW market teams, they've lost SMU and TCU to competing cons. Given the AQ staus those schools now have there are no other legit programs available to aquire that would be competitive against those two for the DFW market. The only way MWC/CUSA regains overall market share is in numbers. UNT is the only logical choice for them to re-aquire a portion of the share they lost in DFW. AQ is a better product with a higher demand, the only way to compete is to aquire small portions of more markets(cheaper product-higher supply). Having said that, all the other AQ conferences have potentially lost whatever portion of the DFW market they had as well because other AQ conferences aquired SMU and TCU. This makes UNT an asset, a real asset. The only way for any of the other conferences (AQ and non) to aquire market power in DFW is through UNT. These are the most basic business principles. So, Im not totally sold on moving to another non-aq just yet, and I'm betting the UNT admin. isn't convinced either. Hence their silence...

First, thanks for your opinion but unless you are on the board at one of these conferences your so called "word" means d*&^%. I'm thinking this merger actually helps our chances of getting the invite. Think about it, seperate both conferences are weak having lost their powerhouse programs so sos is at a minimum leaving no chance to compete for AQ status. Logic says both cons top priority would be adding strong competitive/well known programs to replace the ones they lost and break even. Considering there options that's a possibility but not probable, leaving both cons vulnerable in the near future. So, they merge. In doing so they combine their best programs, maximizing their value and competitive edge. Since they retain their value for the most part in the merger, they can now afford to add programs that are less competitive but have the potential to generate significant revenue and add value to the other programs in the conference, further increasing overall confrence value. Now, UNT is a gold mine, we allow them to recoop the DFW market(revenue), and provide the other schools with a direct path to DFW recruiting (increasing talent strength of every program in the conference). Smu used to provide these things, now SMU is a competitor with AQ status. Not to mention the Sunbelt was doing a pretty good job recruiting DFW when CON/MWC had their primary programs. Business wise UNT is a win/win for the merged conference, speaking in terms of overall conference value. They really have nothing to lose by adding us and everything to gain. I'm hoping the merger stays.

This. Even harder to deal with would be seeing other Sunbelt teams somehow moving up. I'm curious, the purpose of the Con U/MWC merger would be an AQ bid right? If there was any chance of that being possible clearly all the teams that abandoned ship would have been made aware of it. If AQ was a legit possibility, what would be their motivation to head east? Considering they did bail, I don't see the merger receiving that AQ bid so why complicate things and merge anyway? Do they plan on pooling their football revenue? T.V. rights? If we could have added a little more mean to our green this season we would've been a lock.

I'd like to see new players and a new season.

Good job retracting your statement. I have a pretty unbiased opinion seeing as most of my family attended SMU. I chose UNT because of my program of study, and my decision turned out wise professionally. Those rankings you posted are exceptionally skewed, one had SMU ranked higher than UT which is a major falsehood. No college rankings really hold sand nationally except for 1, that’s the AAU classification. I’m going to quote a previous poster for clarification. “AAU: An organization of research universities focused on academic research. The AAU is made up of 59 universities in the US, only 34 of which are public and 2 universities are in Canada. In 2004, AAU members accounted for 58% of U.S. universities' research grants and contract income and 52% of all doctorates awarded in the United States. Since 1999, 43% of all Nobel Prize winners and 74% of winners at US institutions have been affiliated with an AAU university. The AAU acts as a lobbyist for its members for research funding for its members in Washington, D.C. AAU membership is by invitation only, which requires a three-fourths vote by the current 61 members. Invitations are considered periodically, based in part on an assessment of the breadth and quality of university programs of research and graduate education, as well as undergraduate education. Georgia Tech was the most recent member added in 2010. Before that Texas A&M and Stony Brook were the previous schools added back in 2001. The University of Nebraska was voted out this year and Syracuse withdrew prior to their impending dismissal, both due to a drop in research spending. The only AAU members in Texas are UT Austin, Texas A&M and Rice.” There are only 3 true tier 1 institutions in Texas; UT, Rice, and A&M. Neither UNT nor SMU are one of them. Moral of the story, pick your college based on your professional aspirations and the program geared toward them.

Some of your points make sense, but why are you so angry man?

That my friend, I must agree with. In my defense I wrote that at around 2:30 A.M. after a long night celebrating the Rangers game. I must’ve forgotten I was writing a dissertation, forgive me! I’ll assume it was legible enough to get the point across!

Alright, I typically avoid posting in threads regarding UNT/SMU due to a minor conflict of interest, but I could'nt resist. My mother is a contributing alumni at SMU and my brother played basketball there as well. I decided on UNT (on my mothers advice) because unlike most I went to the school with the best program for my professional field. My goal was to work for one of the big 4 acct. firms(acheived, mother knows best!), and ironically enough UNT has one of the better acct/auditing programs in the country. Having said that, outside of the state of Texas UNT and SMU are essentially irrelavent. As far as the national recognition game goes its a short list in Texas.. 1.)UT 2.)Rice 3.)A&M It's comical some of the statements that a select pool of SMU grads./students make, those poor souls are sadly disillustioned. If your rich, smart and from Dallas; your ass better be at UT. Elitist attitudes are strictly reserved for the three aforementioned institutions of higher learning. Mature SMU alums understand these points, trust me. As far as conference realignment goes, UNT will get an invite from a larger conference winning or losing; Dallas is a strong market not to be overlooked. I wish the best for both SMU and UNT, both programs are doing great things. Should be interesting when we meet on the schedule.