Mike Jackson

And there is the problem "people" who don't know college football. Most Mean Green fans if they are engaged at all are NFL fans first and college fans second. Winning 9 games in the weak CUSA conference (only 8 against FBS competition) only means you aren't a bad coach because we don't/can money/prestige whip coaching assistants and recruits to come here. Now programs like Rice, UL, ULM, Texas State or Arkansas State, 9 wins with their serious disadvantages means you are a good coach. A guy like Rhule would be great here because minimally he is Seth's offensive mind peer (probably better) and he makes our program look like it is legitimately trying like when we hired Mac. Had we not hired someone like Mac and they had the one great year then the flame out, I doubt an up-and-comer like Seth was would have been anxious to replace him. Do I want Rhule at significantly higher pay than Seth-NO. But I think it is an no brainer (if the conditions I mentioned earlier are met)to hire him at our going pay rate for AAC coaches.

There is no comparison. And we seem to be too worried about coaches leaving early to actually hire a coach that can win something significant here. Getting your coach hired away because he is successful here is a problem you want to deal with. Actually makes the program money when he get bought out and coaches with rising stock want to come replace him. My main concerns with any former NFL coach are can he get good coaches familiar with recruiting our state, can he build relationships with DFW area highschool head coaches, and if those things are true; can we promote/retain one of his assistants when he gets hired away.

I hope you’re right but the fact that many are understandably skeptical that 6 loses gets Seth fired tells you everything you need to know about our Apogee attendance issues. As diehard as I am, I won’t be back to Apogee if Seth manages to go 6-6 get a bowl win and extension. And under those conditions I wouldn’t bet anything significant on Seth being fired after a bowl win and certainly not before if they are eligible.

Oh, settle down. The only thing that was free in this country was student athlete labor. A scholarship wasn’t a bad deal for student athletes especially football with it short season and games almost always on the weekends. It has always been a bad deal for basketball players. Most these students have such demanding schedules that STEM degrees are virtually impossible to keep up in. Anytime coaches can get lucky and set for life by getting one big contract, I can’t fault a student athletes being free agents.

That sounds familiar were you at Apogee for the last game? Let me guess, you were one of the hundreds disguised a bench? Getting early trial runs for Halloween done? Well that beta test passed with flying colors. However with so many people using that costume for Halloween it takes the novelty away . 🤷🏽‍♂️

This program tries half ass and some praise it for half ass "achievements". 7 years no trophies of ANY kind unless CUSA wants to retroactively give trophies for division titles. (A CUSA conference so prestigious we can't wait to upgrade to a better G5 conference that has vacancies because their best teams wanted to leave. 😂). Wow, with this mentality I understand why leadership chose to drop the program down to FCS. You know that is below 0.500 against FBS competition any year we schedule a home visit from a FCS school? If you are program in the bottom of revenue generation and spending in your conference 6-6 is legitimate. Anytime you go to a bowl and you not are even 2nd in your division of a G5 conference you don't deserve a bowl game with a 6-6 record.

I am 90% with you on that. The 10% that could make a difference is beyond our control right now. We can't get the bigger brand teams to come to a stadium under 40k in capacity. And winning wouldn't change that until Apogee is expand even then with FBS finances in flux the expansion to even 50k and beyond wouldn't guarantee those bring brands coming here non-conference. For instance Ohio State hasn't visited the Cincinnati Bearcats since the 1800s. 🤷🏽‍♂️. Talk about an easy money grab and road win for Ohio State 95% of the time. If we had a 50 year history of being over 0.600 most seasons, a Heisman trophy winner (post 1980 and some NFL success would be big bonus) anytime we had 9 win seasons would guarantee a few sellouts of Apogee. That definitely would make it easier for any coach coming here and more consistent and broader media coverage. We haven't really been trying after Hayden Frye left till they started shoveling dirt to build Apogee. That is a very long time. If we had our ducks in a row around the Big 8 flirted with us this program would be or par with Houston or Cincy today maybe even better. Fouts Field should have been demolished and replaced/rebuilt when we had to play games in Irving. They put lipstick on our beloved pig of a stadium Fouts and keep playing games there 15 years too long. Our period of playing "home games" in Irving isn't even mentioned on Texas Stadium Wikipedia. It is hard to find references to the games UNT played there. They broke ground to build Apogee at least 10 years late. Imagine Dickey's Sun Belt domination run in a new staduim. That is what so infuriating to me when people want cry "unfair" when comes to our Football success. Program is perpetually cheap, slow, short sighted and makes decisions with low expectations as the goal 99% of time. Then some here complain about everything else but how the program continually shoots itself in the foot and plays victim. The extension of Seth and him coming back for year 7 is typical for a program half ass trying IMO.

Momentum isn’t Ike the Force in the Star Wars universe. This program is crappy cause it chose to be for 3 decades. The NIL is brand new. UTSA’s whole program is brand new. And they achieved more in CUSA than us. THAT IS 100% INEXCUSABLE and UNEXPLAINABLE for a University of our size, facilities and length of time we have been playing football. I am so tired of this woe is us attitude here lauding 9 win seasons as near impossible here. 🙄. If that is your sincere opinion of this program why put yourself through the agony of supporting it? Because from the way you describe we don’t need a Gary Patterson we need a Saintly combination of Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowen, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and John Wooden here for 20 years before we can expect over 0.500 football in a G5 conference. UAB folded their program, rebooted it and still kicked our ass. That didn’t have squat to do with all the stuff you are talking about. Their program would have never folded if all the overblown factors you are citing here were the end all and be all for success.

We haven’t even gotten to or past 7-0 mark. UTSA did that after signing their FIRST recruiting class in 2010. The DFW market doesn’t care about any underachieving sports team not named Dallas Cowboys. And the Cowboys have 5 Championships when they just had 2 with that last one more than a decade in the past games were blacked out locally. Why is that so hard to understand and accept. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Exactly we had a virtually empty stadium Saturday. And it wasn’t because we have a team devoid of quality talent that should be competitive for a division title. Yet you have some “fans” on this board blaming everything under the Sun except a decade plus of sub 0.500 football while playing in a weak conference. Perpetually underachieve WITHOUT having titles and storied rich football history, I don’t care where your school is your stadium will be less than half full. Then leadership sends a message that “mediocre is acceptable” by bringing Seth back for years 6 and 7. The apathy in this market is WELL EARNED we need to stop having conversations on this board that makes it sound like we don’t realize that.

Stop making these tired excuses. I am from Denton and the “loathing” is overblown. This program has had several opportunities over the years to change it reputation locally and blew it every time. Losing to La Tech on the auspicious occasion of unveiling mean Joe Green’s statue 2 weeks after getting national love for beating Arkansas soundly. (This is just the most recent example). They would go on that season to lose up UAB in their second season coming back from shuttering their program for a year. They topped that disappointment by losing to powerhouse ODU who only started playing at the FBS level in 2014. Not done squandering all their momentum they topped off that season getting destroyed on national TV* by Utah State. Giddy in the off-season for ALMOST doing something they gave Seth a raise and extended him till 2023. If you win here people will open their pockets and show up to games. Follow up with me on my theory when we win. The ONLY significant advantage UTSA has over us is not having a long history of losing most of the time. The program has EARNED that reputation One of Seth’s few big wins against a good team was against UTSA with a perfect record. This program has NEVER been 6-0 *Please note that since the Arkansas game was on the SEC Network and the Bowl game beat down was on ESPN main; it is highly likely more TV viewers saw us get embarrassed live than saw the Arkansas game live.* Below is Apogee Stadium 9/10/2011. We weren’t coming off Championship. We were coming off a bad season and just hired McCarney. How many games below 0.500 do you think this program is from then till now knowing McCarney got fired with only one winning season here and Seth under 0.500 right now? I posted a picture from last Saturday can you guess what created that “apathy”? I remember Dallas Cowboys games being blacked out locally in Laundry’s last years. The ownership was losing money and they sold. Jerry is a lot of things that aren’t good as the owner but at least he understood you can’t sell a loser no matter where the freaking market is!

I definitely can see why you have that sentiment. But this program has earned its reputation with the fans. There isn’t another FBS program in the state that would pay competitively in their conference and keep a below 0.500 coach going in year 7 with no championships or bowl wins. Right now the program is throwing money and hoping for the best from football. That doesn’t cut it. Most programs in the state your coach is top 3 paid in conference, he gets fired before starting season 6 let alone season 7. Leadership has wagered big time on Seth to minimally go through this season with one conference loss maximum. The fans are laughing because this program doesn’t demand high performance or even 9 win seasons. 9 win G5 programs aren’t ranked at the end of the season.

That is the thing, it isn’t hype it is winning something tangible. When conference championship on the line, bowl game or even huge hyped home game (like Mean Joe’s statue unveiling) his teams come up small. Usually the by double or more of the betting line. If we had ONE season like UTSA’s within the last 7 years without just struggling to get to 0.500 the rest of the 7 years no way the student section looks like that yesterday. Do you realize the last time North Texas won a conference championship today’s freshmen and current high-school recruiting class weren’t born or in diapers? I am over thinking throwing money at head coach will change things. The leadership needs to be somewhat frugal and demanding when it comes to head coach salary. Tie raises and extensions to winning and attendance. It is inexcusable that program found itself in a position that getting rid of 0.500 Coach at the end of season 7 was going to be financially painful. I don’t think the net collective worth of our big money donors rival Warren Buffet, T Boone Pickens, Perots or Elon Musk. This program WILL thrive if you win enough to get the local alumni to buy in. I would have club seats now (or priced out of them by demand) if they had a couple of championships and Bowl wins during the past decade. The diehard fans and BMD are way too happy with just above mediocrity. Being in this fertile recruiting area is blessing and curse. It a blessing cause you don’t have to travel far to potentially stock your team. It is a curse because Football is so big around here that your program has developed a reputation for underachieving and lack of commitment to winning big. That is the biggest advantage SMU & TCU have over us. Not a SWC affiliation a lot of the parents of these recruits (certainly not the recruits themselves) even remember. It is the money either. They are committed to winning championships. And they don’t care it their coach had a 9 win season 4 years ago when today their stadium is empty due to EARNED apathy. 🤷🏽‍♂️

You mean this Apathy Stadium on virtually perfect weather day? No better photographic evidence that Seth should not have be brought back in the first place. This is a bad turnout for one of Denton’s high schools. People know good football around here and the see it so infrequently here the market is dead cold.

Until we step up to AAC that standard was far from insane. We hardly ever see juggernaut teams in our conference getting votes to be #25 in the nation. So yes last year with UTSA destroying the conference a conference championship standard was insane. But name me another year we had a juggernaut in our division. So a division championship is reasonable standard for a coach going into years, 5 and beyond. Of course you take into account major injuries or graduating seniors from a stacked successful championship team a year prior. If you goal is "successful" you will never be great. To really have this program turn the corner in attendance and regional/visibility they have to win consistently at about a 0.700 clip.

You can't have student turnout like we saw today and keep your job at a serious program. So unless the BMDs like seeing that, anything more than 2 losses the rest of the season (with one being in a bowl game against a P5 opponent)should get him let go. He keeps saying they have a good team. Looking at the schedule a good team has only 2 potential losses left in the regular season.

The major reason we don't have money is that the perception of the program among majority of local alumni is that the leadership isn't serious about putting quality football teams on the field. Keeping a mediocre coach around for almost a decade reinforces that perception. And keeping one big money donor happy is inconsequential if it means delaying changing the perception of the program to get more donors at all levels. I often speculate at different stages of the program how I would sell it to potential donors and recruits. Right now it would be an extremely hard sell because nothing you mentioned as upside correlates with winning. It appears we are running a program just an an execuse to have big events on Saturday and showcase our band. And all the improvements are to be the "Vanderbilt" of a big money G5 conference without the comparive elite academics compared to our new conference rivals. How much money is lost if game day revenue is reduced by 25% per game because people aren't coming to the games. Hell even some "diehards" on GMG.com are boycotting the rest of the season. And now we have zero walk up crowd. So you can see it as saying money but long term this bad season will negatively impact revenue into the next coaches tenure.

...and On a downward trend.

You are probably right but again this highlights the terrible decision to bring Seth back for this season. ZERO up side. The high water mark for this team this year was 6-6 without massive improvement from the offense. Other teams will copy Memphis's game plan and be better at it. We won't be able to beat up teams with the run game. They are going to force Aune to throw to see if he can do it efficiently and it a logical bet looking at his career stats.

What are talking about? The Boulevard is the ultimate Chris-Chris experience. Why do you think most “fans” spend 3/4 of the game out there? 🤣

I don’t care if he succeeds personally. He should step down and help coach up the younger QB's. Looking at his stats he would be lucky to be invited to a USFL camp to tryout for QB. He has completion stats like he running the old school service academy triple option.

Being late with the ball is his fault. 🙄 OMG dude is inaccurate what else do you need to see. More than half of Mean Green fans were shocked when he hit a couple of on time on target passes this game for a drive for a score. Like I said before in another thread put up to 50% of the blame on the receiver. But if you throw it to the open man on time who isn’t about get hit ribs crushed you drastically increase the chances of completing the ball and decrease the chances of interception via bobble balls.

🙄 when you are getting lit up by LB & DB you tend to bobble the ball. 🤷🏽‍♂️ 🤣

🤦🏽‍♂️ why does this have to be stated? Well would be 75% completions at least. If you take out desperation time attempts late in game he gets up to maybe 65% very pedestrian when the defensive game plan of your opponent opted to force you to throw. But the actual completion percentage was 54.1%. Yet green kool aid drinkers are trying to convince themselves him hitting his career completion percentage for the game is a good game for him. The utter madness.

A quality bowl you go into with less than 5 losses and win means something. It is on the plus side of mediocrity something to build upon if you in you first 3 years or rebuilding team after a senior laden team won a championship and graduated. Year 7 and you have a career record of 8 games over 0.500, I would keep a coach. He won’t be near that mark without running the table or just one loss the rest of the season. But yes by themselves a bowl before New Year Eve mean nothing.