Mike Jackson

You mean you aren't going to sleep tonight happy to have a coach you could have a beer with? You know that camaraderie puts it all in perspective when SMU fan talks about how pathetic our program is.

Welp, I guess all the Mean Green fans who saw no value in going after Coach Sanders were right. I mean no way could his price tag been justified by whatever he could accomplish here. It is beneath us to shoot for the moon and miss. Let go with another young spread offensive guy, I mean we couldn't possibly go wrong with similar philosophy. I mean DATCU stadium is pack to see new team under Coach Morris, a P5 opponent and our debut in the American. 6E82DD85-70AF-4CA1-B931-91C8215DBBD8_1_201_a.pdf Stadium vs Cal.jpeg.zip

ACC getting exactly what they are paying for 🤷🏽‍♂️.

It's unique and the logo fits perfectly on the helmets. I am buying that shirt. I like the SOW eagle. They should have made it the official logo immediately after the retiring the flying worm uniforms. But they didn't and coincidentally that period of time saw some of the worse decisions by the athletic department and marketing division at North Texas IMO. (All those missteps make me put on a tin foil hat and wonder if we had Longhorn loyalist subtly sabotaging our progress. But it hardly far fetched if you read about our efforts to make "University of North Texas" our name. Link below) The sports logos used betweethe 1983-2005 were terrible and set our brand recognition back at least 30 years. The SOW unveiled and adopted in 1988 with name change dropping "state" would have been perfect. Next time you run into any UNT Alumni or fan that is rooting for the Longhorns (and they don't have any credentials from UT or immediate family going there) send them this link. https://blogs.library.unt.edu/unt125/2015/06/22/name-change-unt/

Hype? This is the first time I have thought of this hire since it was announced. Dilfer isn’t a hall of fame player or established college coach. And although he has been successful as highschool coach he started coaching at that level in 2019. He has no track record of recruiting at the college level. I wouldn't have been excited for this season if he was our new head coach. At best I would be very cautiously optimistic hoping that he could coach the QB position better than his predecessor. If I were a UAB fan, Trent Dilfer hype wouldn't make me more likely to come to a game. On top of that they played an FCS team with no natural local interest. Stanford or Cal games attendence would be pathetic in a season opener verses a FCS team outside California or a bordering state also. Take Trent's time as a somewhat popular NFL commentator away from him and he probably doesn't get a job like this so soon into his coaching career. So I don't know why you thought the "hype" would be a significant driver for attendance. Lastly I think the remaining 4 PAC schools have no interest in traveling east past Texas for conference games to G5 schools. If they could wave a magic wand to craft a new conference without additional P5 schools, they would probably opt for conference of mostly MWC teams replacing 2-4 of the smallest market schools in MWC with SMU, UTSA, Rice, UNT, Tulsa, or Tulane. (Probably in that order of priority or close to it). Nothing UAB could do in a season opener besides losing to a FCS, or having some sort of riot would make UAB any less desirable as conference mate for a formerly P5 west coast school. UAB has never played one of the PAC 4 either. 🤷🏽‍♂️

That and the geometry of it were just wrong. The track was just the tip of the iceberg. Its location before the university expanded in the 80s and 90s was particularly horrible and drove home the negative aspects of being a commuter school. The nearest dorms at that time were some of the oldest and least desired if my impression as a child were correct. The most iconic thing about the stadium was the facade facing i-35E. I think I had a Time Machine I would encourage Fouts being built closer to Fry Street. Don’t get me wrong I loved our little quirky stadium I grew up with. Watched 4th of July Fireworks in it several times in addition to games, but it had to go. The only thing that could have be done was to have the new stadium incorporate the «looks» of Fouts without the major design flaws. But Fouts held us back scheduling and upgrading our conference far too long, at least a decade in my opinion.

I like the stripe idea but I would also like to see a mock up of have North written vertically down one leg and 'Texas'. With smallish green Texas map icons on the hips near the belt line. Man I really wish that we had went to a uniform like this right as we moved into the new stadium.

Yes, I don’t know why the vast majority here isn’t on board with this. It is a great unique look. Maybe we could have an inverse color scheme flying worm helmet for road games in all white.

365 Sports has done it at least once.

I was talking about the winged helmet and so was the original comment I was talking about. 🤦🏽‍♂️. But let's go there. Argue with the pictures below and NFL.com's history of significant Oregon uniforms, not me. Looks like any similarity between Oregon's uniforms and our can logically be attributed to them tweaking their 2012 uniforms. Also this understandable confusion is even more reason to stop using the partial wings on the helmets. I have seen professional broadcast pull UNT footage talking about Oregon and vice versa.

Originally I never recalled the PA being involved. And a few times I think I seen it start organically the cheerleaders, and spirit core jumping on the bangwagon once it started. I prefer it that way or instigated by the cheerleaders/spirit core. As for the ending I think we are worried about the wrong thing. Now everyone close your eyes and think of the clean ending of the "SEC" or FSU Seminoles War Chant. I bet you can't. Part of the charm of the War Chant is that it trails off to a low mumur just until a huge play for FSU is completed. The only thing I could suggest is FIGHT, Go-Mean-Green at the end. But since you really can't fit all that on a board with big enough letters for everyone to see that is a manageable 2 people to handle waving, it requires a lot of fan, student, and alumni education. It going to be very rough until everyone knows about it and buys in. Having it look bad the first year we have more games that are available on traditional cable against higher profile opponents isn't worth it. Maybe we can try to get a popularly known and used ending during 2024 and experiment with in in the spring portion of Basketball season.

Referencing inconvenient facts gets you eyerolls and downvotes around here sometimes. 🤦🏽‍♂️🤣

I think should lean into wearing white at home. For early season games it will be slight advantage. For instance look at the opener this season. Make Cal play in darker jerseys. I never saw the original Flying Worm uniforms in live action. But the helmet has always been my favorite. I wish they had stuck with it. YES that 4th row is an atrocity. I did like the green jersey of that time Dickey time period shown in a previous comment. If they had paired that with the helmet in second row from the bottom, second from the right (full green SOW eagle, outlined in black, on white helmet black face mask) I would have loved it.

Yes, I love that idea but it I don’t think it would ever happen. But if it did I would like Six team divisions and 12 member conferences standardize. No 3 or more time zone conferences. Hawaii would just be treated like it is in the Pacific time zone game conference schedule. That leaves everyone 5 out of conference games tochase dollars and/or ranking in non-conference scheduling. Separate football from other sports. All non-conference regular game revenue is split 75% between 2 individual teams with 25% going in to the FBS revenue pot. Games with FCS schools, FCS teams guaranteed 40% of ALL stadium game day revenue. And they are guaranteed 65% TV & radio broadcast revenue. Alabama, you going to slum it and beat down Chattanooga you aren't taking the home FBS game revenue. The majority of fans have always wanted to see more cross regional games between the biggest brands. They have always had the freedom to do so out of conference. And the blue bloods in these super conferences will still get to avoid each other in regular seasons. For instance. At BEST Texas will play Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, or Alabama once every 3 years in the regular season. And they with likely only play LSU every other year. That is stupid considering that is a bordering state with a rabid football fanbase. All this conference realignment changes only have to do with overall sorriness FBS. Always trying to get maximum money for the least bit of on the field competitive risk. At least in boxing we are talking about boxers who have a short shelf life and they have lifetime records they are judged by. In constrast each year teams start fresh 0-0. A Michigan loss to Appalachian State may eliminate them from BCS championship bowl consideration one season. But the next year's Michigan team isn't judged by it.

For the most part, I grew up in the 1980s and early 90s. And although I was young, I remember some boxing fans warning that boxing was on a steep decline due to inaccessibility. Close circuit TV, PPV, and premium cable channels started taking over the sport. Only crap matchups between tomato cans and unknown rising prospects became the only matches accessible to casual fans. Also during this time the number of boxing organizations issuing world titles doubled from 2 to 4 purely to chase "lower risk" paydays for boxing promoters and their stars. I remember being so excited when I found out Leonard vs Hagler were going to fight. I remember a joke prediction from my older friends from more affluent family to this day: Hagker is going to win because the punches are going slide off his slick bald head but they are going to stick the Leonards Afro. But I didn't get to see any highlights of the fight until months after the fight and now it has been so long I haven't even thought of watching the whole fight on the internet. All that is to say I remember TALK about boxing more than actually getting to see the best matchups live. Because match that had buzz ended up on PPV live and even the replays were exclusive to premium cable (HBO & Showtime). So by the time I was a young adult, I had gotten used to missing all the big fight so I never really made an effort to find out how to watch them. Now boxing is a niche sport, far behind the big 4, with so little coverage that I almost missed the Crawford vs Spence fight because it was rarely mentioned in the main stream. I doubt I would have caught if Crawford wasn't a DFW legend mention on our local news. How does this parallel with the current state of FBS football? 1. No Central Authority 2. No interest in the welfare of quality journeymen boxers (good G5 and mediocre P5 that rarely challenge conference/division titles) that test prospects, build their legends and help them become stars. 3. With splintering streaming, networks, conferences (world boxing organizations, promoting organization), and etc. Where to watch games on TV and who your team will play regularly or can "earn" a matchup with great play is clear as mud (especially if you have ONE loss and not P5 or in the case of boxing have the wrong belt or promoter) This is ALL bad. And it confuses me that it seem that very few in power see the parallels. This isn't just bad for the G5 in the short term. Every program but the biggest and most valuable in the country will start to feel the squeeze soon like Stanford, Oregon State, and Washington State. The expanded playoff restructured for Super Conferences will be another sweet money poison pill for regular season football. For instance, why prioritize watching top ranked Alabama vs top ranked Tennessee if it is likely they will have to rematch in an actual elimination playoff game later if they both keep winning after the regular season match up? Sure you probably watch as a rabid fan of either team or the SEC in general. But that regular season conference matchup now means very little to people outside SEC country when playoff and/or conference championships rematches between high ranked conference teams become frequent. aren'tdouche bag UCLA coach Chip Kelly is throwing out the idea that all FBS should be independent. It like we are on a fleet of Titanics who have all recieved "proceed with caution due to icebergs in the area". But none of the captains in the fleet are considering slowing down, stopping, or changing course. It is infuriating to see this avoidable car wreck in slow motion. IMO only the top 10-15 most watched and successful programs are really safe enough to believe they are unassailable. Now I can imagine that 8 more years of competitive irrelevance at Nebraska could even have them being undervalued in the next big round of media rights neogiation. I haven't watched more than a quarter of a Nebraska game since their first year in the Big 10. My questions to the group are: >Why haven't they learned anything? >*Once the damage becomes undeniable can it be somewhat mitigated? *I vacillated between using 'will' or 'can' for the last question. The lack of 'will' to take $1 less for less for the good of the whole of the sport is virtually nonexistent at the richest programs.

You can dismiss FSU fairly but Oregon State has been a member of the Pac since 1915 and has 5 conference titles. And they have played in the Rose Bowl Classic with 100k fans in attendance. Oregon State came to Denton in 1995, the Pac 10 membership didn't change until 2011 well after the death of Big East Football in 2005. FSU came to Denton in 1977 when I wager most people on this board were barely thinking about going to college if they out of diapers. Also FSU had yet to win even an "unclaimed" national championship. Their first actual title was Anything before our time in FCS is frivolous when debating our relevance.

The greed and arrogance involved P5 programs makes this very unlikely. If we're capable of being pragmatic like this AAC merger suggestion is, they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Either FBS is going to have robust revenue sharing of ALL football media income or it's going to lose market share.

That wouldn't be the end of our program. And the positive impact of actually looking like we are aimming above G5 would be substantial. To unengaged alumni who actually watch college football and don't really follow college football business (not the typical GMG member) their perception is that we don't really try. And showing them improved facilities when they have no clue as to how they compare with our peers and programs we are chasing, has no impact on that perception. Believe me I have tried in vain hundreds of times. We need those alumni to buy in and be convinced that we are trying. If we aren't playing a P5 opponent or G5 school in OK, LA, TX, or AR they don't care. In reality by now with wise investments, accountability and high standards, SMU would probably be looking to work with us a valuable rival than leaving us behind. And since I have first guessed these conservative moves that blew up in our faces, when/if we get completely disconnected to the highest level of football it will be an especially bitter pill to swallow. Do you want to be in a lifeboat with 50% shot of sinking or a fancy comfortable but leaking yacht with only a 20% chance of reaching it's destination without sinking?

Unfortunately the do have deep pocket and delusional donors like SMU does. The time to get some of those donors was when it was made clear to everyone that Deion Sanders was available. I know a lot of people on this board don't like Sanders. But us not even attempting to get him speaks volumes about our program. The leaders overpays for +2 games over mediocrity. Maybe that is changing. But they missed the chance to make the biggest splash possible by hiring Sanders. I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility the Pac 10 left behind takes notice of a REGIONAL DFW Public University with R1 research designation, NIT Basketball Title, and serious enough about football to overpay Sanders and his staff. He would have brought several nationally rated recruits his first 2 years. And just based on hype and curiousity DATCU* is packed. Aimming for P5 is taking a big swing. And I don't think the UNT community is ready for that unfortunately. That is the reputation of this program nation wide I believe. (It is DEFINITELY that way for most fans and media who don't closely follow G5 level football). Yes SMU clearly bought this "story" because it has everybit of "journalistic" merit as my dreams of UNT joining the Pac 12. That isn't anything to aspire to. I don't believe we have stupid donors. They seem to be reluctant and obtuse with their desires and it's like they don't realize there are trade off for everything. *With the buzz around Sanders, and a pending PAC 12 invite, maybe we get interest from Peterbuilt (Paccor) for the naming rights. DATCU is nice but having an international company worth over 40 billion is better.

The headlines are getting comical. There is no reason for a conference that wants to grow to add SMU. Adding SMU for “free” for 5 years is getting a marked up price for the value they would provide a P5/P4 conference. This writer is throwing darts at a dart board for story ideas. After reading 1/2 of the article and being blitzed by all SMU advertising I have to retract the underline portion. It looked like the SMU student run newspaper. 🤣

Great, I think I will no the same. Marketing wise I think everyone associated with the conference should lean into that differentiation.

Show me the marketing professionals that has a proven track record taking mediocre products and making them best sellers. Seriously because we desperately need to hire them. The stigma is that athletically we don’t win and we don’t anything of any significance. In the past 15 years UCF, FAU, USF, and UTSA all have that stigma but all of them have great seasons with less than 3 losses we haven’t. (The oldest FBS level program in those teams I listed started playing in FBS in 1996). Our biggest wins in the past 15 years are a regular season victory over probably the worse Arkansas team in 25 years and a Heart of Dallas Bowl win*. A bowl game that has changed its name and venue in its storied 13 year history. The product of football consist of 3 main ingredients. 1. A comfortable stadium with great amenities. (Including staff that make everything go smoothly) 2. A quality opponent that beating is viewed as an accomplishment. 3. A home team that is competitive in those games always and wins at least few more of those games than they lose. NOT counting FCS games. We don’t win enough and to highlight this let revisit that but asterisk. *During that good Heart of Dallas Bowl season, a 3 year old UTSA program beat us head to head and in the conference division standings.

I can’t wait for all the dead weight in these conferences to get their overdue karma. Indiana, Illinois, Vandy, South Carolina, Maryland, Northwestern and others. Media distributors are start paying attention to the big money they are paying for games with low ratings. If I am media next round, I am not paying one extra dollar for the rights to games like Iowa vs Minnesota, or Rutgers vs Maryland. There are a ton more of those games than Penn State vs Michigan.

Again tons of schools don’t have FBS football, educate thousands of students, and continue to grow. FBS programs aren’t paying for themselves in increase donations to general scholarships funds and other non athletic funds. There are far more universities that don’t play FBS than do play FBS. Even UT could drop FCS tomorrow and it would have NO impact on their academics. And even though they are rich with state funding and endowments they still ask for donations. UTSA was a decent, large and growing school my ex girlfriend graduated from there before there was UTSA football. So let’s stop the nonsense of trying to justify the need for any of these programs to exist. They are EXTRA-curricular to the mission of an institution of higher learning. I love football. I love my school. And I love Mean Green football. But I see what going on and I prepared for the worse. This is the beginning of the end and a system steeped in such hypocrisy with no commitment than the biggest check is going to crumble when completely exposed to the free market. This is what happened to the PAC 12.

Most universities don't play FBS and do a fine job educating. So to me that argument holds no water. Taxes fund public institutions, and private institutions still receive tuition fee paid by government backed grants and loans. So for the most part these schools don't lack funding. The Ivy League and Patriot Leagues could drop FCS football tomorrow with minimal impact. You really think UNT substantially shrinks if we dropped to FCS? I grew up in Denton as a football fan and I had no clue that at one time we played at level that could gotten us into Bowl games with the old Big 8, Big East or etc. Your average student in the DFW North Central Texas region has no clue what level of football we play nor has watched a game.