Mike Jackson

Most bowl games are pure money grab for everyone but the players. They are meaningless. I am not for players getting paid for regular season games. However I think is only fair they get a cut of bowl game revenue. A payout for getting to the game and a bonus for winning would encourage more guys to play. The bowl season and playoff need to be changed. I would like to see a reduction of bowl games or the playoff be set up between the 4 highest ranked bowl game winners after the bowls are done.

Not a Mac fan (great guy but mediocre coach) but this was a very fair evaluation.

No it is because El Paso is in the middle of no where recriuts have never heard of before and know nothing about. Even in Texas most recruits played all their games east of Midland and Odessa. I have never heard of a El Paso are highschool team getting deep into the state playoffs. Since realignment with tv markets being almost the exclusive concern; UTEP, New Mexico, and New Mexico State have become probably the hardest places to recruit talent from outside that region to. The desert is beautiful but jarring for young people to relocate there. Then the travel time cost to get back home on breaks is drastically higher for recruits not from that region. Good recruits with choices don’t usually sacrifice that much for a spot in a G5 program. Just imagine you are a recruit who live along the i-35 corridor or east. Of all the FBS programs in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana how would you rank the value of a scholarship offer? Note top 4 are interchangeable in order 1. Oklahoma 2. Texas 3. LSU 4. Texas A&M 5. Oklahoma State 6. TCU 7. Baylor or Texas Tech 8. Houston 9. UNT or SMU 10. Rice or UTSA 11. Texas State 12. UTEP It not an exact science of course. But generally a recruit with equal scholarship offers from programs in the top 8 would choose to be closer to home or chose the better program to UTEP. And even in West Texas recruits would probably chose Tech over UTEP 9 times out of ten.

Simply put I don’t care what the scheme if you don’t have physicality to stop teams from running down your throat no scheme is going to help you. Now blitzing from a 3-3-5 and messing up blocking angles can marginally help. But if you can’t cover one-on-one the offense will run just enough to make you blitz and torch you. Does this sound familiar? It a description of almost every defensive performance when our defense did not have a distinct physical advantage. And even when they did against Army they still got out schemed. The Army game sealed it for me. So the defensive scheme and players were lacking every time the physical talent was close. You can’t replace all the players in one season so logically you would change a coach. Nothing I read in Reffet’s background gives me confidence that he can make the defense dramatically better without an unprecedented influx of new talent. Any committed smart professional coach could produce the same mediocre results we saw this year. It is about what the program can afford. Can we afford another bad defensive year more than we can afford to buyout the contracts of the defensive staff? This team will revert to 6-6 if the CUSA competition remains consistent and our defense doesn’t improve (maybe worse).

I am predicting 8-5 they won’t get all the help they need recruiting. Teams will focus more on stop Fine now that his passing will be unquestionably the focal point of the offense. The defense will improve but unless something unforeseen dramatic happens they will be good against average CUSA offenses and barely adequate against good CUSA offenses.

If Adminstration was fully committed along with alumni that 2-3 years could be 4-6 years. The only gap between UNT and P-5 programs is brand reputation. This move is something UNT could have done. Say what you will about Kiffen hiring him in the first place tells people you are serious about wanting on the field success. UNT should have made a move like this after firing Dickey. Seth is great but not a household name. And a Seth would be the perfect type of coach to take over when that household name head coach leaves the program. Larry Coker wasn’t a success at UTSA but him leading the program put everyone on notice that UTSA was serious about building a competitive FBS program. They are probably not in CUSA over Texas State if they just a good but not well known coach.

I think he is saying what any college player would say about his current coach and teammates. Ask him middle of the season next year if this defense is not performing and see what he says then.

You only say that because this program has been virtually an absolute failure since the Sun Belt Championship years. Nationally televised games are more important than others especially for UNT because we are trying to change the negative perception of the program. Unmitigated beat downs to close out the season makes your overall record look suspect.

PlummMeanGreen is absolutely on point. Making decisions without accounting for the impact on recruiting and attendance is just stupid and UNT Athletics can’t afford to do that. And all I hear are excuses from some Mean Green faithful. Hey I am all for supporting the school and Athletic program anyway possible but we need to stop giving them a pass. Boise State, UTSA, FAU, and FIU among other young programs aren’t making execuses they are kicking our ass more they lose to us. Looking at resources and the size of our school we should be giving Houston a run for the 3rd best FBS program in Texas. We aren’t there because of 40 years of little bad decisions like this one. In addition to huge bad decisions like hiring a highschool coaching staff build a program for Apogee’s opening season. And no getting curb stomped on national TV your final 2 games of the season is NOT a successful season. It is an adequate season. Every team loses but getting curb stomped in conference or versus unranked G5 teams should never illicit kudos. This isn’t much better (given the expectations before the season) than last year’s 5-8 season. In both season they lost their most important games at the end of the year and got stomped in 3 out of 4. When this program stops getting embarrassed on the biggest stages you can start “rewarding” players with the better “destination” bowls. If you are a good team you don’t get destroyed by g5 opponents regularly.

And that is idiotic based on being guaranteed a Sun Belt team. I am not making the financial sacrifice to see UNT play a team I saw in Denton 5 times just a few years ago. At the very least you should want a team that would hard to get a home and home series with. MWC teams fit that description and most of the AAC. We can play MAC and SBC teams anytime. Glad the players were “rewarded” doubt the New Orleans trip experience is going to sway a recruit. If New Orleans is so great let’s get Tulane in the regular season schedule. At least then more fans can budget and plan the trip.

Thank you for posting that, people are forgetting how horrendous this game was. You don’t get killed by 20 with a garbage time TD making it look better by just the defense being bad.

Give Seth and offensive coaching staff raises after you see how they recruit. The grade of the entire recruiting class should help determine the size of the raise. The defensive staff are lucky to have jobs. If UNT Alumni donated to the athletic program at the average level for a school of this size with so much history the defensive staff would be gone. Now let me take off my glasses and watch Marhall in the New Mexico Bowl and pretend they are the Mean Green.

By the way Troy joins a long list of FBS programs jumping up to FBS or born after 1990 to surge past us. Let's list: UTSA - sorry we are 2-3 versus them numbers don't lie USF - Started from scratch 1997 0.625 Bowl Wining Percentage in 8 Bowl, better conference & etc. Boise State - Do I need to clarify? UConn - 0.500 in Bowl games 6 weeks in AP Top 25 Poll FIU - 5-3 versus UNT FAU - 8-4 versus UNT Arkansas State - beat UNT the last 7 times we played UCF - Better winning percentage than UNT and 21 weeks in the top 25 AP Poll ULM - only if you want to count being 16-13 versus UNT This was only a good season most places. UNT fans are ecstatic just to have a winning season and in a way that is sad. We can lose on national TV but looking like turds versus a SBC team is unacceptable.

It was a bad choice. I called it from the beginning. Yes, it is cool to give the players a reward. But after a but kicking in the CUSA championship game, I am not sure how much I would have taken that into consideration. I just don't believe in making decisions to reward a team that got thoroughly dominated in a G5 conference championship game. Yes they had a good season and going to a bowl (ANY Bowl) is a reward for that. As an AD I would have been looking for a game against the highest profile opponent we could get. Losing to a SBC team that has more than one loss it not that. If you started playing FBS football after 2000, I am not really interested in playing your team in a bowl game. And if you use to be in my conference for years I am definitely not interested. It isn't special to play an opponent your fanbase saw in your stadium every other year for 10 years. Also we have an all-time losing record against them 2-9 counting today I think. Bad choice

For all these excuses for our defense really? 21 points off of turnovers in our end of the field but conveniently forget the gift 6 we got in the second quarter. Your defense has to force a FG or just make stop on a regular drive that ended up in TD. I did not see any defensive touchdowns from Troy. Every Troy TD was the result of someone from their offense breaking the plane of the end zone. The D has sucked most of the year you defenders are delusional.

Exactly and all you newcomers who don't know how many years of mismanagement this game represent let me show something. So of those programs listed where are they today? 1996 Big West Conference football standings v t e Conf Overall Team W L W L Nevada + 4 – 1 9 – 3 Utah State + 4 – 1 6 – 5 Idaho 3 – 2 6 – 5 North Texas 3 – 2 5 – 6 Boise State 1 – 4 2 – 10 New Mexico State 0 – 5 1 – 10 + – Conference co-champions Rankings from AP Poll This program has historically made the wrong moves otherwise we wouldn't have rivals like upstarts UTSA, FAU, and Troy kicking the shit out of us routinely. New FBS level programs surge past us and long time UNT fans are sick of it. Not just getting beat getting dominated.

Next year I would like to see Guyton and Bussey line up in the slot from time to time. Too easy right now to scheme try to take one of our best WR out of the game now.

I think I blame a little of that on coaching. ESPN announcers have been saying the middle cover is weak but we never put Guyton or Bussey in the slot. Your top 3 WR need to be able to line up anywhere to take advantage on mismatches.

Troy's two leading WR are out. You know the ones that Reffet told the ESPN crew he feared the most. Wow, I have no words for how bad that sounds looking at Troy go through our defense like a hot knife through butter.

This defense can't get stop consistently and we have seen that all year long. And our offense is very good but not unstoppable.

Well you can certainly say that about anyone coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

Is Guyton playing?

Wish they would have wore the green pants.

You are probably right I was just trying to look on the bright side.

Hope everyone had a fun trip. But getting dragged around the Superdome by a very good Sun Belt team does nothing for this program except help keeps most of our coaching staff in place for 2018. It was never about the actual quality of the Troy team it is about the perception of beating or losing to a Sun Belt team. Well maybe they can come back but this sucks so far.