Mike Jackson

Shutting down people who care enough about this program to visit the page and post is problematic. The post that got the most positive comment in this thread talked about "selling the program". That is a very nice theory thinking that blurb here about a recent recruit signing is going to outweigh all the negativity found about the program everywhere else on the web. An event staffer at the Spring Game made a comment to me as I was walking toward the sections people are allowed to seat; "looks like more of the same to me". I was apprehensive to share that here for fear that the minions would try to research who it was and get them fired. The fact of the matter is that other than facilities this program is in terrible shape. And that will always be a bigger issue than a recruit signing unless UNT signs a consensus national top 20 at their position recruit. Right now that is a pipe dream but it should not be with the resources available at UNT. TCU made decision when they were left out of the Big 12 when it first formed. They decided to do everything in their power to get on par with the best P5 teams. But it seems many of us are just happy to be competitive with SMU. Rarely does any organization or individual exceed their aspirations. So while I talk the X & O's of football here at a high level for just a fan, I kind of find it pointless when it comes to UNT football. Moreover it is usually depressing because you get to questions like "Why did Greer see any snaps at QB after the 4 game of the 2016 season?" Why don't we ever kick an onside kick before the game get way out of hand? Our TE "according to coach interviews" are supposed to really good then why don't you run TE signal back set more often to cause matchup issues for the defense and give the best player on your team an extra blocker? I am still curious about the traffic numbers on GMG since 2014. How much further do you think those numbers dwindle if the Seth led Mean Green has a 4 win or less season and RV is still around for Spring Game 2017?

You know who is the elephant in the room many want to ignore. I would curious to know what the traffic numbers for GMG.com. I suspect it reached a peak sometime during the H. of Dallas Bowl season. I think all the "hijackers" are just deeply concerned about condition of program. Our patience is dying of liver cancer but we are focusing on his acme problem and allergies.

I applaud UNT90 for trying to fight the apathy and pointing out the painful truth. And it an administrative issue above RV that is ultimately at fault here no question. I don't know what the plan is here and if I were working in the Athletic Department I would be looking for another job. I would think having UNT Athletics Department on your resume would not do much to advance your career. I disagree that P5 game in Denton will lose money. As for opponents, I believe Colorado, and Nebraska would love to get some visibility in the DFW market since that have lost a great portion of it since their departure from the Big 12. But nothing really positive like a home and home (even a 2 Road for 1 Home) deal can get done with this AD. The only thing that can reverse this negative mojo without institutional level changes is a magical 1 or 2 loss season. And the losses would have to be competitive games against quality teams. Short of that I don't think this program gets to were the few loyal knowledgable FBS UNT fans want to be minimally: a dominant G5 program. Getting frustrated with student who have seen little or nothing to get excited about from this program is pointless. The program is not even mediocre. But back to the original argument the bigger the name on the marquee you face in a bowl game the better. And winning is not the most important thing, being competitive is. You don't want a 6-6 P5 team over a G5 team with 3 losses or less. For example compare a couple teams from this year; I would take Memphis over NC State given a choice of opponents. However I don't UNT should ever pass up a Bowl game opportunity against a marque program having a subpar 6-6 or 7-5 season. If you are just competitive it shows that you are a legitimate program. Even if you get respectfully beat down (no more that 24 points) you get exposure and name recognition it part of the country you are never seen on TV.

I guess they are taking cues from the Athletic Program: Aspiring to be Mediocre Can't get to uppity UT and TAMU government cadre will get upset. Let just try to pass them up academically on down low maybe? Is that their strategy?

I these position ranking are accurate it don't bode well for optimistic fans of the Mean Green. Especially since Defensive Line and Secondary were pretty bad last year. You have QB and Wide Receivers ranked behind two pretty bad cores last year. With an "Air Raid" offense having WR and QB near the bottom as position group sound like doom. I hope you are wrong or that Defensive Line and Defensive backs are much better than I think they are. Otherwise this gone to be a long season.

Yes, like I said before the leadership and large donors of this program are comfortable aspiring to be mediocre. The emperor is NOT NAKED, he isn't NAKED. UNT90 isn't doing anything. Narrating a train wreck as it happens in front of you is not causing it.

Does anyone on this thread can come up with 5 million a year to make a dent this short fall? I didn't think so. So here is were we are delusional alumni holding up signs saying "the Emerpor is Not Naked" as RV walks naked down Frye Street and down the center of campus to the new student union. This program is in huge trouble so the fact the guy that has been in charge the last 15 years is not gone should scare the crap out of anyone that cares about athletics at this point. Protecting this guy doesn't NOTHING for the program. Not talking about it and hoping it goes away is how an ignorant, immature, teenager deals with VD not how a professional organization should be run or even a silly message board like this one. The fact that we cannot unite behind firing this guy speaks of pending doom for this program. The few large donors the program has can't save it either. The question is this: If there is even a 10% chance that RV mismanagement could put UNT in a position to drop football down to FCS why do we even have to debate? The big donors need to calling weekly for RV head to be delivered on a spike. Someone asked what will it take. Maybe the announcement we are getting kicked out of CUSA like Idaho and New Mexico were kick out of SBC. But by then the program is barreling down the hill towards FCS or maybe even death after that. Let look on the bright side Denton High, Guyer, and Ryan High have a great stadium to play their biggest games of the year in. SMH

Coaches can not change the culture of the entire institution without support from leadership. All the BOR members who sit by quietly while this shit storm continues with brief lulls in the hail storm need to step down. Because in my opinion UNT needs to drop down to FCS and focus on the other sports if this leadership continues. We don't belong in CUSA or even the Sun Belt. With the resources UNT has we should dominate CUSA West in FBS and should have dominated the SBC in all sports. If you take away the name of the schools and compare them on paper UNT clearly has the most resources. Yet we have the least success most of the time.

That would imply that he cares or was concerned about justifying his continued employment. Given what has happened over the last 16 months why would he be? He has the right people backing him so he can do whatever he wants as long as its in budget and legal. At this point I would not be surprised if RV got an extension next year if Seth got the team close to .500.

Not going to happen.

When did this start? Because I recall Miami rebuilt their program during their NCAA scholarship reduction penalty with some athletes on other athletic scholarships including track scholarships.

Colorado is in a P5 conference playing against and has multiple games each year against national championship contenders. If we played their schedule you could kiss all our bowl games goodbye. So sorry that isn't a good comparison. Colorado would probably dominate CUSA and would have killed the Sun Belt. And telling the truth about you university athletic program is not hating. It no different than friends and family. My best friends are the ones who tell me the truth when I am messing up. Nothing holds people back more than false praise and minimizing huge failures. They get a false sense of confidence and an inaccurate estimation of the amount of work big long lasting success requires. If that doesn't sum up the athletic culture at UNT I don't know what does. They think that its reasonable for 1 head coach can wash away 50 years of being on the wrong side of mediocre 85% of the time. That is part of the reason they are content having RV around. Cause in there minds the next hire will fix everything. Dodge, Mac, and now Seth. If Seth fails (which will have less to do with him that the culture and structure around him). What will be the answer then? Another coach and finally a new AD 5 years too late? smh

Well said untjim1995. The evidence to the contrary is quite minimal that you pointed out so clearly. Let us travel back in time to 1995 when UNT stepped back up to FBS level football. Let list the schools that are widely known as better than us that did not play FBS football in 1995 or even latest. USF first season 2000 (before 1997 No football at all) UCF first season 1996 (before that started Division 3 football 1979) Boise State first season 1996 (had a lot of success all at FCS level before that) Marshall first season 1997 (Nationally known program among majority of college football fans, movie and Randy Moss helped a TON) Troy first season 2002 (not much more success than us since 2002 but 8-2 against us) UTSA first season 2012 (2-1 against us) FAU and FIU 2006 (we have losing records against both) It is very difficult for me to find those football programs that would logically envy us that has played at the FBS level 20 years or more with 25k+ enrolled for that duration. Given the resources of the school and the community around it UNT does far less with more resources than any other school I can think of that actually "cares" about football or winning. So please spare me citing P5 run over schools that focus more on basketball (like Kansas, Iowa State, Duke and etc). UNT has the resources and it those resources that dupe coaches with future aspirations to come here. UNT is a beautiful looking hanger queen ( car from the outside that just need TLC and a tune up. What you don't see is that the engineers and designers of the (lemon) vehicle spent all their time making the it look pretty and go around the track fast (usually just 2 or 3 times before a major breaking down). Sound familiar?

Looking at their high school high light tapes on youtube. Means looks like the slightly better prospect. He played against tougher competitions at 5A I believe also. Given a fresh start and equal time to develop this spring I would be surprised if Quinn shot past him in the depth chart. As pedestrian as DeMarcus was (which says more about the QB in depth chart ahead of him last year), I am very surprised that nether Quinn nor Connor got a shot. As bad as the offense was last year they could have put Dillman out there running the flexibone and I would have commend the coach for at least trying everything. Of the QBs left on the roster who has the strongest arm?

Riley Dodge got injured the last game of his high school career. Redshirting might have helped him but it wasn't going to make his frame bigger or repair the cartilage.

Name one of the that had played FBS football for more than 20 years, located in a large market, and has 25,000 plus enrollment for 20 years.

I still stand by my opinion that the vast majority of the leadership at the university that has power over the athletic department don't care about winning. more specifically they only want to be mediocre. Lip service in the media or while the are shaking the hand of Mean Green fans like us mean nothing. Look at all the programs all other the country that weren't playing football before 1990 that have shot past us. Just looking at Boise State, UCF, and USF should make any UNT fan boiling mad. Moreover we are just keep up with post 2000 programs like FAU, FIU and UTSA. I have seen no convincing evidence other than coaches salaries (extremely recent) that ha shown me the leadership is serious. If I were a current student I would want a recall of the athletic fee voted on. This is beyond garbage that RV is still employed. It reminds me of FIFA but at least that organization as a whole is making money.

My question for you is, why do you think they care? If they care they are only hoping for the program to be mediocre at some point. And I think that is the problem they have never "went big" when it comes to choosing leadership positions in the Athletic Department whether you talking about AD or Head Coaches. Say what you will about Larry Coker, UTSA hired a coach with a national championship ring (as the leader of the program not a coordinator). They have never aim for the stars even with Apogee. The stadium should have been built to hold about 45,000. You can't entice P5 schools to have a home and home with you when your stadium only holds 30,000. Just think if Larry ended up here instead of UTSA and had a 45,000 seat stadium to help him schedule and recruit. They need a big personality with big skins on the wall to change the perception of UNT. The BOR don't want to do this because it cost too much money and those kind of Apha-Dog could "overshadow the university" but they are afraid of using "power". So again I ask other than facilities (that should have been built 15 years ago to fit with the growth of the rest of the university) what has the leadership done to make you believe they really care about winning?

It might be unfair but looking at Smith's social media did not convey that he was sufficiently dedicated to being a FBS level starting QB. So putting myself in Seth's position I don't think that DeMarus was a viable option. I think he came to that conclusion shortly after talking to the staff and meeting DeMarcus. I think it is foolishly optimistic to think that Seth has anything up his sleeve other than what is on the roster today for the 2016 season. I think the QB position will be filled by what is on the roster today. I am optimistic that Seth will be able to get production out Dillman, Means, or Chumley.

Bravo!!

So I smell a poll here. How many GMG members think RV and Benford will be fired before the spring scrimmage? I believe RV gets to stay till the end of the 2016 football season at the very least.

Now that is pure gold lMAO. Thank goodness I wasn't drinking anything while I was reading this because I would need a new keyboard now.

This is why 2800336_f520.jpg

I think most people are forgetting the best offensive weapon on this team (we know right now) is our running back. Seth talks a lot about customizing his system around the talent that is available to him. That being said, I didn't see any play makers at the WR position last year (the few times they received accurate passes). 1. Best Weapon at RB + 2. Unknown commodities at QB + 3. Lack luster WR production (last year) + 4. Vulnerable Defense you want to keep off the field = Run heavy version of the spread option. So I hope they start the QB that maximizes what our running backs are able to do. If DeMarcus can learn to throw the short passes accurately and on time, I think he would be the best option. He throws the deep ball accurately enough to keep defenses honest. Also I don't think the offensive line will be good enough to protect Alec (or anyone else) to make a living throwing intermediate passes. The dream scenario (whoever start at QB) is that opposing linebackers get physically and mentally exhausted between running to sidelines to tackle receivers in the flats and crashing down to the A gap to stop a quick hitting run.

There is nothing to invest in here except the students. And if that is the case I would rather donate to the College of Engineering or the general academic scholarship fund. Student athletes with the good grades have access to those funds also. What is the most frustrating here is the term mediocrity. Mediocrity is .500 which makes you eligible for bowl games. So if you take away Darrell Dickey's run (Remember the most successful coach in new FBS era at UNT that RV and crew ran of?). This football team has been mediocre or above ONCE in 15 years. So I strongly disagree with the UNT90's opinion that the big donors are accepting mediocrity. To accept something it has to be given to you. And this isn't even a mediocre program by the numbers whether you are taking about financial number or win/loss numbers. The donors are comfortable with aspiring to be mediocre for 15 years on the way to be better than mediocre. And to me that isn't loyalty that is almost cult like. Cults slowly take intelligent, productive people down a path to do things that make absolutely no sense. FYI to even be in the conversation for mediocrity UNT would have be somewhere between UTSA and Baylor on this list.