Mike Jackson

This won't be the only event poorly planned and not the only event I have ever attended so I have first hand experience. You are putting the responsibility of access to your product on the consumer? Great strategy, now tell me when was the last time UNT had a sellout? It isn't all just scheduling and winning. If that were the case the September 2014 SMU game would have been a sellout. The annual coaches caravan is pretty good but those events do not give you chance to meet and greet brand new recruits. It is just flat out dumb to have an event at 5:00 pm on a weekday in Denton. So yes if you are just catering to die hards you don't have to court then fine. This program is not in a position to do things like that. You can dislike what I am saying all day but it doesn't make it any less relevant. Conversely I think a start time any later than 6:30 pm would be bad also. The time I am suggesting is best for most demographics an athletic department in this market should be pursuing. So it is not about about me, UNT90, KRAM1, Dr Seus or anyone who cares enough to comment on GMG. It for busy young alumni with families who care enough to look at GMG once in a while but don't want take time off to be in Denton at 5:00 PM. So many of us here are way too myopic when it comes to the Mean Green program.

If your not trying to grow your fanbase outside of people who live and work in Denton it makes perfect sense. Hence part of the reason the growth of the program is stagnant and declining. I live in the Mid-Cities and work in Dallas so any alumni that wanted to attend but even 1% on the fence aren't coming to a weekday event that starts at 5:00 pm in Denton. It is just bad marketing plain and simple. The 5:00 pm start time is not the optimal start time any way you look at it. With all due respect to older long suffering loyal Mean Green supporters this program is going to have to do things differently keeping young Dallas County, Collin County, and Tarrant County families in mind. If the first time a local recruit has an experience on the UNT campus is when s/he a junior in high school the university has lost an opportunity to make in roads.

With all due respect of everyone's point of view about the time I have 2 points. 1. This is a ONCE A YEAR EVENT so AD Staff suck it up and at least push it back to 6:00 PM (so you do the time math with the typical end of work day coming at 4:00 - 5:00 pm) 2. Most local young alumni with the disposal income to support the program work at least 45 minutes south of Denton. (So please stop comparing UNT to SMU, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor in that regard) If you don't have a young working fanbase you have a dying, shrinking fanbase.

No RV is all the blame but he has been here 10 years and done nothing to reverse the negative trend. Both head coaching hires he has made were poor before we had the benefit of hind sight. His "biggest" hire was Dan McCarney a losing head coach with no Oklahoma, Louisiana or Texas HS Football connections. That is sheer idiocy at University without a history athletic success or name recognition to recruit nationally. He was totally unprepared to recruit in this region. Then Mac hires Cosh. At first when I entered this thread thinking Cosh might not have been a bad hire then I read the rest of this thread and did a little research That and he is a coach that has bounce around from program to program and none of the defensive team in his long career standout. And the performance of the defenses he was associated with after we put 41 on KSU weren't any better. So they hired him to do what exactly? Recruit? Well that is kind of hard to do when you don't have an impressive resume or connections in region you are now trying to recruit. Don't think UNT has ever pulled many recruits from Florida, New York, or Kansas.

That should be number 1 on the original list. Hands down not even close This program is lucky to have people who care enough to say anything and care about the schedule. That might mean there is a chance they will show up to a game or two. We all know there are probably 70,000 or more local DFW alumni that could not tell you the name of another team we play this year at home for $100 besides SMU.

Correct now add in the fact they we are ranked well below Texas State in recruiting one has to wonder what Nick Saban could do with this program.

So, no not cool in my opinion. if your consulting ended up with us getting RV as the athletic director we need a consulting refund. Unless he is going to put on a headset and help coach the defense who really cares? Maybe cool for coach Seth to meet a football legend. But legends are has-beens otherwise they wouldn't be legends.

So what grade would you give Seth and team on their recruiting at the end of national signing day? I am give it a B taken into account the timing of him getting the job. Very little recruiting took place between the 3 game of the season and Seth getting hired.

Not enough regular people care. And the people at the university with actually power surely don't

Let's alter the terms of the bet. I think this is something UNT90 and I will be on board also. I am not as active and forceful as UNT90 but I agree with him 90% of the time. I will change my avatar to a dumb-ass theme of your choice. However we need to have terms for a payoff for UNT90 and me. You guys have to change your avatars to a FireRV theme of UNT90's design/choice for entire football offseason when they end the season with 3 wins or less. How about that?

I have a reason for you I very long history of losing at the FBS level. Losing records against almost every other FBS program mentioned on this board. There less than 15 team we have played more than 4 times and have an above 41% winning percentage against. "So you are considering UNT son? Well let me tell you we usually beat them"

He is wrong but it more complicated than MTSU and UNT of the world. It is about where the money is going and the mission of these schools. College football wasn't started to be a business. But unfortunately we are treating it like one. Student athletes miss way too much class time as it is. And many of these athletes are not even a part of the campus community because they are always gone. A shift needs to be made back to academics and regional conferences. Maybe get rid of athletic scholarships all together at the FBS level. Pay the players instead and make them pay for their education out of their salaries. I think more of them would take their educations way more seriously if they were paying the bill out of their pockets. (IE I am not paying for a bullshit "stay eligible" class) Get rid of transfer eligibility rules too.

A G5 conference is a G5 conference. Not excuses just facts. No one in the modern era of UNT football has recruited well here. We have nothing unique at UNT to "recruit" to. I am more concerned about Seth being able to get the most of the players he gets. If he does that he will win and then get better recruits. If there were no restriction on us "boosters" contacting recruits what would you say to a recruit with offers from SMU, La Tech, and UTSA to come to UNT?

I have been monitoring the board more frequently now that we are getting really close to signing day and I am confused. I am confused because I am reading all these posts from disappointed fans. When I superficially evaluate FBS programs I look at this like brands. The most powerful factor in recruiting in my humble option is a combination of the school's athletic/academic brand and the head coach's brand. I have seen criticism of every coach we have had since 2000 including Darrell Dickey. UNT will always be able to get players but how do you get some players to choose UNT over our geographical G5 level rivals? Cause simplistically that is what it comes down to: Can you get the recruit with offers from Tulsa, UTSA, SMU and/or Texas State to come UNT? I think is clear to this point that Seth does not have a unique brand that winning over recruits with multiple FBS level offers. That is no shot at Seth because you can count those coaches on your hands. And you have to offer those guys an insanely high salary to even accept an interview here. No one has really knocked our socks off here when it comes to recruiting since maybe Hayden Frye? Everyone else has been bad or at best respectable. We don't have athletic department that seems to have the first clue about building a brand or making the game day experience at Apogee unique. So until then I will judge recruiting classes by season that preceded them. This is not a defense of Seth but a serious question, if you were Seth what do you think you could do better? I want to know and hopefully if it is good Seth or someone on his staff will read it.

We aren't SMU nor USM better reputations a histories to work with. Dan McCarney may have did better but he did it with a brand new stadium and athletic complex. They are still very nice now but not brand new.

I don't think Seth can mandate how RV does his job but he could have the green light to ignore and work around RV whenever possible. And it would make sense because if Seth has a marginally competent agent then his buyout carries a hell of lot more weight than RV's does right now. More messed up than your wildest imagination? I don't how anything would surprise you at this point? It is absolutely ridiculous that we are even having this discussion surrounding a coach that has just been hired. If I were Seth I would stayed at UNC and bet on myself that another Texas area FBS job would come available and worse case the UNT job would we be available again in 4 years because RV leadership would get the new coach and RV fired at the same time. I just hope for Seth's and UNT's sake he hasn't taken his career for a bad and bumpy detour away from the path of being a P5 head coach or a "superpower" P5 team's OC.

Why didn't you expect that? If you were the new head coach here how would you entice players with other offers to come here right now? Are there any G5 level schools in our geographical region that don't run a version of the spread offense? it is little bit like dating. When you have everything the next guy has but the other guy has the better reputation, then the other guy usually gets the girl.

I hear you but even if what you say is true what is supposed to happen right now? What is Seth supposed to do? He need to finish up recruiting. Take a deep breath get some family time. By that time it is March 1 and would have given him time to get the details talk to this young man and announce a decision. You are not going to get me disagree with you when you say RV is horrible. The real question is how do you expect Seth to manage bigger RV situation? And the biggest question of all is, do you think Seth has a green light to manage the RV situation as he sees fit? If he doesn't then this program is a complete lost cause. UNT is not above pulling a UAB contrary to popular belief in my opinion. If RV is here past the end of the 2018 i would be willing to bet there won't be a 2024 FBS level Mean Green Football team officially.

I agree with UNT90 often but not in this case. Someone tired to blame all these recruiting struggles of the 2016 class on Mac but that just isn't realistic. Seth was the best hire we could have made given the "criteria" that established. Why was the criteria settled upon? I don't know. The truth of the matter is when Dickey was fired we should have brought in a Larry Coker or someone similar and hired a slightly younger and less experienced "Seth Littrell" as the OC and air apparent. Think about this is Seth Littrell is moderately successful and decides to move would Graham Harrell take the HC job? I wouldn't be surprise if the answer was no. I don't know how you get a prospect to choose UNT over our CUSA rivals, SMU, or Tulsa. The athletic department built a losing culture ever since they fired Dickey (maybe even before). We the only thing well known and positive about the athletic UNT brand is Mean Joe Greene you need a coach that could bring in his brand. They chose not the do this twice arrogantly thinking "we are big school in a densely populated area we can just bring a regular competent coach and he will fix it". Seth is going to have to use smoke and mirrors, win, build the brand and then he will start winning some of these recruiting battles. I see a 4 year process to get UNT back in the consciousness of the local casual college football fan. Once you start moving the attention needle with these fans you will start moving the needle with recruits who have multiple offers.

I think for this time of year letting the police and the court system do its job is acceptable. I just hope he has contacted the young man behind the scenes and let him know that if the report are true then, he won't be in a Mean Green Uniform till late October if at all in 2016. Regardless of the status of the case by then Seth needs to issue a statement before March 1 addressing the situation. Seth is going to make or break his opportunity this spring as he installs his offense and coaches up the returning members of this team. I agree that from the outside looking in at this situation it doesn't look good. But that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot at this point. Now if stuff like this is occurring in late Spring or Summer with lagging responses I would be very worried and disappointed.

Great post, expansion of C-USA is worse idea I have ever heard. Expanding by adding teams and splitting into 2 independent conferences who package their media offering together to market I could see. North Texas Tulsa SMU UTEP New Mexico State Arkansas State Rice Tulane ULL Louisiana Tech Southern Miss* UTSA or Texas State (on a side note the new Independent CUSA West* could take Sun Belt refugees in other sports Texas State, UT Arlington, U Ark Little Rock) And the Eastern Division has several schools they could target to build a 12 conference also South Alabama Georgia State Georgia Southern App State ECU UCF USF Troy Basically all the G5 conference schools east of Mississippi and/or north of Arkansas need reorganize themselves in to conferences more geographically reasonable. Traditionally those were always the better basketball school anyway. The hard part is find away to divide up the Mid Atlantic region schools into conference that make sense. I think FIU, FAU, UCF, and UCF would be surprised if they agreed to work together for the great good that all four of them would be better off. They could maybe get more of the Florida recruits that waste their talents sitting on the bench at the SEC schools and Florida State. Also schools not in their conference will be lined up to sign home and home game contracts with them.

This is what makes me the most upset with the lack luster achievement around here ever since UNT step back up to the FBS level. First you don't give Dickey the resources to maintain or build upon the first sustain period of mediocre success at UNT since it was called NTSU. Then you think you are going to hit the lottery and hire a high school head coach with no college experience as the head man. Then you go all in "financially" on a coach with no Texas ties. It like the goal is to be mediocre not great. Monkeypox hit the nail on the head. I think so many of us discount that. Based on the history what geographical rivals are we better than or equal to? It is a very short list and it main consist of programs that did even exist before 2000 or play at the FBS level before 2000. I think Seth is a really good hire but his name does not transcend the historical reputation of the UNT program. I wasn't expecting much from this year's recruiting class with any coach who hasn't been in the national spot light as a successful FBS head coach at another school. That is why I wanted a "Steve Spurier" type or a close protege getting head coaching job with master taking the AD job to guide him. Seth is going to have to coach his but off and win then he will win some of these recruiting battles. It about finding diamonds in the rough here right now like it or not.

I think there will be more FBS shattering changes in before we get 8 years down the road. TV money is drying up as people cut the cord. The numbers for a really great National Championship game were down. The media executives are paying attention to that. The PAC 12, SEC, and Big 10 will definitely survive because they have maintained their history and most of their rivalries. That is where the Big 12, ACC, (Big East) AAC went a foul. I could see Texas going independent. Texas has enough money and backing to play a Nortre Dame like schedule money whipping midlevel teams from the SEC, PAC 12 and SEC to play them regularly. It the perfect TV/al-cart game: sell a big game in Eastern, Central, and Pacific time zones every year. Oklahoma vs Texas continues but Oklahoma may settle for dominating a conference of leftovers. Then you have the looming bomb of pay for players on the horizon too. Only 3 types of FBS games move the attention meter for casual fan. And these are the fans media executives want to get because they already know the "diehards" are coming along regardless. Needle Movers: 1. Inter-conference games between powerhouse schools with history (easier if one school independent) 2. Heated regional rivalry games (the little brother in rivalry need to be perceived as having a legitimate shot at winning) 3. Late season games between two 1-loss or undefeated teams. So if a conference can show they deliver these kinds of match-up every other weekend minimum then a contract with your conference won't be that valuable. The SEC has their region of the country on lock down. While their games might not do well nationally but get they get ratings numbers like bad NFL games throughout the Southern media market that is huge for a media company. So with the leftovers you have partners/rivalries that can deliver all three needle movers in the list somewhat regularly. Florida State - Miami* (maybe the only legitimate one that can deliver consistently) Boston College - Pitt All the other schools I could pick out of the ACC, Big 12, and AAC (Big East) leftovers have a rival from one the "Power 3" conferences to deliver one of needle movers.

DeMarcus Smith the best QB that played last year was rank 119 out 128 FBS level quarterbacks in QBR. Smith was the lowest rated QB that threw more Touchdowns than interceptions. Smith's QBR was around 31. When we didn't get Smith we got McNulty with his under 20 QBR. The Mean Green had arguably the worst QB situation in FBS. That isn't being harsh that is just what the numbers tell us.

What the hell? I didn't know that. Why in the world were people running around hyping this guy up? Now that I know this I want to withdraw all my comments requesting that we see him in the game. Well unless they are considering putting Greer in the game. Greer completes more than 50% of his passes, but 50% of those completed passes are to the other team.