Mike Jackson

Great points in untjim1995's comment and other posters comments in this thread. However I think my major point was not totally clear. These P5 schools will cost themselves money also. People are cutting their pay TV services left and right. As a UNT fan/alumni I don't follow P5 teams except very casually. However when UNT plays them in a given season I am more likely to watch them. So if "bodybag" games go away permanently there is even less reason for me follow what is going on with any P5 school. Also these money moves have killed off some rivalry games that makes college football uniquely more passionate than NFL ball. I may not have followed Nebraska, Colorado, or Oklahoma but games between those old Big 12/Big 8 foes were appointment television for me. The same could be said all the more strongly for Texas vs Texas A&M just because I am Texas native. Texas vs Arkansas also; I mean we have a city that borders the two states that rivalry is a part of their culture; Texarkana. I only mentioning the rivalries in my region but the new greed landscape has ended (or but on major hiatus) way too many entertaining rivalries and I am sick of it. At some point the players are going to start getting paid and there are probably at least 5 schools in every Power 5 conference that will have a hard time managing that new financial reality. (Sure the players in the same conference will have equal pay but many schools won't be able to provide the other things recruits are looking for) So either they might have to drop down or just accept being the punching bag of their conference rival schools with more money and more football tradition. Looking down the road I see a college football landscape that is uninspiring arms race between the 15-20 programs that make so much money they can't ever cry poverty. I see a future that might include Texas State, UTSA, UNT, Rice and SMU dropping football all together. UTEP could make a go of it in FCS but football fans in the metropolitan areas in Texas could care less about FCS. They would rather follow the local powerhouse high school team. Hell the Denton High Broncos out drew UNT at Fouts Field when UNT played FCS football. And if you walked around during a Friday night Denton High Bronco game then offering a $100 to tell you who NTSU was playing Saturday you would most likely be able to keep that $100 the whole night. This new cheaper CUSA contract is just a sign of things to come. And I think there will be a lot of P5 school fans that will be very disappointed.

I am not looking at it through Texas eyes. I am looking at it through FIU and FAU administrators eyes. This is a recipe that will have the programs die at FIU and FAU eventually. Do you really think the administrators at these schools watching money bleed out of the school through the athletic department care about being good recruiting ground for the rest of CUSA East? What is in it of for these two school fitting the bill? I agree it is great for Marshall, UAB and Western Kentucky but what are FAU and FIU getting out of this deal? They might as well go independent and save travel cost. Since it is a good recruiting ground they could work out home and home deals with some of the better G5 schools. Hell even Notre Dame might work at 1-2 or 1-3 deal with them with the one game in Miami in the Dolphins Stadium. I don't mind playing one of them every 2 years in football but for the other sports it just doesn't make sense.

If these predictions come true, I think it is going to be terrible for College Football. They should be paying attention to the fact that one of the best national championship games in recent history got terrible ratings. The P5 have limited fan bases. They are only a few schools that get fans in significant numbers that never attended that school. Those school are at the top half of the power 5 conferences. As much as I love UNT football now, I won't be interested in the slightest to watch them play in some new hybrid division. And I will care even less about Big 12 football than I currently do. A lot of these G5 programs will disappear in this hybrid division scenario. Then the next bomb shell will drop and that is paying the athletes. And the NCAA with all these strictly revenue driven decision won't have a leg to stand on in court. Regional conferences and new guidelines on how to upgrade to FBS from FCS are needed. Academic standards with actual post season consequences need to be implemented also. If you don't graduate a player and he doesn't go on to be drafted or signed by a NFL team it should count against in a point system that would bar your team from post season play. There will always be college football but their greed is going to hurt the revenue stream drastically the greedier they get.

Now could we see realignment to slightly smaller conferences? Or schools like Colorado and Utah reviewing their conference affiliations to get a bigger pieces of a slightly smaller pie? I could see BYU, Utah, Colorado State and Colorado reviving a WAC/MWC type conference with 10 teams, divisions and conference championship game.

We bring 100+ years of football history to the table also we have multiple regional conference rivals. FIU and FAU don't have either of those things. We also have 60 more years history as an academic institution fundamental to the history and growth of a city. If you are comparing our situation in a metro area to them don't. The University of Miami in its heyday unified all of Miami and had a national following, SMU, nor TCU ever did that in DFW. The closet CUSA school to Miami is Charlotte 729 miles or a 2 hour flight away the next closest is UAB 809 miles or a 2 hour flight away. So it would not be just "us" asking them to leave, they just don't fit with the rest of the conference. Geographically they make way more since in the AAC. The AAC doesn't want them and I am not even sure the Sun Belt would be excited to have them back. When the U with their relatively recent national championships, notable NFL alumni, and etc has trouble drawing fans what real hope is there for FIU and FAU? We all know that losing is worst thing for your schools athletic brand. But having a complicated confusing name is almost just as bad. Name a public FBS level school that with a decent athletic brand that has anything but a State, City, or single cardinal direction in its name? I come up with Rutgers and beyond that I am drawing a total blank.

The reason that RV is stays is a double edge sword. Not enough people care because we haven't won anything substantial in 25 years. We won the Sun Belt and 2 bowl games. Not a historic bowl game like an Independence, Sun, Peach, or Citrus Bowl with 25 plus year history. Getting to a bowl game in the modern era just means you don't suck. Winning doesn't cure everything building upon tradition and making game day a unique fun experience does. It is hard to take this program seriously when they have guy in charge that shown he has zero capability to make the changes necessary to woo alumni back to University . His incompetence and the university's refusal to get rid of him has run me away from campus. Even if Seth wins, he jumps ship the first better opportunity he gets if the culture does not change around here. Hopefully he is successful, stays at least 6 years and get 4 years without RV. Maybe by then he would clear the stench out the athletic department RV will leave behind. We need more fans that care enough to run bad AD's, and coaches out after they have had enough time to show what they can do. Fifteen years is more than enough for an AD. I think 8 years should be the maximum time that an average performing AD should get before being thrown out for being just average or below. RV is going to get double that amount of time and that is ridiculous.

Well hope he gets a good coaching job from this exposure.

I don't like being in a conference with total upstart schools like FAU, FIU, and UTSA*. I put an asterisk by UTSA because they only have to compete with Spurs for local sports attention. FIU and FAU doesn't bring much to the table. Miami Hurricanes have problems with attendance so what do people expect from FIU, and FAU in their back yard? What kind of ratings can they pull in south Florida? I wish CUSA would jettison FIU and FAU and just go to 12 member schools. With UAB coming back and if Charlotte can build a good program CUSA could be one of the stronger G5 conferences

Unit these two idiot programs find a way to restore a great in state football rivalry, I am very content in watching them tear themselves apart.

Until they come up with a form of revenue sharing at the D1 level this system is going to have huge problems. The greed is insane and the root cause of most of problems in College Football. What is in maddening is that there is more than enough money to go around. Compensation packages in the millions for leaders of programs that (claim) they don't make money is just plain stupid. If the NCAA started making decisions and rules that put student education and class time above everything else, I would be the first to speak out against student athletes getting paid. If your team is playing a Wednesday night in the next time zone (500 to 1000 miles away) how can you look me with a straight face any tell they are "student athletes" and their education comes first?

A&M is unstable right now a frustrated fan base and a coach on the hot seat who is probably looking to get new job before he is fired. UCLA is more stable situation but it is so far away.

Did this guy practice this year? Are there any report as to how he looked in practice?

Very true and it starts with leadership. We have to contend with TCU and SMU in our market but that is no excuse for the program to be mediocre as it has been since we moved back to the FBS level. Dropping down was a huge mistake because we did not have a vision of how to make a FCS program work in this "front runner/bandwagon fan" market. We have a ton of untapped alumni money in our immediate area that is basically off limits due to what poor leadership has done to the UNT athletic brand since Fry left.

From what I saw he is only listed as an athlete not a QB prospect. A 3 star athlete but an athlete none-the-less.

Very interesting prospects here. English will have to sit a year I assume. I am more optimistic about our QB situation regardless who we get I think Seth will do a good job of coaching them up and putting them in situations to succeed. It is a little harder to scheme around and coach up a defensive front lacking size and athleticism. And our QB won't matter than much if the defense can never get off the field without giving up points. But who can we attribute this recruiting momentum to? Is this mostly Seth or the situation English's family situation? Will he get family medical waiver to allow him to play immediately (if there is such a thing)? Kincade sounds interesting to. Would he be the highest rated QB talent we ever land (transfer or high school) since Dodge?

I think anyone instantly calling this guy the best QB on the team are not looking at the grand scheme of things. Mac and his staff were terrible at developing the QB talent they had on the team. Otherwise Greer and Andrew McNulty would have seen dramatically less time on the field this season. Any eligible QB on the roster who was proficient at handling a snap were equally viable options compared to Greer and McNulty. Alec is a welcomed addition however I don't think anyone should be surprised if he is beaten out by a QB already on the roster today. However just by going against Alabama 2nd team defense in practice he should be ready to thrive in practice here.

In the video he is described as the QB in the competition with "the highest floor". If I were comparing Andrew McNulty to the rest of the QBs here this past spring that is how I would described him and I don't think I would be alone. If he is a great "bus driver" QB that is great and that is probably his ceiling here. I watched his highlights also and judging from what I saw he has good touch but not much zip on the ball.

If we get competent QB play next year and a defense that can get a few timely stops the team could easily by 6-6 next season. It is great news that Seth's reputation is getting the program attention from recruits who otherwise would not consider UNT. And people stop ragging in DT. He played competent and that is better than most QB's we have had since 2002. Yes Darrell Dickey didn't throw the ball but some of the time when he did let the QB throw it you would cringe and just hope for the best.

Honoring Coach Mitchell is long overdue. The question is why something like the things we are mentioning haven't already happened? We lack powerful traditions and the leadership has done a poor job of emphasizing the positive aspects of UNT Athletic History. It really sad when you watch documentaries about the breaking of the color line in college football and UNT is rarely mentioned, if mentioned at all.

The great news here is that the competing P5 offers aren't great. Indiana is a lower half Big 10 school and Virginia Tech is in the weakest of the P5 conferences. I could see him choosing Virginia Tech as logical choice but not Indiana. UNT presents a great opportunity for him. He would be the odd on favorite as the starter come fall. I don't know what the QB situation looks like at Virginia Tech but I guess they have better talent at that position to compete with him than we have. What would our program look like if we got QB that could consistently complete over 60% of his passes? Well, when you get that a decent defense you usually have a winning season. The last time we had that combination it landed us in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Your assumption cuts both ways, if he did not care about baseball then how would our school not having a baseball program hurt us in this particular case? School is hard enough without balancing it against preparation to play on two different Division I teams. If he came here, I would be happy to have him because we don't have baseball.

We don't need a part time QB with divided loyalties. We aren't a program that will have really deep talent around him and competing with him for the job. Programs need that to get the best out a dual baseball/football prospect.

Stop being so negative UNT90. And by negative, I mean thoughtful and skeptical of a program that has done very little substantially positive beyond building some facilities. It was a very limiting search criteria. However given that limited criteria Seth was probably the best candidate they could have settled on. Many UNT fans are like die hard local Dallas Cowboys fans that have never lived in another NFL city. They don't grasp how poorly the Cowboys have been run since the mid 1990s because they haven't taken the time to contrast the Cowboys front office with the front offices of successful NFL franchises. There is little excuse here because have we a perfect example just 40 miles down south in TCU. (The excuse that they have larger group of core fans with deeper pockets only goes so far. They are still a private school with less than 1/3 of UNT's student population). But to your strong point the equation is simple. Seth won't win here because the "magic" recruiting advantage of running a spread offense. He will win because he is a great head coach. So harping on the system instead W vs L results is just plain stupid. And the same number of fans are showing up to see a 6-6 spread option team that plays team most fans don't care about as a 6-6 triple option team that plays team most fans don't care about.

Let's take that step further. How about the entire leadership in the athletic department have that added to their Contract/HR evaluation matrix? Yes the attendance numbers are directly related to winning, however anyone that has had contact with another FBS program know that their sales and promotion team are lacking. Other that very ineffective billboards, I have seen very poor promotion efforts. I am very happy to have a coach that is excited about being here and is putting his money where his mouth is.

I agree having a coach that runs a version of the spread offense is not the end all. However if you have a coach that is very good at coaching defenses to stop spread offenses that could be special. I like how Stanford runs their program. It seems like they are comfortable running 60% of the time or passing 60% of the time depending on the match up they have. They have no problems recruiting high quality QB's either.