Mike Jackson

Before 1996 the Texas Rangers had never made the MLB playoffs. During their last 6 years at the old Arlington stadium their attendance averaged a little over 60% of capacity. Mind you that is a losing baseball franchise in the middle of arguably the most football hungry state in the country. There are also 82 regular season games for the Rangers compared to on 5 or 6 Mean Green home games a year. So, I look at the "just win" and it will fix everything theory as a little naive. If "just winning" means 4 straight years of 9-3 or 10-2 and competitive showing in all the bowl games I agree(and even that is a not a guaranteed long term fix in my opinion). But is success like that plausible at any program not in a P5 conference with virtually unlimited resources? A strong culture keep your average attendance at around 20k through mediocre years and subpar 3 win seasons. And that 20k should be easy because getting 8,000 students out of 30,000+ should not be an impossible task. You can't get students to enjoy a product they have already paid for by just attending UNT and that to me speaks volumes about how huge of a failure RV has been. Every fall they should have EA Sport NCAA (the last version they made) up on a big screen in the student Union. Simulated to show the Mean Green kicking butt on the field in front of 30,000 plus fan with a banner underneath stating there are well over 35,000 student here and we can make this happen but we need all of you. Hell project it on the side of one the great new building at UNT at night and get our real band playing underneath. So I hear what everyone is saying about winning. And yes it will help tremendously however, unless you build a strong culture you will be forever chasing fickle band wagon fans whenever you have a down year. Let's look at the Dallas Cowboys which is the standard of financial sports success in DFW. Before Jerry Jones arrived we had Cowboy games blacked out because some of the games weren't sellouts. If the Cowboys don't win 3 Super Bowls in 4 years and had just be winning but not getting to NFC Championship games the franchise would look drastically different and AT&T Stadium would not be such a grand spectacle now. So what would an "early 1990s Cowboys like" run at UNT look like? National Championship is out the question with he P5 vs G5 playoff selection process. The holy grail for us would be 2 or 3 consecutive bowl wins with one of those wins coming over an upper level Old Big 12 or SEC School. That means catching Alabama, Oklahoma, UT Austin, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida or Nebraska (teams we have never beaten before) in a bowl game with at least a 30 year history behind it and beating them. So essentially to make that happen UNT has to be undefeated or one lost CUSA Champion. Also during this magical season has to sandwiched between 2 winning seasons. To get fickle band wagon fans to stick around after a 4-8 season that is kind of winning you need to "fix everything". I think doing creative things to change the culture and creating new traditions is a far easier task. But winning has to go along with those effort for those things to work. Winning is the engine but culture is the turbo charger.

Loved the podcast. From RV's standpoint I don't know why he even comes on. This program is at a level where he has no clue on how to help it grow. College Athletics is not the like the "Field of Dreams". You can't just build facilities and expect great player and loyal fans to come from hundreds of miles away. Now he is expecting a football coach to fix everything. Seth might be great but great here just might mean 8-4 and not winning CUSA West. If Seth takes this team on a 4 year .650 winning percentage run should we expect sellouts at Apogee in year 3 or early in year 4? RV doesn't even understand the culture at UNT and how a culture is created. Culture takes time to build. You have to create something unique beyond just winning that bond alumni and fans together. An athletic program is more than just a few years of winning football. He is constantly talking about people giving the program money. Well when people give you money they expect results. Has even been successful getting 15K students in Apogee. Students today are paying alumni fan 4-5 years from now. While I was a student I don't remember anything significant being done to help make me a future fan of the program. I think we had a pep rally but that is about it. Only one my fellow 2007-2008 alumni have been to a game since they have graduated. He said nothing about making the game day experience more enjoyable. How about getting students more engaged? Asking UNT alumni to come up with P5 Conference money to compete in CUSA with your track record is just ridiculous. Any competent AD should be successful in a conference in which they have the top financial resources. It is not just the losing that has me leaving the MGC it is RV's lack of leadership and vision. If you hand me 6 million dollars and tell me to hire a coaching staff, I am sure I could put a good one together. If you build a program there always be one of the revenue sport teams doing well. Moreover if you have a strong culture fans will show up to game in down seasons also. (They may not sellout but getting 70% of capacity for football and maybe 50% for weekend Mens basketball games are reasonable). If RV were gone and we still had a brand new football coach I would be current member and trying to upgrade to a club seat.

I think we are customers at bad cafe arguing about how bad the food was. All I know is for 2 years the defensive line play was poor to bad. The line was small but adequate to go up against most teams in their conference. And by adequate I don't mean getting blown off the ball consistently.

The defensive line was poor in 2014 and horrible in 2015. So this is the first hire that I will be critically examining because on face value it just appears shaky in my opinion. It might just be the timing, his familiarity with the program and recruiting connections keeping him on board. I am no line play guru who can break down technique but even undersize guys should have be a little more successful with proper technique and motivation. That line was destroyed by an FCS team offensive line. They played okay against a Tennessee team that was coasting and a really bad UTSA team.

Western Kentucky as CUSA Champion should have gotten shot a P5 conference school in their bowl game. Just another indication that there are just way too many bowls. The top G5 Conference Champions should get a P5 Conference Division winner or first runner up at the very least. P5 schools and the bowl organizers are just getting way too greedy now.

That is a huge concern in my opinion. These guys are going to have to work very hard to recruit to UNT and it would help recruited to programs they were 3rd tier in comparison to other programs in their region.

RV is an absolute failure in this capacity which is why it is a crime that he still has this position. It seems there was no plans at UNT for anything beyond building new facilities and starting a baseball program to get into a better conference. Great programs just don't have the support of a select few donors with deep pockets they have community support.

If you haven't had a winning season in If you haven't had a winning season in 5 years turning that around is commendable no matter where it is. If Seth does that here Mean Green fans are overjoyed and remember we had a winning season just 2 years ago not 5. And the leadership at the time at LSU thought it was commendable hence why they hired him.

Travel west to play MWC team would be more expensive. Fresno State is not going to drop down, too much money can be made there with winning team. Just look at the top notch QB they were able to recruit in the past. Until we actually start consistently winning in CUSA I think this is moot discussion. I could see UTEP going with Texas State maybe if other teams leave MWC to keep it at 12. And I don't think it the Mean Green best interest to have our games start 8:00 pm or later when the primetime best P5 match up are on TV and entering crunch time/OT in many cases. What I am hoping for is NCAA conference standardization to 12 team conferences. I hated the super conference when the WAC started this garbage and hate even more now. We should be careful. I don't want UNT to end up like La Tech was in the WAC with there nearest conference foe almost a 1000 miles away. I don't think that is sustainable even at the P5 level. I don't think West Virginia will stay in the Big 12 for long without another team in the Eastern Time zone being added soon.

Yeah great comparison if you leave out Saban's time at MSU that earned him the opportunity at LSU. When Saban arrived in East Lansing, Michigan prior to the 1995 season, MSU had not had a winning season since 1990, and the team was sanctioned by the NCAA for recruiting violations committed under his predecessor and former mentor, Dodge is not a great coach. Why we are even discussing this now that we are on the 2nd permanent head coach since his departure? If this isn't going to help us get recruits from Austin Westlake what is the point? Are we hoping have UNT beat Allen HS next year? SMH

You seriously have a negative Nancy attitude if you have strong negative reaction to this news. Lack of experience is an issue but what do we really expect here with RV still in the picture and the sour stinch of a 1-11 season lingering around Denton. I am looking forward to an assault on the Mean Green passing and receiving record books. I don't think we will see it next year because the running backs our the best offensive unit on the team. But year 2, 3 and 4 once he gets a quarterback that can run the system watch out CUSA. And if we get a defense to compliment it, the sky is the limit.

Can we get a recording of Seth Littrell's interview on the 1310 The Ticket during the Musers?

I have a great simple way to preserve the bowl system and be fair to the best G5 school. It would inject so much excitement into top game between top G5 team like Houston vs Temple this and big time incentive to be top rank at the end of the regular season. The top ranked team in FBS gets host the nearest bowl against top ranked G5 team. This year Clemson would get rewarded by getting to play the Orange Bowl against Houston. Then you can just restore some the traditional conference match up in the bowls. Select the top 2 or top 4 teams after the bowl are played. And the kicker is for scheduling purposes the bowl must be played between December 26 and January 3rd. We end up with great bowl games with tons of interest cause any team in the top 6-8 counting an undefeated or 1 loss G5 bowl winner who knock off number 1. The top spot in the ranking would be even more valued because with that you get essentially a home game that in a lot of years should be a cupcake.

I think this brings up a few issues for me related to the general "flow" of the game day experience. Here are things I would like to see. 1. Marching Band plays on the floor of the Super Pit starting 90 minutes before kickoff (20 minute jam session/mini pep rally) 2. Band marches out of the Super Pitt across the Fouts Field and start playing "Fly Like a Eagle" the second the first member of the band reaches the bridge ramp (wish the bridge was little wider) 3. Band marches past an improved walkway between the Alumni Pavilion and the circular walkway on the south east side of the stadium 2 laps around the circle then into the stadium. The areas outside of Apogee could use a little tweaking to encourage contact between current students, alumni, and band and the Joe Greene statue should be a center point of that meeting point.

I hope not but it is looking that way. I think CFB people are being duped into thinking they are like the NFL. Key difference between college and the NFL are unions for the players and revenue sharing for the franchises. The NFL has taken the long term growth view when they are faced with the crossroads. Over the past few years I have found myself less interested in the power conference college football ball because the super conferences have diluted what being the conference champion means. Like this year for example Iowa could have won the Big 10 without playing arguably the best team in their conference Ohio State. The conferences, schools and bowl organizations have been greedy and selfish to the determint of the sport. Some the best games that made College Football the game that it is are no longer played regularly if at all. Rivalry games now all but dead due to greed: Texas vs Texas A&M Alabama vs Tennessee Oklahoma vs Nebraska Michigan vs Notre Dame Pitt vs West Virginia Cincinnati vs Louisville West Virginia vs Virginia Tech Pitt vs Penn State I used to mark some of these game on my calendar. Now when they play next, I probably won't remember they were rivals and most of their current students won't either. When I say all but dead it mean that a class of students could complete their 4 or 5 years as an undergraduate and never see a game against a rival. Once the chain is broken it hard to get the energy back especially if don't play at least once every 2 years.

Unfortunately this just highlights more of the failure of RV and the previous coaching staffs. These positions should have be already in place as soon as Apogee was completed. At the very least we should have had one of these positions. Maybe we could have gone the opposite direction of SMU and had a Defensive Analyst/Recruiting Director. I think finding players to run the spread offense is easier than finding defensive players good at defending it. As much as I am excited to have a head coach with a dynamic spread option coordinator resume, I would be more excited to have the top rated defense in CUSA. If we have the top rated defense and just a little above mediocre spread offense our team probably wins CUSA West Division.

The more RV talked during the introduction the more he sounded like her was filibustering to prevent a vote on his competence. RV should not have been allowed to talk that long , no one came to see him speak. Moving on the positive, it is great is that he is from just a little up north. Funny thing is that I really believe that he knows about the challenges he will face here. The question is will be able to overcome them? On the contract given his age and possible up side I would have liked to see a 6 or ever 7 year contract with benchmarks that would key incentives and renegotiation of his salary. Also buyout structure that would allow him to leave a few regional P5 school at a slight lower buyout level than USC, UT Austin, Alabama, Notre Dame, LSU and Texas A&M. Cause I want the schools I mentioned to pay premium highest dollar to steal our coach.

Yep just Google search

Yes, it kind of hard to get really excited about the new head coach when you have provide website feedback to the Meangreen.com staff like this. Staff This morning I was looking for a recording of Coach Littrell's first radio interview as the new head coach of North Texas. I found this http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/120110aaa.html You might want to take this page down. Just sent this 10 minutes ago. SMH If they actually get the head out of... well you know and take the page down before you click on the link. It was Coach Mac's first interview as North Texas head coach. First part fo a 2 part series.

Realistic Goals 1. Have a winning percentage of 65% or higher against in state conference foes UTSA, UTEP, and Rice 2. Consistently have the best rated recruiting classes in CUSA West Division on signing day. Being out recruited by Southern Miss or La Tech once every 3 years is not cool but no one is perfect. 3. Finish 3rd or better in CUSA West Division every year. This one is iron clad and gives you a mulligan for "magical" year at conference rival school 4. Beat SMU in Dallas. Beating SMU in Denton has be been done but we can't have a true rivalry until we beat them on their turf. 5. Start some new tradition that includes student involvement. Have a select group of 250 students that usher the players on the field before game and come down on to the field to sing the alma mater with the team after game is my suggestion.

I really can't stress how important 4 & 6 are. Our program ranks last in local coverage versus the other metroplex FBS programs even when we have a recent bowl and former player that has made a significant on the field impact for the Dallas Cowboys. If you do enough winning and take care to 4 & 5. I think getting a 4 star recruit or 2 every year is not impossible here. Especially 4 star recruits who don't want to sit on the bench or leave the state in order be on a depth chart that looks easier to conquer.

They needed to do something to sell season tickets and they don't have much to sell except hope at this point.

Standing ovation sir! Littrell would be well advised to take all 5 to heart to the extreme, except maybe number 4. One of the best posts ever here on GMG.com

To celebrate a new era in UNT Football I think we should honor the past in the opening home game next season. And I think the Alumni Pavilion could a small expansion and minor improvements. Can we get the Alumni Pavilion renamed for Odus Mitchell and announce the name change and expansion plans next September? If you need a history lesson (like I did) here is a link below. For this I might show up for debut of the Seth Littrell era at UNT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odus_Mitchell

So when was the last great season? The 2003 Season winning the Sun Belt and beating Baylor? Or the 2002 season undefeated in the Sun Belt and winning the New Orleans Bowl? Oh, that is right that is the coach RV didn't hire but the coach he inherited and fired. Great track record, now I am certain that Literal will will 3 straight CUSA titles and get us nationally ranked in the top 25 at the end of the regular season.