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I will take a coach that at least tries rather than waiving the white flag before the game starts. Troy and FAU have beaten top teams with far less talent. No, I don't remember Dickey ever beating Baylor in Waco. Maybe that was a Playstation game for you? He beat them at home once during their coach's first year and got killed by them the next year in Waco. Dickey was brought here to SPECIFICALLY recruit high school players instead of going the JUCO route. He let the players run the team. It was dangerous and in my opinion - a player quite possibly lost his life as a result of the reckless abandon of morals. The wins will come and when they do, we will be winning with class - not by any means possible. I think a lot of people hate Dickey because Dickey hates North Texas. Tit for tat.

Holy crap, I never thought that people would start to have "good ole day" syndrome about Dickey. The guy HATED North Texas. He absolutely despised the board, the fans, and the administration. Dickey only worried about conference game - OOC games were literally "scrimmages" (yes, he actually said that to a group of us once). Dickey never lost by that much to a team like Rice because he would give up before the game even started. He would simply run the clock. God, I wish that Scott Hall posted on this board - he would tell you about what playing under Dickey was like. A QB completely crippled by the Dickey system... use every second of the clock, hand off left, hand off right, play action, and the infamous dive play. The guy tried to throw a few things in on his own once and got benched until he could see the "error" of his ways. Dodge could easily run out a clock but that just send the message to the team that you don't think that they are very good. Well, if they aren't very good - you have to play through it to get better. I dunno, I do not like losing to Rice by 50 points but go back and watch the first quarter of the game. Someday we will be able to play 4 quarters like that and have a defense to stop people. While we are talking about Dickey - you have to remember the black jerseys, Ramon trying to beat up a fan, and players getting bailed out left and right. I really wish that HALF of the legal issues that were covered up could be exposed. Books being stolen, ATM machines being destroyed, Assault and Battery charges, DRUGS, oh - did I mention drugs? We had players that were arrested one night and playing the very next day. We had a player in a terrible accident. What if someone had put their foot down and said - you know what??? There are certain things more important than winning. Todd Dodge is not winning games yet but he is training those kids to become MEN. We have a coach that does not look the other way. Some of these players that have left "on their own" know the truth... they know that Dodge isn't going to ruin their lives just to enforce a rule. He believes in second chances, just not on his team. What would you rather have? Wins with a DANGEROUS system of looking the other way.... or wins and losses with a team that plays by the rules. We are already seeing the setbacks from the DD system of looking the other way, we have lost our first 5 scholarhsips thanks to this "hero".. Give Dodge some time to build this thing right and please realize that he has had to clean up a complete MESS along the way. These young players that are "beating out" the older "leftover" players probably just play by the rules whereas some of the older players are used to doing what they want and having a slap on the wrist be the norm. It is dangerous to run a program the way that Dickey did, those close to the program know exactly how much... and those are the people that are going to adamently back up Dodge for at least trying to do this with integrity.

The problem with that group is that there are people that alumni, or no longer students, or they are actually against the stadium but want to read about it and argue about it. There are not 2,000 voting members on there. I saw quite a few just on the front page that are not students at all. They are still in the NT network, because all you need to do to be in the NT network is declare that you are a student. Flyer, can you send a blast e-mail out to your members and ask them to post a wall message stating one word - FOR or AGAINST... and please ask people that do not have an actual vote in the election to not respond. I think that would be a much better barometer over the "x" amount of members one. Maybe there is a polling application that can be added to the page? But again - people that do not have the right to vote in the SGA election would still be able to vote in your poll.

But they were brought in as tight ends to be moved to another position. Do you remember the Dickey recruiting... "Geez, ANOTHER tight end? What are we going to do with yet another tight end?" - I thought it was more than 7 but I guess it was just 7. 3 of those converted to something else but anyways - they were tight ends by nature. When it comes down to it - Dodge really was the best bang for our buck. Everyone forgets that we had to pay out Dickey's contract! It was a half million bucks! And we got Dodge for actually less than Dickey from what I remember. The incentives are higher but he has yet to come close to hitting any of those (maybe the season ticket one or the attendance one- but that's about it). We just kept losing people all Spring. I was just waiting for the paper to say that Riley had been diagnosed with a rare condition that would not allow him to continue with football. It was really one thing after another. Have faith folks, please. I really (honestly) believe that Dodge can turn this around. I never believed he would make us a National Team (top 25) but I always and still believe that we can become a solid mid-major team again, with wins in the 7-8 range each year. BTW, as we are discussing salary... You had better thank your lucky stars and the BOR that RV got the salary increased for Dickey while he was winning. That allowed us to pay Dodge a salary that isn't a complete embarassment. It is low, but it isn't the lowest. I don't even think that his salary is in the top half of the Belt... The Belt has much higher salaries than the MAC though. Anyways, that is one thing that RV did very well - using that momentum to get pay raises for coaches. That way when the coaches left, he could (and will) negotiate bettter pay for their replacements without it being a big deal. Just remember that when RV got here, Dickey was making $107K a year INCLUDING incentives... and his assistants were alll making in the 20K range with the exception of his coordinators whom were making at the 45K range. A lot of that has been helped out now - not completely corrected, but helped out....but it is still not even close to keeping up with the Joneses.. And finally - the fee is to fund the program. This is not a fund JUST for a stadium. The students can only pay for half by law. There will be money to raise salaries with this fee. This fee is critical.

I don't know if this has been posted, but it sums up the absolute mess that Dodge has inherited AND contributed to... what a freaking mess we have on our hands... BUT - I would like to state one more time - how great is it for the state of the program that with ALL of these problems, we are burning the note for the AC, selling more season tix than ever, filling the stands with losing records, and getting tv to cover our games (the list goes on and on)... the program has truly matured - especially when you read about the mess going on with the football program. Yikes! Here is the link> http://startelegramsports.typepad.com/coll...-about-unt.html You may have already read this, but it starts out with the excerpt below and then lists off about 10 points of fact and 5 more ascertains. Facts about UNT's "mess" We referred to UNT's struggles in today's aftermath of Rice's 77-20 victory as a "mess" Todd Dodge stepped into. Actually, it was more a question than a statement. Anyway, there's debate over Dodge's culpability 16 games into the job, and if the paper that best covers his old team at Southlake Carroll is giving him a pass. Here are facts meant neither to indict UNT's former coaching staff nor mitigate the current one. They're just realities.

I hate to use this moment to talk about the Belt and how great it is for us - but I must. The league has evolved. A Tuesday night game is normally a nail in the coffin for attendance. Take that game and make it against an FAU team that people still don't really know that much about. Add to it that both teams have losing records... And top it off with the Belt being...err... the Belt. How many people show up to this terrible game from a "forced" rivalry in a league with no identity that is ranked towards the end of the spoectrum of the FBS leagues.... and you get a near sell-out. About 26K fans for a Nationally broadcast game. It is a shame that they didn't keep the crowd the whole game. Quite a few fans left early and didn't get to see the Hail Mary - but they won't make that mistake again... How bout them apples?

I think that is a fair assessment... I would say that 2 wins this year would be sufficient. Going 0-fer would be unacceptable but it is very possible. There was a ton of turmoil in the off season, we really lost a lot of guys. I was scared to open this page every day this Spring, it seemed like it was just one thing after another. I believe that Coach Dodge can make this team a winner. I love his passion, I love his attitude, I love the way that he handled the whole racism scandal last year. There seem to be some bitter minds that feel that Dodge's decision to go with youth over veterans was out of vengeance and not just building this team. Some of these responses have come from some of our BEST fans, fans that I know bleed green - literally... I just hope that we can keep the perspective that Dodge was brought in to heal this type of division that Dickey built up. The black uniforms were like a funeral and we have GOT to move on... he is gone, the youth movement must be embraced and we must let these players know that we support them - and that we support their coach. United we stand, divided we fall, and all that stuff.....

Man, you would think that the end of the world was coming. Can we please get some clarity on the reasons why Coach Dodge was such a breath of fresh air. Many on this board said - "I would take losses over these boring DD wins as long as the attempt to win was at least there"... "There are 5 plays in the DD playbook and RF can count them all on one hand"... "DD does nothing but belittle our administration and talk down to our alumni and school by calling us M'Fers"... "Why can't we just have a coach that takes the blame and doesn't blame it on how terrible the situation is at NT and how hard it is to recruit here" - etc etc etc... Dodge is not winning but he is certainly a breath of fresh air, even with the losses. The fans were going nuts during that first quarter in Houston. The stands are full, the season ticket sales are at an all time high, we are at least attempting to win games and that gives up the big play a lot. We need defense, bad. We lost Saturday because of terrible defense. The O was in a position that they could never keep up with the points being given up and that just completely killed any bit of momentum that we had. It is not the end of the world... DD had a bunker mentality that placed the fans against one another and the players against the fans. We had to buy out his contract to the tune of a half million bucks and deal with Mac making the whole ordeal into a publicity stunt. Dodge came in and brought back hope. We need to be thankful that he took this job - the cupboard was completely bare when he got here. We have to have faith in his abilities and remember the real reason why a change was needed. It was never about hiring Coach Dodge - it was ALWAYS about getting rid of Dickey. Dodge was affordable and brought a lot of young energy. Give him some more time and TRY to remember how much pain DD caused all of us. Be thankful that we are rid of Dickey because I honestly will take these losses with Dodge over the few wins that we had with Dickey... at least Dodge is trying to win these games, even if he isn't being succesful just yet.

I just meant that we would have a higher likelihood of swaying some dorm members more than others. No offense intended. Oh, and I changed the last line as to not offend anyone on www.GoPCMeanGreen.com

So I have a very good friend with an 18 year old son. When looking for a college, that kid wanted a true college experience and looked around the state for that. I suggested that he give NT a try and after a campus visit - he was hooked. The kid is from Houston and had no idea that NT was as traditional as it is. He is living in the dorm and playing the normal freshman route - video games, dorm food, girls, etc... This kid is much like I was in college - cool that we have a team; but not really that passionate about it. He is also on financial aid so every penny counts to him. My biddy asked him about the stadium this last weekend and he didn't even know about the vote. Now my biddy went to Illinois and played football in college so he knows how much college football can do for a school. His son and his friends all kind of reacted the same way - a little laugh and the question - "Well why should we pay for a stadium for a team that sucks". I know - they wouldn't pay till their senior year.. he explained that to them... they still sarcastically remarked that the football team takes a lot of money and even if it was a million or two or three, they would want that money to be saved to come off of tuition. What is wrong with this? Well, the two are not tied together in any way. It seems that the educational process is not going well. Also, even though the stadium will not be built (and the fee not in place) until these kids are seniors - they question whether the money is well spent on a team at all (stadium or no stadium). Ok, so I just want to emphasize this to the students that think this is in the bag... you need to work VERY VERY VERY HARD to get informational tables out to every dorm. Have those tables set up for the entire week leading up to the election. Once my buddy explained how a good athletic program could add value to their degrees - these 18 year olds "started" to get it. But it took awhile, and this was his DAD telling him. I cannot stress this enough folks - the mind of the typical 18 year old is very short sighted... they cannot see long term vision. They are worried about what video game is coming out and what chick they are gonna ask out. I also wanted to point out that in this case, the student specifically chose UNT to go to a traditional school - so he isn't some liberal arts pansy (like I was, lol)... he is a business major that came to Denton for the traditional college experience (from Houston) and is living ON CAMPUS in the DORM. How do you fix it? Education. Get those damn informational tables out and make sure that everyone working them knows his or her stuff. I am very worried that this election will not go through without a serious campaign. Maybe one is planned - but it can't just be sheets of paper passed out or signs. It needs to be people - an army of people - answering questions to the folks that live in the dorms. p.s. - I would put those tables in strategic locations for obvious reasons.

I am going to post some positives. First of all - how sad is it that Rice has a winning season, has an in-state opponent, and only draws 16K for a game? If you want to look for positives, look for them in the overall program. You have to realize how bare the cupboard was when Dodge got here. You have realize that these kids are 18 and 19 years old. You have GOT to give Deloach at least one recruiting class to tun around this defense. We may well go 0 fer this year. I had a hard time finding a win on the schedule when I looked at it this year but I didn't want to say anything on this board. We have a solid fanbase now. We have been here before - in the Big West. It was terrible. That is the reason why the guys tht have been around a little longer are so adamently against the WAC invitation. It would be a step backwards. Guys, we will win a game or two this year but let's face it... we are in a rebuilding year. We desperately need a new stadium if for nothing else but to excite the fanbase about something. FIU was the rock bottom of IA football going into this year but they opened their new stadium and did it with pride. Some of the posters on here mock it because it is not a shrine - but it is their HOUSE and they have a sense of pride now. They put a hell of a fight up against #12 S Florida and today they will likely be the only Belt team that wins in OOC against a very feisty Toledo team (on the road)... but guess what, they don't have any fans. We have fans now. We didn't before. When we were losing before it was so incredibly depressing to be a fan because we sucked - and there were only a handfull of us that cared. Talk to FFR and Mean Rob about how low this program was. Ask Harry how many people were at the last game of the Big West. Folks, I know it seems bad - it really seems bad. We are playing some crummy football. But the overall state of the program is much better than it was 8 years ago. We almost lost football completely - now we are just in danger of losing a few games. I will take the problem of just having a bad season over our previous problem of almost losing our entire program. This program is STRONG right now... even if the team isn't so strong. It is the strongest that it has ever been. There are more fans showing up to watch this losing team than Mean Joe Green ever had watching his team... or Hayden Fry for that matter. The program is strong, keep your pride.

Guys! It is not done yet, lol. Geez! And the price tag is for everything, they didn't even have a weight room! I mean - the had nothing folks, they had to start from scratch. FIU rushed their about 8 years to move to IA so that the Belt could stay a IA conference - we should be thanking them, not criticizing them. A facade will be put on the stadium, it is not done yet - teh stadium will not be done until 2011... The seats won't even be all in place until 2010. This thing is only about half done.

I can't get any of those links to work

You know - I have to agree with you. I am going to erase the original topic. Good heads up.

There is no such thing as the NT Exes, they have changed their name to the UNTAA... or as it is simply known as - the U.N. Ta Ta's

Edited - answered already. Thanks folks.

God, you really don't know a thing about FIU. Look at those crowd shots, it is all young people. They are a young school and they just added football. They have been IA longer than they were IAA. They have higher enrollment than us and have spent 10 times more on their program than we have over the last 5 years. I would worry about NT moving down before I worried about FIU. They are building for the future and realize that it won't happen overnight. Their head coach is paid double what Dodge is.

Student fees, when it is all completed - it will be an $80 million dollar set-up. I think that this first phase was $45 million and they still have a lot to be built. I know that the capacity sounds low but a lot of schools have lower capacity stadiums than us. The 30K seat requirement came after the 80's and only a few teams in the MAC have 30K seats. I would rather them have 26K bad ass seats with good sight lines rather than have 30K with crummy aluminum bleachers that nobody will ever want to sit in. Take a look at those pictures, there really doesn't look to be a bad seat in the house.

I guess the first part was unclear but the stadium is not done yet. It is being built in stages. Phase one was to get this part open for this year to get them out of the Orange Bowl. Phase two starts construction literally after this season - it doesn't need to be funded, it already is - they just didn't have time to build it. Stage two will expand capacity to 26K plus 2K on grass... about the same size as ours. Stage three is not guaranteed - just planned. It will be expandable to 45K seats if needed. So, to clarify - they got the first phase done about a day before the game... in fact, I think that they still have work to do. Stage two will start right away when they finish this stage and should be under contruction over the next 18 months so that it is ready by the 2010 season. Make sense?

Ok, an FIU fan posted a couple of tidbits. First of all, the stadium is 18K seats with capacity of 20K on the grass so they were just about sold out. The attendance was just below 17K. The stadium is not done, it has another side to be completed and that will be done by 2010. Finally, tickets were $51 bucks for this game but season tickets are only $100. They did this to curve USF fans from filling up their home stadium on opening day... smart move actually, because they didn't put the single game tix on sale until there were only end zone seats left which meant that some USF fans are now FIU season ticket holder simply out of default, haha. Finally - it looks pretty amazing in its first phase. Here is a picture.. You can follow the link for some more: More pics: http://www.miamiherald.com/photos/gallery/...3.html?number=0

34-33, good guys... in front of over 42,000 in the Sun Bowl. Also, did anyone see that ASU Red Wolves won yet again? This time over the MUTS with a packed house of about 25K fans Finally, ULA beat Kent State at home handily, 44-27, pretty good crowd considering they haven't won in awhile. Probably the most dissapointing thing today - only 16K and some change for the opening of FIU's new stadium. Sure it only seats 20K at this stage and it "looked" full but I would have thought that considering the top 12 opponent with visiting fans - they could have filled it up at least this one day. I was surprised to hear in the broadcast that the construction is not done yet. According to the announcers, those small stands are going to be replaced with a completion on the bowl by 2010. Sure FIU has lost 27 of their lost 28 with their lone win over North Texas but considering the circumstances today (new stadium, local opponent, top 12 opponent, etc...) - they should have had a sell out crowd for their nationally televised game. It looked pretty full on tv but the box score says 16K and some change.

It is a great move. Schools like Kansas State will schedule more 2-1 deals with schools like NT.If they don't want to pay it, they simply play a return game. It is also good that the AD's don't have to set the rule - a lot of them want to be AD's at BCS autobid school someday so this gtes them out of being the bad guy. Worst case scenario, we stop these "canned hunt" games and have a chance to start the season with e better record. Best case scenario - we only have to play 1 or 2 of these every other year and more BCS autobid teams come to Denton... If they don't want to play or pay - we are forced to work out deals with TCU, SMU, Tulsa, Rice, etc... geez, that would suck /sarcasm off.

God, thinking about those Helwig days got me chuckling a little. Does anyone remember the "Green Seats" campaign? What about the first Athletic Center - that old dumpy distribution warehouse that was going to be our AC before we realized that was just ridiculous? Portable Video Boards. Portable luxury boxes. Do you all remember the push to bring IA football back? I can remember the free beer in the BIG tent and Deep Blue Something playing Breakfast at Tiffany's to the crowd. They made you go in the tent and be "counted" for attendance before letting you drink the free beer and listen to the music. We were really running stuff on gimmicks and smoke and mirrors back then, haha. I remember when Trilli ball came to town and he remarked that he felt right at home in the Pit because all the seats were orange. This was before we even had cup holders for our drinks. Man, we really have come a long way. I can remember Mean Rob putting together the first tailgating efforts... people have no idea how bad it was. If someone actually came to the game, they would wander up sometime about half way through... you really couldn't tell that there was an event going on as you passed on the highway... the pre-crowd did not happen, it just didn't exist... in fact - it was against the rules. Tailgating was not allowed back then. Yikes, I am going to throw up in my mouth.

God, where do you start to explain the power at Fouts. Remember the Baylor game? You know - the one we won? Well the power was so bad that their headsets weren't even working on the sidelines. At halftime, the Baylor team had NO power in their locker room. None. It simply went out and there was nothing that could be done to fix it. These basic "amenities" - you know, running water, electricity... the really FANCY stuff... and our lack of them has been what has kept teams like TCU, Houston, and Baylor from wanting to return to Fouts. You don't think that it is the stadium size that keeps them away do you? That is a really bad myth. It is because Fouts is a dump underneath those stands. The outside isn't half bad as long as you have binoculars. The infrstructure is just absolutely terrible. A new stadium will get all sorts of schools "back" to Denton, they want a winnable game just as much as we want the crowd. Teams like Tulsa have had their own stadium problems so they are a little more understanding. When the Daktronics went in, they pulled up the concrete all the way across the road to the Gateway Center and ran a line just for the video scoreboard. When people were asking why we couldn't get a jumbotron, the main reason was never cost of the actual scoreboard - it was always power. The scoreboard has advertisers and sponsors and it can be paid out over time. The problem was always power. I don't even think that Fouts had lights on it when built... those were added later. Before someone corrects me - I might be wrong on this, but I think that the lights were added on... If there were lights on the original structure than they were probably very different and not very bright. Thank goodness they got that right. The Rubber Bowl in Akron added their lights with the poles in front of the crowd so that you can't sit behind the lightpoles, lol. Anyways - I am going to guess that we have tried to put as little as possible into Fouts over the last 8 years because it was A ) A waste of money and B ) Not available (the money)... The jumbotron was one of those - well, we need to give people some sort of game time experience. God, the fans that are new now have no idea how bad Fouts USED to be. Does anyone else remember Fouts before RV got it renovated? During the Helwig era? Geez.... it was really bad. When RV first got here he tried to get the jumbotron installed and we got the Daktronics people to "loan" us a portable one for a game or two... I seem to remember it being at the home game against Houston. It was really, really sad to hear the people "oooooooh, and ahhhhhhh" over this jumbotron on a trailer. Funny stuff actually. Then they ran the power line from the Gateway Center and boom - up goes brand new Video Scoreboard and two more in the Super Pit (which in my opinion as too small for an arena of that size but are definitely better than the Commodore 64 they were using to run the previous scoreboard Helwig also once brought in portable luxury boxes, that is another long post that I won't bore you with, lol I think that the figures speak volumes. Fouts was built for what, $500K? So if you adjust that for inflation it comes out to like $7 or $8 million? What could we build with $7 or $8 million now? The jumbotron and the field turf together were $3 million. The aluminum stands were added for a million bucks thanks to Budweiser (Ben E Keith and Troy LaGrone). The lights are probably a couple million bucks to put up brand new (like, all of the lights...)... so if we were to take the entire budget of the track stadium that Fouts is (remember, they also had to pay for a full track and all the amenities with that money)... we would basically be able to buy a scoreboard, MAYBE run power to it, throw up some aluminum bleachers, some lights, and put a field down. That is the budget that Fouts was built on and it has made it for over a half century. I would say that we gotten our money's worth. Time to tear that puppy down. Quick question... I see that Texas Stadium is selling off the seats one by one... I think that one seat is like $500 bucks or something. Is there anything that you guys would buy from Fouts before they tear it down? I really can't think of a single thing. How sad is that? Maybe the bricks from the demolition? I guess that I would pay for that - a piece of Fouts blown up for like $20 bucks. Pretty sad if you really think about it. Perhaps there are some lockers underneath that might be worth some money to a donor if cleaned up properly.

Well, you are on the same page as the AD... the brochure handed out on opening night state that the new stadium will be the first "Green" stadium and this is a GREAT idea given our student population. What a selling point! And we are the "Mean Green"