stebo

The Athletic Center is BRAND NEW and state of the art. Our facilities are just as good as many BCS schools. Probably the best in the Belt (sans Fouts) and I would imagine that they are btter then any MAC team out there. CUSA has a few teams WAY ahead of the others (Memphis, Southern Miss) - but if you are looking at facilities for working out and practicing, we can hold up against anyone. We just need a new football stadium for game day. Victory Hall is attached to the Athletic Center and this makes it very easy for a student athlete to work out without even owning a car (which many scholarship players have yet to acquire)... We are just as good as anyone out there, Dickey just was a jerk.

Well, I don't work for a tech school... I work for the University of Phoenix, a fully (regionally and nationally) accredited 4 year institution. We are the largest private school in the country with over 180 campus' and 360,000 students. We have now launched an online junior college that is expanding faster than our 3 DFW ground campus' and our growth is through the roof.... but... thanks for the encouragement. I started with the school about a year and a half ago and at the time we had 30 counselors - now we have 8 teams and 90 counselors. The team that I lead has 10 members on it. I can't imagine trying to compete with UOP in the recruiting sector these days, we pretty much get the cream of the crop when it comes to the adult student population. My hat is off to you for recruiting the tech student, that is a tough game and you must have been really freaking good at it to have stuck it out for so long. My job is easy, our students call us and ask us how to get in school rather then the other way around, lol.

If we are consistently filling a 31K seat stadium then we will have ZERO problems expanding or funding that expansion. Zero. The main thing is to build the stadium so that it is easy to expand when that is needed. The AD is not an idiot and that will be the focus of the design so that we are never stuck with another Fouts. Can we please stop talking about the stadium and continue to make fun of La Tech? They are such an easy target and it is so much fun.

Well, it sounds like you are having a one way relationship. Since they left - yo uhave not scheduled them in either football or men's basketball. On the other hand - we have scheduled every single school except UTEP in both football and men's basketball. Sounds like Tech wants a lot to do with those schools and they really don't see the benefit of playing a home and home with a team in Ruston.

Thanks for the link... that is for the 04-05 year (61 posted the next year for you as well).. For 04-05 (according to your link) - your operating budget was: Total Operating $10,996,389 Ours was: Total Operating $13,749,794 So, looking at the newer numbers posted by 61, it looks like your budget has actually dropped about $700-$800K between 04/05 and 06/06 and ours has increased ever so slightly. We ran a deficit for 04/05 (and a large deficit at that) - but that is before our student fees are added in and we are also required to actually pay for the tuition of our athletes. You guys ran an even budget (actually, the report says that you make $13K bucks that year)... but unlike Texas, you are allowed to waive tuition. Still, it looks like for 04/05 - we ran about even as far as revenue, we just spent more then you and had a higher operating budget (again, according to your link). We have been able to keep the budget at our new high range and we have a balanced budget now. I imagine that our deficit was due to the facilities that we built that year. Since you are a closet NT fan then you know about how much we spent over the last two years in facilities. $3 million bucks is a much smaller deficit than I ever thought it would be considering how much we freaking spent that year.

I am just curious... I really have no idea... but how many non-conference games has Tech scheduled with those former Wacters since they went to CUSA. Because in the last three years. we have scheduled a home and home with SMU, Tulsa, and now Rice. When you are a lower budget, regional team like NT and Tech - our departments thrive on low travel regional games that will draw a good crowd (much like these three games)... how has Tech done in keeping up that relationship and keeping those teams on your schedule? Again, I have no idea and I am at work - no time or energy to look up Tech's last few years of scheduling. It just seems that Tulsa, SMU, and Rice have taken an interest in playing NT... not sure why... but we are really happy about it. On the whole Presidents thing... School Presidents change about every 5 years. We have a new Prez already. I wouldn't count on those relationships to get you in. The further that you go from playing those schools, the more that you will be judged on your overall program and not the friendships that you used to have. And our budget numbers are well ahead of yours and you know it. The Dept of Ed proved it with their website (thanks 61). Actually, you have improved... you were at $9.7 or so the last time expansion happened... you have added about a million to your budget, good going. We have added about $4 million. Sorry, like I said - the numbers don't lie. P.S. - I also have an affection for La Tech. I believe that the schools are very close. I do not believe that Tech has the financial resources to be a big player on the IA scene long term if you stay in the WAC. It is suicide. If you are really against the Belt, that is fine.. maybe go back to Indy. Tech's best years were when they were Indy. Your best conference year ever was your first year of the WAC when you were coming out of Indy land. The WAC has hurt your recruiting and your team has suffered. Your women's basketball used to be a National Powerhouse - like Purdue and Tennessee and it is now in shambles. You can blame it on whatever you want, I blame it on the WAC. You were better off Indy. The Belt might bring you even lower. So Indy might be your answer... but the WAC is destroying your budget and your programs. When North Texas turned the WAC down, it was because we were thinking with our wallets and not our egos. We will have fun inthe Belt, build up our facilities, strengthen our budget, and then eventually move onto bigger things. Tech will get to keep their Ego in check but will continue to "dogpaddle" in a WAC that does not even want them.

When I pull that page up it comes up as a blank page... regardless, two of those three members were original founding members and are probably grandfathered in. As for Marshall- you got me (altough I haven't seen their budget because your link didn't work).... but maybe they made an agreement with CUSA to get it to $20 million within "x" amount of years. Honestly, I do not know. All that I know is that Britton told our athletic dept that we were lacking in three areas and I listed those three. Since then, we have quietly been moving towards reaching those goals. The CUSA bylaws are not on any public website, a poster tried to find them back whent he article came out in the Denton Record Chronicle to see if that was a snow job or an SMU tactic to keep up out.... they were not published at the time. I suppose I could post an empty link like yours and claim that it is there but that nobody else can see it, lol. Seriously though man - you guys are operating on a IAA budget and you know it... We were too for the longest time and have just recently (the last couple of years) gotten our budget up to a respectable amount... but we have a LONG ways to go - just not as long as La Tech. Sorry man, the numbers don't lie.

What I was referring to (if you had read the post) - were annual budget numbers... not facility improvements. CUSQA has a bylaw stating that all members must have an annual operating budget of at least $20 million. La Tech was (and still is) hovering in the $9-$10 million range. NT was also in the range but we listened to the folks at CUSA - reacted to it, and have been gradually boosting our budget each year. In the 2 years since the expansion, North Texas has moved our annual operating budget UP about $4 million bucks. In that same time, La Tech has reported only a slight improvement (less then $500K). If CUSA were to come calling, we would only need to come up with another $5 million a year in order to reach their minimum standards... La Tech would need to basically DOUBLE their budget. I know all about the arguement for in state tuition being paid by the State of LA; but that was broken down to about $1.3 million at a maximum (if all athletes were using the in state tuition waiver and La Tech were to accept zero out of state recruits)... obviously this isn't the case, you have a lot of LA students on your rosters but it isn't anywhere close to 100%.. so maybe that accounts for $500K to $750K. You have a long ways to go to be compliant with CUSA bylaws but obviously - so does NT... we are just working towards it a little faster. Of course it is a lot easier for us to do that when we have the savings of the Belt on our side...

Alex, Ok, NOW I apologize. That is all that I wanted you to do. I see passionate fans like yourself that will be the next generation for North Texas... but they just seem to want to bitch and moan about it. I am glad that you not only wrote Rick but that you have volunteered to help in any way that they need you. I would follow it up wth a call. Keep in mind that RV is probably on vacation rght now because it is that time of year that he can take a vacation. He might not be, but if you don't get an immediate response, then please give RV the benefit of the doubt before claiming that he is ignoring you. I think that after you speak with him - or when he answers your letter - that you will see what I am talking about. I also think that you are a man for making good on your word and taking the initiative to ask the AD these questions. I apologize for anything negative that I posted in anger - I was just frustrated... and like you, I am passionate about NT and the staff that serves us so well. steve

The University of Phoenix has over 360,000 students and hass the largest student population in the world. Sorry, I work for them... but they are no interested in athletics, just students and Tle IV money

I just am friends with the guy that was in charge of development when the University had a rep working the the Athletic Department. Also, I know RV - he knows me - and I have asked him some of the same questions that are being brought up here. I was on SA (before it became SGA) that voted to move us back to IA and oversaw that move along with the old gang of fools - Sloan, Helwig, and Hurley... and I was very involved with the athletic department as a student. When I opened the Tavern on Fry Street, I became a sponsor and as a sponsor I was able to go on some of the team's trips (to the games) and stay with those guys. I have been to dinner with them in social and public settings. Hank and I have known each other since 1995, when I opened the bar. This board dates back to that time... but it was on Paradise then... then Rivals... and now is indy. A large sum of the older fans do not post here anymore but WE were the ones that brought BACK the Mean Green Club. Before us, it had been turned into a worthless fixture called the "Foundation"... The AD asked for the name back and we willingly gave it back for our love of the school and the game. These discussions have been going on and on for the last 12 years. I am not trying to toot my own horn, I usually stay pretty quiet on here. But when I see blatant lies been posted about people that I call friends and ALLIES of the program; I take offense to it. I do not mean to offend any posters but it just gets old after awhile. So old that a lot of the older posters do not even come around the board anymore. As for the young guns on here. I admire you and embrace you. My generation got it started and we are seeing it through - but we need to quadruple in size to accomplish our goals. So... like I said.... if you are truly interested in things like stadiums; don't complain about it on a message board where recruits can see your rumblings - call the athletic director and ask him out for lunch or dinner. If you are a season ticket holder he will listen to you and probably even let you in on some of the challenges that they have faced. I am not special, I have just been around for awhile.... and I am only 35.

There is no exact budgeting of the student fees for athletics. We were in DESPERATE need to get compliant with women's facilities. We had the school buy the Liberty Christian property (smart move that save the athletic dept tons of dough) and then we upgraded everything. The fee was passed by the BOR in order to get us compliant and to help to fund the Title IX issues. We haven't added any sports, we were already funding those sports. We have used the fees collected wisely and gotten every single facililty SOME sort of facelift. Now the extra fees can be used for whatever the budget needs. The smart thing was getting all of the Title IX stuff out of the way first. Now nobody can come back and say that we threw everything into men's sports. And yes, you are correct. We already had a fee in place. If someone wants to get extra picky then the AD can just say that the new fee is supporting Title IX sports on its own and the old fees are what they are using to upgrade Fouts into a new stadium. It is not a crazy request, the facility is over 50 years old... but it would have been an unreasonable request to replace a current structure for a football program when the programs like Softball and Volleyball did not even have locker rooms a couple years ago. Their coaches didn't have offices. They had ZERO facilities. Our soccer team was playing on the intramural fields. Our softball team was playing at a City of Denton park. Our Volleyball program floated, they played wherever they could find space that day (women's basketball would usually be using the Snake Pit when the men were practicing). As for timetables at North Texas. Bad Idea. If you have been around for ANY campaign, you would know that. The freaking Green Seats in the Super Pit campaign took like 3 years. Our "new" Athletic Center was orginally going to be over at the old facilities plant across the road from Fouts (up against Cement City). That ws the original plan. It had a nice big poster with a picture on it and a thermometer for funding and all of that. Well, when we didn't hit the timetable, people gave up. Then fans thought it was a pipedream/joke and that if they were to donate for it then they would be a "sucker" - because they money would just go to repainting Fouts again. The same exact thing happens with a timetable placed on a stadium. If you don't hit the date, then everyone thinks that they do not need to donate because "its never gonna happen" and then you REALLY have a problem. That is when you have to fund the entire thing in house like we ended up funding the Athletic Center. You guys seem to think that RV and his staff haven't gone over every single possible scenario already. They know Denton now. They Know North Texas. They know the politics. Only a fool would promise a timetable for a stadium with our fanbase. You have to finesse the money out of our fans. And you have to fund in house through bonding, fees, and donations. We are doing ALL of these things every single day. When the majority is raised, you will get a final public phase where you can buy your own locker or seat. It will happen.... we just haven't gotten there yet.

Me five, we sucked.

Man, I hear you bro. I hadn't posted a thing since the GMG bowl but I just couldn't let the dipshits continue to smear our Athletic Department. How can you be a North Texas fan and NOT know these fundamental things about the "state" of North Texas and North Texas politics. Comparing our school to a new Circuit City pushed me over the edge. As far as I am concerned, it is recruiting season year round right now and we don't need our own (uninformed) fans undermining the coaches and staff that work their butts off for our entertainment. The thing is... the people that are getting smeared get paid way less then most of us but we rely on them for so much... If guys like Playmaker would just donate as much as they complain then we would have a new stadium by next Saturday.

Probably because we will fund this stadium much like we funded our other projects. Through student fees and loans from the BOR. The new athletic fee that was put into place has served us well. That extra $3.7 million per year has done a lot to help us become Title IX compliant for the first time ever as well as overhaul every single facility EXCEPT Fouts. Heck, even Fouts got a jumbotron and new turf. Now that we have caught up, we can start putting some of those fees towards bonding of a stadium.... essentially having students guarantee the note. Now, do you advertise this to ANYONE at North Texas? There will be articles all over the Daily about reducing the fee because it has served its purpose and should now go away. You forget that just a few years back - during the middle of our so-called "dynasty" - our student body came out in record numbers to VOTE DOWN an athletic fee that would have BUILT the stadium. So we have had to go about this very slowly, using super duper top secret loans from the BOR that we don't have to pay back. We have also used that increased fee that our BOR forced on the student body after they had just voted it down. I don't really want to go into too much detail because some a-hole from the Daily might be reading this forum... but the fee is stll coming in, our student population keeps going up... and we have accomplished all of the goals that the original fee was put into place to take care of. Now we can get creative. Like I said, if you think that RV is such a liar - don't be a coward, pick up the phone... invite him to a free lunch and LISTEN. As for a recruit commenting on a new stadium somehow being blamed on the AD... gimme a freaking break. We will have a new stadium, it is on its way. The AD didn't lie to a coach who in turn lied to a player... an excited 17 year old kid wanted to brag about the new school that he just signed to play for. Plain and freaking simple as that.

Opportunity Knocks! The Cotton Bowl will now be available in Dec/January each year. The Belt would like to set up a second bowl game at a DESTINATION LOCATION. Anyone see an opportunity here for NORTH TEXAS? How about NT puts together a bowl (like Boise did, UNLV did, TCU did, and UTEP did) and work with Dallas to make it happen. The next time reallignments come up, a renovated Cotton Bowl would go a long ways towards selling North Texas to CUSA. I say that we even work on the deal with SMU to get involved with them even more. Jerryworld can have their BCS game and we can play at the REAL Cotton Bowl - Sun Belt #2 against whatever. If SMU is eligible and a Belt team doesn't make sense geographically, then allow them to have the slot. Get them involved somehow.

By the way, the "source" for that big stadium announcement was a recruit. I don't think that RV would mind me sharing that. They (the newly hired staff working under the latest information) painted a picture of the future of NT athletics to the new recruits that we were trying to get to sign up and the recruit got a little loose with his talking about NT about why he signed with us. Another recruit also said that this had been pitched to him. Those are your "sources"... do you even remember? From there, everything took off and it officially became "RV promised this" and "RV promised that". Well, I don't know what was promised to recruits. I know that it has never been promised publicly, just envisioned. Don't take a couple of 17 year old's word on something, they were just being recruited and are just excited to be playing for North Texas... ask those questions yourself.

Playmaker/Alex, Pick up the phone. Call RV (or e-mail him) and ask him these questions yourself. I did. The answers that I got satisfied me. Why are they not publicized? We do not want to advertise our lowlights to media outlets and other teams that recruit against us. It is as simple as that. You get sooooo freaking angry, but the fact is - you make up a group of people (a small group that I thank the lord is not organized) that expect too much, too soon. 5 years ago we were on the verge of losing our entire program. Now we... well, I am not going to go through the list.... but we are a viable conference member, with a IA budget. We were able to buy out a contract worth $567,000 to get rid of a coach and another couple hundred grand for the assistants/coordinators. On top of that we hired a new coach at the highest salary ever paid to a football coach in NT history. Do you think that we would have been able to do that if RV didn't have his sh!t together? The man has a plan. We are waiting on a few things to come together. We hope that they will come together sooner then later. Call or e-mail RV. Don't be hostile, just tell him who you are - agree to keep the items that you discuss off of the board, and have a nice talk with him. I think that you will walk away happy. Good things are on the horizon for NT. As for a big Spring announcement. That is board fodder. It was alluded to and people just took it to be true. There was an announcement, it came much earlier then Spring. It was the donation to start the campaign. That campaign is being put together with that money. Maybe it is not as fancy as you want it to be but that $1.5 million was the largest donation in the history of NT athletics. RV has now scored three of those donations (in the 7 figure range). Before RV had come along, the largest donation on the books for NT was $230K and was from Ben E Keith (a company) to help underwrite the stadium expansion for our move back up to IA. The year that RV arrived in Denton, there were 52 paying members of the Mean Green Club. Most had their memberships thrown in because of some sort of advertising deal that they had worked out. Total donations for the last year of Helwig - $57K. Your generation knows nothing but success and has no concept of how far we have come. You also do not know that RV was instrumental in turning this bus around. He was talking about the Athletic Center and being laughed at when he first got here. Not at North Texas he was told. Now look at our facilities, besides the lack of a new football stadium - we have some of the best facilities in the country. Our facilities are just as nice as many lower level BCS schools. We have done all of this on a shoe-string budget and through quiet negotiations. Why quiet negotiations? First of all, nobody on this fan board is entitled to know anything about the negotiations going on at the moment. You seem to think that you do, but you don't. Even still, if you would be a man and call RV, I would be willing to bet that he would take you to lunch and tell you exactly how things are coming along. Why do we keep things quiet? Well, if you make too much noise in Denton about a project, you WILL get it killed. The academic community still runs the University and we are coming off some pretty harsh scandals with teachers and tenures and salaries. We do not want to give those groups any ammunition. I will leave it at that. As for the quarterly meetings, RV has come on here and explained it a million times. I guess that I will reiterate what he posted the LAST time someone asked him. If there is news to be released, it will be released immediately now - not in a quarterly fashion. On top of that, you can always click on the "Ask RV" button on the NT website. The meetings were designed to give NT fans a look at how bad of shape that we were in and how much help we needed to get out of that situation. We have dug ourselves out of the hole and are now on to bigger and better things. No other major project is being worked on right now other then the stadium. But we have a new coach and we have our fingers crossed. 5,000 showed up for the Spring game, which is 4,950 more then I have ever seen at a Spring game. The stadium is being worked on so settle down. Now, how many more months until this gets posted again? Should I save this response to a Word document? Nah, I doubt this will get through to Alex or any other RV haters. I challenge you to call or e-mail RV and simply ask him for a meeting to talk about NT. He will oblige you if you are a season ticket holder. If you aren't happy at the end of that meeting, then come back and complain. But don't go off of internet speculation and rumours. Even the papers get things wrong or blown out of proportion. The big announcement took place. You didn't think it was big enough. Go figure. When they announce that the new stadium is breaking ground, Plumm will complain that it is too small and Adler will complain about the design. What's new? You can't make everyone happy. Especially at North Texas where people feel "entitled" to know everything about the dealings of the athletic department. By the way, if you were to call the AD at UT or A&M and ask them to have lunch with you, they would laugh you off the phone (unless you were a million dollar donor - and then they would put you in a line). I bet that you don't make the call. I bet that you continue to take the low road and choose sucker punches on a message board like a coward. Next year, Emmitt and I can once again contemplate as to whether or not we will even let you play in the GMG flag football game because quite frankly - nobody really wanted you there. There - you took sucker punches at my friend RV, I will take a sucker punch at you. Call the man, then come here and cry. Until then you are crying wolf.

A playoff series would leave the Belt and North Texas out of the party. It would also leave another 32 schools out of the party. The two cannot go hand in hand because one would be paid attention to/get the TV bucks for and the other would be basically just like the IAA "Championship" series. As it is, the Belt is a member of the BCS and we have a chance to build a team up (like Boise St and Utah) to crash the BCS and be everyone's underdog. The system is not perfect, but we make a LOT more money from the BCS now that we are a member and any time the non-BCS schools get a team in it is just like we got one in - we get double the payout. Call it welfare money, but it is the first slice of the pie. As we all continue to grow and take advantage of the new rules... scheduling will get smarter, money games will decrease, and that will cause the money games to be replaced with 2 for 1's (something that we are already seeing all over the country). I think that the current system is the best possible way for NT and the Belt to grow and not be stifled. If a playoff system were to go through, the big boys would get the Belt, the WAC, CUSA, anc MAC kicked out of the BCS so that all 16 spots would be awarded to those conferences. They would not even share those 4 spots because those 4 spots would be so valuable. As it is, we can work our way up in the bowl picture. We just have to prove ourselves through time.

God I hate these discussions. Neither school is going anywhere. One thing that we can learn from the numbskulls at La Tech is that CUSA looks at three things when they look for members. We were the runner up in the last allignment and our AD specifically asked "what kept us out?" - the answer - #1 is BUDGET. Since that time, North Texas has pushed our budget up considerably. When we left the Big West, we were funding our entire program on about $7 million a year. We have doubled our effort and our budget is now $13.7 million... which is about $6.3 million TOO LOW for CUSA (according to their commissioner) - they have a conference bylaw that states members must have a $20 million dollar athletic budget. We are getting there. La Tech has not done a THING to move themselves towards that goal. We have. MTSU has also increased their budget, but not as drastically as we have. Secondly, CUSA told us that they look at attendance in the MONEY SPORTS (the big 3). They don't really care how you get the people into the stadium or arena but that is what they look at. The MUTS did well with a good record but can you average 17K with a 2-10 record like we did? I think that you would need to build a dynasty first, like NT did - in order to get some die hard fans built up. Anyways, it is a push there. Finally, they look at Geography. In your case, I think that geography helps you. You are right in the middle of CUSA and the Eastern teams would love to have a school like MTSU over yet another Texas school. Again, I think it is a push. I think that the biggest challenge for MTSU will be budget. That is the number 1 thing that CUSA looks at and you have a long ways to go to hit that $20 million dollar mark (by the way, so do we). The good news is that you could call the MAC and have a space within a month. CUSA hasn't even begun to look at MTSU, we have been looked at and just missed an invite. I think that the fact remains that the WAC OFFICIALLY invited NT to join and we turned them DOWN. CUSA won't feel bad about inviting us because we have already shown that we have set CUSA as our destination conference. We asked them exactly what we should do in order to move up next time around and we have followed up by listening to them and doing exactly what they asked of us. Our biggest competition will be La Tech but I don't see any possible way for Tech to DOUBLE (and then some) their athletic budget. All this is moot because the Belt will continue to grow and thrive. FIU is breaking ground on a brand new stadium this week. Troy kicked the shit out of Rice in the New Orleans Bowl. The Belt is getting better. Just be patient.

You are all getting what I was trying to illustrate; but in your own ways. My point was (and is) that North Texas fans should stop blaming our shortfalls on the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt actually saved our hides. It gave us a home and an opportunity for some success during a time when we were pretty terrible. We were able to get some name recognition, build some school pride, get new facilities built, etc... Back then, we didn't have the new turf, we couldn't even afford to patch the old turf. We had students wearing Longhorn and Aggie gear everywhere - there were almost no student fans to speak of. We didn't have jumbotrons, in the basketball arena or at the football stadium. We definitely didn't have the clout with the BOR to get any money out of them to build an athletic center. We were in REALLY bad shape. We were also running our "IA" program on a budget that most IAA schools would laugh at. I think that our budget during the last year of the Big West was right around $7 million a year. That was for the entire department. Now our budget is about $13 million. Still far from the $20 million dollar budget that we need to be hitting but we are at least within striking distance now. When I see these posts about the Belt, belittling it and talking about how we are too good for it; it makes me laugh. We came in second to last in 2006 and dead last in 2005. We have a ton of potential but so do schools like FIU, FAU, MTSU, and the like. Any one of those schools could make an arguement about their future growth possibilities, just like us. Embrace this group and lets grow together. If CUSA expands again, we will all battle it out for who deserves that spot. But if we wait until then to embrace the Belt, it will be too late. CUSA will be looking at how we draw against MTSU, TROY, and FIU... because they know that if we draw 20K against those schools - we will draw 30K against SMU, Tulsa, and Rice. In the meantime - we schedule those schools OOC to show that we are getting there. We have schedules against all three of them and we have drawn well for them. We beat one of them wth a very bad team showing that we have potential. Anyways, I just wanted to remind everyone where we were just a few years ago. We are no better then Louisiana Whatever and we don't need to be talking that way. Those are our conference mates and we should support them and support our current home/conference. Do that - support YOUR team - your MEAN GREEN, and the conference stuff will all work itself out them next time a reallignment occurs. Bitching about it in the offseason gives other amunition against our home and that just allows them to down play our wins against our conference mates when we return to prominence. It is not easy to win in the Belt anymore - we have shown that. Last in 2005 and second to last in 2006. Respect your conference mates. Go to games to cheer for the Green, not watch the opponent.

Here we are again, screaming about our problems and blaming them on the Belt. Well folks, the Belt is the best thing that ever happened to North Texas. Our football program was dead in the water. We were finished. No (and I mean ZERO) money was being put into the effort. The conference had just disbanded. And we were moving into a conference that did not have enough football teams to justfy a bowl game. We made it work - the 6 of us football schools that had no other choice. Well, we got a bowl game put together. Sure, it was kind of a joke at first - on Tuesday night, about a month before the real bowl games started... but now it has a Friday night timeslot on ESPN and is just a few days before Chrstmas. That bowl game is also getting the Belt some recognition. We have had a couple of at large bowl bids now, something that never happened in the Big West. Anyways, back to my original point. You guys that are new never went through the crap years; so you can't really appreciate how great the program is now (even when we are losing). When we were losing those last years of the Big West - there was a game that FFRick and I sat on the deck and counted the fans, literally. There were about 157 people there as best we could tell. Taigating? It wasn't really outlawed, it just wasn't encouraged. You couldn't have an open flame. But Mean Rob and our crew tried our best to tailgate - we were just the only ones out there. But we were a TIGHT bunch. Finally, I want to address the Sun Belt bashing. Fans should come out to see North Texas. It shouldn't matter who the opponent is. This video was from a Sun Belt game - heldat Fouts - for all the marbles and a ticket to the New Orleans Bowl. That may be small change to you guys now but it was a big freaking deal for us back then. Listen to the crowd (hell, look at the crowd)... listen to the roar. This was a Sun Belt conference game just a few years ago. Stop blaming the conference on the shortcomings of the North Texas team. Blame Dickey and his piss poor playcalling that put us all to sleep. As soon as DeLoach left, this exciting brand of football went with him. This was the lastgame that DeLoach would coach for NT, he was on his way to UCLA after this win. I don't even think that he was able to go to our bowl game; but I might be wrong about that. Anyways - enjoy the clip (found it on You Tube courtesy of John Denver)... we can have that excitement for every single game, this is a Belt game with a near full house... the opponent? little old NMSU, but really - who cares? ... the fans were there to see North Texas play, it wouldn't have mattered if we were playing Florida Atlantic or Western Kentucky - as fans back in those years - we appreciated every game because we knew how bad it had just been and how much better it was now. It was all of this hard work that we all put in that got us into the postion to even DISCUSS a FUTURE invite to CUSA, at the time - we were just trying to save our football team, period. Because they were on ther way off the field for good. You guys just don't know how bad it was and how much better it got (and still is, thanks to the Belt).... Watch the clip, there is no excuse for every game to not have this type of atmosphere.

Maybe North Texas should try to win the Belt before leaving it behind... perhaps we could look at comng in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, or 5th, or even 6th or 7th this year. Because for the last two years we have come in second to last and dead last. Oh yeah, we are FAR superior to those teams.

There are other conferences tha have helped teams move up. UCF, USF, and Marshall were all IAA back when we were. So was Boise State... so was Idaho and a bunch of our Big West foes. Why do we think that we are soooo superior to other teams in the Belt? Most of them have been IA longer then us. UL has never been IAA. ULM was like La Tech and played as an Indy. ASU played as an Indy, in the Big West, back as an Indy, back in the Big West, then to the Belt. The Belt saved our freaking football program. We would probably not have a football team at the IA level if the Belt had not been born. I can't go into the lengths of this discussion (late for work); but we are not the "jump off" conference right now - tha would be the WAC. Their member are vocally voicing their desire to leave. Three members of the Belt openly turned down an invite to the WAC just a couple of years ago. Why is moving up from IAA a bad thing? It shows that your school has made a serious financial commitment to compete at the next level. Look at the budgets and attendances of those teams in the MAC and even some of our old conference mates in the Big WAC... they are jus kind of hanging out to get money games. FIU and FAU have the two largest budgets in the Belt. They aren't winning yet but if they keep shoving money at it, they will win. FIU is building a brand new stadium this year, they aren't going to spend all that money and then drop football. Who would look at leaving the Belt? Well - some teams would leave for CUSA (North Texas, ASU, UL, etc...) - but I don't think anyone is trying to do so. The WAC has teams openly trying to pursue the MWC in the media. One of the first things that the Boise president did after winning the Fiesta Bowl was aproach the MWC about membership. Is the Belt ideal? Probably not... but it is a much better fit for N Texas then the WAC and CUSA doesn't have a spot open. We would look silly in the MWC or the MAC - so we are in the Belt. Our choice is to ether 1) Pout about it and complain or 2) Make the best of it and enjoy the new rivalries. Bitching about it makes no sense.

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