stebo

Your experts are wrong. There are several avenues that UTA could go forward with. They could go Div III-IA, which is non scholarship, Div III football - I am pretty sure that they will allow you to play your football at the DIV III level and also allow all of your other sports to stay at the Div I level. I might be wrong on this but a few years ago the Tulane President told their alumni that it was put up or shut up time for Tulane football. I think that CUSA would have kicked them out for not fielding a team at the highest level and that scared their alumni enough to save the program. Maybe your alumni have gotten the same message that the Southland requires that if you have football that it be at a minimum level of IAA football. They might even require that you play at full (65 ship) football) - but that is not an NCAA rule, that is a conference rule. In Tulane's situation - their options were to drop to full IAA, IAA-30 scholarship, IAA-non scholarship, or Div III (which is non scholarship). The only difference between the clasifications are basically the post season rewards and budget restraints. Obviously, we all know that the highest level of playing is IA which has an 85 scholarship level but does not have a budget level (from the school or from donations).... Full Div IAA is almost identical but the scholarships are limited to 65. Div IAA "limited" is similar in that the school is limited to 30 scholarships, but what a lot of schools do is treat it like baseball and split the scholarships among 60 players so that tuition and room is covered for more people and the student athlete has a very small burden (financially).... but it is not a full ride with a monthly allowance like Div I or Full IAA is. Schools that compete at this level are in conferences with other limited scholarship schools and are not guaranteed a spot in the IAA playoffs like the full ship IAA schools; but they "can" fill an at-large spot or even two if they do well enough. Finally, you have schools like the University of San Diego that are non-scholarship IAA. The school covers the salaries for the coaches and pays for the facilities/equipment but that is about it. Their ticket sales and sponsorships are relied upon for balancing their budget - and often times - their basketball teams foot the bill for the football team (rather then the other way around)... They compete in a conference with other schools that are non-ship as well. The University of New Orleans had a student group (much like yours) that tried to bring football back to UNO - here are the numbers that their study came up with as far as "budgets" for these nonship IAA teams: How much will a I-AA non-preference, non-scholarship football program at UNO cost? $500,000 a year would comfortably cover the costs of maintaining a Division I-AA non-preference, non-scholarship football program at UNO. This is neither a minimum figure nor a maximum figure. The budgets of the schools studied ranged from a low of $150,000 per year to a high of between $900,000 and $1.1 million per year. The budgets for the schools cited in this proposal are as follows: LaSalle - $150,000 SUNY at Stony Brook - less than $300,000 Austin Peay - $130,000 plus coaches' salaries Georgetown - less than $300,000 Jacksonville - $350,000 University of San Diego - $400,000 Louisiana College - $860,000 for first two years of program including start up costs Dayton - $425,000 to $450,000 Yale - $900,000 to $1.1 million These budgets encompass, with minor exceptions (see individual school summaries), all aspects of maintaining I-AA non-preference, non-scholarship football including recruiting, travel, equipment, equipment maintenance, field maintenance, game guarantees, coaches' salaries, insurance, game management, office supplies and expenses, athletic supplies, film editing equipment, conference dues, meals, contract services, field rental and administrative. If you want to read more about their study, here is the link: http://www.angelfire.com/la/uno/proposal.html Travel seems to often be a concern for these programs - for instance, it seems like it is pretty normal for games to be cancelled at this level because they simply do not have the money in the budget to pay for the trip; especially if the team is having a bad season. Passing the hat for last minute donations is very normal for schools in these set-ups; in other words - football is played as long as there is enough money to cover it for that season but it is not a priority. Just a small step above of a club team... The downside is that it is very tough to establish tradition and they rarely see the post season... when one of them does see the post season, they rarely win a game and move to the second round. At least none that I can recall. They do not have an automatic bid for the post season like most Div IAA conferences, so they have to impress the committee with OOC wins against full scholarship IAA teams before they start conference play - then they have to destroy every team in their conference (and obviously go undefeated)... USD did just about everything in their power to meet this criteria and STILL didn't get selected for the playoffs last year (which is why Harbaugh is coaching at Stanford now - most likely - well, that and about a 700% raise, lol)... the season is long, there are no frills, and there really is no reward for a good season or a chance to play for a championship - but there is a CHANCE to go to the playoffs and win a championship if the team impresses the committee enough (it is just highly unlikely). I would think that the UTA path would be a simple one. Continue to play with your club team until the money is in place to move the team into Div IAA-nonship or limited ship. When you are ready to move "up" you should have no problem for that stage - the tricky part will be the next move.... full ship IAA. The Southland might require that their members play on an level playing field and they also might require that all members that play a sport, play that sport in the Southland Conference against SLC teams... which UTA would probably be willing to do, even as a non-ship or limited ship team...but the SLC might not let you play because you will bring the power rating of the conference down - they may require that it is all or nothing for your IAA team (which could be the hang-up and the confusion on your board - but realize that this is not an NCAA rule forcing you to go all in or all out - that is most likely a SLC rule). So just because you "want" to field a non-scholarship IAA team does not mean that you could if you wanted to stay in the Southland Conference, for that sport or any other - which is where your "experts" probably have this matter confused. Sooooo, you would probably have to go Indy for all sports or pony up the money to take it to a full IAA program. Your other option would be to find another conference like the MVC to play in for all of your sports except football and then play football as an Independent.... but then you are looking at increased travel costs because there are not many conferences out there willing to do that, in fact - I can't think of any in the southwest - but heck, you could always try that route. When the 6 members in the Great West Conference couldn't get things cone in their own onference, they all moved away from their respective conferences and started their own - first for football only and now as a full conference. So - the timeline (if you can get institutional support) should look something like this: 2007 - 2010 Club Football continues, attendance steadily increases until you are averaging 4K-5K a game consistently. 2010 - Team finally gets the go-ahead from the school to become a Varsity sport and a feasability study is started. 2012 - Coaching search begins and renovations to Maverick Stadium take place. 2013 - First year of Div I-Whatever football, budget of around $500K for your brand first year program (coaches, insurance, facilities, equipment)... If you look at the study done by the UNO student group, $500K will get you a good program, even as a start-up - but it can be done for as low as $150K... If y'all can get to this point then you can go one of two ways to move forward or stay in a holding pattern. if your mission was just to have football then your job is done - you will have football at your school and you will have accomplished your goal. You really won't have any shot of playing in the BCS system but you might get a few NFL players coming out of the system as long as you are able to suit up enough non-scholarship players each year to field a team (AND as long as the Administration keeps footing the bill for the bare neccesities)... You will probably be able to sell a few tickets but I would guess that 50% of of the people attending the games will likely be students and they will probably get into games for free. So let's say that you average 4K-5K a game (a generous number considering that you will be playing teams that nobody has ever heard of and given the fact that you usually get about 1/3 of that out for a basketball game)... So let's say that you sell 2K tickets a game and have 5 home games a year like North Texas does. That will be 10K total tickets that you sell each year (with a total of 20K showing up because the other 10k showing up will be students that get in for free)... So... if you sell 10K tickets a year (just a guess) and charge between $5-$10-and $15 per ticket, then you can bring in about $100K in ticket sales. Throw in a little advertising revenue combined with donations and concessions and you are looking at pushing your revenue to about $200K or so. Then you can guarantee a few IA teams a win by selling them a easily winnable home game for $50K (that is what we paid Samford a few years back so I would imagine that we would pay UTA a similar amount)... you could probably pimp yourself out two or three times a year to raise another $150K minus travel expenses for a net of $100K for those three "money" games... putting your income at around $300K. According to the chart from the UNO guys, that is enough to run a program but not really that good of a program. You would need institutional support of around $200K a year to be succesfull. Now comes the final analysis - is $200K a year a solid PR investment for UTA? I think so. I would bet that UTA loses out on $200K worth of income in a multitude of ways by NOT having football currently. Once you got established at the lower non-ship IAA level, you could move up to 30 ship, then 65 ship... who knows, maybe someday UTA could field a IA team... but you have to walk before you run and UTA is just barely crawling along with its club program right now. Damn, when is football season gonna get here? I just spent an hour breaking down the ins and outs of a non-existing football program at UT freaking A, lol...

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Ah yes, my favorite Mexican Food place in Denton - Mi Ranchito. Doesn't look like much from the highway, but man oh man - that place has the best Mexican food in the metroplex.

You know what is pretty cool... Riley can go to all of these "Junior" recruiting camps/visits and let dad know how they run. He can tell his dad what a school like Texas Tech does to entice recruits, let him know how they handle the process, follw up calls, etc... I don't think that it is a good idea for Riley to come play under Coach Dodge, there will be a shadow over his decisions to play or sit his son in lots of situations... it is just not good for the team. We had a kid play QB a few years back and his dad was an Assistant. Many, many times the question would come up on the board whether or not Mills should really be the starter considering that he was really not that great and the conflict of interest that came along with his dad being on the coaching staff. I think that we should keep a clean slate with TD and not go down a path where we have to question a coach or have a father/son problem if Riley is not performing at the college level. Just not worth the potential problems.

How about the first ever library/football stadium! It could be the world's largest library! DESCRIPTION : Quarterback Techniques Saturday, February 10, 2007 4:05PM - 5:15PM Lincoln Forum Todd Dodge Former Head Coach at South Lakes Carroll HS Southlake, TX Head Football Coach North Texas North Texas hired Todd Dodge, who led one of the most successful high school programs in Texas, to be its head coach on Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the agreement said. Dodge will make the rare jump from high school to Division I-A after leading Southlake Carroll High School to three state championships. The person familiar with the hiring asked not to be identified because the move hadn't been announced. North Texas planned a news conference at its campus in Denton later Tuesday. A former Texas quarterback, Dodge has led Carroll to a 77-1 record in five seasons in the state's highest classification. The team has won 46 consecutive games, and its regular-season winning streak is 50. The Dragons won back-to-back "mythical" national championships, based on national polls, and two years ago they played on ESPN2 in the first Texas high school game televised nationally. Dodge was the offensive coordinator at UNT in 1992-93 before returning to high schools to start his head coaching career. Last year, he interviewed with Bill Parcells for an opening on the Dallas Cowboys staff, and he turned down an invitation to interview for the opening at Rice.

Rivals does a weird thing with their class rankings, they give teams more points for signing more players, even if those players are not ranked high on the scale. That confuses me, wouldn't a team be punished for going after quality rather then quantity? Also, what about a team that is flat out full and only needs to replace like 10-12 guys like San Jose State did last year? Just doesn' make sense to me. Lots of stuff that they do really doesn't make sense to me... when Jamario signed, he was originally going to sign with Tech - and they had him listed as a three star recruit. When he changed his mind and chose North Texas, he immediately was bumber down to a two star prospect. This just baffles me. How can they justify that? Finally, their "class" rankings should be an average of their point system, these are those scared points that separates the two star player from the three star player. Literally .1% makes a two star player into a 3 star player. Why have stars at all? Aren't numbers good enough? Very frustrating (to say the least) - so here are the teams that I consider to be our competition for recruits/bragging right for this year (and their current recruiting class' rank (as of now - a ton of players are missing from this list but this gives you the geberal idea. For thius demostration, I am giving current ranks (including their current systen, wiHT - current point total average only, : 76 Miami-OH 23 2.17 77 Arkansas St. 2.12 78 Duke 21 2.19 79 Ball State 2.08 80 TCU 2.54 81 Florida Int'l 2.11 82 Western Michigan 2.05 83 New Mexico St. 2.11 83 Nevada 2.11 85 Eastern Michigan 2.04 86 Ohio 2.00 87 Texas-El Paso 2.27 87 Wyoming 2.32 89 Central Michigan 1.94 90 Louisiana Tech 2.26 90 Wake Forest 2.30 90 UNLV 2.29 90 Temple 2.21 90 Houston 2.21 90 Cincinnati 2.26 96 Memphis 2.21 97 Indiana 2.26 98 Tulsa 2.15 99 SMU 2.17 100 Rice 2.04 101 Kent 2.08 102 Bowling Green 2.10 103 New Mexico 2.08 104 San Jose St. 2.18 105 Idaho 2.05 106 Colorado State 2.04 107 UAB 2.04 108 Utah State 2.00 108 Middle Tenn St. 2.00 108 Louisiana-Mon. 2.00 108 Buffalo 2.00 108 Tulane 2.00 108 Air Force 1.69 114 North Texas 2.06 114 Louisiana-Laf. 2.06 116 Northern Illinois 2.00 117 Florida Atlantic 2.06 118 Army 1.78 119 Navy 1.64 120 Villanova 1.20 121 East. Washington 0.57 121 Northwestern St. 0.67 121 Illinois St. 1.14 124 UC Davis 3.00 125 Richmond 0.67 So, North Texas really comes in with an averaqge rank per player of 2.06, aqs you can see - Eastern Michigan is at 85 but has a 2.04 average. Our new players, indidually - and as a class average - rank higher then their recruits. There are exceptions to the rule, obviously, it is too late and I am too tired to re-work this whole list - but NT would be much higher with a simple grading system rather then that extra "Rivals Top Secret Special Super Duper Number" that is attached to each class. My point, Rivals sucks at rankings! No way in hell that this class is 114 out of 119 IA teams (124 if you actually pay attention to the IAA schmucks in there for some crazy reason)... Can someone see where we really stand - I gotta get to bed, night y'all....

You just hit the nail on the head Rick - no alcohol and no smoking=lame concert for many. The Pearl Jam concert was awesome... even the ushers "relaxed" on the rules for that night... but that was a once in a lifetime gig for NT and probably won't happen again given the current landscape and companies like Westwood One Productions(I think that is their name - they are the company that owns the Smirnoff Center in Dallas, formerly the Starplex). They basically monopolize the music market by owning the music radio stations and the major venues... if you play the Dallas area and don't play their venue, you get pulled from their rotation on the radio in ALL of their markets. Crappy, but true. A few colleges have gone the way of the washed up bands in recent years - I think that MTSU had a few bands after games to boost attendance a couple of years back....also, I think that FIU even had someone like OutKast play last year, but it was in the Orange Bowl and I guarantee you that they let the Westwood people manage the gig (just hoping for it to draw more fans to their game), and since it was at a neutral site, the patrons could drink/smoke. If we wanted to offer a concert, we would need to do it at another venue.

I haven't finished reading the thread so forgive me if this has been covered - but from the campus map (for the Master Plan) - it shows our football stadium to be a horseshoe; so you will get your wish there if all goes through! But I doubt that our stadium will look like their's... from their website sectioned "Why build a stadium?" Now - we already have the AC and theirs would probably include a new one of those, I am assuming - but oura was only like $9 million to build... and the stadium is looking to be about $60 million - total of $70 million or so... so they are spending a considerably larger amount of money then we will be... BTW, their stadium calls for seating for 50K. And they are a big time BCS school. There is NO reason why we should start off any bigger then 32K seats. We can realistically fill it and expand it if needed. A 40K seat stadium with 15K-20K fans in it will look EMPTY. A 32K seat stadium with 15-20K fans it it will look almost (3/4) full. Having a full stadium does lots of things for us - money obviously is a big factor, but so is morale (for both the fans AND the players)... plus, it looks much better on TV. A stadium that is designed the right way can make a nice Sun Belt conference game crowd look just as big as a BCS game crowd. When I watch Troy on tv at Movie Gallery Stadium there in Troy, it has the look and feel or any Baylor or Kansas game that I might tuned into/attented. In fact, the Kansas football stadium is pretty much a dump... I have been there (last time we played up there) and it is honestly not much better (if any) then Fouts. It has a track, the place is run down, and the seats are far away from the action on the field. The restrooms are about as disgusting as Fouts and most of the concession stands were closed on the visitor's side causing a VERY LONG walk just to get a Coke (and very long lines when we got over there!). To top it off, they have no parking - I mean - NONE. The Kansas stadium is tucked into a residential area kinda like the Cotton Bowl - only difference is that the houses are run down from being college party pads rather then being crackhead houses.... so the parking situation is actually worse (and less safe) then the Cotton Bowl area; at least with the Cotton Bowl/Starplex Apitheatre omplex, there is SOME parking availanle in actual spaces, just not enough. This usually means that you are probably going to have to force yourself to trust "Joe" or "Jane" College Student) with parking your car in his or her front/back/side yard; and that is for the lucky fan that gets flagged down off the street. Joe/Jane usually pulls out their trusty old flag during a commercial/tv break from the game that they are watching or when it is time to make a beer run and they need money(or whichever comes first, lol)... and they charge you like $10 to $20 bucks dependent on how far they live from the stadium and how long the walk is to the entry gates (but for the most part it will give you an edge over the next guy trying to get a space is you throw in a 24 pack of Meister Brau, lol)- all this trouble, to park in someone's front yard... I am being totally serious about all of this, too... That is pretty much the way that 90% of the fans have to park there at the KU stadium. The worst part is that they cram cars into their front/side/back yards so much that they constantly need to move them around before/during/after the game so most of them require that you leave your key(s) with THEM! Just a horribly planned stadium and it really makes me appreciate a delayed (but properly planned) stadium in Denton come 2009 or 2011 ot whenever the hell it opens!!!! p.s. - sorry about the spelling, it is late and i just woke up/am still exhausted - but I can't get back to sleep either - so I thought I would read some GMG to wear me out - now I am tired from typing a Plummer Like Post - go figure! Time to go back to bed!

If the ZGoldfields were willing to uderwrite an entire baseball program then they might have more money then we know about. The estimated start up costs for that projet are about $7 million and the underwriting costs would be in the area of $1.5 million a year to keep it afloat with minimal funds. I think that it was a smart move on RV's part to cultivate this relationship and make sure that the money went to a project that was needed first (in Phase Three rather then Phase Four) and wait until the right time to take the donation from this generous family. After reading that, I believe that there are hige announcements on the horizon - we just might get that stadium after all!!!!! Fo anyone that has not given RV his props up until this point - shame on you... the man has been a huge saviour for the program. When RV retires, I hope that he is a first round ballot North Texas Hall of Famer. He has saved our program, heck - he has saved the entire department.

Unless something has changed, the condos/aprtments are still a "go"... the last plans that I heard about (from one of my friends that still owns a bar in the area) - the development group is supposedly making the corner building as tall as a 4 story building (originally they had looked at a building as high as 8 stories but the parking could not be worked through). The bottom half will be business/retail space and the top will be apartments/condos. Has this been scratched? I have no idea - that update was from last football season. And GBarksdale, I opened the Tavern in 1995 (acquired the building in 1994) and ran it until May of 2001 when I sold it to my manager and a friend of his. They run it still and overall we have been both very successful in that spot. When I owned the bar, we were in the top 5 for sales tax receipts (relating to alcohol purchases) and we have gotten as high as #2 in some months. The bar remains to be very popular and succesfull to this day. Most of the profit started when two things happened- we petitioned the city for an election allowing bars to stay opne until 2 a.m. and the measure passed with about 67% support... AND we added a private club to the bar so that we could sell mixed beverages. Both events came about in or around 1998; before that we were beer and wine only and it was tough to pay the bills. Last election (mid-term), the city of Denton voted to do away with private clubs and sell mixed drinks by the glass and it passed by a high margin yet again - this will make it even easier for the bars to thrive.... now (or the next time they renew their licenses) they can get deliveries of mixed beverages as well as do away with those silly unicard obligations.

Hey Jeff, the funny thing is - we aren't losing any freaking bars... people just don't know that this is a small part of Fry Street that is coming down and being built back up. The area is getting a facelift on one block. Every single business with the exception of the Tomato was given the first right of refusal to move into the new spot. I believe that Ski and the Tomato have taken them up on the offer and will be moving around the corner into a new building (those developers have that corner drugstore spot pre-sold). The rest of the businesses were given the opportunity to stay, nobody was forced out... even Mr Chopsticks; it is just that their rent would be going up about 300%. For decades the landlords have charged low rent down in that area, much lower than what the building are actually worth... but they did so because they all just lease the "shell" of the building thus leaving them responsible for basically the walls and the ceiling/roof. Any type of repair that needs to be done/improvement that needs to be made falls on to the store/bar owner and they really have nothing to gain from it other then appeasing their customers. Some of the things that I had to deal with - putting in a $30K air conditioning system that is now part of the building. It needed to be done but my landlord sure as hell wasn't going to pay for it. He cut me some slack for improving the building when it came to rent but that is about it. It is like that with EVERYTHING down there - electrical problems, plumbing, EVERYTHING. So when people bash the owners for not keeping up the buildings, don't be so quick to judge, we do our best. College kids want cheap drinks and cheap food, the profit margin is not that high despite all of the crazy rumors out there that you can make a 1000% profit off of a shot of Jaeger, just not true. Now, if you want to point the finger at anyone - point it to the businesses that have given up and left. They could take their new space and probably have a whole new clientele. While the books might seem tough to balance with the new rent when looking at current income, I think that the new buildings will attract more customers and that the business owners, every single one of them that chooses to leave, will regret their decision once they see a new place come in and thrive in their own spot.... and getting a spot in the Fry Street area is TOUGH, those businesses that are throwing in the towell before even trying it with a new building are giving up the three most important aspects to any successfull business - location, location, location. If I still owned the bar and it was affected by this, I would pay - it would be tough at first - but worth it in the long run. All of this being said, the nightlife staples that you all love and know - The Tavern, The Garage (Muthers), Side Bar, half of Cool Beans (the developers have acquired half of Cool Beans and from what I have heard, the company that owns that place has chosen NOT to pay the new rent), Riprocks, Lucky Lous, etc.. all of those Denton/Fry Street nightlife spots will be remain. It is just the corner of Fry (where the Tomato is) and the buildings surrounding it that will be affected. And I want to say it one more time - if you want to blame anyone for the "mom and pop" businesses leaving the area - look no further then the owners of those places, they were all given (from what I have been told) - First Right of Refusal for renting the new spots. Not all of them will be placed in the "exact" current spot (like the Tomato) - but they will still be in the same block. One more thing and then I will shut up - in addition to all of these new buildings for businesses there will now be apartments and condos as part of the development. This means more tax money for the city/area, more customers for the businesses in the Fry Street Area, and fewer drunk drivers on the road. This whole deal is "inconvenient" for a few businesses but for the most part it is a TERRIFIC move for the Fry Street area and for the University of North Texas.

Wow, old schooler - Jim's Diner... back from the good old days.

Got this off of the North Texas NCAABBS board, thought that I would re-post it to try and help this guy out. I think that we were in the same conference as Memphis during that time period (Missouri Valley) but I am not sure. Anyways, here is his post and a link to the NCAABBS North Texas Board to respond to him if you can help the guy out. Respond to Tiger Rab at the other NT board (not the Voy board, not Harry's board, but the 3rd board that nobody even knows exists... hell, here is the link, I doubt anyone on here even knows about it, lol): http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/sunbelt/phpb...opic.php?t=3386

Ok, good for Dickey - now comes a big question - do we have to pay him? From what I understand, guaranteed contracts are null and void if the coach goes to work for someone else. If they hire him on at less (which they will) then we will be responsible for making up the rest of the money that he would have earned at NT, right? That should save us SOME money at least... While we are on the subject, how long will it take before Mattress Mac starts becoming an Aggie Fan? Utah State Aggies, that is...

We are 13-5, that is a great record - with solid wins over some solid schools. Please stop counting those 2 exhibition games against NAIA opponents, they do not count. I will give you the 1 win against the Div II school (Cameron) but that is about it, none of the other ranking services will count that, but since they at least belong to a VERSION of the NCAA, I will forfeit that game (even though it really does not count)... so at best, we are 13-5, a great record that we should be proud of.

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I want to jump into this conversation and say a couple of things. First of all, Pegram is a great guy and I tried to get hi a job at my current employer. While I have gotten 2 other friends hired, Erric was the third that I reccomended and they passed on him. Maybe he is just a bad interviewer. My relationship with him is pretty informal. Pegram worked a little bit for me at the bar back when he came back to finish his degree. He basically would work promotions - help with checking id's on slow nights; but for the most part, he would walk around and tell NFL stories and keep people entertained. He literally worked for beer - and sometimes gave away/drank a little bit more then his pay should have been - but I thought that the novelty of it was realy cool while it lasted. Eventually, I couldn't afford to keep up with him and him giving away so many drinks, lol... but we had long talks about him going into coaching at NT... Let me keep this as fair as possible. In the NFL, Erric had heard all sorts of stories about players getting rewarded under the table during during their college days and he did not have any of those stores about his days at NT. His thoughts were that if we were going to compete with the big boys, we needed to act like a big time program (even the "behind the scenes" stuff like that). To make a long story short, his thoughts on coaching and how he would get NT in the Top 25 are kind of outside the box and at the time (now this was YEARS ago), he wasn't afraid to vocalize it. I really don't want to get any more specifics; but to sum it up, Pegram believed (way back then - circa 96/97/98 or so) that there is corruption at every serious IA school (i.e. cash envelopes showing up in the lockers of high performing players after a big win, etc...) and that NT had to do SOMETHING in order to compete with this practice. New rules have been pased since then and student athletes are allowed to hold down a part time job (BEFORE, an athlete on full ship was not allowed to hold any type of job to avoid "Rhett Bomar" like problems). Now, I want to reiterate that this was a long time ago, right after he had finished his pro career. He may have changed his opionion since then, but right out of the NFL, he was all in favor of pushing NT forward by acting (in a behind closed door manner) like the big boys and was not scared to be vocal about it. So... there is a reason why Dickey did not hire him - I have no idea what went on with the TD interview but maybe his feelings haven't changed... you never know. Meanwhile, if you need a personal trainer, PM me and I will give you his contact information.

Man, Jimbo must have REALLY wanted out of LSU - he was making (reportedly) over $400K there - that is a huge paycut. I think that he is being groomed to be the head coach eventually, but he will give up about $600K over the next 3 years while he waits for that to go down!

The thing is - the bowl payout system is just entirely too f-ed up. Did you guys know that North Texas is going to make a lot more money from football this year then any of our other bowl seasons? We got a check for $235K because Boise made it to the BCS bowl game, if they had not - that check would have been about $117K. Either way, take Troy or MTSU as an example - they both had great seasons, made a trip to a bowl game, one lost- one won... they both will come out of those games with less money then North Texas did for not even going. The current system pays programs to lose. I am not advocating that all bowl games have $14 million dollar payouts but if we are truly all BCS schools now (that is what it says on paper, yes - even the Sun Belt is a BCS conference member, we just don't have an automatic bid like the Big 6 Conferences do)... but if we are all members of the BCS, then all of our bowl games should be "BCS" and the contract should be worked as such. If FOX wants to play the Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, Rose, and Championship games - then they need to distribute into all games so that each team gets to (at the minimum) break even when they make a bowl game. I am not throwing up any type of socialism here - in fact, it is the exact opposite - Capitalism. If a network wants the BCS games on their stations bad enough, they can cover some of the other games and distribute some actual television rights money for those teams playing in them. I seriously doubt that ESPN pays the New Orleans Bowl rights to show the game, we are just happy to be on a National Broadcast.

I am sure CMJ will be joining me in the chat room - anyone else? Whoops, links here (I am going to go ahead and log into the chat room now if you are bored): To chat while listening to the game, follow this link: http://client1.sigmachat.com/sc.pl?id=73780 For those of us outside of KWRD and KNTU range, here are the links http://www.thewordfm.com/ http://www.kntu.fm

I am sure CMJ will be joining me in the chat room - anyone else? Whoops, links here (I am going to go ahead and log into the chat room now if you are bored): To chat while listening to the game, follow this link: http://client1.sigmachat.com/sc.pl?id=73780 For those of us outside of KWRD and KNTU range, here are the links http://www.thewordfm.com/ http://www.kntu.fm

No prob Plumm, the EC's of the world gotta watch each other's backs, teehee... y'all getting busy over there for January yet? Things are starting to heat up at UOP... makes my job a LOT easier!

Plumm, that reply by Timmy Mack was from months ago - when he was campaigning for Dodge to take a job at the collegiate level period... I am guessing that the poster put this post up to talk about Riley as a QB, not whether or not Dodge should have come to NT instead of SMU.

WHAT??? People on a message board not knowing what they are talking about??? BLASPHEMY!!!