stebo

The University put up the "appearance" that they wanted our input; but trust Good Ken, FFRick, and myself when we say - the suggestion box was not open to any outside ideas. The block lettering still looks like crap on a helmet but the University gave RV no choice, it was either block lettering or UNT or an Eagle - the latter two being unacceptable so we are stuck with block lettering that looks TERRIBLE on a helmet. It really is a pretty sad statement when we have the worst looking helmet in the Belt and IA sans Oregon.

We could hire Darryl Dickey to dress up in a costume and strap a thousand helium balloons to him in order to "fly" him into the stadium. As a fundraiser, we could sell pea shooters and bb guns to shoot at the balloons as he floated above Fouts Field...

I do the same thing as Peacock but for University of Phoenix - Las Colinas. Hey Peacock, I have a year's experience - wanna help a brotha get back to his roots?

As posted above: Eagle of any type: throwing up in my mouth and pissed off. We are the MEAN GREEN. We are NORTH TEXAS. We are NOT the Eagles. We have a mascot that is an Eagle but our teams are not CALLED the EAGLES, haven't been for sometime now. That was officially changed and is NOT changing back. To put an Eagle on the helmet would simply confuse our apathetic fan base... case in point, all of the new members posting on this board that THINK that we are the Eagles, well folks - WE AREN'T. That team name came and went and our OFFICIAL NAME is now the Mean Green for all 17 Div IA sports at North Texas. The last team to be called the Eagles was the women's basketball team - they were given the choice, when the name changed OFFICIALLY to Mean Green to stay the Lady Eagles and they decided to keep the Eagles on their jerseys. Since there are 117 other Eagles of some type in college athletics (all the way from NAIA up to DIV I, IAA, II, or III) - the last hold out decided to join the other 16 sports in 2003 and become the Mean Green as well. At that point, they tossed around the name "Lady Green" but the girls voted and wanted to be "Mean" just like the guys. If you ask any player - they LOVE the uniqueness of the Mean Green name over the generic Eagle name. There was a poll done a couple of years ago on the most common nickname in the athletic world and Eagle came out on top by far - statistically speaking, within every metroplitan area, there are at least 3-4 schools with the nickname of Eagles for their team. In fact, in Dallas alone - someone posted all of the Eagles that we had a couple of years ago and there were like 27 schools in a 100 mile radius that were using that nickname. It is GENERIC and NOT UNIQUE. Mean Green is unique and something that ONLY North Texas can call its own. Since we cannot put a Mean Green into a logo form (at least not successfully yet) - other than just using a blank green helmet, we should go with the name that all alumni - despite their graduation date - have called their alma-mater. It doesn't matter if they went to North Texas Teacher's College, North Texas State College, North Texas State University, or the University of North Texas - all alumni and students have been able to identify with one common name - NORTH TEXAS. Put it on the helmet, in script - or interlocked initials - and MOVE ON! If the President and his branding baffoons continue to force the block lettering on us, screw it - I think we should just keep it. The worst possible thing for our identity would be to stick an Eagle on the helmet or spell our UNT.

Interlocked NT of any type - GOOD/GREAT. Eagle of any type: throwing up in my mouth and pissed off. We are the MEAN GREEN. We are NORTH TEXAS. We are NOT the Eagles. We have a mascot that is an Eagle but our teams are not CALLED the EAGLES, haven't been for sometime now. That was officially changed and is NOT changing back. To put an Eagle on the helmet would simply confuse our apathetic fan base... case in point, all of the new members posting on this board that THINK that we are the Eagles, well folks - WE AREN'T. That team name came and went and our OFFICIAL NAME is now the Mean Green for all 17 Div IA sports at North Texas. The last team to be called the Eagles was the women's basketball team - they were given the choice, when the name changed OFFICIALLY to Mean Green to stay the Lady Eagles and they decided to keep the Eagles on their jerseys. Since there are 117 other Eagles of some type in college athletics (all the way from NAIA up to DIV I, IAA, II, or III) - the last hold out decided to join the other 16 sports in 2003 and become the Mean Green as well. At that point, they tossed around the name "Lady Green" but the girls voted and wanted to be "Mean" just like the guys. If you ask any player - they LOVE the uniqueness of the Mean Green name over the generic Eagle name. There was a poll done a couple of years ago on the most common nickname in the athletic world and Eagle came out on top by far - statistically speaking, within every metroplitan area, there are at least 3-4 schools with the nickname of Eagles for their team. In fact, in Dallas alone - someone posted all of the Eagles that we had a couple of years ago and there were like 27 schools in a 100 mile radius that were using that nickname. It is GENERIC and NOT UNIQUE. Mean Green is unique and something that ONLY North Texas can call its own. Since we cannot put a Mean Green into a logo form (at least not successfully yet) - other than just using a blank green helmet, we should go with the name that all alumni - despite their graduation date - have called their alma-mater. It doesn't matter if they went to North Texas Teacher's College, North Texas State College, North Texas State University, or the University of North Texas - all alumni and students have been able to identify with one common name - NORTH TEXAS. Put it on the helmet, in script - or interlocked initials - and MOVE ON! If the President and his branding baffoons continue to force the block lettering on us, screw it - I think we should just keep it. The worst possible thing for our identity would be to stick an Eagle on the helmet or spell our UNT.

At this point in the conference landscape, I look at our conferences' competition to be the MAC, CUSA, and the WAC... I just noticed that CUSA is 0-3 in bowl games this season so far. Does anyone know where the WAC and MAC stand? The Belt is 1-0 with another game tonight at 7:30 Central Time. Go Blue Raiders! (that will probably be the only time I ever type that, lol!)

Greetings from California! Rick got it right - Troy was a sleeping giant that woke up when they got into IA. They are the only show in town and the place pretty much shuts down on game day. There might only be 10K in town but all 10K of them are at the games and then all of the students and the alumni from surrounding areas. Soon they will have alumni traveling long distances to see the Trojans, they really got it going on in Trojanland. As for our comparisons to CUSA - well, they turned us down! Of course we want to be in better company, even if it is by default. Same goes for the WAC, we turned them down and now we want to make sure we made the right decision, it is that simple. When we compare our conference to other mid-majors it is because the Belt has a terrible reputation that maybe it doesn't deserve.... we are not the worst conference in IA - the WAC, the MAC, and/or CUSA could battle for that honor..

bump

First of all - Troy is charging their students full price for the tickets yet they are selling a LOT more. The MUTS are paying for the tickets for their students ($45 bucks a POP) and they can't seem to give them away - having only distributed 1500 so far. Just goes to show you - there are three key ingredients to a succesful business - location, location, location. I bet that if the MUTS were headed to New Orleans, the numbers would be reversed.

Look how long that freaking list is! How is their AD going to actually interview all of those people. The most intriguing name that I have seen with the SFA search is the old A&M coach (RC Slocum)... but I don't see him on this list. Has he withdrawn his name from consideration? If I were the SFA AD, I would grab DeLoach in a heartbeat. He wouldn't be a flashy hire, but he would get the job done.

If we put an Eagle on the helmet, broadcasters and casual fans will start calling us the "Eagles" again. We are not the Eagles - we are the Mean Green. Our mascot is Scrappy the Eagle. I can't stand the block letters either. I say we strip the helmet down to a solid green - put NT on it somehow, and keep the Mean Green across the front of the jerseys. The only place that there should be an Eagle is on the scoreboard and in a costume playing with the kids. We are not the Eagles, we are the Mean Green.

Brad Franchione that is... Franchione, Bicknell apply for SFA job By KEVIN GORE The Daily Sentinel Saturday, December 16, 2006 The search for a new SFA Lumberjack football coach could be expanding with the addition of more candidates. Brad Franchione, whose Blinn Junior College team won the national junior college championship last week, has applied for the position. Franchione, the son of Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione, is 19-3 in two seasons at Blinn, including 12-0 this season. A former Western Athletic Conference coach also has applied. Recently fired as head coach at Louisiana Tech, Jack Bicknell has an interest in SFA. He was 43-52 in eight years at Louisiana Tech. He was the WAC coach of the year in 1999, when his team ranked first in the nation in passing offense and was ranked 25th in the Associated Press' poll. Franchione and Bicknell are among 10 candidates who have applied since Dec. 9, bringing the total number of candidates to 28. SFA is searching for former coach Robert McFarland's successor. McFarland, 9-13 in two seasons, resigned from the head coach job Dec. 1 to accept the offensive coordinator's position at Iowa State. He was hired at Iowa State by Gene Chizik, a former SFA assistant coach who has served at the Texas Longhorns' defensive coordinator the last two seasons and McFarland's good friend. Chizik was amed head coach at Iowa State on Nov. 27. Lumberjack athletics director Robert Hill was out of the office Friday. He said last week that he hoped to present three candidates to the board of regents and school president to be considered for the position, but that there was not a deadline for that process. Another applicant is John Jenkins, a former Nacogdoches High School assistant who is currently the head coach for the Ottawa Renegades of the Canadian Football League. Jenkins previously served as head coach at Houston University, where his best team was 10-1, ranked third in the nation and averaged 53.5 points and 639 yards per game. Two former SFA assistant coaches have joined the mix — James Ferguson and Jay Brown. Ferguson, who was on staff with the Lumberjacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is currently Sam Houston State's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Brown is the head coach at Texas College, an NAIA school in Tyler. The other five candidates who applied since Dec. 9 are Zak Willis, head coach at Newberry College in South Carolina; Scott Wachenheim, offensive coordinator at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.; Bob Connelly, offensive line coach at Alabama; David Bennett, head coach at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., and Keith Austin, who holds two degrees from SFA and served on coaching staffs at Tenaha, Cushing and Huntington. LIST OF CANDIDATES J.C. Harper, SFA defensive coordinator: SFA's defense ranked second in SLC in scoring defense (21.1 points per game). Defense allowed just 28 touchdowns, second fewest in the league. Kim Dameron, Louisiana-Monroe defensive coordinator: Former SFA coordinator. His defense ranked first in scoring defense in the Sun Belt this season. Brad Franchione, Blinn JC head coach: 19-3 in two seasons. His 2006 team won the junior college national title. Jack Bicknell, former Louisiana Tech head coach: Former WAC coach of the year (1999) recently ousted at Louisiana Tech. David Bennett, Coastal Carolina University (S.C.) head coach: Team was 9-3 last season. Jay Brown, head coach at Texas College: SFA graduate resurrected Texas College program from heap pile. Went 8-3 in his first season. Gary DeLoach, UCLA assistant coach: SFA's defensive coordinator from 1983-1989. Bob Connelly, offensive line coach at Alabama: Also served on staffs at Washington State and San Jose State. James Ferguson, Sam Houston offensive coordinator: Ex-SFA assistant seeking return to Nacogdoches. John Jenkins, Ottawa Renegades head coach: Small world. He once served on staff at Nac High. Scott Wachenheim, Liberty University (Va.) offensive coordinator: Also served on staff at Rice. Zak Willis, Newberry (S.C.) College head coach: Team was 11-2 in recently completed season. Scott Maxfield, Henderson State head coach: Team was 8-3 last season. Richard Cundiff, Texas A&M-Kingsville former head coach: Resigned at A&M-Kingsville after seven seasons. Don Carthel, West Texas A&M head coach: Lone Star Conference champions the last two seasons. Mike Hudson, Montana assistant coach: Served as defensive coordinator at Sam Houston and Texas State of Southland. Darrell Dickey, North Texas University former head coach: Four-time Sun Belt Coach of the Year selection needs a job. Randy Ball, former Missouri State head coach: 99-83 in 16 seasons. Four playoff stints. Andy Hobbs, Tennessee Titans advance scout: Former head coach at Middle Tennessee State. Bill Maskill, Midwestern State head coach: Team was 10-3 last season. Has served on staffs at Vanderbilt, SMU and Wake Forest. Ramon Flanigan, former offensive coordinator at North Texas: Played QB at SMU. Jay Mills, Charleston Southern University head coach: Team was 9-2 last season. Coached on staffs at Harvard, Notre Dame and Boise State. Steven Smith, Rhein Fire offensive line coach: Fire is an NFL Europe team. Rod Broadway, North Carolina Central head coach: 33-10 record. George Small, former head coach at North Carolina A&T State University. Christopher Banks, Maryland assistant volunteer coach. Daryl Hobbs, currently out of coaching. Keith Austin, former assistant coach at Tenaha, Cushing and Huntington: Holds two degrees from SFA. Shooting for the stars.

I see that Jimbo Fisher is a finalist for the HC job at UAB now... looking back, I think that we really had a shot at him. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't take Jimbo Fisher over Todd Dodge; not in a million years... but there was some doubt in my mind gthat he would actually take a job at NT if offered... now that I see him as the front runner for the UAB job, I think that he would have seriously considered us. Just goes to show you that an outsider sees North Texas with unlimited potential. This guy would have taken a pay cut in order to be our Head Coach because of the opportunity that it would have been for him. We beat ourselves up a lot more then we really should, NT is just what we have always known it to be - a Sleeping Giant. That Giant started to wake up with the win over Cinci in the bowl but was simply stirring in his sleep and went right back to bed. Now, with the hiring of Dodge - and the new BCS agreement - we have the "hope" of finally realizing our dream and making it into the big boys club. I look for us to have a new stadium by 2009 and our success will either bring the Sun Belt up to par with other conferences and we will be content with membership - or we will be able to move into CUSA with ease. The future is BRIGHT GREEN!

I am sorry man, but neither one of those guys is that attractive of a hire either. And La Tech has an athletic budget of around $7.3 million, can you really justify spending $500K on a coach that is a positions coach? I just don't get it. Finally, one thing that I have seen through quite a few coaching hires is the use of the "So and So is Pushing Really Hard for this guy" line... well, these guys are all friends and they all put in good notes for each other. Heck, Dickey even had people pushing really hard to get him hired - didn't make him a good hire, he was a bad hire back then and would still be a bad hire today... but I guarantee you that someone will be "pushing" really hard for him to get that spot down at SFA. Good luck with your search - La Tech is just a weird place to me... you want to be big time, but you guys settle for mediocrity. I wouldn't be excited about any of those coaches that you are interviewing; but maybe they are bigger names there in Ruston. Has Jimbo Fisher interviewed there? You would think - that if he was interested in the North Texas HC job, he certainly would be interested in the La Tech job as well... if you can really pay him the $400K or so that he would demand. He was a finalist here, I would think that in his own state, for a IA position - he would at least have an interview... the guy won a freaking National Championship down at LSU you know?

I guess the answer is no?

Lets see how much press La Tech gets after their hire as opposed to ours.... it is quite obvious that if we had moved to the WAC, we would not be able to afford to pay Dodge... La Tech will be looking for another $150K a year coach and that is what they will get.

Any FARKERS on here? I would really love to see a FARKED movie poster for the Ben Stiller movie - "Dodgeball" - but with the cast of characters being Todd Dodge, some Mean Green players, etc... Anyone up for the challenge?

Great to have you back on board Scottie.

They are late getting started - hop in the chat room

Huh? Does he play for Baylor or for OU?

Chat Link: http://client1.sigmachat.com/sc.php?id=73780 Press Conference Link: http://www.meangreensports.com/liveEvents/...DB_OEM_ID=1800#

Sorry, couldn't resist the Seinfeld joke...

If you look at the guys interested in our job as opposed to the La Tech job, you will see that while DD has been sucking it up all of these years - increasing his salary was the smartest move that RV could have made. It is truly making us a competitve force in choosing our next coach... We are looking at guys like Jim Harbaugh, Todd Dodge, and Jimbo Fisher. They are looking at a positional coach from LSU (QB coach, not a coordinator) and some spare coach from Valdosta State - Chris Hatcher, whom appears to be the leading candidate. Mushmouth seemed to be the frontrunner (ans the Tech guys were creaming themselves over him) until he saw that he wouldn't be able to pay his assistants any money at all, and withdrew his name so that he could stay right where he is at (a positional coach at Auburn).... The fact is, our measly $4.8 million dollar football budget, as small as it is - is so much better then that of La Tech, that they can't even get a guy like Jimbol Fisher to use them as leverage for another job. Just another thing that I love about RV - even though we were stuck with DD for all of those years, RV thought for the future and put us in a position to replace him with a legitimate candidate. Instead of having to take another "chance" and having to go through 4-5 years of "growing pains" - we will be competitive right out of the gate. Thank you RV for looking to the future. While Tech is looking towards the year 2020, we are looking towards the year 2009. I don't think nearly enough people give RV credit that he is due for making us competive in the new coach's salary ranges... that includes raising all of our assistants' pays along the way as well. BTW - anyone think that the addition of one more money game next year is a coincidence? I bet that Arkansas is paying us just enough to take care of Dickey's buyout, one game and we are all square with the Darrell; and our new coach might not even consent to losing before the game ball is kicked off. He doesn't like to lose, he has only lost once in the last 78 games.

That is disgusting. For $176 million, we could build 4 stadiums and they are using it to freaking renovate one of their endzones.

When I lived in Denton, I bought a small house to start off in... there was a nice old couple that lived across the street and I couldn't get a direct line of sight for my DISH, so they let me put it in their yard (with a LONG ass cable all the way to my house, lol!) - Anyways, I was talking with him one day and he told me that the house that I had just bought had a little history to it - evidently Pat Boone had buiilt it years ago and they had been neighbors.... pretty cool, I bought Pat Boone's old house. Denton and North Texas have a ton of history - people just need to be educated about it.