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Jesus - nobody is talking about adding TWO IAA games every single year to make us feel better about the record, we are discussing adding ONE iaa game in 2007; for a one shot deal. It is now a 12 game season every single year - and we can get a IAA to Fouts for $50K. We schedule a patsy like the Samford Bulldogs or the FAMU Rattlers - beat them by 50, and have a little bit of fun with the game the same way that tU has with US. Look at that list above, you don't see Texas State on that list do you? What about Western Kentucky? Nope - you won't see any of the top 25 DIV IAA teams on people's schedules - because when it comes to IAA games, you schedule them late, just in case the team gets "good" over a year's time period - you get them in cheap if you are a non-BCS school, and yuo schedule someone that you can BEAT... like Tennessee-Martin or the likes. Our fans have shown that they will show up for BAD football, they did all season long. Why? Well, they are showing up to watch NORTH TEXAS - not the opponent. Again, this is a ONE GAME DISCUSSION. ONE FREAKIN' GAME. And at this point in our rebuilding phase, we need a patsy to come to Fouts - not a team like BYU to come in and beat us in front of 24K home fans, destroy the team's confidence, and piss off our fragile fan base. Look at the non-BCS schools that have been succesful, go back and look at who they played - you will find a common denominator; they all played a few "warm up" games each year in order to build up wins, a fan base, and generate interest in the program. After a 2-9 season, we are back to square one, we have no idea if we will be back to Sun Belt supremacy next year (by 2007) - hell, we might just be breaking in a brand spanking new football coach by then. If I was a brand spanking new football coach, and was just learning the ropes - I wouldn't want a team like BYU coming into my house and beating the living shit out of my team in front of my new fan base. I would like to have a Samford Bulldog team come to town, so that I could practice my players, make sure that I know how everything is gelling outside of practice, and get ready for the conference season to begin. This is just 2007 we are talking about, not a new scheduling philosophy forever.

You can get me at steve@gomeangreen.com

You got it partner, will se y'all in the chat room day after tomorrow.

I got my pilot's license in Durant at SE Oklahoma State - and I always thought that the "Savages" nickname was pushing it too far. That being said, it is a crappy ass town - and the kid will go nuts there, lol. The Savages have one famous basketball player from their NAIA says - Dennis Rodman, that is about all I can say about that crazy ass school.

And TCU would have gone to a BCS game last year if they had beaten SMU... furthermore, they would have gone in 2006 under the new system that adds the 5th BCS bowl game. But we shouldn't even be talking abuot a freaking BCS bowl or any other bowl for that matter - we need to concentrate on getting back on top of the Belt for now.

I agree with you 100%, we need to be playing games that we can win right now - winning is all that matters right now. ASU went to the bowl game with a winning record last year - yes, they were only 6-5, but it was a winning record... and guess what, they played a IAA. Did anyone bring it up come bowl time? I didn't. I didn't hear the press bring it up. I didn't hear anyone on the broadcast bring it up. It is pretty normal these days. Now, you can go overboard and pull a Texas Tech where you have 2 IAA games AND a transitional IA school all in the same year - that will get you made fun of. But playing one IA game... every 3 or 4 years, no big deal. Frankly, it was kind of fun routing Samford a few years ago, I had a blast at that game. It was a feel good game, kind of like North Texas is to Texas fans. If we play a IAA game, it needs to be a crappy ass IAA team, one that we can get into Fouts cheap and beat the crap out of them. Someone like Samford. I wouldn't schedule a Texas State or an Appalachian State - they might just sneak up and beat ya. Back to the BYU game - I have no knowledge about it - just what I have read on the boards - so this is theoretical. We probably were given the offer of playing them as a 2 for 1 in which we would go there for a low amount of money (just enough to cover our expenses) for both games and in return they would grace our presence with a game in Denton (or Dallas). OR they would pay us $250K-$400K to go there for a one shot visit. Now we already tried the 2 for 1 deal with Air Force - we held up our end of the bargain, travelled on out there for pennies - and we are still waiting for that return trip before we go BACK there for pennies again. They just haven't been able to "work us in" to their schedules any of these years. Go figure. But hey! They "owe us one"! Well, I imagine that RV felt that the BYU game would have been much of the same thing. Get us there to fill their spot next year - and then pull a delay of game for the return visit. Or maybe they wanted to come immediately back in 2007; in which we already have a full schedule, and it would cost us more to get out of our previous contracts then it would make us for a nice 24K+ crowd at Fouts. There are just so many variables that we don't really know. All that I know is that if it was a good deal, not even a GREAT deal, just a GOOD deal - RV would have signed it immediately. You are talking about a man that got us a home and home with Tulsa. A home and home with SMU. A home and home with La Tech. (and I think he might have scored that 2-2 series with TCU, but it could have been Helwig's deal).. He has consistently scheduled well for us and gotten us into some nice regional rivalries now. Don't question him about a game with BYU, I know that he will do the right thing and even if his reasoning is that he doesn't want to bring them in here just to beat us at home - then that is just fine by me. Whatever reason he has, I accept it. He is the professional and I am going to let him do his job.

The rumor is that we have scheduled a one game series with BYU... that is courtesy of Johnny Mack on the Voy board.

Why? Our OOC schedule is filled up for next year and they wanted the return trip for 2007. Game contracts work this way - we either get paid to go to play them or they give us a return trip in exchange. You have to weigh if we will make more money off of the gate by bringing them back to Denton in 2007 or if just taking the check from going there is the better deal. Also, we are paying back the loan for the AC - perhaps our budget just needed the extra cash for next year. The athletic department has a budget just like any business. I don't find it hard to believe that we chose to take the money this time... the last time we scheduled a "home and home" with a MWC school, they took our game for the first year and have been delaying the return trip ever since (Air Force)... I think we are just covering our butts. And who knows how many people would show up for BYU in Denton? Would it be enough to turn down the check for this year? I doubt it - probably a smart decision to just take the money and play one game. If the rumor is true - I would be happy about it. We wanted a 12th game that wasn't a body bag game - but it wouldn't hurt to make a little money off of it. BYU probably doesn't pay as much as OU - but I bet we get a couple hundred grand from it. So it satisfies what we wanted for that 12th game - a higher profile school; but one that we have a potential to win. Not a BCS school. Not a IAA game. And not a body bag game. It could be better if it had been a Houston or a Rice - a regional school like one of those would have been ideal for a home and home; but this is a nice 12th game if it is true.

It is my understanding that our 12th game will be against BYU. Not sure of the date. Johnny Mack posted something about it on the Voy board.

That is a great way to put it. And I really like Bernie's (NMGreen) spirit regarding going back to New Orleans to try and give back a little to a city that has given all of us so many great memories. New Orleans has a special place in my heart. I always felt like travelling there was the closest thing to travelling to Europe that we had in the USA. The culture and language just intrigue me. That city grabbed ahold of me as a 19 year old college student and I have dragged literally hundreds of friends with me to it every year until 2005. 2005 was my first year to not visit N'Awlins since 1991. I will go back eventually - mostly out of curiosity. But I fear that it will never have that culture or be as unique as it was. I am glad to hear that the Superdome was salvagable - we need that bowl game for our conference and from the Bourbon Cams I have been looking at this week - right in the middle of the traditional Mardi Gras celebration - it looks like New Orleans might actually NEED us (the Sun Belt and the New Orleans Bowl) for a change rather then just host us as a nice little token. Heck, maybe the game will grow even more in the new New Orleans - the locals that return will be very "proud" of their city and support local events like the New Orleans Bowl rather then see them as a nuisance. I think that the new local population of New Orleans will appreciate every tourist dollar that is brought into the city for the next few years - especially given the turnout at the current Mardi Gras. Heck, maybe by the time the bowl game rolls around, we will be embraced with the most open arms ever. I just hope the Mean Green are back where they belong this December - New Orleans.

Man, you couldn't have put it any better Mark, that is exactly what I was thinking. Meanwhile, on the nightly newscast, the Mayor of New Orleans is trying to blame the low turnout for Mardi Gras on everyone but himself. There are about 100 people running against him this April when he comes up for re-election so I think he is more worried about keeping his job then the real reasons behind the low turnout. I would be concerned about going to New Orleans for all the reasons that you have stated. Sure, they have drained the city, but how much could they have gotten accomplished other than that? Also - if your police force is half as big as it was - and you are still mobilizing them to deal with the people getting cut off from FEMA funds this month (thus returning) - how do you provide security down on Bourbon Street? Finally, there were some harsh things said about "why" the city supposedly did not get help in time when the disaster happened. I think a lot of people feel like they were blamed because of the color of their skin or their political affiliation fr what happened. I know that I have a guy that works for me that evacuated New Orleans and he blames the White House. He was one of those that was in the Superdome for 3 days before getting bussed to an airport, sent to Houston, and eventually wound up in Dallas because he had distant relatives here that he could stay with. He still has not gotten his FEMA money yet other people are now being cut off from it because it has been three months. When I ask him why the hell he didn't get out of there when he was told to - he says that he didn't take it seriously because he figured if it was really going to be that bad; the government would "force" them to leave. Well, from the reports that I have read - even after a week or two had gone by, there were still people in the city refusing to leave because they would rather die then have their house looted. So I think he is resentful towards white America - actually, I know that he is, he has come flat out and told me so. Basically this was the straw that broke the camels back with him. He will never go back to New Orleans (that is what he says) - never, not even for a vacation. He saw too many attrocities there and I won't even post the specifics that he claims happened in the Super Dome - but they include fights, rapings, and at least one murder right in front of him over a bag of potato chips and some water. That was when his family separated - he sent his wife and two girls to go stand on the bridge and wait to be evacuated and then went back to his home to basically "camp" until more help came for him. There are thousands of stories like this man's. So who will go back? And will it have the charm that it had before? Where will the music come from? Where will the street vendors come from? I know that we had 7 stores down there and have only gotten 3 opened back up. Of those 3, on any given day - they have to shut down early because they run out of food, not enough workers show up, or people walk out of the job on the spot because they get offered another job. If you are unemployed and want a job, get in a car and drive to New Orleans right now - you will have a job within 24 hours of arriving. We have employees getting paid $20-$25 bucks an hour down there whereas pre-hurricane they were making $8-$10 an hour on the average. On any given day, someone will come in to eat, enjoy the service that they got from an employee- ask them what they are getting paid - and offer them more more to come work for them instead... and the employees are chasing the cash. So you are really dealing with a wierd situation down there - it is great for the locals that have returned... there are a ton of jobs available and they are all paying triple what they were before the levee broke... at the same time, you have people that witnessed attrocities committed against them, have already started rebuilding in another city, and do not ever want to return to New Orleans again, not even for a vacation. I believe that New Orleans will build back up from this, I am just wondering if it will be the same New Orleans that it was before the hurricane. I imagine the future New Orleans as a more quaint, subtle New Orleans with a much less diverse population and that makes me very sad. I have been going to New Orleans ever since I was 19 years old. I have been every year until last year for one reason or another - sometimes I have gone more then once a year. But if the New Orleans Bowl were to be scheduled in New Orleans for this weekend, with the Mean Green in it - I don't think I would make the trip.... and if you guys talked me into it; I just don't think it would be even close to the same as it used to be. And I would be worried for my safety the entire time.

I was watching a thing on Mardi Gras last night - evidently you can get a hotel room with a balcony view of Bourbon Street right now - and we are in the middle of the celebration. I am trying to figure out why people just aren't going this year - does the average "Joe" think that Mardi Gras is cancelled this year? Are they worried about going to New Orleans for safety issues? Or does it just seem "wierd" to go party in a city filled with so much turmoil and heartbreak right now? I think it might be a little bit of everything... right now, I could actually go to Mardi Gras... I mean I could actually afford it (with the discounts announced yesterday) whereas in the past I just wouldn't pay the hotel rates for that 2 week period. It didn't make any sense to me to go to Mardi Gras when I could go during New Years for the New Years celebration and Sugar Bowl fun or in mid May for the annual Jazz Fest. Both of those occasions have (had?) just as much "scenery" as Mardi Gras but it was about half the price. My question is this - will this sentiment about New Orleans still be around in 9-10 months? Will we still be worried about safety concerns, FEMA f-ups, Lack of fun/celebration, guilt, etc... and if we are affected by all of this stuff, will it kill the bowl game? What is going on with the Superdome? The last I heard was that it was going to be condemned but I saw them putting a new roof on it on the news last night. Are you more likely to go or less likely to go or does the current environment not make a difference on what you would do. I honestly don't know if I would go right now. There seems to be a lot of racial tension right now and honestly, it would be a safety issue for me. Maybe I am getting old or my anxiety is screwing with my head - but I honestly don't think it is safe there right now - the police (the ones that are left at least - over half of them quit) have bigger issues to deal with then trying to monitor the drunks on Bourbon Street.

Title IX is no longer the issue - President Bush has changed the standard for weighing Title IX from equalling the dollar to dollar graph into the campus interest graph. It passed last year, quietly, without a whole lot of hubbub. A school can get around the dollar per dollar/ship per ship quota system by having a series of online or mailout surveys scouting "interest" for individual sports (male or female) - if there is simply no interest for another female sport to match a new male sport then a school does not have to add the extra money/ships to the budget. The new system works something like this: We add baseball to the mix. A survey is sent out to students asking for input on if any other sports have an interest from the student body in being added. If something like women's bowling has a significant interest from the student body then they would weigh several things... first of all, they would weigh the cost of adding it and there is a whole graph of whether or not the INTEREST (number of students wanting to add the sport) was worth the cost. If the cost was worth the sport; in other words, if there was significant interest in Women's Bowling - then the school could go down a number of avenues to deal with this cost. They could figure out a way to fit it into the current budget. The BOR could add a student service fee to cover it because the new government interest graph had shown that the fee was justified. Or, the most likely scenario - they would put out another survey asking whether or not the student body would like to have women's bowling, women's tennis, women's soccer, etc... and if somehow women's bowling were to beat out the standards - then the AD could choose to replace one of the current sports with the new sport - or they could go back to the drawing board and find a way to pay for it. Again, the point of this long ass explanation is that Title IX has been seriously changed for the future as of last year - it is no longer - one buck here, one buck there - it is now - Ok, we have a 55% average student body interest in women's bowling - we have to find a way to add it because we added baseball last year. It is all about equal OPPORTUNITY, but it does not have to be equally forced down our throats anymore. BTW, it was the whole men's wrestling consortium up in the Pacific North/North-West that got this new definition of Title IX pushed through. They worked on it for years and were succesful. We no longer have to worry about Title IX as long as our school chooses to use the volunteer survey system. Schools can use the old model or the new system - it is up to the discretion of the athletic department.

I guess Houston and Tulsa - but those are the last two games of the year and SMU could be 0 fer at that point. Ugly schedule for the Stangs.

I think that is something that we can ALL agree on - a conference slate of Memphis, Southern Miss, SMU, Houston, Rice, UTEP, and Tulsa coming to Fouts every year would be just the right medicine to get us into the 20K a year home attendance average and push us forward towards 25K for games like Homecoming and Parents Day... and that would be without much promotion at all. East Carolina and UAB would be our toughest sells in CUSA - but I will take 2 tough sells over a whole conference of them. I just think we have a lot of easier sells for the casual fan in the Belt (ASU, UL - both of them, Troy, and Middle Tenn are all pretty easy sells - only hard sells are the FU's at this point)... then we would in the WAC (only easy sells to get fans out to Fouts from the WAC would be La Tech and NMSU, I don't care how high Boise and Fresno are ranked, our fan base will not show up for them, our fans have proven that they just don't care about SJSU, UNR, BSU, Idaho, FSU, USU - Hawaii, I have no idea - but I am not willing to pay the economical price to find out, too big of a gamble for such a fragile budget) - OBVIOUSLY - we would have the best shot at a great gate in CUSA...

Very true - but look at what changed over the last year alone... We traded: 104 Utah State 111 Idaho 118 New Mexico State Average ranking of old Sun Belt/New WAC schools: 111 for 94 Florida International 96 Troy State 109 Florida Atlantic Average ranking of new/replacement Sun Belt schools: 99 I think that the Belt got the better end of the deal. A big difference? Nah - only 12 spots on the average - but the WAC now has 3 schools in the 100's and the Belt only has 1... I would say that the main difference still is in the top schools - Fresno, Boise, and maybe Nevada/La Tech... all of which are ready to jump ship given ANY opportunity at all. The rest of their conference is ranked at or below the average Sun Belt team. Not much of a difference at all to me - except we will have fans show up for names like ASU, Ragin Cajuns, and Troy now - because they are becoming familiar with those schools... We could be in the same conference as San Jose State or Nevada-Reno for 20 years and we would still draw 12K for a home game against them simply because they are not Southern teams and people just don't know a whole lot about them... and they really don't care to know a whole lot about them.

Same crapy record, still playing in a big space equipped for an airplane, not a football or basketball team, still averaging under 10K in attendance despite having these "high prestige" WAC teams coming to Moscow, still playing in a crappy conference.... the WAC is just as crappy as the belt with the exception of Boise and Fresno; two teams - that regardless of their talent level, would draw flies in terms of attendance at Fouts Field. The WAC has New Mexico State, Idaho, San Jose State, Nevada @ Reno, Utah State, Hawaii, La Tech, Boise, and Fresno... Sans New Mexico State - which one of those teams would the DFW fan flock to Fouts to go see? I guess we will see with La Tech this year - but I imagine that it won't be much more then a normal Sun Belt game as far as attendance. The Belt has Arkansas State, Louisiana, Louisiana @ Monroe, Middle Tennessee, Florida International, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, and Troy. I just don't see that big of a difference - especially when you consider all that you have to give up in order to be a member of that conference. It is simply too expensive and we can't afford it, even if it makes you feel better about yourself. Any school can recruit a coach that is trying to start over - Florida Atlantic got Scnellenberger, Florida International got Don Strock (might not be a familiar name around here - but in Florida he is the man... it would be the equivalent of North Texas hiring a popular local guy like Babe Laufenburg to be our coach). In basketball, the Belt has a rich history of success and is ranked above CUSA right now - in fact, we have been ranked above CUSA all year long. Florida Atlantic went out and hired another famous name to revitalize their basketball program and I believe that it is working - they are sitting a couple of games over .500 right now and he has yet to get even one recruit under his belt on the team - perhaps you might have heard of him - he was on the University of North Carolina Tarheel's team that won the the big dance along with players like Michael Jordan and James Worthy - Matt Doherty was a coup for a team like FAU, who joins the Belt for all sports next year. I am not going to type it all out - but read a little bit about Doherty on the FAU website - he is a coaching legend and he is right here in the "lowly" Sun Belt: http://fausports.collegesports.com/sports/...rty_matt00.html You wanna know where we would have been last year if we had accepted that WAC invitation? We would have been 1-11 or 0-12, like NMSU - we would have had to put all facility improvements on hold indefinitely, and worst of all - we would have suffered at the gate - our fans are getting used to playing Arkansas State and the Ragin Cajuns. Those are our conference rivals now and our fans are starting to learn more and more about those schools. Their plights are very similar to ours so we have a level playing field when it comes to budgets and recruiting - and we have a legitimate chance of winning. Yes, we went 2-9 last year; but it was a rebuilding year and we lost 5 of those games by under a touchdown. I don't want to get into another arguement about the direction of the program - but basically we are a quarterback away from returning to power... I think that we will solve that problem between now and SMU - which to me is the biggest game of next year's schedule. I just don't understand the fascination of the WAC with our fans - it is a joke to the rest of the football world, just as much as the Belt is... the three top teams would JUMP at the opportunity to leave it if they ever get another invite... and the rest of it is filled with teams that were in the Big West with us. That is just not attractive to me at all for our future... I think we have really started to build something with the Belt and maybe it will pay off - maybe it won't... but for the short term - it has been VERy good for our program, I don't think anyone can argue that.

I'll call him today and ask him how it went. Pegram and I became friends when he returned to get his degree... he spent a lot of time between classes hanging out at the Tavern and I have all sorts of signed memorabilia from him in my office including a signed Steelers jersey - like everything in life, nothing comes without a price, lol, lets just put it this way, a lot of comped drinks went over the counter in exchange for a lot of Falcons, Steelers, and Chargers stuff! I even have a signed jersey that might be worth something now that the Steelers have won a Super Bowl - I have the one that Erric wore in the fist half of the Super Bowl he played in (he kept the one from the second half of the game - little but of trivia - players are issued two jerseys for the Super Bowl, one for the 1st half and the other for the second half of the game). I think I had to give him like 200 comped drinks for that jersey alone, lol. Back to my point... even back then- Pegram was trying to get on the coaching staff, but they were kind of blowing him off, I am glad to see that they are at least interviewing him now. With his personality, I think Erric would be a very good "player's" coach - so he should fit in with the rest of the staff -

That is a great idea - the most expensive part of the shirts are the shirts themselves - the screenprinting - as long as it is just one color - is fairly inexpensive. I would hit up Miller or Budweiser for the shirts, surely they have some fairly blank promotional shirts that we could screen print on. The white shirts shouldn't be a problem at all... But - It might be a problem getting green shirts from either one of them... maybe they have some left over from St Patrick's Day somewhere in the warehouse. Anyone have a connection at Bud - I think that GreenNawlin'sVet used to work at the Bud warehouse - if he is reading this - are you still there bud? Also, anyone out there work for a company that does promotional campaigns with shirts (pharmaceuticals, beer, liquor, etc...) that might be able to hook us up with some shirts to screen print? By the way - does anyone mind if I throw my name in the hat as the coach of the Green team? I am nursing a back injury right now and definitely won't be able to play but I would really like to be involved in some type of role (more then just a spectator this year)... I will make sure that I borrow Dickey's playbook and tuck it into the front of my pants - I will also need an official "Diet Coke Boy" - any volunteers for that role? By the way part 2 - when we started this game 3 years ago it was a great way to blow off steam (everyone on the board was arguing about pretty much everything att hat point for some reason) - I appreciate the guys putting it all together again to make it an annual thing and appreciate that they added a fund raiser portion to it - this has made the game "mean" something other then just a bunch of out of shapers out there making fools of themselves! And yet another thanks for getting the ball rolling once again for this 3rd annual GoMeanGreen.com / Andrew Smith Memorial Fund Flag Football game. It is a great cause that everyone can be involved with. I think we had about 50 people show up just to watch the game last year! Counting the players, we had about 100 or so people that showed up last year - let's try and double that this year!

I just went down to Wells Fargo (in a Dallas supermarket location, not even in Denton) to order some new checks and low and behold there was a collegiate section. As I sat there and salivated over the aTm and Nebraska checks - hoping and wishing that someday NT would have something like this available without having to have them special ordered - I flipped the page... and there they were! Now they are not as fancy as the Big 12 schools' checks - but they are up to date. They have the NEW font, the new eagle, and the new color. I am not sure how the finished product will look because it was a generic type of check at the top of the page (actually 4 of them, in 4 different colors - one of them being GREEN) - that you choose to put your school logo on. It might not sound like that big of a deal but seriously, there were only about 50 schools available - total (and that is including the really fancy ones for the BCS schools)... for us to have our own collegiate licensed checks is pretty cool. They weren't cheap - $27.99 for the order but they are duplicates and that includes shipping/printing fees. I rarely even use my check book other then to pay the electric and telephone bills but I think I will be whipping these bad boys out more often then the Visa Check card once I get them in the mail. It is absolutely kick ass that we have this available from Wells Fargo now (and I just couldn't believe that they had the new color, the new font, and the new Eagle logo all perfectly done)... I was indifferent about the whole branding thing; but if the result of the branding is getting into marketplaces like collegiate checking - then I can see the vale in the change. Kudos to whomever pitched the logo to Wells Fargo from the branding department - I think this will be my first compliment to go their way - but it is well deserved. If you bank at Wells Fargo - run down and get you some Norrth Texas Checks the next time you need them (or just change for the hell of it)! The more of these boxes that we buy - the better chance we have of getting onto that "fancy" page by the time the next check catalogue rolls out! Now that would be seriously impressive!

Remember that Jamario was a 4 star Rivals recruit until he signed with us - then he dropped down to 3 stars because Rivals decided that there had to be "something" wrong with im because he picked North Texas over Nebraska and Texas Tech. It was so messed up, they had the list of Nebraska recruits and there was Jamario with 4 stars right after his name... and then on the North Texas Page, they had Jamario with only 3 stars after his name. Just f-ed up ranking systems with a complete bias towards the BCS schools. As I recall - Jamario was the #2 ranked running back in the state (only behind AP) and the #18 ranked recruit (of any position) in the nation. I would say that Jamario is the biggest signee for any Sun Belt school in the short history of the conference.

This is the preliminary from Howell, remember that we are allowed 12 games next year - we might choose not to play that 12th game, I believe that it is just something optional... In order to go to a bowl, you need a winning record so 6 wins with an 11 game schedule will get you an invite - but 6 wins with a 12 game schedule makes you ineligible. Maybe we will choose to just play 11? Looks like we have the 9/23 date open (looking at ASU's schedule - they play SMU in Dallas that weekend, if that date stays open for us - I will have to be an Indian fan for the day!)... We also have 10/14 open as well as the first week of December. North Texas (Sun Belt) 9/2 Sat @ Texas 9/9 Sat vs. Southern Methodist 9/16 Sat @ Tulsa 9/30 Sat vs. *Middle Tennessee State 10/7 Sat @ *Troy 10/21 Sat vs. *Florida International 10/28 Sat vs. Louisiana Tech 11/4 Sat @ *Louisiana-Monroe 11/11 Sat @ *Louisiana-Lafayette 11/18 Sat vs. *Florida Atlantic 11/25 Sat @ *Arkansas State http://www.jhowell.net/cf/scores/sked2006.htm All and all, this schedule - if it stays this way - is a VERY atractive schedule for the Mean Green fans. Only one stretch of 2 games on the road and only 2 home games in a row. The bye comes at the right time - it will either be on 9/23 or 10/14.. I am going to assume that we are trying to get a 12th game for that 9/23 slot... hopefully we can start another series with someone like Rice or Houston.

Thanks LongJim, I appreciate you asking!

Thanks for the bump Emmitt. What we need is just a small space in your office building/lobby, break room, etc... While we would like to find a place that has lots of kiddos coming through - it is ok if there are just adults. Perhaps you are a teacher and you could use a small snack machine in your teacher's lounge - maybe the police station could use one. The proceeds go to the Red Cross so I think most bosses will be cool with it. Maybe some of you work in restaurants and we could put a machine by the front door with some mints in it for your guests that are leaving. This is really a flexible thing - and while we want to make a ton of money for the Red Cross - the deal is this - we signed up for this program - were put on a waiting list in order to get the machines (we were granted 5 brand new machines after about a 30 day waiting period) - and now how it works is that they supply the snacks (M&M's, cashews, skittles, etc...- we get to choose) and we provide the labor. As needed, we will come out and fill up the machine with goodies and then send the lockbox with the quarters in it back to them. If a refund is needed, we will issue it - no problem. Surely a couple of people on this board work in an office or a bank that could use an M&M/gum/skittles machine, right? It won't cost you anything at all and if the thing happens to bring in any money then it will go to a great organization- the ones that are helping out in LA and MS... the ones that were the first to show up after 9/11 to give shelter and aid to those that needed it. The Red Cross is also overseas helping out with efforts to aid those in the war zones. This is really for a great cause - and I hope that we can put these 5 machines - all 5 of them - to good use. Any help? Any bankers on the board? Anyone work in a bank that can talk to their boss? There's gotta be a few suggestions from the peanut gallery! Don't make me beg!!!! Oh wait, I think I just did~!

Found this on the net today: TV Series To Beam 'Friday Night Lights' Into Homes NBC Series Begins Filming Next Month POSTED: 8:52 am CST January 24, 2006 UPDATED: 9:38 am CST January 24, 2006 Email This Story | Print This Story FORT WORTH, Texas -- "Friday Night Lights" was a hit on the big screen, and now producers are turning the movie about Texas high school football into a TV series. The NBC series will begin filming next month. Casting for the pilot will take place in Austin this Tuesday and Wednesday at Austin Studios. Experienced football players, ages 18 to 27, are being called to the audition. The address is: Austin Studios (Stage 2) 1901 E. 51st St. Austin, TX 78723 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, and Wednesday, Jan. 25 Players with college eligibility and actors without field experience need not apply. Actor-athletes selected will be asked to commit to up to six weeks for filming immediately. Recorded message about the auditions: (512) 538-0197.