stebo

Thanks Katt, if the season was going better then I think you would see more people willing to sit through the slaughter. Right now we are just having to push ourselves (and each other) to show up to the remaining home game, lol. BTW, what in the hell happened with the busses this year? I saw that in the paper and was thinking about you, hehehe. Did you guys have a few drunk fans take it over the top again? I don't remember the team but I read something about a bus of visiting fans getting rocked or something by some LSU fans. It was a bus that came in from New Orleans (not sure the details)... what happened with all that? Were you there?

Very good post MedPilot. Looks like we are on the same page. Enjoy the games, win or lose - it is football season and come March we will be putting together another flag football game because we need our fix so bad. If we will go out and kill ourselves in a flag football game just to get our "fix" - you know that we are true lovers of the game. Well folks, the game and the season is going on RIGHT NOW - enjoy it, enjoy screaming about the play calling and the growing pains! At least we have a team to complain about and a nice sized fan base to complain along with us. There are students and alumni at hundreds of Universities across the nation that would love to have what we have - lets not blow it because of pride and anger. Force yourself and your friends out to the games, it will be the attendance during the down times that defines our fan base for the future.

My thoughts on Dickey have run the gamut over the years. People on this board know that. But I think he has earned the right to have a down year. If things don't get straightened around by next year then I will be on board for getting a new guy in here to try and do something different - but for now - I will stick it out with Dickey. I think the difference between now and back when we sucked 7-8 years ago was sense of urgency. I don't feel it right now. But all mid-majors go through this for a year. UCF went winless last year. UTEP was terrible for decades with the exception of one trip to the Boise Bowl. Every peer school in the Belt has had to endure losing seasons for the lst decade. We have had success... and enough to really get our facilities jump started. I never thought I would see the type of growth that we have seen over the last few years - and winning football games has done that for us. It is never easy to accept that we are going to be down for the year but that is what I went into this season with - that acceptance. The wins we have had are the wins I thought we would have going into the year. I was hoping for a split on the Tulsa/La Tech games... but we lost em both... oh well. The kids are learning out there and we will be back. Next year we will either be back to our dominance or we will be looking for a new coach - which is exciting in itself. Either way we will be winners. But for this season, we need to look for positives and suck it up when it comes to the negative stuff. So how about we just sit back, enjoy that it is still football season - and cheer our team whether they win or lose (for once)... I have adopted a 2nd team for the year and am hoping that they (TCU) wins the MWC and the bowl that they make it to)... perhaps we should all just chill out a little on the Dickey bashing and give the man a chance to rebuild. Yes, he shouldn't have let us get into the place where we are forced to rebuild in the first place - but he did and now I want to see him take back control and move us back to the top of the mid majors. Going into the season we were a pre-season #6 in the top 25 Mid Major poll... In the past, this would have been unthinkable. We had coverage in every major magazine and newspaper in the country including a COVER story in USA Today. I think that Dickey should get a pass on this year's demise... his positives have outweighed his negatives over the last few years. Lets not be one of those schools that sbandons their team because they cannot win some games for a year. Be the fan that sticks around and can say "I was there when everyone else had jumped ship"... a few of us have been through much worse then this, 2-4 after 6 games is bad but it has been worse, trust me. Continue to talk up the program, drag friends out to the games, and lets accomplish something this season despite the play in the field, let's average over 17-18K even with a losing season. That is the type of thing that will get CUSA's attention when they add a team (which may be coming up pretty soon if Tulane drops its football program)...

Oh, that is funny as hell, lol.

KATT, no offense - but the VERY LAST THING in the world that folks around here want to do is have our crappy season rubbed in our faces... watching us get our ass kicked at LSU would be hard enough - the notorious LSU fans would just make it worse (you know - the bad apples that even you admitted to be in existence)... I simply can't put myself through that torture... I never planeed on going, but I would bet that a lot of those that WERE going to go, have decided to E-Bay the tikets and save the gas/hotel money by this point.

I hate it when people bag on the Sags rankings, I look at that list and am pretty confident that we could lose to any of those teams ranked ahead of us. I also think we would have a shot at beating most below us. The rankings aren't perfect - but they are the closest thing to perfect in the ranking business... I love how they include IAA... for instance, IAA Western Kentucky is #1 in the nation right now - but not the top ranked IAA team in the Sags - it goes by so many factors that simply the best record isn't the main focus. We deserve our crappy ass rating... we will be back into the 70's again by by next year - but for now we deserve our rank.

From official site: DENTON, Tex. (10/21/05) – For true freshman Brittany Cleveland, it might have been her first North Texas-Denver soccer match, but it will be one she will not soon forget. In dramatic fashion Cleveland scored the game-winning goal for the Mean Green in the 80th minute of play to lift North Texas (12-2-2, 7-0) to a 1-0 win over Denver (7-7-2, 4-2-1) at the Mean Green Soccer Complex. Cleveland scored the goal off a corner kick when sophomore Lauren Weller deflected a pass to Cleveland, who was able to find the back of the net from five yards out. The win is the seventh straight for the Mean Green and extends their unbeaten streak to 14 games, the third longest in the nation. “We got the corner kick and Lauren was able to just find a way to get me the ball. We went at the net really hard and tried to make something good happen and I was just able to score,” said Cleveland. The goal is the fifth of the year for Cleveland and capped off a furious battle between the top two teams in the Sun Belt Conference. The win puts the Mean Green in control of the conference championship race with just two games left. North Texas will win the regular season conference title with a win in one of their final two games on the road against Western Kentucky or Middle Tennessee. “If your going to beat a team like Denver it has to be a total team effort and we had that tonight,” said North Texas head coach John Hedlund. “I’m really proud of this team because we really worked hard and found a way to win”. In a tight scoreless match, the Mean Green outshot the Pioneers 24-6 for the game, but couldn’t break through the Denver defense in the first half. The best chance by the Mean Green in the first half came in the 25th minute when Heather Hutyra sent a free kick from 25 yards out just over the cross bar. Denver’s best scoring chance of the night came in the 15th minute of play. Lleane Grimditch fired a shot from 15 yards out that goalkeeper Kandice Ellis sprawled out to prevent from finding the top right corner of the net. Ellis made three saves on the night to record her sixth shutout of the season and extend her scoreless streak to 365 minutes without allowing a goal. “This team just showed so much character throughout and we just want to keep this thing going. We want to keep this streak alive” Hedlund said. The win caps off the fourth unbeaten season at home in school history for North Texas at 9-0-1. North Texas returns to action next Friday with two road games to close out the regular season starting with a battle at Western Kentucky.

Holy crap, we got Oster to post - our plan worked Big Dawg.

Actually, my group of fans took us back up to IA. I was VP of SA (now SGA) at the time and led the charge to do it. There are many generations on this board, you should not just stick us all in one category. On a lighter note, I was just physically threatened by Big Dawg in a PM, it will nice to see him banned finally.

The thing is DUMBASS - you are preaching to the freaking choir. Everyone on this board goes to the stupid games. If you want to argue about coaches or plays then we can have disagreements... but how can you scream at US abotu fan support when we are part of the support that shows up? What are you, 10 years old? And thank you for recognizing my greatness, it is about f-ing time.

It is all relative. 23K is the third highest attended game in Fouts Field HISTORY. Should we be proud of that? Abso-f'ing-lutely. I would dare say that 17K was the highest attended non-Saturday game in the history of the program. We have made great progress in terms of attendance, what the people on this board are scared about is that we will take a huge step backwards because the 41K people showed up to watch two terrible games this year. Once you get people to show up (which we have this year) - you have to put on a show for them or they won't come back. The frustration you are seeing on the boards is the uneasiness that we have just blew our chance at having a great season (attendance wise) because our coach didn't prepare for the future properly. Some agree, some disagree... that is the point of the board, to discuss those things. But if you want to bad mouth our attendance, well - that is just BS - we are head and shoulders above where we were just 5 years ago. 5 years ago I sat on the deck with FFRick and Mean Rob for the final game of the season and we could literally COUNT the amount of people in the stands. I would guess that there was MAYBE 500 there, including the teams and the band. Relatively speaking - we have come a LONG way.

New Sags are out and the Belt is dead last but not below any IAA conferences anymore. I know that it is a terrible thing to brag about but going into the weekend we were behind 4 IAA conferences, including the Southland (ouch!)... with only conference play left, we will likely stay above the IAA's and we could possibly pass up the WAC if we are really lucky and Idaho, NMSU, USU continue to pull them down like they always seem to do. 1 BIG TEN (A) = 79.76 79.39 ( 1) 11 2 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 78.88 78.51 ( 2) 12 3 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 77.46 77.37 ( 3) 12 4 BIG 12 (A) = 76.33 77.09 ( 4) 12 5 PAC-10 (A) = 75.17 75.97 ( 5) 10 6 BIG EAST (A) = 71.50 72.20 ( 6) 8 7 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 68.93 69.02 ( 7) 9 8 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 68.93 68.48 ( 9) 12 9 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 67.80 68.55 ( 8) 3 10 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 63.04 62.57 ( 10) 13 11 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 61.52 62.33 ( 11) 9 12 SUN BELT (A) = 58.77 58.66 ( 12) 8 13 SOUTHERN (AA)= 57.73 58.34 ( 13) 8 14 BIG SKY (AA)= 57.44 57.45 ( 14) 8 15 GREAT WEST (AA)= 57.08 56.44 ( 17) 6 16 SOUTHLAND (AA)= 57.00 56.57 ( 15) 7

They were itching for new blood before it got moved to Lafayette. I am not so sure that they want to gamble on new blood in a temporary home. This will be an interesting year, no doubt... I don't think we will be tied for first, like I said in the first post - I think that we will lose to ULM or ASU this year... but there could be a couple of 1 loss teams (ULM, ASU, MTSU, Troy) that compete for the championship rings.

Two things - I was one of those FRAT boys at one time and spent most of my time in the parking lot as a student (and that was before tailgating wasn't cool, lol)... As far back as Nichols State (Drew's first game), I threw up my hands in disgust - sat outside and listened to the game on the radio with some old fraternity brothers and drank some cold beer. The important thing is that they are getting involved with the school and the program... next year, maybe the next... they will make their way into the stadium. Also, it could be that this kid was just trying to act "cool" and went into the stadium anyways later on. Finally, don't bag on the entire Greek System because of one quote. BTW - the quote from the alumnus before the Greek guy (Jeff Oster)... he is a teacher out at Northwest, been a friend of mine since we were in elementary school, and was a first time season ticket holder starting in 2003. He was one of my battallion finds when I won that contest a couple of years ago... now he is one of the biggest cheerleaders of the program. Drag your friends out, get them to make a financial investment in the program, and they will surprise you.

I think our best chance for a "succesfull" season would be as follows... Win at La Tech giving us at least 1 OOC win, beat - 4 of the remaining 5 - FIU, FAU, ULM, ASU, ULL... Probably lose to ASU or ULM of that group, they look to be the strongest of the group. Obviously, we lose to LSU. That puts us at 6-5 for the season... and possibly an at large bid at some bowl. That is our best possible scenario in my mind. Thoughts?

Meager is getting better, there were about 6 times last night that he scrambled away from the sack - whereas he previously would have been sacked. He was also effective in the no-huddle offense. The sense of urgency came way too late. He is still making poor passing decisions, he was picked off twice but it could have easily been 5 times.

I think we might have to run the no-huddle offense for the entire game in order to score this year. Twice this year we have moved the ball down the field effortlessly and resulting in a TD, and both time were in the no-huddle offense. It seems that when we line up the traditional way, the defenses know exactly which one of the 8 offensive plays is coming at them... but when we are in the hurry up offense, they don't have time to prepare for the play. Just a thought.

Enjoy the Lafayette Bowl, you guys kick some butt down there. Still wish we could have tee'd it up with each other last year. Looks like it will be a race between Troy, ULM, and ASU for the Lafayette Bowl... just wish that you guys would have been able to experience New Orleans, but I fear that now that the game has moved to Lafayette - it may never move back.

We will still be the only team to ever go to the New Orleans Bowl, the winner this year will go to the Lafayette Bowl.

I am stuck at work, tried my best to get out of it in every way possible.... but alas, here I am. I opened up the GMG chat room in case anyone else can't make it. I am furious that I couldn't get out of work; but I got a promotion on Saturday and just couldn't swing it with all the new responsibilities. Chat Room Link: http://client1.sigmachat.com/sc.pl?id=73780

Not sure if this has been posted, I just got online after a 3 day hiatus (pesky work)... MTSU did a very cool thing last weekend for their game with Vandy. We could easily do something like this next year with SMU, and people would pay to run the ball for a half mile or so. Watch the video of the whole thing, including game footage... VERY cool idea from the MUTS. http://sparksports.com/stream.cfm?load=gob...51001-vandy.wmv

We could EASILY set up a tort machine with some green MASA at the games to make them right in front of people. That would be a really cool gimmick. Come on RV, lets embrace this fun tradition - not force it to go away with the strong arm of the rent-a-cops.

I had always heard that he only played that one year (1975)... and Hank confirmed that on the coach's show on Monday... what was the reason that he only played the one year?

That is a pretty damn good idea Rick... My company makes corn tortillas (we are one of the few restaurants that makes our own corn tortillas rather then simply buy them pre-packed) - and I would be willing to gather some information as to how much the athletic department could make off of them if anyone would want to know... nudge nudge, wink wink! We could even make them green for them!

That is an IDIOTIC statement. Tech originally started to throw tortillas in hope of getting a Fiesta Bowl invite... as did MANY OTHER UNIVERSITIES. That is why it has NEVER been a Texas Tech tradition, it has always been a Fiesta Bowl invitation tradition AT MOST... but we adapted it to fit OUR University as most schools do with traditions... like cannons, giant spirit bells, and cheerleaders. Another "tradition" that multiple schools use is the throwing of oragnes onto the field when they are in the hunt for an Orange Bowl invite. Has been done by Florida, LSU, and Tennessee (among dozens of others). The big difference is that Tech students found the tortilla tossing to be FUN so they kept doing it for a few years, way after their Fiesta Bowl had come and gone. North Texas went into Lubbock and stole a game from Tech - and stole the tortilla tossing at the end of the game by throwing their tortillas BACk at their own fans. We adapted it as our own and now we throw them as a reminder that our fiesty Mean Green can overcome the obstacles going against us and beat ANYONE if we want it bad enough. I have thrown tortillas in celebration at nearly every Sun Belt Away game as well... the folks in Murfreesboro freaking hate that we showered tortillas all over their stadium during our last two meetings there. It has evolved into a North Texas tradition rather then just a Fiesta Bowl Invite tradition. While we are on the subject, lots of "traditions"/celebrations/game day atmosphere events get "borrowed" from lots of different teams even at the Pro level. It wasn't too long ago that cheerleader were only present at Dallas Cowboys games. None of the other pro teams had cheerleaders, the 'Boys were the first. So are the other 32 professional football teams "stealing" the Cowboys tradition by making it their own? Hardly. Having cheerleaders, a cannon, a giant victory bell, and yes... even tortillas - are all very unoriginal ideas... but they are part of our traditions. I can't believe that you actually bought into the ignorant idea that Tech students threw tortillas out of racism. That is a ridiculous accusation. They started throwing them merely out of the desire to go to the Fiesta Bowl... and they weren't even the first team to try that tactic to try and woo the invitation committee from Arizona, UT was actually the first that tried it from what I have read - but literally dozens of other schools have copied it over time. We are the only fan base that does it out of celebration for a score and it took a huge come-from-behind North Texas win in Lubbock for our fanbase to adopt it. John Denver has the full story up on his website, I am sure he can post the link - YET AGAIN - if you still haven't gotten around to reading it. UGH!!!