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We are 0-1 without tortillas. The two old bags working our row for the Tulsa game threatened to have us ARRESTED if we threw a tortilla at the Tulsa game. She then went and got a freaking cop to come over and scare us into submission. I realize that the torts are probably a pain in the ass to clean up. But we have people in our group that come out for the festivities associated with the game ratehr then the actual football (I am not one of those but there are several women and children in our group that are).. they are more interested in the surrounding events - tailgating, throwing tortillas, drinking cold beer, and looking at pretty people, lol... please do not take away some of the fun from the game. Right now everyone needs to relax, chill out, and enjoy the games... please rescind the tortilla ban, the kids love it. The day that we get a penalty for throwing a tortilla onto the field then I will agree that we should drop the tradition. But as far as I know, we have never even gotten a warning from the refs. What gives? Hopefully "Glad to be Green" will be replying to this post soon.

Sounds like we will have a pretty good built in crowd for the game in one week. It is the 30 year anniversary of the big win in Tennessee so that team will be honored at halftime along with Coach Fry. Peterbilt and both of the Denton hospitals have bought a ton of bulk tickets for the game along with several other large businesses in Denton. So there are reasons to make room for the Troy-NT game in one week, even if you are mad about the 2 losses. Come out to watch our team try to keep our 26 consecutive conference game win streak alive. Come out to thank Coach Fry and the 1975 team for their awesome achievements and for getting us into the top 25 for the only time in North Texas history. Come out to have a few beers and see the pretty girls. Come out to celebrate how far we have come in the last 5 years. We are 1-0 right now as far as I am concerned and the team needs every single one of us out at the stadium next week. I know that I have to open the next day so I will only be able to stay for 3 quarters; but I will come out for as long as I can and cheer on my team, regardless of the outcome. In January you will regret missing any of the action. The season is only a few months long and you should make your best effort to enjoy every single moment of it. If we are only going to have 12K at the game then you want to be one of the ones that can claim that YOU WERE ONE OF US! You can have bragging rights that when everyone else jumped ship; you were still there to cheer on the men in Green. These are the trying times that shake out the fair weathered fans from the band wagon fans. Don't be one of those Johnny-come-lately type of fans, be there through the good and the bad. If you are unhappy then show up to BOO, just show up.

Thank you KAjunRaider, I appreciate the post.

As far as I can tell, we have only lost one game this year that we should have won, the Tulsa game. Was it an ass whooping? Absolutely. But it snowballed on us and things get out of hand when they go that way. Folks, we are 1-2 right now and could be back to .500 in 1 week. We have started off much worse in my opinion. I am chalking this year up to a growing year either way - we need to get better this year, not worry about winning a 5th consecutive Sun Belt championship. If we rebuild properly this year then we will be ready for SMU next year. That is my focus right now.

One thing that I am very sure of is that Coach Dickey could care less about what plays I want to see in a game, lol. I have grown to like our power football structure, right now it is sputtering - just like it did before Scott Hall came along... but I feel that we are one LEADER away from coming back to consistency. Find a QB who is consistent and who is a leader on and OFF the field and we will find our Mean Green. I am sure that this is what is lacking this year. I wish that Scott would have stayed at NT as a grad assistant; but alas Scott would have to be going for a PhD (I believe he already got his Masters) and he is already in the workforce now... FYI, Scott is actually in New Orleans working right now to rebuild the city that has given us so many wonderful memories. Talk about Kharma!

I am just thankful that we are using THIS year as a rebuilding year and not NEXT year, lol... Next year we have SMU, and I cannot take losing to them.

GMG Flag Football Bowls are held each Spring. We have had three now - two of them being organized through this website. They are a blast and this is the first year that we have raised money for charity through the game. Coach Dickey showed up to this last game and shot the crap with all of us - gave out some North Texas gear, and took some pictures with us. Coach Dickey seems to have a new outlook towards the fans this year and I for one have been appreciating it. That is why I have not joined in on the Dickey assault; and as long as he continues to put the blame where it really lies (and not on the fans) - then I will support him.

I am guessing that we will see Arkie State in the Lafayette Bowl.

I was in RV's office yesterday and got to snap a picture of Green Grenade's stadium that he proposed. For you long time posters - you will know the one I am talking about. For the newbies, it would take too long to explain, lol. I see that Grenade is truly thinking big with his endzone naming - he would have the thriving TCA baseball program sponsor this stadium to publicize the Denton Outlaw Baseball team... Now that is thinking outside of the box!

What? They took our offices away from us? I know that we have a lackluster offense but I can't believe that Tulsa came down and bulldozed all of our offices.

Hank and George were talking a lot about this on the radio. Basically, a QB has to have time to develop "eyes" in the back of his head to know when a defender is barreling down on him. I imagine that Danny was also trying to pull a Scott Hall and force some things... it is just that Scott had experience before he was allowed to do that knid of thing. Speaking of Hall, I saw him at the game (along with a BUNCH of older players like Andy Blount and the lot)... he is going with the shaved head with goatee approach now, lol... As we were walking by we told him to suit up and get out there and he laughed pretty hard. I get the feeling that people will finally see how great Scott was for our program over the next two-three years. Before Scott we had a lot of this type of inconsistent play from Mills, Bridges, and the like. I still say that Meager is the starter. You have to pick a guy and hope for the best. Right about now, we need a field general to step up.. someone that will get in the faces of their teammates and demand their attention. If Phillips turns out to be the guy that does that, then I will pass my vote over to him. Otherwise we are best off dancing with the QB that is 1-1 with a win under his "Belt".

Nope. No offense to Sir Cobbs but JaMario is our past, present, and future. He needs to be in the games building up his muscles and getting ready for next year. Pretty much every football player on the team is probably nursing some type of sore body part right about now - it is a tough and brutal game... that is why we love it. We would give anything to have a QB with proven experience right now - we need to be getting ready for next year and redshirting JaMario would just piss him off.

I love those quotes from Dickey. It is exactly what we have been asking for from him over the last umpteenth amount of years. We can get momentum back with a good showing against K-State. What we really need is for JaMario or Patrick to have a big game against them so that we don't have to hear all the crap about our running game only being good against Belt competition. Even still, we have come a long ways. That was our third largest crowd in Fouts history. I know that it was like freakin Lollapalooza out in the parking lot as well - there were at least 30K that showed up in some form or fashion to this game. I think a lot will be back for our next Saturday game - the Tuesday night game against Troy will probably be a lot like the MUTS vs Akron this weekend - about 12K.

Classy article Catbird. I appreciate the nice words. We have come a long way in the last 5 years... just have a little further to go. We took a step back this year; having lost a ton of seniors without preparing the newcomers for the future. This will probably be a long season for the Mean Green... but we are better off then we were 5 years ago, even with the loss. I hope that someday Tulsa and NT call the same conference "home" and we get to play some rematches on a regular basis. I will be in Tulsa next year for the rematch and hopefully we can put up a better fight by then.

Daniel is a young kid that probably just lost a lot of confidence. The guy in front of me was an old man and he kept pronouncing his name MEE-ger... I thought that was very ironic givent he situation... gave me a chuckle.

Uhh.. Troy did not go to a better bowl game. They had to pay to get in it, got the invite from the SVFC as a last resort (and only after Movie Gallery agreed to sponsor the bowl for a one time gig), lost money on the bowl, and the bowl was so miserably attended that it doesn't even exist now (I also think that re-runs of Moesia had better television ratings than the Silicon Valley Bowl last year).

Well, I don't know if we should be bashing anyone. What I saw on Saturday disgusted me... indeed... but it could have been MUCH worse. I could have been sitting in a half empty stadium talking with my buddies how to awaken the sleeping giant again. The sleeping giant was very much awake this week. Playing a regional team at home with a 1-0 record and they show up! I was like, "Hell, where did all these people come from?" Where have they been? And it wasn't just students - although they have redeemed themselves temporarily in my eyes - it was the alumni as well. Imagine how terrible you would be feeling if you had shown up Saturday and there were only 15K people there. I would be crushed. It was not conflicting with any other games of interest. The weather was PERFECT. The time was just about right. The records was 1-0. There were like 20 camera guys on the sidelines, the most I have ever seen at a North Texas game. So, I thank DD and RV for giving that to me. RV for scheduling the game and DD for winning last week to get enough hype about the game in order to semi-fill the rickety old stadium that I love. I was once again reminded just how great Fouts is to watch a game in when it is full. Not once did I have trouble seeing the action. I felt like I was at a real college football game. And finally, despite the score - my school showed me that they could pull off a pretty big game with minor errors. I had to freaking park at the RADDISON in order to find a space for crying out loud! My buddy got to the game an hour ahead of time and the closest space he could fins was Krumley Hall! Walking across the highway while Harry was having to tell me the first couple of plays over the phone was surreal. Something I have never experienced in coming to a game at Fouts... walking about 2 miles (roundtrip) to get to and from my car! So I will lay off Dickey, the game snowballed on him. We all know that Tulsa is not 53 points better than us. We all know it and so does the coaching staff. The doubters - as Dickey called them - will show their true colors of yellow this week and we will get rid of them. I am not going to be one of the doubters this year. As Dickey has FINALLY embraced the fans, I will finally embrace Dickey. At least for this week -

Well, this will be odd - but I will be defending Dickey this year. Especially since I like his new post game radio talk. He was positive about the crowd, he was negative about the game, and he went on to say that he would find out who could deal with a loss this week and who would be a doubter (on the team) and he would GET RID OF ALL THE DOUBTERS (players). Best post game he has ever had. As for the game, it just snowballed on us. Those things happen. I am questioning the running back rotation now. I think that their two different styles call for two different OL's... and we barely have one. Pick a horse for each game and let 'em run. Alternate games, not series maybe.

Take a look at your avatar...

That looks absolutely spectacular. I would totally replace the script on my truck with that (and I am not a fan of using an eagle)...

The profit info might be off because different schools allot student fees as "income" - but the salaries are correct. That is what I found interesting.

Some guy went out of his way to research all the Belt football school, what they pay their head coaches and what they pay their assistants. It also shows the individual schools "profits" or lack thereof... North Texas looks pretty good on the list. It seems that Middle pays their assistants more but their head coach makes less. We are head and shoulders above some and competitive with most. One surprising stat - Troy managed to make a ton of dough last year off of their football program (I am guessing)... Anyways, here is a copy of his post (these stats are from LAST year BTW, we have since given our football assistants a nice raise, I think there was about $25K that was split up between the staff in raises for assistants): Here is how it looks as of the end of last school year: Florida International: Enrollment 33,228 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $114,509 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $42,008 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $10,731,257 -$10,180,632--> +$550,625 Florida Atlantic: Enrollment 24,932 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $66,984 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $28,923 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $9,872,196 -$9,315,522--> +$556,674 North Texas: Enrollment 31,065 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $98,916 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $47,757 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $11,362,381 -$11,326,041--> +$36,340 Middle Tennessee State: Enrollment 21,744 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $74,094 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $62,603 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $12,501,536 -$12,501,536--> +$0 Arkansas State: Enrollment 10,573 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $102,693 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $40,067 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $9,098,933 -$9,098,933--> +$0 Troy: Enrollment 17,613 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $82,232 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $50,194 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $10,925,851 -$7,972,732--> +$2,953,119 LA-Lafayette: Enrollment 16,208 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $52,043 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $46,639 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $7,250,231 -$7,250,231--> +$0 LA-Monroe: Enrollment 8,571 Avg head coaching salaries for mens sports $35,833 Avg assistant coaching salaries for mens sports $31,419 Revenues and Expenses for entire Athletic Program: $5,503,962 -$5,359,066--> +$144,896

I would also like to see our +/- stat from the last 4-5 years somewhere... I think it might be the best in the Belt and probably top 25 in the nation.

Listening - and in the chat room.. join me if you want to talk some football.

Ok folks, a year ago we were being courted by the WAC and some people were miffed when we turned them down. So far, the WAC and the Belt are very similar this season. The WAC's standings look like this: Western Athletic Team Conf. W-L Overall W-L Fresno St. 0-0 1-0 San Jose St. 0-0 1-1 Louisiana Tech 0-0 0-1 Nevada 0-0 0-1 Utah St. 0-0 0-1 Boise St. 0-0 0-2 Hawaii 0-0 0-2 Idaho 0-0 0-2 New Mex. St. 0-0 0-2 They have had two wins (as a group), neither were against IA teams... Fresno beat Weber State and San Jose beat Eastern Washington. All other games have been losses - and pretty bad ones at that. Boise State came closest to a win against Oregon State and Idaho actually gave UNLV a fight, only losing by 3 or 4. The Belt isn't much better, we even have a team that lost to a IAA team (ULM lost to NW State, the same team that knocked off TCU a couple of years ago). But we do have three wins from our group of 8 and one team with a IA win out of the early conference opener: Sun Belt Team Conf. W-L Overall W-L North Texas 1-0 1-0 Arkansas St. 0-0 1-1 Troy 0-0 1-1 FIU 0-0 0-2 Florida Atlantic 0-0 0-2 La.-Lafayette 0-0 0-2 Louisiana-Monroe 0-0 0-2 M. Tenn. St. 0-1 0-2 As for the other peer conferences, the MAC has more IA wins then anyone @ 4 - simply because they started conference play in week 2 which accounts for half of their IA wins at this point. Out of the group of them (12 schools) they have 2 OOC IA wins, over Pitt and the UL Cajuns. The other wins were either over IAA teams or each other. Mid American East Conf. W-L Overall W-L Bowling Green 1-0 1-1 Kent St. 0-0 1-1 Ohio 0-0 1-1 Akron 0-0 0-1 Buffalo 0-0 0-2 Miami (Ohio) 0-1 0-2 West Conf. W-L Overall W-L Toledo 1-0 2-0 C. Michigan 1-0 1-1 E. Michigan 0-0 1-1 Northern Illinois 0-0 0-2 Ball St. 0-1 0-2 W. Michigan 0-1 0-2 Finally, the new (and improved?) CUSA - they are doing pretty good actually. ECU has a win over Duke, Marshall beat W&M and SHOULD have beat K-State if their bonehead coach had just kicked the fieldgoal with 8 second left rather then try to score a TD (they were down by two points and the QB threw an interception) - UAB beat Troy, UTEP beat NMSU, while Houston beat Sam Houston and SMU upset a hot TCU team at home for the iron skillet to win their 1st OOC game since the year 2000 (it was also their 1st win over a ranked team in 20 years) Conference USA East Conf. W-L Overall W-L East Carolina 0-0 1-0 Marshall 0-0 1-1 UAB 0-0 1-1 Central Florida 0-0 0-1 Memphis 0-0 0-1 Southern Miss 0-0 0-1 West Conf. W-L Overall W-L UTEP 0-0 1-0 Houston 0-0 1-1 SMU 0-0 1-1 Tulane 0-0 0-0 Rice 0-0 0-1 Tulsa 0-0 0-2 As for the MWC - they are close to BCS quality now - not having any trouble with OOC games at all. Their nine teams have all played both weeks, for a total of 18 games - winning over 50% of them (10 of them). They have truly separated themselves from the rest of the non-auto bid conferences. ________________________________ Basically, it looks like it will be the Belt vs the WAC for the bottom rung this year. We can still pass up the MAC and CUSA if they hit the skids; but the early results point towards another "growing" and "rebuilding" year for the Belt but the WAC isn't much better off and could possibly be even worse.