stebo

Have the BOR fire LJ and hire Pohl for the Chancellor job. That way we kill two birds with one stone. Pohl gets a new job to get excited about... he gets rid of Jackson (the real reason he is leaving)... and Bobby Ray can find us a new pro-athletic's President. I would suggest the Troy or Boise President... someone that has seen how much athletics can move a school's name into the national spotlight.

I know, I know... BTW - Big Brother just started. Pretty damn good so far, hehehehe.

That blog is incorrect, while Gerald did get the consolation prize of $20K, he won a separate prize during the show which was a grant for almost $30K... he has $50K to spend on college. Plus a new laptop. I actually watched the show every week.

Growing up in the small town of Commerce, Texas has not been easy on Gerald, a highly gifted African American student. In spite of the occasional brushes with overt racism throughout his high school experience, Gerald maintains a cheery disposition and has never let the threat of other people's ignorance stand in the way of anything he sets out to do. His 3.914 GPA and Advanced Placement course load leave little time to pursue outside interests, but Gerald has always found time to participate in activities that feed his mind and speak to his soul. A proud member of the color guard at his school and the varsity mascot for the last two years, Gerald also plays the saxophone, piano, drums and guitar. Addicted to the positive energy and thrill of performing, he hopes to one day to make it to Broadway.

I was really into the Steve Martin produced show "The Scholar" - basically it was a reality show but for high school overachievers that needed money for college. Anyways, the season finale was last night and every kid pretty much got "something" as a surprise for being a runner-up starting at $20K going up to $250K. One of the finalists was a kid that is a cheerleader in highschool (male) and he won $50K towards his college future. As the show was ending it showed where each kid would end up... I mean these kids were the cream of the crop in the nation... all with high GPA's and high SAT scores... among schools like Yale, Harvard, and Columbia (schools that other kids had chosen to go to) - the kid Gerald listed the good old University of North Texas as his college choice. I was very, very proud indeed.

Moot, Bad news pertaining to what?

No problem - I try to correct ignorance whenever I see it about any subject. It is a curse in many ways but I feel obilgated to speak the truth when someone that is uneducated about a subject tries to come across as an expert. I know my mother and I know her beliefs. We have had long, long talks about those beliefs. I will not sit by and watch someone (anyone) try to pidgeonhole her beliefs into their perception to serve their own personal agenda. We all choose to believe what we are most comfortable with. It is those without any beliefs that I feel sorry for.

Who are you? This is Steve Boedeker... there are quite a few Sig Tau's on here (including myself )

My guess (and only my guess) is that the idea is to make parking a more serious issue at North Texas - thus pushing for students to live on campus or around campus like most major Universities. It helps us attract a conventional/traditional student. Traditional students spend more time on campus and are more likely to come back to campus after graduation and be involved/give back to the University.

KTula, yuo got caught in the middle of the crossfire. Everyone on this board likes you... you have been posting for awhile. It is just the other Tech jerkoffs that make your school look bad. I even saw you attempting to calm the waters when you first interjected into this thread but it was already out of hand and you wern't going to calm down either side. So do like I have been doing with this thread... ignore it. I know you are a great fan of La Tech and one of the more intelligent ones at that. It is not your fault that people like HawgDawg and DawgFood exist... but they really do make your score look bad. We have had idiots like that on this board before and they were banned. I would suggest you figuring out a way to ban the idiots from your board as well. Hell, we have already had one of them come over here, run his mouth, and get banned from here... for statements that the BB&B would have probably let him get away with because he is a "good fan"... HawgDawg lives up the road in Carrolton, we know all about him. We know about him working for the school yearbook/newspaper (can't remember which is was right now)... we know he is some sort of computer tech now. One of our more savvy posters even knows the guys name and phone number from doing a reverse IP look-up from his posts over on the old Owlzone board. We know that he is a homosexual. Not that there is anything wrong with that... just saying, is all... Every board has a "HawgDawg" - unfortunately, the Tech fans seem to like him and encourage him... if he were a North Texas fan he would have been banned a long time ago. My point? He makes all of you look bad. Now I recognize your handle and read yuor posts with an open mind... but a lot of NT posters just see that La Tech moniker by your name and automatically think - "a-hole" - specifically because of guys like HawgDawg and DawgFood... they make you all look bad.

You asked a question- I will give you an answer. Last year was a terrible year for us OOC... the year beforwe was not so bad. We beat Troy by a score of 21-0 in 2003, before they were Sun Belt members. That was a solid OOC win in my book - they played .500 ball that year as an Indy (ended the season at 6-6) and beat the only two CUSA teams on their schedule (Marshall and UAB). The year before that they beat Miss State at their house. We didn't play Troy last year but we played every other SBC team and went through conference without a loss yet again - Troy lost two Sun Belt games. The Belt deserved the nickname, the Suck Belt, when it was a new conference made up of castaways from other conferences and indy land... but every team has gained momentum over the last four years and gotten better. We had the largest attendance jump (as a conference) then any other IA conference for last year and we passed up the MAC in the Sag Rankings (just missed catching CUSA as well)... Belt teams went 4-1 against the MAC last year with the only loss being to NIU in the bankrupt SVFC WAC bowl. I think that all we have to do is look at common opponents from last season to predict this game. We both played UL - you beat them at home thanks to a last second play by a score of 24-20, we beat them on the road in front of a full (and rowdy) house on a Friday night ESPN game by the score of 27-17 (games was never even close though). Edge: North Texas. No other common opponets recently but you lost to MTSU the last time you played them (few years back) and we have never lost to them... You have also taken a dive in attendance - I believe that you only had about 7K show up for your last game in Shreveport against Tulsa thus forcing your administration to move all your games back to Ruston for this year. When I think of La Tech; I think of the days when you guys had so much promise and potential. Those days are long gone now. Sure, you guys can ramble off about your 3 point victory over OSU or a one point win over the MSU Spartans; but even terrible teams can pull off the fluke wins. Just look at North Texas in the late 90's.... we were TERRIBLE and still managed to beat Texas Tech (twice) as well as Oregon State, Nevada (back when Nevada was really good), and had no problems with Boise State most of the time. Our team back then was just like Tech's team now - INCONSISTENT. And as bad as we were... we never lost to a IAA team; last I checked - Tech lost to Stephen F Austin (AT HOME!) a few years back - OUCH! The last three times we have played you, we have won. I don't expect that to change this year. And before you give too much credit to the magazine that you are using (College Football News.com) - just notice that they have predicted that you will lose to friggin Idaho... hell, I hate Tech and have a soft spot for little old Idaho because we have been playing each other for so long - but even I am smart enough to know that you guys will demolish them - they absolutely suck. I wouldn't be quoting a source for one prediction when it is obvious that they have done absolutely ZERO research on the lower IA teams by preciting a Tech loss to Idaho. Now run along and go play with HawgDog and DawgFood - they are missing you in 10th grade Basic Algebra class.

Jim's Diner - now Bagheri's Restaurante.

I generally agree with you but Boise is the exception. Boise has not played in their bowl game for the last three out of four years now and they have had around 25K for all of those games. The folks in Boise are kinda like the folks in El Paso... they have absolutely nothing else to do but to support the local sport's team and its bowl game. Even the year that La Tech played Clemson in the bowl there were about 23K there. While fans from other schools usually cannot (or will not) make the pilgramage up to Boise, the locals show up to support that game. It is an annomoly to me but I have a lot of respect for the citizens of Boise for it. Now - the Hawaii Bowl would be a different story... if Hawaii was not in it, it would be a disaster, kind of link the Ft Worth Bowl last year. As for the defunct San Jose Bowl (Silicon Valley Classic) - it was turned down for recertification and has gone bankrupt. They really had no excuse other than zero local interest in football. They had about as many people show up for last years game with Troy State playing Miami(OH) as they did when Fresno played UCLA in it the year before. The WAC is down to two bowl games now - Boise and Hawaii - and I would say that the safest bet for longevity would lie with the Boise Bowl (MPC Computers Bowl, formerly the Humanitarian Bowl)...

We can't exactly emulate teams like Kansas State or Florida State because we don't have conference money pumped into our coffers eevry year. We can emulate teams like Boise State, Marshall, and even Louisville/Southern Miss.... slow and steady; but aggresive. There is always going to be some team like Baylor or Vandy that gets $18 million bucks in conference money a year just for football alone - which is more then our entire budget for all of our programs. Trying to keep up with those guys will just make us chase our tails and get frustrated. I like our approach. If you read the comments on the CUSA BBS, it will show you how much nationjal respect we have gained over the last four years by winning the games that we need to win and going to bowl games (along with following through with some facility improvements)...

I gotta tell you that I went through that same orientation when I transferred down to North Texas and there was not one mention of a football team or sports. This was 1993, the year before our push to IA. When we pushed up to IA, they pulled out all the stops.... and I don't know how we did it; but we got like 19K that season. Those games that Fall were one big party. Back then the big band was Deep Blue Something and they were Denton/NT guys... they had a number 1 single getting serious airplay (Breakfast at Tiffanys) and Helwig paid them to play one of those games. They had the tent rigged up so that you had to walk through the turnstile (the turnstiles were portable ones taken OUTSIDE of Fouts and put in front of the concert tent) - anyways, you had to walk through the turnstile and show your student id to get counted (or get your ticket torn if you were a non-student) - then you could listen to the concert and leave or go into the game. Beer was readily available at like $1 a cup. I seem to recall them not really charging anything for it most of the time. What they did was set up tables where you bought tickets - then keg booths where you got the beer. Well when you got to the booths to give them the tickets, the tables were just filled with cups of ice cold beer and you just grabbed as much as you wanted - I don't think anyone ever asked me for a ticket, lol. That was pretty much the gig for all four home games that year. Big tent, free bands, lots and LOTS of free beer. Now - how many made it into the stadium? I would say that about 70% actually went into the games. But considering the attendance the year before, that was a miracle. Most of us laughed off the thought of us ACTUALLY making it up to IA that year, we all thought it was kind of a pipe dream... but Helwig/Sloan pulled it off with smoke, mirrors, a little Mean Green luck - and heck - Maher to Redwine didn't hurt neither. Simon was a miracle worker that year; he just caved under the pressure of trying to live life in the Big West with zero budget and all JUCO players. So to hear these stories of Frosh orientation - and the selling of football to these kiddos - and to know that they are not selling snake oil this time around.... now that is just music to these old ears.

I read all that... and last year's schedule was actually in our FAVOR. 3 other Belt schools played FAU and counted them as a DESIGNATED CONFERENCE GAME... yet we played them and they were OOC. We didn't have to play Troy. As for us changing the date for the ASU game this year, it actually just pushed our game with them back one week and gave us a bye week in mid November whereas we did not have one before. Your theories all have merit but if you look at each individual item... there is a valid reason for everything.

The schedule has changed a lot since that first release. We now have a bye week (Nov 19). We also have a semi-bye week because we play a game on the 24th of Sept - wait 10 days to play Troy at home on Tuesday (ESPN game) - then we have off another 11 days until we play Florida International. I would say that the schedule has really come together. The MUTS game is in a bad place but other than that, this is the best schedule that I have seen for the Mean Green in a LONG time (maybe ever). Here is the current (and final) release: Sat, Sep 03 LSU at Baton Rouge, Louisiana 7 pm Sat, Sep 10 Middle Tennessee at Murfreesboro, Tennessee 6 pm Sat, Sep 17 Tulsa Denton, Texas 6 pm Sat, Sep 24 Kansas State at Manhattan, Kansas 1:10 pm Tue, Oct 04 Troy Denton, Texas 6:30 pm Sat, Oct 15 Florida International at Miami, Florida 5 pm Sat, Oct 22 Louisiana Tech at Ruston, Louisiana 3 pm Sat, Oct 29 Louisiana-Monroe Denton, Texas 6 p.m. Sat, Nov 05 Louisiana-Lafayette Denton, Texas 6 pm Sat, Nov 12 Florida Atlantic at Boca Raton, Florida 3 pm Sat, Nov 26 Arkansas State Denton, Texas 1 pm

Plumm, I keep reading your posts about this conspiracy against NT going back to New Orleans. As WW has stated many, many times - the conference schools submit their OOC schedules - then they all sit around and work out a schedule taking into account who was the "home" team last year and when it will work out. Last year everyone complained because we didn't play Troy; please don't turn this year into some conspiracy about the Belt office trying to screw us. MTSU will be playing their second game of the season, too. We will both be beat up from big time BCS teams... and this is the only spot that would work for both of our teams so that they could be the home team. It is really that simple.

It will be very interesting to see the Patrick Cobbs/JaMario Thomas situation play out. Everyone seems to be listing Cobbs as number 1; but DD refuses to list a starter - naming them 1 and 1A.

I am talking to my good old fraternity brother Green Eyed Monster on the phone and his nephew (Adam's 2nd nephew to go to NT) just got back from orientation... He came away excited and PUMPED UP about TAILGATING and PRIDE and FOOTBALL!!! He was wearing a shirt in the new green color that on the front said simply NORTH TEXAS (no UNT~!!!) with the Eagle underneath (the full "postal service" eagle, not just the head)... On the back was the word #1. PRIDE: and it listed a definition of PRIDE under it. Then it said #2. For any questions, please refer to the first line. I gotta tell ya, this got my Mean Green blood going. I love how this is finally happening at NT, and on a consistent basis.

That LSU game is not even on TV. It is the first game of the season. They are picked to win the National Freakin Championship by about 3 dozen magazines. I would say that losing to them is a GIVEN. If we lose to the MUTS, we will lose FANS for the home opener against the Tulsa Hurricane.

You can't be serious. You think losing to LSU will ose more fans then losing to the MUTS???? If we lose to LSU, we move on. If we lose to the MUTS, there are riots on this board and calling for the coach's head the second game of the season. I don't want to see us "tank it" in Baton Rouge like we did in Austin last year but I am prepared for it. DD is (and always has been) about the big picture. You celebrate at the END of the season, not the beggining.

I just think you are playing with fire. Sure you might make an extra couple hundred grand in conference revenue because of the money left behind - but what you lose as a result of it is really damaging. Two more years in the WAC and La Tech could be down to Idaho level. There is that old saying that you have to crawl before you walk... and walk before you run... Well, 5 years ago Tech was RUNNING - they were the envy of many non-BCS schools. Now they are an afterthought. They have gone back to walking. Another 2 years in the WAC and you will likely be crawilng. Then you got to start all over again. If your payments are great for the next two years of the WAC, then apply for SBC admission for 2007. Once you have been accepted (and you would be) - you tell the WAC that you will stick with them through the transition (they need you guys now, they have to have at least 6 teams playing together for 5 years in order to be recognized as a conference)... that way you don't lose your payouts. If all else fails and the WAC gets AWESOME somehow, you pull out of the Belt and pay the freaking $50K penalty to stick with the WAC. If Tech has become a world beater, someone else will come along (CUSA, MWC), if you guys have gone down the road that most of us think you will - then the Belt will be right up your ally by then. It is called hedging your bets... Right now Tech has all of its chips on the table on the number WAC... Not a safe bet when you can pay the insurance of only $50K and hedge your fall back bet on the Belt. If the Belt has just gotten TERRIBLE in the next two years (lost its bowl, down to 6 members, lost NT or Troy or MTSU to someone, etc..) then freaking pull out of the deal - it is only $50K! But, if the Belt has continued to evolve as it has for the first four years... you risk not getting in and having to go Indy. Man, I dunno. I know that it "looks" like a lot of money for you guys over the next two years beause of the defectors, but durely you have to have SOME sort of game plan for AFTER those two years are up. I have yet to see the answer to that. The best answer that I have seen is to hope that you become world beaters and force CUSA to create a 13th spot. That just ain't gonna happen, brotha.

TechFan, I just have one question for you... Do you (personally) think that Tech is in a better place NOW, then it was before the WAC? I am talking football here. I really could care less about the rest. Think about wins and losses, think about reputation, think about facilities. Think about where TECH was just 5 years ago as far as national prestige. Now think about North Texas and even Troy for that matter. Where were the two of us five years ago? Where are we now? Ok, now those are the two top Belt teams - lets look at UL-Lafayette... they averaged over 20K last year down there. They had a Nationally televised game from their home stadium with full stands. Look at Monroe, 5 years ago I personally thought that they would drop their program. They are not only back on solid ground; they are predicted to have a winning record this year. I could go program by program telling you how the REGIONAL teams have benefited from the Belt. The far flung schools - NMSU, USU, and Idaho - have ALL slipped off even more. It will take them 4-5 years in the WAC to put the pieces back together (both Idaho and USU were just going to bowls in the Big West). So I will go back to the original question - is your team better off now then it was 5 years ago? I know that I think of Tech in a different way. It is really kind of sad. Now realize that the positives of the WAC have just left (SMU, Tulsa, Rice, UTEP) - and you are now back in the Big West. North Texas turned the WAC down. Why did we do so? Which program is moving forward and which is receding? I have read over and over again that you guys have zero respect for your administrators over there in Ruston. Maybe it is because they make stupid decisions. Sure, you can break even in the WAC with the extra money for a couple of years; but the damage it will do to your program (other then the financial stuff) will take longer and longer to repair.