aztecskin

I have mixed feelings about this. part of me says that there are two many bowl games. the other part of me would like to see UNT have a better chance of making one. hurm.

I did not say UTSA Basketball is supported. I know it isn't. When I lived there, there were less fans at the Convocation Center than go to the Super Pit. Also, going from Sunbelt Conference Champ to 3-21 is trending downward. Going from no team to hiring the first head coach is trending upward. Technically.

emmit: You're right. For whatever reason, people associate being realistic as being negative. We are trending downward. Them's da facts. Rodge has not started a game in college at quarterback. That is also a fact. The list of guys that have not started in college that come in and light it up is not as long as the list of guys who have started and done decent. I am sure that we all hope he does well. That is not being negative. Being overtly negative is saying things like 'North Texas will suck this year because they suck, we suck everything sucks' Being overtly positive is saying things like 'North Texas is going to win this year because we are super-awesome awesomes!' Both are unreasonable . Give your reasons. Not just what will happen but solid reasons why they will happen. And when NO came to town, we all supported them. The city wants an NFL team. We love the Cowboys. We love the 'Horns. When the Final Four, Big XII title game, women FF, NCAA tourney games, preseason NFL were hosted, we supported it fantastically. Everyone who has held there even in SA raves about the city and its support. Although UTSA basketball is not really supported, nor are the smaller colleges' team, -mostly because they are dwarfed by the Spurs and 'Boys- Football is king. I think UTSA will have plenty of support.

playing devil's advocate: I think it could be argued that by comparing NT football to UTSA's new squad helps us measure NT's progress and/or regression. But this should probably be in the Non-UNT sports one.

Has PapaDodge done any complaining about the media coverage? If he has, then he needs to read the above post. But I wouldn't worry about one guy at a small town newspaper ragging on the team. C'mon. How much influence does this guy really have?

Yes I have heard about taking the initiative. Don't try to call me out personally. I am telling you the truth. You have no idea what I had going on in my life this week. You have no clue as to my level of preoccupation or even as to what may be requiring my attention besides the usual school and work. It is stupid to make a general statement that 'it is everyone else's fault' I never said it is. I am saying, that in this instance, casual-level fans were not aware that they could go to the conference tourney on the school's dime and to call them out for being lame, and not caring, is stupid. For the most part, they didn't know it was there. It is easy to get the message out. As for those emails, neither I nor my wife, best friend, classmate, or other class mate received one. That was just a quick look around the people who were with me when I asked. Of that group 5 out of 5 would have taken advantage of it if we had known. Now, are you really going the our-country-is-doomed-cuz-these-durned-kids route because I said the school did a poor job getting the word out about this particular event? Please. No one that I know thinks that they are entitled to a free anything, by the way, so save your bitter-old-man routine for someone else. As for the pride thing? I have pride in my school. I am a realist though. The thinking that schools (and nations) are inherently good are ignorant to say the least. North Texas is good because it is North Texas? BS. 'North Texas is good because of the level of quality education and experience it provides' is a better answer. So, yes, I think UNT should win ALOT of games and show a consistent, quality product for a decent amount of time before it starts whining about people not loving it.

You're right. We have an apathetic fanbase. Part of it is that we don't have a tradition of winning. Its hard for everyone to get excited about pulling out a squeeker against a Sunbelt team when there are more compelling teams on television. Those things cannot be alleviated by clever marketing. Only winning is the cure. But, given the fact that we have a tentative hold on the attentions of the student population, we should make every effort to reach out to them and squeeze every drop of attention that is willing to be offered. Translation: there are only so many who are willing to freely give their time to this team, so they should make sure that every one that wanted to attend/participate and could have attended/participated knew about it with enough time to do so. ntmescan.com

I am at school every week. I didn't hear about it. If I had heard about it I couldn't have gone because I have to work this weekend. I could have arranged my schedule around it (ie. PLANNED for it) if it was announced a month or two in advance. Hell, even a couple weeks in advance would have helped out. They could have handled this better, and gotten a big rowdy crowd at the game(s). Letting me know something is going to happen is not treating me like a baby. Expecting a bus-load of students to be able to drop their weekend plans at the last moment (which may or may include working and preparing for tests) to go to Arkansas is a tad on the unreasonable side. In this age of communication we have a terrible website that screams annoyingly, little or no email alerts concerning the team, no use of text-updates, and basically a crappy marketing department. With what seems like half the student population walking around with iPhones, why do we not get our Tech guys to make a UNT app? why do we suck so much?

Ain't this America? Ain't this Texas? What happened to not meddling and laissez-faire etc? Lol. Let the NBA try to sell me some basketball tix. Really, I am kind of insulted by the NFL's 'yo soy fan' crap. part of it is because the Mescans that will like the NFL will most likely be the ones who speak Spanish as well as all the other whiteys. Like me. Contrary to popular belief, we don't come with Spanish pre-installed, I had to learn it from school. And from what I remember from the Operation Take Over America debriefing, we aren't going to be in Wyoming until 2020 so maybe you can delay the domination somewhat by moving there?

Don't worry guys. As soon as I make my first Billion I will drop 100 million on UNT. I'll change my name to a cool donor-type name like A.Z Skin and hire and fire coaches with the mere threat of pulling funds. WOO! Can't wait. Tis gonna be awesome. By the way, help me get started by visiting some of my fine sponsors!

I am in the business school. I go to games. I follow sports. I give a flip.

cool. I wanna play. I can spring for a shirt.

cool. I wanna play. I can spring for a shirt.

Does it make you sick that students of UNT can be so dumb? I think the only argument that can be reasonably brought up against the already-voted-on ballot was that it was worded with a heavy slant FOR the stadium. Now for the stoops that had a hard time finding out about it, well they are lazy and apathetic. If they opened their eyes once or twice or got their heads out of their [expletive deleted] they could have seen that something was going on. Geez. And the chick that is talking about how she wants to change her vote? You can't be 'for' democracy and not inform your self about the issues that you will vote on. It is ridiculous.

All this is true. So is the talk about UTSA not having school spirit. UTSA basketball games are empty ... until they play in the tourney. The football team is part of a plan to bring more school spirit to UTSA. That was a big part of the initial argument for getting a feasibility study. But, yes, when it gets started it will not be amazing. UTSA is not as good a draw as UNT. I saw UTSA as the second choice for local kids not going to UT or A&M. Shoot, Jarrell Dickerson, the all time leading rusher in SA high school history went to UT .. rode the pine for a season, and dropped out, had a kid and went ... to UTSA. (he was in the Jamal Charles fresh. class) I think we are comparable however, in that UNT is a second choice school for many kids. It was my second choice. I admit it. I had never heard of this place even though Scott Hall went to my high school! My point is that we need to be realists and compete in reality, not where we think we should be competing because of whatever. Right now we are prestige-less, and have a sorry stadium. Let's invest, win, and build it up.

Yep. That is my thinking. It takes money though. Lots and lots of money. People call it 'support' but that is a euphemism for money. UTSA is coming back to play FCS but with the goal of being BCS eventually. They are committed and have huge support from the city. It will be interesting, though. They are a commuter school just like we were. (We have tried very hard to change that and have made progress). I wonder if UTSA will pass us in the next decade. We are regressing and they are progressing. They do have an advantage that we don't, however. Where we compete against TCU, SMU, and in some respects OU and UT for talent and support, San Antonio has the UT. That is it. I am from there, no one really roots for Texas State. Hell, the only reason people go there is to get drunk on the river. I know, I thought about doing that, too. SA is largely ignored in recruiting circles, maybe because we have sucky players, but maybe because we aren't a huge market. Regardless, I think UNT should be proactive in making 'friends' as it were, with UTSA, TSU, and other in-state smaller schools. If we can band together, we can help each other be bigger collectively than f'in TCU and SMU's smug-*&^es. Then any success THEY have, will be shared by US.

The thing to realize about next year is this: PapaDodge now has that all important college coaching experience (2 years!), albeit it was losing coaching experience ..... but experience nonetheless!

I have $0.13

I touched a little on this in my blog a few months back. I think more in-state games would be beneficial. I mean SA is only a 4.5 hour drive from Denton. UTSA is planning on playing the games at the 65000 seat Alamodome so there will be plenty of room for us to go down there. Now only if we could get the other Metroplex football teams to play us regularly.

I am ambivalent about this. I am from SA. I have a spot in my heart for UTSA (top left) and I think Coker would be good for name recognition coupled with the excitement of a new program. For UNT? Eh. I don't know if anyone would care that Coker signed here. They would think its a last-ditch effort to be a coach (it would be) at a school where he would be a bad fit (he would be). Also, North Texas Mescan didn't sign any new recruits because star blogger aztecskin is coming back for his second year with the blog. Says sir 'skin: "I am really excited to continue where I left off and continue to produce half-ass posts between/during classes/work." He then ate an Asiago Cheese bagel from Panera Bread cuz they taste soo good.

You know, it is not a good idea to start at six anymore. Now with ABC showing the Saturday Night College Football matchup of the week, we go head to head against the biggest names in the game. I say lets start at eleven or noon. We can drink afterwards. It will be relatively cool and we don't have to use the lights so we will save a lil on generators. What do you think? Of course we will be still going up against the Big Ten (11) games and early Big 12 games. What about doing the Thursday night games a la Big East? No one around here really follows that league.

My first hint that PapaDodge was not going to be a hall of fame type coach here at UNT was when the Sun Belt teams started shellacking us. Talent is more or less equal, and it looked like we didn't belong on the same field at times. That is what made me lower my expectations. I no longer thought that PapaDodge would lift us to new heights. I was now hoping for a poor man's version of the Dickey years. I am more worried about who would want to come here after we fire Dodge in the next year or two.

ahh, yes you invoked the name. But you did not LINK. Laurie linked and thus I came-a-running* *no actual running was involved.

Yes. It is true. I was slumbering away in the wilderness of Denton. Belly full of fish fat after hoarding and now sleeping comfortably in my den. Translation: I was busy with work and there was no UNT news other than 'we suck and how do we fix this mess' and 'i hope this new guy that they recruited won't quit and transfer after seeing what a mess this is now'. But yes I was drawn back by the link to the blog which got a lot of hits from this board. So thanks to both of you. You win the NTMescan.blogspot.com Friend Of The Blog award for January 2009! Congrats! You win a Prize To Be Named Later. At least that is what the NTMescan locker room insider says. Its true. You can ask anyone.