Side Show Joe

If he can get to the line and hit free throws, McCasland can use him.

Wilson played with as much heart as any player in the history of North Texas. Season after season he sacrificed his body on the field, and he kept coming back even stronger. I'm so happy for him. It was a real pleasure having him as my adopted player for the past few seasons. Congratulations Jeffery. You deserve this.

Ha! Amanda and I are glad you're family is staying put. We like being by y'all too. We will be renewing our seats as well. I may even add another. I agree, the AD is taking a gamble with this move. I think it could be successful in generating more revenue, but only if our defense improves to a respectable level, we beat SMU, and we return to the C-USA title game. If we didn't finish the season with blow out losses in back to back games, and have serious concerns about our defense, fans might be less skeptical about this move.

Many great improvements around the Athletic Center. My only knock, would be the locker room. I still think we could have designed a better looking space. But, having said that, the building certainly looks better these days, and I applaud of AD for his vision and hard work.

Way to step up for a member of our Mean Green family. This university needs more people like you and the others that contributed to helping this young man's family. We are certainly a Mean Green Nation. Happy New Year!

Ha! Happy New Year to you too, and Go Mean Green!!!

Kingsbury will be out of a job after next season. Harrell would be smart to pass on this if offered.

Good game. UTSA needs a new arena.

I can't understand why some on here get so angry about differing opinions. We are not a collection of robots. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and everyone is entitled to agree or disagree. We should be able to do that without name calling or getting ugly with each other. After a season where our Mean Green produced at a level few believed possible, we should be able to have constructive conversations about the direction our program is headed, or at least ignore the opinions we don't embrace. It tiring watching thread after thread get locked. Instead of arguing about a football season that has ended, lets focus on basketball. Both our Men's and Women's teams are doing well. Can't we all focus on supporting them?

I want to believe our defense is going to improve next season. I like that we are targeting defensive Juco players. We need them. My biggest concern is that we all saw our defense was struggling early in the season, and I never saw any real effort from our coaches to address it. All we heard was "We have to get better". All season our DB's were caught out of position, some of our LB's were too slow to get to the outside and make plays, and our DE's were not holding their ground and giving up the edge on sweeps. Also, our three man rush wasn't effective. That is a lot that needs to get better. Personally, If I had to give Ref a grade for his overall handling of our defense, I'd have to give him an "F".

Some may have been wondering how this match-up happened... "Texas Tech and West Virginia were the Big 12’s last schools without a bowl destination. The Mountaineers, at 7-5 to Tech’s 6-6 record, had first choice in selecting between coming to Dallas or the Birmingham Bowl." "The game was supposed to feature a team from the Big 12 and the Big Ten. The Big Ten didn’t meet its bowl obligations. A "backup" agreement was in place for a Pac-12 team to fill the spot, said Brant Ringler, executive director of the game." http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/article187863349.html C-USA never addressed how or why it lost the HOD to the Big10, and certainly never mentioned that the PAC had the back up agreement. It was a terrible game, in front of a terrible crowd, on a terrible day. I hope Mr. Ringler and the rest of the HOD Committee remember the 2017 HOD for a long time. Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/article187863349.html#storylink=cpy Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/article187863349.html#storylink=cpy

This is a boring game, and it is so quiet you could here if a waterboy farted. Personally, I'm glad their attendance blows. Serves them right for muscling C-USA out of the bowl, and not inviting North Texas. Even with this cold weather, North Texas vs. West Virginia still would have had a respectable crowd.

I'm glad to see our defensive players standing up for their coach. That is what honorable players should do. But, the simple truth is that we would not even be having this discussion if our defense would have had a better season. In all honesty, our defense wasn't very good last season either. In my opinion, this is the second year our defense has under preformed. Any way you slice it, Ref just hasn't produced consistent results. When facing respectable offenses, our 3rd down defense was the worst I've ever seen in FBS or D-I football. Players, coaches, and the athletic administration just can't let that go unaddressed, or expect the fans not to call them out for it. Fans have ever right to be angry and expect changes.

Do you have a source within our athletic department that brings you to this conclusion?

It is my understanding that the I-Bowl waited due to our leadership's well publicized interest in the New Orleans Bowl.

I'm sure that is one factor, but my source didn't seem to think that was our problem. They actually noted that a big selling point for North Texas was our fan support and our fan base's interest in their bowl.

The I-Bowl liked us more than you know. Shreveport is about 2 and a half hours from DFW. They knew we would bring plenty of fans tor a P5 match-up. If my sources are accurate, our administration didn't show them the same love. It was well documented that we were eyeballing the NO Bowl.

Troy is not better than FAU. We were able to claw our way back into the game before halftime today. We were never competitive in either game against FAU.

No. 9-5 is a good season, but we dropped our last two games by a combined score of 91-47, and we have a losing record against teams that are better than .500. Seth needs to prove he can haul in better recruits and post a winning record against .500 teams. With Neil Brown and Lane Kiffin still coaching at G5 programs, there are better coaches out there for the bigger programs. After the way we have finished this season, I doubt we have to worry about him getting hired away. But if there were an extension, it must include some coaching changes. I refuse to believe our defense is as untalented as they have looked. Reff must go. Maybe the O-Line coach too.

Troy has a good defensive coordinator. Hopefully Seth is going to talk him into joining the Mean Green staff before the team leaves New Orleans. While we are at it, take their O-Line coach too. I'm tired of watching Ref's terrible defense. Ref need to go.

It says, as a conference, we didn't beat enough OOC opponents. If our programs were able to win more games versus P5 programs and other G5, we would be favored in more bowls. Personally, I think C-USA will finish with a winning bowl record, so it shouldn't be a story after the bowl season is over.

The situation surrounding our bowl with UNLV certainly did. It was a MWC program, at a historic bowl location, and was on New Year's Day. It was a different situation. For the past few years we on this board and our own athletic department has talked up our program up by selling how we have left the Sun Belt, and moved up to C-USA. Throughout our years in the Sun Belt we spent many days on this board dreaming about what we could do if we were able to land a spot in C-USA. To the best of my recollection, none of those scenarios included returning to the NO Bowl to play a Sun Belt program. I had a real solid feeling that this bowl would be a hard sell to many of our die hard fans, and an even a harder sell to our less dedicated fans and alums. Add in the graduation date and it is almost certain to have an additional effect on attendance.

In my opinion this is some great news. I like that we have scheduled a home and home with a known and respected PAC12 program. Wyoming is the exact kind of OOC G5 match-up we need to be signing too. This is a good move by Baker.

I know people on here are going to get mad, but this NO Bowl match up doesn't move the needle for many fans. I'm glad Baker pushed this event to the students with incentives to go, and I hope it helps get the fee passed.