Side Show Joe

If we lose to Portland State, which looks very likely, I'll be willing to declare this our worst season.. maybe ever. Even Dodge never posted an 0-12 season. We have not finished a season without a win since 1913, but we only played one game that year.

One of the few bright spots in tonight's game, I thought I'd post his stats. Tonight versus USM Wilson had 22 carries for 136 yards. He averaged 6.2 yards a carry. Solid job Wilson.

That would be funny if it wasn't happening to our program... and where is the Super Pit? What is the significance of the Domino's logos?

It is time to clean house. I can't see any game we will win this season. 0-12 is a very likely possibility. We need new management at multiple levels. Nothing has changed since last season., and there is no reason to believe anything will change under coach Mac. So, there is no reason to drag this thing out. Our major athletic programs are all failing miserably. Those 17 big boosters need to take a long look at what we are all seeing, and ask themselves if they really believe we are on the right track. Smatrek needs to hear from the fan base.

Everything about this program this season needs to change. I have no faith in this staffs ability to prepare the team to win our Homecoming game against FCS Portland State. With everything that has been built and improved on since our Sun Belt days, we should not be this bad. Several people need to be held accountable for this embarrassment.

In Dodge's final half season, he was 1-4 at this point. Remember, these results, along with 3 others, ended up costing him his job. 2010 L 09-04-2010 10 Clemson (SC) 35 Clemson, SC L 09-11-2010 31 Rice (TX) 32 Denton, TX L 09-18-2010 0 Army (NY) 24 West Point, NY W 09-25-2010 21 Florida Atlantic 17 Fort Lauderdale, FL Sadly, those scores are more impressive then what we have done this season. Our offense has not scored as many points, and our defense is giving up more points. 2015 L UNT 13 SMU 31 L UNT 24 Rice 38 L UNT 16 Iowa 62 L UNT 14 USM 49 We are now worse. A change is needed.

Some good press for Dunbar and North Texas. Enjoy. 10 things you might not know about Lance Dunbar, including how he ended up at North Texas 1. New Orleans to Texas Dunbar lived in New Orleans until 2005, his sophomore year of high school, when Hurricane Katrina displaced his family. The group eventually settled Haltom City, where Dunbar was a first-team all-district running back his junior and senior seasons. 2. Hurricane Katrina Dunbar's family heeded the Hurricane Katrina warnings and evacuated to Mississippi, according to DallasCowboys.com. Eventually they decided upon North Texas and Haltom City because they had a family friend that went to school in Haltom City. Shortly after arriving, the Dunbar family's moving trailer, which contained almost everything the family had, was stolen. 3. Big-time offers ... http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/dallas-cowboys/headlines/20151001-10-things-you-might-not-know-about-lance-dunbar-including-how-he-ended-up-at-north-texas.ece

If we were looking for another AD, this would be my first choice... Mike O'Brien Athletic Director at Toledo (2002-current) Among O’Brien’s accomplishments are adding Ohio State, Miami (FL), Colorado, Purdue, Arizona, Missouri, Navy, Fresno State, Boise State, BYU, and Iowa State to the home football schedule. Previous to his appointment in 2002, O’Brien had 15 years of experience in athletics administration at four universities, Kansas State (associate A.D., 1997-2001), Lamar (athletic director, 1993-97), Pittsburgh (director of development 1989-93) and Ball State (marketing and development, 1986-89). Under his leadership Toledo has made seven bowl appearances in football ('02,'04,'05,'10,'11,'12,&'14) and a record of 98-68, and three NIT appearances in men’s basketball ('04,'07,&'14).

We are all suffering through the same frustration with the current state of our program, but I can't disrespect the past and present players nor the long history of our university. And remember, recruits will be at the game.

I have a better idea... Just hand me the $31,000,000+ athletic budget and let me run with it. If I had the freedom to spend all the money, here's what I'd do my first year. 1. I'd hire Brian Wickstrom, the AD at Louisiana Monroe, as my assistant. I don't know much about him, but he manages to keep Monroe afloat on a shoestring budget. Plus, he'd be a cheap hire. Give him a $8,000,000 budget and tell him he only has to take care of the Olympic sports. 2. With the remaining $23,000,000, I'd set aside $9,750,000 for football coaches salaries. Then call Mac Brown and offer him $5.5 million a season, and tell him the remaining $4.25 million is for his assistants. Are their better coaches out there? Yes, but no hire would get more attention in the state of Texas, and Brown is a great recruiter. 3. With the remaining $13,250,000, I'd set aside $2,250,000 and offer our head Basketball job to Mark Few from Gonzaga. It would be a $1,000,000 raise for him. 4. With the remaining $11 million, I'd set $2,000,000 aside to buy a home game against P5 programs every season. No return games. I like the idea of 7 home games every year. 5. With the remaining $9 million, I'd spend $2,000,000 to buy and paint 2 new helicopters (Eagle 1 & Eagle 2) for Brown, Few, and the staff to use on recruiting trips. 6. With the remaining $7 million, I'd set aside $2,000,000 to bringing back "Beyond the Green" and have it air at 6:30 pm every Thursday night during football and basketball season on Spike. 7. With the remaining $5 million, I'd set aside $500,000 for national recruiting trips. 8. Spend some money and buy a car dealership sized SOW flag and flagpole and plant that thing at the top of the tailgating hill. 9. I'd save the remaining $4.5 million to cover the cost of other promotional advertising, and facility maintenance. 10. If I still had the 4.5 million in my pocket come February, and North Texas had a bowl season and/or an NCAA invite, I'd buy a Mean Green Superbowl commercial featuring our teams.

Southern Miss 59 North Texas 20 UNT picks up half of those points in garbage time against USM's backups. In the post game interview Mac points to those scores as proof our offense is improving.

Glad to see Brett calling for changes. I look forward to reading Mac response.

Can't really answer this question right now. There is still a lot of season left to play, and we don't really know how much losing our new president is willing to stomach. But, if we go out and lay an egg against Portland State in 2 weeks, Mac's seat might not be the only one that gets hot.

Sadly, your Plan B looks a lot like the results from Plan A.

If Mac decides to discuss a plan to fix our issues, I'll start listening to his show again. I'm tired of his coach speak.

I know my frustration comes from feeling that we are suffering from the same issues we had last season, which actually points to a bigger issue. That means Mac and his staff had an entire off season to address those issues, and either couldn't or chose not to. Either way, it is completely unacceptable, and means our leadership doesn't seem to be interested in making our team "Great". Mac bashed the talent he inherited from Dodge calling those players small and slow, yet won the HOD with mostly those Dodge recruits. Dodge couldn't coach at the college level, but apparently he could recruit. Instead of fixing our program through strong recruiting and coaching, Mac has chosen to make excuses for his and ultimately our failures. Last season Mac took shots at our university and complained about how hard it is to recruit at North Texas. That's just garbage. Mac has more to sell recruits then any football coach in the history of this school. If he can't own up to his obligations and his mistakes, then it is certainly time for a change. Our coach must be dedicated to making this program "Great". Which brings me to Toledo.... Toledo is currently 3-0 with wins over a ranked Arkansas team, Iowa State, and a 37-7 thumping of Arkansas State. The rockets are positioned to earn a ranking if they win their next game against Ball State. Toledo might be the best G5 program this season. And guess what.... they hired their coach in 2013. Their coach Matt Campbell's record at Toledo is 19-9 over 2 season and 3 games, and they pay him about half of what Mac gets from us. "You would be hard-pressed to find someone more passionate about his work than Matt Campbell.Campbell, now entering his third season as the head football coach at the University of Toledo, describes himself this way. “Relentless,” said Campbell. “Going from good to Great requires relentlessness. I want to be relentless in the pursuit of Greatness, and I want my staff and players to be the same way.” -Taken from his bio on the Toledo site Can't we agree that our expectations should be as high as Toledo's? Every week we hear Mac talk about needing to do things better and fixing the mistakes. That should not be the focus of a National Championship winning coach in his 5th season at North Texas. This program should be past that phase.

This season isn't officially a bust yet. We still have 9 games left to win 6 (but I'm willing to invoke the mercy rule if we lose to Portland State and drop to 0-5). The bigger problem is our leadership has ignored the obvious issues facing this program. And now they are ignoring the frustrations of the fans. Back in April, when our White team won the Spring Game, the only thing being reported was McNulty's 350 yards passing. No one wanted to report on the fact that even with his large numbers, the Green team lost to the backups. Williams had a very nice game in very limited time, and some how slid to third string, before leaving the program, and Smith not being eligible for Spring ball was a huge red flag. Everyone who was being honest with themselves knew we would probably be in trouble this season. Everyone but those in charge of our program.

It's very hard to take the blinders off when SMU, who rolled us like we were drunken hobs in week 1 just lost to FCS program James Madison. And Rice who embarrassed us at home in week 2, got their pants taken down against Baylor yesterday. Iowa's backups were giving us hell yesterday. After 3 weeks of this, you can't expect the fan base to be cool with what we are seeing. Coach Mac needs to take the social media away from his players. They aren't helping to defused this situation.

Wilson was my adopted player for this season. Glad to finally see him on the field. He had a very nice game considering the results. Here are his stats for the Iowa game: Wilson had 14 carries for 74 yards. He averaged 5.3 yards a carry. Wilson also had a 23 yard catch too. This kid will be a star before he graduates from UNT.

What hurt most about watching us lose today was seeing our helmets with those 125 year stickers on them, knowing we are a 37,000 student university and have been playing football for over 100 of those years... yet we tolerate stinking at football. This is Mac's 5th season. He owns these results, whether or not he will admit to it. None of us were expecting a win today in this "opportunity game", but it would have been nice to see something that might give us hope for a win in our next home game, even if only a few of us will be there to see it.

Cheering for your team to get stomped is always counterproductive. They players deserve our support. Issues with the direction of the program can be dealt with in a better way.

I first became a fan of North Texas back in 1997, after watching the Eagles beat Texas Tech on Fox Sports Southwest. I followed the team every season after that, until I went to Denton in 2003. I have been attending home games ever since. I became a season ticket holder in 2011 when we opened Apogee.

I know they said the athletic department was creating a new "In House" show like Beyond the Green, but I have yet to catch it on my T.V. schedule. I know I can't be the only one missing the show. It was a great series that brought really good attention to our program and university. Does anyone have an update on the athletic departments version?

I think that is pretty good. I kind of think it would be different if we would chant a players name or nickname after a good play. Say Jimmerson breaks a 60 yard run... We could chant "Jimmy!" "Show!". Can't do it on TDs, but it would be fun at other times. I think recruits would like it too. Thoughts?

Debating our issues on the message board is one thing, but this isn't even a bad joke. Mac is doing his job. How well he is doing it is debatable, but he doesn't deserve this kind of public humiliation. Certainly the alumni of North Texas would never participate in this type of activity. As graduates of North Texas, I'd hope we would all hold our self to a higher standard.