SCREAMING EAGLE-66

Glenn Ray, Midland High graduate, was the QB for NT. North Texas has had a lot of Midland/Odessa players on winning teams. We need to recruit West Texas more. The last Midland player was Andy Brewster who started for 4 years. West Texas kids don't like losing and don't accept it well. Every bowl team had several Midland kids and even the game when we defeat Tech had the Pertile brothers plus another one. I think Ray did attend Nebraska one year.

We could start LaCross, Duke has one and we could compete against them. That may be a set up deal but ESPN claims 15 members of that team has criminal records and that is not a set up. Few Southern/SW teams have wrestling and I hope they keep that way. All these small sports cost a small fortune and bring in no revenue, nor do they help school spirit any noticable amount.

You can't spell it either.... I would pass on the "a tois" thing... remember the 3rd one is also male.... you might not find it all that interesting (unless you are female). Yawl should have married a West Texas girl... almost all of them understand football very well... in fact mine often knew who was playing on Monday night when sometimes I didn't. She can even fire off most NFL QB names and teams if you give a sec or so. Name an NFL RB or WR and she will likely tell you who he plays for. We don't have a lot of ballet companies out here for women to watch......thank goodness. I usually won't let my college Monday evening math class (7:00-8:20) go until they tell what the NFL Monday game is. A lot of women give the answer before the guys do. Sometimes for fun I will ask who the QB and RB are and they usually know. I can remember once that they didn't know so I went over a couple more (math) problems since obviously they were not going to watch it anyway..... They knew the next week.. ...LOL

Yep.... they have the potential to be on National TV a lot plus they are located in a market where they is a lot of people so even when their regional broadcasts occur, there is a large viewing public. Ie. other words-- the rich get richer.... the more you succeed the more you appear on TV and the more money you receive..... And.... the more money you receive the more likely you are to succeed and appear on TV........ And........... etc. Not as good but it helps to play the guys who appear on TV a lot as well, especially if you will be on their TV games....(maybe even if you get killed in the process.... it is sort of like-- I don't care what you say.. just spell my name right)

I like "Green"... especially the color used to print a picture of Independence Hall .... [ever notice our administration building resembles Indy Hall] It is really nice when Ben Franklin in Grey is printed on the reverse side of the page.

No loss last year created a lot of "hate"... after all, almost everyone else kicked sand in our face last year. We can't single out one or two teams for special "hatred". The games that hurt and cause rivalries are (1) a long history of competion, (2)having lots of games that mean something such as a conference championship or bowl bid to the winner, and (3) two schools in close proximity to each other so that alums and students have a lot of personal contact and compete for "local or regional" attention. No one wants to hear regularly that "Your Team lost". We are close to SMU now but we just mostly hate them because all of the dirty cheap things they have done to us. Usually it isn't the case that one of colleges is a complete jerk as SMU as been, they are sort of unique because of their arrogant SOB attitude.... TTU doesn't care for A&M much either for several of the above reasons. A&M hates UT more than Tech... I think UT hates OU more than A&M, at least nowdays. The whole deal is sort of odd in those rivalries, but schools tend to hate the ones that defeat them somewhat regularly and not the ones they usually stomp. Everyone hates Notre Dame, just cause they do.... they have won too much and get too much attention even if they have done very little lately to deserve it. I really don't see anyone (other than SMU) that we will create a true rivalry with. That is because they are close (same media market) and most of us just hate them anyway because of their bad attitude. A Sunbelt rivalry might develop in several years if only two of us are the teams really competing for the Sunbelt championship every year. There are a lot of Sunbelt teams that hate us somewhat because we have defeated them regularly (not last year). On the other hand we don't hate them because they have done nothing bad to us.... PS: Wonder what happened to "Southern-Stang" Haven't seen his name posting in a long time....He seemed rather decent.........perhaps he has been converted over to the "Dark-Side"............ LOL

The first time I saw that blue field on TV I thought my TV had a color problem.....So I changed channels and it appeared ok so I turned back. Thank goodness I did not really spend time trying to adjust it, I was hoping that the station had a transmission problem and it would correct itself..... Later I learned that goofy field was that color. I guess that is one gimmick to get noticed.....

---One of the reason they (Tech) hates them is pretty much why we hate SMU. The Aggies have made some very uncomplementary remarks about them in the past and rather often. A few summers ago I taught a summer community college (Midland) class in which most students were either Aggies or Raiders. When the summer athletic press guide came out it refered to Tech as that college in the middle of a dirt field or something similiar to it. There was even more to it that that calling them classless etc. It was well publicized even in the DMN and locally. The Aggies students in class got an earfull of complaints from the Raider students and most Aggie kept quiet except one for little Aggie girl who kept running her mouth off. The rest kept shut, in fact some of the Aggie guys kept trying to get her to shut up......LOL Another reason is Tech has a fine Agriculture school and has done a lot research and improvements especially in cotton....(lots of cotton in West Texas) The problem is the public thinks "Aggies" when talking about Agg schools even though TTU has done a lot in that field. They resent A&M getting credit for what Tech does. There are several other reasons as well. ____________________ In the case of Notre Dame and Southern Cal... they also happen to be the two largest Catholic Schools unless Boston College sneaks in as one of them. Because earlier one was the winningest West Coast team and the other the winning East Coast team, they came to represent each region _________ Re North Texas and SMU---We older grads haven't forgotten all the insults by their administration and others that have appeared in newspaper and TV over the years. They almost singlehandedly kept us out of the SWC even though Un. of Texas and Un Arkansas (Royal and Broyles) wanted us admitted as member #10. True, not every SMU grad is a stuck up snob but enough are to "paint" the entire group as arrogant SOBs. It may be changing now that they aren't SWC members anymore but a lot of us remember what they once were....and still may be. They were so bad that they thought the NCAA rules really did not apply to them so they now have "the Honor" of being the only college to receive the death penalty.

Boise State, which has blue uniforms, has blue field therefore we should have a green one to match our colors. Never mind, I guess we always do.....LOL

Actually they cut it back 'last year?" because several of them had so little interest. They did not want to keep an inventory of plates that only 50 or less per year would buy. I think Howard Payne and Abilene Christian were two that were eliminated but there were several more.

----The State of TEXAS has a lot bigger ego than does Tennessee and only four colleges that people can remember. Besides it might be dangerous for people to brag about some Yankee university in Texas. --- Bush could and would likely get a Yale one.... [ He was born in Connecticut, attended HS (prep school) in New England, and went to college in Connecticut.... Texan or carpetbagger???? Well Plum, I, and many others would likely agree with on that answer. ---No out of state college plates...por favor, solemente universidads en Tejas.!! .

---I think most of Tech fans in Midland had gone into mourning. Even several of them wanted Spike to leave-----and he had been a HS coach at Lee here before going to Tech. I made a point to wear my NT shirt and cap as much as possible the next week, after all I did not want them to forget the game the week before.....LOL

What a violent person .... Uses Grenade as "handle" and advocates blowing up things....does the government know about you.?? Ever consider the fact that your wife might be right.???? LOL

---Replying to a couple of earlier posts...... I believe one of the most important dates in North Texas football was the break-up of the SWC. Until then the media in Texas totally ignored Texas colleges that were not in that conference. Now we actually get more press attention and I think it is getting better. I know we get a lot more respect now in West Texas. Before ithen it was pretty much-- North Who??? People out here are often shocked to learn North Texas is larger than Texas Tech or that our enrollement is about the same as Baylor, SMU and TCU...COMBINED. ---I see a lot more North Texas clothing walking around town than I did 5-10 years ago. This week I even had a person refer to North Texas as more of an academic school than an athletic one when she saw me with an NT shirt on this week. ---When in San Francisco on vacation I was wearing a NT sweatshirt (cold in summer evenings) several people commented about NT being a bowl game or asked if I was from Dallas. This would not have happened 10-15 years ago. ---We will get some more national attention by playing UT on opening day even if we get killed, after all they are the defending National Champion and no one expects us to do well... few teams would.

I now know why I "read" GMG..!!!! ----If we defeat UT I would recommend that you sell all your stock, clean out your bank account, etc and go have a good time. The world is about to end. need to check this thread more often....!!

----North Texas last played Howard Payne in 1949 in Brownwood. Perhaps you meant Hardin Simmons which did play NT in 1959 (46-24) in Abilene or maybe 1960 in Denton (26-19). ----My first NT game was against West Texas State in Denton, 1964. The most enjoyable game I witnessed was the Tortilla game in Lubbock against Tech in 1988 when we made a great come-back (29-24). My wife is a Tech-alum and all my kids (2 future NT alums, and one Aggie) were there as well...

---The Akron students and alums are very unhappy campers.... The North Texas game is their only home game in their first six games of the year (five travel games). That should push up the North Texas game attendence since it will be their only warm weather game..... their second home game is Oct. 21. ---Our schedule is great compared to that mess.

In 1986, West Texas defeated Howard Payne 31-7 in Brownwood In 1994 West Texas defeated Howard Payne 59-56 in Canyon. (which is susrprising because HPU was a division III team at that time. I assumed WT was as well). It appears that WT has lost 17 games to North Texas which is exceeded only by Hardin Simmons (26) Texas Tech (20) and Abilene Christian at (21). They have also defeat TxTech 7 times. Their most common opponent has been NMSU, 39 games including 26 wins.. http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ii/ls...php?teamid=1482

----I thought WT joined the conf with Howard Payne, Hardin Simmons, and McMurry, not the Lone Star with Angelo State, Abilene Christian and that group.. My error. In any case that is still a big drop in status from playing division I schools. I knew they they were playing Howard Payne for a while which did not give scholarships any more. I am surprised WT could not stay at the Southland level, I-AA. We are the only college of the four Texas ones that was removed from Divison I-A to still be playing at a high level. In any case for a while they had a non-schlorship program, that is what I remember and I knew they started playing Howard Payne which did not give scholarships. ---One advantage of being in West Texas is there is not a lot of competion for the sports dollar and attention (except HS) unlike in Dallas which is big problem for North Texas.. The only other university in the area is TxTech which is 100 miles away and other than that New Mexico is closest which is much farther and out of state.... Travel costs may have been the big factor in not staying at the Southland Conf. level. I know they had financial problems for a while in the early 80's so they dropped the scholarhips. I did not realize that WT had switched back. They even had no football team in 1991 for some reason.

---Actually it was 1981 by 18-17 in Baylor's opening game... however they had lost in 1980 by 7-42. Baylor defeated us in their 1982 opening game by 21-17. ---Tubbs was once an assistant basketball coach at North Texas, under Blakely during the 70's, I think .....when we won 22+ games each of three consecutive years......and was ignored by the NCAA.... only 24 teams made "March Madness" during those years. Eight teams from the most succesful conference (included MVC) were automatic "Sweet Sixteen" teams and the other sixteen teams (including the SWC) had an additional playoff game to get into the sweet 16. ---Lamar would likely be years away from division I. Texas State may not be. ---Lamar, UT-Arlington, and West Texas State (A&M now) were placed into I-AA (purgotory) at the same time we were dropped back. Lamar and UTA dropped football and WTSU dropped into a non-schlorship conference. Only we have survived that mess in decent shape. [[[ Thanks go to SMU for keeping us out of the SWC which resulted in us later having to drop to I-AA, ---jerks, ]]]

Maybe ----- but they were also the largest of the remaining schools and had the best attendence..... plus the others of the group may have wanted at least one team they could depend on defeating. If the Big-XII was wanting a sixth team for the southern half, who else would have made sense?? TCU..??. which is half the size of Baylor.... and has a much smaller religious group somewhat supporting them. Also Waco supports Baylor much better than Ft.Worth supports TCU. Houston hadn't been getting much fan support either even in good years. Rice is tiny and SMU has a very poor cheater image and little support now that they can't pay players..

---SMU, Rice, TCU, and Houston. .....in an odd sort of way they were kicked out of the conference by Tx-Tech, A&M, Texas, and Baylor. (Arkansas had left earlier) The smaller ones were not very competitive with the other four any more and the attendence provided by those was poor so the larger four felt they were underwriting these programs as well. Some of those abandoned also had a severe cheating image problem. It was basicly a divorce and the second group just said, "You keep the house". --- which the remaining ones then declared worthless and abandoned it also. ---It always seemed like the smarter thing to have done at the time was maintain the SWC and attempt to add North Texas and UTEP, and pick from LaTech, LLU, Tulsa, and NMSU as new members. Didn't happen but should have I think. As a result this group has bounced from conference to conference and now are pretty much together again without TCU, plus North Texas, the largest of these universities who had the potential to eventually draw large crowds, has been left out.

Maybe one would...... we could then schedule some Sunbelt teams and perhaps we would get some OCC wins. ....LOL.

The truth is/was... Get all the tall-good-looking blonds available there (brunettes and red-heads too) and I will bet the male attendence will go up.........LOL

I'm not sure you can say that simply because you can't differentiate student game attendance vs. non-student game attendance between the two eras. All you have is total attendance vs total enrollment. It very well may be that more students as a percentage of enrollment attend games now than did then and less alums/faculty/Dentonites/Denia residents. For all we know 5 students went to home games during Fry's tenure. You really need to be able to see receipts of tickets to make that call. ←