SCREAMING EAGLE-66

---We are 49th or 50th in state tax per capita. And our Govenor keeps wanting to cut them more.... [ Were yours cut?..example: sales tax or gasoline tax..which of yours was cut?]. Strayhorn [ State Comptroller at the time] warned us in 2005 that we would eventually be $20 billion in the red if the policies that being enacted by Perry and then Craddick (Speaker then) were followed. We now are. --It is unfortunate but education and educators will suffer greatly from all of this. The state is even trying to close Odessa college [5000 students] which just passed 62 million in bonds and has a nursing program and areas needed for the oil industry out here. MC where I work will likely love 20-25% of their funding. Public schools are now in a real bind since state funding is already below 30% and not long ago it was 60%. --- The guys in Austin may be conservative in many ways but financially conservative they aren't. Conservative to me is making good sound financial decisions and being able to pay debts and fund programs that NEED to be funded... ie. education. From 1870 to 2000 the other party controlled the legislature and this kind of shortfall NEVER happened... These guys are not what they claim to be.. Dewhurst may be the exception among the leadership. He has supported education and educators at times. He has beat back Perry several times on his efforts to "screw-up" TRS funds which funds retirement for retired teachers and those who will retire. ---Those in education need to do what they did in 1988 (Mark White--TECAT and crazy education reforms) and in 1980 (Dolph Briscoe --inflation with no salary adjustments) and throw these guys out --and get people in office that know what they are doing and don't just CLAIM to be Bible thunping conservatives, and supporting more tax cuts..( it works , they get elected).... they aren't what they claim to be....as our budget now shows. --- Considering Texas has one of the best economies in the USA, this should not have happened..... oil prices are up and so is state revenue on University Lands, and sales tax is jumping back up as well. Schools, colleges, and those of us in education are going to suffer greatly because of these idiots...... a lot more than the general public will suffer. We would not have been in this big of a mess if Strayhorn or even Bell had defeated Perry in 2006. ____________________ Education, Highways and the criminal justice system are the huge items in the State budget... highways collect gasoline tax.... justice system is getting more expensive with more people in prisons and more drug use -- which leaves education to take the big hit...unfortunately. Cuts to education have been so severe since 2001 that it is hard to do much now. We are in a mess.... Don't just vote for people "who claim" to conservative... some are totally irresponsible when it comes to finances. I suppose my neighbor should be considered conservative... he cut back on going to work (income) ... ie. making money to pay his bills. . We get what we pay for ... and no more.

--hmmmm... have they expressed interest or no interest in the Big-10, Lone Star Conf. or Big-East either?? Odd question.

----By meaningless games I meant to determine a national champion or even top 10 rating.... not meaningless to fans... As I originally stated ..have a playoff with 3-4 rounds max and those not making playoffs going to Holidays Bowls for their fans and perhaps to reward their players. That is pretty much what happens now... most Bowls do nothing to decide a top 10 team ... just no true playoff system exists now... It is unlikely anyone ranked below 12th or so could win the national championship in a playoff system anyway. Any undefeated or one loss SunBelt team would likely be selected for a playoff berth... Both TCU and Boise were in the top 10 and I believe a Belt team would be too and would be selected for a playoff if it had done that well and included a couple of rather good non-conf games on their schedule..

Look back at the list.... 20 would addd more BCS teams...

--I did say "about 8".... and no conference should ever have more TWO teams in it... if only 8, maybe ONE conference with two... but not more... would make winning the conference more meaningful. I agree with 12 or 16 ... but getting started with 8 would be a big improvement over what we have. --I doubt any team ranked below 8 could win it all anyway....basketball yes.. football no. What I am saying would cause at least 7 conferences to be represented... [consider independents such as Notre Dame, Navy, etc. to be one conference). 12 teams would be a good number... Most deserving conferences (or teams) would get in if only a two teams could be sent from a couple of unspecified conferences. Also 12 would allow weaker teams to not have to play the top 4 in first round and reward the very best with a bye. If 12 teams and only 2 from only two conf. --applied to BSC standings this year, first 4 get first rd bye. Auburn --SEC Oregon --Pac-10 TCU --MWC Stanford -- Pac-10 -2ed Wisconsin --Big 10 Ohio St. --Big 10 -2ed --last 2ed team Oklahoma --Big 12 Arkansas --OUT Michigan St. --OUT Boise St. ---WAC LSU --OUT Missouri --OUT Virginia Tech --ACC Oklahoma St. --OUT Nevada ---Out Alabama --Out Texas A&M --Out Nebraska --Out Utah --Out South Carolina --OUT Mississippi St. --Out West Virginia ---Out Florida St. --OUT Hawaii---OUT UCF --CUSA ------------There are still two spots left for non-top 25. Best records of teams from conf. not listed...Navy 8-3 (Ind), Connecticut 8-4 (Big-E), Northern Ill (MAC). 9-3, Troy 7-5 (Sun). (pick two) ..

I counted 37 in the newspaper ... that is 74 teams ... there aren't 74 really good teams in the 120? team upper division... crazy... NCAA basketball tournament only invites 65 out of over 400 upper division basketball teams. Worse.... some of those teams will not have played a game in over a month... It is tough to keep players motivated that long.... especially those not in the top 5-10 teams. A playoff is really needed with about eight teams. An extra game or two [ with a week off for finals ] for the four??? winners is far better than this mess. Holiday Bowls could still exist for teams not picked for the playoffs....they would be meaningless??? ... most bowl now are worthless now as far as rankings... no different...... They are just a "reward" (maybe} for players and fans for a decent season....... and even more a financial coup for the town hosting them....which explains why there are now so many.. They oddest situation I can remember ( several years ago) is SMU losing their final game and not getting to go to the Cotton Bowl as the SWC rep. [across town] .... instead they were picked to play in the Hula Bowl in Hawaii ... what a letdown for those unfortunate players....I often wondered if they lost on purpose.. LOL ______________ ---When I was in college [back in the dark ages] .. there were four Bowl games on New Years Day and about six more earlier...Sun, Gator. Bluebonnet, Peach and some others... people actually paid attention to them.

. -- I absolutely agree with you... first, Sam Houston has consistently been a pretty good team, not Duke but good .... everyone has bad days and if it occurs against a capable team... you lose.. I have not seen any NBA or many NCAA teams with perfect seasons. I am amazed at some who just throw in the towel so quickly after things don't go as they wish. ---I grew up in a town with SEVEN state football championships and an insane number of playoff wins [ they are playing in state semis again this week..and has only one losing season since 1958 ]. The town has about 20,000 people and the attendance at last weeks game was nearly 17,000 (fans from both towns). The attitude is so different there than what I see many others display and of some people here [also was somewhat true for a long time in the town I now live in ] ... The same places tend to win over and over ... partly because of attitude and expectations... they just don't give in when things go bad. It is so strange to me to see teams (and fans) drop their chins and not believe when they get behind or lose. Often it is why my old HS wins so much... you can see the other team has just given up after getting behind by a few points. They expected to lose so they just go through the motions... ---We are not be #1 or even deserve to be ... but a loss doesn't mean we are not good and that we should expecting nothing from then. As I tell others [ parents, friends, students etc ]... expect nothing and that is probably what you will get ... nothing. Besides even if you aren't the best team or person... sometimes strange things happen and you win anyway.

A couple of places in West Texas have torn down one side and left the other one... They are used for track and other purposes. I suspect 1/2 of it at least will remain until needed for parking or contruction... They can sell the end zone portion to someone who can reconstruct it somewhere else. Odessa's old stadium in somewhere on the north side of Austin and some HS district uses it.

"They" in your statement means SMU, TCU and Baylor which verbalized opposition to us entering the conference in late 70's after Houston had been allowed in..... Royal and Broyle {UT and Arkansas) wanted to allow us in and make the conference ten teams... the others did not say much either way but seemed to lean in our direction... SMU lead to opposition against us... What they did really changed the direction of UNT which was very good in football and basketball at the time. Those of us were already UNT alums at that time (late 70's) absolutely depise them and also many of their "put downs" which appear in local papers and TV reports rather regularly. I wish them no success or good things.... and they are the only Texas university I never root for against anyone.... I support 0-70 against them every game.

--There are a lot of ex-NFL coaches in college football now... Aggies have one.

Wade Phillips is available... Texan...

---You must not be reading basketball posts... KU is one the best dozen basketball schools* in America and has been for 60 years or so. They have made the Final Four multiple times during that time period... Football... they have a history of being rather bad until recently. *UCLA, KU, UNC, Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, Cincinnati, Michigan etc.

---That is exactly the problem Blakely faced during the 70's... No big names wanted to play us....especially in the Pit..... [ we had won more regular season games than anyone in a three year stretch] The way to change that though is win some NCAA playoff games and we will get more respect and better opponents will play us since we would have a tough reputation. .

---Unless players, former players, or this case a "never our Player... does something illegal or out and out trashes our university... leave them alone. They aren't paid and they are very young besides. They can do their best and it just isn't as good as they or we want.. Even players who show up and don't perform well is back to the coaches, they recruited them and they are in control of who is on the field. I do not have the same attitude toward pro-athletes.... they are paid extremely well. ---Coaches are a different issue... most are well paid for what they do. Winning and losing is "on them" because of recruiting, coaching, and game day decisions. . Dickey left showing no class, but Dodge did... he just hadn't sucessful for a multitude of reasons..... the largest one bringing in too many high school coaches that were in over their head. Very few HS kids are good enough to be college athletes. Sometimes people don't learn that until they are on a college campus and just don't do well. It rarely is a reflection on their high school coaching. The same is true is when some move to the pro-level... good college skills may not be enough... it is a different world.

--- Exactly.... games are supposed to fun.... and if student do that after a win once in a while (they have all friends at TT ) they get to brag about it later to them ... Besides.. More fun... more attendence. Some of us get tired of them telling us about how great the Big XII is..... and that we can't compete with them... well we did ... and we defeated them....

--He also didn't like getting beat to a pulp for no reward (no wins) ... which happened to him a lot. How many QBs and players have we lost this year ??? If he had quit mid-season I would view him very differently..... he likely also thought Riley (coach's son) was going to eventually take his position anyway...we don't know everything that was going on.. --- It was pretty obvious to all of us (including him) that the HS coaches he saw really weren't up to the college challenge.... note the 50+ points put up in so many games. Considering the talent walking around in Texas and even on the UNT team ... we should never be THAT bad. No coaching staff at UNT before has done worse.

---I am not as harse as some... he got tired of losing and seeing 50+ points put up against him regularly. NO ONE can win with the kind of defensive support he was getting. ... He just didn't see it getting any better and it didn't. His life is his life and we get to do it only once and he just didn't want to do that anymore. He didn't trash UNT and I won't trash him. If he had lost interest in football, then it is better for both him and us that he decided to leave.... I find it interesting that the experience here under Dodge soured him so much that he did not want to play again.... anywhere. -- I don't blame him... I blame the program and coaching staff for being so bad... especially on defense and special teams... He is nothing like Dickey who took parting shots at us and even dressed us in black uniforms... that was cheap and disrespectful...

--The parking situation may improve.... expect the near side of Fouts to be blown up.. thus more space. --I don't know anything about the university plans but keeping the far side and the track in place would make some sense.... at least short-term.

--The year we defeated Spike Dykes (football) ... he was fired.... talk started after our game.... pretty much stopped later.... then UT pounded them.... Hello... Mike Leach. ______________ Most Tech Alums have no idea how large we are... they are usually amazed when I tell them that UNT is larger than TxTech and maybe larger than Baylor, SMU, and TCU ... COMBINED. Only two of the Big-XII universities are larger... UT and A&M. Most out here tend to think we are a rather small college.... they have no idea.

Winning over a large BCS type university this early does attract some attention from students, sports fans, and the media... -- I hope we can stay very competitive against KU ... in fact ... a win would really get us a lot of attention and votes in the rankings. Strange things have happened.... Our Memphis game a couple of years ago in the NCAA tournament was one of them.. We led most of the first half and they eventually made the NCAA final.

--Not exactly.... this just demonstrates what crowds would be like if the opponents coming to town had more local interest... ---Our poor attendence at events is due to who we play.... not so much our win/loss record or ability. The same is true with our media attention.

--UNT was a basketball school earlier and a member of the best conf. in America. That changed when the MVC fell apart in late 70's and we decided to risk it all for a possible SWC bid [ which failed thanks to SMU who lobbied to keep us out--didn't not want competition in Metroplex from a large state school] and not stay with Louisville, Memphis, and Cincinnati in the old Metro Conf. (now CUSA pretty much) ---In the Blakley era and even MVC era... a lot of better schools did not want to schedule us.... they knew they were risking a loss and defeating us wasn't a huge gain. Also explains why many Big-XII teams will (and do) avoid us in basketball..... unless we have some NCAA tournament success. They want patsies or big names for non-conf. games. ---Note SMU Schedule this year... McMurry, Dallas Christian, Wayland Baptist, and many more extremely weak teams. They should be embarrassed with it. Other than conf. and TCU game, that is the biggest sissy schedule I have ever seen.

-- a couple of my friends were art majors too... they attended games. -- Students in general need to support athletics more. Enrollment is triple what is was when I was student... but attendance isn't. Just remember Notre Dame and Gonzaga are known and has succeeded in great extent because of publicity of athletics.... if it hadn't been for football success, ND would another of dozens of Catholic schools. --- Go to games and get NT more recognition. It is important to the reputation of your degree. Some (maybe unfairly) look at athletic success while considering degrees.

---TxTech Coach PUBLICLY blaming his two seniors for the loss is not exactly a classy act..... His last name Knight... so I guess that is expected.

--This also shows what type of crowd we WOULD attract if we were a member of a better known conference. This is true in both basketball and football. Hope others take note of this... we would be a good addition...