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Join fellow Mean Green fans as we watch North Texas take on Southern Miss from Fuzzy's Taco Shop in Allen! Kickoff is at 6:00 pm on Saturday, September 30th. This game is not televised, but we'll be streaming the game onto the big screen in the restaurant along with amplified audio. Come by and pick up schedule posters, magnets, sports bottles, etc. as well as enter the drawing for UNT Alumni door prizes. Winning entries drawn at half time. Fuzzy's is located at 790 W. Exchange, Suite 140, across the street from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Allen. You just can't beat watching the games with fellow Mean Green faithful!

NOTE: The game against Southern Miss is being broadcast on Fox College Sports. This is a little trickier to find than some might think. I know for at least some providers, FCS is part of a sports package that has to be purchased. DirecTV will not sell it to most public establishments. Don't get caught assuming that you will be able to see it at home or at your usual watering hole. Now, if you want to see the game, I've already scouted out Fuzzy's Taco Shop in Allen and they have purchased the Sports Pass package on Time Warner Cable. They even let me watch the replay of the NT/Rice game that happened to be playing on FCS when I was there. They will be playing the audio of the Southern Miss game throughout the restaurant. Kickoff is Saturday, October 3rd at 6pm. Fuzzy's is located at 790 W. Exchange Parkway, Suite 140 in Allen (NW corner of US75 and Exchange). Fuzzy's is a Mean Green Restaurant Partner. I'll have North Texas schwag and door prizes, courtesy of the UNT Alumni Association. Visit the Facebook Event page for this game at https://www.facebook.com/events/169909240016346/

USM - MSU rematch in HoD Bowl Could their walk through the wilderness be near an end?

In today’s sign that it isn’t easy being green, it appears that two Southern Miss players who contributed to the Golden Eagles slump-busting win over UNT just a few days ago are about to be declared ineligible. A couple of major national media outlets are reporting that Rasham Suarez and Jeremiah Eason won’t play for the Golden Eagles the rest of the year. That would be a huge hit for Southern Miss, which is seeing its program quickly slide into a huge hole after last year’s NIT season. Coach Donnie Tyndall left for Tennessee after the season. An NCAA investigation soon followed. Southern Miss placed itself on a year’s postseason ban the week it played the Mean Green. Southern Miss has just one C-USA win all season, a 75-71 overtime win over the Mean Green on Saturday. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/01/looks-like-two-southern-miss-players-now-ineligible.html/

Thought I'd throw something positive out there. It's been a while. Roster Link WR James Cox US Olympian Michael Johnson The first 20 were pretty hard! I'll spend some time later trying to find something funny.

North Texas will face Southern Miss at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Apogee Stadium in Denton. Here’s a quick scouting report of the Golden Eagles: Southern Miss: 2-4, 0-2 in Conference USA (Lost to Middle Tennessee 37-31 on Oct. 4) Key number: Four (Games this season in which UNT has allowed at least 38 points, including last week’s 56-21 loss to UAB in which the Blazers padded their offensive output by returning two interceptions and a fumble for touchdowns. Southern Miss is averaging only 18.8 points a game). Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2014/10/five-things-people-need-to-know-about-southern-miss.html/

"Let's firm up our financial foundation, build our fan base and position ourselves for a bigger future. Our aspiration, let me clear, is to play at the highest level of Division-I athletics in the very best conference that we can play in and it remains to be seen where that is." "I'm going to be working everyday and everybody on this campus, I think certainly in the athletic department, will be working everyday to build a championship program in Conference USA while we're in it, while positioning ourselves for success beyond Conference USA." Read more: http://www.wdam.com/story/26122225/southern-miss-ad-bill-mcgillis-speaks-on-programs-future-with-conference-usa

Conference USA has seen schools come and go, but only one football program has been there throughout its 20 years and been a consistent winner – Southern Miss. Before the last two seasons of 1-23 football, USM ran off a string of 18 consecutive winnings, 16 of them coming in C-USA. That's why Southern Miss tops this C-USA Top 5, which ranks the top football programs in league history. USM has had its recent struggles, but top programs such as Louisville and East Carolina have also had miserable seasons in C-USA. Louisville went 1-10 in 1997 and ECU went a combined 3-20 from 2003-04. TCU comes up short of making it in this top five because its stint in C-USA was so short (2001-04) and included two great seasons in 2002 and 2003 (a combined 21-4 in that stretch) framed by 6-6 and 5-6 campaigns. read more: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/07/27/5716649/c-usa-top-5-southern-miss-is-top.html?sp=/99/228/ Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/07/27/5716649/c-usa-top-5-southern-miss-is-top.html?sp=/99/228/#storylink=cpy

In his final season at Nebraska, Sadler’s last head-coaching job, his assistants were Wes Flanigan, David Anwar and Jeremy Cox. Flanigan is currently an assistant hours north of Hattiesburg at Mississippi State. Anwar is now at North Texas. Cox was hired at JUCO powerhouse Southern Idaho in 2013 but resigned after one season as head coach. eread more: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/college/southern-miss/2014/05/02/sadler-says-staff-hires-near/8594363/

Southern Miss will join Conference USA’s West Division next season, the league revealed when it released the conference matchups for the 2014 season on Monday. C-USA’s divisional setup began in 2005, and 2014 will mark the first time Southern Miss has competed in the West. Joining the Golden Eagles in the West are North Texas, UTEP, Rice, Louisiana Tech and UTSA. FIU, Florida Atlantic, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, UAB and Western Kentucky comprise the East Division. Read more: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20140204/SOUTHERNMISS/302040011/Football-Eagles-shifting-C-USA-West

DENTON, Texas – For the first time in the Tony Benford era the North Texas basketball team will take the court with all of its scholarship players active and healthy, and they will need every one of them when one of Conference USA’s top squads comes to the Super Pit for the league opener on Thursday. It only took one minute into the 2012-13 season opener for the injury bug to bite the Mean Green. Brandan Walton broke his foot and missed the remainder of the year on one of NT’s first possessions. The injuries snowballed from there, and NT finished the season as the third most banged up team in the country with 82 games missed. Colin Voss is leading the charge to get the Mean Green healthy this season. The junior tore 10 inches worth of muscle in his quadriceps in early Oct., and is just now getting back to full strength. His resurgence in the paint, along with the arrival of Kelvin Gaines, has NT churning on all cylinders and on a four game win streak. Southern Miss, which advanced three rounds deep into last year’s NIT, is looking to repeat its stellar 2012-13 season. Southern Miss went 27-10 last year, and took Memphis to double overtime in the C-USA title game in Tulsa, Okla. The Golden Eagles are among the top defensive squads in the country. USM ranks 8th in the NCAA in total steals (139), and their 62.1 points allowed per game ranks 26th nationally. Read more: http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/010814aaa.html

For the first time in a long time, North Texas seems to have something going when it comes to its football program. One could feel it on Saturday night after the Mean Green knocked off Louisiana Tech. UNT’s players gathered in the corner of the field at Aillet Stadium and started familiar “North … Texas” back-and-forth cheer with a pretty sizable crowd of fans who made the trip. The celebration in the locker room was a little more spirited as well, judging by what UNT’s players and coaches had to say. And why not? UNT has won back-to-back games for the first time since 2004 and has a pretty clear path to a bowl game, which would be its first since the Mean Green played in the New Orleans Bowl that same year. Everything seems to be lining up for UNT this season, from the schedule to the way the Mean Green has remained relatively healthy to the way a host of key veteran players have performed. Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20131020-brett-vito-its-all-about-closing-the-deal-now-for-unt.ece

HATTIESBURG, Miss. — As the news got out that Todd Monken had taken the job in December, the texts began rolling in: Congrats. Good luck. You'll do well. Stuff like that. Several of them, though, ended with a cryptic string: SMTTT "I'm trying to figure out the code," Monken recalled. "Nowadays with text messaging, people come up with all sorts of stuff you can't figure out, right? Little letters, 'CUL8R,' and you're trying to figure out what it means, you know?" He figured, correctly, the first part was "Southern Miss." But after that? No clue. "I thought it might be Terri, Todd and Travis," he said, referring to himself, his wife and his son. Finally, someone let him in on his new school's catchphrase: "Southern Miss To The Top" (to end a conversation, you say "Southern Miss," the other guy answers "To the top!"). In foot-high wooden letters, the optimistic abbreviation sits on a shelf high in Monken's new office overlooking an end zone at M.M. Roberts Stadium. The display is among the few leftovers from the previous occupant, and it seems appropriate. As Monken heads into his first season as the Golden Eagles' head coach, the top seems a long way off. But up might be the only way they can go. "I really believe we can be a good football team," he said, adding "there are no barriers" to success at Southern Miss. *** Until last year, no one would disagree. But in 2012 – and this still seems hard to believe, for folks around here and anyone who's followed college football in recent years – Southern Miss hit rock bottom. It takes some doing, losing 'em all. Especially a year after 12-2. After 18 consecutive winning seasons. With a program that had developed a reputation as a mid-level bunch the big boys do not want to play. Oh-and-12? "I think we shocked everybody," senior receiver Dominique Sullivan said. "It was just a disaster," said longtime booster Ben Willoughby, "all the way around." Willoughby had just finished lunch last week at Po-Boy Express, just across U.S. 49 from the stadium. Retired for 20 years now, he was once a fund-raiser for the athletic department. Now, he's part of a small but devoted and proud fan base. Tucked into the Mississippi pine belt in the heart of SEC country, Southern Miss has carved a nice little niche through the years. "We're a mid-level D-I (FBS) team," Willoughby said. "We're not gonna be able to compete with (larger programs) on recruits, but they don't let their guard down against us on the field." "They're nasty," said senior linebacker Allen Howze, who grew up a little more than an hour away, in Ocean Springs, Miss., of the program's reputation through the years. "They win games." That's been the case, anyway. Until last year, when Southern Miss became one of only four FBS programs to go from double-digit victories to double-digit losses in consecutive seasons (the others: UTEP in 1988-89, Ball State and Rice in 2008-09). Three of the four came after a coaching change. But only the Golden Eagles went winless. read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/cusa/2013/08/12/southern-mississippi-rebounding-from-winless-season/2642923/

Southern Miss has been reminded of its winless 2012 season before the first block or tackle of this year has been thrown. The Golden Eagles were picked to finish fifth out of eight teams in the Conference USA East Division, in preseason predictions by league coaches and released last week by the C-USA office. Heading into Wednesday's C-USA Media Day at the Marriott in Irving, Texas, first-year coach Todd Monken has more than preseason predictions on his mind. ''I want each one of our players to be concerned about being a better football player and person. That's it,'' Monken said. ''I don't pay attention, and I could care less, where someone else thinks we will finish as a team. ''We we will determine where we finish and nobody else. I really do not care where we are picked to finish preseason.'' Monken said hasn't spoken to his players about the 0-12 record, which came a year after the Golden Eagles won the 2011 C-USA title and finished 12-2. Larry Fedora left for North Carolina following the conference title, and Ellis Johnson was dismal after one forgettable campaign. Todd Monken challenged his players to get better - physically and mentally -- during summer workouts . If that happens, Monken said the Golden Eagles will report for fall drills on Aug. 1 looking like a team coming off 15 days of team orientated spring drills, not a team that must spend the first few days of fall drills trying to regain the unity and grit it had when spring training ended. That could put the Black and Gold on a faster track to a winning season, a bowl berth and playing for a possible C-USA championship. Read more: http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-sports/2013/07/preseason_predictions_dont_con.html

There is also the never-ending anxiety among fans about the school's current home in Conference USA, which has been diluted by departures to larger leagues. When asked about how much of a priority it is to find better conference affiliation, Bennett preferred that the athletic department focus on the task at hand rather than fretting over its current conference. "Conference USA is a good conference and I don't think we'll ever underestimate where are, nor do I think we ought to underestimate the level of competition that we are going to face this upcoming season in Conference USA," Bennett said "But I think any institution and any athletic program and any individual always ought to consider where else they can go and what other opportunities can exist for them. What the AD and I have determined is that we are going to do a comprehensive review of where we are, and we will make some determination as to whether or not we are placed appropriately." Bennett said that he believes conference re-alignment has not come to a close. McGillis had praise for C-USA and its members on Thursday, but he emphasized the need move USM forward."The 'To the top' motto here speaks to the aspirations of the university and of the program," McGillis said. "We are going to aspire to national excellence at the very highest level whatever our conference affiliation is. My time at South Florida has obviously given me an opportunity to witness and understand and be in the middle of conference alignment issues for the last several years. I'm very aware of what's happening in the industry." Read more: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/07/20/4810106/mcgillis-delivers-experience-that.html Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/07/20/4810106/mcgillis-delivers-experience-that.html#storylink=cpy

Bill McGillis of South Florida was introduced as new Southern Miss athletic director today at the Trent Lott Center. Bill McGillis is a seasoned and experienced athletic administrator who has a proven record of helping student-athletes accomplish their academic and athletic goals, university president Rodney Bennett said at McGillis' introductory press conference today. He has built winning programs that compete at the highest levels, and has the ability to develop strong relationships with stakeholders. I have no doubt that Bill is the right person to best build on our tradition of athletics excellence and position us for future success. McGillis comes to The University of Southern Mississippi from the University of South Florida, where he serves as Executive Associate Athletic Director. In that role, he is the sport administrator for the football, baseball and softball programs and is responsible for leading the departments revenue-generating units, including marketing, ticket sales, licensing, merchandising and communications. McGillis official start date has not yet been determined. Read more: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20130718/SOUTHERNMISS/130718028/Bill-McGillis-named-new-USM-athletic-director

I think this is a good, hard hitting article that gets to the gist of the situation at Southern Miss and many other schools in the gang of 5: Let me preface this article to say that, Make It Rain Sports is a sports outlet that lives on the edge. We are often confrontational and not afraid to hit emotional topics within the world of sports. This is in no way intended to belittle or insult the University of Southern Mississippi sports program as we love the fine alumni and supporters of the Golden Eagles. Having said that, we look at the facts and give our opinion as we continue to, Make it Rain. Sixteen straight winning seasons, eight consecutive bowl appearances, and four league championships in the 12-year history of Conference USA. In 2007, they were selected as the conference team and coach of the decade. This is Southern Miss Football. Remarkable accomplishments, regardless of conference affiliation. But conference affiliation is something USM must evaluate, as conferences rapidly jockey for new teams and position themselves for the inevitable super conferences. Many teams will surely be left out to dry. This doesn’t mean teams in small conferences will have to stop playing competitive college sports, but it does mean opportunities for success will be increasingly limited for those not affiliated with the upper tier conferences. And yes, USM is one of those teams. For years USM played football as an independent and played other sports in the old Metro Conference. In those days (1982-95) USM played and beat teams like, Florida State, Alabama, Auburn, and others. But even then, teams started making big conference moves. Florida State to the ACC in 1991, South Carolina to the SEC in 1992 are just a few that began in the early nineties making the conference jump. read more: http://www.makeitrainsports.com/football/southern-miss-facing-the-harsh-reality-of-conference-realignment-2/

Johnson, a longtime defensive coordinator in the SEC, has served as a head coach three times in his career. The job at Southern Miss, however, was his biggest opportunity. He coached there as the defensive coordinator in 1988 and 1989, when the Golden Eagles were an independent team in the NCAA. "We could get some players in school that could not be admitted to the Southeastern Conference schools," Johnson recalls. "We probably had a dozen players on our football team that were big-time SEC players." Times have changed, but that didn't stop the Eagles from finishing 12-2 in 2011. The success led to Larry Fedora leaving Southern Miss for the North Carolina job after four seasons in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Still, Johnson felt his team was young in 2012 -- and there were other obstacles he didn't quite expect. "They probably have more money than they had then, but what's happening in college football today, sadly, is the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," Johnson says. "The conferences that are not automatic BCS schools, they're just struggling to be competitive, if you will, on a week-in, week-out basis. It was a very, very different environment, obviously. I should have realized -- some of it I did realize -- but on a grander scale I should have realized how different it was." Read more: http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/06/what_went_wrong_ellis_johnson.html