What Do You Expect From This Program

gradumacated · December 3, 2014

Wait, wait, wait...
You want to go 6-6 one third of the time? So you want to have 6 wins 3 out of every 10 years? My oh my.

6-6 makes us bowl-eligible but doesn't necessarily get us to a bowl. Bowls like to take winning teams as opposed to break-even teams.

For this squad, for this administration, 6-6 is the ceiling right now. Just stating facts. Until we start seeing better recruiting, better coaching, better play-calling, new-school thinking... 6-6 is the best that can be expected.

This season especially as proven how old-school thinking barely makes us competitive in a third of our games.

Also, not to nitpick, but it's 3 out of 9 at a 33% clip.

Got5onIt · December 3, 2014

One of the biggest public institutions in Texas should strive for more than one .500 year out of 3 in football. I fully expect to reload and be competitive every year. The 0-6 road record and the apparent talent evaluation issues are inexcusable.

Greendylan · December 3, 2014

Just to clarify my previous post, I didn't mean to insinuate that attendance doesn't matter. It does. My point is simply that if we're going to place the onus on the fans to fix what ails our football program, then we may be sorely disappointed with their ability to do so, and that's even if we do somehow start regularly packing Apogee. Furthermore, I wanted show that our attendance really isn't THAT bad, considering our continual failure to make a big splash in several decades of trying.

In the spirit of the thread's original question ("What do you expect from this program"), I guess I'm asking another question: What does the program expect from its fans?

DoubleEagle · December 3, 2014

I expect the following two things from the Athletic department:

1. Create an environment where student athletes can achieve their academic goals

2. Act in a manner that reflects the highest level of integrity in all endeavors

I expect the same from the University as a whole.

TheTastyGreek · December 3, 2014

https://soundcloud.com/david_rees/aphex-swift-you-belong-with-avril

I'm more of a Neil Cicierega guy, but... Sure!

As far as the P1 thing goes... It makes me understand how Ray felt.

Cerebus · December 3, 2014

As far as the P1 thing goes... It makes me understand how Ray felt.

Quoner · December 3, 2014

I'm more of a Neil Cicierega guy, but... Sure!

As far as the P1 thing goes... It makes me understand how Ray felt.

Hungry?

Quoner · December 3, 2014

In the spirit of the thread's original question ("What do you expect from this program"), I guess I'm asking another question: What does the program expect from its fans?

That's a great question in spirit, but if it's a business, can you really sit there and take the question to another scenario? What does Delta expect from its passengers? It's a fine, if haughty, question for fans to ask each other, but if you're selling a product with that mentality, it's not going to go well.

CMJ · December 3, 2014

The 7 years prior to their 6 years in the Big East they were Bowl Eligible in C-USA. And in the two years since leaving the Big East for the American they are Bowl Eligible. So of the last 10 years as a member of a non-power 5 conference dating back to 1998 they have "reloaded" to Bowl Eligibility in all 10 years. 10 of the past 16 years is pretty stout without P5 help.
Rick

The American was a "Big boy" conference until this season though...at least Bowl access wise. That designation was just taken away.

CMJ · December 3, 2014

For our current situation to change, the attitude must change in every area of the college. I am glad that they care so much for academics but that shouldn't stop you from being a good/great football program at all. You go around town and no one really even cares that a game is being played. Its rare to even find it on a tv set (if it is being played on one). Our football stadium is amazing but we dont capitalize on that fact.

If you look around the country you see people that have far less than we do and they do far more with it. I am baffled every time I come back home to go to a game that we cannot win consistently here. Lets look at some of the teams that win: Boise, its in Idaho....IDAHO and they win, Utah St.....UTAH and they have won in the past years, NDSU....smaller school but still its in North Dakota....Arizona St.....I dont even think I need to say it. You cannot tell me these places have things that make them better than Denton, Texas.

Well, Boise is a city of over 200K people with nothing else around, so the support they get is great. Often it's easier to build winners in towns where everything revolves around the school Being near Dallas works both for and against us.

Arizona State is a HUGE school in the Pac12. Not sure why it's so hard to comprehend their support.

TheTastyGreek · December 3, 2014

That's a great question in spirit, but if it's a business, can you really sit there and take the question to another scenario? What does Delta expect from its passengers? It's a fine, if haughty, question for fans to ask each other, but if you're selling a product with that mentality, it's not going to go well.

It's a bit silly for me to try and throw on the serious face here, especially after a couple rounds of P1 friendship bracelet hijinx... But, this is very astute, and it deserves a lot of consideration.

If you support this program, you're either donating to a charity you really believe in, or buying a product. A lot of people here like to throw around the "shareholder/investor/etc." metaphor, but that's not at all accurate. It's nonsense. You're not a shareholder, you're a donor or a buyer.

The problem our administration is facing is that a lot of people seem to be sliding or ratcheting down their emotional investment, and they're turning (or threatening to turn, however sincere or hollow this time around) from donors to buyers. Once that happens, and the emotional buy-in starts going away... Well, it's a lot more likely that buyers disappear entirely when the product isn't worth buying on its own merits.

Christopher Walker · December 3, 2014

I'm more of a Neil Cicierega guy, but... Sure!

As far as the P1 thing goes... It makes me understand how Ray felt.

The Mouth Silence series is greatness born sonically.

Greendylan · December 3, 2014

That's a great question in spirit, but if it's a business, can you really sit there and take the question to another scenario? What does Delta expect from its passengers? It's a fine, if haughty, question for fans to ask each other, but if you're selling a product with that mentality, it's not going to go well.

No, I totally agree. My concern is that the people with the power to effect change in our athletic department are blindly hoping for the great Mean Green diaspora across DFW to suddenly wake up one day and storm into Apogee.

My fear is that the Athletic Department expects for North Texas teams to merely continue competing at Division I football. In turn, I feel like they expect students and alumni to want to come to games simply because, well, we have a shiny new stadium that houses Division I football.

Furthermore, even if we somehow fill Apogee for every game in perpetuity, that only means an increase of 9,000 over our current averages since we built a comparatively modest-sized stadium. An extra 9,000 would be super duper and all, but even that pie-in-the-sky scenario wouldn't come close to solving all of our problems by itself.

Cerebus · December 3, 2014

If you support this program, you're either donating to a charity you really believe in, or buying a product. A lot of people here like to throw around the "shareholder/investor/etc." metaphor, but that's not at all accurate. It's nonsense. You're not a shareholder, you're a donor or a buyer.

Vis-à-vis North Texas I donate when I give to the college of Engineering, Business or Arts & Sciences, the colleges my wife and I hold degrees from.

When it comes to athletics, it is more complicated. Some of it is charity, but a lot of it is buying a product. Charity gets them season tickets and a MGC donation. I spend extra to donate to the stadium fund, buy club seats, and help with the baseball construction whenever they actually get around to building it, etc as a product. In order to keep selling that product to me they need to meet my expectations.

I don't even think my expectations are high. I don't expect us to get into a P5 conference, ever. I don't expect us to beat the P5 schools we play on a regular basis. I expect to compete with them, and I expect to win one once and then. However I do expect us to be a top G5 program.

That isn't asking too much. I really can't imagine a time when I will ever stop supporting athletics, but if the administration and leadership ever start "just going threw the motions" when it comes to athletics then that the extra money is going to go to someone who can use it better. Maybe the wife and I decide to fund a scholarship in COBA.

I expect the people who receive my donations at NT to use them effectively and innovatively, if that isn't going to be athletics well then I don't see why I should feel like a bad fan for making that choice.

Feel free to flame away.

FirefightnRick · December 3, 2014

The American was a "Big boy" conference until this season though...at least Bowl access wise. That designation was just taken away.

So in essence they were a program that had a reputation for "reloading" way before they got Big Boy help, which earns them a place squarely on my list, right?

Rick

Edited December 3, 2014 by FirefightnRick

MeanGreenHoops · December 3, 2014

If you support this program, you're either donating to a charity you really believe in, or buying a product. A lot of people here like to throw around the "shareholder/investor/etc." metaphor, but that's not at all accurate. It's nonsense. You're not a shareholder, you're a donor or a buyer.

I think this also changes throughout your life. For a while I've been the donor. I really expected not much. But that "donor" mode I think comes when you have emotional investment. What has somewhat happened to me, and it seems others on here as well, is that the emotional investment is going away. And that turns you more into a buyer.

Part of losing the emotional investment is my own fault. I shouldn't have expected another 9-4 season with everything that was lost. But part of it is some really poor decisions that make it seem like the charity doesn't work as hard as they used too do.

I used to go to every basketball game. But then Tony Mitchell happened, and Benford wrecked that, and I quit caring. You can blame me if you want, but i just did it to protect myself. Caring made it no fun.

The same thing has happened with the Apogee/McCarney era. I really thought that we were going to see better than 1 winning season in 4, and better opponents in the stadium. I certainly didn't expect 5 game home seasons with one being an FCS.

The same thing is happening where I'm starting not to care. It's really the only way I can enjoy it. If I care it's too frustrating. If I just "buy" it, well sometimes it is entertaining, and it's pretty affordable.

Edited December 3, 2014 by MeanGreenHoops

TheTastyGreek · December 3, 2014

The same thing is happening where I'm starting not to care. It's really the only way I can enjoy it. If I care it's too frustrating. If I just "buy" it, well sometimes it is entertaining, and it's pretty affordable.

You are not alone on that, for sure. Totally with you.

ColoradoEagle · December 3, 2014

I'm feeling a bit the same as MGH. I used to give everything I had to athletics time and financially while I was enrolled. Then I got to see the athletic department completely ruin the Pit Crew. They didn't even have to do anything except keep stoking the fire, and they failed at the little amount of effort that takes.

Then Apogee opened and we've yet to have a marquee opponent there. The second season there we had a five game home schedule, one of those being FCS. As if the AD learned nothing from that season, we're about to have another five game (hopefully?) home schedule.

Then Benford happened. This was after we made such a big deal about hiring a coach with skins on the wall. We go out and get an unproven assistant. It'd be one thing if this assistant was some up and coming young guy, but instead we go after someone who, for almost 20 years, no one wanted as a head coach. Shouldn't that tell you something?

And now McCarney. I really liked the hire at first, but I'm seeing why Iowa State cut ties. It's not that he can't win football games. We saw last year that he can win games. It's that, unless he has the best talent on the field, he doesn't stand a chance in hell at winning. Also, if it's a road game, might as well chalk it up as an automatic loss. He's 20-66 in road games. That's .233, compared to his overall record of .411. That's not a coincidence.

It's not the losing that makes being an NT fan hard. It's the constant awful coaching hires. It's the bare minimum efforts of the athletic department. And maybe the AD is just full of amazing people who are way overtaxed, but from the outside, it looks like a group of people who constantly put out bare minimum to mediocre effort or are simply oblivious to detail.

There's no reason that this board should need to canvas Denton before the football season, hanging posters. That should be done already. There's no reason that the Spring Game should be such a lifeless, boring event. No reason that truly stale chips are sold at concessions year after year. No reason that finding a piece of UNT apparel outside of Denton should be damn near impossible. No reason that students should be completely unaware that a basketball game is being played that night. No reason that the biggest promotion for a basketball game in the past 10 years was put on by students and partly financed independently by an alum.

It's just all so shitty by this athletic department, and I hate that some people choose to defend them like they're trying their hardest. They're fucking not and we all know it. It's not going to register until there are videos on YouTube and Instagram of UNT shutting down its football program or joining the Southland.

MeanGreenHoops · December 3, 2014

I also just realized something about the mea culpa from my above post. Maybe I'm not to be blamed after all. I started to think things were different because of what I was sold by the charity.

Paraphrasing here "This is the best basketball talent we've ever had and we brought in a big time assistant from Marquette who brought in a Big East caliber center." Then we were awful.

The same thing happened in football, but for me I believed what Mac said this past offseason too much. He kept saying how we "were going to find out if we were a "real" program of just some flash in the pan that has a winning season once every 10 years". I took that to mean he was pretty confident that we would or he wouldn't be saying it. But then we were worse than any of his teams since he's been here.

Maybe I just felt stupid for believing all the good things the charity told me it was doing that then didn't happen. So I decided, I don't think I believe this charity anymore.

I still go and haven't changed my level of giving. I just don't have the emotional investment I used too. It's sad in some ways, because I don't have a replacement for that. Maybe that will change some day in the future too. Things always do.

Edited December 3, 2014 by MeanGreenHoops

Ben Gooding · December 4, 2014

I'm feeling a bit the same as MGH. I used to give everything I had to athletics time and financially while I was enrolled. Then I got to see the athletic department completely ruin the Pit Crew. They didn't even have to do anything except keep stoking the fire, and they failed at the little amount of effort that takes.

Then Apogee opened and we've yet to have a marquee opponent there. The second season there we had a five game home schedule, one of those being FCS. As if the AD learned nothing from that season, we're about to have another five game (hopefully?) home schedule.

Then Benford happened. This was after we made such a big deal about hiring a coach with skins on the wall. We go out and get an unproven assistant. It'd be one thing if this assistant was some up and coming young guy, but instead we go after someone who, for almost 20 years, no one wanted as a head coach. Shouldn't that tell you something?

And now McCarney. I really liked the hire at first, but I'm seeing why Iowa State cut ties. It's not that he can't win football games. We saw last year that he can win games. It's that, unless he has the best talent on the field, he doesn't stand a chance in hell at winning. Also, if it's a road game, might as well chalk it up as an automatic loss. He's 20-66 in road games. That's .233, compared to his overall record of .411. That's not a coincidence.

It's not the losing that makes being an NT fan hard. It's the constant awful coaching hires. It's the bare minimum efforts of the athletic department. And maybe the AD is just full of amazing people who are way overtaxed, but from the outside, it looks like a group of people who constantly put out bare minimum to mediocre effort or are simply oblivious to detail.

There's no reason that this board should need to canvas Denton before the football season, hanging posters. That should be done already. There's no reason that the Spring Game should be such a lifeless, boring event. No reason that truly stale chips are sold at concessions year after year. No reason that finding a piece of UNT apparel outside of Denton should be damn near impossible. No reason that students should be completely unaware that a basketball game is being played that night. No reason that the biggest promotion for a basketball game in the past 10 years was put on by students and partly financed independently by an alum.

It's just all so shitty by this athletic department, and I hate that some people choose to defend them like they're trying their hardest. They're fucking not and we all know it. It's not going to register until there are videos on YouTube and Instagram of UNT shutting down its football program or joining the Southland.

Word.

MeanMag · December 4, 2014

I'm not going to start by asking that a guy whose job it is to win or lose a college football game which in the aggregate world of coaching is a zero sum game be held accountable. I'm asking people at this university do their effing job. Whether it is counting money, raising it, or being responsible for spending it. A change at chancellor. A change at Governor, whatever. Start there. End with coaches and/or janitors/librarians/professors if need be.

UNT is lucky to have A donor for anything after the proved inability to count money. If the university leadership cannot be held accountable to account for the life blood that allows it to exist, how can we expect them to be responsible when it comes to the decisions that need to be made for sport?

I am not saying I do not care about wins/losses, I just care even more that everyone whose job metrics do not require a loser to stop f$%@ing losing. AD included.

Edited December 4, 2014 by MeanMag

UNT90 · December 4, 2014

I'm not going to start by asking that a guy whose job it is to win or lose a college football game which in the aggregate world of coaching is a zero sum game be held accountable. I'm asking people at this university do their effing job. Whether it is counting money, raising it, or being responsible for spending it. A change at chancellor. A change at Governor, whatever. Start there. End with coaches and/or janitors/librarians/professors if need be.

UNT is lucky to have A donor for anything after the proved inability to count money. If the university leadership cannot be held accountable to account for the life blood that allows it to exist, how can we expect them to be responsible when it comes to the decisions that need to be made for sport?

I am not saying I do not care about wins/losses, I just care even more that everyone whose job metrics do not require a loser to stop f$%@ing losing. AD included.

Well put.

oldguystudent · December 4, 2014

I used to go to every basketball game. But then Tony Mitchell happened, and Benford wrecked that, and I quit caring. You can blame me if you want, but i just did it to protect myself. Caring made it no fun.

I can nail down the place, day and time I stopped caring. It all centered around Todd Dodge and his cadre of personality bodyguards who would stop at nothing to protect him from the slightest of criticism and who still to this day believe everything in the world except his shitty coaching was to blame for his shitty record.

There was a major shift that day. I shifted from emotional fan to consumer of entertainment. I learned to keep my fool mouth closed at games. I learned in Apogee that if I even calmly mentioned that our defense was ineffective on a given day that the mother of a non-scholarship, non-playing, OFFENSIVE player would verbally bitch slap me into next week.

But I still enjoy the day. I enjoy the tailgating. I enjoy seeing people that I don't otherwise see. I enjoy the club level, the bar, the food, the terrace, the fancy schmancy bathrooms, the lovely (newly retired) couple who greeted us at the elevator for every game with unrivaled enthusiam (The husband was Warren, the wife's name escapes me. They are just absolutely wonderful people). I enjoy the option of watching through the glass when the weather outside is frightful. I enjoy hitting up Oak Street after the game, and have discovered the totally game changing fact that Uber from downtown Denton to my front door is a mere $24.

More-so, I enjoy knowing that the student athletes to whose scholarships I make my meager contributions, actually acknowledge the student part of student athlete. A lot of them actually go to class and gain skills that will earn them a solid living when they grow up. Opportunities that many would not have had without athletics. There were some benevolent people who helped me out when I was younger, and I'm happy to pay the favor forward.

Expectations? As in wants and desires? Top level G5, no interest in ever being P5. As in what do I see when I look in my little crystal ball? Long-term mediocrity which occasional upswings, but nothing ever sustained. Short-term, I expect a shitty, shitty year next year. I see nothing that tells me otherwise.

But I'll be there, stealing Thor's beer and Tony's balls, bringing friends, enjoying the view as it walks by, wearing green (hopefully somewhere near the approved shade), keeping my fool mouth shut, and enjoying it all (except those shitty September weeknight games. That nearly killed me).

rcade · December 4, 2014

This town and this university don't care about UNT sports--they never have and they never will.

UNT today is nothing like it was when I attended school from 1988-91. The areas that ring the campus and the courthouse square are so much bigger and more vibrant than anything going on back then, aside from some epic Fry Street Fairs on Fry Street.

I don't think you should conclude that things will never change, or that old apathy among students, faculty and administrators will always be the case.

Edited December 4, 2014 by rcade

Harry · December 4, 2014

UNT today is nothing like it was when I attended school from 1988-91. The areas that ring the campus and the courthouse square are so much bigger and more vibrant than anything going on back then, aside from some epic Fry Street Fairs on Fry Street.

I don't think you should conclude that things will never change, or that old apathy among students, faculty and administrators will always be the case.

Agree rcade -- I can tell you UNT is a much bigger destination for a lot of good kids from good families here in the Dallas area than it ever was when I was there...

The town has blossomed. The school provides a great education and it is affordable. The biggest thing I hear from parents is that it gives them of giving their kids the option of a full college experience without being too far away. UTD and UTA just cannot offer that. SMU and TCU are too expensive.

So I think you are right, we should have a better more spirited and engaged alumni base going forward. That is why it is so critical to keep the athletic success going to feed them.