Will RV's Terrible Scheduling Continue unabated?

NewHampster · December 3, 2014

The 2 for none with Iowa is a head scratcher. How do you not negotiate for a 2 for 1 there? The Hawkeyes are a huge brand and they never come to Texas. That would be a sellout.

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

So you are saying we should have played this game last year?

No man, I'm trying to get across that we are in no way shape or form able to compete against a P5. We need to build a momentum of winning. I was using the 2014 team as an example, because I see many future teams at UNT just like it, if we have 4-8 seasons every year....

And gradumacated, i can't argue on the fact that those SBC teams and other CUSA teams are getting P5's to come to their home and NT is not. Maybe if we had a 2013 year consistently, RV could shove in the P5's face and use that as a incentive of playing us at home?

Travis · December 3, 2014

It is about several factors. 1. Giving us the best opportunity for a quality win- which we all know increases when it is at home. Is it not interesting to you that our big OOC wins in Mac's tenure have ALL been at home- Indiana, Ball State, SMU. 2. It is about bringing in better name opponents into our stadium... you know, the new stadium in which we were promised more high profile teams to come in since it was said over and over again by RV that it was the stadium that's the problem. 3. It is about giving us a schedule that is balanced with a 6 and 6 schedule... every year. 5. it is about creating a greater entertainment value... let's face it, wins from nichols or texas southern won't light a fire under the fanbase. But, consistent winning from our fellow benchmarks will. 4. It is about focusing on elevating this program to be a success in and of itself... not to be the sole focus of providing welfare for all of the programs. Which, interestingly enough, if you make the focus correct, you will likely take care of the welfare component.

Those were just a few off the top of my head....

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

No man, I'm trying to get across that we are in no way shape or form able to compete against a P5. We need to build a momentum of winning. I was using the 2014 team as an example, because I see many future teams at UNT just like it, if we have 4-8 seasons every year....
And gradumacated, i can't argue on the fact that those SBC teams and other CUSA teams are getting P5's to come to their home and NT is not. Maybe if we had a 2013 year consistently, RV could shove in the P5's face and use that as a incentive of playing us at home?

So who is responsible for 10 years of losing football?

VideoEagle · December 3, 2014

So who is responsible for 10 years of losing football?

Tony Bedford?

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

Tony Bedford?

No.

But it's clear from his preseason address of the team that he is responsible for 2014.

Edited December 3, 2014 by UNT90

flyonthewall · December 3, 2014

No.
But it's clear from his preseason address of the team that he is responsible for 2014.

I guess I am walking in to this by posting at 1:00 p.m. ish, but do you work?

Cerebus · December 3, 2014

I guess I am walking in to this by posting at 1:00 p.m. ish, but do you work?

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

I guess I am walking in to this by posting at 1:00 p.m. ish, but do you work?

Much harder than RV, my friend, and for much less.

Care to address the topic at hand? I'd be very interested in your thoughts...

Edited December 3, 2014 by UNT90

Ben Gooding · December 3, 2014

The marketing department for North Texas is also dropping the ball. There is virtually nothing around Denton advertising athletics. It's kind of sad. Hopeful to see it pick up come summer time.

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

So who is responsible for 10 years of losing football?

People who point fingers at RV for the reason we have been losing for 10 years. He's not even half the problem. I'm not repeating myself.

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

People who point fingers at RV for the reason we have been losing for 10 years. He's not even half the problem. I'm not repeating myself.

Yes, because he is ultimately responsible for putting winning teams in the field/court, he IS the problem.

The thing is at UNT it doesn't matter, even to some of the biggest fans of the program. That's way things here will probably never change.

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

Yes, because he is ultimately responsible for putting winning teams in the field/court, he IS the problem.
The thing is at UNT it doesn't matter, even to some of the biggest fans of the program. That's way things here will probably never change.

Who would you rather win? Our opponents or UNT? Because, I don't see scheduling a P5 coming to Denton to put us to sleep an answer to our problems right now. In the future, yes, after we have established ourselves as a winning program and have built up our recruits. I would then definitely like to see us quiet some P5's.....

TheTastyGreek · December 3, 2014

In the future, yes, after we have established ourselves as a winning program and have built up our recruits. I would then definitely like to see us quiet some P5's.....

Honest question, and not meant to start an argument... How far into the future do you expect us to be before that happens?

Two years? Five? Ten? More?

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

Who would you rather win? Our opponents or UNT? Because, I don't see scheduling a P5 coming to Denton to put us to sleep an answer to our problems right now. In the future, yes, after we have established ourselves as a winning program and have built up our recruits. I would then definitely like to see us quiet some P5's.....

You are speaking to only one symptom of the scheduling disease plaguing UNT. The killer is the multiple 5 home game seasons in a brand new freaking stadium while scheduling 2 whore games next year.

Its like talking about a headache when the patient has terminal stomach cancer...

Edited December 3, 2014 by UNT90

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

Honest question, and not meant to start an argument... How far into the future do you expect us to be before that happens?

Two years? Five? Ten? More?

An honest answer to you question would be, "I don't know." If we have winning seasons, I would hope 5 years tbh. It's not going to happen next year or the year after. But we will see results slowly each season. I don't think in 10 years we'll be on the same level of Alabama or Florida State, if that helps?

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

You are speaking to only one symptom of the scheduling disease plaguing UNT. The killer is the multiple 5 home game seasons in a brand new freaking stadium while scheduling 2 whore games next year.
Its like talking about a headache when the patient has terminal stomach cancer...

I get that man, I think we'll have our own opinions on this. Reality is that it's sucks we are playing Portland State or Nicholls State. I'm 100% on board about that. But if we have a 2014 type team in 2015. How do you expect us to go 6-6, 7-5, 8,4 and go to a bowl this year? Who do you expect us to beat man? How do you expect us to catch casual fans attention when we can't beat a P5? How do we get kids to want to be recruited by UNT? But like I said before, we'll agree to disagree on this.

Ben Gooding · December 3, 2014

I don't even care about getting P5's into Apogee. The Ball St scheduling was moving in the right direction. I think 1/1's against the recognizable G5's is the direction we need to go and 2/1's against the G5's that aren't as recognizable such as NMSU, Akron, etc. If we land 1/1 with a lower level P5 like a Wash St, Syracuse etc. every now and then great. 2 body bag games being scheduled in the same season is unacceptable. Most of us want to move away from body bag games and the way to do that is to win. Having 2 in the same season puts us behind the eight ball even more. It's disheartening and it's frustrating. President S needs to start being vocal about athletics and his displeasure associated with them.

Cerebus · December 3, 2014

But if we have a 2014 type team in 2015. How do you expect us to go 6-6, 7-5, 8,4 and go to a bowl this year?

I think what you are missing is that a "2014 type team" wasn't just randomly assigned to us. We didn't lose out on some of cosmic football lottery.

We have an AD who has many responsibilities, one of them being able to hire a head FB coach. That coach is hired to field a strong football team that can win games. If we didn't get that, and instead get a "2014 type team in 2015" then it is because someone did not do their job as well as they should have.

If, as has happened at North Texas in 9 out of the last 10 seasons, you end up with a losing team don't you think SOMEONE should start to feel the heat of that?

MeanGreenHoops · December 3, 2014

I think what you are missing is that a "2014 type team" wasn't just randomly assigned to us. We didn't lose out on some of cosmic football lottery.

We have an AD who has many responsibilities, one of them being able to hire a head FB coach. That coach is hired to field a strong football team that can win games. If we didn't get that, and instead get a "2014 type team in 2015" then it is because someone did not do their job as well as they should have.

If, as has happened at North Texas in 9 out of the last 10 seasons, you end up with a losing team don't you think SOMEONE should start to feel the heat of that?

This so much this. If we have a losing year next year, that make 4 out of 5 years with losing records. That has to be accounted for somehow. You can't just keep going making excuses/explanations for it. And the schedule for next year is so much more difficult, it will be impressive if we do have a winning record.

GreenTexan13 · December 3, 2014

I think what you are missing is that a "2014 type team" wasn't just randomly assigned to us. We didn't lose out on some of cosmic football lottery.

We have an AD who has many responsibilities, one of them being able to hire a head FB coach. That coach is hired to field a strong football team that can win games. If we didn't get that, and instead get a "2014 type team in 2015" then it is because someone did not do their job as well as they should have.

If, as has happened at North Texas in 9 out of the last 10 seasons, you end up with a losing team don't you think SOMEONE should start to feel the heat of that?

Serious question Cerebus, and I do accept your explanation on how somebody isn't doing the job right. But how do you expect us to repair a long time losing seasons stretch? If RV somehow got fired, then I can see us making those drastic changes and jobs getting done right. But the reality is RV is staying and I think that the only option we have left is to play these bottom feeder teams. I wish we didn't have to, but how will we rack up wins to get those recruits when our staff can't bring them in?

UNT90 · December 3, 2014

I get that man, I think we'll have our own opinions on this. Reality is that it's sucks we are playing Portland State or Nicholls State. I'm 100% on board about that. But if we have a 2014 type team in 2015. How do you expect us to go 6-6, 7-5, 8,4 and go to a bowl this year? Who do you expect us to beat man? How do you expect us to catch casual fans attention when we can't beat a P5? How do we get kids to want to be recruited by UNT? But like I said before, we'll agree to disagree on this.

Well, and like I said before, the football program performing on the field is the ultimate responsibility of the AD, as is football attendance. If you don't want to keep losing, find a better AD that schedules better, hires better, and promotes better. This AD has had 14 years and has underperformed in a majority of categories, of which scheduling is just one.

Cerebus · December 3, 2014

Serious question Cerebus, and I do accept your explanation on how somebody isn't doing the job right. But how do you expect us to repair a long time losing seasons stretch? If RV somehow got fired, then I can see us making those drastic changes and jobs getting done right. But the reality is RV is staying and I think that the only option we have left is to play these bottom feeder teams. I wish we didn't have to, but how will we rack up wins to get those recruits when our staff can't bring them in?

I just disagree with many of your axiomatic propositions. We don't "HAVE" to accept bad scheduling, we don't have to accept bad recruiting, we don't have to accept losing.

There is a nine member President's Cabinet that reports to Smatresk. There is the Provost, who is the VP for academic affairs and is usually considered first among equals. There are seven other VP's in charge of things like student affairs, finance, etc. Then there is the athletics director.

If any of those other members of the cabinet did a bad job, no one would throw up their hands and say "oh well, that's just North Texas, you can't expect us to perform well in equity and diversity because we never have in the past." Of course not, the person in charge of that would be told to perform better, and be replaced if they didn't.

Now, if we can't schedule well because we lack funds, or we can't hire good coaches because we lack funds, or we can't fire a bad coach because we lack funds, then you don't just throw up your hands and say "that can't be fixed." It is someone's job to raise those revenues!

Look RV has done some very good things. Opening tailgating was a big one, however that was a long time ago, and really it was idiotic to ever have banned it in the first place. If being a better AD that Helwig is all it takes to keep your job around then a lot of people are going to check out.

RV has to realize that he can't rest on his laurels. Also, that expectations have changed. Truthfully, when he was hired a big bunch of the fan base was just happy that we could say we where 1A. Just being able to play TCU or aTm or be in a real A1 conference was good enough. It no longer is.

The fan base has seen to many new startups fly right past us. Utah was in the WAC when we stepped up and now they are in the Pac12. USF didn't exist and now they are in a better conference than us. There are plenty of other examples.

For me going through the motions and being happy to be a FBS team isn't good enough. I am not crazy, I know there are a lot of challenges, and I really don;t ever expect us to be a P5 team. There is no reason we can't be one of the top G5 teams though.

I think RV is starting to feel some heat because the fan base no longer feels upward momentum.

Let's look at the situation we are in. What if Mac can't win next year, or even the next. We can't afford to replace him. What about men's basketball? Same situation. Are you expecting sellouts any time soon? How about a crowd of 25k? How does that home schedule look to you over the next few years? Are you expecting a big baseball announcement next year? Most fans aren't. Let's be honest, are you absolutely, 100% sure we can cover the "full cost of attendance" that is coming down the pipeline? There has to be some small doubt.

All that above, plus the realization we have missed the P5 train, is leading to a real sense of drifting in the doldrums. Getting that sense of momentum back would take all this pressure of of RV's back. If he can't, then the president needs to feel the heat over it.

aztecskin · December 3, 2014

Agree.

It is the same with Mac. He won 5 games and I was pretty ecstatic. We were making improvements. He won 4 games but the team still was making progress. Then he won 9!

Then he won 4 and looked terrrrrible doing so. Worst offense in 6 years. Abysmal quarterback play. 0-6 on the road. Not even competitive in any of those except the final one where we let a team averaging 9.3 ppg score 34!*

Speed and direction, folks.That's what matters.

*Yeah, sure they finally had their starter back. No reason to let the running back who was getting 3.4 average 6.6 on us.

RV has to realize that he can't rest on his laurels. Also, that expectations have changed. Truthfully, when he was hired a big bunch of the fan base was just happy that we could say we where 1A. Just being able to play TCU or aTm or be in a real A1 conference was good enough. It no longer is.

The fan base has seen to many new startups fly right past us. Utah was in the WAC when we stepped up and now they are in the Pac12. USF didn't exist and now they are in a better conference than us. There are plenty of other examples.

For me going through the motions and being happy to be a FBS team isn't good enough. I am not crazy, I know there are a lot of challenges, and I really don;t ever expect us to be a P5 team. There is no reason we can't be one of the top G5 teams though.

I think RV is starting to feel some heat because the fan base no longer feels upward momentum.

TheTastyGreek · December 3, 2014

Let's look at the situation we are in. What if Mac can't win next year, or even the next. We can't afford to replace him. What about men's basketball? Same situation. Are you expecting sellouts any time soon? How about a crowd of 25k? How does that home schedule look to you over the next few years? Are you expecting a big baseball announcement next year? Most fans aren't. Let's be honest, are you absolutely, 100% sure we can cover the "full cost of attendance" that is coming down the pipeline? There has to be some small doubt.

Another round of Plus One.

On this date 3 years ago, we were still in the Sun Belt. We were just about to finish our first season in Apogee, our new head coach surprising me by leading what I thought was a 3 win team to a 5-7 season.

I was in Los Angeles, having sexy fun adventures with CMJ and Shuke-D, because I'd taken a week off work and dragged my wife out there for a meaningless MTE tournament at Loyola Marymount. We were coming off of our 5th straight 20 win season, we had an NBA talent joining us in a matter of weeks, and we were on our way to coming up one minute short of what would have been our 3rd NCAA appearance in 6 years. I already had a reservation for a 5 bedroom, 3 story megahouse on the lake in Hot Springs, eventually filled up with a dozen people who were excited about a week in Arkansas in March, all because of Mean Green athletics.

One of the big topics of conversation at that conference tournament was Baseball, which most of us had, for one reason or another, been led to believe was just around the corner. If they'd have taken deposits, I'd have bought season tickets then and there. Three years later, I feel like we're further away from a baseball program. Not that I care, because it seems like just one more way to dilute whatever money we're going to spend, and do a half-assed job at yet ANOTHER sport where success is more coincidence than a result of a plan or (more importantly) driven by expectation.

Three years later, what was once a mid-major of sustained success and almost unprecedented consistency that seemed poised for a breakthrough to the next level of success and prominence is in the toilet, being dragged down in terms of success and ethics by a failure and disgrace that a real basketball program would have fired a year ago, if not two. But we're sticking with him, and we'll basically be starting from scratch again whenever the next guy makes his way in for the rebuilding project.

Three years later, our football coach had his first season that finished below my expectations... But at a time when he should be exceeding them, with his own players in his own system. Instead, we were bad, and in a way that I didn't really want to watch. For crying out loud... I went to Kansas, Houston, Louisiana to watch TODD DODGE, but I only made it up to Apogee two times this year. I missed one game to take a trip with my wife (SMU! The last two times we played SMU, I bought and distributed over 50 tickets to bring people out!), I missed one game for a wedding (Southern Miss), and I skipped one game because another die hard UNT fan and I decided we'd rather take advantage of free tickets to watch TCU play Kansas State instead of going to Apogee to watch McNultyball against FAU. And I didn't bother to go out to FIU because of weather and the absence of some people I'd have wanted to 'enjoy' the game with.

I #Hit2, #Skipped4, #TailgatedZERO, and I don't feel like I missed anything. And I don't know if I'm going to renew my season tickets for next year, because even though I like Mac, I don't know that I'm going to see anything worth watching next season if we don't get a quarterback in here. I drove hours to see TODD DODGE, and I don't want to drive 30 minutes to see an actual good coach that's had some success here.

And I went all over the country to watch that basketball team... 5 guys piled in an Altima to drive to Monroe and back in 2011 (MONROE!), MeanGreenMatt, NT03 and I had driven down and back to Houston the year before to go see Texas Southern for crying out loud... Not exaggerating at all, I went to 66 games in person in three seasons. Houston, San Marcos, Louisiana, Los Angeles, Alabama, Oklahoma... Basically, a deadhead following the team bus all around the country. And LOVED it.

This year, I haven't even listened to a damn game. And I haven't missed it.

Three years ago, we were in a dead end conference, and I felt like we were on a good path on all fronts. Now, what used to be obsessions, I've completely disengaged with.

The obvious response is: "Fine, complainer... Shut up and go away. We don't need fans like you." And, frankly, I feel like I'm on the cusp of actually GOING AWAY. If Harry hadn't made me a moderator here, I think I probably would have checked out entirely by now.

I feel like we're further away, across the board, than we were 3 years ago. And you can say the same thing about 10 years ago with respect to football. And, even though I'm not one of the "Fire RV!" guys... We're 16 years in, almost every hire he's made has failed, most of them he can't or won't acknowledge or amend until they've done so much damage that we end up trapped in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding.

I don't think I have unreasonable expectations, or an outrageous threshold of what constitutes "success". Remember, I basically worship Johnny Jones, and I still like and appreciate Darrell Dickey. And there are a lot of people around here who don't really have much respect for either, or any real fondness/appreciation for whatever level of success it was that they were able to reach and maintain.

But, frankly... This is not fun. And I have almost no confidence, based on how we handle or ignore our failures, that we're ever going to get appreciably better. The more time goes by, the less I want to devote my free time and personal enthusiasm to it.

A big program has enough fans and casual attention to deal with losing people who are like me (don't believe in college sports as charity, frustrated/disillusioned, etc.). I don't know that North Texas does. And if I haven't quite reached the point where I'm ready to spend ALL of my time, money, energy, and enthusiasm on non-UNT interests... I'm very close.