Scheduling

greenit · January 26, 2015

A 2-1 favors the P5 even more. They are typically paying a fraction of what they would pay for 2 - 0.

Until we commit to no payday games, I don't see it changing. G5 programs that don't play money games are generally the top tier G5 programs.

It seems like we are only $500k or so away from being in a break even if we eliminated the $1 million payday game. Seems doable if we really committed ourselves to using all sources available.

UNT90 · January 26, 2015

A 2-1 favors the P5 even more. They are typically paying a fraction of what they would pay for 2 - 0.
Until we commit to no payday games, I don't see it changing. G5 programs that don't play money games are generally the top tier G5 programs.
It seems like we are only $500k or so away from being in a break even if we eliminated the $1 million payday game. Seems doable if we really committed ourselves to using all sources available.

Lord forbid we keep up with the Arkansas Sts. Of the world and figure out a way to do 1 and 1 with P5 teams.

You make it seem like the only way a G5 can get a series with a P5 is trough a 2 for 1, which is blatantly untrue as illustrated by numerous examples given by 03.

We simply don't work hard enough to get it done. Plain and simple. It's easier just to take the check, and RV pretty much said as much when he was on the Podcast with Harry.

Other universities care more and work harder at scheduling, attendance, and marketing than our AD, and it's painfully apparent at this point. When your AD tells you that he would rather play P5s at their place in order to get paid, it tells you volumes about their work ethic.

untjim1995 · January 26, 2015

Lord forbid we keep up with the Arkansas Sts. Of the world and figure out a way to do 1 and 1 with P5 teams.
You make it seem like the only way a G5 can get a series with a P5 is trough a 2 for 1, which is blatantly untrue as illustrated by numerous examples given by 03.
We simply don't work hard enough to get it done. Plain and simple. It's easier just to take the check, and RV pretty much said as much when he was on the Podcast with Harry.
Other universities care more and work harder at scheduling, attendance, and marketing than our AD, and it's painfully apparent at this point. When your AD tells you that he would rather play P5s at their place in order to get paid, it tells you volumes about their work ethic.

Or just play G5s only, period. You cannot tell me that a 4 game OOC of teams from the MWC, AAC, MAC, SBC, the service academies and BYU wouldn't be able to generate decent fan interest. I'm sorry, but if the only way you can pay for an entire athletic department is by playing a bodybag game every year when you have over 36k in enrollment, hundreds of thousands of alumni, and being located in the middle of a metro area of millions of people, then FBS football probably isn't really your thing to keep doing.

I get that ULM or South Alabama have to play 3 OOC games on the road at multiple P5 conferences to pay for their budgets--they are smaller schools in small population areas. But if Marshall can schedule in OOC like they just did, we certainly could, too. The 2 for 0 Iowa series still is just ridiculous to me. As we were preparing for the stealth campaign to finally get voted on to fund Apogee, Iowa was specifically menioned as the type of team we could try and get a home-and-home series with--then we get it passed and immediately sign a 2 for 0 series with them. Then we find out that Apogee being built gets us series with SMU and Army--two teams we had recently played in series at decrepit, toilet-bowl Fouts.

The BOR only cares about one thing concerning athletics here and one thing only--staying within budget. Nothing more, nothing less--and it has been that way forever.

UNT90 · January 26, 2015

Point is we don't have to play just G5s in home OOC games.

If we had an AD who knew how to raise revenue, market, and negotiate football schedules we wouldn't have to constantly be fresh meat for UT and LSU at their place every year.

Problem is, that AD doesn't exist at UNT, and we will never make progress in a number of areas with the current AD in place. Plain and simple.

Edited January 26, 2015 by UNT90

flyonthewall · January 26, 2015

Point is we don't have to play just G5s in home OOC games.
If we had an AD who knew how to raise revenue, market, and negotiate football schedules we wouldn't have to constantly be fresh meat for UT and LSU at their place every year.
Problem is, that AD doesn't exist at UNT, and we will never make progress in a number of areas with the current AD in place. Plain and simple.

This post is a joke. How much more is enough? We are light years away from 15 years ago. Every day they are working on "raising revenue". Bataille="no football coach making more than me." Set us back 4 years. Rawlins="Alcohol has no place in intercollegiate athletics". Smastreck = ????? So far. My point with is this, you post damning to hell with everything statements without knowing the facts. At some point your just throwing mud at the wall. About 10% of it sticks and is truthful. The rest is just harmful to your school and program because it is just not true. 2 weeks from signing day you think potential student athletes read this board? Hell yes they do.

So cut it out, please.

Edited January 26, 2015 by flyonthewall

GRN-WHT · January 26, 2015

This post is a joke. How much more is enough? We are light years away from 15 years ago. Every day they are working on "raising revenue". Bataille="no football coach making more than me." Set us back 4 years. Rawlins="Alcohol has no place in intercollegiate athletics". Smastreck = ????? So far. My point with is this, you post damning to hell with everything statements without knowing the facts. At some point your just throwing mud at the wall. About 10% of it sticks and is truthful. The rest is just harmful to your school and program because it is just not true. 2 weeks from signing day you think potential student athletes read this board? Hell yes they do.
So cut it out, please.

So it's not RV's fault? Got it.

flyonthewall · January 26, 2015

I never said that, i said there is more to it than just dialing1-800-weneedagame, or 1-800-weneedacoach, or 1-800-weneedadonor, the buck ultimately stops with rick villarreal. 90% of the venom you guys are spewing is just taking facts and applying assumptions. Fact, we have a five game football season next year. Assumption, rv stinks, doesnt know how to do his job, and is too lazy to care, all of which is not true.

Did i pay the money i did for my suite for 5 game seasons? No. Do i accept that this is a business and you cant keep kicking the can down the road? Yes.

Do i accept mediocre results in anything? No. Do i publicly bash my university? No.

Carry on haters.

UNTFan23 · January 26, 2015

I love how the crowd that wants a new Athletics Director is under the assumption that suddenly all of their current ills will be solved. Scheduling -- suddenly everyone will want to play us and under terms that are favorable to both us and them. Coaches -- North Texas will suddenly hire new coaches and they all will be of a conference championship caliber. Fund Raising -- we'll set records every year on raising money for the program. We will also see Mean Green Club membership and season tickets sales instantly double or triple.

We know what we have with RV. Some seem to assume that things will instantly be better with someone else, when we really don't know that. It could be worse and history has proven there can be someone much worse then RV leading the department.

Something that comes to mind is "You don't know you had a good thing until it's gone."

UNT90 · January 27, 2015

This post is a joke. How much more is enough? We are light years away from 15 years ago. Every day they are working on "raising revenue". Bataille="no football coach making more than me." Set us back 4 years. Rawlins="Alcohol has no place in intercollegiate athletics". Smastreck = ????? So far. My point with is this, you post damning to hell with everything statements without knowing the facts. At some point your just throwing mud at the wall. About 10% of it sticks and is truthful. The rest is just harmful to your school and program because it is just not true. 2 weeks from signing day you think potential student athletes read this board? Hell yes they do.
So cut it out, please.

I know results. We are getting out scheduled by half the teams in the freakiing Sun Belt. You say I don't know the reasons. I say the reasons given to you are cheap excuses, especially on the scheduling issues.

I would hope that the 1% of student athletes that base their commitment on a freaking fan board would see that these posts are directed at making things better for them when they step foot on the field in Apogee.

Gretchen isn't responsible for getting us in such a scheduling jam that we had to have two 5 home game seasons while buying 3 games just to get a sliver of flexibility. That is SOLEY on RV, no matter how many sweet excuses he whispers in your ear.

UNT90 · January 27, 2015

I love how the crowd that wants a new Athletics Director is under the assumption that suddenly all of their current ills will be solved. Scheduling -- suddenly everyone will want to play us and under terms that are favorable to both us and them. Coaches -- North Texas will suddenly hire new coaches and they all will be of a conference championship caliber. Fund Raising -- we'll set records every year on raising money for the program. We will also see Mean Green Club membership and season tickets sales instantly double or triple.

We know what we have with RV. Some seem to assume that things will instantly be better with someone else, when we really don't know that. It could be worse and history has proven there can be someone much worse then RV leading the department.

Something that comes to mind is "You don't know you had a good thing until it's gone."

I completely agree it could get worse, and that is what we have a history of doing, but I'm willing to take that chance after what has happened the last 2 years. I hope that we actually hire someone who has a vision and the ability to convince the BOR to allow him/her to seek out that vision.

Running an AD with 1990 ideas ain't working here.

flyonthewall · January 27, 2015

Fact. 5 home games. Assumption. I have been given cheap excuses.

UNT90 · January 27, 2015

Fact. 5 home games. Assumption. I have been given cheap excuses.

Fact: Ark St., South Alabama, ULL and other SBC schools have managed to get more attractive home games than RV has in a better league, with a better facility, and a better destination.

Fact: RV said in an interview with Harry that he would rather play P5s on the road for the paycheck.

Fact: Given the opportunity by Harry on 2 different occasions to tell the fanbase that there would be 5 home games in 2015, RV refused to make this acknowledgement, even though it was clear to anyone who looked at the schedule that this was an absolute eventuality. If he told you anything different, he lied to you.

MeanGreenTexan · January 27, 2015

I love how the crowd that wants a new Athletics Director is under the assumption that suddenly all of their current ills will be solved. Scheduling -- suddenly everyone will want to play us and under terms that are favorable to both us and them. Coaches -- North Texas will suddenly hire new coaches and they all will be of a conference championship caliber. Fund Raising -- we'll set records every year on raising money for the program. We will also see Mean Green Club membership and season tickets sales instantly double or triple.

We know what we have with RV. Some seem to assume that things will instantly be better with someone else, when we really don't know that. It could be worse and history has proven there can be someone much worse then RV leading the department.

Something that comes to mind is "You don't know you had a good thing until it's gone."

Something that comes to my mind is "Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't."

UNTFan23 · January 27, 2015

Something that comes to my mind is "Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't."

I thought about using this one as well.

untjim1995 · January 27, 2015

This post is a joke. How much more is enough? We are light years away from 15 years ago. Every day they are working on "raising revenue". Bataille="no football coach making more than me." Set us back 4 years. Rawlins="Alcohol has no place in intercollegiate athletics". Smastreck = ????? So far. My point with is this, you post damning to hell with everything statements without knowing the facts. At some point your just throwing mud at the wall. About 10% of it sticks and is truthful. The rest is just harmful to your school and program because it is just not true. 2 weeks from signing day you think potential student athletes read this board? Hell yes they do.
So cut it out, please.

See, to me, you encapsulated everything about UNT Athletics that is wrong, its not even funny. The BOR hires people with these attitudes towards athletics. If Gretchen Bataille said "no football coach will make more than me", that should have been made public so that everyone knows what we are dealing with here. I'd love to say she should be fired for such small-time thinking, but the BOR would only do that is she said something like that about the College of Music, which would never happen...Anyway, I understand Rawlins view on alcohol not being sold at games since you ahve underage kids there, but if the rest of the schools in your area are doing it, then you kind of have to make a decision to move forward with it, just from the revenue standpoint.

My point here is that RV isn't the problem--he just does the bidding of a BOR that doesn't want athletics to ever be a primary window to the university. Bringing this up in public is the right thing to do--its the only way to get attention to the problem or to find out if anything will be done about it. Its my belief that nothing will be done about it because the UNT Community by a large majority doesn't want college athletics at the school to ever be anything bigger than it is. It doesn't fit with being a liberal arts university that loves promoting its "value" to the rest of the country. RV just does their bidding--nothing more, nothing less. To me, I don't know how you can even argue that point. He keeps us in budget, he never complains about funding, and he gets extensions when the revenue sports are rolling out losing season after losing season. The problem isn't RV--its who keeps him on staff.

It doesn't hurt the school or the program for the few fans we have here to open up about the problems here. The losing and playing teams nobody cares about has far outdone any criticisms that posters on this site make. Hell, it doesn't take a mind reader to see that we have absolutely sucked for the better part of 20 years since moving up to I-A in 1995, which doesn't even count the absolute debacle of i-aa for 12 freaking years that hangs on us still with Texas HS coaches and parents. What we know is that since Hayden Fry left Denton in 1978, the BOR and administration has severly underfunded the program and have maintained staying in the budget as the only goal of the athletic department. Not one college football coach since Jerry Sloan got hired by Texas Tech in 1981 has been hired away from us--not one. Bob Tyler, Corky Nelson, Dennis Parker, Matt Simon, Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, and now Dan McCarney are all coaches at UNT who have losing records here in their tenure here. Every coach we have had since 1982 was fired only at points it was deemed "affordable", not because of losing. I truly believe recruits and their families know this well before they step foot on campus to consider coming to play here, not because of posters on gmg.com. But that isn't because of RV or the putrid scheduling here--he's just a symptom of the main illness. The only chance this place ever has of changing is to have the BOR members and administraion change their attitudes toward college athletics--in other words, to almost do a 180 degree turn from the histroical (and current) view, which is, by a mile, the predominant desire of the UNT Community of students, alumni, faculty, and the citizens of Denton.

We support the Mean Green because they are ours--otherwise, the rest of us on this website would have tucked tail and ran away like the other 97% of the UNT community.

UNT90 · January 27, 2015

Good post Jim. Explains the situation at UNT perfectly.

.

GRN-WHT · January 27, 2015

Something that comes to mind is "You don't know you had a good thing until it's gone."

There's our problem. Too many people around here think 100 games under .500 in a 14 year career is good.

meangreanmick · January 27, 2015

Fact: Ark St., South Alabama, ULL and other SBC schools have managed to get more attractive home games than RV has in a better league, with a better facility, and a better destination.
Fact: RV said in an interview with Harry that he would rather play P5s on the road for the paycheck.
Fact: Given the opportunity by Harry on 2 different occasions to tell the fanbase that there would be 5 home games in 2015, RV refused to make this acknowledgement, even though it was clear to anyone who looked at the schedule that this was an absolute eventuality. If he told you anything different, he lied to you.

OK, I'll bite. What is your example of ULL getting more attractive home games that us? I did a quick check:

2014: 6 home games, nothing notable

2013: 5 home games, nothing notable

2012: 6 home games, nothing notable

2011: 5 home games, nothing notable

2010: 5 home games, OK State kicked their ass at home

So thats your standard. Three 5 home games seasons in the past 5 years, and they got Ok State to come kick their ass.

Our schedule same time period, I think I would take this one?

2014: 6 home games, SMU

2013: 6 home games, Ball State

2012: 5 home games, nothing notable

2011: 6 home games, Houston, Indiana

2010: 6 home games, K State, Rice (before they were in our conf)

Ben Gooding · January 27, 2015

There's our problem. Too many people around here think 100 games under .500 in a 14 year career is good.

Its not good, it's pitiful. Any other AD in the country would have been ran out. The BOR argument present by Jim is also true. Who puts them in place? We are under the thumb of the 2 douche bag universities in this state and we don't even realize it. The governor appoints them and more times than not the governor(s) have some kind of tie to either UT or ATM. So we are going to get agenda driven BOR members appointed to us that have a strict agenda that consists of keeping us exactly where we are, at bay. I don't know what kind of power Prez S has, but if he uses it precisely and accurately he could go down as the one who built North Texas (athletically and academically).

untjim1995 · January 27, 2015

Its not good, it's pitiful. Any other AD in the country would have been ran out. The BOR argument present by Jim is also true. Who puts them in place? We are under the thumb of the 2 douche bag universities in this state and we don't even realize it. The governor appoints them and more times than not the governor(s) have some kind of tie to either UT or ATM. So we are going to get agenda driven BOR members appointed to us that have a strict agenda that consists of keeping us exactly where we are, at bay. I don't know what kind of power Prez S has, but if he uses it precisely and accurately he could go down as the one who built North Texas (athletically and academically).

I'm fairly certain that the governor who appoints BOR members takes into account the recommendations he gets from current BOR members, administratioin officials, and other alumni leaders at each school. I cannot even imagine how few actual UNT Athletic fans have been even considered to be on our BOR over the decades. Yes, they might cheer for us or give lip serive to being big fans, but then they hire the Bataille's of the world how tell you in public that they love sports and go to games, but then use their influence to alter decent progress in the department. Just for a moment, imagine another Texas college president saying to anyone, "A football coach will never make more than me"--they would never even make it to the end of the semester for that kind of short-sighted remark, just because of the revenue that athletics generate for a school. IIRC, its also been said she wanted Shanice Stephens as the head basketball coach for the womens team. If that is true, and if RV hired her for that reason, I have to even wonder why you have an AD to begin with if you don't let him make the official hires.

For this to change here, you are almost going to have to have the BOR get Souter-ed by several people...members who tell the BOR they will keep athletics secondary, but decide to fund it and lead it as the primary window of the university--like every other FBS school in America does. GOod luck on that happening in your lifetime--I'm 42 and I don't expect to ever see it happen.

Ben Gooding · January 27, 2015

I'm fairly certain that the governor who appoints BOR members takes into account the recommendations he gets from current BOR members, administratioin officials, and other alumni leaders at each school. I cannot even imagine how few actual UNT Athletic fans have been even considered to be on our BOR over the decades. Yes, they might cheer for us or give lip serive to being big fans, but then they hire the Bataille's of the world how tell you in public that they love sports and go to games, but then use their influence to alter decent progress in the department. Just for a moment, imagine another Texas college president saying to anyone, "A football coach will never make more than me"--they would never even make it to the end of the semester for that kind of short-sighted remark, just because of the revenue that athletics generate for a school. IIRC, its also been said she wanted Shanice Stephens as the head basketball coach for the womens team. If that is true, and if RV hired her for that reason, I have to even wonder why you have an AD to begin with if you don't let him make the official hires.

For this to change here, you are almost going to have to have the BOR get Souter-ed by several people...members who tell the BOR they will keep athletics secondary, but decide to fund it and lead it as the primary window of the university--like every other FBS school in America does. GOod luck on that happening in your lifetime--I'm 42 and I don't expect to ever see it happen.

If the football program were to ever string together a Boise TYPE run they could not ignore what athletics does for the university as a whole. And not to take away what the program did in the early 2000's, but the Sun Belt in the early 2000's was the most uncompetitive D1 FBS football to maybe ever exist. If we could even string one of those together again in a tougher conference with more money involved or at stake then they could not turn a blind eye to that. They must see the potential, they must. If potential is not acted on then it will always be just that, potential. I think recommendations to who the BOR are need to be micromanaged at the alum level with perspective taken into consideration. You get out of something what you put into it in everything in life and CFB is no different. It's a pedestal for the university and in this day and age a damn good one.