Let's play history revisionist

[oldguystudent]

While we're waiting for the broken record Mac show, let's play a little game to get our minds off the current woes.

It's 1975.  Hayden Fry decides he's going to keep the team in the Missouri Valley Conference rather than trying to force the SWC's hand and going independent.

How has history now changed?

I'll hang up and listen.

[TheTastyGreek]

With a conference (and an auto-bid) to win, Bill Blakeley takes North Texas State University to the NCAA Tournament two or three times. 

[FirefightnRick]

In regards to just plain ol'  history...here's what actually happened that year when things weren't working too good and NT experiencing a rash of injuries to boot.

4 weeks after getting destroyed 61-7 by a solid Oklahoma State team and now having to rely on his 3rd string QB,...Fry goes into Knoxville with a couple of changes,...1. He installed a no huddle offense...almost unheard of at the time...and 2. He installed an unbalanced offensive line, also rarely seen at the time.  Results...Tennessee had no answer for it...21-14 North Texas.

Thats what a good coach does.  He adjust and makes changes to give the guys he currently has available the best chance at success.  Not keep pounding a round peg into a square hole.

 

Rick

Edited October 6, 2015 by FirefightnRick

[SilverEagle]

While we're waiting for the broken record Mac show, let's play a little game to get our minds off the current woes.

It's 1975.  Hayden Fry decides he's going to keep the team in the Missouri Valley Conference rather than trying to force the SWC's hand and going independent.

How has history now changed?

I'll hang up and listen.

With a conference (and an auto-bid) to win, Bill Blakeley takes North Texas State University to the NCAA Tournament two or three times. 

Except that those winning seasons when we were "indy" our schedule had fewer and fewer MVC schools. If we had stayed in the MVC I find it questionable that Blakeleys teams would have had the same record. But I agree that being in the MVC would have guaranteed NT a spot in the tournament if we had won the conference.

As to football, several other schools left the conference in and around the time North Texas did. If North Texas had stayed would some of the other schools have stayed as well?

 

[letsgiveacheer]

Yes, IIRC,  West Texas, NMSU, Drake, and Tulsa were the only football schools left in the MVC as Cincinnati, Memphis State, and Louisville had gone. Bradley and St Louis  never played football while North Texas was in the Valley. I don't think Fry really had much of a choice.

Of course we could have gone independent in football and remained in the Valley for the other sports but we were never really competitive in Valley basketball anyway.