Report: Coker out at UTSA

DeepGreen · January 6, 2016

I say screw utsa and their problems. Let's move on.

Christopher Walker · January 6, 2016

What if this is the precursor signs of Lynn Hickey shutting down UTSA football?

First they release their OC relatively late and by all accounts have dragged their feet on his replacement, and now the sudden release of Coker. They have not made any substantial infrastructure or support upgrades or purchases... Could cleanly walk away from the Alamodome...

Perhaps they have deemed their experiment a failure financially.

outoftown · January 6, 2016

So much gold in this thread. Always nice when somebody you dislike is doing worse than yourself. It does seem like the UTSA staff saw this coming. But since they haven't named a successor immediately they are waaaay behind the 8-ball. Could be Coker stepping down for any kind of reason (health, administaration using force, diminishing results, something else private, any combination). But yes if you are on the roster already there, you can probably coast to next season and think youll play, as there will not be a great influx of talent.

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

9 hours ago, Christopher Walker said:

What if this is the precursor signs of Lynn Hickey shutting down UTSA football?

First they release their OC relatively late and by all accounts have dragged their feet on his replacement, and now the sudden release of Coker. They have not made any substantial infrastructure or support upgrades or purchases... Could cleanly walk away from the Alamodome...

Perhaps they have deemed their experiment a failure financially.

We don't need UTSA giving any ideas to anyone else in the state in considering giving up on football. As we have seen here in the past, that idea would gain serious momentum in Denton. And I wouldn't put anything past the folks in Austin to come up with some reason to UAB our program. Any of this even remotely possible? Doubtful, but the way our program has been treated in Denton and having no pull in Austin whatsoever just makes me wary of any political shenanigans.

MeanGreenTexan · January 6, 2016

15 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

We don't need UTSA giving any ideas to anyone else in the state in considering giving up on football. As we have seen here in the past, that idea would gain serious momentum in Denton. And I wouldn't put anything past the folks in Austin to come up with some reason to UAB our program. Any of this even remotely possible? Doubtful, but the way our program has been treated in Denton and having no pull in Austin whatsoever just makes me wary of any political shenanigans.

Too late for that. We just built a new stadium. We're all-in.

greenit · January 6, 2016

10 hours ago, Christopher Walker said:

What if this is the precursor signs of Lynn Hickey shutting down UTSA football?

First they release their OC relatively late and by all accounts have dragged their feet on his replacement, and now the sudden release of Coker. They have not made any substantial infrastructure or support upgrades or purchases... Could cleanly walk away from the Alamodome...

Perhaps they have deemed their experiment a failure financially.

Seems like the only reasonable course of action...

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2016

25 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

We don't need UTSA giving any ideas to anyone else in the state in considering giving up on football. As we have seen here in the past, that idea would gain serious momentum in Denton. And I wouldn't put anything past the folks in Austin to come up with some reason to UAB our program. Any of this even remotely possible? Doubtful, but the way our program has been treated in Denton and having no pull in Austin whatsoever just makes me wary of any political shenanigans.

Considering the total athletic budget keeps getting larger each year, I don't see how you could even begin to justify such a thought process.

The biggest problem with killing off the football problem is you risk tanking all the other programs as support will likely fall off a cliff. I'd expect somewhere around 75% to 90% of all Mean Green Club members to stop support if football gets canned.

Edited January 6, 2016 by UNTFan23

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

2 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

Considering the total athletic budget keeps getting larger each year, I don't see how you could even begin to justify such a thought process.

The biggest problem with killing off the football problem is you risk tanking all the other programs as support will likely fall off a cliff. I'd expect somewhere around 75% to 90% of all Mean Green Club members to stop support if football gets canned.

I'm just saying that if you had a vote today, that included both students and faculty at UNT, to vote on whether to keep the football program or not, meaning the athletic fee goes away, you'll never convince me that it wouldn't be a razor-thin vote. You'd have a ton of media and political influence to show a school that is trying to lower costs for students and place academics first. If a school like UTSA decided it wasn't making financial sense for them, don't think that administrators at other public schools like ours wouldn't look at the subject a lot closer--and that isn't even counting the folks in Austin on the Texas Higher Education Committees. If they could figure out a way to get schools like UTSA, Texas State, and UNT to give up FBS football, that would give their Longhorns, Aggies, Red Raiders, Bears, etc..., more t-shirt money. As always, follow the $$$$.

See Alabama vs UAB.

Will it happen here anytime soon? No. It won't happen at UTSA, either--not anytime soon, anyway. But I will never underestimate the way UNT looks at football. 25 years of being a fan has taught me that. Apogee is a god-send, literally being a life-line to staying at FBS. But there is a large segment of the UNT Family that looks at Apogee as a world class venue to showcase the Green Brigade and to use it to attract concerts in music-crazy Denton.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 6, 2016

7 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

But there is a large segment of the UNT Family that looks at Apogee as a world class venue to showcase the Green Brigade and to use it to attract concerts in music-crazy Denton.

Other than the director and members of the Green Brigade, could you name one person in that large segment of the UNT Family?

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2016

2 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

I'm just saying that if you had a vote today, that included both students and faculty at UNT, to vote on whether to keep the football program or not, meaning the athletic fee goes away, you'll never convince me that it wouldn't be a razor-thin vote. You'd have a ton of media and political influence to show a school that is trying to lower costs for students and place academics first. If a school like UTSA decided it wasn't making financial sense for them, don't think that administrators at other public schools like ours wouldn't look at the subject a lot closer--and that isn't even counting the folks in Austin on the Texas Higher Education Committees. If they could figure out a way to get schools like UTSA, Texas State, and UNT to give up FBS football, that would give their Longhorns, Aggies, Red Raiders, Bears, etc..., more t-shirt money. As always, follow the $$$$.

See Alabama vs UAB.

Will it happen here anytime soon? No. It won't happen at UTSA, either--not anytime soon, anyway. But I will never underestimate the way UNT looks at football. 25 years of being a fan has taught me that. Apogee is a god-send, literally being a life-line to staying at FBS. But there is a large segment of the UNT Family that looks at Apogee as a world class venue to showcase the Green Brigade and to use it to attract concerts in music-crazy Denton.

For a large school like UNT to cancel football I think would be a massive mistake. I think at UNT you'd risk a drop in enrollment, engagement with alumni would drop, our already poor donor levels would drop further, basically the entire school would experience a backlash. I know I would feel quite angered and it might be several years before I would feel like giving money back to the school (assuming I get over it).

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

Just now, Mean Green 93-98 said:

Other than the director and members of the Green Brigade, could you name one person in that large segment of the UNT Family?

I will gladly stand on the reality that if you and I went around and asked UNT students, faculty, and the local citizenry if they would rather watch a UNT Football game at Apogee or to watch the Green Brigade perform, the number of people who would choose the Green Brigade would monumentally crush the number of people who want to watch UNT Football.

We are a top Music School in the country. We just finished as the worst football team in FBS this past year, which represented the 11th out of the last 12 as a loser.

There are Mean Green covered glasses and then there is reality...

ColoradoEagle · January 6, 2016

1 minute ago, untjim1995 said:

I will gladly stand on the reality that if you and I went around and asked UNT students, faculty, and the local citizenry if they would rather watch a UNT Football game at Apogee or to watch the Green Brigade perform, the number of people who would choose the Green Brigade would monumentally crush the number of people who want to watch UNT Football.

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

2 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

For a large school like UNT to cancel football I think would be a massive mistake. I think at UNT you'd risk a drop in enrollment, engagement with alumni would drop, our already poor donor levels would drop further, basically the entire school would experience a backlash. I know I would feel quite angered and it might be several years before I would feel like giving money back to the school (assuming I get over it).

Now you can see how those who graduated or attended UNT in the 70s and 80s feel. We quit on them by dropping to I-aa for 12 years. They have never come back.

I don't think this is going to ever happen, but I just don't want any other G5 public school in Texas deciding to drop football because it isn't financially viable. Its just inviting Pandora's box to be opened.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 6, 2016

5 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

I will gladly stand on the reality that if you and I went around and asked UNT students, faculty, and the local citizenry if they would rather watch a UNT Football game at Apogee or to watch the Green Brigade perform, the number of people who would choose the Green Brigade would monumentally crush the number of people who want to watch UNT Football.

We are a top Music School in the country. We just finished as the worst football team in FBS this past year, which represented the 11th out of the last 12 as a loser.

There are Mean Green covered glasses and then there is reality...

I don't think the Green Brigade would come close in that poll if you only asked students of the College of Music.

I've never heard anyone express your perspective before. Even most (probably all) members of the Green Brigade understand that when they play at Apogee, they are playing at what is first and foremost a football game, not a band concert.

And how many concerts come to Apogee, anyway?

But I'd love to see you conduct the poll and to see the results.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Mean Green 93-98

Army of Dad · January 6, 2016

35 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

Considering the total athletic budget keeps getting larger each year, I don't see how you could even begin to justify such a thought process.

The biggest problem with killing off the football problem is you risk tanking all the other programs as support will likely fall off a cliff. I'd expect somewhere around 75% to 90% of all Mean Green Club members to stop support if football gets canned.

What's a few hundred supporters here and there to the AD?

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

1 minute ago, ColoradoEagle said:

Yeah, because at a school with 36k students and hundreds of thousands of alumni, our attendance just really kills it. We love UNT Football so much that 13k people decided to invest time and money into attending games this past season. There's no way that more than 13k people at UNT, the best music school in the region, could possibly have more students and alumni that like music more than sports...

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2016

1 minute ago, untjim1995 said:

Yeah, because at a school with 36k students and hundreds of thousands of alumni, our attendance just really kills it. We love UNT Football so much that 13k people decided to invest time and money into attending games this past season. There's no way that more than 13k people at UNT, the best music school in the region, could possibly have more students and alumni that like music more than sports...

You're saying that there are more people that like music more than sports?

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

Just now, UNTFan23 said:

You're saying that there are more people that like music more than sports?

Sure...

Harry · January 6, 2016

GMG24 · January 6, 2016

5 minutes ago, Harry said:

IDIOTS

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2016

12 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Sure...

The Murchison Performing Arts Center holds just over 1000 people, which means they would need to hold 13 concerts compared to just one football game. I've never stepped foot inside the building and I'll bet most of the people on this message board haven't either. About the only thing I might go see there is a Broadway type production but Bass Hall in Fort Worth holds more people, so a play of that level would be down there rather than up in Denton.

EDIT: Added the missing 'ING' because people don't what building I'm talking about.

Edited January 6, 2016 by UNTFan23

Ben Gooding · January 6, 2016

1 minute ago, UNTFan23 said:

The Murchison Perform Arts Center holds just over 1000 people, which means they would need to hold 13 concerts compared to just one football game. I've never stepped foot inside the building and I'll bet most of the people on this message board haven't either. About the only thing I might go see there is a Broadway type production but Bass Hall in Fort Worth holds more people, so a play of that level would be down there rather than up in Denton.

What's a murchison perform arts center?

GMG24 · January 6, 2016

2 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

What's a murchison perform arts center?

The Armadillo on campus by the Pit. I've been inside for my HS graduation (small school) very cool building.

Ben Gooding · January 6, 2016

Just now, GMG24 said:

The Armadillo on campus by the Pit. I've been inside for my HS graduation (small school) very cool building.

haha, I know what it is. I was just being a jackass. We need to move music and art buildings out onto Discovery Park. Better yet, Fair Park.

untjim1995 · January 6, 2016

8 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

The Murchison Perform Arts Center holds just over 1000 people, which means they would need to hold 13 concerts compared to just one football game. I've never stepped foot inside the building and I'll bet most of the people on this message board haven't either. About the only thing I might go see there is a Broadway type production but Bass Hall in Fort Worth holds more people, so a play of that level would be down there rather than up in Denton.

Me, too.

I'm just saying that waaayyyy more people connected to UNT care about music than they do about football. Not on gmg.com, obviously. But we are overwhelmingly known for our Music programs, which attracts students from all over. Add in the students and alumni who follow Denton's music scene and it dwarfs our athletic support. Maybe it wouldn't have been that way if we treated football better in the decades previously, but we didn't. Its a liberal school and is well-known for music and arts, as well as being a teacher's college. Those aren't really well-known fans of football. And the faculty, administration, BOR, and citizens of Denton have shown forever that athletics, particularly football, will never be accepted as the major window to the university, supplanting music and arts. It won't happen.

If you need further evidence of this, see, Villareal, Rick being your AD for 15 years. Even if Smatresk wanted to fire him, which we don't know, those above him have made it clear that they won't let that happen. Would the College of Music's Dean be allowed to stay in his job for even 20% of that time if every metric available showed that the department was completely failing at its mission? There's no chance--that tells most people where the university's priorities lie. And I am not even saying that's wrong. Its just completely different from every single FBS university in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the other states we compete with in athletics.