TV Blast From the Past: 1990 SMU/UNT

UNTLifer · September 22, 2016

8 hours ago, FirefightnRick said:

It was the last sell out of Fouts that I remember, and PD were having to ask people to move from sitting in the aisles. Very little standing room.

And yes, Davis got an invite to a Pittsburgh mini camp in the spring of 1990. He got cut just in time to make it back to Denton to be Scott Bakula's body double and stuntman in NR. All the long throws you see in that movie are from him. They had him throw over and over and over for at least an hour during the day then at night filming his passes. He had a hell of a strong arm. Several college players had trouble catching his pass during an NFL open try out he got hired to work at over in Richardson one time.

He's the only dude I ever knew who when he threw a football you could hear the laces whistle in the wind as it went by.

Rick

Wonder what happened to Marcus Camper. He never had trouble catching Davis' passes.

rcade · September 22, 2016

This was the most memorable game I attended as a UNT student. We were fired up in the crowd for the rest of the game.

A rumor went around that Corky Nelson was in the middle of that throwing punches.

Hating SMU was more fun than hating any other team we played.

Here's some little-seen footage from the stands of that game at halftime.

greenminer · September 22, 2016

Only evidence I've ever seen that suggests these two teams actually gave two cents about each other.

How do we bring that back? It's obviously not the same right now.

PlummMeanGreen · September 22, 2016

On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 9:48 AM, NorthTexan95 said:

Could you say if we had most of that October, 1990, Fouts Field crowd coupled with our present Apogee crowd that stadium expansion would soon be a priority?

Retention of fans from decade to decade? How do we do it? What would work at North Texas? We'd all agree winning regularly would help.

IMO, the expected (& continued) population explosion at UNT's main campus & in Denton County will have us filling Apogee Stadium by default at some point. It will happen in spite of anything we could do to screw it up! LOL!

Edited September 22, 2016 by PlummMeanGreen

GrandGreen · September 22, 2016

On 9/21/2016 at 11:56 AM, greenjoe said:

Did you hear the "North Texas State" reference ?

Hayden Fry hurt North Texas. Most of my GMG friends here will disagree, but with Fry's leadership, we left the Missouri Valley Conference with the likes of Louisville and Memphis. We left to become the "Notre Dame of the south." We'll never know what might have happened but here we are watching many of our old conference mates in conferences we would have been considered for.

If "ifs and buts" ...

GO MEAN GREEN

Not true, Louisville and Memphis were both out of the MVC by the time NT left. The real downfall of NT athletics occurred after Fry left, when NT's administration led by Hurley were content to let NT fall into 1AA . Louisville, Memphis, and Cincinnati all continued to build their programs in CUSA while NT languished in the Southland.

Yes, NT if they had stayed in a dying MVC could have avoided the automatic drop down to 1aa like Tulsa. However, going independence and leaving a very bad MVC with a change to move up was not a bad bet. Again, the total blame goes to an Administration who chose to cut back on athletics even with Fry's success, not to Hayden; one of the few who were actually trying to advance NT football.

1908-16

.

Edited September 22, 2016 by GrandGreen

PlummMeanGreen · September 22, 2016

Just Scattershootin' From the Hip (again):

So many tried to remove all evidence that Fry had even been on the UNT payroll. It was a sad day to watch those who were responsible & who could not carry Fry's jock strap. He had upset some of the nestors downtown who were content to see our school continue as a Normal college.

Moving to 1-AA seemed to be our only option to hear it from our administration. Many of us on this forum were at that hastily thrown-together meeting when Bill Vogel was calling every one he knew in DFW telling us "if you want to keep football at North Texas come to this meeting."

Few in Dr. Hurley's administration would have had the feathers to drop football, but if there ever was a time to do it that would have been the time.

1975 season as a bell weather: There was just something very cool about hearing ABC's Keith Jackson on a national telecast brag about Hayden Fry's North Texas team beating the UT Vols. It was a national sports story. That kind of thing made a lot of Greenbloods get even greener. ?✳️?

Then at the following Winter NCAA meetings North Texas was the talk of the convention. Good things happen when you do things the entire NCAA & nation notices. Then SWC member Rice U tried to hire Fry away from North Texas, but he told the media he had a better job In Denton.

✳️ ➡️ THIS THEN WAS THE CULTURE AT NORTH TEXAS WITH ONE GOOD THING HAPPENING AFTER ANOTHER ALL AROUND. ? Matter a fact, wasn't too long after the 1975 Winter NCAA meetings that AD Fry picked up the phone & called his bud Darrell Royal who signed UNT for 3-4 games with his U of Texas Longhorns. As I recollect, no school at our budget level in the entire USA had ever scheduled UT-Austin prior to or during that era. (UNT almost beat Earl Campbell & the Horns in that 1'st ever meeting in 1976 with the final score being 17-14).

Edited September 23, 2016 by PlummMeanGreen