The ultimate North Texas conversation

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

So, I’m in Frisco at an establishment that serves adult beverages last night.

Bunch of guys talking about football and the NFL is the main topic. Of course, I begin to cringe, as I know CFB talk is coming and the company I’m with include a Baylor fan and a guy who doesn’t care about football at all, so the other guys around us include Aggie fans, Sooner fans, a Longhorn fan, and a Tech fan. At any rate, I found out out, as I mention I’m a UNT grad and fan, that the Longhorn fan is a UNT alum (of course). I ask him why he follows UT and his answer was so perfect that I just laughed and shrugged my shoulders.

This guy’s buddies went to UT from high school, so he went down to see them a lot in college, because they were playing for national titles (his words) while we had a HS coach (assuming Todd Dodge) here. He said he would go to UNT games to—and here it is—to “watch the Green Brigade March at halftime” and then leave. I asked him if he ever goes to games now, since we play at Apogee. He looks at me and says, without a hint of remorse, “No, I just only follow UT religiously…but I do miss watching ‘our band’…”

I shook my head and finished my beer and went to the bathroom, realizing that I just spoke with the quintessential UNT alum. Didn’t care a lick about our program, but had pride in our band, which he won’t pay a dime to ever go see because a power team has his allegiance. This is a guy who graduated in 2006…

El Paso Eagle · September 21, 2021

Sadly this is the story of way too many people who went to North Texas. However, with all due respect to your friend supporting Texas, I'm assuming he's also a Dallas Cowboys fan. Both fanbases are full of people who live on history and keep trying to tell people how significant they are. Texas has probably spent more money on a program to have such little success than any other program. But hey they're going to be back again, again, again, again.

P.S. - Texas is a great example in college football of how so many people continue to judge programs on their history, not so much how they are performing.

Big Z · September 21, 2021

28 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

So, I’m in Frisco at an establishment that serves adult beverages last night.

Bunch of guys talking about football and the NFL is the main topic. Of course, I begin to cringe, as I know CFB talk is coming and the company I’m with include a Baylor fan and a guy who doesn’t care about football at all, so the other guys around us include Aggie fans, Sooner fans, a Longhorn fan, and a Tech fan. At any rate, I found out out, as I mention I’m a UNT grad and fan, that the Longhorn fan is a UNT alum (of course). I ask him why he follows UT and his answer was so perfect that I just laughed and shrugged my shoulders.

This guy’s buddies went to UT from high school, so he went down to see them a lot in college, because they were playing for national titles (his words) while we had a HS coach (assuming Todd Dodge) here. He said he would go to UNT games to—and here it is—to “watch the Green Brigade March at halftime” and then leave. I asked him if he ever goes to games now, since we play at Apogee. He looks at me and says, without a hint of remorse, “No, I just only follow UT religiously…but I do miss watching ‘our band’…”

I shook my head and finished my beer and went to the bathroom, realizing that I just spoke with the quintessential UNT alum. Didn’t care a lick about our program, but had pride in our band, which he won’t pay a dime to ever go see because a power team has his allegiance. This is a guy who graduated in 2006…

Vince Young days stole a lot of fans, even my friends who I went to school with. Also didn’t help that Fouts Field was a dump.

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · September 21, 2021

Unfortunately, this is how many conversations go with my friends and other people, unless we are doing good. Basketball wise, it’s a different story because they do a thing called winning.

PlummMeanGreen · September 21, 2021

But when we win again (ask Kansas State about a half century long losing streak which we helped them get out of); but when UNT wins again a much larger UNT constituency will come out of the wood work & find Apogee Stadium.
I know, not many on GMG think we will ever win again—but we will. Every school gets back into an NCAA win cycle.

* Obviously, we do need some staff tweaking for us to get back on track. Wren Baker is no fool. He’ll do the right thing. His own legacy depends on that. I trust him.

🦅

Edited September 21, 2021 by PlummMeanGreen

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

27 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Sadly this is the story of way too many people who went to North Texas. However, with all due respect to your friend supporting Texas, I'm assuming he's also a Dallas Cowboys fan. Both fanbases are full of people who live on history and keep trying to tell people how significant they are. Texas has probably spent more money on a program to have such little success than any other program. But hey they're going to be back again, again, again, again.

P.S. - Texas is a great example in college football of how so many people continue to judge programs on their history, not so much how they are performing.

That guy was no friend—just a guy at a bat

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

8 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

But when we win again (ask Kansas State about a half century long losing streak which we helped them get out of); but when UNT wins again a much larger UNT constituency will come out of the wood work & find Apogee Stadium.
I know, not many on GMG think we will ever win again—but we will. Every school gets back into an NCAA win cycle.

* Obviously, we do need some staff tweaking for us to get back on track. Wren Baker is no fool. He’ll do the right thing. His own legacy depends on that. I trust him.

🦅

Plumm, back when Fry was here and we had ranked teams, did we have good attendance at old Fouts?

Edited September 21, 2021 by untjim1995

Mean Green Matt · September 21, 2021

13 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

But when we win again (ask Kansas State about a half century long losing streak which we helped them get out of); but when UNT wins again a much larger UNT constituency will come out of the wood work & find Apogee Stadium.
I know, not many on GMG think we will ever win again—but we will. Every school gets back into an NCAA win cycle.

* Obviously, we do need some staff tweaking for us to get back on track. Wren Baker is no fool. He’ll do the right thing. His own legacy depends on that. I trust him.

🦅

The answer to this is actually yes. Look at the +\- 30k we had against LT in 2018 when they completely burst our bubble. Unfortunately, our fan base is even more fickle than average. It takes an extraordinary run to build it up. And next to nothing to dismantle it.

TheColonyEagle · September 21, 2021

3 minutes ago, Mean Green Matt said:

The answer to this is actually yes. Look at the +\- 30k we had against LT in 2018 when they completely burst our bubble. Unfortunately, our fan base is even more fickle than average. It takes an extraordinary run to build it up. And next to nothing to dismantle it.

100%

Fans will show. Alumni will show. We've done our part.

Only one thing missing.

PlummMeanGreen · September 21, 2021

13 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Plumm, back when Fry was here and we had ranked teams, did we have good attendance at old Fouts?

Never equaled what we’ve had recently when football showed momentum & promise. I would kill to see what UNT could do now with at least 4 winning seasons in a row which we’ve not had since Fry.
Best 20K seat Fouts crowd I saw was 2 weeks after we beat Tennessee.
When 1’st year Fla. State’s Coach Bobby Bowden brought his Seminoles to Fouts Field the UNT ticket manager said ticket sales for that game indicated a sellout & then—a rare snow blizzard hit northern Texas. It took me almost 2 hours to drive from Irving to Denton, but most stayed home.

🦅

Edited September 21, 2021 by PlummMeanGreen

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

2 minutes ago, TheColonyEagle said:

100%

Fans will show. Alumni will show. We've done our part.

Only one thing missing.

When that LT game came around, we had done the one thing that really gets UNT potential fans’ attention—beating a P5 team with name recognition. Then, we blew it…as usual

SilverEagle · September 21, 2021

3 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Plumm, back when Fry was here and we had ranked teams, did we have good attendance at old Fouts?

According to the 2005 football guide, the Fouts attendance during the Hayden Fry era was....

1973...11.990 (6 games)

1974....9,683 (7 games)

1975 11,843 (3 games)

1976 11,172 ( 4 games)

1977 19,599 (4 games)

1978 17,683 (6 games)

We also had games at Texas Stadium, and I don't know if those numbers were figured into the total. But, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th highest attendance at Texas stadium (as of 2005) was the 74 (27,183) ,77 (26,097), and 76 SMU (22,750) game.

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

1 minute ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

Never equaled what we’ve had recently when football showed momentum & promise. I would kill to see what UNT could do now with at least 4 winning seasons in a row which we’ve not had since Fry.
Best Fouts crowd I saw was 2 weeks after we beat Tennessee. When 1’st year Fla. State’s Bobby Bowden brought his Seminoles to Fouts Field the UNT ticket manager said ticket sales for that fame indicated a sellout for that game & then—a rare snow blizzard hit northern Texas. It took me almost 2 hours to drive from Irving to Denton, but most stayed home.

Also, so perfectly North Texas to get a home game against a team like Florida State—and then have a blizzard hit

keith · September 21, 2021

I enjoy the band and think that bands at college football games are a major contributor to the overall atmosphere of the college football game day experience. Who can't get up for the pre-game festivities or hearing the fight song echo through campus? Having said that, the band should never overshadow the football team, ever, ever, ever. The attitude or sentiment expressed above (I'm here for the band) is one of my pet peeves regarding UNT.

untjim1995 · September 21, 2021

6 minutes ago, keith said:

I enjoy the band and think that bands at college football games are a major contributor to the overall atmosphere of the college football game day experience. Who can't get up for the pre-game festivities or hearing the fight song echo through campus? Having said that, the band should never overshadow the football team, ever, ever, ever. The attitude or sentiment expressed above (I'm here for the band) is one of my pet peeves regarding UNT.

Back when we played at Fouts and you had to get tickets at the booth/table out front, I can’t tell you how many times I had parents of students say they were there to watch them March and will be leaving after that, so get them the best seat to watch the band perform. It’s not so common now, since you basically have tickets already or get them digitally sent to your phone—that used to just irritate me so much.

Ill get tons of negatives for this, but I’ve never watched our band perform a March at halftime even once that I can think of. Halftime is for getting food, going to the bathroom, and meeting up with old friends.

UNTLifer · September 21, 2021

I had a conversation with another alum regarding the coaching. He used Sam Pittman at Arkansas as an example of what we needed. Here is a quote from Pittman regarding the Razorbacks. Tell me if you have ever heard anything close to this from Littrell:

"We have an obligation to put a product on the field that people want to see"

As the other alum noted, Pittman wasn't a glamorous hire, but he was a guy that wanted badly to be the coach at Arkansas. He loves Arkansas and wants to be there, he cares.

Pittman had zero head coaching experience, having been a career assistant all over the place, but he has a passion about being in Fayetteville. Dabo Swinney is another example. Career assistant that has a passion about being at Clemson and surrounded himself with great coaches. I would prefer a new coach that has built a program, but I would take someone that has a passion about being in Denton and someone that will surround himself with assistants that can get the job done.

If I were Baker, I will let Littrell go and put Patrick Cobbs in as an interim HC and see what he can do.

BillySee58 · September 21, 2021

49 minutes ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

Unfortunately, this is how many conversations go with my friends and other people, unless we are doing good. Basketball wise, it’s a different story because they do a thing called winning.

Pressure is really on basketball. Doubt they look at it that way, but we absolutely need them to have a good season. It will go a long way towards by gaining the reputation of a legit program, and not just a fluke.

Kind of like how Butler was really good for 2 years with AJ Graves and some other seniors in 07 and 08, when they were able to still win and get a single digit NCAA tourney seed the next year without them that solidified their place as a good program not just a good team.

If they hadn’t maintained that success they wouldn’t be in the Big East. For re-alignment attractiveness we need to be seen as a top basketball program, not just a one-hit wonder. Especially with the way football is going.

Big Z · September 21, 2021

9 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

I had a conversation with another alum regarding the coaching. He used Sam Pittman at Arkansas as an example of what we needed. Here is a quote from Pittman regarding the Razorbacks. Tell me if you have ever heard anything close to this from Littrell:

"We have an obligation to put a product on the field that people want to see"

As the other alum noted, Pittman wasn't a glamorous hire, but he was a guy that wanted badly to be the coach at Arkansas. He loves Arkansas and wants to be there, he cares.

Pittman had zero head coaching experience, having been a career assistant all over the place, but he has a passion about being in Fayetteville. Dabo Swinney is another example. Career assistant that has a passion about being at Clemson and surrounded himself with great coaches. I would prefer a new coach that has built a program, but I would take someone that has a passion about being in Denton and someone that will surround himself with assistants that can get the job done.

If I were Baker, I will let Littrell go and put Patrick Cobbs in as an interim HC and see what he can do.

Pittman has been a coach in the SEC, Big 12, ACC and other conferences for many years.

Cobb has been running backs coach for Denton Ryan and us….

I’m a fan of Cobbs but he isn’t ready

PlummMeanGreen · September 21, 2021

33 minutes ago, TheColonyEagle said:

100%

Fans will show. Alumni will show. We've done our part.

Only one thing missing.

Truer words...

UNTLifer · September 21, 2021

2 minutes ago, Big Z said:

Pittman has been a coach in the SEC, Big 12, ACC and other conferences for many years.

Cobb has been running backs coach for Denton Ryan and us….

I’m a fan of Cobbs but he isn’t ready

That's why I said I would put him in on an interim basis and see how this season plays out. Swinney was a position coach at Alabama and Clemson, Clemson gave him the job on an interim basis and he ran with it.

Big Z · September 21, 2021

Just now, UNTLifer said:

That's why I said I would put him in on an interim basis and see how this season plays out. Swinney was a position coach at Alabama and Clemson, Clemson gave him the job on an interim basis and he ran with it.

I would put Mainord at interim before I ever put Cobbs

Mean Green Matt · September 21, 2021

20 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

I had a conversation with another alum regarding the coaching. He used Sam Pittman at Arkansas as an example of what we needed. Here is a quote from Pittman regarding the Razorbacks. Tell me if you have ever heard anything close to this from Littrell:

"We have an obligation to put a product on the field that people want to see"

As the other alum noted, Pittman wasn't a glamorous hire, but he was a guy that wanted badly to be the coach at Arkansas. He loves Arkansas and wants to be there, he cares.

Pittman had zero head coaching experience, having been a career assistant all over the place, but he has a passion about being in Fayetteville. Dabo Swinney is another example. Career assistant that has a passion about being at Clemson and surrounded himself with great coaches. I would prefer a new coach that has built a program, but I would take someone that has a passion about being in Denton and someone that will surround himself with assistants that can get the job done.

If I were Baker, I will let Littrell go and put Patrick Cobbs in as an interim HC and see what he can do.

Mike Canales is available.

UNTLifer · September 21, 2021

1 minute ago, Big Z said:

I would put Mainord at interim before I ever put Cobbs

I used to be on the Mainord bandwagon as a replacement should SL leave, but I am not so sure now.

PlummMeanGreen · September 21, 2021

33 minutes ago, SilverEagle said:

According to the 2005 football guide, the Fouts attendance during the Hayden Fry era was....

1973...11.990 (6 games)

1974....9,683 (7 games)

1975 11,843 (3 games)

1976 11,172 ( 4 games)

1977 19,599 (4 games)

1978 17,683 (6 games)

We also had games at Texas Stadium, and I don't know if those numbers were figured into the total. But, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th highest attendance at Texas stadium (as of 2005) was the 74 (27,183) ,77 (26,097), and 76 SMU (22,750) game.

In 1973 we had only 16K+ enrollment & was truly a commuter school compared to 42K+ today with more of our students who live on & near UNT’s campus than SMU & TCU’s combined enrollments. This is why all these occasional too few bright moments of MG football are so damn frustrating.

It’s really apples & oranges for those comparing the Fry years vs the present.

🦅