Is the MWC Better for UNT

keith · September 29, 2021

In the current hierarchy of conferences, the Mountain West is above CUSA, so regardless of eventual composition, it would be seen as a move up for UNT (both inside and outside the UNT community). One thing for sure is just about every school in the G5 is looking for a new/better conference home even if its not their desired final destination. Moves up are easy to understand, lateral moves are a bit more dicey to predict, so I'm not sure worrying about if this or that school leaves, is it still a good place for UNT. Mountain West presidents recently voted 6-4 to not raise the conference exit fees (currently the final two years of conference payouts). Two schools were not present for the vote. This was in context of the conference saying it did not want to stand in the way of schools that wanted to move to a better conference (i.e. B12). One way to think about this is that at least 6 schools have their eyes on moving up and don't want to pay higher exit fees when/if the opportunity comes and the other 4 either don't see themselves as likely "move up" candidates, want to keep the conference together or simply want more money when the eventual defections happen.

At this point, everyone is jockeying for position. The "Power" conferences know that they can have their pick of the litter from any G5 conference whenever they want, but there is really only two they are going to pick from, the MW and the AAC. They are not dipping into CUSA, the MAC or the SBC. If the opportunity comes, we move to the MW or the AAC in a heartbeat regardless of who is or isn't left in that conference IMHO.

Mean Green Matt · September 29, 2021

We are all overthinking this. There is a lot up in the air about which specific conference we will end up in. While we may not know the name, we absolutely know it will be whichever one is the worst.

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

8 hours ago, ADLER said:

Go re-read the post. It doesn't say a thing about visiting fans.

OK. You're right. I've heard that tired argument before though, so I assumed. My bad there.
Now, you're telling me that the closer our opponents are to us geographically, the better our attendance will be? This is laughable, and flat-out incorrect. Maybe when considering the FCS school we schedule, but otherwise, fans want to see UNT winning against the best competition, no matter where they're from! And if we're losing, it doesn't matter who we're playing.

Your argument right now is predicated on some serious WORST CASE SCENARIO assumptions for the MWC. This is not going to happen, at least not in the near term. The thought of the MWC losing Boise St., SDSU, COSt, & Air Force, then only replacing those schools with UTEP & NMSt (no doubt in your mind simply because of their geographic location) is hilarious. Are you serious?
I'm still doubtful CSU & Air Force leave MWC for the AAC, and I know neither are getting Big12 invites. I'm 99% certain SDSU is not going to the AAC... just a stupid move for them. Boise St. is DEFINITELY not going to the AAC. The Big12 is a possibility for Boise St. though, and out of all the movement, the most likely in my opinion.

When things move around again in a few years, NT can hopefully position ourselves to be in a place where whatever new conferences form, we can join in with better regionalized competition. We simply have to WIN!! I really don't think the MWC would be NT's final landing place. It's a step in the right direction when thinking long-term though.

Rudy · September 29, 2021

On 9/25/2021 at 6:21 PM, Mike Jackson said:

We aren’t at least 0.500 in CUSA conference play so I don’t see why this conversation is so active. We aren’t competitive in CUSA and overpaying to look bad on a bigger stage than the circa 2000 Sun Belt. 🤷🏽‍♂️ Vanderbilt is in the SEC do we aspire to be like them athletically?

If the Football program gets fixed the conference situation will improve if the leaders aren’t idiots

At this point, CUSA isn't on a bigger stage than the Sun Belt. The TV deal is evidence of that.

Rudy · September 29, 2021

17 hours ago, ADLER said:

So, we either need to move all the small market incredibly distant western schools closer, or fire Judy.

Which seems more feasible?

If CUSA was going to fire Judy, they would have done so by now.

Tom McKrackin · September 29, 2021

Screw Judy - i think we need to start thinking about firing Dr. Smatrsk as he is Judy’s boss and has allowed the mess.

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

Just now, Tom McKrackin said:

Screw Judy - i think we need to start thinking about firing Dr. Smatrsk as he is Judy’s boss and has allowed the mess.

He was recently elected the C-USA Board of Directors in June. We're just 4 months into his tenure at the helm. Hopefully, he'll get things going at some point.

southsideguy · September 29, 2021

So say MWC loses CSU and AFA and Marshall and USM leave for the Sunbelt which is conference is a better fit for us?

ADLER · September 29, 2021

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

He was recently elected the C-USA Board of Directors in June. We're just 4 months into his tenure at the helm. Hopefully, he'll get things going at some point.

Or, as the President of the C-USA Board of Directors he will compelled to show loyalty to CUSA under any circumstances, regardless of if an opportunity for North Texas to move to another conference arises.

southsideguy · September 29, 2021

Maybe everybody thinks they are going somewhere else and are not going to make the hard choice. Kinda like UNT football.

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

5 minutes ago, ADLER said:

Or, as the President of the C-USA Board of Directors he will compelled to show loyalty to CUSA under any circumstances, regardless of if an opportunity for North Texas to move to another conference arises.

When he was first elected, sure.
Texas/OU shook things up and started the domino movement in July. A month-and-a-half after Smatresk took on the role.
Whatever Smatresk's end goals were when he was originally elected should be shaken up as well.

Green Otaku · September 29, 2021

17 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

So say MWC loses CSU and AFA and Marshall and USM leave for the Sunbelt which is conference is a better fit for us?

IF we had a guarantee that the MWC would only lose those 2, the MWC by a long shot.

Aquila_Viridis · September 29, 2021

It won't matter what conference we're in if we consistently lose more games than we win. That's all we've ever done, even in 1-AA. Until we establish a realistic expectation of winning more games than we lose, by doing so for several years, we won't be going anywhere but down. We have no foundation for sustained success. I'd even support dropping to FCS temporarily if it was based on a serious, demonstrated commitment by university leadership to consistently win at that level. After realizing that vision, then we would have a foundation on which to build. It would take several seasons of positive W-L.

ADLER · September 29, 2021

2 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

OK. You're right. I've heard that tired argument before though, so I assumed. My bad there.
Now, you're telling me that the closer our opponents are to us geographically, the better our attendance will be? This is laughable, and flat-out incorrect. Maybe when considering the FCS school we schedule, but otherwise, fans want to see UNT winning against the best competition, no matter where they're from! And if we're losing, it doesn't matter who we're playing.

Your argument right now is predicated on some serious WORST CASE SCENARIO assumptions for the MWC. This is not going to happen, at least not in the near term. The thought of the MWC losing Boise St., SDSU, COSt, & Air Force, then only replacing those schools with UTEP & NMSt (no doubt in your mind simply because of their geographic location) is hilarious. Are you serious?
I'm still doubtful CSU & Air Force leave MWC for the AAC, and I know neither are getting Big12 invites. I'm 99% certain SDSU is not going to the AAC... just a stupid move for them. Boise St. is DEFINITELY not going to the AAC. The Big12 is a possibility for Boise St. though, and out of all the movement, the most likely in my opinion.

When things move around again in a few years, NT can hopefully position ourselves to be in a place where whatever new conferences form, we can join in with better regionalized competition. We simply have to WIN!! I really don't think the MWC would be NT's final landing place. It's a step in the right direction when thinking long-term though.

Once again, go re-read the post. The assumption that UTEP and NMSU would be the most logical acquisitions was only on the quote from their message board. It's easy to deduct since those are the only two available FBS schools left in the Mountain and Pacific Zones.

As clearly stated, I was working with what they expressed as "common knowledge" in their forum regarding future defections of Colorado State, Air Force, Boise St, and San Diego St.

The AAC has informally extended invitations to Colorado State, Air Force, Boise St, and San Diego St. Only Air Force and Colorado State have expressed interest. Why? Because SDSU and Boise are on the target list for an extended Big XII once Texas and Oklahoma leave. Of course they're not going to commit to the AAC in the interim if they have a commitment to move elsewhere.

The only contention I had was that Mean Green fans are more inclined to have interest in North Texas playing schools that that are familiar. I would like to join with only SEC schools but last I checked that wasn't really an option. After the P5 conferences, our next options would be regional mid-majors or distant mid-majors. It's painfully obvious that, regardless of opponent quality, North Texas fans have very little interest in distant mid-majors, and this includes almost all of CUSA-East, the MAC, any Sun Belt school not named Texas St, Arkansas St, or Louisiana and several AAC-East schools.

Is there really anything incorrect with these assessments?

Dr. Van Nostrand, "Well yes, that is my contention": seinfeld

"Well yes, that is my contention"

keith · September 29, 2021

40 minutes ago, ADLER said:

<snip

The only contention I had was that Mean Green fans are more inclined to have interest in North Texas playing schools that that are familiar. I would like to join with only SEC schools but last I checked that wasn't really an option. After the P5 conferences, our next options would be regional mid-majors or distant mid-majors. It's painfully obvious that, regardless of opponent quality, North Texas fans have very little interest in distant mid-majors, and this includes almost all of CUSA-East, the MAC, any Sun Belt school not named Texas St, Arkansas St, or Louisiana and several AAC-East schools.

<snip>

As unfortunate as it is, I think it depends on the name recognition of the distant mid-majors within the minds of the UNT, Denton or surrounding communities. For example, Army and Navy I think would classify as distant mid-majors and drew good crowds when we played them in Denton.

Green Otaku · September 29, 2021

51 minutes ago, ADLER said:

North Texas fans have very little interest in distant mid-majors, and this includes almost all of CUSA-East, the MAC, any Sun Belt school not named Texas St, Arkansas St, or Louisiana and several AAC-East schools.

Is there really anything incorrect with these assessments?

Fans have never cared about playing UL, Arkansas St., or Texas St. Even in our own conference fans only care about UTSA and maybe Rice & LA Tech.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Green Otaku

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

24 minutes ago, ADLER said:

Once again, go re-read the post. The assumption that UTEP and NMSU would be the most logical acquisitions was only on the quote from their message board. It's easy to deduct since those are the only two available FBS schools left in the Mountain and Pacific Zones.

As clearly stated, I was working with what they expressed as "common knowledge" in their forum regarding future defections of Colorado State, Air Force, Boise St, and San Diego St.

The AAC has informally extended invitations to Colorado State, Air Force, Boise St, and San Diego St. Only Air Force and Colorado State have expressed interest. Why? Because SDSU and Boise are on the target list for an extended Big XII once Texas and Oklahoma leave. Of course they're not going to commit to the AAC in the interim if they have a commitment to move elsewhere.

The only contention I had was that Mean Green fans are more inclined to have interest in North Texas playing schools that that are familiar. I would like to join with only SEC schools but last I checked that wasn't really an option. After the P5 conferences, our next options would be regional mid-majors or distant mid-majors. It's painfully obvious that, regardless of opponent quality, North Texas fans have very little interest in distant mid-majors, and this includes almost all of CUSA-East, the MAC, any Sun Belt school not named Texas St, Arkansas St, or Louisiana and several AAC-East schools.

Is there really anything incorrect with these assessments?

"Well yes, that is my contention"

Wait, a few posters in a MWC message board are what you're citing? That's not very reliable. I mean, look around here. You can move from one thread to the next and find wildly different ideas/speculation.

I think our point of contention would be around the term "familiarity" in terms of opponents. You're clearly basing your familiarity solely on geography. Understandable. The closer a school is, the better chance someone might know them.
You're neglecting actual football fans' (you know, the ones who would want to attend a NT football game!) familiarity. And quality of opponents is going to be key in being familiar with them... not how close the opponents are. Quality opponents get more notoriety/exposure, so they would be more familiar to a Joe Sportsguy. You've dismissed this point prematurely, because, unfortunately, we haven't had a quality/ranked team come here to play! So how would you know?
Over the past 5 seasons, the following MWC teams have been ranked:
Boise St. (duh)
Fresno St.
Utah St.
San Jose St.
Air Force
SDSU
During that same timeframe, here are the ranked C-USA teams:
<<Crickets>> (What's awful/telling here is that the 2017 FAU team absolutely should have been ranked).

Point being: If I'm choosing, I'd obviously want the best of both worlds (geography & quality) and jump into the AAC. I don't think that invite is coming though. So, give me quality all day, every day. And you'll find the better quality (re: familiarity) in the MWC, hands down. **Bonus points if we can bring a few of our own geographic friends like UTSA, Rice & LATech with us when moving over!**

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · September 29, 2021

1 minute ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Wait, a few posters in a MWC message board are what you're citing? That's not very reliable. I mean, look around here. You can move from one thread to the next and find wildly different ideas/speculation.

I think our point of contention would be around the term "familiarity" in terms of opponents. You're clearly basing your familiarity solely on geography. Understandable. The closer a school is, the better chance someone might know them.
You're neglecting actual football fans' (you know, the ones who would want to attend a NT football game!) familiarity. And quality of opponents is going to be key in being familiar with them... not how close the opponents are. Quality opponents get more notoriety/exposure, so they would be more familiar to a Joe Sportsguy. You've dismissed this point prematurely, because, unfortunately, we haven't had a quality/ranked team come here to play! So how would you know?
Over the past 5 seasons, the following MWC teams have been ranked:
Boise St. (duh)
Fresno St.
Utah St.
San Jose St.
Air Force
SDSU
During that same timeframe, here are the ranked C-USA teams:
<<Crickets>> (What's awful/telling here is that the 2017 FAU team absolutely should have been ranked).

Point being: If I'm choosing, I'd obviously want the best of both worlds (geography & quality) and jump into the AAC. I don't think that invite is coming though. So, give me quality all day, every day. And you'll find the better quality (re: familiarity) in the MWC, hands down. **Bonus points if we can bring a few of our own geographic friends like UTSA, Rice & LATech with us when moving over!**

That 2017 FAU team would’ve killed any of the MW teams when they were ranked. That was a legit team, and unfortunately we got tossed around like a rag doll on national TV twice

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

1 minute ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

That 2017 FAU team would’ve killed any of the MW teams when they were ranked. That was a legit team, and unfortunately we got tossed around like a rag doll on national TV twice

You & I know that. But regular sports fans wouldn't.

The Die-hards like us are going to ride with NT whether we're playing teams that are strictly within 300 miles of us, or venture beyond.

MeanGreenTexan · September 29, 2021

1 hour ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

It won't matter what conference we're in if we consistently lose more games than we win. That's all we've ever done, even in 1-AA. Until we establish a realistic expectation of winning more games than we lose, by doing so for several years, we won't be going anywhere but down. We have no foundation for sustained success. I'd even support dropping to FCS temporarily if it was based on a serious, demonstrated commitment by university leadership to consistently win at that level. After realizing that vision, then we would have a foundation on which to build. It would take several seasons of positive W-L.

We have to assume we're going to turn this thing around, whether that's in C-USA, MWC, AAC (please please!), or the whacked-out SBCUSA merger give-up scenario.
Ideally, we would have won not only in 2017 & 2018, but actually carried it forward to today! Unfortunately, we didn't, and the shifting is happening right now. No time to start winning first before moving anymore.
Despite losing for the past 2.5 yrs, we need to get to the place where we'll be best suited for success when we do start winning again.

Greenrex · September 29, 2021

11 hours ago, ADLER said:

The above post is from the MW message board. If correct, the MWC, will be robbed of several of it's marquee teams. Not a horrible conference but certainly geographically challenging for a Dallas area school. We would realistically need five central time zone schools to move with us to make it a really good 16 member conference with two eight team divisions.

West: Nevada, UNLV, SJSU, Fresno St, Hawaii, Wyoming, Utah St, New Mexico,

East: Southern Miss, La Tech, Arkansas St, Louisiana, North Texas, UTSA, NMSU, UTEP

All are among the largest schools from each of their individual states.

Short of something like this there is no way we should be interested. Let the MWC sit at 10 with UTEP and NMSU.

This makes a lot of sense to me. However, I cannot imagine that we realize anything near this desirable.

UNTLifer · September 29, 2021

4 hours ago, Tom McKrackin said:

Screw Judy - i think we need to start thinking about firing Dr. Smatrsk as he is Judy’s boss and has allowed the mess.

No and no

keith · September 29, 2021

1 hour ago, Green Otaku said:

Fans have never cared about playing UL, Arkansas St., or Texas St. Even in our own conference fans only care about UTSA and maybe Rice & LA Tech.

I doubt many would care about UTSA if we found ourselves in different conferences. Sorta like MTSU. Don't care if we play them or not. If we were looking for OOC games neither would be high on the list to fill out the schedule.

Greenrex · September 29, 2021

Neal Smatresk is the most effective leader North Texas has had in my lifetime. To call him out for our current problems in athletics is without merit and irresponsible.

ADLER · September 29, 2021

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Wait, a few posters in a MWC message board are what you're citing? That's not very reliable. I mean, look around here. You can move from one thread to the next and find wildly different ideas/speculation.

You're right, maybe I'm wildly oblivious. But then again...

https://www.deseret.com/2021/9/28/22698868/reports-2-schools-close-to-leaving-mwc-for-aac-boise-state-waiting-and-hoping-for-big-12-invite

https://nevadasportsnet.com/news/reporters/report-colorado-state-air-force-poised-to-leave-mountain-west-for-aac

https://www.si.com/college/2021/09/28/colorado-state-air-force-college-football-aac-expansion

https://thespun.com/aac/aac-reportedly-eyeing-2-schools-for-expansion-colorado-state-air-force

https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2021/09/28/air-force-colorado-state-close-to-joining-aac-report/

https://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/csu/football/2021/09/28/colorado-state-may-join-aac-leave-mountain-west-national-reports/5903065001/

And, why wouldn't SDSU and Boise State be interested? Maybe the obvious?