A Crazy Idea for North Texas

[Moobs]

This wouldn't even be a consideration if we had a coaching staff that could coach these current players up to their potential to dominate the CUSA.

[GrandGreen]

Going independent, might work for football for awhile, according to many what has NT got to lose.   However, it would most likely have an extreme negative effect on most other sports.  

As far as scheduling a bunch of powers, that was Trilli/Helwig's theory in basketball and it destroyed the program.

Fry went independent out of necessity, the MVC was cratering and of course he hoped for a SWC invite.  

Thankfully NT is no longer in the financial position that drove both Fry away and forced multiple money games to pay the bills. 

Trilli, Helwig, Fry and numerous other AD employees were victims of the NT Administration's aversion to spending money on athletes.   Not that NT is rolling in dollars at this point, but compared to the seventies and eighties; it is much better. 

[PlummMeanGreen]

On 9/28/2021 at 7:47 PM, MeanGreenGlory said:

You're might hate this idea...

But hear me out...

If Colorado State and Air Force leave the MWC for the AAC, I don't think the MWC is a good conference for us. I also don't think we're getting an AAC invite.

So we're currently looking at sitting tight with our CUSA, Sun Belt, and MAC colleagues at the bottom of the barrel of NCAA football. 

This is all like an economic downturn where businesses need to adapt, innovate, and evolve in order to stay afloat. Otherwise, you become irrelevant and die (e.g. Blockbuster failing to stream and Kodak failing to switch to digital).

I don't see CUSA or the Sun Belt taking any reasonable measures to create a logical conference...nor do I see CUSA taking action alone to improve its stock in the college football landcsape.

This means it's up to us—as a school—to write our own story if we want anything other than the unfortunate inevitable. If we don't adapt, innovate, and evolve quickly, there's a good chance we'll be left behind and be forced to Division II as the P5 fully take over Division I.

So here's the crazy idea...

What if we:

• Went independent
• Hired a coach like Lane Kiffin along with a bunch of other P5 coordinators
• Scheduled difficult schedules year after year stacked against the likes of Alabama, LSU, Notre Dame, BYU, Stanford, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, etc.
• Used the schedule and coaching staff to attract a roster of strong P5 talent through the transfer portal

Now, you're probably thinking, "That's a recipe for disaster! We won't win any games!"

And you're right, we'd probably go 0–12 for a few years.

But...

• All of those schools would pay us big bucks those first few years for their "guaranteed" game
• Our strength of schedule becomes one of the top in the country and could help attract top notch players that aren't getting the playing time they want at their current schools
• Our name stays relevant in the P5 conversation every weekend of the season (even if as the punching bag at first)
• Over time, iron sharpens iron; if you constantly play the top teams, you're going to get better than you would playing CUSA / Sun Belt teams every week
• Over time, you start to win and turn heads
• The more heads you turn, the more you build off the "underdog/come back" story that every sports anchor *loves* to talk about
• The more positive buzz you build, the more you establish yourself as a power player
• Once established as a power player, we either continue on as an independent or work to get a P5 conference invite

Now, you might be thinking, "That's insane and there's a lot of risk associated with that. We could go independent, not win a single game for 6 years, never get an invite to a P5 conference, and just be a lonely loser of a school."

But here's the thing...

That's the worst case scenario...

And we've been uncomfortably close to that worst case scenario in CUSA for the past couple years. So, if that worst case scenario happens, and we absolutely must join a conference, then we simply go back to CUSA or the Sun Belt and end up exactly where we would have been all along. 

So all in all, it doesn't feel that risky to me, and the upside—albeit a challenging uphill battle—sounds far more exciting, appealing, and worth the risk.

Liberty Flames football quality has not been affected by being Independent. They busted the gonads of this years probable CUSA football champion last night. 

UNT last had a  multi-football seasons winning streak as an Independent with some wins that gave us national attention.  Our last win over a ranked FBS team, too. In fact, the UPI poll had us ranked & granted, Fry was a voter in that poll, but we needed more than just his vote to get ranked I would think.

The first few years of our Sun Belt success was highlighted by one bowl win but what a win—the Mean Green beat the (then) reining Conference-USA champion Cincinnati Bearcats.   Other NO Bowl appearances by the MG did not open high profile job interviews for DD. In fact, I can only think of one.

With 7 or 8 other present G5 schools agreeing to go Indy could give it a chance to succeed as far as the annual scheduling part, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. 
 

❇️

Edited October 3, 2021 by PlummMeanGreen

[meangreen11]

On 9/28/2021 at 7:47 PM, MeanGreenGlory said:

You're might hate this idea...

But hear me out...

If Colorado State and Air Force leave the MWC for the AAC, I don't think the MWC is a good conference for us. I also don't think we're getting an AAC invite.

So we're currently looking at sitting tight with our CUSA, Sun Belt, and MAC colleagues at the bottom of the barrel of NCAA football. 

This is all like an economic downturn where businesses need to adapt, innovate, and evolve in order to stay afloat. Otherwise, you become irrelevant and die (e.g. Blockbuster failing to stream and Kodak failing to switch to digital).

I don't see CUSA or the Sun Belt taking any reasonable measures to create a logical conference...nor do I see CUSA taking action alone to improve its stock in the college football landcsape.

This means it's up to us—as a school—to write our own story if we want anything other than the unfortunate inevitable. If we don't adapt, innovate, and evolve quickly, there's a good chance we'll be left behind and be forced to Division II as the P5 fully take over Division I.

So here's the crazy idea...

What if we:

• Went independent
• Hired a coach like Lane Kiffin along with a bunch of other P5 coordinators
• Scheduled difficult schedules year after year stacked against the likes of Alabama, LSU, Notre Dame, BYU, Stanford, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, etc.
• Used the schedule and coaching staff to attract a roster of strong P5 talent through the transfer portal

Now, you're probably thinking, "That's a recipe for disaster! We won't win any games!"

And you're right, we'd probably go 0–12 for a few years.

But...

• All of those schools would pay us big bucks those first few years for their "guaranteed" game
• Our strength of schedule becomes one of the top in the country and could help attract top notch players that aren't getting the playing time they want at their current schools
• Our name stays relevant in the P5 conversation every weekend of the season (even if as the punching bag at first)
• Over time, iron sharpens iron; if you constantly play the top teams, you're going to get better than you would playing CUSA / Sun Belt teams every week
• Over time, you start to win and turn heads
• The more heads you turn, the more you build off the "underdog/come back" story that every sports anchor *loves* to talk about
• The more positive buzz you build, the more you establish yourself as a power player
• Once established as a power player, we either continue on as an independent or work to get a P5 conference invite

Now, you might be thinking, "That's insane and there's a lot of risk associated with that. We could go independent, not win a single game for 6 years, never get an invite to a P5 conference, and just be a lonely loser of a school."

But here's the thing...

That's the worst case scenario...

And we've been uncomfortably close to that worst case scenario in CUSA for the past couple years. So, if that worst case scenario happens, and we absolutely must join a conference, then we simply go back to CUSA or the Sun Belt and end up exactly where we would have been all along. 

So all in all, it doesn't feel that risky to me, and the upside—albeit a challenging uphill battle—sounds far more exciting, appealing, and worth the risk.

I actually like this idea a lot.  It is risky but what do we have to lose.  It's either this or go back to the Belt hat in hand.

[untjim1995]

It would be the highest of risk/reward, no doubt. But there’s zero chance we would ever do this. Our alma mater runs the entire athletic department on known costs. It’s how they budget and how they operate. Not one second or cent will ever be spent on opportunity costs because we don’t play that game—never have, never will. 
 

We have an awesome stadium and great facilities in our wonderful location. The BOR and administration recognize all of this and are very fine with letting us enjoy those. I know that they don’t want to have to spend millions more on the program unless it is just beyond necessary. Go independent would increase a ton of anxiety around here that I’m afraid would make our fans go insane. It just isn’t the path we will go down.