3 straight ESPN Linear Games!!!

El Paso Eagle · October 14

Have we ever had three straight games on one of the ESPN channels that did not end with a "+" or a "3"?

RBP79 · October 15

Winning helps..

NT80 · October 15

National visibility, especially on a Saturday as opposed to Tuesday, etc is what moves you up the food chain of known programs.

3_n_out · October 15

This is why we moved to the AAC. We have to take advantage of this. What a golden opportunity.

Cooke County Kid · October 15

So far (this year) so good!

Beat the tigers!!!

Jason Howeth · October 15

The AAC is obviously helping our progress in visibility because the conference is tied to ESPN for national games. ESPN wants to show the top performing schools and right now--at 5-1--North Texas is the definition of "top performing." No matter our faults, which there are many, we deserve the attention. We deserve to get more eyeballs on our school.

A prime example of the opposite effect is that UTSA (2-4, 0-2) isn't getting national Saturday games at all. Who would've thought that a year ago? Drink it in, y'all. We may not be here in a couple weeks, but I hope to God that we are.

MeanGreenTexan · October 15

5 hours ago, Jason Howeth said:

The AAC is obviously helping our progress in visibility because the conference is tied to ESPN for national games. ESPN wants to show the top performing schools and right now--at 5-1--North Texas is the definition of "top performing." No matter our faults, which there are many, we deserve the attention. We deserve to get more eyeballs on our school.

A prime example of the opposite effect is that UTSA (2-4, 0-2) isn't getting national Saturday games at all. Who would've thought that a year ago? Drink it in, y'all. We may not be here in a couple weeks, but I hope to God that we are.

Yikes, this sounds eerily familiar to what we were saying the week of 9/23 - 9/29/2018.

Then, we get all the eyeballs on us, and crap the bed against an opponent who is actually good. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself ...again.

Rudy · October 15

Now if we can just avoid falling behind by a large margin...

UNT78 · October 15

Did you notice UTSA is favored over FAU? FAU is salty and should win this game by 10 at least…

MGNation92 · October 15

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Yikes, this sounds eerily familiar to what we were saying the week of 9/23 - 9/29/2018.

Then, we get all the eyeballs on us, and crap the bed against an opponent who is actually good. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself ...again.

To be fair - That was a very common occurrence under Littrell

Take for instance last week against FAU - not a big game by any stretch, but one that I wholeheartedly believe Littrell would've lost by 20 points - because that's what he did, crap the bed against teams on the road and teams who were worth a damn.

I'm not saying Morris won't be the same in the long run, but a game like FAU gives me some hope that he learned from his mistakes last season and is improving upon them.

UNTcrazy727 · October 15

15 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Have we ever had three straight games on one of the ESPN channels that did not end with a "+" or a "3"?

It will probably stretch to 5 straight games. The UTSA game is already scheduled for ESPN2 and the Army game will likely be picked up.

Edited October 15 by UNTcrazy727

emmitt01 · October 15

1 hour ago, UNT78 said:

Did you notice UTSA is favored over FAU? FAU is salty and should win this game by 10 at least…

Don’t be surprised if UTSA wins. I cannot stress enough how average their QB is…unless he’s playing our defense.

MeanGreenTexan · October 15

1 hour ago, MGNation92 said:

To be fair - That was a very common occurrence under Littrell

Take for instance last week against FAU - not a big game by any stretch, but one that I wholeheartedly believe Littrell would've lost by 20 points - because that's what he did, crap the bed against teams on the road and teams who were worth a damn.

I'm not saying Morris won't be the same in the long run, but a game like FAU gives me some hope that he learned from his mistakes last season and is improving upon them.

I know it was a fun come-from-behind victory, but FAU has a 2-4 record, including a 48-14 loss to UCONN. They're not very good.

Let's check the history on Littrell a little bit, because although he needed to go, facts are still facts.
Littrell beat bad teams handily. I'm pretty sure he would've taken care of FAU... who was reeling from modified practices and team members with family/friends who were impacted by a hurricane that week.
It was the good teams Littrell had a hard time with.
We'll see if Morris is more of the same, but so far, we've played 1 FBS team with a winning record, and we got absolutely crushed.

Cooke County Kid · October 15

We lost too many close games last year, the fau game was our second test of the year, S Alabama the first, and we passed. If this team wins the close games it will be a heck of a season. I am not too worried about our offense or even our special teams play. Our defense can give me serious heart burn…..

keith · October 15

13 hours ago, NT80 said:

National visibility, especially on a Saturday as opposed to Tuesday, etc is what moves you up the food chain of known programs.

Not sure I would count ESPNU in the same category as ESPN or ESPN2. The U struggles to bring in 50K viewers and is often much lower than that. The highest rated game on ESPNU through week 6 (week 7 hasn't been released yet) is the Boise State/Georgia Southern game @ 158K at the start of the season.

Say what you want about visibility, but Texas State has been on a national "broadcast" 3 times with a total of 1.36M viewers. We have been on once with 138K viewers. Let's see what the numbers are for the FAU game when they are released.

The games at Texas State have generally shown a full or nearly full stadium with an engaged student body that doesn't leave at half time. The Sun Belt has found a nice niche and has done a good job of elevating the perception of the conference and member schools IMHO.

NT80 · October 15

2 hours ago, MGNation92 said:

To be fair - That was a very common occurrence under Littrell

Take for instance last week against FAU - not a big game by any stretch, but one that I wholeheartedly believe Littrell would've lost by 20 points - because that's what he did, crap the bed against teams on the road and teams who were worth a damn.

I'm not saying Morris won't be the same in the long run, but a game like FAU gives me some hope that he learned from his mistakes last season and is improving upon them.

I believe FAU was also our first win on natural grass since like 2010? Someone posted it the week before the game but I can't find it.

rcade · October 15

1 minute ago, NT80 said:

I believe FAU was also our first win on natural grass since like 2010? Someone posted it the week before the game but I can't find it.

I think that was mentioned during the TV broadcast of the game. I found that bizarre. We play that few conference opponents on grass fields? Even in down years we usually beat a few conference foes.

golfingomez · October 15

1 hour ago, rcade said:

I think that was mentioned during the TV broadcast of the game. I found that bizarre. We play that few conference opponents on grass fields? Even in down years we usually beat a few conference foes.

We won the heart of Dallas bowl in 2013... Isn't that grass?

Edited October 15 by golfingomez

aztecskin · October 15

The follow-on to appearing on national television is the ratings. If people are watching us, then ESPN will put us on more often as well.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

rcade · October 15

19 minutes ago, golfingomez said:

We won the heart of Dallas bowl in 2013... Isn't that grass?

Maybe the factoid was limited to the regular season?

I wish I'd enjoyed that bowl win more. It was the peak of the McCarney era and the first New Year's Day bowl for us since the 1948 Salad Bowl.

meaniegreenie · October 15

3 hours ago, aztecskin said:

The follow-on to appearing on national television is the ratings. If people are watching us, then ESPN will put us on more often as well.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

Wow, in week 3, nearly 1.5Million people tuned in to watch nUTSAck play some other nearby team!!!

They must be doing some great marketing!

Edited October 15 by meaniegreenie

keith · October 16

22 hours ago, keith said:

Not sure I would count ESPNU in the same category as ESPN or ESPN2. The U struggles to bring in 50K viewers and is often much lower than that. The highest rated game on ESPNU through week 6 (week 7 hasn't been released yet) is the Boise State/Georgia Southern game @ 158K at the start of the season.

Say what you want about visibility, but Texas State has been on a national "broadcast" 3 times with a total of 1.36M viewers. We have been on once with 138K viewers. Let's see what the numbers are for the FAU game when they are released.

The games at Texas State have generally shown a full or nearly full stadium with an engaged student body that doesn't leave at half time. The Sun Belt has found a nice niche and has done a good job of elevating the perception of the conference and member schools IMHO.

The numbers are in for week 7 and they are not good for your favorite team.

UNT/FAU was the 2nd lowest rated game on the Deuce with 82K viewers. Only the Idaho/Montana State game (on after ours) have fewer viewership at 75K.

Compare this to a Thursday ESPN2 match up of Coastal Carolina/James Madison that brought in 390K and a Friday Harvard/Cornell game that had 312K viewers and, oh my, a Prairie View A&M vs. Ark. Pine-Bluff block-buster that got 147K viewers on Friday at 9:15PM.

The bottom three were all on the U. Toledo/Buffalo - 40K, Ohio/Central Michigan - 24K and Marshall/Georgia Southern - 15K. No one watches the U.

meaniegreenie · October 16

36 minutes ago, keith said:

The numbers are in for week 7 and they are not good for your favorite team.

UNT/FAU was the 2nd lowest rated game on the Deuce with 82K viewers. Only the Idaho/Montana State game (on after ours) have fewer viewership at 75K.

Compare this to a Thursday ESPN2 match up of Coastal Carolina/James Madison that brought in 390K and a Friday Harvard/Cornell game that had 312K viewers and, oh my, a Prairie View A&M vs. Ark. Pine-Bluff block-buster that got 147K viewers on Friday at 9:15PM.

The bottom three were all on the U. Toledo/Buffalo - 40K, Ohio/Central Michigan - 24K and Marshall/Georgia Southern - 15K. No one watches the U.

No argument those numbers are horrible, but regarding ESPNU, are there people that have ESPN/ESPN2 and don't have ESPNU?

MCMLXXX · October 16

56 minutes ago, meaniegreenie said:

No argument those numbers are horrible

A Saturday night game played at the same time as Oregon/Ohio State, LSU/Mississippi State, Florida/Tennessee is an apples/oranges comparison to games played on Thursday and Friday Nights. Very few casual viewers will pick FAU/UNT in those circumstances. I wish the numbers were higher, but they are a reflection of diehard supporters, and it is likely that the majority of those were our fans.

El Paso Eagle · October 16

1 hour ago, meaniegreenie said:

No argument those numbers are horrible, but regarding ESPNU, are there people that have ESPN/ESPN2 and don't have ESPNU?

Yes, I believe there are many systems that carry ESPN/ESPN 2, but not ESPNU (it is usually part of add-on packages)