Recruiting+ 4 NT Is Recruits Still Look @ NT/DFW

PlummMeanGreen · October 27, 2005

MORE QUESTIONS HERE THAN CARTER HAS PILLS... (Get the caffeine in your system now for this epistle) AND...........if you haven't figured it out by now with some of these multi-colored posts, I was also a big fan of the old Houston Astros rainbow colored unis'.

OK, TIME TO GET SERIOUS: Can we look back to that era before Coach Dickey and staff signed one of NT's top 2 recruiting classes ever (the Joe Greene group with numerous NFL draft choices from Mean Joe's class were quite exceptional); yet can we all look back with the way things were before "The Class" who "only" took us to 4 bowl games?

Remember those bleak days before DD and staff signed "The Class" how we seemed to be going nowhwere fast with most wanting DD gone even back in that day? Seems like we have most always wanted poor ol' DD out the back and down the track in Mean Green Country. What if we would have fired him before he and his staff signed "The Class" and we hired yet another NT coach who was no more a fit at UNT, Denton or our Lone Star State environment than most of us from Texas would ever be a fit in a New Jersey locale?

DD seems to be much more resilient than we as fans seem to be at times. Seems we have both pissed each other off in the past (understatement there?) He has brought some of the controversy unto himself, yet we have created much for him to be pissed off at us, too. In our microwave society of most NORTH TEXAS fans/alum's demand for instant success (of which even 4 bowl games wasn't enough for some of our fans), it really must be sometimes difficult to be an NCAA D1-A coach in Denton, Texas. We all want champagne and caviore yet we in the past have given our athletic department just enough to have beer and pretzels. But isn't it still about the Big Picture, ie, the future? Shouldn't we all look past all our noses and be looking at the Big Picture in Mean Green Country rather than a few Polaroid snap shots taken this Fall during this particular short vacation gone bad thus far?

Remember those bleak days in the era before DD and staff signed "The Class" of Texas "state" (not local) top 100/Oklahoma Fab 55 recruits when many of our fans/alums even before then were throwing hands up high in the air with disgust (which I may have had my hands as high as anyone back in that day)?

Can we remember that that was the scenario before DD and staff signed "The Class" when we had incommodius fans/alums and maybe the worst overall football facilities in the the entire NCAA Division One? Aren't what we are building now (as impressive as our new athletic facilities are to present players/new recruits) still more a "catch up" for NT athletics than a luxury? Still most ironic how bad facilities back in that day did not prevent "The Class" (who took us to 4 bowl games) from signing with NORTH TEXAS.

Now we have new facilities (others on the way) with higher expectations, too, but isn't the 119 member NCAA D1-A an even different and more difficult horse to saddle than it was back when we signed "The Class?" Have we as NT fans and alums made our own necessary adjustments to this new era by giving more to our athletic coffers than ever before and buying season tickets non-stop? I think we all know the answer to that question at this moment in the history of our school. Undoubtedly, most of your reading this manifesto have stepped up to the plate.

Yet aren't we as fans/alums an integral part of NT's formula for athletic success in what really seems to be a new era in NCAA D1-A even since we signed "The Class?" A complete different era when new, impressive "WOW" facilities (as TAMU's Coach Francione calls them) are being built non-stop in many D-1 outposts during this present NCAA facilities arms race of which NT is as involved as any in the non BCS? Other than all our free opinions we all offer on GMG.com, have we really all done our parts as each of our household budgets allow?

Again, I know most of you who are still reading this post long ago stepped up to the plate as far as NT athletics is concerned. Some of you (who I am most honored to have as aquaintances) have gone the extra mile or 2 or 3 with all this for years at NT. Please, please, please don't forget to pat yourselves on the back from time to time because you are supporting a Texas university whose colors are NOT burn't orange/white OR maroon/white. Anyone can support those 2 Texas flagship schools without having to do much in the area of personal sacrifice.

FWIW, can't anybody who has never even been to the locales of our state's 2 flagship schools in Austin or College Station go to a Wal Mart or a Loves, buy a UT or TAMU T-shirt and say they are (suddenly) Longhorn or Aggie fans? Hellsbells, I've seen po' white trailer unfortunates doing that! : Yet, at the University of North Texas, we all get to be an integral part of something that is in the midst of a very exciting journey (and doesn't any journey have detours from time to time?); yet, we are all on a Mean Green journey where we (individually) can make a difference AND............where many of "YOU" have made that difference. Again, pat yourselves on the back and please, please, please (James Brown singing here) don't under-play what you have done.

Will a few OOC losses this Fall have more affect on NT than what we are doing with the Big Picture that is evolving before our very eyes out at our Eagle Point Campus and the new Mean Green Athletic Village? How many of our OOC opponents at the non BCS level can come even come close to matching what the University of North Texas is now doing and will continue to do until all is finished on those 200 acres between those 2 Texas interstates? Won't our upcoming new Mean Green recruits prefer to know what they will be an integral part of than what has happened with a few Polaroid snap shots of this season at hand?

When you ask the girl of your dreams out for a date and she confirms, approves and says yes, does she immediatley go into delving into the past non-stop as to your social life? Most likely not, but rather she looks to a brand new day and era of new and exciting possibilities for herself now wouldn't she?

So will it be for all of NT's new recruits we sign this February who will look ahead to their own new and exciting possibilites and how they can make a big difference at an upwardly bound and booming enrollment university in one of the best business centers in the USA. How many of our NT football lettermen stay in the Denton/DFW area to pursue their life's profession? ? ? With over 100,000 NT Exes in the Denton/DFW Metroplex, how many NT alums from that huge reservoir help our NORTH TEXAS Lettermen get their careers jump-started? So aren't there many other reasons even beyond playing Mean Green football for a recruit to affiliate with NORTH TEXAS, ie, the university who has the single most largest group of alums in the North Texas Metroplex than any other single university in the Lone Star State and that includes UT and TAMU?

As former NT football coach Hayden Fry used to say, "IF I CAN JUST GET THEM TO DENTON AND ON THE NT CAMPUS, I HAVE AS BIG A CHANCE OF SIGNING A KID AS ANYONE." So have any of you lurkers/visitors of GMG.com living outside the Metroplex been on the UNT campus lately? If so, then you know more than anyone that we do have an extremely marketble commodity and about 30,000 co-eds in Denton, Texas, America (which includes Denton's Texas Women's University) does not hurt the Mean Green cause come recruiting season, either.

GMG!

Edited October 28, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

stevegreen · October 27, 2005

nice job

well done!

H-towngreen · October 27, 2005

Have we had kids at games taking their official visits, or is will that be happening at a later game?

UNTLifer · October 27, 2005

As former NT football coach Hayden Fry used to say, "IF I CAN JUST GET THEM TO DENTON AND ON THE NT CAMPUS, I HAVE AS BIG A CHANCE OF SIGNING A KID AS ANYONE."

If our current coach would show this type of attitude and reach out to the fans, a lot of the complaints would stop.

Stan R · October 27, 2005

If our current coach would show this type of attitude and reach out to the fans, a lot of the complaints would stop.
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Isn't that kind of like asking robin williams to sit still in a chair without talking for an hour?

PlummMeanGreen · October 27, 2005

Have we had kids at games taking their official visits, or is will that be happening at a later game?
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Seems like we have had our usual group of potential recruits who all sit with our Eagle Angels.

PlummMeanGreen · October 28, 2005

Have we had kids at games taking their official visits, or is will that be happening at a later game?
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H-towngreen, NORTH TEXAS has a unique advantage because of our being located in an area of almost 6 million population that many DFW area kids come up to Denton (on their own) for what the NCAA calls an "unofficial" visit that is not counted among their number of official visits (whatever that number) a recruit can now make.

GMG!

PS: Sorry about our Astros.

Edited October 28, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen