I know 35W, 114 & 407, etc. will be messed up sat.

[TheColonyEagle]

Do we think 35E going up from Dallas around 4 oclock will be ok Saturday?

[GoMeanGreen1999]

NASCAR screws all traffic up around the Lewisville/Denton area but I-35E is still a lot better than the other roads.

[MeanGreenBuzz]

I think we should sneak out on 35E right before NT Blvd block off the freeway and put up detour signs right to NT tailgating!

[bigrobdsp]

I think we should sneak out on 35E right before NT Blvd block off the freeway and put up detour signs right to NT tailgating!

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the last thing I want is a crowd of nascar fans. I would rather 2k attendance than that.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Going north/south from Dallas to Denton should not be a problem (other than the normal traffic) on a late Saturday afternoon, right?

Now we all know State Hwy 114 (east to west) will be one giant used car lot tomorrow for the 300,000 NASCAR fans that the FW Star Telegram said will be in attendance at TMS this weekend (and TMS being only 18 minutes from Fouts Field).

I have a most unique and novel idea: Lets ask as many from Denton and Denton County who can to drive the short distance to Fouts Field and show up for our ULaLa game tomorrown night. This also goes for our NT students who can walk to Fouts Field in less than 10 minutes from most any of the many dorms we have on our campus. The events of Texas Motor Speedway will not in any way affect any of the aforementioned constituencies for sure.

GMG!

Edited November 4, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

[VideoEagle]

the last thing I want is a crowd of nascar fans. I would rather 2k attendance than that.

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NASCAR fans - some many people with so few teeth.

[untbowler]

NASCAR fans - some many people with so few teeth.

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I am sure outsiders see this board and comments and go,

so many UNT fans and so few expectations.

[Baby Arm!]

Do we think 35E going up from Dallas around 4 oclock will be ok Saturday?

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Coming from The Colony, I'd go north FM 423/Main St all the way up to Hwy 380, then head west into Denton. Once you get to Denton I'd recommend turning north on Loop 288 and heading over to 35 rather than staying on HWY 389/University or turning south on 288.

[PlummMeanGreen]

I am sure outsiders see this board and comments and go,

so many UNT fans and so few expectations. 

..........................................

UNTbowler, I know your expecations are high for this program and we all admire that from you. I think most of us on this board share your high expectations for NORTH TEXAS, too. I don't know of many NT fans or alums I've met over the last 4 decades who have said "just as long as we're mediocre in football all will be just fine."

YOU'VE COME A LONG WAYS, BABY? From where we used to be most of my adult life as an NT alum/Mean Green fan, this program is a light year or 2 ahead of where it used to be during most of those years. I still can't quite put my feelings of what 12 years of being classified "1-AA" did (or didn't do) for NORTH TEXAS. I know we won (or almost won) some impressive games against non-ranked BCS schools back in that day. Didn't seem to matter when it came to fundraising for the Mean Green Club I noticed.

Still, having the designation "1-AA" for 12 long years was like the one in the story who had to wear the scarlett letter on her forehead. You really felt like your school was being picked on by the NCAA and many of us back then felt our athletic program was 2'nd rate when NT had an additional "A" on our classification.

So back in that day, NT was (as now) located in a major league sports market playing what many felt was minor league college football. I know that to be fact because I spoke with many of you older nestors back in that day who expressed that; but FWIW and in all fairness, it was the level of competition that NT was budgeting during those years.

And aren't we still sorta' doing the same today with what we are funding with athletics today, specifically football? We now know that our NT football coaches (after 4 bowl games) are not even the highest paid in what many on this board (and beyond) call the lowly Sun Belt Conference. That is a travesty, fellow alums. Look what they have given us that no other coaching staff in the 115 year history of our school has even come close?

Per$onal $acrifice? I am guilty in that department. Many of you excel in that department. Yet how many of us really had anything to do with the funding of our fabulously modernistic Athletic Center at our Eagle Point Campus? Wasn't that really more some creative campus funding from NT officials and Jim "Mattress Mac" $1,000,000.oo who took care of that entire deal? I know I didn't give a dime for that facility's construction. Maybe some of you did.

How many of us will have anything to do with a significant funding for a new football stadium? Yet when some of our constituency (mostly those who don't read this board) are asked to join the Mean Green Club (at whatever level they can afford) or even buy a $16 reserved seat ticket for NT football games you'd think some by their response were having to get into their family emergency savings account to make such an investment.

SO JUST HOW FAR HAVE WE COME? I remember sitting in a cavernous (almost empty) Cotton Bowl in the Fall of 1981 playing Oklahoma State with a well-advertised country music review headlined by a hot country act of that day and that being one Mr. T.G. Sheppard. Looking around, OSU had more fans there than NT.

We thought that NT/OSU game with a big country music review would be a big draw--it wasn't. T.G. Sheppard with even a current hit at that time (Party Time) should have been a good draw by himself--he wasn't. So many of us said: "Well, NT alums just aren't into country music--no big deal."

I remember going home the evening after that NT/OSU/Country Music Review in the Cotton Bowl wondering if North Texas officials should just dig a big hole and just bury our football program without ceremony but just do it quietly where (hopefully) no one in the Metroplex would notice. Not many were there to notice the Mean Green that Fall afternoon at the Cotton Bowl AND even that vs a Big 8 school plus a game held during the State Fair of Texas, too. So some of you young gun alums who I've seen post on this board in recent months: "Maybe if NT played one game a year during the State Fair of Texas at the Cotton Bowl against a known opponent?" Well...........been there--done that.

Some of you older nestors could probably share as equal a disappointment relating to our football program from the past, but to turn this thing 180 degrees around from a past from what we all hope we learned from, what I am saying today is that this NORTH TEXAS football program (even in a rebuilding year) is light years ahead of what many of us older nestors have seen most of the last 3 or so decades. When we build that new stadium at Eagle Point Campus (and we will), this whole athletic program (specifically football) will be one helluva' collegiate version of a Horatio Alger Story, ie, the rags to riches thing.

For where we NT baby boomer exes and older have been with all this, we have seen much improvement and anyone of us from every era we attended NT only has to recreate this feeling: Think how each of us felt that night post-game after we had beaten on national television a CUSA football "co-champion' in a bowl game?" Remember how damn good that felt? Didn't it make some of those (almost) empty stadium games in the Cotton Bowl back in 1981 worth it all? Didn't it make up for some of those other "All Time Lowest Moments" in NT football? It did for this one alum I tell you.

So certainly we all have high expectations but where I think most of us want to take those expectations will still require much more per$onal $acrifice from each and every one of us in Mean Green Country. And can we simply start by having the highest paid football coaches in the Sun Belt Conference? That alone would be a statement in itself.

GMG!

Edited November 5, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

[NTEdgex2]

This is my weekend to work and we'll be heading up from Euless around 5:30pm. We're debating on the best/fastest way to get to Fouts. Euless to Lewisville and up 35E, or the backroads way through Grapevine, to 2499 (Flower Mound) to 407 (Lantana) and on up. Any opinions, suggestions?

GMG!

[OldTimer]

My wife and I hit Denton after dark about 6:00 PM coming down I-35. 6:00 is when TMS closed down. The HW dept had electronic message to expect delays on I-35 W south so we went over to 377......never saw so much traffic in my life, mostly headed north on 377 into Denton but an awful lot going south. From Gainesville to Mansfield 2.5 hours.