The Texas Bowl and the voice of reason...

[FirefightnRick]

The voice of reason, or better yet the voice of "reality" reeled me back to earth this afternoon concerning the Texas Bowl announcement. And the reality is that I had forgotten that the Texas Bowl(Houston) Bowl already had tie ins with the Big 12 and C-USA. The fact that TCU has been a top 25 program off and on for the past several years made them attractive enough to be considered as well. Rather than respond like I did I should have realized that we have to improve on our side of things as well. We must take care of some things ourselves such as season tickets and OOC wins and get those on a consistent basis and we will become attractive as well. There will be more on this soon, stay tuned.

Rick

[Stan R]

There will be more on this soon, stay tuned.

Rick

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How long do I have to stay tuned? I've been staying tuned since 1995 and frankly I'm tired and I have to pee.

[DeepGreen]

Rick, how much trouble would it have been to make that bowl available to 10 out of 10 Texas D1A programs? Forget we are not a top 25 team. Forget last seasons 2-9 record. But don't forget 25 straight conference wins, four SBC Championships, and four NO Bowl appearances. And somewhere you cannot forget two national rushing champions within a span of two years.

The fact is, as members of the SBC it means jacksh!t. The bowl is being reorganized as the Texas Bowl and there is no excuse for not including North Texas in the mix. No excuse.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---If we are NOT good enough to be invited we will not be invited... that I accept completely....But when they rig up the situation to include two conferences and one extra team (TCU) then there is a problem....especially when it really cuts only one university (UNT) of the picture.

---I am not expecting to be invited but if a miracle occured and we went 12-0, 11-1, 10-2 or something like that then we should be considered... It says TEXAS BOWL and we are in Texas. The goofy thing now is that Iowa State, UAB or East Carolina might be the host team and have a worse record than we have. "That just ain't right".

---I think I am and others here are being reasonable. We are not asking for a bid...just to be considered if we deserved a bid and have an outstanding record. This is as crazy as gerrymandering .... and smacks of the SWC eliteness that we faced for years.

---Instead of the TEXAS BOWL, perhaps it should called the "Former SWC and Current Friends Bowl"

Edited August 11, 2006 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[TIgreen01]

This sucks...

but I'm hijacking this thread and turning it into a hate on SMU thread! THEY are they ones behind this!!!

SMU sucks. They will pay. 9-9.

[FirefightnRick]

I'm on duty and had to hurry up my last post on this.

I wanted to say that personally it's not right, but it's the reality of the situation. The Texas Bowl didn't rig up anything, this bowl previously had ties to Big 12 and C-USA. However they did rig TCU. But if I'm on that committee I would have done the same. I simply don't understand how much it would have hurt to have included NT on this as well. I look at that 0-11 season Houston put up 5 seasons ago, or that 0-12 season SMU had three seasons ago or the 13-32 record Rice has compiled the last 4 seasons and I simply wonder how it is that NT was being overlooked? Does it truly come down to "what have you done lately" and the fact that lately was 2-9 in '05? But it's more than just that. Season tickets, attendance, attractive wins and tv interests. Much of the tv interest must come from OOC wins as well? I don't see the SBC having that much play into it. Had we finished 9-4 in '05, or if this was 2003 we get consideration in the bowl, no doubt. There was too much being talked about us not to have.

So in a nutshell, I'm not happy with this thing, but I can certainly do some things to help make it happen down the road and our team can to with wins. The chicken and the egg thing comes into play but I can only do what I can control and that is try and continue to get more people to buy tickets and take them to the game and let our leadership know we are behind them.

Rick

[Eagle1855]

agree with your sentiments, FFR. My thoughts exactly.

We just have to win. That is the easiest way to have any sort of leverage.

[eulesseagle]

Guys,

In the SBC if we lost one or two games we still go to the New Orlean's Bowl.....i jest when I say lose one or two games in a season.

However.....if UNT came in #2 in the SBC, can you imagine what record we could have compared to others in the past (maybe 6-6 or 5-7). Now think about what has happened the two other times in SBC history when there have been bowl eligible teams......Troy got invited to the Silicon Valley Bowl (or some California bowl when the other team backed out).....and the other bowl eligible team was not invited anywhere. Chances are that the SBC is not going to have two bowl eligible teams in any given year anyway.

In my little humpty dumpty world there are too many bowl games anyway and there is no importance to any of the "umpteen" bowl games except who plays for the national championship and the NOB.

Do you really think that if UNT won the SBC we would turn down the chance to play in the NOB just to play in the Texas Toilet Bowl, if we were invited??? Heck UNT may be the only SBC school eligible to play in a bowl game from our conference.

This is pretty much a moot point anyway.....

[NT80]

---Instead of the TEXAS BOWL, perhaps it should called the  "Former SWC and Current Friends Bowl"

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LOL!

[DeepGreen]

Does it truly come down to "what have you done lately" and the fact that lately was 2-9 in '05?  But it's more than just that.  Season tickets, attendance, attractive wins and tv interests.  Much of the tv interest must come from OOC wins as well?

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Damnit, then if this is the case, heads should have rolled in Denton. From RV down to every swinging richard assistant!!! NT needs to put a damn product on the field that can win OOC games AND the SBC AND the NO Bowl. Then your fans will come. Until then, we are pi$$ing into the wind.

Again, what harm would it have done to include ALL 10 D1A Texas teams? And we wonder why NT is not listed by the better recruits on the Area 100 and State 100 recruiting lists??

DeepGreen

Frustrated in SE Texas

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I'm on duty and had to hurry up my last post on this. 

I wanted to say that personally it's not right, but it's the reality of the situation.  The Texas Bowl didn't rig up anything, this bowl previously had ties to Big 12 and C-USA.  However they did rig TCU.  But if I'm on that committee I would have done the same.  

Rick

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---I would not have.... These guys really need to THINK a little about they did. Including every I-A university in Texas would have accomplished the same thing, not made us mad and probably would have made no difference, they still get TCU maybe.. The only difference would have been if we somehow managed to win 9-12 games and looked more attractive than anything other team they were considering. Then it would get very interesting....

---It is a slap in the face... especially because of the name, TEXAS BOWL. With name Houston Bowl or whatever then maybe things would have been different. I am sure the state of Texas is looking forward to having Southern Mississippi or Central Florida being the host team of the TEXAS BOWL. If they have a poorer record than we have then it really will be an issue to gripe about.

I agree with you TI-Green-001..... If SMU had not voted to keep us out of the SWC 20+ years ago then we would not be in this mess. Meanwhile they continue to take pot shots at us every chance they get. Did I mention that I have NO love for SMU.... #@$%^% them anyway.

Edited August 11, 2006 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[PlummMeanGreen]

Damnit, then if this is the case, heads should have rolled in Denton.  From RV down to every swinging richard assistant!!!  NT needs to put a damn product on the field that can win OOC games AND the SBC AND the NO Bowl.  Then your fans will come.  Until then, we are pi$$ing into the wind.

Again, what harm would it have done to include ALL 10 D1A Texas teams?  And we wonder why NT is not listed by the better recruits on the Area 100 and State 100 recruiting lists??

DeepGreen

Frustrated in SE Texas

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ALL THIS JUST MAKES US BLUE...........

OK, Deep "G" I've just heard the entire skinny on this whole Texas Bowl situation from a Houston source so here tis'......

Amazingly, the Texas Bowl officials have been using the "early commit" list of both Texas state and area 100 lists from the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Telegram and..........................since we haven't seriously recruited DFW for awhile now and since we also keep all our committments (both early and even day before national signing day) under the radar (if we have any to report at all) UNT has (once again) come up short and therefore has become the only Texas NCAA D1-A school out of 10 to not be included on the Texas Bowl's check list. I just knew this under the radar thing would come back to bite us in the arse one day and I'll be doggon' if it took this Texas Bowl chapter of our school's illustrious athletic history to make it happen !

Anyone else be glad when we have leaders we can be proud of that hire the kind of personnel that won't need maps of DFW as to make regular visits into Fortune 500 territory (Dallas & Fort Worth) AND the kind of leaders whose efforts produce frequent news announcements of a school whose athletic program is upwardly bound like a school our size should?

Whoops! Sorry, my bad.......... we did have an announcement today that made one of the DFW newspapers today in a small blurb which reported that a gymnasium at the former Liberty Christian HS our alma mater purchased is going to be converted into a, uh, practice gym. FWIW, what else could that particular gym have been used for? Guess we are grasping at straws with that announcement, eh?

O Lord of those whom some call the infidel, please deliver us from every bit of this. Many are tired of playing the role of Job with things that pertain to anything Mean Green.................Amen. PS: I'll be in church this Sunday...

Edited August 11, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

[eulesseagle]

screamingeagle-66:

we have got to stop blaming smu for our current woes. dang, that was 20+ years ago and a lot has happened since then:

1. our university fathers gave us something worse than the smu death penalty....they put us in D-1AA ... we too have never recovered.

2. our university fathers have not made one good coaching choice or committment to athletics since we came out of D-1AA......face it......

3. our university fathers do just enough to keep us afloat in the SBC. Yea, we turned down the WAC because of the added money to the athletic budget. Do you really think the university fathers would have accepted an invitation to CUSA if it cost us $5 million to join?? I believe it cost TCU around $5 million or so to join CUSA......some article in the FT Worth Startlegram said something about the cost.

4. our university fathers seem more intent on spending for educational facilities over the metroplex than giving us national exposure in athletics........Gonzaga: not a big school but made a committment to athletics (basketball)....now just about everywhere you go there is "Zag" memorabilia (they are an icon to Americana).

5. our univsersity fathers want to keep us in "yesteryear" and not take a chance on someone who can dig us out of the hole we are in.

>>>Look what happened with the ZAGs (bb)

>>>Look what happened at Texas Tech (bb and fb)

>>>Look what happened at UTEP (fb)

>>>IMHO...NMSU will revive in fb

>>>IMHO...Ohio U will revive in fb with Stolic (from Neb)

>>>IMHO...Idaho will revive under their old NFL coach.

I just do not see any committment for athletics from our university fathers, period.

We can not keep blaming DD and friends for the record that he has becuz he can not release himself from his contract.

Who cares about if we are invited to the Texas Bowl?? It is really not that big of a deal, period.

Think about it .... if there was another new bowl in Texas and took the best teams available after all other D-1A Texas teams were taken for all the other bowl games that would leave, maybe a couple of 6-6 teams playing each other.....whoooopie.....

[GreenEddieNT]

screamingeagle-66:

we have got to stop blaming smu for our current woes.  dang, that was 20+ years ago and a lot has happened since then:

1.  our university fathers gave us something worse than the smu death penalty....they put us in D-1AA ... we too have never recovered.

2.  our university fathers have not made one good coaching choice or committment to athletics since we came out of D-1AA......face it......

3.  our university fathers do just enough to keep us afloat in the SBC.  Yea, we turned down the WAC because of the added money to the athletic budget.  Do you really think the university fathers would have accepted an invitation to CUSA if it cost us $5 million to join??  I believe it cost TCU around $5 million or so to join CUSA......some article in the FT Worth Startlegram said something about the cost.

4.  our university fathers seem more intent on spending for educational facilities over the metroplex than giving us national exposure in athletics........Gonzaga: not a big school but made a committment to athletics (basketball)....now just about everywhere you go there is "Zag" memorabilia (they are an icon to Americana).

5.  our univsersity fathers want to keep us in "yesteryear" and not take a chance on someone who can dig us out of the hole we are in. 

>>>Look what happened with the ZAGs (bb)

>>>Look what happened at Texas Tech (bb and fb)

>>>Look what happened at UTEP (fb)

>>>IMHO...NMSU will revive in fb

>>>IMHO...Ohio U will revive in fb with Stolic (from Neb)

>>>IMHO...Idaho will revive under their old NFL coach.

I just do not see any committment for athletics from our university fathers, period.

We can not keep blaming DD and friends for the record that he has becuz he can not release himself from his contract.

Who cares about if we are invited to the Texas Bowl?? It is really not that big of a deal, period.

Think about it .... if there was another new bowl in Texas and took the best teams available after all other D-1A Texas teams were taken for all the other bowl games that would leave, maybe a couple of 6-6 teams playing each other.....whoooopie.....

←

I agree that blaming SMU, as good as it may make some people feel, does not address the root of our problems. SMU does not have THAT much power. Our own leaders, the ones that sent us to 1-AA and have made all kinds of moronic decisions over the years, have far more control over our destiny than SMU does. Heck, SMU doesn't even have enough power to keep us out of CUSA. I have no doubt that they didn't go out of their way to sponsor our cause but if you recall they didn't publicly support UTEP's cause either. Their president, at least in public, championed Louisiana Tech over us and even over UTEP. Yet UTEP is in CUSA and Tech is on the outside looking in just like we are. That tells me that either:SMU was supporting UTEP behind closed doors or much more likely they were simply overriden by the other members of CUSA. They wanted UTEP over either us or LA Tech. That begs the question: If UTEP could get the support of schools like Southern Miss, Memphis, Central Florida, etc.. then why didn't we? If they had gone to bat for us it wouldn't have mattered whether SMU was supporting us or not. SMU has only one vote and not as much clout as other schools. The problem is that UTEP made themselves more attractive than we did and, in all honesty, CUSA appears to have made a very smart decision in choosing them over us or LA Tech. The lesson to be learned here is that if we want to get into CUSA and be part of the "Texas Club" we have to make ourselves so attractive as an athletic department that we will get into CUSA with or without SMU's sponsorship just like UTEP did.

Edited August 12, 2006 by GreenEddieNT

[Greenblood94]

screamingeagle-66:

we have got to stop blaming smu for our current woes.  dang, that was 20+ years ago and a lot has happened since then:

1.  our university fathers gave us something worse than the smu death penalty....they put us in D-1AA ... we too have never recovered.

2.  our university fathers have not made one good coaching choice or committment to athletics since we came out of D-1AA......face it......

3.  our university fathers do just enough to keep us afloat in the SBC.  Yea, we turned down the WAC because of the added money to the athletic budget.  Do you really think the university fathers would have accepted an invitation to CUSA if it cost us $5 million to join??  I believe it cost TCU around $5 million or so to join CUSA......some article in the FT Worth Startlegram said something about the cost.

4.  our university fathers seem more intent on spending for educational facilities over the metroplex than giving us national exposure in athletics........Gonzaga: not a big school but made a committment to athletics (basketball)....now just about everywhere you go there is "Zag" memorabilia (they are an icon to Americana).

5.  our univsersity fathers want to keep us in "yesteryear" and not take a chance on someone who can dig us out of the hole we are in. 

>>>Look what happened with the ZAGs (bb)

>>>Look what happened at Texas Tech (bb and fb)

>>>Look what happened at UTEP (fb)

>>>IMHO...NMSU will revive in fb

>>>IMHO...Ohio U will revive in fb with Stolic (from Neb)

>>>IMHO...Idaho will revive under their old NFL coach.

I just do not see any committment for athletics from our university fathers, period.

We can not keep blaming DD and friends for the record that he has becuz he can not release himself from his contract.

Who cares about if we are invited to the Texas Bowl?? It is really not that big of a deal, period.

Think about it .... if there was another new bowl in Texas and took the best teams available after all other D-1A Texas teams were taken for all the other bowl games that would leave, maybe a couple of 6-6 teams playing each other.....whoooopie.....

←

Great post, EulessEagle. I agree 100%

The Texas Bowl organizers didn't snub us...we were never on their radar to begin with. Until we win more OOC games, until our attendance figures and road game following become so good that the movers and shakers of the conferences we desire HAVE to take notice of us, and until we have a football facility that doesn't scream "Division II or worse", we will have to be content with trying to make our bones in the lowest-rated conference in Division I. We could win every SBC title from now until Doomsday...if nothing else about us changes for the better, we will never be considered for anything else but the New Orleans Bowl.

[DeepGreen]

We might as well sell out the football program and put 100% of our efforts into basketball.

[GreenEddieNT]

Great post, EulessEagle. I agree 100%

The Texas Bowl organizers didn't snub us...we were never on their radar to begin with.  Until we win more OOC games, until our attendance figures and road game following become so good that the movers and shakers of the conferences we desire HAVE to take notice of us, and until we have a football facility that doesn't scream "Division II or worse", we will have to be content with trying to make our bones in the lowest-rated conference in Division I.  We could win every SBC title from now until Doomsday...if nothing else about us changes for the better, we will never be considered for anything else but the New Orleans Bowl.

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Precisely. UTEP got in because schools like Memphis and Southern Miss had their back. SMU will likely never sponsor us but if SMU was calling the shots then Louisiana Tech would be in CUSA right now and UTEP would still be in the WAC. As you said, we need a new football stadium ASAP, we need more butts in the seats, and we need better coaches(not just in football either) than the clowns we currently have masquerading as division I coaches. Those are the kinds of things that impress people(including recruits, conferences, and the media). We have always had control of our own destiny but our leaders just didn't have the best interests of this university in their hearts or minds.

Edited August 12, 2006 by GreenEddieNT

[GreenEddieNT]

We might as well sell out the football program and put 100% of our efforts into basketball.

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That strategy has actually worked out very well for schools like Gonzaga, Marquette, Wichita State, etc...not that I'd want us to actually drop football. We just need to start taking it seriously and that means hiring a real coach and building a new stadium that we can all be proud of.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---When I stop reading and hearing insulting remarks from SMU officials in the DMN and other sourses about us or just claiming they have the only whatever academic program in Dallas area then I will back off criticizing them and making fun of their attitude...

---True we have made mistakes and our administration could have done better at times but had been become members of the SWC we would not have been in the situation that we are now in... You have to admit that!!

---I don't think we wanted to go to I-AA but were forced into it by the NCAA as was UTA, Lamar, and WTSU. We did better than the others did, they dropped football or in the case of WTSU, they now have non-scholarship football. We survived and now need to more create fan interest and put seats in the stands. I haven't notice that dropping football has helped their public standing any. Dumb idea, Gonzaga is the exception and not typical of colleges without football. Texas is a football state. A university without football will get no athletic recognition.