Honestly, What Were Your Realistic Expectations

[GreenTiger_OriginalAcct]

I thought 5 wins this year. Now I am really hoping 5 wins for this year and next year combined. It looks like both offense and defense are built around true speed, which we lack because of our history as a run based team That doesn't mean we don't have good athletes, but there are offensive linemen that are great at run blocking that struggle in pass blocking. I think that is one of our biggest problems now. I see it taking at least two recruiting classes before we see a major difference.

That aside, I still forsee a ticket price increase in 2008.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Actually, the Minnesota Golden Gophers have the worst defense in the country.

Here's the bonus for us...we're only out $172k for our 1-7 start. Minnesota is paying their new coach $1 million for the non-sense he's throwing out there.

Hey, you have to look on the bright side of things.

[Got5onIt]

Here's the bonus for us...we're only out $172k for our 1-7 start. Minnesota is paying their new coach $1 million for the non-sense he's throwing out there.

Hey, you have to look on the bright side of things.

There's always a bright side, you just got to look at it from the right angle.

As for this year's record, I said from the beginning this season should be considered a success if it finished at .500. I expected this team to be in games and have more than one win. I would be happy with 5 wins come years end. However, the team's current performance has me worried that one win may be it.

[fan19740]

I expected four, maybe six wins. I never would have predicted struggling so mightly on Defense.

[Monkeypox]

about 2-4 wins.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Take No Doz' Then Read...

I thought 2-3 wins for this season last December and even right after TDodge's hiring. I based that forecast on the last 3-4 years recruiting before his hiring and even no matter what kind of coaching job we got this Fall. I think we are seeing signs of left-over discipline problems from the previous regime even with todays news.

Folks, we simply need more D1-A athletes (with speed) in Mean Green Country to even compete in today's Sun Belt Conference and we have to stop using what used to work for us in the recent past as our barometer because that will create unrealistic expectations (which it has already done from many) and the false pretense that instant success is within our grasp. All that was do-able in the old Sun Belt Conference--but not in today's.

As has been posted numerous times, Todd Dodge & his staff only had 17 NCAA-sanctioned days to recruit last Winter--in other words, while most NCAA D1-A schools were putting the icing on the cake of their recruiting, UNT's new coaching staff was just putting their cake in the oven. Early committs for this year are most promising and may even indicate to us a new (& most welcome) trend for all in Mean Green Country.

The entire University of Missouri coaching staff were under the tutoring of Coach Todd Dodge & not while he was at North Texas, but rather while he was still at Southlake Carroll High School. He seems to have more respect from those in the Big 12 than among some of our own NCAA D1-A college football experts that used our "shooting fish in a barrell" early SBC years as their barometer for today's SBC (which we now know is a completely different Sun Belt Conference).

IMHO.............Year 2 for Todd Dodge will be a tad better than Hayden Fry's Year 2 in Denton (2 wins). I think next year with good recruiting and (hopefully) an infusion JUCO talent in this Winter's recruiting class, that we will get close to .500 in 2008. Some of our microwave instant success fans may not want to hear that, but I think that is what Year 2 will be in Denton. NOTE: We will still have 3 years of DD's "early SBC" level of recruits on this team next Fall. (How many from that group were on the SBC's Pre-Season 2007 All Conference teams might give some on this board a hint of what was truly left behind in our cupboard for TDodge to inherit).

I still feel Coach Dodge is 3 solid recruiting classes (2008, 2009 & 2010)) from being a SBC contender in this new, improved SBC we now find ourselves part of. It is the hope of many that these classes will be the beginning of what we haven't had in Denton since the mid-1970's and that would be teams who beat some high profile schools and gain Top 25 rankings. It took Boise State a few years after we all split from the Big West to start their annual Top 25 rankings as I recall.

Year 3: I believe by Year 3 we will start winning the SBC games we were a really short of enough D1-A talent to have won this year. Coaching or not--its still about recruiting D1-A talent (with speed) and I think we now have the team speed on this year's team that used to start seasons 0 & 6 and then make miraculous runs thru the SBC all the way to New Orleans. Again, this is not Norval Pohl's SBC anymore.

Year 4: We would have had 3 TDodge recruited classes under our belt and this is the year we compete for the SBC championship and hopefully as a football program that is in or close to the Top 25.

It just ain't going to happen over-night, folks, like it did in a new Wright Water's "throw-together" league of mostly recent 1-AA upstart schools.

Edited October 31, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen

[CMJ]

Take No Doz' Then Read...

War and Peace

Chapter One

"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist- I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you- sit down and tell me all the news."

It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.

All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:

"If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince], and if the prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10- Annette Scherer."

"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the sofa.

"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be discerned.

"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are staying the whole evening, I hope?"

"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for me to take me there."

"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."

"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.

"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's dispatch? You know everything."

"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."

Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.

In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst out:

"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"

She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.

"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a cup of tea?"

"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"

"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor creature."

Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the baron.

Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was pleased with.

"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.

As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.

The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she said:

"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful."

The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.

"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate conversation- "I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you don't deserve to have them."

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the bump of paternity."

"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's and you were pitied...."

The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, awaiting a reply. He frowned.

"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.

"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pavlovna, looking up pensively.

"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"

He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.

"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don't feel that weakness in myself as yet,I know a little person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary Bolkonskaya."

Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that he was considering this information.

"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"

"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight."

"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave- slafe wigh an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family and that's all I want."

And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.

"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my apprenticeship as old maid."