For Gmg.com Visitors: North Texas 21 Tennessee 14

[PlummMeanGreen]

The scoreboard is hard to read in the black and white photo of former Mean Green Coach Hayden Fry being hoisted on his North Texas football player's shoulders following probably still the greatest win in North Texas football history.

Had the Mean Joe Greene North Texas team in 1968 beat Frank Broyle's national championship contending Razorbacks (as was said to have actually been the case other than one of the worst homer calls in history) that game would have been our greatest all time win since a few weeks later the Hogs would host in Fayettville Darrell Royal's Texas Longhorn's for the NCAA National Championship game in what back then was called "the Game of the Century." Amazing how close North Texas came to beating one of the Top 2 ranked schools of that season.

Back To Knoxville & the Mean Green: The Southeast Conference University of Tennessee Volunteers had a 6 & 5 record the year our Mean Green beat them in Knoxville on their homecoming with a late 90(?) plus yard kick-off return for a touchdown by North Texas' Sears Woods.

Remember This On That Day, Too? ABC TV college football broadcaster Keith Jackson on the game he was covering the day we played the Vols kept going back to "that Hayden Fry's scrappy Mean Green team" score several times as I recall and then announced to the entire NCAA college football world that the mighty Mean Green had pulled off the upset.

Of course, had there been as many bowls back during the year of our huge upset win, the Vols would have been (at 6 & 5) a much coveted bowl team especially with their history of traveling fans; of course with more bowls back then North Texas would have had its first bowl since the 1959 Sun Bowl game during NT's Abner Hayne's era. Tennessee with their 6 & 5 record the year we beat them were hardly considered a chopped liver of a team by any means.

Question: To you at that game or who listened to Bill Mercer call that game, do you have any ancedotes to add to that Big Day in North Texas athletic's history? Or even some tidbits about our near upset of #1 ranked Arkansas the day we had that one stolen from us from one SWC ref?

Another Question: And, uh (clear throat)...where was TCU during all this time during our Mean Joe Greene & Hayden Fry eras at UNT? Answer: Strangely & amazingly enough, they were not to be seen on the UNT Mean Green football schedule for either of those 2 decades, that's where they, uh, weren't.

GMG!

Edited January 29, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

[DeepGreen]

Yes. I was at a Bluegrass Festival in McKinney while listening to the game.

[drex]

Oddly enough, the day that the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity painted Fouts for the first time was during the Tennessee game. We listened to the game over the radio piped in through the pa system at Fouts. The place went absolutely bananas when the game ended. I thought Mercer was going to have a stroke during the end of the game and the post game wrap up. When the team arrived back in Denton they thought the stadium had been painted to commemorate the Tennessee victory. I remember the terror in my heart as I let loose 50 guys with paint to paint the stadium. Luckily, all went well and the rest is Mean Green history.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Oddly enough, the day that the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity painted Fouts for the first time was during the Tennessee game. We listened to the game over the radio piped in through the pa system at Fouts. The place went absolutely bananas when the game ended. I thought Mercer was going to have a stroke during the end of the game and the post game wrap up. When the team arrived back in Denton they thought the stadium had been painted to commemorate the Tennessee victory. I remember the terror in my heart as I let loose 50 guys with paint to paint the stadium. Luckily, all went well and the rest is Mean Green history.

Also, remember the exclusive "front page" photo in the old Dallas Times-Herald with UNT Coach Hayden Fry and our Mean Green team at Love Field and the huge crowd that greeted them back to Texas? Let's get back to those days, Coach D-MAC, because most of us think you, Coach Chico and the rest can do just that!

[drex]

Interesting story about how the front page coverage happened. One of my fraternity brothers did all the print media buying for Sanger Harris. He called the powers that be at the Times Herald and 'suggeted' that the win make the front page. Since Sanger Harris was one of the biggest accounts that the Times Herald had, the rest is history. See, alumni can influence the media if they have a big enough stick.

[ParksAndRecRick]

Love it Plumm!

[NT91]

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2010/jul/26/ut-schedule-chage-hosting-montana-2011/?partner=RSS

[NT91]

http://www.tidefans.com/forums/football/92799-north-texas-bill-battle.html

[Marty]

Can anyone name the players in that picture? Is that the great J.T. Smith in the lower left?

[PlummMeanGreen]

http://www.tidefans.com/forums/football/92799-north-texas-bill-battle.html

Good stuff on both links on both your posts, NT91!

GMG!

[Baby Arm!]

Some teams invoke a 24 hour rule for big wins.. at UNT we need to invoke a 24 YEAR rule.

Ok, it was a big win. Can we move on?

[HoustonEagle]

Some teams invoke a 24 hour rule for big wins.. at UNT we need to invoke a 24 YEAR rule.

Ok, it was a big win. Can we move on?

I second the motion

[NT80]

Some teams invoke a 24 hour rule for big wins.. at UNT we need to invoke a 24 YEAR rule.

Ok, it was a big win. Can we move on?

NO. It can only be replaced by a bigger road win...which has not happened.

(Well, technically it did happen in 1988 in Austin.)

[PlummMeanGreen]

NO. It can only be replaced by a bigger road win...which has not happened.

(Well, technically it did happen in 1988 in Austin.)

And hopefully we will not schedule the same kind of OOC schools at our new stadium as we did at Fouts. I think that would create a groundswell of attitudes such as:

"Why did we spend $80,000,000 if we bring to Denton the same type of schools we did at Fouts Field?"

Moral of post: Wouldn't it be nice to see us have such huge wins at home for a change?

Edited February 5, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen