NTSU

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

I would like to take the time to address the following truths, and I base them on our collective experience as UNT graduates and/or fans:

(1) National publications and commentators often erroneously refer to us as NTSU.

(2) Our athletic department doesn't think anyone will know what UNT is if we use it as our athletic logo.

Given that (1) is true, doesn't it make (2) completely illogical? It has been a full 25 years since we've gone by NTSU; and, yet, national sports people still remember us by that acronym.

Although it ruffles the feather of many Eagle fans, being called NTSU really should be our rallying cry to switch the school athletic logos to UNT.

As national sports publications and commentators have proven, going by NTSU never stopped anyone from recognizing who we were. Quite the contrary: It was, and remains, our identity to them. Therefore, it is unlikely that making the logical switch to UNT would give us less recognition in their minds...and pens and voices.

Those in the college sports world live by the acronym. When we are mistakenly referred to NTSU, I posit that it is because the writer, commentator, or announcer making the error is mentally - and, sports-logically - reaching for an acronym.

Why, then, do we not go ahead an help them out by embracing - as the majority of sporting colleges and universities in America have done - our university's acronym? It is so obviously missing that it continues to lead to the NTSU error - an error repeatedly made in honest attempts to refer to us in the way that is screaming for us to be identified.

Further, and finally, is it not confusing (marketing majors and grads) to have two different branding messages coming from the same source? Looky here:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They don't use two or three or four separate branding ideals to differentiate among auto, home, life, and small business insurance.

Whataburger. Just like you like it.

Coke. The real thing.

And, on and on (and on, on, and on, the beat don't stop until the break of dawn!). Why, then, does our school differentiate the academic portion of the school from the athletic activities part? Why? We are either UNT as a whole, or we are not, I say!

When I attended UNT, I was a student at the school and also a supporter when I went to the athletic events. If someone asked me where I went to school, I didn't say, "I go to UNT, but my favorite college team is North Texas." It's absurd.

UNLV is UNLV. We know which school it is whether we are talking academics or athletics. OU is the same. SMU. TCU. LSU. UAB. UTEP. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

When will the dual marketing madness end? When will we embrace one identity? Will it take as long as it did for us to get real athletic facilities? Stop the insanity!

Edited July 12, 2011 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[Jonnyeagle]

Amen!

[Travis]

I would like to take the time to address the following truths, and I base them on our collective experience as UNT graduates and/or fans:

(1) National publications and commentators often erroneously refer to us as NTSU.

(2) Our athletic department doesn't think anyone will know what UNT is if we use it as our athletic logo.

Given that (1) is true, doesn't it make (2) completely illogical? It has been a full 25 years since we've gone by NTSU; and, yet, national sports people still remember us by that acronym.

Although it ruffles the feather of many Eagle fans, being called NTSU really should be our rallying cry to switch the school athletic logos to UNT.

As national sports publications and commentators have proven, going by NTSU never stopped anyone from recognizing who we were. Quite the contrary: It was, and remains, our identity to them. Therefore, it is unlikely that making the logical switch to UNT would give us less recognition in their minds...and pens and voices.

Those in the college sports world live by the acronym. When we are mistakenly referred to NTSU, I posit that it is because the writer, commentator, or announcer making the error is mentally - and, sports-logically - reaching for an acronym.

Why, then, do we not go ahead an help them out by embracing - as the majority of sporting colleges and universities in America have done - our university's acronym? It is so obviously missing that it continues to lead to the NTSU error - an error repeatedly made in honest attempts to refer to us in the way that is screaming for us to be identified.

Further, and finally, is it not confusing (marketing majors and grads) to have two different branding messages coming from the same source? Looky here:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They don't use two or three or four separate branding ideals to differentiate among auto, home, life, and small business insurance.

Whataburger. Just like you like it.

Coke. The real thing.

And, on and on (and on, on, and on, the beat don't stop until the break of dawn!). Why, then, does our school differentiate the academic portion of the school from the athletic activities part? Why? We are either UNT as a whole, or we are not, I say!

When I attended UNT, I was a student at the school and also a supporter when I went to the athletic events. If someone asked me where I went to school, I didn't say, "I go to UNT, but my favorite college team is North Texas." It's absurd.

UNLV is UNLV. We know which school it is whether we are talking academics or athletics. OU is the same. SMU. TCU. LSU. UAB. UTEP. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

When will the dual marketing madness end? When will we embrace one identity? Will it take as long as it did for us to get real athletic facilities? Stop the insanity!

Preach on brother. Preach on!

It is quite frustrating.

[MDH]

Preach. Although I like how North Texas looks spelled out on our basketball uniforms and hated the old UNT ones we used to have years ago.

Side note: Most of the time when I see NTSU it's on forum sites, and we ALL know the cool thing to do is call a school by its old name that it was embarassed of enough to make a name change. I'll never understand why this is cool and I roll my eyes whenever I see GMG posters using TSUSM or SWTSUSM, etc.

Edited July 12, 2011 by MDH

[Travis]

For all the great things that our AD has done... sometimes I do feel like he is a bit out of touch with those that care most about the program. I know he can't please everyone and I don't expect him to. But, if he is going to champion "tradition" and what not... taking away our title of UNT seems to be the most basic/simple form of destroying tradition, what little we have. Because they have a stick up their butt about this, we had to eliminate nearly all but two of the cheers, several songs, and put a horrible "logo" on our football players' cranium protectors. I am just waiting for them to try to change the fight song.

[NTXCoog]

The University of Memphis struggles with the same thing. They were Memphis State from 1941 to 1994 when they changed their name. Despite their recent basketball success, you still hear some older announcers call them Memphis State, probably because of the great history they had in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But as they have more recent success on a national level, the change to the newer name is being more widely recognized.

While North Texas has had recent success in conference, most of their national success was under the old name. So the older announcers will probably continue to think NTSU when they recognized the greater success.

Regarding academic vs athletic branding, we have that fight at UH too. The academic side uses the traditional "skinny" logo that was on the football helmets from 1962-1998.

The athletic side has been using the "fat" logo since 1999.

You want to see some heated debates on Coogfans, start the discussion on what logo should be on the helmets. We'll be using the old logo on throwback night against Marshall. I expect to see long discussions about it after the game.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

For all the great things that our AD has done... sometimes I do feel like he is a bit out of touch with those that care most about the program. I know he can't please everyone and I don't expect him to. But, if he is going to champion "tradition" and what not... taking away our title of UNT seems to be the most basic/simple form of destroying tradition, what little we have. Because they have a stick up their butt about this, we had to eliminate nearly all but two of the cheers, several songs, and put a horrible "logo" on our football players' cranium protectors. I am just waiting for them to try to change the fight song.

I don't think it's a matter of pleasing one set of fans versus another. I think it's just an overall recognition of something logical based on how we are still referred to across the country by national media.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

The University of Memphis struggles with the same thing. They were Memphis State from 1941 to 1994 when they changed their name. Despite their recent basketball success, you still hear some older announcers call them Memphis State, probably because of the great history they had in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But as they have more recent success on a national level, the change to the newer name is being more widely recognized.

While North Texas has had recent success in conference, most of their national success was under the old name. So the older announcers will probably continue to think NTSU when they recognized the greater success.

Regarding academic vs athletic branding, we have that fight at UH too. The academic side uses the traditional "skinny" logo that was on the football helmets from 1962-1998.

The athletic side has been using the "fat" logo since 1999.

You want to see some heated debates on Coogfans, start the discussion on what logo should be on the helmets. We'll be using the old logo on throwback night against Marshall. I expect to see long discussions about it after the game.

Not the same - both of yours are using UH intercrossed. We have "UNT" for the academic side and "North Texas" for athletics. You guys don't have "UH" on academic and "Houston" on your helmets. That's the type of situation we're in. It would be like OU having Oklahoma on their helmets, or TCU having Texas Christian on theirs, SMU, LSU, etc., etc., etc. See what we're saying/dealing with here?

[PlummMeanGreen]

I just don't hear the "NTSU" thing as much as we used to and it stands to reason for that the more years we distance ourselves from the year of our name change. Our nationally televised bowl games were a slow education process and by the time of our last bowl game, even the announcers were cognizant of the fact that we are "North Texas" or "UNT".

Helmet? I know many of us would have preferred we stuck with the "worm" through all regime changes or even SOW since words on a helmet or even letters cannot be as strong as a symbol IMHO. Letters or words of our school look just fine on the top part of our football jerseys but that is just the opinion of one. I was also one of many who thought our initial capacity should have been around 35,000-40,000, too, and the UH board is concurring and poking a bit of fun at what we will have. At least a capacity as large as the enrollment of our alma mater . Texas State is already talking 34,000 after they finish their initial expansion and with Coach Fran now in San Marcos, I believe they will get that. Do we need 35,000 now? No, but it would have been easier to schedule UT, TAMU, Iowa, Oklahoma State, Iowa Staste and the like had we done that we had would have come close to our would have sold out with such opponents. The difference with gate receipts with such a capacity would have gone far in funding a arge portion of some of our minor sports I would think but...

...what we have now looks damn nice and I know some schools out there would like to have the MGS even starting out at its approx. 31,000 seats!

Edited July 12, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

[MDH]

Texas State is already talking 34,000 after they finish their initial expansion

They can talk all they want, but they won't come close to filling it. Same goes for UTSA, but hey I heard NE Oklahoma St travels well...

[UNT90]

I would like to take the time to address the following truths, and I base them on our collective experience as UNT graduates and/or fans:

(1) National publications and commentators often erroneously refer to us as NTSU.

(2) Our athletic department doesn't think anyone will know what UNT is if we use it as our athletic logo.

Given that (1) is true, doesn't it make (2) completely illogical? It has been a full 25 years since we've gone by NTSU; and, yet, national sports people still remember us by that acronym.

Although it ruffles the feather of many Eagle fans, being called NTSU really should be our rallying cry to switch the school athletic logos to UNT.

As national sports publications and commentators have proven, going by NTSU never stopped anyone from recognizing who we were. Quite the contrary: It was, and remains, our identity to them. Therefore, it is unlikely that making the logical switch to UNT would give us less recognition in their minds...and pens and voices.

Those in the college sports world live by the acronym. When we are mistakenly referred to NTSU, I posit that it is because the writer, commentator, or announcer making the error is mentally - and, sports-logically - reaching for an acronym.

Why, then, do we not go ahead an help them out by embracing - as the majority of sporting colleges and universities in America have done - our university's acronym? It is so obviously missing that it continues to lead to the NTSU error - an error repeatedly made in honest attempts to refer to us in the way that is screaming for us to be identified.

Further, and finally, is it not confusing (marketing majors and grads) to have two different branding messages coming from the same source? Looky here:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They don't use two or three or four separate branding ideals to differentiate among auto, home, life, and small business insurance.

Whataburger. Just like you like it.

Coke. The real thing.

And, on and on (and on, on, and on, the beat don't stop until the break of dawn!). Why, then, does our school differentiate the academic portion of the school from the athletic activities part? Why? We are either UNT as a whole, or we are not, I say!

When I attended UNT, I was a student at the school and also a supporter when I went to the athletic events. If someone asked me where I went to school, I didn't say, "I go to UNT, but my favorite college team is North Texas." It's absurd.

UNLV is UNLV. We know which school it is whether we are talking academics or athletics. OU is the same. SMU. TCU. LSU. UAB. UTEP. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

When will the dual marketing madness end? When will we embrace one identity? Will it take as long as it did for us to get real athletic facilities? Stop the insanity!

You know what will make people remember UNT?

A significant sports moment. Beating a top 25 ranked football team. Winning an NCAA tournament game in basketball.

The reason people remember NTSU is because that is what we were called the last time we were relevant in college sports.

Win. Make yourself relevant again. People will know your proper name.

[houstonmeangreen]

They can talk all they want, but they won't come close to filling it. Same goes for UTSA, but hey I heard NE Oklahoma St travels well...

I saw an article a couple of days ago on a search that said the expansion would give them 28,000 seats..not 34,000...anyway they don't seem to get very many to the games so it will not look too good.

[CMJ]

A school that does kind of successfully have two identities is the main California campus. In sports they typically just go by Cal, and in academics they usually go by Berkeley (most of the time not even Cal-Berkeley).

They are the exception that proves the rule however.

[letsgiveacheer]

For all the great things that our AD has done... sometimes I do feel like he is a bit out of touch with those that care most about the program. I know he can't please everyone and I don't expect him to. But, if he is going to champion "tradition" and what not... taking away our title of UNT seems to be the most basic/simple form of destroying tradition, what little we have. Because they have a stick up their butt about this, we had to eliminate nearly all but two of the cheers, several songs, and put a horrible "logo" on our football players' cranium protectors. I am just waiting for them to try to change the fight song.

Sarcasm at its best!

[UNT90]

A school that does kind of successfully have two identities is the main California campus. In sports they typically just go by Cal, and in academics they usually go by Berkeley (most of the time not even Cal-Berkeley).

They are the exception that proves the rule however.

Nope.

Both are accepted names by the university.

NTSU is not an accepted name.

Just win.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

You know what will make people remember UNT?

A significant sports moment. Beating a top 25 ranked football team. Winning an NCAA tournament game in basketball.

The reason people remember NTSU is because that is what we were called the last time we were relevant in college sports.

Win. Make yourself relevant again. People will know your proper name.

..

--- You are not wrong...... One of the largest reasons NTSU name survives in sports is Joe Green ...he played for NTSU and not UNT... His memory is partly to "blame" for the name continuing.. Until we get some people in athletics and maybe other people who are closely associated with the UNT name it will continue. I often see obits in the paper that state that the person went to NTSU which technically is correct but I hope mine doesn't say that.

---This also shows how difficult it is for the public to unlearn things once they think it is true. Applies to many sectors including politics.

--- The worst I have heard lately ( about three months ago) was a person I know mentioning North Texas State Teacher's College ( 1923-1949)..... Holy-Moly ---- she was about four when that was disappeared and even worse she never lived in Texas until the 1970's... I have no idea how she came up with that name. Old ideas, names, reputations, and beliefs, do not die easily. A few still think the world is flat. Just grin and correct then and tell them that they are bit behind.. and that the NTSU name disappeared about 25 years ago.

---I hope Army of Dad doesn't object to my --- again... I just do it and always have in emails/postings... Some programs will/would not indicate a paragraph and will collapse it to the edge. I don't get his criticism, I guess he just didn't know.. maybe he is just too young or inexperienced to know that.

Edited July 12, 2011 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[golfingomez]

this is sad... even in our own state...

http://www.tsu.edu/Athletics/sports_pdf/mens-sports/football/fbschedule2012.pdf

[UNT90]

this is sad... even in our own state...

http://www.tsu.edu/A...chedule2012.pdf

What do you expect from a program that apparently plays in a large soccer stadium.

[NCMeanGreen]

For what it is worth, my daughter made me a UNT football helmet piggy bank (Yes...VERY awesome).

However, she did not use the NORTH TEXAS on the side of the helmet...she went with just plain ol' UNT.

And you know what...I kind of like it really...think I like it better than what we have now or what we are proposed to have.

Anyway, yes I agree...saying no one would know what UNT is re-tarded...

[CMJ]

Nope.

Both are accepted names by the university.

NTSU is not an accepted name.

Just win.

I was talking about North Texas vs UNT?

[LongJim]

For what it is worth, my daughter made me a UNT football helmet piggy bank (Yes...VERY awesome).

However, she did not use the NORTH TEXAS on the side of the helmet...she went with just plain ol' UNT.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[UNT90]

..

--- You are not wrong......

Come on, you can say it. it won't hurt that bad.

Edited July 12, 2011 by UNT90

[AndersonUNT]

I would like to take the time to address the following truths, and I base them on our collective experience as UNT graduates and/or fans:

(1) National publications and commentators often erroneously refer to us as NTSU.

(2) Our athletic department doesn't think anyone will know what UNT is if we use it as our athletic logo.

Given that (1) is true, doesn't it make (2) completely illogical? It has been a full 25 years since we've gone by NTSU; and, yet, national sports people still remember us by that acronym.

Although it ruffles the feather of many Eagle fans, being called NTSU really should be our rallying cry to switch the school athletic logos to UNT.

As national sports publications and commentators have proven, going by NTSU never stopped anyone from recognizing who we were. Quite the contrary: It was, and remains, our identity to them. Therefore, it is unlikely that making the logical switch to UNT would give us less recognition in their minds...and pens and voices.

Those in the college sports world live by the acronym. When we are mistakenly referred to NTSU, I posit that it is because the writer, commentator, or announcer making the error is mentally - and, sports-logically - reaching for an acronym.

Why, then, do we not go ahead an help them out by embracing - as the majority of sporting colleges and universities in America have done - our university's acronym? It is so obviously missing that it continues to lead to the NTSU error - an error repeatedly made in honest attempts to refer to us in the way that is screaming for us to be identified.

Further, and finally, is it not confusing (marketing majors and grads) to have two different branding messages coming from the same source? Looky here:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They don't use two or three or four separate branding ideals to differentiate among auto, home, life, and small business insurance.

Whataburger. Just like you like it.

Coke. The real thing.

And, on and on (and on, on, and on, the beat don't stop until the break of dawn!). Why, then, does our school differentiate the academic portion of the school from the athletic activities part? Why? We are either UNT as a whole, or we are not, I say!

When I attended UNT, I was a student at the school and also a supporter when I went to the athletic events. If someone asked me where I went to school, I didn't say, "I go to UNT, but my favorite college team is North Texas." It's absurd.

UNLV is UNLV. We know which school it is whether we are talking academics or athletics. OU is the same. SMU. TCU. LSU. UAB. UTEP. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

When will the dual marketing madness end? When will we embrace one identity? Will it take as long as it did for us to get real athletic facilities? Stop the insanity!

Someone should pull a Martin Luther and nail this to RV's door!

[bstnsportsfan3]

i honestly think your wrong when you say people will know what UNT is. I love UNT and think we should use UNT but most people have no clue what that stands for. When i tell people i went to school, i tell people North Texas, becuase if i say UNT, they will say Northern Tennessee? North Toledo? North Tallahassee?....Most honestly have no clue UNT means North Texas. Once we WIN on a CONSISTANT basis, they will know. But for now as much as i would like to see us have UNT on all our stuff, im ok with North Texas. Just my two cents!

[MeanMag]

NTSU doesn't bother me, it tells me those people payed attention to North Texas when we were good. UNT doesn't bother me, it tells me people payed attention to us when we changed our name. I went to North Texas, because it's the University of North Texas, and everything else sounds dumb to me. Putting a "U" on it is understood. Everyone does it.