Thoughts on UNT joining the Big 12...

ColoradoEagle · August 15, 2011

By the delusional. Let's get 4 or 5 10-win seasons and at least two high profile bowl victories... then maybe people will raise an eyebrow.

It's been 32 years since Houston had 10+ wins against FBS opponents and 30 years for SMU (at the height of their cheating).

How about we stop talking about these programs like they're Notre Dame?

FirefightnRick · August 15, 2011

You know, just ten years ago if someone suggested that the students at North Texas would vote for a $10 per semester hour athletic fee, they would have called that person seriously delusional.

We do need to make more improvements, but it's not delusional to think that we are deserving of membership in the B-12.

Good post Bill.

Rick

PlummMeanGreen · August 15, 2011

I don't think that they'll ever come calling on us but I do believe that we may apply in the future. We just aren't ready now. It would be too much, too soon.

But before bashing the idea to smithereens consider some of our positives:

1. A fairly central location within the footprint of the conference
2. The largest number of alumni in the largest market
3. Twenty miles from the third busiest airport
4. The 33rd largest American university
5. Now, among the better football and basketball facilities in college athletics (albeit small)
6. Larger stadiums nearby to accommodate crowds up to 90,000
7. A new, football staff with appearances at 80 bowl games and 5 NCAA championships between them
8. A university that offers more than 200 bachelors, masters and doctorate degree plans.
9. An athletic budget expected to approach $25 million dollars this year.
10. A president and a consultant that knows their way around the NCAA
11. Five straight 20-win seasons in basketball with two NCAA tournament appearances
12. A highly rated basketball recruiting and a transfer in rated #12
13. Top 100 men's golf, women's golf, women's tennis, and women's soccer teams

Of course, you can't quantify the tremendous improvement in enthusiasm among students, alumni and football fans from other universities that are now expressing interest in the Mean Green.

There are certainly areas where we need to improve. We need to improve our attendance to 25-30,000 where we can comfortably expand Apogee Stadium to 50,000. We need a conference with greater average attendance to make that happen. We need to add baseball and become competitive in it. We need to WIN football games in the numbers that we enjoyed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We need to keep the momentum of this year going. We need time or for a conference to have a great leap of faith.

GrayEagle pretty well sizes it up.

The timing thing in conference re-alignment just never seems to be our ally and like GE said in his last sentence, we do need some conference out there "to have a great leap of faith" because other non Big 12 Texas university's see our advancement as some kind of retreat for their own school. That is what we're up against in the state of Texas and is a reason UNT may want to take on the TCU attitude. TCU removed itself from all the Texas schools a few years ago and only won a Rose Bowl last season. Theirs was a perfect storm of circumstances (along with their financial coffers) which allowed great things to happen in Horned Frog Country, yet the Big East thing may come back to bite TCU in light of Big 12 possibilities. Still, they are in a league whereas they can get an automatic BCS bowl.

Just like TAMU (and eventually) UT-Austin want new friends in new conference settings, North Texas needs to become relentless in doing the same because in today's NCAA if your standing still that means you are most likely in some kind of backwards thinking mode. North Texas has been doing that almost since 1978 and we all hope this new stadium will take us out of that modus operendi but start seeing a Top 50 football program as a first goal to reach, then shoot even higher after we attain the former.

The new stadium won't be new this time next year and may the football gods smile on Coach Mac to get this ship back to similar waters that his personal hero whose picture looms impressively in his office and that very one who had the audacity to take us to such waters at one time that has even been criticized on this board from some who don't think us worthy? I'm 60 years old now & almost 5 decades post graduation not nearly as enthusiastic as I used to be post our athletic program's multi-decade roller coaster ride of under-achievement with an amazing few hirings ever advancing beyond their North Texas jobs but still think a win over Tennessee is still more impressive than a win over Middle Tennessee. Most know what a string of similar wins would do for filling Apogee Stadium at the Mean Green Village, too. Just like the wedding DJ business and a much smaller scale, but you know which songs will fill the dance floor as compared to those songs that will empty the dance floor.

If the state of Texas' siamese twin universities, ie, TAMU and UT can see a future athletic life without each other then just about anything is possible and if some from North Texas feel badly about our school looking for a better neighborhood for itself they shouldn't

Edited August 15, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

MeanGreenTexan · August 15, 2011

I've never seen a pack mentality bit before. Great job guys! Keep up the funny stuff! :goodjob:

UNTflyer · August 15, 2011

You know, just ten years ago if someone suggested that the students at North Texas would vote for a $10 per semester hour athletic fee, they would have called that person seriously delusional.

We do need to make more improvements, but it's not delusional to think that we are deserving of membership in the B-12.

Actually, just three years ago many on this board called me delusional when I announced the plan for an athletic fee student vote.

But Big 12 talk is a completely different kind of crazy. Like, Italian television crazy.

Green Mean · August 15, 2011

If the SEC needs some for Vandy/Baylor type schools that will get their ass handed to them every week.....then maybe they'll consider UNT. But lets keep it realistic.

houstonmeangreen · August 15, 2011

It's been 32 years since Houston had 10+ wins against FBS opponents and 30 years for SMU (at the height of their cheating).

How about we stop talking about these programs like they're Notre Dame?

agree...UNT is just as good, if not better, candidate for BIG 12 as Uof H and the cheaters SMU....and UNT is looking better everyday. There are major changes in athletics at UNT and anyone from the outside looking at UNT should see this. BUT UNT is not a realistic candidate for B12 anymore than UoH or SMU cheaters. UNT chance is that the decisions are made at the president level...now we have something to sell...commitment from the top. Now on to the MWC

foutsrouts · August 15, 2011

If the decision makers are forward thinkers, then we are a great candidate. If they are naive and only base their decisions on past performance, then forget it. Odds makers would probably say that our FB team and/or our BB team will break through and do something great (Bowls, NCAA Tourney wins etc.) over the next 2-4 years. Hope the decision makers wake up and smell the coffee.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · August 15, 2011

agree...UNT is just as good, if not better, candidate for BIG 12 as Uof H and the cheaters SMU....and UNT is looking better everyday. There are major changes in athletics at UNT and anyone from the outside looking at UNT should see this. BUT UNT is not a realistic candidate for B12 anymore than UoH or SMU cheaters. UNT chance is that the decisions are made at the president level...now we have something to sell...commitment from the top. Now on to the MWC

Okay, how about this one?

If we had magical offers to the somehow-still-intact Big 12, C-USA, and the MWC, which would we want?

Our chances of competing right off the bat are better in the C-USA and MWC, although Big 12 offers more money and the BCS AQ.

But, BCS AQ hasn't done much to really helps schools compete better. Baylor has had one bowl appearance. Ditto Indiana. Vandy, etc. Has Duke had any?

There are schools who have grown in non-BCS AQ. I have a hard time believing TCU would be where is it right now if you had stuck it in the Big 12 in 1996. They'd probably be in the same situation as Baylor. Their programs were pretty much identical in football success at around that time period.

I think I'd weigh towards joining the MWC over all of them - even though a few C-USA schools would be closer and Big 12 would be BCS AQ. I think we need a place to keep building. That being said, though, maybe we'd do a better job with our BCS windfall money than schools like Duke, Vandy, Baylor, and Indiana have.

SilverEagle · August 15, 2011

Actually, just three years ago many on this board called me delusional when I announced the plan for an athletic fee student vote.

But Big 12 talk is a completely different kind of crazy. Like, Italian television crazy.

Take it from someone who was attending North Texas when students were contemplating the elimination of football, any kind of student vote to raise athletic fees was easily Italian Television crazy (whatever that means). And yet, undaunted, you and your merry band of SGA cohorts made the presentation and sold it to enough students to get it through.

So, as regards the B-12, why the hell not? As Don Quixote is supposed to have said "Faint heart never won fair maiden".

Edited August 15, 2011 by SilverEagle