Why the Metroplex will soon be GREEN

[ParksAndRecRick]

Gang, I have said this for years....and let me point this out. TCU has had a helleva team the past many years. They open their season tonight with 32,000 fans. This is the team that won the Rose Bowl!

Meanwhile, SMU, coming off their best season in forever, drew 20,000 (tainted) fans in Dallas. I grew up a Pony Fan! Dallas will never care about SMU. June Jones has brought wins, a bowl victory....and it is taking Alums buying tickets to distribute.

That is why I continue to say....when we begin winning.....which we will.....we will average 25,000 per game. No question. We have been the worst team in College Football for 4 years...in one of the worst stadiums in College football and still drew crowds that we shouldn't have! It is THERE for the taking!

When was the Rose Bowl champion (and so many of you are stat czars) that drew only 32,000 in their home opener the next year? Sure it wasn't modern day.

Now, DFW will always be U.T. and A&M dominated. However, the only college team that has the chance of capturing the heart of the Metroplex are the boys in Green that now play in a stunning new home in Apogee Stadium. And, with Coaches will great backgrounds (in college football).

No question. Dallas will never care about SMU. TCU had its grand years.... Next Up: The Mean Green. Just give the Staff some time...and bring this topic back again!

ParksAndRecRick

Edited September 18, 2011 by ParksAndRecRick

[shaft]

So how does proving the metroplex doesn't care about college football mean UNT will some how dominate the local sports world?

Look I'm fire up about the new coach and new stadium, but there is no reason for this type of kool-aide.

[ParksAndRecRick]

Shaft, first of all, I do drink the green stuff. No reason to deny that! However, my point is, with all our graduates in the DFW Metroplex, I firmly believe they will return when we start winning....I just don't see that at SMU, and I think the TCU crowd tonight, speaks for itself. So, my point, right or wrong (yes I am a UNT homer) was that we have been drawing 17,000 or so with one of the worst teams and worst stadiums in the Country. I believe when we turn it around, we will see many people dust off the Green shirts (whatever shade) and come home to Denton. Thanks!

[ColoradoEagle]

I'm pretty sure TCU's stadium currently only holds 32k or so due to construction. I agree that once Mac takes us to winning OOC games and a top 25 ranking that we'll see 'diehard fans' crawl out of every corner of the metroplex. However, I don't think you can take anything away from what TCU has done.

Obviously SMU will always be a minor distraction, at best, in Dallas.

Edited September 18, 2011 by ColoradoEagle

[UNTLifer]

Shaft, the point is we draw what SMU does currently, and we haven't won crap the last five years. Considering our alumni and students out number SMU's and TCU's by about 4 to 1, we shouldn't

[KingDL1]

I don't get this argument a school as large as UNT should have 45-50K at every game especially if we hit the top 25. You better believe if SMU sniffs being ranked they will start selling out regularly too. DFW is a Fickle beast and hard to judge. For North Texas we will not only need to be ranked we will need named opponents, plus we will need a traditon of winning. I think we can get there soon but I would not discount SMU or TCU in any way.

[greenminer]

Realistic or not, I wouldn't ever deny a fan a chance for some green koolaide. Why temper enthusiasm?

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

I know this - I've bought in.

ULM punched TCU in the mouth today, but couldn't keep the pace. TCU isn't a traditional power, and could have blown its load already.

Off the field, they may be really deflated in the Big East evaporating before they officially begin play there. If we draw 75% of what TCU does this season, it bodes well for the future.

We talk about not taking advantage of the New Orleans Bowl years. TCU can't seem to capitalize on their Rose Bowl run - and, they are adding onto a stadium they've never been able to fill.

Get your butts out in the seats Saturday for the Indiana game. Let's stay behind this thing. It can be better than what SMU and TCU have. The only variable now is time. Oh, and...do you believe in the Mean Green?

Edited September 18, 2011 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[ScreamingEaglesFan]

I agree wholeheartedly. I was at my daughter's cheerleading game and happened to mention the game. Another one of the cheerleaders parents piped in that the stadium was really nice, and they were planning on getting going to check it out. We hear the 100k number thrown around, and we are literally everywhere, and with what's happening it's about to explode, in a good way.

[houstonmeangreen]

I'm pretty sure TCU's stadium currently only holds 32k or so due to construction. I agree that once Mac takes us to winning OOC games and a top 25 ranking that we'll see 'diehard fans' crawl out of every corner of the metroplex. However, I don't think you can take anything away from what TCU has done.

Obviously SMU will always be a minor distraction, at best, in Dallas.

TCU has done a great job of moving their program forward...I am afraid the MG will be behind the frogs for a years to come....SMU is a completely different story.

[Green Jackal]

I've heard interest from people wanting to go to a game who didn't even go to UNT. There is definitely a curiosity factor out there with the new staduim. If we can get people to go to a game and sell them on the entertainment value, they will come back.

[Rudy]

I don't get this argument a school as large as UNT should have 45-50K at every game especially if we hit the top 25. You better believe if SMU sniffs being ranked they will start selling out regularly too. DFW is a Fickle beast and hard to judge. For North Texas we will not only need to be ranked we will need named opponents, plus we will need a traditon of winning. I think we can get there soon but I would not discount SMU or TCU in any way.

I doubt SMU will sniff the Top 25. Even coming off their best season, they still schedule the likes of Northwestern State. While they are busying whooping a nobody, I see their "fans" sporting SMUt gear walking into Buffalo Wild Wings on Lemmon while they have a home game less than 5 miles away. Meanwhile, I'm watching the NT/Bama game on one of the bigscreens in front of a bunch of OU and FSU fans who can't help but watch an improving NT squad square off against the number 2 team in the nation and hold their own, with Bama not pulling away until mid 3rd quarter. I'm talking with the guy behind me who is a 2010 grad and is excited to see his first game at Apogee, and his girlfriend is applying for grad school at NT. Bth are eager to see Apogee and I'm telling him about how affordable season tickets are and watching him get interested in purchasing season tickets.

The interest is there, and it is growing. As long as we start winning (which we will), and schedule mid majors and beatable Bc$ teams, instead of bodybag games and FCS schools, we can very easily overtake SMUt.

[UNT90]

For this to ever have a chance of happening, we need to win. Not against the Belt, but against najor competition. It would take a 11-2 season with a win over a major in-state institution and a bowl victory to get our own alumni interested in this thimg again. Wa have to beat a Texas, a Georgia, a LSU to make our own freaking alumni sit up and take notice, much less the DFW area.

Keep in mind that is something that we have never done. Never. We are light years away.

Edited September 18, 2011 by UNT90

[emmitt01]

For this to ever have a chance of happening, we need to win. Not against the Belt, but against najor competition. It would take a 11-2 season with a win over a major in-state institution and a bowl victory to get our own alumni interested in this thimg again. Wa have to beat a Texas, a Georgia, a LSU to make our own freaking alumni sit up and take notice, much less the DFW area.

Keep in mind that is something that we have never done. Never. We are light years away.

Completely disagree. If we go 12-0, and didn't play any 1AA teams, the crowds will come! If we beat a UTEP, a Rice, SMU, La Tech , etc (beatable teams that are also fairly local) our attendance will skyrocket. Look at the bowl years. We saw literally thousands of folks who never set foot inside Fouts. Now there is a place worth their setting foot in. K-state proved it, Boise proved it...even SMU proved it. Just win...even against middling competition...and people will take note. People talk about SMU like they're some up and coming program...name their marque win. I'll wait...

[UNT90]

Completely disagree. If we go 12-0, and didn't play any 1AA teams, the crowds will come! If we beat a UTEP, a Rice, SMU, La Tech , etc (beatable teams that are also fairly local) our attendance will skyrocket. Look at the bowl years. We saw literally thousands of folks who never set foot inside Fouts. Now there is a place worth their setting foot in. K-state proved it, Boise proved it...even SMU proved it. Just win...even against middling competition...and people will take note. People talk about SMU like they're some up and coming program...name their marque win. I'll wait...

What was SMU's attendance for their last home game? That's my point;.

I think winning helps, but it matters who you beat, especially in the sports D-bag area that is DFW

[Green Mean]

I don't think its fair to compare our attendances to what SMU and TCU draws. Both schools combined have about 18-20k students. The only thing we have to do is win and start beating teams people know and have heard of. My concern right now is all this conference realignment stuff because when a conference looks at us and see that with our school size and location we still couldn't technically sell out the first game in our new stadium...to me that is a reason for concern. I don't care about being the school of the DFW metroplex...I want to be the school of our own alumni first that have lost or never had interest in our school athletics. We need to connect with people linked to the school especially recent grads and current students as they are our future.

While things are a lot better now we still have a very very long way to go as we've been playing catch up for a long time.

Edited September 18, 2011 by Green Mean

[UNTJarhead0802]

I like where your going with this, but, I will say this, and I hate saying it.

The DFW area is fickle, at best. tu and A&M own the college football market, for both alums and people who went to Academy to buy the shirt. DFW doesn't care about SMU, because SMU is an afterthought- they've been that way since late 80's post death penalty. TCU has a very small market share, and it's centrally located around campus. It's far and away the most recently successful Texas college football team, and that's the only reason they have the fans and attention they do. Even when we were winning, we were still an afterthought. There are truly only three teams that the DFW area cares about- the Cowboys, the Longhorns and the Aggies. As sad as it is, its the honest truth. What hurts us more than anything else is the apathetic student population who are t-shirt fans of other schools, to include my sister. Until the new student body becomes the base of the alumni, and they obviously care more than any other group (thus far if only for the new stadium), we are fighting an uphill battle. We have to win local, and that needs to start with Denton. Once Denton is entirely green, then we will be in a position to move to the rest of the area.

Crawl, walk then run. We're starting to crawl. Let's worry about the other stuff later.

[Comet7745]

Another thing to keep in mind, that everyone so far has ignored, is the upcoming conference realignment. If the BCS turns into a 64 team, 4 superconference behemoth, any team left out of that is pretty much done. UNTJarhead stated that Dallas isn't an SMU city, it's a Texas, A&M, and even OU city. SMU has a bit more to go before it can sell out games against crap teams like Northwestern State, but UNT still has a longer distance to travel. Eventually though, it all comes down to who you're playing. It's going to be incredibly hard to mobilize the DFW fanbase to watch Troy, LA-Monroe, or whoever else is in the Sun Belt. If SMU and TCU get into one of those super-conferences, they will be selling out left and right against BCS teams. SMU does great against recognizable names. UNT would do the same if they're constantly hosting a Texas, or an A&M, or a Texas Tech. Until that happens though, no one in the area is going to be selling out at a consistent level regardless of alumni size, stadium quality, football program status, or anything else for that matter. I say this as an SMU fan, if SMU, TCU, and UNT get left out of the upcoming conference re-shuffling, Dallas will continue for the subsequent decades as being a Dallas Cowboys/Texas/A&M city only.

Edited September 18, 2011 by Comet7745

[island eagle]

Another thing to keep in mind, that everyone so far has ignored, is the upcoming conference realignment. If the BCS turns into a 64 team, 4 superconference behemoth, any team left out of that is pretty much done. UNTJarhead stated that Dallas isn't an SMU city, it's a Texas, A&M, and even OU city. SMU has a bit more to go before it can sell out games against crap teams like Northwestern State, but UNT still has a longer distance to travel. Eventually though, it all comes down to who you're playing. It's going to be incredibly hard to mobilize the DFW fanbase to watch Troy, LA-Monroe, or whoever else is in the Sun Belt. If SMU and TCU get into one of those super-conferences, they will be selling out left and right against BCS teams. SMU does great against recognizable names. UNT would do the same if they're constantly hosting a Texas, or an A&M, or a Texas Tech. Until that happens though, no one in the area is going to be selling out at a consistent level regardless of alumni size, stadium quality, football program status, or anything else for that matter. I say this as an SMU fan, if SMU, TCU, and UNT get left out of the upcoming conference re-shuffling, Dallas will continue for the subsequent decades as being a Dallas Cowboys/Texas/A&M city only.

The DFW area has never really supported the local college teams, which is why they are all basically on the outside looking in.

[UNT90]

Another thing to keep in mind, that everyone so far has ignored, is the upcoming conference realignment. If the BCS turns into a 64 team, 4 superconference behemoth, any team left out of that is pretty much done. UNTJarhead stated that Dallas isn't an SMU city, it's a Texas, A&M, and even OU city. SMU has a bit more to go before it can sell out games against crap teams like Northwestern State, but UNT still has a longer distance to travel. Eventually though, it all comes down to who you're playing. It's going to be incredibly hard to mobilize the DFW fanbase to watch Troy, LA-Monroe, or whoever else is in the Sun Belt. If SMU and TCU get into one of those super-conferences, they will be selling out left and right against BCS teams. SMU does great against recognizable names. UNT would do the same if they're constantly hosting a Texas, or an A&M, or a Texas Tech. Until that happens though, no one in the area is going to be selling out at a consistent level regardless of alumni size, stadium quality, football program status, or anything else for that matter. I say this as an SMU fan, if SMU, TCU, and UNT get left out of the upcoming conference re-shuffling, Dallas will continue for the subsequent decades as being a Dallas Cowboys/Texas/A&M city only.

The sad thing is, we have the advantage of having close to 100k in the DFW area, yet didn't commit to athletics arguably until it was too late to make a difference. If the BCS goes to an elite 64, both UNT and SMU will be left on the outside looking in. We can argue about the reasons all we want. There are some commonalities (Lack of support from the city in which the university is located, constant losing) and there are differences (major state university with a huge alumni base and lack of funds vs. small private university that is cash rich), but in the end, we will both be left on the outside.

I can't wait for basketball season, a sport in which a Butler has a legitimate chance at being allowed to compete for a national title.

[Comet7745]

The sad thing is, we have the advantage of having close to 100k in the DFW area, yet didn't commit to athletics arguably until it was too late to make a difference. If the BCS goes to an elite 64, both UNT and SMU will be left on the outside looking in. We can argue about the reasons all we want. There are some commonalities (Lack of support from the city in which the university is located, constant losing) and there are differences (major state university with a huge alumni base and lack of funds vs. small private university that is cash rich), but in the end, we will both be left on the outside.

I can't wait for basketball season, a sport in which a Butler has a legitimate chance at being allowed to compete for a national title.

You're definitely right, UNT should have started putting a huge emphasis on football 2-3 decades back. Large universities like that can really embrace a sport if done right. The biggest thing holding back SMU is the limited alumni coupled with the lingering effects of the death penalty (effectively removing a whole generation of fans). I know we all love to trash each others' schools, but even I root for TCU for what they've been able to do. I do wish success on local universities, but with the exception of TCU, it's been too little too late for the rest of us. And even the TCU might have been too late in all of this. I would pay good money to be able to glimpse the college football landscape of 2017.

edit - hopefully a class-action lawsuit can help out the little man in all of this. I doubt it though, but you never know!

Edited September 18, 2011 by Comet7745

[KingDL1]

edit - hopefully a class-action lawsuit can help out the little man in all of this. I doubt it though, but you never know!

Last time the 64 team 4 conference BCS crap started rolling around congress said they would stop it, I guess we will see. But there is 56+ teams that will want to fight it and even more people who hate the BCS.

For those who trash TCU and SMU all I can say is Glass Houses man. I have met so many UNT alumni that have divorced themselves of anything North Texas it is kind of freaky. It will take us beating some top 10 teams to crack a good amount of these folks that have officially adopted another team. Still there is no reason not to fill our stadium, our student body can easily by itself. The other local teams student body could only fill a third of their stadiums. Which is a little embarrassing for us. It is the being adopted by the DFW metroplex that will take great effort.

Edited September 18, 2011 by KingDL1

[NM Green]

When you look to the future I would paint the new Metroplex landscape Mean Green because I am a forward looking person. However, it will take a lot of moving parts geling together nicely - Coach Mac, Recruiting, Alums, Athletic Department, Orientation speeches...It is not the job of one person but rather a village of energy and hard work to get this Green Machine off the ground. Buildings alone do not do it. So grab your friends and then grab another. Do your part and slowly we will take our natural place.

SMU will never be greatly supported by Dallas due to their attitude. I see June Jones back in Hawaii in due time. TCU has been on top for so long that their natural slide has already begun.

Work hard and work harder Mean Green Nation and we will succeed. I watched Indiana and SC State on TV last night and then Tulsa and Okie State. Both of those teams are going to be a battle to stay with and we really need to win at least 1.

Come out and strong Mean Green! I will say that I find it awesome walking into Sam Boyd last night and sitting in a Mountain West stadium that can't touch our new home. The realization that we have a more beautiful stadium than most of the MWC and CUSA programs is fantastic indeed - get the people out! I want that same energy we had last week and we won't have 4k Indiana fans to pump it up like we did with H-town. So I am on the fan recruiting trail now.

Lets Go Mean Green!!!!!

[perryfrog]

TCU has been on top for so long that their natural slide has already begun.

You say their natural slide has already begun. Just because they can't go 13-0 several years in a row, their natural slide has begun. We may lose two or three games this year.

But, you just hide and watch next year. As long as Patterson is coach, TCU will be OK.

GO FROGS!!!!

GMG!!!!

[wardly]

in order for us to get attendance where we want, we need more that a winning record. we need to schedule "up", which we are now able to do with new stadium, but we need to schedule teams that travel well. unfortunally, no one in the belt, including us, does.