2 things to watch in realignment

[H-towngreen]

Watch what happens to the ACC as they will get picked apart by the B10, SEC and Big 12 with 4 teams probably left out. Louisville, Syracuse, Wake and Duke. Will they go Big East? Form another conference?

Boise holds the Big East together I think. If they head back to the MWC I think the beast is dead.

[gksmith]

This is just the start. The Big 6 conferences will dwindle down to Big 4 with 16 teams each. So there is still some savaging to be done from the non-big 6 conferences.

[jdennis82]

Get ahead of things and paint a "Southland Conference 2015" logo on the field at Apogee?

[Mean Green Matt]

Realistically, we deserve whatever we get. I assume we are going to get screwed over.

Edited December 2, 2012 by Mean Green Matt

[SilverEagle]

Realistically, we deserve whatever we get. I assume we are going to get screwed over.

Are you speaking for you, the fan base, or the program?

Edited December 2, 2012 by SilverEagle

[DeepGreen]

This is just the start. The Big 6 conferences will dwindle down to Big 4 with 16 teams each. So there is still some savaging to be done from the non-big 6 conferences.

Agree. What UNT needs to do is make sure we are in the 5th or 6th top conference.

[Mean Green Matt]

Are you speaking for you, the fan base, or the program?

I suppose the program. Although our fanbase may not be huge, we have a very loyal core that, at least in my opinion, seem to be tiring of the continual mediocrity. That is a troubling sign.

[SilverEagle]

I suppose the program. Although our fanbase may not be huge, we have a very loyal core that, at least in my opinion, seem to be tiring of the continual mediocrity. That is a troubling sign.

Well, whatever the program gets, (deservedly or not) is what we as long suffering North Texas fans/students/alumni will end up getting. I for one am pretty sick of (from most outsider's, and sadly some insiders, observation) "getting what our program deserves". And I'm equally sick of being the "University of Next year.".

Instead of venting on an internet forum, I'd prefer to be part of an open live group forum where observations and ideas are exchanged about this program. And the title/theme of this program would be something like "Who the hell are we really, and how the hell did we end up here?". People who have attended other "big time" schools, or even slightly bigger time schools, would be a very welcome, because they would be a good resource to help with perspective.

[filmerj]

Well, whatever the program gets, (deservedly or not) is what we as long suffering North Texas fans/students/alumni will end up getting. I for one am pretty sick of (from most outsider's, and sadly some insiders, observation) "getting what our program deserves". And I'm equally sick of being the "University of Next year.".

Instead of venting on an internet forum, I'd prefer to be part of an open live group forum where observations and ideas are exchanged about this program. And the title/theme of this program would be something like "Who the hell are we really, and how the hell did we end up here?". People who have attended other "big time" schools, or even slightly bigger time schools, would be a very welcome, because they would be a good resource to help with perspective.

Sounds like a great idea. They could be quarterly meetings where the higher ups tell us, the constituents how things are progressing. After they blow smoke up our a$&, we can tell them how it's really going. Now how can we get the Univeristy and Ath. Dept on board?

[gksmith]

Agree. What UNT needs to do is make sure we are in the 5th or 6th top conference.

That is the hard part because those top 5 (I heard the Big 6 is down to Gang of 5 with Big East shown the door) will not only pick over one from themselves to get to 4, but pick over the best of the rest.

[shaft]

This grassy knoll theory has a big problem, the Big $ conference don't want to get the system down to 4 mega conference because its less money. 4 mega conference sets up a very simple 4 champion playoff.

The SEC doesn't want that. The SEC is betting on have 2 team the current playoff sytem. They don't want to give that extra slot away to the PAC-12 or Big 12 (minus 2) just because those conferences are better than the ACC.

The Powers That Be love the new system. Mega money for the 1-4 playoff, Big money Bowls for your conference champ or next best team, and your regular bowl tie-ins for the rest of your conference.

The SEC could easily have 2 teams in the playoff, 1-2 teams in the Access bowl (Sugar Bowl is always going to take an SEC team, plus your other 8-10 bowls.

[wardly]

I might have posted this before. If so, please indulge an old man's memory. What should happen is that the PAC 12,BIG 12,BIG 10,ACC,and SEC spin off into an 1a+ Division,CUSA,MAC,BIG EAST, and SUN BELT remain at 1aDivision, and those playing at the 1aa level remain there. This seperation would be just like high school, with its 5a,4a,ahd 3a divisions. I am 70,and not sure I will live to see it happen, but happen it will.

[wardly]

I might have posted this before. If so, please indulge an old man's memory. What should happen is that the PAC 12,BIG 12,BIG 10,ACC,and SEC spin off into an 1a+ Division,CUSA,MAC,BIG EAST, and SUN BELT remain at 1aDivision, and those playing at the 1aa level remain there. This seperation would be just like high school, with its 5a,4a,ahd 3a divisions. I am 70,and not sure I will live to see it happen, but happen it will.

My bad. Left the MWC out of 2nd tier.

[GrayEagle]

I believe that the only way that happens is that the group of 64 forms their own association. They soon won't have the majority in the FBS, let alone the rest of Division I.

[untjim1995]

I believe that the only way that happens is that the group of 64 forms their own association. They soon won't have the majority in the FBS, let alone the rest of Division I.

I think the NCAA will cower down to those institutions so that they can keep the basketball and College World Series under the NCAA umbrella, which is their real money makers. Hell, that's what they have been doing for decades anyway.

Now, if those big AQ schools did break off from the NCAA, I could see them also taking along the basketball-only schools of the East and Midwest, too, to create their own March Madness, which would basically look like the NCAA Tournament replacing the NIT as the major hoops playoff back in the 50s. I could also see them creating a system to pay players (legally), since those schools would have all the money from the TV deals. There would be lots of lawsuits, but I think the big powers would have the legislative and judicial powers to make it happen.

[GL2Greatness]

Well, whatever the program gets, (deservedly or not) is what we as long suffering North Texas fans/students/alumni will end up getting. I for one am pretty sick of (from most outsider's, and sadly some insiders, observation) "getting what our program deserves". And I'm equally sick of being the "University of Next year.".

Instead of venting on an internet forum, I'd prefer to be part of an open live group forum where observations and ideas are exchanged about this program. And the title/theme of this program would be something like "Who the hell are we really, and how the hell did we end up here?". People who have attended other "big time" schools, or even slightly bigger time schools, would be a very welcome, because they would be a good resource to help with perspective.

this has been discussed plenty, but people refuse to accept the reality of it and that is part of the issue

1. who are you

A. a large catch all university on the fringes of a very large metro area with other better known universities

B. you have a large respected music school, but even it does not bring huge attention because it is poorly supported by the university overall and it does everything it can to distance itself from the university as a whole.....there are also a number of other mucis programs in Texas that are well known, have particular subsets of music that are as respected if not more respected and those programs have much better funding and interact and represent the university as a whole much more proactively

C. other than music pretty much every other program out there that has respect has at least one if not more programs right in the metro area that are as respected if not more respected especially when it comes to the recognition programs....as flawed as the US News rankings are people read them and for individual programs and areas of study there are few other rankings

Business....SMU, TCU and UTD all much better known and more respected and I don't see anything that places north Texas ahead of UTA either

Education.....not really a program that relies on rankings to help with job prospects, but TCU is only a few places behind and The State of Texas has a number of other higher ranked programs including UT that has been ranked #1 Baylor is ranked higher and so is UTSA

Hard and Physical Sciences.....between UTD, UTA, and SMU just in the metro area there are going to be programs ranked higher if not much higher in most every area and that is just in the metromess and really the offerings are not that strong....no Geology or geosciences, geography is just so so, and the other areas lack any real strong focus in any specific area of any recognition

Soft and Social Sciences......same as hard and physical sciences and

other programs....RTVF.....it has some good job placement because of the DFW metro area, but it is bloated as far as the number of students admitted relative to the number of faculty and facilities and a vast majority of the graduates will get a piece of paper and go to work in something else....the program would be MUCH better served by limiting enrollment, investing a great deal more money, and then not allowing students to declare that as a major until after 60 hours and perhaps after serving some type of internship or working at the student radio in a lower level position as well......but north Texas is a numbers game and anything that limits warm bodies is highly frowned upon and that is one of the main issues overall along with lack of focus on anything other than music and even then it is poorly funded and supported relative to other respected programs.....because north Texas does not raise private money well period

Hotel Restaurant......this should be something north Texas excels at......instead it is just like RTVF only without the known graduates and with even less funding and less faculty support.....and in Texas UH is the top dog and one of the best in the USA and Texas Tech is well ahead of north Texas as well and does much better placing graduates in that field especially in the DFW area...surprisingly UTA, SMU, or TCU has not looked at this program to start one and UT and TAMU do not offer it either...so north Texas should be much better known.....but they drop the ball on support and on managing enrollment.....and just in general

Library Science.....most schools don't offer this....highly ranked at north Texas......but TWU is also well respected and if you are going to be in a small program some would just assume be in a small program at a smaller school right in the same city and it is still a very female oriented degree program and north Texas has a lot of focus on distance and adult/post graduate education in this field.....which means people not being sports fans or even on campus for.....sport......and there is the UT factor where they are #8 and have a much broader and better supported program as well and they have....sport

programs that are still in demand as far as jobs go

Engineering.....north Texas is extremely weak even in the metro area with UTA, SMU, and UTD all much more respected and with much more broad programs and if you get outside the metro area it just gets worse for north Texas

Health Care.....non existent at north Texas...no nursing, the pharmacy program is not up and running yet and when it is they have specifically designed it and are marketing it as a program that does not need people to even attend a 4 year university (much less one in Denton) before applying for admission and it will belong to TCOM in Fort Worth, no focus on healthcare management other than in the Library Science program and that is record keeping

D. admission.....north Texas is much further from the schools they wish to be compared to and much closer to those they wish not to be compared to

UT, TAMU, UTD, SMU, TCU all with much higher admissions requirements and Tech is much higher as well and has been for decade or more it is a simple fact that can be proven by looking at the current admissions standards and by looking on the webarchive site for past admissions......and UH is not slightly above north Texas and UTA and TxState are basically the same and UTSA is moving to be the same as well though UTSA guarantees individual reviews at lower metrics so they don't kill their enrollment by raising them so rapidly

plenty will argue this as always, but it is all right there on the WWW under GUARANTEED admissions for each school and then the webarchive has past admissions pages stored if you do not believe that some schools have been much higher for a long time or if you want to see how some schools have increased theirs over time

so again a large catch all school that has several other better known schools right in the metro area or at least one if not several other schools in the metro area or especially the state that offer better known or larger and better supported individual programs of study and the few where north Texas might have an edge are either very small programs even at north Texas or they tend to attract people that are not as interested in....sport

2. How did we get here

A. poor administrative leadership......north Texas tends to choose man off the street or guy already sitting in a chair in the office next door as a leader and the one time in recent history they went outside of that to hire someone it ended in disaster (shout out to Dr.

in 1981 al the fool hurley had been at north Texas for about a year and a half as some admin paper pusher and when the current president retired al happened to occupy the chair in the office next door I guess so they just tapped him......enter 19 years of "leadership" that focused on warm bodies and tuition collection....no fund raising....no organized effort to make any specific popular/"name" program of study into something special.......most everything was done on the cheap....RTVF, Hotel Restaurant, Business, all pretty much ignored and allowed to just get warm bodies in the door and to churn out degrees with little facilities or faculty support.....the RTVF building was pretty much a disaster most of the time until it was remodeled in the very late 90s and even then enrollment is still too large and knocking down the old house that housed KUNT was not a popular decision at all especially since they knocked it down for no good reason other than to knock it down......while college inn still stands today!

business cramped up in the two buildings they used to have....no fund raising, no real areas of focus.....just a large collection of tuition paying warm bodies keeping al and the gang in a job

engineering....the move from the department of engineering technology to a college of engineering was a disaster....they had to drop civil engineering technology (and any chance of a civil engineering program/department) because it was not going to get accredited and that left many students in a bind....right before the economic/building boom of 2000 to 2007.....they finally changed the name/focus to construction engineering technology and were able to get accredited in 2010

the CS department was placed on accreditation probation

the Mechanical Engineering Technology department that became mechanical engineering has STILL not been ABET accredited as mechanical (and energy) engineering though the mechanical engineering technology focus in the ETEC department is

the Materials Science department is not accredited and has had a large turnover in faculty because of lack of support and they lost many well respected professors over that time period

only electrical has been able to get accredited as a full engineering program without issues

the nuclear engineering technology program is basically in a coma....again an area where north Texas could have something few offer and it is allowed to wallow in nothingness

B. finally the warm body in the chair al hurley retires.....well why not just bump up Pohl.....because after all we have been doing "so well" all these years with no plan lets keep that plan going

C. Pohl knows that degree programs need to be dumped, tenure requirements need to be elevated, new focus areas need to be developed and probably even some new degree programs.....but alas he is just the old right hand man from the last warm body.....so he wisely gets out while he can

D.Dr B comes in......the focus goes to "peas studies".....full scholarships for C students.....but at least she realized that tenure requirements are horrible....but the guy from Syracuse she hires to help out turns out to be a disaster and is caught plaigerizing the "goals" right off the SU website and he alienates a large portion of the faculty with his tenure handling (which also shows how ingrained the old warm body faculty attitude is after 20 years of al and company)

but at least Dr. B is smart enough to see that the "system" and lee the idiot are robbing north Texas-Dentn blind with the UCD, law school, south dallas, and the movement of the system offices....she stands up to al....she is fired

north Texas gets a retired guy while they look for "the guy"...."the guy" turns out to be the retired guy in the chair already after next to no real search

old multipage goal oriented and focused university plan with actual dollars and cents goals spelled out clearly is dumped for new tagline, swag bags, and cold hot dogs

E. still no organized fundraising of any significance since 1981....meanwhile Tech, UT, and TAMU have had at least two if not three endowment campaigns in that time period....sure there is a mention of a campaign from sometime in 2000 on the WWW for 120 million, but it was clearly not advertised, never actually went public, and the meeting of the "goal" is questionable at best......which is why out of the 8 emerging research universities in Texas north Texas is 6th in endowment and well behind Tech, UH, UTD, and UTEP and all of those 4 are in the middle of or just closing in on the end of campaigns

and TxState is just ending one and UTSA has just had a very successful start to one and UTA probably will shortly after they get a new president....meanwhile in lil' ole' Denton there was talk (on this forum) about a big September announcement.....well as usual that came and went with nothing other than 2 million for renovating an old gym for BB practice

so no leadership, no fundraising, no focus on specific areas of study, no looking to the future of areas of study, resistance to change, poor handling of change, lack of administration leadership for 20 years followed by rapid turn over in leadership, plans that were developed scrapped for dogs and swag, more "guy in the chair" hires, focus on unneeded and highly wasteful and THECB non-recommended dallas economic development programs at the great expense of Denton

all while SMU, TCU, UTD, Tech, UH, Baylor marched on and even while UTSA woke up and UTA is waking up and moving quickly especially on campus atmosphere and while TxState had very aggressive leadership that saw the need to develop in demand degree programs SUCCESSFULLY like nursing, other health related areas, and engineering and they did so with a very sharp focus on specific areas of those fields of study that were being ignored by others around them or that were in high demand in the area they are in....and they raised a lot of private and corporate dollars to help do so along the way.....and they had a large amount of faculty support and city support.....and they also put together a very focused from the top administration down athletics development program and then successfully executed it

which gets us to

3. north Texas athletics specifically

A. for pretty much all of the north Texas existence the question was not "why not north Texas" and that was because the answer was already there....."because it is not going to be north Texas".....no ability to raise money......facilities are what they are.....coaches are just the guy in the chair from somewhere that we can get cheap......take a back seat to ANYTHING else going on with the university or university facilities.....north Texas simply had an administration that wanted to put no time, effort, and especially cash into athletics and they were proud of that

and al hurley was there for nearly 20 years of that from 1981 to 2000 when the greatest changes in college athletics, TV, ESPN, and everything else was going on....and al sat in his warm chair smug in his decisions and just happy to collect his check and attract apathetic warm tuition paying bodies like he always did

that leads to

A. alumni that will never care....because they will never care about athletics because they never did care

B. alumni that have moved on to NASCAR, their spouse or spousal equivalents university sports teams, pro sports, the fun team in what area they currently live in that values them as a ticket holder and supporter

C. lack of fund raising even when finally allowed to be solicited

D. poor facilities that are decades behind

all of that combines to make the ability to catch up a monumental task that requires exponentially greater investments of money and effort than what the others around you (that are still making sometimes very large investments of their own) are doing

so you have a small donor base, that is not used to giving, a reputation as a school to go to to not be around obnoxious sports oriented "students", alumni that have moved on, and a huge need to invest time and effort......after 20 years of some of the largest growth in investment in sports at the college level in history...everyhwere but at north Texas (and anywhere else that does not care)

so leadership that not only did not care, but was against sports investment....the greatest growth period for sports investment wasted and allowed to pass by, a massive alumni base that might never come back or that has moved on and will only come back after the hard work is done if ever

and even when investments were finally made leadership turnover at the top was still in play and will be in play again.....and the truth is VLR is not so much "athletics friendly" as he is not "athletics adverse" as past administrations were.....so the exponential investment of resources and time is just not going to come......while others still invest and some do so at very high rates because they have those past alumni, their support, and their cash and they have nice facilities and are just adding more to those instead of catching up

so in the end you are just "a university" out of a large number to choose from in the metro area, in the state, and even in the region (where OU, OkState, and Arkansas recruit top Texas students with in state tuition wavers and ther financial support).....for most every area of study you can mention there are others often several in the metro area that can say the same much less in the state and region......most of them have "sport" as well and have for a long time......you still have the rep as the place to go to avoid the cult of TAMU, or the Burnt Orange Crazed UT fan (ther than those on your own campus) and you have all those wasted years and decades and you still have catching up to do after very large increases in spending and you will have more admin turnover sooner than later and the admin you have now is not the type that will make exponential increases in athletics spending especially after all that has been recently spent and more than likely with lee the idiot at the very top the next hire will be very "man in the chair" like and will not be athletics-centric and will sit by and watch more resources diverted to dallas economic development plans

[CurveItAround]

Can someone explain why I had to page through 3 pages of white space on my screen?

[oldguystudent]

If we're gonna talk about programs and whatnot, after a long time wandering the desert, and working with people from the Ivy League, big Texas schools, big Calfornia schools, etc., I believe the brand name on your degree gets you one open door -- the first. Once you're out there working, nobody could give an impacted poo where you went to school.

As for the entry level position, my coworkers at my level (read: right out of school first job) are 2 from Texas, 2 from A&M, 1 from UT Arlington and 1 from Abilene Christian. Nobody gives me a hard time about going to UNT at all. In fact, the 2 guys from Texas rather enjoy discussing the progress (or present lack thereof) of UNT athletics. They kinda' like the idea of the small town access that we have to our programs.

[island eagle]

If we're gonna talk about programs and whatnot, after a long time wandering the desert, and working with people from the Ivy League, big Texas schools, big Calfornia schools, etc., I believe the brand name on your degree gets you one open door -- the first. Once you're out there working, nobody could give an impacted poo where you went to school.

As for the entry level position, my coworkers at my level (read: right out of school first job) are 2 from Texas, 2 from A&M, 1 from UT Arlington and 1 from Abilene Christian. Nobody gives me a hard time about going to UNT at all. In fact, the 2 guys from Texas rather enjoy discussing the progress (or present lack thereof) of UNT athletics. They kinda' like the idea of the small town access that we have to our programs.

I've known and still know a number of Longhorn fans and it is interesting how many of them keep tabs on North Texas and would love to see us emerge as a program. Many of them find Denton and the Mean Green more interesting than a number of other towns and programs across the state.