Question for you guys

[croatan]

In analyzing new teams coming to Conf USA. La Tech and North Texas in my opinion, have the most to gain in terms of recruiting and potential for winning. I say North Texas because of your location, new stadium(ie commitment to winning) and the Texas recruiting edge. I think you all will actually benefit not having SMU and Houston to contend in the same Conf. IMO four Texas schools in the same conference is not helpful.

My question for the board is this? WIth a long history of football at North Texas, what allowed Houston and SMU, to get into Conf USA before North Texas. What has kept North Texas from being mentioned as triad with Houston and SMU. North Texas, it seems to me, is not like a lot of new schools entering Conf USA, schools with little to no football history. From the looks of it, North Texas has had a long and proud tradition of football and winning. What do you think has been North Texas biggest challenge?

[Mean Green 93-98]

And . . .

Cue epic Plumm post.

[foutsrouts]

In analyzing new teams coming to Conf USA. La Tech and North Texas in my opinion, have the most to gain in terms of recruiting and potential for winning. I say North Texas because of your location, new stadium(ie commitment to winning) and the Texas recruiting edge. I think you all will actually benefit not having SMU and Houston to contend in the same Conf. IMO four Texas schools in the same conference is not helpful.

My question for the board is this? WIth a long history of football at North Texas, what allowed Houston and SMU, to get into Conf USA before North Texas. What has kept North Texas from being mentioned as triad with Houston and SMU. North Texas, it seems to me, is not like a lot of new schools entering Conf USA, schools with little to no football history. From the looks of it, North Texas has had a long and proud tradition of football and winning. What do you think has been North Texas biggest challenge?

In short, 1AA and those who sent us there.

[Green P1]

Our biggest hurdle is almost always ourselves.

[Green Dozer]

In short, 1AA and those who sent us there.

So, were we taken to 1-AA at gunpoint and just left there? Have those people ever been caught?

Edited January 12, 2013 by Green Dozer

[DeepGreen]

UNT leadership and the Southwest Conference. The SWC "was" college football in the State of Texas. Houston, SMU, TCU, and Rice, to some extent, have all benefited from their past history in the SWC.

[UNT90]

A school administration that doesn't give 2 sh!+s about athletics, and did nothing for athletics until the past 8 or so years.

While it has gotten somewhat better, it's not bad where it needs to be.

And we consistently think and market on a FCS conference level.

[Mean Green 93-98]

UNT leadership and the Southwest Conference. The SWC "was" college football in the State of Texas. Houston, SMU, TCU, and Rice, to some extent, have all benefited from their past history in the SWC.

But why were we never in the Southwest Conference?

[Green Dozer]

UNT Leadership.

Was then, is today, and will be tomorrow.

[UNTexas]

I think the easiest answer is the leadership at UNT turned its back on athletics as well as we were relegated to D1AA where they fed the athletic programs just enough money to stay alive. Years of neglect were terrible for our school. The past few years have seen the leadership finally investing in athletics and I truly believe it will pay off soon.

[GreenBat]

North Texas has had a long and proud tradition of football and winning. What do you think has been North Texas biggest challenge?

That is a statement, many including myself, was true. But football success at North Texas remains mainly in our dreams. There was some success under Dickey, when the SBC was new, but the lack of leadership in the University, from the board of regents down to the football coaches, have kept the promising giant in an ambian-induced sleep. If the university can ever turn the corner, watch out. Unfortunately the administration's steering wheel will not budge.

[GrayEagle]

Commitment and money...or money and commitment.

SMU got a big jump on us in the 19 teens and twenties and was an early entrant in Texas football (the Southwest Conference). For years it was simply no contest. Then Hayden Fry got us to near parity before he departed for Iowa. But, they've maintained an advantage with money (afford better coaches) and recruiting leverage.

Houston is a little different story. We've been competitive with Houston since the 1940s although we haven't played that often. We were together in the Lone Star Conference and again in the Missouri Valley Conference but not long in either case. I believe that we were even in wins and losses until last year. However, Houston was able to get into the Southwest Conference due to some very good teams that they put together and the backing of a couple of wealthy Houstonians. Frankly, they have deserved it.

We had some success beginning in the late 50s to the late 70s when Coach Fry left but we failed to take advantage of the opportunity primarily due to out administration. We were far more concerned with building academics than athletics. In 1982 when Division 1-AA was formed one of the requirements was to have a stadium that seats 30,000. Our stadium seated 20,000 and our administration would not fund an addition. Consequently, we "voluntarily" dropped to the 1-AA classification. We were an independent so we did not have the aid of a conference to help us (e.g. the MAC). After 30 years in FBS equivalency we then spent 12 years in purgatory until 1994. Coaching hires haven't been good to us although we did have four straight bowl years under Darrell Dickey but his other five years were a disaster as was the tenure of Todd Dodge (America's #1 high school coach). It has taken Coach McCarney a couple of years of trying to reestablish hard-nosed football and a winning tradition. He still doesn't quite have the talent of some others but we believe that this is the year that he turns the corner.

Louisiana Tech has had some exceptional teams but the loss of their coach and 35 seniors, 17 of which were starters, should put us ahead this coming season.

[DeepGreen]

But why were we never in the Southwest Conference?

Not enough political clout, lack of leadership,lack significant donors is my guess.

[UNTexas]

Commitment and money...or money and commitment.

SMU got a big jump on us in the 19 teens and twenties and was an early entrant in Texas football (the Southwest Conference). For years it was simply no contest. Then Hayden Fry got us to near parity before he departed for Iowa. But, they've maintained an advantage with money (afford better coaches) and recruiting leverage.

Houston is a little different story. We've been competitive with Houston since the 1940s although we haven't played that often. We were together in the Lone Star Conference and again in the Missouri Valley Conference but not long in either case. I believe that we were even in wins and losses until last year. However, Houston was able to get into the Southwest Conference due to some very good teams that they put together and the backing of a couple of wealthy Houstonians. Frankly, they have deserved it.

We had some success beginning in the late 50s to the late 70s when Coach Fry left but we failed to take advantage of the opportunity primarily due to out administration. We were far more concerned with building academics than athletics. In 1982 when Division 1-AA was formed one of the requirements was to have a stadium that seats 30,000. Our stadium seated 20,000 and our administration would not fund an addition. Consequently, we "voluntarily" dropped to the 1-AA classification. We were an independent so we did not have the aid of a conference to help us (e.g. the MAC). After 30 years in FBS equivalency we then spent 12 years in purgatory until 1994. Coaching hires haven't been good to us although we did have four straight bowl years under Darrell Dickey but his other five years were a disaster as was the tenure of Todd Dodge (America's #1 high school coach). It has taken Coach McCarney a couple of years of trying to reestablish hard-nosed football and a winning tradition. He still doesn't quite have the talent of some others but we believe that this is the year that he turns the corner.

Louisiana Tech has had some exceptional teams but the loss of their coach and 35 seniors, 17 of which were starters, should put us ahead this coming season.

This is the best post I have read on this forum. It's honest, historically correct, and spot on.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Not enough political clout, lack of leadership,lack significant donors is my guess.

That may be true . . . but that wasn't the incendiary answer I was looking for.

Where is PMG when you need him?

[PlummMeanGreen]

That may be true . . . but that wasn't the incendiary answer I was looking for.

Where is PMG when you need him?

When North Texas didn't even make the SWC meeting agenda for membership in Fry's last few months in Denton, he started looking ASAP for another job for himself and his coaching staff. He wanted to go to bowl games and he also wanted to coach before larger crowds. Some think Fry did all the SWC talk just to garner attention for himself--I am not one of those. UT's Darrell Royal was said to have been one of our strongest supporters for SWC membership, but still there were "4" private schools in that league who may have said "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah with lipservice for UNT membership" but would have voted no,no, no, no in a closed ballot.

Honestly, Mean Green 93-98, I cannot add too much more than what Gray Eagle has so elegantly posted above. G.E. won't like me saying this because we tend to agree to disagree on the subject, but (still)...........IMHO.......SMU has never been our friend and never will for those of you who think they are and will be in the sweet by and by. Their Prez' Gerald Turner avoids the subject of North Texas almost as if you were talking to him about a possible outbreak of the bubonic plague with ground zero on his campus. He's SMU all the way insasmuch as he thinks he is President of an Ivy League school which he is not. I don't think SMU's standards are even remotely close to Ivy League standards. Yet as I put myself in SMU's shoes I think I know how I might feel about a large DFW Metroplex public university and now a system that is building campuses (law school, pharmacy school, possible MD school, etc) all around the Hilltop and for anyone to think that SMU'ers haven't noticed all this would be most naive on their part. Still iSMU is a private and UNT a public and I think UNT'ers understand the differences and the missions of the 2 than SMU'ers seem to, but it's still that difference which gives them just enough to look down their noses at us albeit they don't seem to do the same with other public universities of equal or less stature than UNT's. That alone is very telling of their attitude toward us.

Don't be completely surprised or shocked if the SMU/UNT home and home football series gets bought out, either. Would that be a final convincer for some of you if that happened? North Texas (as said many times on GMG.com) just needs to take care of North Texas. I think we will all be totally amazed with the results of doing that if we can just put all the right pieces in place up there.

From the Abner Haynes Era all the way thru the Fry era, anyone ever notice how many schools we would have like to have played would not schedule North Texas? Many of these very same schools have large margins of wins versus losses over North Texas subsequently because they just would not tee it up with us when they knew we were better and we would have piled up many "L's" on their side of the ledger versus UNT. You have to hand it to all their AD's who were smart enough to know when to play North Texas and when not to play us. Tulsa and TCU are 2 such schools--there are others, of course. Can one only imagine how may more "W's" North Texas could have piled onto many of our all time series records versus many other schools if they had only scheduled us when we were up and they were down?

It seems what we have rarely done at North Texas is learn from our past. We take 4 giant steps forward then 6 back. Darrell Dickey's bowl era

would have been more significant for UNT and his future career at a higher level if we had only pulled a La Tech back then and just made a

Top 25 poll even with "1" of those bowl teams. We did not and then the "go backwards" aspects of our program would begin its cycle again.

Mo Green (D.Kalk) told me in the 80's that UNT never has the infra-structure in place to ever go to the next level. We now have the stadium,

in the opinion of many the head football coach, but those 2 together are still not enough to advance North Texas and that's is all I'm going to say on the subject.

Many of us have seen many schools go past North Texas the past 4 decades and they did it many times while we were operating in the mode such as we've been in the last 10 years or so years.. Whoops! I said I wasn't going to say anymore.

GMG!

Edited January 13, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[croatan]

Interesting and helpful posts. ECU is the red headed step child in NC among the UNC system. We have had to battle against UNC and NC STATE for everything. I think the posts about the role of leadership in making a program successful or not successful are very true. We have been fortunate in that starting the late 60 we had University Presidents who saw football as a ticket for many things at ECU.

I suspect that with a commitment from your administration and with the fertile Texas recruiting area you all have tremendous potential. Sounds like you have had one hand tied behind your back for many years.

[HoustonEagle]

Money and fans. Plain and simple

[GreenBat]

Lack of Money and fans. Plain and simple

Fixed it for you!

[risinggreen]

I suspect that with a commitment from your administration and with the fertile Texas recruiting area you all have tremendous potential. Sounds like you have had one hand tied behind your back for many years.

We've been known as the Sleeping Giant of Texas for decades.

[SilverEagle]

If what I was told was correct, we actually had a university president for many years that discouraged donations to UNT. Unbelievable.

Now we are 100s of millions of dollars behind in endowment and just now putting the resources into athletics (and academics) that needed to be invested 30 years ago.

I think you are talking about this party animal.......

http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth61037/m1/34/?q=president

President from 1951 to 1968.

The Mean Green club was started by Hayden Fry. Before then, there was no auxiliary fund raising done for the athletic department. I was advised by what I consider a reliable source, that in fact it was almost forbidden. I was also advised by the same person that any sort of giving to the University was discouraged....hence the lack of any sort of endowment until recently.

Now, I find it astounding that general giving to the University was discouraged, but again, my source is pretty reliable.

[untjim1995]

We have not had a decent winner here since the 2002-2004 seasons as an FBS member. Going back to when we rose up from purgatory, in 1995, we are 70-142, or an average in those seasons of 4-8. Our average attendance is usually between 15k and 19k. The local media of the area don't give much attention this way. All of that combines to why we have been easy targets to be ignored, disregarded, or abandoned as conference mates. We think Tulsa and UTEP and Rice will look at us connections to DFW area alums and fans. We think that Tech and UH and SMU and TCU and Baylor will recognize us as potential rivals at some point in the future because of our size and location. We think that Abner Haynes and Mean Joe Greene and being the first SW based team to be integrated makes our history as a college football team seem close to our SWC brethren and way above some of the fellow Big West/SBCUSA members we play. In reality, and I hate it because I never really wanted to admit it, none of this is how others perceive us, which is why we are affiliated in conferences with schools that sound like airports or have hyphens in their name. Those higher than us on the Texas college ladder have never wanted (nor been given a reason) to want us in their conference. UTEP and Tulsa will bolt as soon as possible, just as Rice and La Tech would too if they could. We are no sleeping giant. We are a big, fat guy that has been in a coma, given just enough to survive on, but never given enough sustenance from anyone, including our own administrative family, to get up and get healthy. When the doctors (other schools higher up the food chain) and the hospital (conference) looks at us, all they see is an unhealthy patient. A lot of the family (administration, faculty, alumni, and local residents) would prefer us to just die so that they can collect the inheritance (no more $$$ to athletics), but a few family members know that we can get better if we got better medicine and eventually different doctors. But the doctors we want all seem to be connected to the HMO (SWC schools) that want as little done as possible for the patient. So, we drift along, believening, hopelessly, that our patient will wake up and become a champion because of his location, size, and age, not recgonizing that those around us don't look at any of those things when they see the patient. They see no sleeping giant. All they see is a big, fat guy that really doesn't appeal to them at all.

[MeanGreenTexan]

We have not had a decent winner here since the 2002-2004 seasons as an FBS member. Going back to when we rose up from purgatory, in 1995, we are 70-142, or an average in those seasons of 4-8. Our average attendance is usually between 15k and 19k. The local media of the area don't give much attention this way. All of that combines to why we have been easy targets to be ignored, disregarded, or abandoned as conference mates. We think Tulsa and UTEP and Rice will look at us connections to DFW area alums and fans. We think that Tech and UH and SMU and TCU and Baylor will recognize us as potential rivals at some point in the future because of our size and location. We think that Abner Haynes and Mean Joe Greene and being the first SW based team to be integrated makes our history as a college football team seem close to our SWC brethren and way above some of the fellow Big West/SBCUSA members we play. In reality, and I hate it because I never really wanted to admit it, none of this is how others perceive us, which is why we are affiliated in conferences with schools that sound like airports or have hyphens in their name. Those higher than us on the Texas college ladder have never wanted (nor been given a reason) to want us in their conference. UTEP and Tulsa will bolt as soon as possible, just as Rice and La Tech would too if they could. We are no sleeping giant. We are a big, fat guy that has been in a coma, given just enough to survive on, but never given enough sustenance from anyone, including our own administrative family, to get up and get healthy. When the doctors (other schools higher up the food chain) and the hospital (conference) looks at us, all they see is an unhealthy patient. A lot of the family (administration, faculty, alumni, and local residents) would prefer us to just die so that they can collect the inheritance (no more $$$ to athletics), but a few family members know that we can get better if we got better medicine and eventually different doctors. But the doctors we want all seem to be connected to the HMO (SWC schools) that want as little done as possible for the patient. So, we drift along, believening, hopelessly, that our patient will wake up and become a champion because of his location, size, and age, not recgonizing that those around us don't look at any of those things when they see the patient. They see no sleeping giant. All they see is a big, fat guy that really doesn't appeal to them at all.

I think the Sleeping Giant is a spot-on descriptor of UNT. You cant deny our student and alumni population. You can't deny our location in a prime area for both TV opportunities and football talent.

However, We're like a freaking Giant Rip Van Winkle on Ambien. Eventually we have to wake up right? We stirred a little between 2001-2004, but never really woke up.

[Mean Green 93-98]

We have not had a decent winner here since the 2002-2004 seasons as an FBS member. Going back to when we rose up from purgatory, in 1995, we are 70-142, or an average in those seasons of 4-8. Our average attendance is usually between 15k and 19k. The local media of the area don't give much attention this way. All of that combines to why we have been easy targets to be ignored, disregarded, or abandoned as conference mates. We think Tulsa and UTEP and Rice will look at us connections to DFW area alums and fans. We think that Tech and UH and SMU and TCU and Baylor will recognize us as potential rivals at some point in the future because of our size and location. We think that Abner Haynes and Mean Joe Greene and being the first SW based team to be integrated makes our history as a college football team seem close to our SWC brethren and way above some of the fellow Big West/SBCUSA members we play. In reality, and I hate it because I never really wanted to admit it, none of this is how others perceive us, which is why we are affiliated in conferences with schools that sound like airports or have hyphens in their name. Those higher than us on the Texas college ladder have never wanted (nor been given a reason) to want us in their conference. UTEP and Tulsa will bolt as soon as possible, just as Rice and La Tech would too if they could. We are no sleeping giant. We are a big, fat guy that has been in a coma, given just enough to survive on, but never given enough sustenance from anyone, including our own administrative family, to get up and get healthy. When the doctors (other schools higher up the food chain) and the hospital (conference) looks at us, all they see is an unhealthy patient. A lot of the family (administration, faculty, alumni, and local residents) would prefer us to just die so that they can collect the inheritance (no more $$$ to athletics), but a few family members know that we can get better if we got better medicine and eventually different doctors. But the doctors we want all seem to be connected to the HMO (SWC schools) that want as little done as possible for the patient. So, we drift along, believening, hopelessly, that our patient will wake up and become a champion because of his location, size, and age, not recgonizing that those around us don't look at any of those things when they see the patient. They see no sleeping giant. All they see is a big, fat guy that really doesn't appeal to them at all.

Hah! That post is funny. . . . and suicide-inducing at the same time.

[FirefightnRick]

This is the best post I have read on this forum. It's honest, historically correct, and spot on.

I second, and consider its author...not surprising.

Rick