C-USA West Division Preview

[correcamino]

http://nonpower5conference.com/?p=384

A little article I wrote. Thought I'd share it, and yes I did actually rank NT ahead of UTSA although there really isn't much separation between 3rd and 7th imo. 3-7 should be battling for and constantly changing position through out the season if you ask me. Tulsa and Rice will separate themselves from the pack and the rest of us will be playing for 3rd place.

Thoughts or comments? Good or bad.

[NT03]

http://nonpower5conference.com/?p=384

A little article I wrote. Thought I'd share it, and yes I did actually rank NT ahead of UTSA although there really isn't much separation between 3rd and 7th imo. 3-7 should be battling for and constantly changing position through out the season if you ask me. Tulsa and Rice will separate themselves from the pack and the rest of us will be playing for 3rd place.

Thoughts or comments? Good or bad.

Good write up. I agree , not much separation between 3-7. It may come down to who stays the healthiest.

Maybe the 1 thing I would disagree with is La Tech. I think a lot of people are underestimating the Bulldogs this year. I don't see them having that much of a drop off. I'd pick them 3rd

[SHOSS]

Not a bad writeup.

I think the Mean Green Writeup is pretty spot on... the only update is that Abbe is playing from day one...just not on scholly anymore for his senior year. Suspension is over, and thank god. He's physically the most complete DT that we've got. The other guys at DT are somewhat undersized or have far less experienced.

This is the most "wait and see" season that we have had since I've been a fan(my memory goes back to yesterday... tailgating takes its toll on the memory). I have been beaten down by the last 8 years or so so badly that I can't really muster up any kind of real optimism. But, yet, I have more faith in Mac than I have at any point since we lost to memphis in New Orleans. I'm so conflicted.

The elements that I feel we are missing from our team now that we had back then are all on the d-line. If those guys can hold up and make some plays this season... I really do think we can do well...

Contrary to what everybody says about our offense, I LOVE the mean green pounding the ball with the Oline. I love controlling the clock and imposing our will on an opposing defense. That to me is the very cliche "BIG BOY FOOTBALL", and I love that cliche if it describes my team. It reduces the need to rely on Thompson regularly. If Thompson is having an "on" day, ride him. I went back and watched that Kansas State game again(cause I still had that game on DVR), and that first half, Thompson was on. He filled in the gaps perfectly in that first half between all those positive gain plays from the running game. K-state was sitting back in a defensive shell, but Thompson was accurate and the receivers were all making plays. Unfortunately, 2 of those biggest guys in that game are now gone...Power and Delgado. The Oline and running backs did an amazing job in this game and for a lot of the season. Controlling the clock and the ball also keeps these fast paced offenses off the field and helps disrupt their rhythem. Not always, but it helps. That's how we hung with K-state, that's how we hung with Houston for a half 2 years ago... Its how we CAN be successful. The only parts that are changing out for our offense(non receivers and tight ends) are center and brown is replaced by pegram.

I can't wait to see first hand and on TV this season. I love football season. We only have 27 days... or so. It is almost here.

I don't want to hear any "news" other than new recruit commits. No news will be great news through fall camp. Whatever happens with the depth charts will happen. People step up, or they fall behind.

I just don't want to read or hear the "i" word. That's it. This edition of the mean green has to be the biggest unknown I can remember with lots of returning players in key positions, several transfers, and a brand new league.

Go Mean Green!

[PlummMeanGreen]

I have what might be a novel idea here.....why don't we just wait, play the games and see what happens?

Pre-season talk and forecasts are great but at some point you have to turn them off like a water spicket and just wait for the games to begin. It just seems to me that the CUSA West Division gang has put all this predicting and such well into several over-times this summer.

Predictions too many times among our G5 conferences are so useless. 2 or 3 years ago ULaLa was picked to finish last or close to it in the Sun Belt Conference and their answer to that was ? ? ? ? They won the SBC, took about 40,000 fans over to the NO's Bowl and beat the MWC San Diego State Aztecs was their answer to the "all knowing" pre-season sooth-sayers and prognosticators.

IMO, North Texas has more talent on this team than is being given credit from across our new conference, and in many ways we enter CUSA in our first year similar as to when we did the SBC in its first year because..........nobody had any idea how that team or this year's team would mesh with all the new talent combined with some pretty decent talent already there. I think this Fall's team will mesh much better than most of our fans will ever believe but we're all still a tad shell-shocked from our lack of success the last several years but still.............we have to play out the schedule to see.

Yes, its fun to speculate, but North Texas for the upcoming 2013 season has seen the whole 180 degree thing (if you will) and has been predicted to go to a bowl game (by some of Phil Steele's research staff) or by many from the CUSAbbs board (who seem to know nothing about our past multi-decades football history in NCAA D1 since many of them are newbies to it themselves of late) and...............whereas some from that CUSA bbs message board all but predicting that our team will just forfeit the entire schedule for fear of competing in this new CUSA! LOL!

Let's just play the games and see what happens?

GMG!

Edited August 5, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[ntmeangreen11]

Good write up, good website.

[Harry]

As much as it pains me to say, I thought you did a nice job on the write up and appreciate you posting it here for us.

[correcamino]

Come on Harry, I'm not that bad.lol

Regarding Abbe is he listed on the depth chart already? We suspended Ritter and he's been reinstated too but he doesn't appear on the depth chart so I'm pretty sure he'll miss some time early in the season. I'm wondering if the same will be done with Abbe.

Everybody else thanks for reading.

[Green Dozer]

Good write up. I agree , not much separation between 3-7. It may come down to who stays the healthiest.

Maybe the 1 thing I would disagree with is La Tech. I think a lot of people are underestimating the Bulldogs this year. I don't see them having that much of a drop off. I'd pick them 3rd

Agree. La Tech's offensive coordinator is still there, so the guys hitting the field this year should know the offense. By the way Correcamino, Scotty Young played his high school ball here at Denton Ryan. He is gamer, just got caught up in the coaching shuffle at Tx Tech.

[JesseMartin]

You take over reins. But once you're in charge, you can reign.

Also, I found it interesting that Tulsa's QB only had 3 more TDs and 3 less INTs than Thompson, and threw for the same number of yards. Imagine if Thompson's stats were the same, that could translate to 3 close games being wins instead of losses and we end up at 7-5 instead of 4-8 last season.

[PlummMeanGreen]

And as I recall from watching re-runs of games I copied, many times DK#7 had numerous passes dropped or bounced off of hands which 1 or 2 of those created interceptions. I know, all QB's have that happen, too, but if our coaching staff can create the same kind of game plans for Thompson as they did for the ULaLA and Kansas State games, will we then need to cast our concerns elsewhere?

Sure we're all mostly optimistic this time of year, but I have a funny feeling about this team, especially with all the newbies coming in that could mesh quite nicely with those we've had here already.

GMG!

Edited August 6, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[Greendylan]

I think this is a solid article with some thorough information and reasonable predictions! Like some others, I tend to think that Louisiana Tech, despite the attrition, will finish in the top half of the division; I'd swap them with Tulane in order of finish. Then again, I wouldn't be that surprised if Tulane acquitted themselves admirably as well.

[correcamino]

I don't know about La Tech. Losing players to graduation isn't always the end of the world but these are top players they lost. Colby Cameron and Quinton Patton were All-American candidates last season. Four of their lineman are gone, all four earned All-WAC honors. Their #2 receiver is camping with the Packers. Thats alot of talent gone from an offense that carried the team.

I could be wrong though.

Edited August 7, 2013 by correcamino

[Harry]

I don't know about La Tech. Losing players to graduation isn't always the end of the world but these are top players they lost. Colby Cameron and Quinton Patton were All-American candidates last season. Four of their lineman are gone, all four earned All-WAC honors. Their #2 receiver is camping with the Packers. Thats alot of talent gone from an offense that carried the team.

I could be wrong though.

I hear you but they've recruited so consistently and so well over the years you just have to know that they will be ok. That D-Lineman they had at C-USA media day looked like a man among boys...of course he's from Dallas for goodness sakes. I just have a healthy fear about Tech and expect them to be ok.