Scout.com 2014 Preseason Predictions

[NT03]

http://cfn.scout.com/2/1366330.html

[untbowler]

wow Coker has done a fantastic job at UTSA to already have them as pre-season favorites. Interesting!!

[MeanGreenTexan]

3rd huh? Punting problems? A.J. Jimmerson?

OK. We'll see.

[UNTLifer]

What a ridiculous preview.

[Daddy Dumpsalot]

I despise UTSA and that joke of a program. I would bet 9 out of 10 times UNT would beat them, they just happened to land on the 10% this season. If we lose to them next season it will be a very long year.

[Harry]

Come on very little research done here -- he busts Macek's punting average and doesn't list how many time he left it <10 yard line?

I do agree that UTSA's D will be stout but I think losing Soza will hurt them a lot -- he was a HUGE difference maker for them and the other guy didn't impress me very much when he played late in the OSU game.

I will say this, this coming season is huge for UTSA because they graduate a TON of their team for 2015... it will be a huge rebuilding project due to their timeline of moving up. They need a bowl season in 2014.

[DirtySavage]

UTSA scares me.... Great coach and lots of returning starters are always a good combination to have. Whooped our butts last year as much as I hate to say it. They were the fly in our ointment. The score of that game was not as close what it seemed. They dominated us on both sides of the ball. I really hope Soza was their magic and with out him they will return to mediocrity, but I really don't think Coker will let that happen with that many returning starters....

[NorthTexan95]

Punting? PUNTING?!?!?! That's what we have to work on? Punting is the least of my worries. I agree with Harry ... the average is low only because we punted so often on a short field. I'm looking forward to having Macek for three more years.

I'm not scared of UTSA ... but I do respect their team. I agree with Harry again that them losing Soza will hurt them a lot.

[hickoryhouse]

All in all I think that we showed this year that we can thrive in an underdog role so I say 3rd in a preview is fine with me. It will all be decided on the field anyway.

AS far as UTSA goes, I can't stand Larry Coker. He is a thug and his players in Miami and now in SA take that attitude as well.

[meaniegreenie]

2013 pre-season for comparison

[UNTLifer]

These morons say we need to work on punting and then state that the work of the freshmen kickers, Paul and Macek, was a bright spot.

[Hunter Green]

Meaningless, except that they will have the bulls eye on their back. We were picked fifth this season and look what happened. This will only give us incentive to achieve more. We are Bowl Champions, after all.

GO MEAN GREEN!

[NT Alum '04]

UTSA scares me.... Great coach and lots of returning starters are always a good combination to have. Whooped our butts last year as much as I hate to say it. They were the fly in our ointment. The score of that game was not as close what it seemed. They dominated us on both sides of the ball. I really hope Soza was their magic and with out him they will return to mediocrity, but I really don't think Coker will let that happen with that many returning starters....

I agree with Dirty. They scare me. They will be returning an experienced team that exceeded last years expectations.

I expect them to be a very strong team in CUSA.

I am not going to underestimate them.

[PlummMeanGreen]

UTSA scares me because of what could happen during the next conference re-alignment and that other conference boards and blogs have said will most definitely happen. I defer to South Florida and Central Florida as examples of what schools who have true FBS level attendance numbers and solid ticket sales numbers can do in so short a period of time.

I fear many of our's "going along to get along up there" (UNT) has prevented or slowed down our school immensely from duplicating the short term success stories of a USF, UCF and (now) UTSA. Yall have no idea how much the UTSA part of all this galls me as much as the rest of you. Shoulda' only been sitting with Gray Eagle and me during the UTSA's game's final minutes....on 2'nd thought...probably good that you didn't. (Fact is, our team was as flat as I'd seen them in 3 years at Apogee--not taking away from the Road Runners efforts).

UTSA has been beating us in season ticket sales and attendance from the git-go. Does it really matter what KFC did for their tickets distribution because even that took an impressive amount of work and labor to pull that off. They still sold many, many season tickets on top of the KFC thing. If we make the right changes, we can change our plight in Mean Green Country but North Texas most my lifetime has been very slow to change when it has been blatantly obvious that changes needed to be made. Ticket sales + attendance + a winning program seem to all 3 b at the top of the list of successful NCAA FBS programs. If one of those is lacking then it's like we have a piston missing in the engine.

Yes, a theme I post about to point of ad nausem ,even to myself but.....

........I won't stop till I see North Texas make changes in its sales and marketing program in either overall philosophy or personnel and with a staff that has the skins on the wall and proven abilities to solves these major longterm short-comings at North Texas because ultimately those 2 areas will determine our future at the NCAA FBS level, especially in any future upgraded conference affiliation.

Didn't take UTSA too long to figure out what it's taken others about a century of hitting heads against too many brick walls to count. Might it even be safe to say that had North Texas emulated what East Carolina did in wins and impressive football attendance averages their last 25 years that it could have just as easily been North Texas that the Big 12 would have had serious inquiries and meetings with even over private school TCU?

I think most feel we have the coaching aspects of all this quite solved, but Coach McCarney need not ever have to ask about attendance again at Apogee Stadium and this next Fall if he has to do that again......then its time for about a hundred or more of us to march on city hall (so to speak) or ask for a quartely meeting with the new UNT president for a real get down to it Q & A time.

Edited January 16, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen

[Eastwood Eagle]

2013 pre-season for comparison

These guys have a knack for accuracy.....

[untjim1995]

UTSA scares me because of what could happen during the next conference re-alignment and that other conference boards and blogs have said will most definitely happen. I defer to South Florida and Central Florida as examples of what schools who have true FBS level attendance numbers and solid ticket sales numbers can do in so short a period of time.

I fear many of our's "going along to get along up there" (UNT) has prevented or slowed down our school immensely from duplicating the short term success stories of a USF, UCF and (now) UTSA. Yall have no idea how much the UTSA part of all this galls me as much as the rest of you. Shoulda' only been sitting with Gray Eagle and me during the UTSA's game's final minutes....on 2'nd thought...probably good that you didn't. (Fact is, our team was as flat as I'd seen them in 3 years at Apogee--not taking away from the Road Runners efforts).

UTSA has been beating us in season ticket sales and attendance from the git-go. Does it really matter what KFC did for their tickets distribution because even that took an impressive amount of work and labor to pull that off. They still sold many, many season tickets on top of the KFC thing. If we make the right changes, we can change our plight in Mean Green Country but North Texas most my lifetime has been very slow to change when it has been blatantly obvious that changes needed to be made. Ticket sales + attendance + a winning program seem to all 3 b at the top of the list of successful NCAA FBS programs. If one of those is lacking then it's like we have a piston missing in the engine.

Yes, a theme I post about to point of ad nausem ,even to myself but.....

........I won't stop till I see North Texas make changes in its sales and marketing program in either overall philosophy or personnel and with a staff that has the skins on the wall and proven abilities to solves these major longterm short-comings at North Texas because ultimately those 2 areas will determine our future at the NCAA FBS level, especially in any future upgraded conference affiliation.

Didn't take UTSA too long to figure out what it's taken others about a century of hitting heads against too many brick walls to count. Might it even be safe to say that had North Texas emulated what East Carolina did in wins and impressive football attendance averages their last 25 years that it could have just as easily been North Texas that the Big 12 would have had serious inquiries and meetings with even over private school TCU?

I think most feel we have the coaching aspects of all this quite solved, but Coach McCarney need not ever have to ask about attendance again at Apogee Stadium and this next Fall if he has to do that again......then its time for about a hundred or more of us to march on city hall (so to speak) or ask for a quartely meeting with the new UNT president for a real get down to it Q & A time.

PMG, I feel very much the same about UTSA. They have had a very impressive amount of support so far from the citizens of San Antonio. That is a huge and untapped market that wants a team to attach itself to. Its a destination city and has a huge stadium to host big teams and have connections with for bowl representation. UTSA has a lot of advantages, too, from a media standpoint, as they don't share their market with anyone else. Sure, Texas, A&M, and Tech have a ton of representation there, but they have that everywhere in this state. Houston is split between UH and Rice, and DFW is split up between SMU, TCU, and us. UTSA won't have that as a problem.

I think what we have done here under McCarney has been absolutely what I thought we would do when we hired him. Get things rolling back in the right direction and make a huge improvement by Year 3. I expect that to continue. And I think he will be here for another 5+ years if he wants to be here. But I also think we will have to realize that UTSA just doesn't have to overcome nearly as much stuff as UNT does with its alumni and community. The Dallas bowl game was incredible--and I hope it lights fire in the DFW alumni base to follow us and support us more in the years to come. But I don't think that it will open any other conference opportunities that are higher up the ladder than what we have today because of the TV market issue, which is bigger than ever now. Schools like us, Texas State, and New Mexico State are stuck on the outside of the conferences that want exposure in those areas. The Big XII, the AAC, and eventually the MWC, will have the TV markets in the state that they want. I could still see a situation where the MWC expands by adding back BYU and getting three Texas teams to join in UH, UTEP, and UTSA. If that happens, I could easily see the AAC adding Rice to replace UH to join their private buddies in SMU, Tulsa, and Tulane again.

This is all why I have just learned to enjoy a season like we just saw and hope that we can build on it enough to see more like them in the future. I think we are fine where we are anyway, and even if UTSA and UTEP eventually go to the MWC, for example, we would just replace them with Texas State and one of the following Belt teams (NMSU, ULL, or Arkansas State), which wouldn't be great, but it beats the hell out of what we had before.

[PlummMeanGreen]

PMG, I feel very much the same about UTSA. They have had a very impressive amount of support so far from the citizens of San Antonio. That is a huge and untapped market that wants a team to attach itself to. Its a destination city and has a huge stadium to host big teams and have connections with for bowl representation. UTSA has a lot of advantages, too, from a media standpoint, as they don't share their market with anyone else. Sure, Texas, A&M, and Tech have a ton of representation there, but they have that everywhere in this state. Houston is split between UH and Rice, and DFW is split up between SMU, TCU, and us. UTSA won't have that as a problem.

I think what we have done here under McCarney has been absolutely what I thought we would do when we hired him. Get things rolling back in the right direction and make a huge improvement by Year 3. I expect that to continue. And I think he will be here for another 5+ years if he wants to be here. But I also think we will have to realize that UTSA just doesn't have to overcome nearly as much stuff as UNT does with its alumni and community. The Dallas bowl game was incredible--and I hope it lights fire in the DFW alumni base to follow us and support us more in the years to come. But I don't think that it will open any other conference opportunities that are higher up the ladder than what we have today because of the TV market issue, which is bigger than ever now. Schools like us, Texas State, and New Mexico State are stuck on the outside of the conferences that want exposure in those areas. The Big XII, the AAC, and eventually the MWC, will have the TV markets in the state that they want. I could still see a situation where the MWC expands by adding back BYU and getting three Texas teams to join in UH, UTEP, and UTSA. If that happens, I could easily see the AAC adding Rice to replace UH to join their private buddies in SMU, Tulsa, and Tulane again.

This is all why I have just learned to enjoy a season like we just saw and hope that we can build on it enough to see more like them in the future. I think we are fine where we are anyway, and even if UTSA and UTEP eventually go to the MWC, for example, we would just replace them with Texas State and one of the following Belt teams (NMSU, ULL, or Arkansas State), which wouldn't be great, but it beats the hell out of what we had before.

Good gosh almighty! Our 2 posts together are longer than the 1'st chapter of War & Peace!

Carry on...

[MeanGreenTexan]

Good gosh almighty! Our 2 posts together are longer than the 1'st chapter of War & Peace!

Carry on...

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery Plumm. I'm proud of you sir.

[meangreener]

I agree with the UTSA discussion. That's why I think we should just accept the rivalry. They remind me a lot of USF. While I'm not sold on them next year because Soza was the whole team, that's a team that can move up fast and quick. Also, the support has been GOOD, but not THAT good. They traveled less than UTEP and UH, but had their band and were spread out.

They love to tout their attendance numbers, but most of their big attendance games are ones that have P5 schools or Texas State. Oklahoma State brought 40% of that crowd. The usual conference game is around 25K in a dome. While I'd never trade the """"Dome"""" for Apogee, they also don't have weather issues. Like it or not, the weather killed the UTSA attendance. It's a really good combination. But when UTSA needed a big turnout for their final game, 25,000 came. That's where they're at and that's where we're at. I think we will be consistently around the same attendance next year (25K) but we do not have those big marquee opponents to inflate UTSA's average. The discussion of UTSA's fan support is only marginally better than ours--but here's the reason it seems like SA has embraced UTSA...they have excellent season ticket numbers but pitiful student turnout. We have the opposite. The people who travel and discuss college football in a more statewide fashion are not students. Hell, a good chunk of UTSA's fanbase aren't even people associated with the school at all. They just want San Antonio football. We need to be Denton's Team. Gainesville's Team. Aubrey's Team. Krum's Team. Justin's Team. Etc.

We have too much competition in DFW and Denton is not centrally located like the Dome. The T-shirt fans bought TCU season tickets already and don't go considering TCU gets 40+ announced but like 20 in seats. We need to convert those T-shirt fans. I think alumni and students are ready to embrace this team, we need the cities. UTSA has that and no competition. We don't.

I'm not sure we'll ever be a school selling out every game and I'm fine with that. If our turnouts are like UH, UCF or whatever that's cool.

To keep UTSA from passing us, it's simple: Win and Sell Tickets.

A full 30,000 seat stadium looks better than 30,000 in a 60K cavern on TV.

Just my two cents. UTSA has the cards stacked in their favor. We can only take care of our business not theirs.

Separate the academic prestige from the athletic department. Boise State is a terrible school too. Call it the Texas Civil War, and try to stay one step ahead UTSA. Ignore Texas State, they're irrelevant. We just need to put a better product on the field than them year in and year out and sell tickets. Like it or not, in 10 years, UTSA will be a respected program and that rivalry will look nice.

I still think our goal should be to get full support from Denton and the surrounding little towns. Let's be North Texas' team. SMU can have Dallas and TCU Fort Worth. There's more potential. We are closest big time football for all the little surrounding cities.

Edited January 16, 2014 by meangreener

[PlummMeanGreen]

I agree with the UTSA discussion. That's why I think we should just accept the rivalry. They remind me a lot of USF. While I'm not sold on them next year because Soza was the whole team, that's a team that can move up fast and quick. Also, the support has been GOOD, but not THAT good. They traveled less than UTEP and UH, but had their band and were spread out.

They love to tout their attendance numbers, but most of their big attendance games are ones that have P5 schools or Texas State. Oklahoma State brought 40% of that crowd. The usual conference game is around 25K in a dome. While I'd never trade the """"Dome"""" for Apogee, they also don't have weather issues. Like it or not, the weather killed the UTSA attendance. It's a really good combination. But when UTSA needed a big turnout for their final game, 25,000 came. That's where they're at and that's where we're at. I think we will be consistently around the same attendance next year (25K) but we do not have those big marquee opponents to inflate UTSA's average. The discussion of UTSA's fan support is only marginally better than ours--but here's the reason it seems like SA has embraced UTSA...they have excellent season ticket numbers but pitiful student turnout. We have the opposite. The people who travel and discuss college football in a more statewide fashion are not students. Hell, a good chunk of UTSA's fanbase aren't even people associated with the school at all. They just want San Antonio football.

We have too much competition in DFW and Denton is not centrally located like the Dome. The T-shirt fans bought TCU season tickets already and don't go considering TCU gets 40+ announced but like 20 in seats. We need to convert those T-shirt fans. I think alumni and students are ready to embrace this team, we need the cities. UTSA has that and no competition. We don't.

I'm not sure we'll ever be a school selling out every game and I'm fine with that. If our turnouts are like UH, UCF or whatever that's cool.

To keep UTSA from passing us, it's simple: Win and Sell Tickets.

A full 30,000 seat stadium looks better than 30,000 in a 60K cavern on TV.

Just my two cents. UTSA has the cards stacked in their favor. We can only take care of our business not theirs.

Separate the academic prestige from the athletic department. Boise State is a terrible school too. Call it the Texas Civil War, and try to stay one step ahead UTSA. Ignore Texas State, they're irrelevant. We just need to put a better product on the field than them year in and year out and sell tickets. Like it or not, in 10 years, UTSA will be a respected program and that rivalry will look nice.

Mostly agree with ya', meangreener, but what do we do with those other 5,000 Mean Green fans who made up the 35,000 MG fans all of whom were quite visible and that group only 45 minutes away from our campus at the................... historic Cotton Bowl Stadium?

Whether fellow posters agree or agree to disagree, but those 35,000 Mean Green fans gives us a brand new ceiling of which we better by gosh' make certain that we make Apogee accessible to all of them and................THIS:

......I'm not even counting all those who are still Denton and Denton County border-liners or casuals who we did not see with the rest of us on New Years Day at the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium.

"We're going to need a bigger boat." (Jaws)

GMG! .

Edited January 16, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen

[meangreener]

Mostly agree with ya', meangreener, but what do we do with those other 5,000 Mean Green fans who made up the 35,000 MG fans all of whom were quite visible and that group only 45 minutes away from our campus at the................... historic Cotton Bowl Stadium?

Whether fellow posters agree or agree to disagree, but those 35,000 Mean Green fans gives us a brand new ceiling of which we better by gosh' make certain that we make Apogee accessible to all of them and.................I'm not even counting all those who are still border-liners or casuals who we did not see with the rest of us on New Years Day at the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium. "We're going to need a bigger boat." (Jaws)

GMG! .

Look at ULL, though. Not sure that a big bowl attendance means we will magically be selling out every game.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Look at ULL, though. Not sure that a big bowl attendance means we will magically be selling out every game.

Still, ULL does not have 225,000 alums within 1 hour of their stadium nor is it located in a population center that is closing in on 8,000,000 citizens.

We all respect ULL, but our upside & ceiling is so much higher especially now as we add winning to the formula really makes it a New Day in Mean Green Country since we never had the vital "W" ingrediant before for most years and decades.

Winning + Record Numbers of Season Ticket Sales + SRO at the App' and we're on the way.

GMG!

Edited January 16, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen

[pastorgrant]

I'm not scared of UTSA. They would have been pounded into the ground if our guys didn't show up so flat. They are a decent team, but we just played poorly and that's why we lost. They were probably on par with Middie Tennie last year and might be close to as good as Rice was this year if all goes right for them. But we win either way if we play as well as we can.

They could beat us again next year, but so could most of the teams we play. No reason to fear, just need to play our best.

[Christopher Walker]

Mostly agree with ya', meangreener, but what do we do with those other 5,000 Mean Green fans who made up the 35,000 MG fans all of whom were quite visible and that group only 45 minutes away from our campus at the................... historic Cotton Bowl Stadium?

Whether fellow posters agree or agree to disagree, but those 35,000 Mean Green fans gives us a brand new ceiling of which we better by gosh' make certain that we make Apogee accessible to all of them and................THIS:

......I'm not even counting all those who are still Denton and Denton County border-liners or casuals who we did not see with the rest of us on New Years Day at the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium.

"We're going to need a bigger boat." (Jaws)

GMG! .

Plumm, you need to understand that turning people away due to capacity is so, so, so far and away a better situation for us than having pockets of space.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Plumm, you need to understand that turning people away due to capacity is so, so, so far and away a better situation for us than having pockets of space.

To quote the great Dan McCarney: Why Not North Texas? Heck! This guy wants to win an NCAA national championship!

Only 2 people in 40 years of this I ever heard that NCAA N.C. challenge: (1) Mean Joe Greene who spoke at a football banquet after Matt Simon's 1'st year when we got our NCAA D1-A classification back as he said "why not go for an N.C. at North Texas" and then......(2) Coach DMac.

We have to move forward because staying the same is going backwards and especially because of who we now have to compete with in C-USA. Other schools have set high standards at the gate and in season ticket sales. We all wish that could have been our school---but it wasn't.

GMG!

Edited January 16, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen