Interesting note regarding this years students

[Harry]

There is a lot of excitement on the UNT campus in regards to the coming football season. The social media reflects it. It is an exciting time to be a UNT student.

This will be the first year that students can look back to a winning season in Mean Green Football since Fall of 2005...that was 9 years ago. Almost a decade.. time flies.

I still maintain we have yet to connect with a long dormant fanbase but much of it is due to results... how terrific it would be to see another great year on the field to build our support.

The Heart of Dallas Bowl was extremely encouraging to me and many other fans I know. The turnout, the game itself was probably the high water mark for me as a fan. I just hope for once we are able to build on this and take advantage of the momentum Coach Mac has started at North Texas.

[eagle2014]

I can't wait for the season to start!

[Jason Howeth]

I can attest to being part of that "lost" fanbase that suffered as a student through Todd Dodge. But we're coming back.

[Ben Gooding]

Getting the former students of that lost decade to gain interest back into this program would be monumental. They could make a difference in more than one way.

[DT 90]

Lots of Mean Green alumi in MG t-shirts showing up in Waco. Was at a referee chapter meeting last night and there were three of them. I used to be the only one that wore them. Pretty cool.

Edited August 5, 2014 by DT 90

[bstnsportsfan3]

Many of us suffered during dodge years as students. My 4 years on campus, 07-10 I didn't see a single home football victory. (We won 2 but I was out of town for both, only two games I missed in 4 years). In fact if it wasn't for NT basketball and that game vs OSU. I don't think I would be a hardcore mean green fan. So glad to have a good football program.

[northtexassigep]

It was easy to convince my older friends that graduated in 2012 to get season tickets but the ones who were there for only Dodge are a diff story. They still aren't hooked on the idea that its fun to go to unt games. I hope another bowl game might change their mind.

[Jason Howeth]

Many of us suffered during dodge years as students. My 4 years on campus, 07-10 I didn't see a single home football victory. (We won 2 but I was out of town for both, only two games I missed in 4 years). In fact if it wasn't for NT basketball and that game vs OSU. I don't think I would be a hardcore mean green fan. So glad to have a good football program.

I have the exact same story. In 2007 we beat FAU at home, but I was out of town visiting my then girlfriend. The question now, is, why did I ever let her come between me and those precious few-and-far-between wins!?

[greenminer]

The Todge Dodge era is just the tip of the UNT iceberg when it comes to bad football and fan disconnect.

[ColoradoEagle]

Fortunately my first two years were Dickey's last two successful ones, and then JJ's run cemented me as an NT sports fan. Pretty sure I only bought season tickets once during the Dodge catastrophe. Hard to blame anyone for being reluctant about becoming a fan who went through that. He should have been fired after the second season, but definitely after the third. Keeping him on for the first half of the fourth year didn't send the kind of message that would bring alums/fans back.

Edited August 5, 2014 by ColoradoEagle

[UNTDoubleAlum]

Yeah, considering my first year at UNT was 2008 (1-11), I'd think it would be pretty easy to be disconnected from it. Not that I ever was, per se, I'll watch Football, any Football, but back then it was alot harder to get myself to come out instead of catching a different game on tv.

[UNT90]

Fortunately my first two years were Dickey's last two successful ones, and then JJ's run cemented me as an NT sports fan. Pretty sure I only bought season tickets once during the Dodge catastrophe. Hard to blame anyone for being reluctant about becoming a fan who went through that. He should have been fired after the second season, but definitely after the third. Keeping him on for the first half of the fourth year didn't send the kind of message that would bring alums/fans back.

Yep, and yet we keep making the same mistakes again and again.

Sorry, I digress...

[hickoryhouse]

The first years of my 6 at UNT was 2000. I loved going to games, went to 2 of the NO Bowls. It was a great time to be a fan. I got very excited when dodge was hired, but that quickly faded. I followed the program closely and went to games when I was able to but this is my first year to buy season tickets. Here's hoping for another good one and bringing fans back into the fold.

[NorthTexan95]

I was part of the lost years of Dennis Parker and whoever followed ('91-95). Mitch Maher was fun to watch, though.

[untjim1995]

I got to school just as Dennis Parker became the coach. It was clear from day one of working up there that he had no idea how to coach college football players. He always talked about Marshall beating Odessa Permian and Marshall winning the state championship...it was really just embarrassing to watch the players tune him out.

Then, we hired Matt SImon, who was very talented as a coach, but he had a massive ego. Telling him an answer he didn't want to hear turned into a $hitstorm real fast. He was a train wreck waiting to happen--which finally crashed in 1997.

Craig Helwig decided that he would just hire the enxt coach without even doing a search, so he hired Darrell Dickey. Both were former K-State folks. Unfortunately, Helwig looked at scheduling away games against as many powerhouses as possible as the way to pay for the entire athletic department, while Dickey believed that those games were just for the paycheck, so he rearely put together any kind of gameplan other than just running as much as possible to keep the clock going. He never connected with the few fans we had, nor did the fanbase connect with him. Even with the SBC success, it never meant much outside of the few thousand diehards in Denton.

What we have in place now is light years ahead of what we have had since Hayden Fry worked here...

[MDH]

Many of us suffered during dodge years as students. My 4 years on campus, 07-10 I didn't see a single home football victory. (We won 2 but I was out of town for both, only two games I missed in 4 years). In fact if it wasn't for NT basketball and that game vs OSU. I don't think I would be a hardcore mean green fan. So glad to have a good football program.

I attended 06-10 and probably only became a Mean Green fan because of that same OSU game.

Edited August 5, 2014 by MDH

[TheFranchise]

I became a student in 2013. I suffered through a season that could have seen us win 10-11 only to win 9. /sarcasm

I'm kidding, I couldn't have been any more proud of that 2013 team! While they set the bar really high for me, I do have realistic expectations and hope that this season is equally as fun to take part in as last season was. There's no reason we shouldn't contend for the Conference title again this year.

But before conference play starts, let's beat Texsa and Shmuu!!!

[UNTexas]

I got to school just as Dennis Parker became the coach. It was clear from day one of working up there that he had no idea how to coach college football players. He always talked about Marshall beating Odessa Permian and Marshall winning the state championship...it was really just embarrassing to watch the players tune him out.

Then, we hired Matt SImon, who was very talented as a coach, but he had a massive ego. Telling him an answer he didn't want to hear turned into a $hitstorm real fast. He was a train wreck waiting to happen--which finally crashed in 1997.

Craig Helwig decided that he would just hire the enxt coach without even doing a search, so he hired Darrell Dickey. Both were former K-State folks. Unfortunately, Helwig looked at scheduling away games against as many powerhouses as possible as the way to pay for the entire athletic department, while Dickey believed that those games were just for the paycheck, so he rearely put together any kind of gameplan other than just running as much as possible to keep the clock going. He never connected with the few fans we had, nor did the fanbase connect with him. Even with the SBC success, it never meant much outside of the few thousand diehards in Denton.

What we have in place now is light years ahead of what we have had since Hayden Fry worked here...

Any idea why Simon was fired? Every story I heard was BS.

[Harry]

Any idea why Simon was fired? Every story I heard was BS.

My opinion is Simon tired of the lack of financial support he was receiving from the administration. We had a crappy budget, facilities and the AD at the time Craig Helwig was funding athletics through multiple body bag games. He began to challenge Helwig through the media and other outlets. And it wasn't just Helwig's fault, the Chancellor while a good man who did a lot to build attendance and academics did not support athletics to the level it needed to be. There was one particular article where Simon basically called Helwig out:

"I have done a great job here with the resources I have been given," Simon told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday. "I brought this program out of the dark and into the light. I've brought them from I-AA status to I-A.

"When the playing field's level, I'm 10-5-1" in conference games, he said. "We've been Division I on a I-AA budget."

But he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he's disagreed with UNT athletic director Craig Helwig on a number of critical issues.

"We're miles apart on some things," said Simon. "We've met. We've talked. He knows where I stand, but Craig and I don't have knock-down-drag-outs. We go in, talk and disagree."

Read more: http://www.texnews.com/1998/texsports/unt0213.html

When Helwig realized that Simon was not going to accept the way things were he started the ball rolling on hiring Darrell Dickey. As other have pointed out, Dickey was absolutely a Helwig hire. I can remember when he was named, struggling to find out who he was. There was a strong K-State connection between Dickey and Helwig as we would later find out but that is another story for another time.

Matt Simon was a good man and decent coach that truly wanted to build something special at UNT. I would describe Simon as naive. The problem was he did not have the financial support of the administration and his frustration over this ultimately led to his dismissal. Early on he didn't see that, later upon realizing the lack of support he started to voice his displeasure publicly. Look you don't move a IAA program directly into a IA program like we did it. Look at our schedule in 1995...it was ridiculous. You ease into IA, ideally giving yourself a couple of years to build up the scholarships. You certainly don't go out and schedule a bunch of body bag games on the road! Despite all of the issues, we truly had some great players come through during Simon's regime that persevered despite the lack of support.

Thinking back on it now, it makes me so grateful for where we are today in terms of facilities and support. After Dodge was fired, this University took a tremendous step forward in terms of supporting athletics versus using athletics as a cheap way to promote the college.

[rws69]

I still maintain we have yet to connect with a long dormant fanbase but much of it is due to results... how terrific it would be to see another great year on the field to build our support.

We had a good local and student fan base during the Joe Greene era 66-67-68 with a smaller enrollment. We probably could have kept a lot of that had we not left Missouri Valley, dropped to a lower division, and / or gone independent. We were good enough for Southwest Conference then, but that did not happen for reasons we continue to debate. Had we built from that fan base, no telling where we would be today. That 66-67-68 fan base is now mostly retirees, many of whom should be able to come to Apogee for football. With email and social media not even invented when we graduated, those of us outside Denton have lost track of many of the college friends we had. Perhaps when the next alumni directory is published, we can reconnect with some and get them to Apogee.