AustinFromUNT

My Picks: Marshall over MTSU WKU over ODU Rice over UAB FIU over UMass UTSA over UTEP

Here’s how I realistically see this game playing out: We go up early like 21-7 We fall behind (as we typically do) something like 31-24 We tie it up 34-34 Last team with the ball kicks a FG to win. (HOPEFULLY) UNT wins 37-34

Every year there are people who argue back and forth about whether or not we should play an FCS opponent. Here is our historical attendance vs FCS opponents (home openers denoted by an * because home opener always brings in a few more people): 2019 vs ACU: 23,057* 2018 vs Incarnate Word: 18,538 2017 vs Lamar: 19,592* 2016 vs Bethune Cookman: 15,609 2015 vs Portland State: 19,801 (homecoming) 2014 vs Nicholls State: 21,323 2013 vs Idaho: 21,975* 2012 vs Texas Southern: 22,295*

I don’t know if you care about advanced stats at all but Bill Connelly is seen as the leader in advanced CFB stats. He has a system for determining when games enter garbage time. We entered garbage time at the 10:47 mark of the 3rd quarter (a lead greater than or equal to 30 points in the 3rd quarter initiates garbage time). Once a team initiates garbage time, what happens after that does not affect their advanced stats (helps get rid of padded stats & also teams giving up after blowing out/being blown out). So if you look at that system we won this game 41-10. That seems pretty good to me.

Some thoughts: 1) For the sake of this board, everyone please take a step back from the ledge. We beat a team by 20. The sky is not falling. 2) The first game of the year is very rarely an indicator of season performance 3) FCS games are also rarely indicators of season performance. Most of the stuff used in FCS games isn’t used again. It’s used to misdirect other teams scouting. 4) we had a lot of turnover on defense. There were always going to be growing pains there. The question will be how quickly do they develop this season. 5) Every win is hard fought. Celebrate it.

I’m planing on driving over from Lubbock for the SMU game. Hopefully we can finally get a win over there.

A small but funny thing: The diving eagle design doesn’t have the C-USA logos like the other 2 designs do. THAT’S how they’re really trying to convince people lol.

The Battle Flag is the best design and it’s not really close.

It also helps us pull in better coaches in the future via our budget. It’s easier to keep allocating $1.8M to salary each year than it is to change the budget to bring in a new coach at $1.8M or even $2M from $1.4M.

UNT has a good case (good budget, football committed, recent success in football/basketball, in DFW, good facilities, etc.) but I am going to be honest and tell you UNT’s 3 biggest things hurting our chances of getting the promotion right now: 1) Proximity to SMU. SMU doesn’t like us (especially after last year) so they would likely lobby against us. Also, SMU is also in DFW so there’s a question of how many eyes could be gained by adding another DFW member. 2) UNT doesn’t have baseball right now. Yeah it’s in the master plan sure, but lots of schools have lots of stuff in their master plan. Baseball is about 5 years away for us at this point. 3) How sustainable is UNT’s current success? The last 3-4 years have been some of the best in UNT athletic’s history with an AD who loves sports, a president who loves sports, and a BoR who love sports. This hasn’t happened before at UNT. So is this the new norm or is this a blip in time where athletics is just getting very well funded and won’t in the future? I would say those are probably the 3 biggest marks against UNT, if you disagree or think of something else, I’m always open to feedback, but I think that’s my best unbiased opinion. I do think UNT would be a good overall addition for the AAC, but can definitely understand why they would be apprehensive and say no.

My guess: Jordan Nichols, Ennis Rakestraw, and either Seth Meador or Cedrick Pellum

Also our SOS improved when New Mexico blew out #6 Nevada. That probably gave us 1-2 spots and the Southern Miss won gave us the other 1-2 spots.

Did anyone happen to catch the announced attendance?

The real story here is that they are paying him $4M/year. The salary is more impressive to me than the name. $4M/year is an insane amount of money for a G5. Next highest paid G5 coach is Mike Norvell at Memphis making $2.6M/year. We need a sugar daddy donor like UH & Memphis have lol.

40-29 Rice lead. This seems less than ideal.