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Breathe. We got beat by FIU. Badly. It happened. But I watched every single snap of that game and came away with one main thought. This FIU team is pretty good. TY Hilton, if he played for Clemson or Va Tech, would be getting some serious national pub. Do this one thing before you go writing off the season. Watch FIU's game against Louisville next week, or at least look at the final score and stats. I think FIU will win that game. I know, I know, "it's a Sun Belt school" so therefore any loss, especially a bad one, must be the end of the world. Ever stop to think that all Sun Belt teams are not interchangeable? FIU is not FAU. Nor are they ULL. Those are games I think we will win. I gueswhat I'm trying to say is this...Florida State is an ACC team, and so is Duke. Are they interchangeable? And how does this "it's just a Sun Belt team" argument work when many on this board are willing to discount Dickey's bowl run because that Sun Belt was nothing compared to today's Sun Belt? Which is it? Is the Sun Belt the weak sisters of the poor that Dickey supposedly ran through...or is it really an improved league with, gasp, a decent team or two? Look, I'm not saying you should excused getting beaten down like that. Nor am I saying that if there is no improvement as the year progresses that we should just grin and bear it. But that was a snowball game last night if ever I saw one. How many times did we say during the past four years "where's the beef?" in regards to our recruiting classes (I know Silver said it)? How many times did we complain that we went out and signed 5,000 receivers and not enough defensive playmakers? Those holes, those gaping holes, in this roster didn't disappear. I know, I know, it was ok to blame Dickey because of black jersey gate, calling us MF'ers, etc. But how in the world can you honestly overlook the complete mismanagement of this program for the past half decade and say that we expect Mac to fix it in one off-season? Should the playcalling have been more original and should we have done some things to get Lance in space? Yes. Was he running behind a patchwork and young line? Again, yes. This is a reclamation project. It is. Let it sink in. The difference, and the only reason I'm still gonna tailgate for 24 hours before this team takes the field next week is this. We have a coach in place who knows how to build with steel and concrete instead of mud and twigs for a change.

Sometimes when nobody pays attention to me the first time I'll start a second thread, too.

Get real people. No matter the circumstances we should never be down to a SBC team 28-0 after one quarter.

With all the negative vibe around here, I decided to call and join the Mean Green Club. They were so nice, I even get a parking pass and better seats than I had. I am going to enjoy this first season win or lose. With a parking pass my son wants to set up a grill and cook. Very cool.

They are running a 50% off special on knee braces. Thought you all would be interested due to all the knee-jerking going on around here.

He must have seen the game last night and is excited about being a 1st year starter.

In the post game, coach McCarney said "no excuses." Therefore, I give you no excuses. I'll be as hard on McCarney as I was on Dodge if we continue to suck.

I'm unemployed...(cries even more).

I just saw that there was another thread conveying this - but Brelan Chancellor earned the #1 spot for ESPN's top plays today with his sideline catch. That's great promo for the school! Don't be too hard on the team you guys. They need some work but if you erase the 1st quarter problems, they actually settled in after the fumble returned for a TD. No one wants to hear that it's going to "take time". Trust me, I'm a WBB parent... I KNOW!

I don't know how some of you choose to endure this and then choose to not give bball a shot. I love me some football, but JJ and Co. are the breathe of fresh air of UNT athletics right now. Let's hope these footballers get a W soon to reward all their hard work.

Your mean.

You know what this reminds me of (in-state example version?): When Sherman showed up in College Station. He had the remnants of a coach who didn't recruit size, emphasize strength training or much of the basics. He tried to simplify the schemes on both sides and saw his line get matched by bad teams and dominated by crappy teams. They won 4 games and many fans decided he was a bust and figured it was always going to be more of the same. Flash forward a few years later, and he has a preseason top 10 team and a program on the rise with recruiting back to the expected level for a program of that size. I'm not saying he is even that great, but he was losing to Big 12 teams with less talent at skill positions because of the line imbalance. If it turns out we have that this year, real strides can be made on both sides of the ball without always having a win to show for it. It won't be fun and it's not what I want, but it's hard to neglect the trenches for 5-6 years and fix it right away -- especially against opponents at all levels with the coaching to spread out and attack your weaknesses. Also, if this happens again next year, I fully support flipping the eff out.

After watching the game I kinda would. Two freshman guards + injured center + what basically is a freshman quarterback = futility. If you wanna blame Mac for starting the re-building process this hardcore (unless he honestly saw them as the best possible options) maybe we could have that discussion but those 2-4 positions make a pretty damn solid difference.

Four years of touc football in practice. Four years of not bringing in adequate speed or size. Four years of being coached to be soft "husbands and fathers". Mac won't reverse that in one off-season. I disagreed wholeheartedly with the game plan today but it is clear...from starting freshman along the line to closing the world out of practice...that Mac saw a culture of losing that needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. It WILL be rough this season...but I believe this coach actually has it in him to move us forward as opposed to being in neutral or reverse.

Todd Dodge left the cupboard bare. What? Not as fun when it's not the Dickey monster?

That I did not have to see this game in person.

I savor them. Your insane in-game posting has been one of the high points for game days since 2006. MORE BOB! I want to live in your brain for 3.5 hours a week.

I am a true believer that if you don't have a qb that is at least a threat to pull the ball back and run it or pull the ball back and deliver an accurate ball..you're toast in the spread offense. He has pulled the ball back twice tonight and he's not a threat. Throwing off the back foot even when there is no pressure is not a good sign for this season.

If we're not there, I'll write ESPN to complain--we belong there.

I don't know what would be considered a cupcake for this team. We might be a below .500 team in the southland at this point.

I'm not saying we have to win next year, but the gap should never again be 4 scores. I'm really excited to watch the line and do think that those that savor the little improvements and understand that phase of the game will have a lot to chew on and think about. This may sound backwards, but I went in prepared to treat it like a baseball season, where the ongoing storylines and growth are more important to me than what happens in a single game.

Good post, and good examples. The good news is this program is finally--in all areas--on the right track. The arrival of the Feldt brothers is case in point. Very excited for this development, though it will pay off in a year or so. At any level in football, the hardest thing to find is upper-echelon linemen. It's absolutely the hardest thing to do. It is so fundamental to good teams that it is almost always overlooked and ignored by the casual fan because they don't understand how it affects the rest of the team. Take a look at the box score from last night's game. Look and see how many tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks were the product of the DL for FIU. Then take a look at UNT's totals. I'll give everyone a head start: The DT's for FIU had 6 tackles. The DT's for UNT had 0. I quit counting the FIU TFL's, but I believe it was 8 or 9. UNT had 1 or 2. The reaction of the casual fan to what is obviously overmatched line play is typically "unacceptable", "not put in position to succeed", "unprepared", "outcoached", "poor game plan", "no adjustments", "head coach undermined the OC/DC", and other straw-grasping. It is absolutely imperative to build the areas above for any program--and continually build it every year--because the success of the skill players and special teams is BUILT upon those players and how they perform. I will agree with your last sentence as well, up to a point. I don't believe this will be fixed in one more recruiting class, though I expect improvement next year. What will be fun(?) this year is seeing how Bowen/McCarney get the DL/OL improved as the season goes on. This thing is in its embryonic stages. The recruiting and coaching field has finally been leveled for the MG again. It will be maddening to watch at times this year, but this program is finally on the upswing.

I don't get this...what is wrong with any of it?

I didn't hit my wife

The goal line stand at the end of the game was definitely a kick to the nuts.

Good.

"This is a no freak-out zone...this team will progress as the year goes along and this program will progress each year. " Been hearing that for a few years...

There is no excuse for this crap of a game in sun belt play and our staff better take full credit.

Did anybody pay any attention to what coach Mac has been saying? It's one thing to hope for miracles, but UNT football has been a disaster since Dickey quit recruiting. Inertia like that will take some time to reverse. How long did it take for JJ to fix the mess he found?

I think this isn't far off. The intensity form the Kansas State game isn't there at all. JRock

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you need to raise your expectations. No excuses.

If any of us are really shocked about our performance thus far, it's out of looking through rose colored lenses. As enthusiastic as we are, we have to understand the reality that we're dealing with a group of kids that have no confidence once things start to go south. We're starting over, after we started over with a huge mistake with Todd Dodge. They're young, our quarterback has 20 or so snaps in his career, and our best offensive weapon is facing a lot of eight man fronts. We will improve, but we have to be prepared for starts like this.

I think we are supposed to talk about recruiting on the recruiting board.

This made me laugh out loud....and then cry.

First game is next week, dumbass.

I told my daughter last night's score, to which, without missing a beat, she replied, "So...more fireworks of shame, then?"

Here's the link to Chancellor's nice grab!! Enjoy SportsCenter top plays

Great, so you're committed to being unreasonable again. I've got a pretty good history on this board of blaming coaches, but I wouldn't put this one on Mac. No one outside of Denton picked UNT tonight. Defending conference champ at home with returning "pre-season All American and Heisman hopeful" smoked us in the first quarter. Then the coach made adjustments and the bleeding stopped, but he's couldn't work a miracle and overcome the 28 point deficit.

Well, Dunbar is your best player, you ride your best player. What's the best way to win a football game? Running game that can control the clock and a good defense. Also, you have an unproven QB starting his first game and a WR corp that lost it's best player. I don't see a problem in doing what Coach Mac did. This is the gameplan I expect to see the entire year and a gameplan I would be sticking to if I were the HC...

In the entire First Quarter, Kentucky has 0 points and -9 total yards. -9. WKU gave up 380 and 33 points per game last year.Think they upgraded their D? Where did their old coordinator go anyway?? Oh, wait....

The pieces we need will have to be found through trial and error. Once we find our guys, we'll be fine. But we have to find a way to more importantly protect Thompson or whoever is playing QB. The dudes took some shots. I have faith in the Thompson kid, but they need to bring the ball thrower out to practice and make the receives use those things until their hands fall off. As far as the missed tackles, it was far worse in the Dodge era, primarily because they never practiced in pads. Someone on defense needs to put their foot into everyone else's arse IOT light a fire into them. That receiver assaulted us singlehandedly.

Do they like winning?

Than the K-State we played last year? Absolutely. We can play this A to B to C junk all night, but some of you guys make too much out of that game. Last year KSU gave up 41 points to a 3-8 NT. FIU only gave up 10 last year. Without FIU playing KSU, I have no idea what would happen, but some of you have it stuck in your mind that we're playing in the 2001 Sun Belt, which was basically a glorified 1-AA. This is FBS football, and while no one in the SBC is going to be challenging for the national championship, the play in 2011 is nothing like 2001. It's going to take time for us to get to that level. Even with all that said, we played one quarter of really bad football tonight, which I think was expected by all but those drunk on the green kool-aid. People talking about being out-coached, burning their season tickets, going to 1-AA, and other crap. You don't just flip a switch and go from worst to first.

I dont want to sound like the green kool aid guy, but honestly after we settled down we didnt play terrible. The major weaknesses I saw were still the same, bad d line play and just flat missing tackles. I liked how Thompson showed some balls by staying in the pocket a few times. FIU, as bad as it sounds, just has way more talent then us across the board. We knew something like this was probably going to happen, new unis and a new stadium dont make better players, and this was about the score last year vs FIU. It will be interesting to see how we regroup and play vs. the MUTS, ULL, WKU, ASU, FAU's of the 'Belt. Rattle of 4-5 wins and honestly I say the season was a success.

What? Emmitt chooses to blame Dodge for this? Shocking.

We have the top scoring defense in d-1 at this moment

I'm a die-hard fan just like the rest of you guys, but I really didn't expect to get drilled this bad. But hey, we once lost our opener 65-0 and then went on to win our conference.

This is FIU, not Alabama. There is no reason why we shouldn't have at least as good of a team as last year, and we shouldn't have to expect a huge step back.

It's called rebuilding bros. Deal with it.