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I'm in the dead center of that mass of flying helmets and fists, and just as I was about to get laid out.......NT and Pittsburgh Super Bowl running back Eric Pegram saved my ass. At that time we used to pack Boomer with several wads of newspaper to increase the concussion..( yes, Boomer can be much louder if you can believe that?). And every now and then a wad of the paper, sometimes still burning would fly out onto the turf and we would have to run and get it before it started melting the turf. So on that play just as luck would have it,....we fired the cannon as time ticked off after the blocked FG attempt and a piece of wadding shot way out past the corner of the endzone. So I ran after it. Stupid me....I wasn't paying good attention to what was going on on the field and when I looked up from picking up the paper here came a mass of bodies....and the fight was on! Everyone was punching and shoving and swinging helmets. When I saw the helmets I tried staying low but me and one of smu's coaches got into it a little, we were shoving each other back and forth yelling when all of a sudden something grabbed me and spun me around and it was an smu lineman and he was reared back and about to let me have it when out of nowhere Eric split between the two of us, grabbed the guy and threw him down like a child. it was something else and I'll never forget it and have told Eric more than once thank you for that. Rick

How can we be this close to the SMU game with no mention of the Safeway Bowl???? Slackers!!! :D

I don't hate you ❤️

I'd bet money that attendance will be over 25k. It's the home opener, local rival in DFW.. I don't buy the labor day excuse.. It's the opening weekend of football.. I think a few more SMU fans will come out to see their new coach in action. Still annoying we can make their crowd 75% green when we play in Dallas, and they can't fill out their visitor section in Denton.. Hoping the weather is cooler. The 2014 game was a little lower in previous years, because it was baking people alive in Denton that day. I think it was a 11am game which didn't help..

"I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen." -Winston Churchill "I'd like to play because I think we could beat them, and my players feel the same way. If they'd like to play on a Safeway parking lot ... just give us a date and time." - Matt Simon "Let's prepare to kick some Pony ass !" - EagleMBA

I thought I'd repost this gem.

The Ticket radio station is running a commercial advertising SMUt's first game against "The Hated North Texas Mean Green." I didn't need another reason to be fired up for our home opener, but they gave me one anyway.

God I hope you're right Ben, That would be freakin awesome

I think it will be the largest attended game in school history. Dare I say 500 butts short of a sellout? I think the program is out of the "show me" phase unless of course there is a setback this season. We are more in the"let's go see it phase." The excitement of football being back is a draw. The opponent is a draw. And for the folks that get their rocks off from fake fighting is another draw. Give me 30k and change.

The season is about to start, so let’s check in on how each school is doing. I’ll provide the rankings based on total points earned, # of recruits, & average recruit rating. All stats provided by 247 Sports Composite Rankings. OVERALL RANKINGS 1) UNT 141.51 2) WKU 122.60 3) ODU 116.10 4) Southern Miss 110.31 5) UTSA 104.20 6) LA Tech 101.95 7) MTSU 100.00 😎UAB 93.15 9) Rice 92.40 10) FAU 69.79 11) FIU 50.91 12) UTEP 43.90 13) Charlotte 41.34 14) Marshall 23.97 TOTAL NUMBER OF RECRUITS 1) ODU 19 2) UNT 17 3) WKU 15 4) Southern Miss 13 5) UTSA 12 6) MTSU 11 7) LA Tech 10 7) Rice 10 9) UAB 9 10) FAU 6 11) FIU 5 12) UTEP 12) Charlotte 14) Marshall AVERAGE RECRUIT RATING 1) UNT 82.19 2) FAU 82.17 3) Marshall 82.02 (only has 2 recruits though) 4) LA Tech 81.66 5) UAB 81.45 6) UTEP 81.14 7) WKU 80.68 8) MTSU 80.66 9) Rice 80.57 10) Charlotte 80.53 11) UTSA 80.51 12) Southern Miss 80.50 12) FIU 80.50 14) ODU 79.35 Side Note: For the overall rating, 247 only uses a school’s top 20 recruits’ ratings.

9I expect a big crowd...perhaps even the largest ever to attend a UNT game at Apogee. Why? Well, several reasons: 1) Coming off a 9 win season with a western conference crown and a NO Bowl appearance, 2) First game of the season so we should draw a decent student crowd, 3) SMU has a new coach and a few SMUt fans might actually drive "all the way" to Denton to see the first one against UNT' 4) It is Labor Day Weekend...yes, I realize some think that is a downer, but I don't ...it gives families an extra day to enjoy "doing" things together and since Denton/Dallas area schools are back in session, more folks should be staying home over Labor Day weekend' 5) The Athletic Department staff has been working super hard to "recruit" new fans...including UNT Faculty and Staff and local businesses, 6) Several folks have indicated they knew "new" season ticket buyers, 7) The Junior "Mean Green Club" (or whatever its new name is) has signed up a decent number of kiddos who would not want to miss game 1, and 😎 It's SMUt!!!! I know that I am usually one to predict on the "high side" for Mean Green attendance numbers, but I do think there are any number of legit reasons why we might just see record attendance for this game. And folks...PLEASE PLEASE...don't forget to wear green!

It's time for my annual 15-0 or GTFO.

Jimbojimjim’s shirt worthy image....

If this temp prediction holds true, I could see 27k. If it is even moderately hot I expect every SMU fan (all 500 of them) to stay home along with 5,500 of the North Texas fans...so it could be 21k

I hope he’s good, cuz the nickname “The Green Giblin” would be super fly.

I'm glad we're harkening back to the halcyon 18-51 days of Phil Bennett. Sounds good.

I thought we were not a rivalry though?

That's IT! They have crossed the line with the verbal insults. Break out the Boomer Brigade for Pony Practice!!

I bet most of their smug-ass fanbase hates that ad--most of them hate that they play us, nothing more than that. Similar to how TCU looks at them and we look at nUTSAck...

"Any publicity is good publicity. Even a well written obituary enhances one's estate."

damn...that's awesome for shanbour!

The first order of business is to understand what business you are in. Google isn't a search company, it's an ad company. ABC isn't in the TV programming business they are in the advertising business. ESPN is in the carriage fee business. The economics change over time. In the 1970's NCAA controlled television and capped how many times a team could be on national TV over two years. A part of the revenue went to everyone, the rest was paid based on appearance. With appearances constrained, there was a cap on how many "TV worthy" games existed in a conference and the SWC and Pac-8 addressed that by adding Houston, Arizona and Arizona State to their line-ups. In the 80's with the CFA break up you had two factors. 1 Was market size. Data on viewership wasn't collected regularly from a decent sample so estimates were made based on what percentage of a market watches similar programming (this was arguably the pinnacle of value for a school like SMU). 2 Was a new product, the conference championship game. By 2000 we had better information about who was viewing but a new revenue stream. The carriage fee which was fueled by Dish and Direct spending less time trying to sell TV to rural customers and enter the more lucrative suburban markets. XYZ Cable Co was over a barrel. If they didn't meet ESPN's demands many of their customers would call Direct or Dish who were already targeting sports fans by offering to show anything on the regional sports nets that wasn't blacked out for $5 a month. The truly valuable school was the one who had fans who would switch TV providers if they couldn't get the game. They started getting PAID. The logical extension became the conference network and of course LHN. How many cable/sat customers live in your state became the most important metric if you wanted a conference network. Now we have a wealth of data about what people actually watch. With streaming, Facebook knows what game Harry watched and for how long. Online Stadium knows this and ESPN+ knows it too. Cerebus watched ODU-La.Tech for 32 minutes type data. The dual driving forces absent some unexpected disruption are going to be: 1 How many of their fans will shell out $X per month to see their team. 2. How many people will watch a given game and for how long? WHY DOES REALIGNMENT HAPPEN To cure a financial imbalance. Simple as that. In the post NCAA TV world, SMU, Houston, Rice, and temporarily TCU delivered far less value than the rest of the league. MWC 8 understood that they could make more dollars per school in a tighter conference than they could make as part of the WAC16. Big East figured out that adding schools like Tulane diluted the value of Big East branded basketball as a television and gate receipts product. If the disparity between who generates the revenue and who gets the revenue becomes too great, the conference becomes unstable. If a conference can increase its per team value by expanding then it will expand assuming the target is interested. Texas has two stabilizers attached right now. One is unbalanced revenue sharing. The lesser value of say Iowa State doesn't hurt Texas because Texas takes a larger share of Big XII revenue. The other is third tier television rights. By keeping that inventory Texas generates added revenue they do not share. The imbalance that tore SWC apart is prevented. Texas is stable until 2031 when LHN expires. Between today and then, one of the largest richest companies in the world owes Texas an annual rights fee and barring some wild growth in rights, Texas got a great deal, they even have protection if that inflation takes place because they get the greater of the guarantee or a percentage of profit. Nothing short of OU leaving the Big XII gives Texas any incentive to leave or renegotiate. ESPN probably would love to cut their losses and parlay their stake in LHN into an equity stake in Pac-12 Network but Texas isn't going to the west coast. The next best financial outcome for ESPN is for Texas to go ACC but ACC already has 15 hoop members and 14 football, there is precious little room to add travel buddies. They'd probably rather eat Bevo's turds than be seen following TAMU to the SEC. Big 10 creates its own issues. The Big 10 would probably gladly take KU in order to get Texas and grudgingly take OU but there is no one else the Big 10 would bother with. ESPN might give up LHN equity to equity in BTN but the Big 10 isn't giving up their 49% to get Texas unless Fox gives up some of their 51% as well. So in baseball terms, its a pickle. But its a pickle that doesn't really have to be addressed until 2031. But going forward, pay attention to who has fans who care enough to buy tickets, subscribe to pay services, and watch the games. That will dictate value.

OU will not leave OSU. Or OSU will not let OU leave them behind. WVU will get plucked by someone on the East coast, and the expansion of other conferences will then follow suit. KU will get picked up on the basis of basketball only, probably by the Big10. The SEC has been in talks of reorganizing their divisions to better suit travel schedules per geographic sense. Mizzou will soon enough be in the SEC West, other things will have to play into that for it to happen. In this, look for realignment version, look for 'P5' conferences to contemplate cutting dead weight as well. Somewhere, someone is going to get plucked and invited. KState, ISU, Tech, and Baylor are toast to me. I think TCU very well falls into this camp as well. Their numbers and TV pull just really isn't there. The plan for UNT should be to hitch the wagon to the Big12 rejects. That should be the absolute goal moving forward. And a 5 year plan should be put in place for just this, yesterday.

Realignment is inevitable. When TV contracts, specifically LHN, expire programs and conferences will see a shift. The first domino to fall is almost guaranteed to be LHN negotiations. We have 4, maybe 5 football seasons to completely change the perception of our program to best position ourselves. It can be done. And we are currently on the perfect trajectory.

Cannot wait until SMU but I am extremely excited because I just purchased 15 tickets on the same row for the Arkansas game. Purchased through SeatGeek sadly because it was so much cheaper than our ticket office. I believe we're sitting right in the middle of Hog fans but will be even sweeter when we upset. Never been to a game in Fayetteville and hopefully we are 2-0 so I can chill out and watch football with a little less stress.

You can buy single game parking from the Athletic website I just bought a blue lot pass. $30.00 +$2 fee You can download to your mobile Go Mean Green

I say about 25,000. Now if we had Smatrest the Slammer vs SMU's president on the wrestling card, there would be no question about a sell-out.

7-6 Texas at 23. They were preseason top 25 last year too coming off a 6-6 season. Always a burnt orange nudge in the polling until they go out and embarrass themselves.

You can give $$$, but you can't make people care enough to go games...see SMU

27,500 - Think this will look similar to the UH stadium opener, except crowd will be almost all UNT fans since SMU’s travel contingent is pathetic.

2017: At SMU 24,638 2016: Apogee 24,718 2015: At SMU 25,401 2014: Apogee 22,398 2007: At SMU 20,517 If the students show up in full force, we will easily hit 25K and beyond

30K Our Apogee opening game with Houston was 28,000. I think we exceed that number. Maybe not a technical sellout but it will look like one. GO MEAN GREEN

We booked this series for its supposed appeal to both sides for a rivalry and short distance to the game. However, SMU will never acknowledge that this is a rivalry game and that makes it tough for us to really punch up the numbers for this game. Rivalry is suppose to imply a lot of interest on both sides...we do not have that with SMU. Why are we constantly under the gun to produce fans in the seats and our visitors never bring any significant numbers. We do our part when the game is at SMU. Oh well, it is what it is.

Repost.

I think it's a testament to what is going on around here that you're expecting NEGATIVE votes for predicting a 10-WIN SEASON! Go Mean Green.

24 k, i wish i could say more, labor day weekend, the freshman are going to run home for the weekend because they are not use to being away from home. I remember when I lived in Clark Hall there was never a parking spot during the week but on the weekend you had your pick of parking spots. Never understood it because i had a great time in Denton and maybe it was cause I was from El Paso and couldnt drive home on the weekends. Also SMU fans could not fill a short bus to come to Denton. I bet Texas State would bring more fans to a game at Apogee.

where is football though?

Over the years I have developed a vast amount of cynicism regarding coaches. You simply don't have a "normal" personality to be a major college coach. My observation is they all believe they are among the very best at what they do (and frankly they are elite) and as a result they have an abundance of ego. If you are at School Y and a kid you want goes to School X the coach believes one or more are true: the facilities caused them to go there, the uniforms caused them to go there, the shoes caused them to go there, having walnut lockers instead of fiberboard with laminate caused them to go there, it was the indoor practice facility, the player got "bought". What a coach isn't going to think is the Coach at School X out-recruited him or the kid picked Alabama over Auburn because its freaking Alabama where they win national titles regularly and players routinely get drafted after their junior year. I'm not claiming everyone is "clean" but I think most try to stay within the rules while pushing the limits. If it is a non-contact period where you can only "bump" into a kid, then the coach when he goes to visit the high school coach will mention in advance who he is interested in and the high school or juco coach will come up with some reason why the player "needs" to come to his office and golly gee the college coach "bumped into" the player. The real dirty is in hoops but happens some in football. Someone has the kid's ear and becomes "the handler" and won't let a school get access to the kid without some sort of compensation and the kid often doesn't even get a cut of what the handler pulls in.

I’ll be embarrassed if we don’t draw around 28-30k for this game. Local rival, good buzz, good team, first game of the year, and it’s a long weekend. Kids won’t be going home one week after school starts. The heat will be a bitch early on but will be fine by 7:15

Not Alabama, but I’d pick good ol’ Denton 10 times outta 10.

That is my exact same prediction. I have NT winning a Bowl Game this year.

Team looked good, hot dogs were great and Shorter is a man child! The most impressive was the Maroon mini van that drove up to me in the parking lot. They were an Asian family that had driven 20hrs from California looking for Russell Hall. They were checking their son in. The parents were in the front not being able to really speak English and their son and aunt were in the back. As I'm visiting with the son the other family members are just beaming with pride and excitement. Very impressive that UNT is attracting a student from the LA area, but really amazing is the family driving the 20hrs and then 20hrs going back to share this moment with their son. He is the first generation going to college! Shout out to all the family members and friends that got the child to the college level! GMG

Really excited about next years game

When I read the topic title, I wondered why you would want to park at Southern Meth University.

SIDE NOTE: 30 minutes before kickoff the stadium manager told me that they could not get the lights to come on at Fouts Field. Luckily, they finally came on...I've always wondered what would have happened if we could not get the lights to come on. It was a locally televised game, too. Would we have had to forfeit? Who knows?

My daughter moved into Maple hall yesterday. Too far to drive from Connecticut. Still a 3 and a half hour plane ride and required some strategic packing.

i don't think you understand what power rankings are...

A recovering Roadrunner. I hope he is in remission. Being a UTSA fan can tear a family apart. Good luck. GO MEAN GREEN

Correction: We are the 3rd highest ranked G5. 50. smuT, 17 commits, average rating .8290 51. ECU, 21 commits, average of .8141 54. UNT, 17 commits, average of .8219 (52 & 53 are Louisville and Vanderbilt). Good things happening in #NewDenton.