BlueRaiderPride

Well, ya'll couldn't have done worse than the minimum of 925, otherwise, ya'll would've fell victim of a disgraceful coaching staff that couldn't get their kids to turn in the homework assignments, thus, resulting in lost scholarships.

Oh my stars! Have any of you guys had a chance to tell this guy to kiss your @ss lately? I would have!

If you are referring to new scholarships to offer it's usually around 18, I believe, but doesn't it also depend on how many scholarship players you lose to graduation, scholarship players that are injured that don't qualify for medical redshirts, or scholarships already committed to grayshirts?

Like you guys, we wish to drop the word "State" and be called the University of + Region of the State + State's Name.

Back around our move to 1-A football, our former president and recently deceased, Dr. James Walker tried to fight for a name change and then the three little pigs--Austin Peay State, Tennessee State, and Tennessee Tech--said that a name change would vastly improve our image so much that it would hurt those three schools' ability to reach minority enrollment quotas as outlined in the infamous Geier statute which you could read so much about on the Middle Tennessee forums in colorful language--more than blue! The Geier statute requires of all members of the Tennessee Board of Regents system a certain percentage of the student enrollment be of the minority race. For us, it was black students. Same for Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech, but for TSU--a labeled historically black college and university, it's white people they had a hard time enrolling. Anyhow, they fed the state legislation and the Tennessee Board of Regents this bullsh!t story that a University of Middle Tennessee name change would hurt their chances to enroll minority students, thus, violating the Geier statute. LUCKILY FOR US, this homosexual statute known as Geier is due to expire on June 30th of this year. That means that those three little sisters won't have that crutch to lean on when they try to block another name change which we friends and alumni of Middle Tennessee have agreed to begin pursuing THIS year since Geier will be out the way. Our main problem is that there are currently THREE schools in Tennessee that are named or ends with "Tennessee State University." TSU and ETSU have had so many problems with their athletic programs and it has been shameful and for whatever reason, the national media can't seem to tell us apart. Because of that Middle Tennessee has been accused of dropping it's football program (was really etsu), hiring a basketball coach who pulled a gun on a player or assistant during a practice (was really tsu), and committing nearly 100 NCAA violations in almost every sport from football to water polo nearly bringing about the death penalty to the program (that was also tsu). The perception is killing us. I personally believe North Texas to be the model that we should follow in pursuing our name change. Because it's not like UNT got grief from Baylor or Texas Tech when you changed over from NTSU to UNT. We shouldn't either. It's unfortunate that we have to suffer our dreams because of the incompetent direction that three other Board of Regents schools are taking or not taking--just depends. Hopefully, we will remedy this and get the name change to honor the one goal our previous and late president was never able to acheive due to three jealous red-headed step children.

When ya'll changed from North Texas State to the University of North Texas, did any of the other schools in Texas b!tch and moan to local politicians to try to prevent your name change? Thanks in advance for the answers.

We won three of those scholarships back in an appeal to the NCAA.

Actually, Adler, the NCAA allows ANYONE who schedules an away game at Hawaii to have an additional game on their schedule. I remember not too long ago when Alabama was still on probation and not able to go to any post season championships or bowl games they decided to schedule a season finale at Hawaii and let that be their bowl game/vacation. It was one of those 12-game seasons. I want to say it was 2002 because we played at Bama and I distinctly remember us talking about their team still being on probation. I believe they also lost to Oklahoma a week or so afterwards. They finished either 10-3 or 11-2. So in theory, UNT COULD schedule a road game at Hawaii somewhere on the slate even at the end of the season and still be able to schedule someone else and also play a 13-game schedule.

Yeah. You don't want to do what we did in 2003 and schedule a home game against Temple and actually lose to them and wind up being the only team they beat that year. But then again, I have to remember who we had coaching our team.

Two words. . . ANDY MCCOLLUM

I didn't think 1-AA schools were held to the same guidelines on APR as 1-A schools. In fact, I don't remember 1-AA schools being put on the APR system at all.

Rick, you MIGHT be referring to LaRue Beck. It was a couple years ago and he wound up dropping out of Middle Tennessee.

We are also opening the season Sept 2nd on ESPN+ with a conference game at home against Florida International.

Sun Belt officials also called the Champ Sports Bowl between Clemson and Colorado, a game in which our officials were greatly complimented by ESPN. And I believe the Capital One Bowl between Auburn and Wisconsin will also be called by Sun Belt officials.

Wow. There are two FighterFightn North Texas fans now. Is FireFightnJoey a friend of yours, Rick? You guys will be back next season. North Texas had the youngest team in the conference this year by far. Sure, you had Cobbs and Thomas, but they can't make plays with a young offensive line trying to guard them. That was alot of our problems this season. Your team will come together in the off-season and gel better. I look for your team to be back in the top half of the league next year. It'll be interesting to see how our new coach does against Dickey. McCollum could never beat North Texas for whatever reason, but next year COULD be different. I mean, we will have a new coach. That could make a difference. I'll probably make the trip next year depending on how our season is going. Good luck in the offseason.

Hmmmmm. Interesting. With four Division 1-A schools looking for new coaches, could he have resigned to put himself on the market as a head coach?

Wow, you guys are somethin' else. I think our defense WOULD'VE given us the chance to beat whoever from CUSA is drawn for that bowl game, BUT--and I'm sure all of you already knew this--Middle Tennessee was mathematically eliminated from going to the bowl game with the loss to Louisiana-Monroe last weekend. And with ULM's win over North Texas yesterday we are more than eliminated from bowl contention even if they selected a team with a losing record for a bowl game. With ULM only having one conference loss and ULL having only two, one of them will come out of the game with less losses in the conference than Middle Tennessee has right now. We have a similar poll on the Middle Tennessee Rivals board. UL-Lafayette leads that poll. They are playing the best ball right now and I think their balanced offense gives them the best shot of beating CUSA's rep. Arkansas State would be the last team I'd want to see make it. ASU sucks @ss. They lost 45-7 to us. That should tell you that ASU's blows. This team wouldn't have enough offense to beat any team in CUSA much less that conference's #5 team. I hate that ULM is guaranteed a co-championship in the Sun Belt having lost to a 1-AA school and getting shut-out 38-0 by 4-6 Mountain West team. That's embarrassing.

Beware of Arkansas State and Antonio Warren (#4 in the nation in rushing). The Indians set at the top of the Sun Belt standings right now, and they may very well stay there. Anyone happen to see the ASU/FIU game on CSS this weekend? The Indians looked veeeeerrryyyyy impressive. Scary impressive.

I couldn't help but chuckle at that, but seriously, that's just wrong.

Actually, the Atlantic 10 folded during the summer and the Colonial League picked up most, if not all, of their members. But I see what you mean. It's scary to think that a school called William & Mary could kick the collective @sses out of every member of the Sun Belt, but they've looked better against 1-A competition than any of the Sun Belt teams have.

This really is shaping out to be the worst season in the Sun Belt's history and the other years weren't all that great. Kudos for Louisiana-Lafayette for coming back and putting away Northwestern State 49-28 as well as Arkansas State who did well in hanging with Oklahoma State and only lost 20-10. As far as the rest of us are concerned: Middle Tennessee 7 Akron 17 <---A MAC team, and usually a mid-level one at best North Texas 2 Tulsa 54 <----Decent team, but I doubt they finish in the upper half of CUSA Louisiana-Monroe 7 Georgia 44 Florida Atlantic 7 Minnesota 46 Troy 21 Missouri 56 Very embarrassing for the Sun Belt. And Hurricane Katrina's destuction only seemed to put a more depressing value on our conference by forcing our conference headquarters to move to Tuscaloosa, and with the damage to the SuperDome, throwing the New Orleans Bowl in limbo.

Middle Tennessee Floyd Stadium has flags with the name and colors of the 8-member Sun Belt Conference schools flying high over the Upper Deck of the North Endzone. I think all the Sun Belt schools are supposed to have those flags in their stadiums now. I thought it was a really nice touch--a true symbol of brotherhood.

C'mon. The fight's over. If you wanna' prove to everyone else that you were good enough to beat us, instead of us bad enough to beat ourselves, then how 'bout at least beating Tulsa and La Tech and sweeping the Sun Belt that includes a few good teams like FAU. They've got even less experience than UNT, but they've looked more impressive in the get-go. That's scary. Best of luck, I do hope ya'll beat the Golden Hurricane. It's important for the image of the conference to win these OOC games.

woh, i guess you are right, but they still gotta' be doin' somethin' right because they still had a winning season and they actually beat somebody outside of their conference

That's pretty true. And I'll be honest right now. I don't care who we recruit and who ya'll have coming back, as long as Andy is our coach I say ya'll beat us by three or four touchdowns next year at Fouts. There are teams we can't beat. UNT's one. FAU's another. I'm sure we'll be adding FIU to the list here pretty soon. At least we're 8-1 against Akron. We can beat someone outside of the Sun Belt. Now, ya'll should try to do the same. Tulsa won't be the pushover ya'll may make them out to be. They have a high profile coach in Mike Price out of Alabama. He's a real deal kinda' coach. If ya'll play Tulsa like ya'll played us, you'll get killed. Ya'll still need improvements everywhere in the defense and in the passing game. Our offensive line blows chunks. That's pretty evident now. We won't score on Akron if that doesn't improve.