TheTastyGreek

Ha ha! You're a former teacher's college with mascot and nickname identity issues! Finally, a rival we can relate to!

Whatever it takes to get North Texas athletics to the next level, man.

8 and a half hours. I'm trying to figure out if there's any way I can make it... Friday instead of Thursday makes it a very slim possibility.

I don't understand how neutral site hosting solves the attendance problem. 400 people show up when one school hosts. How does that go up when that school also has to travel? This is a problem of winning, tradition, and distance. The ACC, Big 10, and company have a long and vibrant tradition of basketball success. These dink-ass conferences in the northeast don't have the problem we do of distance. To get to Lafayette from Denton, you drive 430 miles. If you drive 430 miles east from Cleveland, Ohio... you'd be well out into the Atlantic Ocean. If you drove west, you'd go through two states and be halfway through a third (Iowa) to Nebraska. There are entire conferences (America East, Big West, Big South, MAC... and now I'm sick of looking it up, but I'm pretty sure just from looking that there are more) that span from east to west, north to south, or any widest spread, less than 430 miles. And Lafayette is one of the relatively close schools in our conference. Anyway... you can get people to travel when they're passionate about their team and basketball in general. For example: unmentioned in the head count of the 409 in attendance at the championship are the few dozen Western Kentucky fans who made the trip for the whole tournament. Or, you can get people to travel when they can make it somewhere in a few hours on short notice (look out, Boston University... here come the mighty Whatevers of Stony Brook!) to see a big game. Bandwagons move fast, but not fast enough to get people from Denton to Biloxi, Shreveport, or anywhere else without having to miss a day of work or classes. So either we manufacture decades of conference basketball tradition and rivalry overnight, we figure out a way to teleport fans from place to place, or we face the reality that most years, our championship game is not going to feature the host team and will be very sparsely attended. That's reality as I see it, unless we want to host the thing in Western Kentucky every year. And anyone who thinks that the mighty tourist appeal of Biloxi or Shreveport is going to draw the masses... please fire your travel agent. You can do better with your vacation time. And as swell as some people think New Orleans is, it's also 130 miles of road farther away than Lafayette. Answer me honestly now... aside from maybe some of the people who made it to Lafayette, who is prepared to book 4 days in New Orleans for next year's tournament? I won't. I can't spare that much time from work, and I won't go unless I know North Texas is going to make it through to play some games there. How many of the outraged superfans went to the conference championship when we hosted it in Denton? I didn't. Because I don't really give a damn about most of the other schools in our conference. As the years go by and we develop a history and rivalry with some of them, that's changing. But anyone who didn't go to Denton to see two other schools play for the Sun Belt championship, you really don't have much ground to be slamming Lafayette or the Sun Belt conference for the attendance at this year's game. This problem isn't solveable. All the posters in the world won't solve geography and they won't manufacture the sort of rivalry that you see between Duke and North Carolina. Western Kentucky travels for basketball. Because they have a history of success and and a passionate fanbase that rightfully expects to be rewarded for making a trip. Until some more Belt teams develop the same, this situation will always fall somewhere between poor and awful.

Or, if this were the right year... Olympic GOLD, baby!!

I blame Johnny Jones. EDIT: That is a SPARSE crowd. There is almost nobody there.

The money is going to finance a 15 year contract extension for Tina Slinker and to build a neon sign for the Mattress Mac wing of the UNT Hall of Fame.

Learn to love Ford Field. I expect we'll own it in about 8 months.

Can we afford his speaking fee?

Big, big ups to whoever washes the uniforms. After watching 4 home games forced to be played as "Shirts vs. Skins" last year, I'm happy I can bring the family and be sure that the AD has provided the resources to clothe our players. Big, big pat on the back to RV for buying a scrubbing board and laundry mangle for the SuperPit. And to whoever donated the detergent... You are truly a great Mean Green supporter. My daughters don't seem as eager to come watch games now, though. Don't worry, I'll make sure to still get their tickets scanned.

Todd Dodge is our new head football coach. Most everyone is excited about him, but a small percentage of North Texas fans are a little anxious about him. Everyone is at least hopeful, if not certain, that he'll improve on our dismal recent record. Oh, edited to add the following: He has a son named Riley. Apparently, he's a pretty good quarterback. Also, I believe FFR mentioned something about an electrical accident.

Great, great post. Anyone who didn't read it originally, here's your second chance. I'll be very, very pleased if Dodge becomes our next coach. He's not without his question marks, but I still would love to have him. I'll be very, very pleased if Nix is our next head coach. He's not without his question marks, but I still would love to have him. And as for Carthel, he sounds great, too. If we hire anyone besides those three guys, it'd better be because ALL THREE OF THEM told us "No". Or, because we actually have a shot at a Zombie Landry or some other gift-from-heaven coach. If we have to choose between any combination of them because more than one wants the job... I just don't think we can lose. Every single one of them seems to have what it takes to come here and be successful relatively quickly. There are no guarantees with anyone, but I don't think anyone could second guess any of those guys as our next head coach.

You know the old cliche about genius being 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration? "Facts" on GMG.com are more like a cornfield in planting season. 99% of what you stumble across will be fertilizer, and occasionally there's a seed of actual fact. Mostly fertilizer, though.

Is Quoner your new fashion consultant??

I'm eager to see what Tune is capable of, but I also agree that everyone is just a little *too* confident that he's got what it takes. Remember when everyone here had such a man crush on Steven Prince? Didn't everyone think Spencer Stack was a sure thing? And I laughed, then cried, then went and ate dinner when I saw the opening post of this thread. The patience and faith of the Mean Green fanbase... Don't count on it, new coach.

SOLIDARITY!

Nice work, jackals. He's taking his ball and going home. Quoner and I were just talking about how we knew you'd ruin it for the rest of us. At least we got the one rumor denied... Thanks, RV.

Let me sleep on it.

I think they should all just be grateful that you don't just silence their posts entirely. How would you know so much about hamster wheels, though? Does Quinn have a pet gerbil or something?

He should enjoy long walks on the beach and talking about his feelings. Also, he must love cats. He should be handy around the house and a good father to the children. On our birthdays, he should surprise us all with breakfast in bed.

Who was out there on the Green Team line? Peachey? Banks? Who else?

From that board, they point out that UNT has scored 7 total TDs all year. Phillips led us to two, and Meager threw a mighty 5 yard heave that Quinn ran in from midfield for the third TD of the 2nd quarter. Whatever, we're not the worst anymore. With a win over a CUSA team and now potentially a WAC team, both possible regional rivals, it seems like everyone is finally getting what they asked for this season. OOC wins. If we beat La Tech, we'll have more OOC wins than Sun Belt wins.

Dizziness, nausea, and blurred vision. Could be: Vertigo (ruined Nick Esasky's career) Whiplash (impact trauma from a hard hit... usually takes a few weeks/months to really hit) Fibromyalgia (first develops in sufferers starting around age 20, occasionally triggered by physical trauma) That's just the general stuff. The symptoms he seems to have could be caused by everything from Multiple Sclerosis to Lyme Disease to Vulvodynia. Somehow, I doubt it's any of those. But the three above are all possibilities, and any or all of them could be aggravated or caused by the same things that would lead trainers to suspect a concussion.

I don't buy into any of the crap about Dickey not caring, or not trying, or just mailing it in for a paycheck. I also disagree with the "Dickey sucks" crowd, where anything and everything Dickey does is obviously wrong just because it's Dickey doing or saying it. I think Dickey is a good coach who hasn't done a very good job of coaching for us the past two years. I'm not screaming for him to be fired, but it's pretty hard to argue with anyone who does. I don't know why we've been so terrible the past two years. I don't think you can put it all on coaching, or at least not all on the head coach. But even if it isn't his fault, it is his responsibility. And after two years of futility, with no real hope of improvement on the horizon, I won't argue that Dickey should be kept. If Dickey gets fired, I'll be sad to see him go. I'm not saying it wouldn't be the right decision, but I still would hate to see him be fired. I think he's done a lot more for this program than anyone is giving him credit for (especially lately) and I hope we'll look on his tenure with a better sense of perspective a few years down the line.

I thought that the hiring of Mike Price was an immediate and immutable cure-all for their program. UTEP is limping along at .500?? Does this mean that a big name coach won't guarantee us a top 25 finish from now through eternity??