TIgreen01

nfm

I expect a 52-14 shellacking of the phonies. Seriously, though?...I still think smu overlooks us. If that is their excuse for last season's loss. Everything I've read about this game says that we have no chance to win it (except from UNT fans). Sure they might come out ticked off and looking for payback, but as long as we don't turn the ball over we should be fine. The one thing that really worries me in this game is our secondary. I still think that Mendoza is going to call an aggresive game(translation=we won't always play a soft zone)...and that'll leave us open downfield a few times.

This is EXACTLY what I do. Haven't bought the NCAA game since '05, though...so I'm actually a year overdue. ...and I just got a PS3 so I HAVE to buy it this year!

Correct answer?....we've already done it. We hired a Head Football coach that will employ an entertaining brand of football. Look no further than the spring game for proof---the stands were almost full before the first play b/c fans actually were AFRAID to miss the action on the field.

Anyone remember the TD run against Troy back in 2005? That had shades of the speed good_ken refers to. I remember thinking that run WW had against SMU was eerily similar to Mayday's run against Troy. Not saying I disagree with Emmitt, b/c WW has crazy quick moves. I do think that Meager doesn't fully sell out to the run immediately--which helps him get caught by LBs. Maybe my memory is fuzzy, though....I have admittedly tried to erase the nightmares of the last 2 seasons...

Yeah...I'd have to go with A as well. If you changed up the scenario to include a NO Bowl "WIN", then I'd pick B. Like many have said, we've already had a 9-3 season that ended with a loss in the NO Bowl to a mediocre team. That 2003 season was a great season but the bowl loss ended it on a really bad note for us. It only helped further prove that we were just the "king of the dipsh!ts" as many have said before. We couldn't win an OOC game to save our lives in those days....and THAT is what took the glory out of our 26 game in-conference winning streak and 4 bowl appearances in the media's eyes.

Stoops will be fine. Unless he loses to UT and OSU for the next 2-3 years running, he'll be fine. I think OU stands alone in their BCS accomplishments since that system was formed...they have made BCS bowls 3 out of 5 years (or is it 4 out of 6?). Even with all the hype around Urban Meyer and Charlie Weiss, I still think that Stoops is the top coach in the country. As far as how our game with them will go: on paper, it's a blowout. The one thing you have to give DD is that he tried to run the clock out and didn't give those teams enough possessions to really run the score up---at least that's how it went down in his first 6 seasons. If TD is as good a coach as we all hope he is, he'll have to find ways to keep the clock running and limit OU's possessions as well. 3 and outs will get us slaughtered. The scariest part of this game is how our biggest question marks play into OU's biggest strengths. They may have the best secondary in the Big 12 to counter our inexperienced WRs....and their WRs (M. Kelly is a stud) will give our secondary big problems. I do wonder what their psyche is going to be like coming into this game...you have to think that they will be ready to snuff out trick plays after what BSU did to them. But what if we hit a big one on them early? Maybe puts them back on their heels a bit?? The other thing to consider is that the last time we changed HFCs Dickey's first game was against OU in Norman. We drove straight down the field on our first drive to take the lead and didn't give it up until a minute before halftime. In the second half we wore down, but we had only been I-A for 3 years in '98. We are deeper now than we were then.

Agreed....FAU is my pick to win. Troy loses too many starters on the oline to repeat. The MUTS lose too much on both sides of the ball. We've got an excellent chance of staying in the hunt if our defense lives up to expectations, but I think we lose a couple conference road games to eventually take us out of the race.

I'd try not to use that line of argument....lest dirty schmoo brings up our all-time record against them...or tcu....or bu...etc. Fact is, the muts are developing into a good rivalry for us. 35-0 in our house was impressive. I am really starting to love to hate those guys!

huh?...what did I miss?

How's this for a pipe dream...SMU tries to vote us down in CUSA, and is promptly booted from that conference Temple style. That's my dream....and I agree with the poster that says Applewhite is UT's next Head Coach...he's young enough to wait a few years for Mack to retire---b/c he's not going anywhere in the next 5 years, maybe longer... My biggest worry with Dodge is that TCU's head coaching position opens up....he wouldn't have to move his family to drive 20 minutes west, instead of 20 minutes north...and they'd be able to triple his salary again....

I agree with you. Ideally, you'd want some kind of playoff to be determined from the BCS equation for seeding teams. We'd still be included in that case. With the proposal of a separate corporation, outside the BCS and NCAA, handling the seeding...I think we'd definitely be left out. What would be the anti-trust implications surrounding this type of plan?

Agreed....MTSU being 4th is esp. shocking since he's got basically their entire defense making one of his 4 defensive teams. He must expect their offense to be terrible?? Phil Steele is strickly a numbers and odds man. For him to rank us any higher would have required us to be better than we were last year and for there to be a precedent set for the HS to college coach jump to sometimes work out. The odds are definitely not in our favor going into this season and I'll be surprised if anyone has us picked better than 8th going into the season.

I was mostly just blowing smoke. Didn't really know about USA or UALR (until untbowler mentioned above)...or UNT starting down this same road. To me, it's just not in the 'spirit of the game' to have a team of ex-pros (and no...these guys aren't the same as Agassi, Nadal, Federer, etc--but the trend in the sport is to recruit players that have played professionally overseas). If none of MTSU's players are ex-pros, great....reading through their roster it's pretty hard to imagine, though.

Congratulations....I really am developing a healthy dislike for the MUTS. A quick check of their tennis roster reveals they rely almost exclusively on foreign born ex-pros....just like Baylor does...and most of the NCAA in this sport. I think that's a crappy way to run a program....but that's just me.

OMG!...what would motivate anyone to post a link that shows dirty schmoo's absolute ownership of us??!?!? 4-27 with a 672 point differential?!?! We need to beat them 100-0 this year to make up some ground...then we need to do that 5 straight years to get ahead. Sickening. Can someone arrange to shut that site down?

I agree with this...but with a small addendum--we should only use TX Stadium after the month of September. It makes no sense to me that we are playing the likes of Western Kentucky (I realize they will be a conference opponent in a few years) on Thanksgiving weekend....at Fouts. If we could find a big name opponent who would come to DFW to play us in the month of November, I'd jump all over it. We're usually only drawing 10k by that time of the year and it would GREATLY help our attendance averages.... On an aside, this is two straight years we'll be playing a home game on Thanksgiving weekend. What gives with this scheduling?! We will have less than 1000 students in attendance for this game and it just KILLS the atmosphere....stop scheduling Thanksgiving weekend for the love of all things holy, RV!!

Interesting that EVERY Sun Belt coach with tenure is ranked ahead of Phil Bennett. I think Petersen is too high. I'd put Patterson and J. Bowers #1 & #2 in this list. Petersen scored a great season with a HUGE win in the Fiesta bowl, but he's only got 1 year under his belt and had the luxury of returning just about everyone from the year before. Let's see how he does after a few years of recruiting and having to teach a fresh new group that offense without Dan Hawkins around.

Really not a bad preview(aside from the over-knocking of Super Jamario) until he gets to the actual game predictions. I think we have a winning record at home this year after 2 miserable seasons in a row. A new coach has to establish home field advantage---which is something that DD also did up until '05. I expect the FAU game to be tough b/c it's only our 3rd game, but I'm thinking 4-1 at home this season...

They've lost 3 key assistants since last season ended!....coupled with the loss of 4 starters on the oline. When that happened to us, we didn't recover very well. I'm dropping them from preseason #1 status in conference. MTSU or LaLa will have that honor now...

b/c that's pretty much policy around the state. If a fight occurs (no matter how big or small or who is involved), the police are called and both parties are arrested....even if only one side started and threw the only punches. The comment earlier about God being taken out of schools not being the problem is an interesting one....interesting in that the generation responsible for that action is also responsible for the policies that exist (such as the one above) today that seem to only complicate discipline....and now complain about the generation of kids being brought up today. To that generation, I say thanks....thanks a lot. Flame away!! ;)

Definitely appreciate the comments about needing UNT to be strong for the better of the Belt. I think this applies to all teams in the conference. The more upsets we can pull off as a whole (and continue to hand CUSA their rears) the better. As far as this season goes, I think that any team that can't throw it over our heads is going to be in for a tough game. Not many teams in the Belt are going to be able to hurt us deep, so I think we have a fighting chance this season. I'd like to see us make a Troy like transformation. They made the same leap last year that we are making this year...as far as transforming from a power rushing attack to the spread. Can someone with insight on that team comment on how they made the transition so smoothly? Did they not have the oline turnover that we are having this year?...surely they didn't have a stable of WRs (same as us) and had a ton of RBs and TEs....

I think #1 is probably already happening. How many practices/scrimmages has he already attended here at UNT? The spring game attendance/atmosphere yesterday had to help us. I would bet he's playing wait-n-see with Vizza...if Vizza comes out and wins the job or looks like a player, he's more likely to stick with UT.

Did the defense tire?...or did we just play too aggressively in the secondary? I have to say, this defense (secondary anyways) is much different than DDs. We're not giving 10-15 yard cushions to all the WRs. Gone are the days of the soft zone. I would be interested to hear what people thought of the defensive gameplan...was Mendoza playing the spread that tightly b/c that's just how he wants his D to play next fall? Can we expect him to gameplan passing teams the same way he did today? Just looking at our schedule next year, we're going to have a schedule full of running based offenses...so maybe he's just gearing up for that? The oline looked good enough on passing plays, and they got alot of help from the RBs---which was nice to see. Not that we've had trouble with that in the past, but everyone of them looked ready to layout for their blocks. Running plays were not so great...but our D is so aggressively pursuing the ball now and coupled with the new offense it's hard to compare to last fall. The defense is back to the gang tackling look that we had in the late 90s. I thought the crowd was AWESOME. That and the fact that Dr. Battaille was there showed that this is going to be an "event" from now on.

Again, we are not getting out of the Sun Belt anytime soon...so why the griping?? My original point was that the schools you covet playing right now may not be all that great in a few years...ie, by the time the next round of realignment occurs. Besides, about all we can do now is play these schools in OOC and RV has been doing a pretty decent job scheduling them. We've had CUSA teams coming to Fouts the last 2 years and Navy this year.... If you think Troy, MTSU or us pulling a Boise St wouldn't help the rest of the conference....well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm pretty sure that every team in the WAC has their next home game with BSU circled as having the potential to draw their biggest crowd of the season....