TIgreen01

Damn. I would have loved to see this schedule about 4-5 years ago. We might have gone 11-1. You know, what Boise does every year against eirily similar schedules. Maybe we're finally getting our sh!t together on the scheduling front? Putting an a home game against an FCS team as a season opener would be the final icing on this cream-puff cake...

This thread is dumb....and is dumb every single year that it gets posted. There is no national champion for NCAA FBS college football. Never has been. There are only polls. Carry on.

What makes you so sure that Dodge didn't subtly (or not so) let Drake know he needed to start looking around---or better yet, that Dodge knew that Drake was already leaving when he made the statement about not releasing any coaches? The last 2 years, we've had our worst units change coaches and absolutely no credit is given to Dodge for improving his staff. Makes no sense.

Overall a pretty terrible post---even though I agree whole-heartedly that gay marriage should not be allowed. Visitation rights in hospitals and all the other "partner" priviledges granted to married couples should be allowed and I think that is already happening in most states. But to site divorce rates as evidence that the institution of marriage is flawed is just not right (not in this post, but later in this thread by another poster). People mucking up their own situations is what creates those statistics. So arguing that we should just blow away or rewrite a basic structure of modern society solely on the grounds of people failing to live up to a certain moral standard is more than wrong---it's damaging to our entire society.

Not sure why it should be different. Troy has Demarcus Ware and Osi Umenyiora(or however you spell that friggin name) just tearing up the NFL the last 2 years. We did pretty well back when we had 3-4 years of dominant d-lines......but NONE of our players ever panned out at the next level quite like Troy's 2 superstars have. The critical thing for them was that they have been lucky and never had the major drop-off we had when we missed on a few key players immediately following the Booger/Pruitt/Awasome lines. Our defenses never totally recovered while they managed to always seem to field a competitive squad. Much as I think Troy is not exactly a program to copy (they walk a fine line on ethical recruitment of "student" athletes), you have to give them credit for consistently fielding a solid defense, placing players into the NFL and steadily growing their program.

To be fair, we've got a lot of journalism guys/gals here on this board and I really think most of them are just touchy when anyone blasts the media. So, I wouldn't call them Vito defenders, just media defenders.

I felt better reading that and it wasn't even my rant to get off my chest!

just a video....but looks damn good.

Guys...this is real simple when you come to the realization that NCAA basketball is NOT NCAA football. The NCAA basketball post-season tourney is RUN by the NCAA, everything from seeding to organizing the events to televising the games. That one organization pockets ALL the money from the tournament, then divides it up as it sees fit. NCAA FBS football postseason play is entirely owned and operated on a conference level. The conferences setup up the bowl arrangements and negotiate the TV deals. They keep all the money from their own deals. The BCS is done the same way...just a wider agreement between the conferences and the NCAA doesn't have much of a say: "The BCS was created by formal agreement among six conferences, and has evolved to allow other conferences to participate to a lesser degree. It is not formally recognized by the NCAA as a collegiate championship." -- Wiki - BCS Going to a playoff system is more than just changing around postseason play, it is putting postseason play into the hands of a completely different organization than what is currently running it. It would be asking the Big 6 power conferences to give up control of ALL of the money that they currently have a mortal lock on and put it, instead, into the hands of a separate entity that would act (supposedly) on behalf of all teams under the NCAA FBS umbrella. Right now, the power 6 are playing nicely with the rest of us and allowing us limited access only if we meet their guidelines. They do some revenue sharing, but again...you have to be invited under THEIR rules. I think it's more likely that a total restructuring of what teams are FBS teams and what aren't will happen before we ever see a playoff in FBS football....ie, the Power 6 break away or are recategorized as FBS I-A and the rest as FBS I-AA where the money wouldn't be split so many potential ways. But that's just my HSO.

Exactly. They missed on BOTH of the JUCOs that were considered the defacto starters at corner going into the season. From what I watched this year, only Kylee Hill measured up. I'm not really trying to say that "I" think the players over-rated, just saying what I heard....then you watch the games with that filter on and you see things slightly differently. I agree that a better dline helps out the secondary, no question. But this is one of the worst secondaries I've ever seen just from a pure tackling standpoint. Maybe our whole team gets thrown into that category....? Either way, the point still stands....we cannot afford to miss as badly (on the JUCO players) as we did last year and the fact that we're going after 2 more JUCO DBs tells you that the coaches are not comfortable with the young guys that were rated so high and you think have the potential to be great.

That move definitely hits on a rumor that my tailgate group heard early in the season.....DeLoach wasn't at all happy with the talent we had in the secondary (moreso than any other position on the defense). Of course the ramification here is that this staff (pre-DeLoach) did a terrible job evaluating players (esp. DBs) during last year's recruiting. Hopefully we're getting that corrected now. We can't afford to miss so badly this season.

So...heard some interesting news regarding (in a round about way) the Atkinson verbal. It seems that Arkansas is currently in literal Hog-heaven right now as both the Auburn and Tennessee coaching vacancies are helping them steal players from both teams. It sounds like they already have a top 20 ranked class and it is looking to be possibly the best they've ever signed. How does that affect us?.....maybe they won't actually have room to offer Atkinson and he will honor that verbal afterall. See, I used to think this....until I watched that undersized dline of ours in '06. To run a traditional 3-4 you'd need exactly what you describe....but we didn't have those type of players in '06 and did fine. TCU usually has one of the smallest dlines in the country (running a 4-2-5) and always has a good defense. I think that we should be looking at ways to limit our built in weaknesses (recruiting lots of top level dline talent) and find a system that we can play to that will enable us to turn that into a strength. Instead of going after top ranked dline recruits, we would instead be recruiting very good athletes with room to grow (not unlike what DD used to do to some extent) like TCU does now. The tweener guys that don't fit the BCS specific height/weight chart by position on the dline.....

Not sure I'd move Nwigwe from MLB when you'd be giving up a starting lineup of Scott/Nwigwe/Robertson. Both of those guys would be ridiculously quick on the outside. That, or try a move back to the 3-4 like Bliel did in '06. Never understood why we moved away from that in '07 when we clearly didn't have the personnel to run an effective 4-3. Why not move Gilmore back to OLB (like a true Demarcus Ware) where he basically doubles as another DE for pass rushing duties? Or do that with Nwigwe instead? Seems like we don't have the depth at LB that we used to have, though. For the life of me, though I will never understand why we don't run a 3-4 or a 4-2-5 (like TCU with smaller linemen) when we consistently have issues recruiting impact dline players. All we've read about in OTs recruiting updates is how hard it is to recruit good dline players. Why make it even harder on ourselves by running a 4-3 and requiring MORE linemen to be on ship? Am I crazy or just vastly misunderstanding the needs of the 3-4?

When did anyone say that we're not even competing with them?? This year, SMU has 2 oline players ranked in the area 100 that have orally committed. Last year we had 1 (Troy Franklin). As far as overall recruiting we still have landed more area 100 kids in the last 2-3 years than they have (or if not, very close to a tie). You've been going nuts in this thread claiming that our staff cannot recruit, but over the last 2 years they have done better than every mid-major in this state other than maybe TCU. You want to be able to continue along with your fire and brimstone rhetoric, but it makes no sense to criticize this upcoming recruiting class when not a single player has put pen to paper and signed for any school. Wait until after Feb., and if this class turns out to be a turd, then by all means open up the criticism.

I was talking about linemen.....SMU has 2. Overall they may have 5, but we have 2....so far.

What the hell has happened to the I-Bowl?! Thought that used to be a Big 12 vs. SEC game.....LaTech vs. Northern Illinois??? That's awful. Oh...and I'll go on record and say that FAU is going to get spanked up in Detroit....and will bring 300 or less. Pathetic fan support over there. BTW, I hate FAU.

Refusing to acknowledge that the recruiting class that has yet to sign is worse than the previous two?? Come on, man. Have some patience and wait until Feb. to see what transpires. We still have almost 2 full months to go. SMU has got 2 commits from the DFW area 100 list, Baylor 1, maybe 2? You have to be kidding if you think that's just leaps and bounds ahead of us. It's one or two players and in any given year we might get lucky and get the same. I have no idea how those schools do in Houston/SA/Austin, but I imagine that DFW is their main point of emphasis. From what I can tell (attempting to follow OT's recruiting updates) Dodge and staff are going for immediate commits from top (JUCO) guys, but still courting quite a few players. I think that as things start getting closer to the deadline, commits can change and the schools around us are going to start juggling guys as well.....I still think we're going to be fine in Feb. We have something that no other school in the state can offer in quite the same capacity---IMMEDIATE playing time as evidenced by our terrible defenses of the last 2 years. If you're just ticked b/c we're not out there landing top 100 guys in our early commits, I don't know what to tell you other than what I said in my first post. I think UNT's season results have a lot to do with that as well as the shape of Fouts. If we turn dirt on the stadium by this summer, then I'd expect to see us land a couple big studs next recruiting season (though it could be by a new coaching staff if Dodge comes out of the gate in 09 like we did in 08).

Why don't we wait until after signing day to rip Dodge for this upcoming class?? We have rarely gotten any top lineman off the area and state lists---but neither do TCU/SMU/Baylor/UTEP/Houston and they are at least 1-2 rungs up on us conference wise. You MIGHT see those schools land 1 per year, 2 if they're lucky. I'm not sure why you had expectations that we'd suddenly start landing highly rated linemen when not even the best of the non-BCS, in this state, rarely do. I'm not trying to make excuses for Dodge, but you have to be realistic. You sound like you just sit around looking for reasons to attack our coaching staff. If you had realistic expectations about "who" Dodge was likely to up our stock with (ie---skill players, duh), he has done that in spades. We are going to have to continue to do what we've always done, at this school, and be good evaluators of linemen prospects and have some of those guys pay off. Hiring Dodge was never going to be the magic pill to suddenly start stealing lineman from the BCS schools....that is going to take time to develop a history of producing good lines and then sending guys on to the NFL---something we haven't done since the early 70's?

We should be able to land some decent playmakers at DT and DE---based SOLELY on the obvious need we have and the prospects for IMMEDIATE playing time. There is no other school that is in as bad a shape as we are. I cannot understand the difficulty here and I still think we'll pull in a decent haul in Feb. despite alot of doom and gloom being spoken on the board.

I'm going to start a dogpile on the idea to get rid of looking back to the sidelines for the playcall after getting into position. That sucks. Big time. Hated it when ULL did it to us a few years before Dodge got here and hate it MORE now that we have to watch it every game! Die fake no-huddle! DIE!!!

I'm not really sure where the idea came from that the seniors getting to play on Saturday is what kept us in that game. Chad Rose played on the Oline, but did not start---I honestly don't know when he went into the game or how many plays he got. Stickler played his guts out (literally after taking one to the nads!) as did a few other WRs. Either way, our defense not completely folding is what kept us in the game...moreso than the offense. The defense had ONE senior player show up in the top 11 tacklers from the game---Colt Mahan, and he's been playing all season on 3rd down in passing situations. I'm not trying to knock the seniors and I liked that Dodge put in Phillips and Meager in a tight game b/c they deserved it.....but the notion that the senior class (that supposedly didn't play all year---so throwing out Casey, Stick, Ike Thomas, Mahan, etc b/c they DID play a large percentage of plays this season)kept us in that game is a giant stretch.

Any chance the fee gets us out of one more bodybag game per year??

DD being the best thing to happen to the program and DD being the best thing that the program could hope for are two different things. I don't understand why we can only have one or the other here at NT. Why can we not have everything?? We have to start somewhere and if we're just happy with the best we've gotten then we have no incentive to improve and keep pushing forward. Regardless of this current team's lack of success on the field, this program is IN THE MIDDLE of an upsweep in support. Don't lose sight of the whole picture. Even during these last 4 years we have grown our MGC memberships, season ticket sales and gameday attendance. Why take a step backwards when the entire program is moving forward?? Just for the record, I'd rather have fans like Plumm and GGII stick around any day of the week---b/c they DO expect and hope for more for UNT.

I think much of this article is not that bad and generally pretty honest. But, again, Vito goes over the line and seems to try to hammer home the idea that Dickey was right and UNT and everyone else was wrong for firing him. I guess I just don't understand why there would be a need to write this article....which will appear in the town paper (DRC) and the backyard of supposed support for UNT. Is the purpose to slap us all in the face so that we get up and take action....or to merely pile on while UNT football is down?? I really don't get it....Brett is either a die-hard fan like the rest of us on gmg and is just using his editorials as an outlet or he's just a guy that needs a change of scenery.

Fixed.... and...I wonder how much of this is related to the AD just not wanting to give up on a hire that he stuck his neck out on?? No insider info coming from me, just wondering aloud.