TIgreen01

Good job on the article. I definitely appreciate all the hard work you guys are putting into this.

This team blew us out last year, prompting TD to explain it by saying something to the effect of "we got out atheleted." We got out athleted by a team on a 23 game losing streak. My expectations are at an all time low....but I'll be in my seats at gametime regardless.

Good post and sums it up. My question is how does a coach regain the confidence of a team that has lost in this fashion over and over again? We are terribly young and you usually expect the young guys to learn and get better....but you crush their confidence again and again and sooner or later they are going to stop listening or never truly buy in. I just hope we haven't hit that point.

I have to agree. If we're hoping to give the anti-stadium crowd ammunition, Playmaker just hit a homerun with that last post. Can we get that crap removed asap?!

Ok, I can see how my post could be taken the wrong way. I still think that the approach here is all wrong, but won't debate it here anymore.

Why would we need to even risk having to override it if we don't have to have a student body vote in the first place? Or is the order of operation to FIRST hold a vote of the entire student body? This doesn't make sense...

QFT. This is what BURNS me about the whole process we're going through.

Arkansas St. over Troy this year. Both have great coaching and defense, but ASU has the better QB. My prediction for FIU?...we'll be held to less than 350 yards and beaten soundly. No kool-aid drinking for me this year. This is the weakest team we've fielded since I've been following the program ('96). Too much youth on defense + terrible special teams = lots of losses. Maybe next year we'll see some improvement due to closing all the gaps in our coaching staff that still exist b/c of the HS guys brought along needing to learn on the job and our defense will have one full year under DeLoach's system.

If we played the game in the same conditions that FAU did? Absolutely. That game was played in a non-stop driving rain. Neither team could throw the ball b/c they could barely hold onto it as it was.

oh yes, was definitely pouring on the sarcasm. Sorry for the confusion...

That is shocking. I'm shocked. Shocked.

My problem here is that I THOUGHT we were going to see this happen THIS GAME after we supposedly didn't show "everything we had" at KSU. I thought our front 7 looked pretty good against the run, but when Tulsa passed, we didn't get good pressure consistently enough. A great pass rush would no doubt help any secondary, but our secondary looks pretty bad right now. Too many mistakes in coverage and even finding which zone to cover....looked like a unit that was just utterly and completely confused. I question how much DeLoach can actually blitz if he can't trust that his secondary will be able to execute his coverages. It seemed like most of the second half that we were playing 4 true freshman back there....have we given up on our upper classmen and JUCOs already? If so, I don't think we'll be able to send a ton of extra pressure until these guys prove they can handle DeLoach's schemes.

Agreed...the group I was with all saw the game like this. Which brings up a question---we knew we needed a TE type of player on this offense last year. Now we put Keronna Henderson (basically a FB) in on a few plays, but never threw to him and rarely did anything but run when he'd come in. Wouldn't it suit us better to use a more traditional TE that would be an available receiver?---seems like it'd keep the defense more honest when he comes in.

Dude, step away from the keyboard. Taking quotes from a newspaper article/blog and dissecting them to this degree is overkill. There is a difference between approaching a game with a "can't win" attitude (see Dickey's comments before his last game against UT about Bataille making sure to remember how much money we were making for playing them) and changing your plan to shorten the game once you've dug a huge hole for yourselves. I don't think you can read the quote from the paper and deduce EXACTLY when he went conservative, but when we got the ball at our own 11 to start our 4th possession I think it's a possibility that he didn't have the possession count exactly straight in his own head at the time he gave the interview. If you watched/listened to that game in it's entirety, then you KNOW that we started out about as badly as we possibly could have. There is no shame in trying to lessen the beating once it's obvious that our gameplan wasn't working. Wish we had done that at OU last year. Maybe we wouldn't have blown the defense's confidence to hell straight out of the gate and set the ball rolling the rest of the season. Dodge also said he didn't want a repeat of last year---in reference to losing the defense so early. Trying to wring a DD comparison out of this scenario reeks of someone just trying to stir up trouble. Just my .02 cents....

Not real sure why people are getting bent out of shape over this interview. What did you want to hear him say?? I, for one, am glad he used his head right out of the gate and didn't do the things that would have gotten us down by 50 at half like he did twice last year. This type of gameplan is fine when your special teams aren't complete and utter garbage. You play field position football and hope the other team makes a few mistakes (which we did force twice). There is absolutely no reason to question whether or not TD would have gone for a big play (last year provided more than enough evidence) if he thought it was there.

Great work in there by Brett. Really enjoyed the Father-son piece....that's one of the better stories I've ever seen written on NT athletics. Excellent layout as well for the rest of the preview!...just wish that some of that would get in the Dallas paper.

Agreed. Those umbrella spots are pretty large and are lined up on a lush, green boulevard. If NT had something like this, we'd sell it out faster--and at higher prices.

Tulsa has been a good non-AQ program for the last few years....but last year their defense was terrible (though not as bad as ours! ), and they have graduated their all-world QB. Maybe the senior they have will step up and fill that hole at QB, but their defense still isn't going to be very good. We definitely have a good chance to beat Tulsa, and I'd be shocked if we get spanked by them. I think we reverse the beating they put on us in '05 that sounded the "end of an era" for us....and do it to them, instead. After all, we OWE them an absolute beating!

Why would you rank a recruiting class until all players finish their eligibility? Kind of a throw-a-way piece, if you ask me.

On a slight aside...I think this article's quotes help paint the picture as to what the Pres, RV and the SGA are planning. From these quotes, I would guess that we are not putting a fee increase in front of the students (well, front and center anyways) to vote on. It's going to be phrased as, "do we need to stop using the Student Service Fees to fund athletics (yes/no)?" If yes, we must establish a separate athletic fund fee that cannot over-reach into money that might have gone to other departments like the SSF can. That will be the MAJOR part of this process. Making this vote MORE about separating athletics so that it doesn't feel like we're stealing from other departments by dipping into the student services fees. How can people argue against this? Even people that are anti-athletics will vote for it. For the first time since hearing about the vote, I have hope....this IS the right way to go about this. It is a win-win for everybody. ...also, I wonder if JUST having this dedicated athletics fund is enough leverage to be able to bond out the $30 million (or whatever amt. we are short of $30 mil needed to turn dirt)? Would we even have to increase the fees that go athletics? Also, what dollar amount would be diverted from SSFs to the new Athl. Fund? Basically, could this whole thing go down without a fee increase?

Don't know the words? Just have a kid! My 4 yr old daughter has known the entire song since she was 2!---and I fall into the category of people who don't sing in public! I'll clap, mind you...but singing isn't my thing. Instead of making everyone sing all the time---how about a compromise? Just get everyone to YELL the last part of the song: U-N-T EAGLES! UNT EAGLES, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

That is some very good web searching, sir! Can we safely assume that the leadership has forgotten this little tid-bit (since Flyer sounds connected and is shocked by this discovery)?...can't be. Who takes the next step in getting this acted on? Chancellor or SGA??

Great post! I heard the same thing in her speech, but was confused by what the dedicated athletics fee would be. What I understood that type of fee to be would be something that the BOR could set without need to get approval from students (or really anyone for that matter)....similar to what UT and tamu have. That type of fee would need to be passed by the Texas Legislature to get instuted the FIRST time out, but would be up to the BOR to set beyond that? Is this what we're talking about? If so, why does that need to be voted on by the students first?

Outstanding work, guys! Thanks for getting this done.

That's what I mean. Once the public phase of this begins, we need to circle the wagons and support whatever the SA puts out there for the students to vote on. In-fighting, at that point, will do nothing but hurt the chances for this fee to pass.