rcade

You want fewer people to be part of the game day atmosphere? Staying outside during the game is dumb, but it's dumber to drive away people who will be rolling through those turnstiles when they're excited about the program.

Was she talking about Mean Green hand cleaner?

This kind of talk reminds me of a line from the movie Broadcast News: "Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn-on?" I hope this isn't too blunt for the board, but people need to stop describing UNT as a pity f--k. That kind of talk isn't going to pack Apogee and it makes us look like the saddest FBS program in the country.

The school claimed it was losing nearly $1 million a year on a program that drew 5,600 fans a game. http://www.uta.edu/sportsexpansion/

They didn't tear down Maverick Stadium. It only seats 12,500 but could be expanded.

I think that the Fighting Irish and Thundering Herd would play each other in a Present Participle Bowl.

The yearly clash between the Mean Green and Ragin' Cajuns pits two teams against each other with angry adjectives. Are there any other teams in the FBS with adjectives in their names that express similar antisocial sentiments?

I don't know who you're referring to here, but as a casual fan who lives hundreds of miles away myself, I think some hardcore Mean Green fans on GMG have lost sight of something. Everyone who follows a program can't be a zealot. Some of us can't -- or don't -- want to spend that much time and effort on the Mean Green. I turned in my zealot card during the final season of Todd Dodge. I don't want another one until McCarney proves himself. I think my North Texas Exes and Mean Green Club memberships have both lapsed. I got tired of doing the same thing and expecting different results. With 30,850 seats in Apogee and a dedicated fan base that's maybe half that size, UNT's going to need some casual fans. Is it really a bad thing that some of them come here every day to shoot their mouths off?

... and what happened next is the reason I'm sending this letter to Penthouse Forum.

Ouch. I can't recall a college football player kicking the fan base in the nuts that hard before. What was the attendance for SMU/UCF? That's a pretty big win for the Mustangs against a big conference rival.

It would have been easy for RV and the UNT administration to give up after the first effort failed. Or even worse, UNT could have been like UT-Arlington. Students there agreed to a $2-per-credit-hour student service fee increase if they brought football back in 2004, and the administration still hasn't gotten it done.

I wouldn't have said this back in 2006, but I'm glad Dickey seems to be doing well at Texas State. His conference winning streak, bowl victory and the love he had for Andrew Smith are fondly remembered.

The alumni played a role in getting that done, too. Several of us donated to the vote-yes effort and participated in other ways.

Aside from 40 years of deflated expectations, no.

What are your sources for the claim that Harbaugh and Fisher agreed to come here? Maybe Harbaugh at that time, but no way Fisher quits his gig waiting for Bobby Bowden to retire to coach at Fouts.

I think you overestimate the appeal of our former Southland Conference foe. They will need some time and success at the FBS level before their fans or ours will be excited about playing each other.

No kidding. Getting rid of Fouts Field has freed up a lot of time to complain about other things. And our fan base stepped up big time.

Yes. The positive of playing two brand new FBS programs in Texas is not enough to compensate for the negatives of playing in the barely-hanging-on WAC.

I have a defeated mentality because I know how to appreciate a win in a coach's first season? Brilliant psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud. How much do I owe you? There are very few football programs that go from years of endemic losing to solid wins overnight. Instead, they learn to win by scraping out Ws any way they can -- even by taking big leads and almost blowing them in the fourth -- and this gives them confidence they build on later. I never said the last game wasn't winnable. I said the presumption that we would win was excessively optimistic. Go back to your psychology textbooks and see if you can figure out the difference.

All Benson sees is teams fleeing his conference as fast as they can get out.

The schools remaining in the WAC are worse than the Belt. Joining the WAC would be the death knell to the program. We've already rejected the WAC at least twice.

Joining the WAC would kill us. It's no better than the Belt and the travel and TV times are terrible.

There isn't a college football fan base on the planet that would accept year after year of losing without speaking out. Your expectations of fans are incredibly unrealistic, and any player who would transfer over the relatively mild criticism players get at North Texas isn't cut out for FBS football.

You keep talking about the fourth quarter. North Texas won both games where we led big in the fourth. A W is a W at this point. Who cares that it got a little ugly at the end?

It's not making excuses to recognize the fact that this is a new coach's first-year squad. I was hoping for at least 4 wins to help put Dodge behind us quicker, but expecting a Sun Belt title contender in McCarney's first year was incredibly unrealistic.