Greendylan

Actually, I don't think he's referring to your system. He's been saying the same thing for years. What often happened in the past is that Rivals would rank one team ahead of another despite the lower ranked team having a higher average star rating. If said lower team was North Texas, then some on here would point out that we actually acquired supposedly higher quality players than (insert higher ranked Sun Belt team) and Vito subsequently guffawed at this notion.

Really happy about this pickup. I have to give the coaches credit for getting him in and securing a quick commitment.

Not to be Debbie Downer, but I think we are clinging to the silver lining here a bit too much. A decommit from one of our better recruits this late in the game is not a good thing. Sure, it helps confirm that our coaches are identifying legitimate D1 players (I never doubted that they were, overall), but it also makes one of the lowest ranked recruiting classes in CUSA get even worse. Do not delude yourselves into thinking that Tech is "competing with us" for Banks. They are trying to determine if they are desperate enough to make a late offer. If they are, they will snatch him up in a minute with no shots fired. Now, I agree with some others who have said that Grindle appears to be an equally promising prospect. If we land him, then I'll feel a lot better, and that will effectively mitigate this loss.

Yeah . . . kind of always felt like North Texas was just his safety school in case things didn't work out the way he wanted. I yearn for the day that Texas Tech isn't someone's "dream" school compared to us. Oh well, sounds like we'll move on to some other good options.

Your point is certainly valid, and I don't mean to nitpick; however, wouldn't 3 out of 1665 be .18% and not .0018%?

People, I think we're burying the lead here. A "NotUNT90" has emerged on the board! This presents a great disturbance in the force. Also, 500th post!! It took me almost ten years, but I got there.

It is worth mentioning that most of the potential UAB replacements that get bandied about wouldn't bring as much to the table in basketball.

I guess I'm kind of confused by the outrage involving Tauaefa. Sure, he seems to have D1 talent and is apparently from a great local family. Our coaches did their due diligence and visited/evaluated him and ultimately determined that they were going to pursue other DL prospects instead. What's wrong with that? I'm sure this guy will be a successful college player, and I would have been perfectly happy with him playing for the Mean Green, but his ratings (for what they're worth) would have placed him in the bottom half of our current recruiting class. Again, I have no doubt that the dude can play, but hell--coaches only have so many scholarships to give out, and they have to make difficult choices. Just because one damn good coach did offer the guy doesn't necessarily mean that our staff is making an egregious error. Our coaches have to have SOME faith in their own evaluations, even after striking out a few times in the past. If we are seriously so talent blind that we have given up on formulating our own independent assessments and are simply sitting around waiting to take cues from Larry Coker, then we just need to give up on this recruiting class.

Plano Sr. High class of '98 myself . . . and I went to Vines as well.

I should be able to play.

I really hope that RV has some sort of unofficial standard that has to be met in order for Benford to return next season. And, I really hope that said standard is impressively high in order to balance out the prior two seasons under this regime: something like 20 wins or an NCAA tournament appearance. Hopefully we can get some great wins in there this season but still fairly evaluate the direction of the program after the CUSA tournament. Personally, I always want to see Mean Green wins and could never stomach rooting for anything else. But, this is as much functional as it is emotional. I mean, we wouldn't want to crash and burn so badly this season that no respectable coach would consider coming here, right? Of course . . . it is possible that no such standard exists or that it is much lower than I would like, but I'm trying not to think about that.

NDSU received multiple votes in the AP poll from weeks 2-11. They would probably be favorites against half the FBS teams.

If that had been the only Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl appearance, then yes.

Athletic failures haven't necessarily hurt my degrees from UNT. They haven't helped either. I've made this point during the offseason before, and I guess I'll make it one more time. Check out the list of 30,000+ enrollment state universities that play FBS football and tell me how many of them have athletic programs that are inferior to ours. We are unquestionably in the bottom 10%. Now, of the upper 90%, I sure can't find too many of those that have a lower academic ranking than us. There is an obvious correlation between athletics and academics when you're discussing schools that fit our overall profile. The truth of the matter is that large state universities simply don't suck at anything they do. We are embarrassingly one of the very few exceptions. It just so happens that we suck at perhaps the least important but most visible of university endeavors. Our academics are fine, but they aren't strong enough across the board to overcome the perception hurdle that athletics throws out there year after year. Whether it's fair or not, athletic ineffectiveness/insolvency is indicative to the general public of further institutional frailties within a university.

I would like to see articulated goals from the athletic department (both immediate and long term) and a plan for how they will achieve these.

With all due respect, the problem, as I see it, is that successful mid (or high) major programs don't routinely hire coaches who seem to be stymied by their own players' personalities. And, on the rare occasion when they do hire someone who consistently can't seem to inspire his players, they quickly change course. I don't think it takes 40 years of hiring/firing experience to recognize that we do not compare favorably to many of our peer athletic programs.

Well, I don't mean to nitpick, but wouldn't a more accurate view of the class be either an average of the various rating systems or sticking to one that is deemed the most reliable?

Question, what is the methodology behind picking and choosing from three different recruiting services?

Well, I was one of the few adults actually there, and I'll say this about the final score: We often pushed the tempo, got sloppy, and subsequently either turned over the ball or tried to force an awkward shot. However, it never really felt like Langston had a chance to win. Every time they nearly caught up, we tightened things up and exercised a bit more patience on offense, which cushioned the lead.

He seems surprisingly quick for his size/shape.

I'm of two minds when it comes to this issue. A part of me thinks that this conversation is two years too late (not that it didn't occur on GMG then as well). The other side of me thinks that once you begin a new season, you kind of cool it with the "fire coach" talk until at least late January/early February. Now, if something shockingly embarrassing happens early in the year, then I guess that's different, but I wouldn't say that that applies just yet.

You know the policy--everyone gets at least four years before a buyout.

When I think of "creativity" I think of innovative thought--not solely arts and music. Engineering, programming, and high finance are all fields that require successful creative thinking, no? Plus, this slogan does also draw attention to some of the subjects that have traditionally been strengths at North Texas. We should highlight our programs that are among the best in the state, right?

Having broken a collarbone myself while playing high school sports, I must say that I am quite impresed that he could play through that type of injury. Additionally, I noticed from his film that one of his best attributes is his ability to fight for the ball and out muscle the defender in man-to-man coverage, which makes this injury even more surprising. I have a good feeling about this guy.

This is a really refreshing post, which is much needed after a rough couple weeks around these parts.