flyeater

Lack of leadership? I didn't necessarily get that. She was pretty clear that piggybacking on the student services fee to run at athdept. is penny-ante crap, and that a new athletic's fee was the way to go, not only to help fund a stadium but to budget for athletics yearly. I don't think she's just ready to sit back and watch the students decide our fate in athletics for the next 25 years; there's too much at stake for her legacy as UNT prez. Read again, and she's clear about what she wants and her vision, and now it's up to her to impart that on the student body. Give her a chance to do so. I think in Vito's deal, she was just truthful about the process, which says she nor other officials can't "institute" a fee without giving the students a voice in the process. I'm sure she was asked something to the effect of, "So, are you considering raising fees to pay for the stadium?" She can't just "raise" the fee herself in some arbitrary, sweeping act. Like it or not, we need a dedicated athletics fee, because it's what every sensible athletic department in the universe uses. You're wrong about the need not being there. Just because hiking the student-services fee is the perceived easiest route to bypassing the students doesn't make it best in the long run. An athletics fee will be more attractive to the private and/or corporate entities needed to come on later or potential suite buyers. I don't know much about bonding a stadium, but a permanent athletics fee strikes me as way more forward-thinking as a means to an end. It's time to do it a different way, and like it or not, the students will have a say. Yeah, it bugs me, but if it passes, we're golden.

Some weird stuff in this. Dexter Manley's kid plays for West Texas A&M after stops at a juco and Oregon. And A&M-Commerce cut a deal for three games at the Cotton Bowl during State Fair starting this year. Things that make you go hmm (sort of).

Lone Star Conference media day story.

Huh? I'm just repeating what I read reported in the blog. Read it again. Jackson State announced it had signed Horton (after he left Auburn), and then he never enrolled there. Why the hell do you think he never played a down at Jackson State and then resurfaced two JUCOs later? Are you that naive? Either you didn't read carefully, or you're just being obstinate.

Don't forget he was academically ineligible to attend Jackson State after Auburn. Sure it all had to do with "credit hours."

Uh, three semesters at Auburn, another at one JUCO and two more at another JUCO? Yeah, I'm sure he passed every class and didn't get that ever-elusive assoc. degree. That, and yes, someone probably screwed up on the academic guideance end along the way. Reads clear to me.

Don't take me to be so ignorant please. I've seen this presentation repeatedly, just like anyone else on here. I've also spoken to RV and many people in the university. This thing was never released to the public. Some yay-hoo in the Adept or at UNT posted it, and it got out. It was a template for a future marketing/fundraising campaign using a stadium design that was never architecturally contracted. We haven't done that until this year, remember? At the time, the AC was underway, but NOTHING existed other than this wouldn't-it-be-neato video concerning a football stadium. Darrell and coach Headrick were asked to speak on camera about what new facilities meant to a program and how they attracted athletes. RV would tell you now he erred on that 18-month thing (again, he never thought you or I would see this). There was no way in hell then, from dirt with no $, no donor and no naming sponsor, to have a new stadium in 18 months. Think about it...18 months!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Let me count the ways as to what has come true from this silly little in-house video: Of the six things he said were coming, we have the AC/practice, tennis, softball, soccer and volleyball places "on line." We don't have football, baseball, track or the academic center/library that were referenced. Wasn't the completed stuff was done within a year of the AC? RV's on record this week as saying that he's so committed to football that he'll put the baseball program/stadium on hold. You can argue more foot-dragging, but that strategy is dead-on the right thing to do. We've got a massive endeavor ahead of us with this stadium, and at this point, baseball is just a project we can't address properly. By saying this, RV is saying you have his attention. He's putting something as important as baseball on hold for the bigger picture, but I guess you don't see that. I really don't give a shit if you think I'm in the man's back pocket. I don't feel I've been lied to, and I've got a realistic view of what this will take at a school with virtually no support relative to its enrollment. I'm as unhappy as you are that we don't have a stadium, but I'm not the eternal pessimist/bitcher about stadium issues that permeate this board 24-7. Yeah, it was a mistake for this video to get out, but that's why I've tried (with abject failure) to get that idiotic thing to go away. It wasn't a promise of anything, just a bunch of CAD geeks messing around so UNT could see a little what-if.

A conspiracy? You mean we've been led on all these years with phantom blueprints, studies and capital campaigns, when now we know those things didn't (seriously) exist? The Goldfields dropped their record $1.5 mil athletic donation just in 2006, so what exactly did ath. dept. people deceive or pacify us with before then? Just because RV, etc. talked about a new stadium in 2004 or 2001, doesn't mean it was predestined to open 2008, or that someone lied, deceived, misled, BS'd, or whatever you think they did. I know of things like wish lists or fairy-tale likenesses of stadiums, but as far as anything concrete/official that the ath. dept. yanked off the table, I don't recall.

Startlegram blog.

Told by who, the Stadium Fairy? Hard to believe anyone with any knowledge/authority could have made such a statement with any real certainty or evidence. Hope you're not back on that goofy, moronic stadium video (it never leaves!).

Guess the Harrell/Ennis touch didn't rub off completely at Tulsa. They did pick up a good replacement, though. Link.

Way to make my point for me. I said virtually no one is building from the ground up NOW, as in 2008 and beyond. SMU isn't now. Tech doesn't bolster your argument; they renovated regardless of what they really wanted to do or not. The point is what the trend is now, not what other schools want or wanted to do. UNT wants to build a new stadium unlike the current trend, which is to renovate/add on. Therein lies two challenges: Building from scratch when costs are at an all-time high and when it's rare, and when you have an un-renovatable (made-up term) existing structure.

If memory serves, completing an associate's degree within two calendar years (including both summers) is the drop-dead requirement for juco players who didn't make the NCAA Clearinghouse (SAT, ACT, GPA, etc.) out of high school. If you don't get it done, you're no longer eligible under any circumstances to play D-I. It's D-II or bust. Of course, I thought we were D-I in 98 instead of 95, so memory doesn't always serve.

off by 3 years, sorry. never can remember that some of the Simon teams were d-I. point still stands, though.

Excellent point. BTW, that stupid stadium design has been obsolete for nearly 3 years. It needs to disappear from this board permanently. All it does is foster confusion and pointless conversation/debate. Stop posting it, all who have.

Decades? What are you talking about? We've only been D-I since 1998, and there was no need for a new stadium even in the transitional period. Do you think the Cowboys just thought of building a new stadium 1 or 2 years ago? It's a damn slow process, and considering we're this far along (architects, naming-rights firms) just since RV came, I'd say we're at least on the right track. You can't possibly be bitching that we've needed a stadium for decades, and the "problem" has been ignored that long. That's nuts. How many big programs are actually building stadiums right now? One? To my memory, Minnesota is it. Sure, FIU and FAU have plans, but they've been in high school stadiums in worse shape than Fouts. Most programs are simply improving on existing infrastructure (TCU, Stanford, WKU etc.) or they're non-BCS programs who went through the same painstaking process (Troy, UCF, whoever I'm forgetting) to construct new houses that I'm guessing won't compare to what we end up with if we do this right. Point is, virtually no one is building from the ground up right now. If we had a decent, rennovation-ready place, you're talking something entirely different. But starting from dirt...that's an absolute bitch. If it's 2010, I'm stoked, and I'm there. If later, well, I can't imagine much later if RV and TD are throwing out a year publicly. Check that, forgot FIU is about done with a new place, but they fall into my point about Troy and UCF.

Quite an opportunity out there now for some DE or DEs...provided they're willing to take and run with it. Anyone with a realistic shot at contributing at DE who needs kick to the ass for motivation need not apply. Taco Bueno-Fouts Stadium.

College Confidential blog.

Mosley/Montgomery tandem

startlegram blog

Technically, add Washington (7 games) to that offensive starters lost list. Bummer.

Melodramatic, slightly.

He was gone most or all of the spring, and definitely didn't play in spring game. Sure there's more to it than him just leaving, but you know, privacy stuff.

Never good news to see a productive WR like Korey go, but he's leaving the deepest position on the team.