untjim1995

I am often confounded by our recruiting. We sit in this hotbed for recruiting with great facilities and have solid academics with favor admittance standards, yet our classes are always rated low, no matter who the coach is. I don't know if its because a lot of local high school talent just wants to go away for a true college experience further away or if our culture and losing has really soured parents and Texas High School coaches on UNT against other similar schools. I mean, McCarney is such a vibrant and passionate guy--you'd think his optimism would really rub off on the recruits and their parents and coaches. Again, it doesn't matter who the coach has been, the overall class we end up with is never highly rated, and often times, especially under Dodge, those kids we were originally excited about never even came close to playing here or contributing much. But I will say this, as small as we are right now, we looked like the freaking NFL compared to what SMU threw out there in week 2.

I'll call you in the spring of 2016, most likely, when his 4th season ends and he only has one year left on his contract.

UNT--27 UAB--24 Really, who knows...its a CUSA game. All these teams are just about the same and can win or lose against any of the others in the league.

Nah, those anti-trust laws aren't gonna get applied to them. Their buddies in the legislatures in DC, as well as the media that pays to cover them, will never allow the P5 schools to get hit with any anti-trust lawsuit. Don't fool yourself--its the USFL versus the NFL. The split will happen--its just a matter of its within the NCAA or not. Now, I can see where they will allow a G5 team each year to play in one of the big bowls every year, like they do now. But I foresee the P5 never playing G5 schools in OOC play in the very near future. There's just too many voices out there that believe that is needed with this new playoff system. When your conference schedule isn't that great, still playing a weak OOC is going to catch up to you (see Baylor this year). They are going to circle the wagons on this very soon. To me, as a UNT fan, I really don't care anymore. We aren't ever going to be included in a P5 conference, so we need to make the G5 situation the best it can be. It doesn't have to be SLC 2.0 again, since you will be playing schools in the state and region that people care about and have heard of, unlike the embarrassment of the 1-aa fiasco. We have a great stadium and we finally play in a conference that is waayyy better than anything we have been assocaited with since the early 70s. Even if we are just going to bve relegated to a G5 level, getting to play in a conference with even more other regional schools like SMU, UH, and Tulsa would be even better for us. DO I wish we got a Big XII invite and got to play those schools currently in that league? Of course--who wouldn't. But watching UH gets locked out of the P5 over these years makes it even more clear that we all are just stuck permanently below them. And I truly believe that Baylor and TCU will join all of us in the future when the other leagues pick apart the Big XII for their future expansion. Again, for us, that will be even better than we have ever had it. It would suck for the old SWC teams that won't get to stay in the P5 or couldn't get moved up there, but that's just sweet justice to me, since none of those bastards would ever even consider "lowering" themselves to partner with us over the decades past.

Coach Mac's strength is developing lines--I know that we are inexperienced right now, but I suspect that 2015 will be a much better year for our DLine. Of course, we have to replace our OL, but I think we will be fine here. The reality here is that everyone wants linemen. The thing that helps McCarney is that he has a track record of turning unranked and low ranked talent into good pieces on the lines. We have to hope he keeps it up, which I believe he will. There are some coaches out there that have the ability to just coach up players to be better as they get older and used to their systems. Leach did it at Tech on the offense. Patterson has always done that at TCU on defense. At some places, you just get a ton of talent and coaching up the talent isn't as necessary like it is at a place like UNT or TCU. Sumlin at A&M and Briles at Baylor are getting their picks of the Texas HS ranks right now. Before that, Texas and OU were getting it, so coaching the talent up wasn't necessary. You have coaches like Snyder at KSU and Mangino when he was at KU that could just get the maximum out of their teams. I believe McCarney is a guy who has the same ability to make guys better over time. It doesn't happen overnight, as it takes time for the linemen to get stronger and smarter, but there is no doubt that he has that reputation with linemen.

Andrew, I'd highly encourage you to find another hobby. One that doesn't make you look like a pinata. Sincerely, GMG.com

The NCAA isn't going to "fix" anything that they don't deem as broken. They rake in billions from the TV contract and media broadcasts of their P5 schools. ESPN, CBS, and Fox have no interest at all in geography--they have interest in viewership. The only people who complain about geography in college sports are those who are shunned by their in-state and regional colleges. What you are right about, however, is that the G5 schools are going to have to figure something out in the very near future about conference affiliation and expenses. The P5s will never go short on resources--between football and basketball, they have budgets that are always going to dwarf those of us in the G5. When they finally take their ball and run off, UH, SMU, Tulane, and Tulsa are all finally going to realize what Rice, UNT, La Tech, and UTSA already know--that the easiest way to make a buck is to keep your team as close to town as possible. Travel costs and recognizable opponents are going to keep you afloat.

I agree here, too. I like it, as well, if only because we got to keep two CUSA schools in Texas that couldn't move upward in Rice and UTEP, while gaining UTSA and La Tech. So that is light years better than the SBC ever dreamed of being. BUt, let's face it, TFLF is dead-on--all that CUSA really is now is the SBCUSA--those that could move up did, those who couldn't didn't. Kinda like the AAC isbasically the AACUSA--those that could move up did, those that couldn't are still there.

I still think 6 is about right...

I know you didn't advocate leaving CUSA--you just said that getting an easy win is always good. That is why I said that if this is really true, then we made a huge mistake leaving the watered-down SBC for CUSA. But, of course, we both know that wins over bad teams and teams that no one cares about doesn't increase any support for this program. To me, that is what is needed most at this place right now--you get increased support, you should get more revenue. You get more revenue, you have the ability to get rid of a bodybag game every once in a while, like Marshall has done this year. And, yes, the average fan, does know the difference between a FCS school and a FBS school. What they don't know the difference between is the G5 schools that are in the SBC, CUSA, and AAC, since they have all changed conferences so often in the last decade.

This.

Well if that's true, then we made a mistake leaving the SBC. We could be playing Texas State, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Appy State, South Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana-Lafayette, Troy, Arkansas State, New Mexico State, and Idaho right now. Certainly, we'd be able to get to 8+ plus wins against that bunch, plus a game against FCS Nicholls State, FBS worst SMU, Texas, and Indiana. I personally don't like FCS opponents for our program. Its impossible to get any fan excited to join you for these opponents--hell its hard enough against SBCUSA teams. And I don't think they help your program accomplish what we need to do badly--raise our profile. Last years' schedule in OOC was a solid one to me. Play a low-level FBS team at home, play a bodybag game on the road to pay the bills, then two games against G5 teams, home and away. In the future, we will get SMU and Army for home-and away against G5s, plus a bodybag game or two each year. One thing that is gonna hurt this, though, is that the bodybag game forces you to have to either play 5 games at home like we will next year or buy a game against someone. Unfortunately, though, for me, unless a team like Idaho is gonna continue to let us play them only in Denton without a return game, a FCS opponent is just a reality. I just don't think they help a G5 team very much. A P5 school can use the tuneup or the break on the schedule since they get thousands of people to support them anyway (usually)--those of us in the G5 don't get that luxury. I will say this-- If Dajon goes out and kills it against IU and UAB, then I will be proven quite wrong on this. But when we played Texas Southern at home in 2012, that game didn't help Derek Thompson get any better during the rest of the year. We just don't know anymore about Dajon or the rest of the team today than we knew after the La Tech game. We find out a lot more about the whole thing after these next two road games.

At our level right now, any game against a FCS team, especially a bad one that won't bring a soul to the game and won't register even a blip on the radar for college football fans or media, shouldn't get played. For one, it does nothing for the fans, who are the lifeblood of the program. Coaches and players come and go, but its the fanbase that keeps the thing rolling. It isn't a reward to your supporters when you give them Texas Southern or Nicholls State. Secondly, a bad FCS team doesn't really give you anything to help prepare you against your main conference competition, since they don't have the talent to mimic anyone on the schedule. And lastly, a good FCS program can actually beat you, which is the absolute worst thing a G5 team can have happen. Watching La Tech lose to NW State just tells everyone that they aren't very good and their conference must really suck if they win it and still couldn't beat a FCS team at home.

True--but TCU is really small, compared to USC. And the PAC folks have made it abundantly clear that both BYU and Baylor are not compatible with their political leanings.

I think you should really teach all of the "idiots" on this forum a lesson by just leaving gmg.com...

Its true, they could, but Tech, in particular, has made their way in this world as the perfect little brother to UT. Think OSU to OU...they'll be together because the state's legislature is gonna demand it. Texas will never be allowed to go off on their own to another conference without at least one of the current Texas Big XII teams. A&M leaving for the SEC was absolute brilliance, but, in the end, Tech will probably benefit the most from that move, since it gives them permanent status as UT's little brother going forward. For Texas, having Tech on their side will help them immensely when the Pac-12 eventually takes the Texoma Four. Baylor and TCU are gonna fit that overboard crowd you mentioned above, no matter how much they sue. Texas and Tech are gonna be able to say that the Pac-12 just won't take a religious-affiliated school, so they don't have any choice but to leave them behind. And Tech, no matter how many 5-7 and 6-6 seasons that they will endure in the current Big XII, will have basically won the lottery, since they get to stay in a P5 conference for decades to come. I still think it wil look like this: Pac-12 + Texoma 4, B1G will add KU, and the ACC will add WVU (and UConn and Cincy). KSU could get in somewhere, too, but I don't know where--maybe the SEC if Mizzou ends up finally getting their dream Big Ten slot. Iowa State, Baylor, and TCU are gonna be left out to find their way in the G5, probably the three of them will go to the MWC with UH. Rice, UTSA, and MUTS probably replace them in the AAC. And Texas State, ULL, and Arkansas State move up to CUSA.

That decision in 1982, and subsequent non-correction of that decision for over a decade, really put a ceiling on the program. Right now, as it should, we feel like we are about 100x farther along than we were 20 years ago this year--we were still i-aa, in the SLC with teams like SFA, SHSU, SWT, NLU, NWST, Nicholls State, and McNeese State, playing in a stadium that 3A schools wouldn't want to play in, and the SWC still existed. And, where we are today, as a FBS school in a conference people have heard of, with schools that people have heard of (for the most part), in a great stadium with a legitimate experienced head coach seems like we are light years of where we were then. But intrue UNT fashion, we half-assed the move back up to 1-A in 1995 by doing the bare minimum to move up to meet the criteria--add 10,500 of the worst seats ever put in a stadium, join a conference whose closest team to you was in another time zone and had absolutely no history whatsoever to try and draw any interest from playing, schedule every possible OOC game away from Denton to fund the entire athletic department, and put unknown assistants into the role of head coach because they were cheap. In the end, we may have made the right decision, economically, because those schools that zoomed by us back then, Boise State, USF, and UCF really aren't terribly further up the food chain than we are now, especially with looming P5 split, but they have all enjoyed MUCH greater exposure because of football than we ever have in our history. But, I go back to this again--you cannot tell me that if we had just done what Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, and Arkansas State had done--not drop down or stay down at the i-aa level for very long, at the very worst, we would've been in the AAC or MWC today. A large, public school near DFW with some history would've been able to have connected into something like the WAC or CUSA before the SWC formally split. Would that make a huge difference today? I don't know, maybe--but it would put us higher on the totem pole than we were for so long. And, in my wildest dreams, we would've actually built up a program in the early 80s instead of basically trying to de-fund it, giving the folks in a little conference to the north of us, one without any Texas teams in it at the time, but wanted to get some badly, called the Big Eight, to consider doing something crazy, like adding us to their conference during the 80s. Imagine what that would've looked like for the Big Eight and for north Texas had that even remotely had a chance of happening? Those SWC public schools would have been laughed off the face of the earth if that had occurred, letting small enrollment, private institutions in SMU, TCU, and Baylor dictate that another big public school wouldn't be in the best interests of Texas, Arky, Tech, A&M, and UH. Oh well, it was just a pipedream...

I didn't see a ton of TCU or SMU shirts back in my day, but the ones that just irritated me to no end were the Baylor and Tech shirts. I hated the Baylor stuff because they were just in the BIg XII because of their political ties in Austin--nothing more. The TCU and SMU stuff just mildly annoyed me, since they didn't even have any relevance back then. But the ones I really hated were the Tech hats and shirts, in part, because the people who wore that stuff transferred here usually from there, meaning they still held a strong allegiance to a school they left. Combine that with the fact that Tech is basically the exact opposite of UNT in every way, I just never have liked them at all. Their fanbase is pure trash and they are literally in the middle of nowhere. But I will also say that Tech has done everything right in gaining a strong alliance with UT--since the 50s, Tech has always been included with their bigger, more successful brother. They probably will be taken care of by UT when the next round of realignment takes place. So, as much as I dislike their school, my envy for their athletic program is much higher than my hatred of them.

Indiana--30 UNT--17 Until we win an OOC road game under Coach Mac, its hard to pick the good guys to win on the road at a P5 school--especially one that just lost a game after scoring its biggest victory in years the week before that loss...throw the fact that IU will want revenge from their loss against us back in 2011, as well as Dajon's first real start against something above 4A low-level competition, I think we are gonna fall short in Hoosier-land.

+100000000

If we win, Benford should be fired...if the game gets called for unforeseen reasons, Benford should be fired.

They will gladly do it if it means staying in a P5 league. Tech knows their place--and its not a bad place at all. You get big teams to come to your place every year, you recruit the 3* that aren't getting recrutited heavily by Texas, A&M, OU, etc..which means you can still beat a lot of teams because of Texas HS talent, and of course, you get to keep that ca$h, playa...Tech is UTs lapdog. They are gonna do almost anything they can do make sure that UT doesn't leave them alone to die on the West Texas Prairie. Tech does have some Austin pull in the legislature, too, so that will help UT with the state and they will need someone to vote hand-in-hand with them for conference stuff, which Tech almost always does. One thing TCU showed us in their halcyon MWC days was that you could win the Rose Bowl and finish #2 in a final poll and it still wouldn't pay you anything close to what a P5 conference cellar-dwellar would get for doing nothing more than rolling over for the bhig dogs in your conference. Its the single biggest thing TCU ever accomplished in the last 50 years of their existence. It wasn't winning going to a BCS bowl game or even winning the Rose Bowl over Wisconsin--it was using it all to miraculously get into the Big XII when the conference had some upheaval and lost Texas A&M. TCU is the biggest winner in all of the realignment stuff, not even close. A small private school who sits in the middle of a saturated tv market somehow got invited to the Big Boys table because the non-Texas schools wanted another Texas stop to replace A&M and wanted it in DFW, not in Houston. UH would have been so much better than TCU (hell, they would've been way better than Baylor back in 1994, but they didn't have the legislative pull Baylor had), but TCU got that spot. And almost every single Frog fan you meet will tell you that they would rather lose in the Big XII than go back to the MWC--that tells you all you need to know.

I don't see us in the AAC with SMU there, so it would take them giving up football for that to occur. Most likely, when UConn leaves, they will replace them with them with the best market available for them that has a decent team and support. To me, without any doubt whatseover, that is UTSA. SMU, UH, Tulane, and Tulsa will all be in favor of them, and I imagine that the other southern schools would like them, too, except for ECU. The good news to me, at least on that front, is that you have the easiest replacement for them in Texas State, so not much changes there for CUSA if this all comes down. If Cincy or Memphis leaves, that is when I can see MUTS replacing them. And if they lose one of UCF/USF, then they will replace them with one of the F_Us. It won't be Marshall, Southern Miss, Western Kentucky, or Louisiana Tech--they offer no market for TV. It won't be Rice or UNT since we are duplicates in their markets already covered with SMU and UH there. UTEP, UAB, ODU, and Charlotte are longshots, at best, for many different reasons to ever move up to the AAC if someone left. The other strong possibility for down the road is that the Big XII implodes, which I do think will happen. Its my belief that when that happens, Baylor, TCU, and Iowa State are gonna be looking at G5 status when that happens. I think WVU and KSU could be, too, but I think they will find a home, somewhere in the P5. When it happens, the Big XII will go the way of the Big East, I mean the AAC. The leftovers will keep the name and start issuing invites to the best of the AAC, MWC, CUSA, and even the MAC. Again, though, its all about reorganizing the deck chairs on the same little boat--some of them may think they should be on the suite level and that others should be steerage, but the sooner that they all realize that the G5 needs to be like the FCS is right now and have everyone pull the same rope, the ship won't sink--hell the voyage could still be very enjoyable. But we gotta get some of these old passengers, who think the Large Luxury SWC Cruise Ship they used to enjoy is coming back to pick them up someday, to realize that they are stuck on the same tugboat that we are all on. Hey SWC royalty, the thing failed because of you--you don't offer enough because you are too small for big time football, no matter how much $$$ you have. Sure, you used to own that liner, but your money is no good anymore. You're the widow of the rich guy who died and left his fortune to his girlfirend, Barbie...you can either come to grips with it or you can keep fighting, but that is gonna drain you of even more resources that you don't have.

I think the thing that will be most interesting to me is just to see if Dajon can continue to improve as a FBS starting QB. Even if we lose, its just important to feel as if we have found someone who can play QB at a level that is better than your local Texas HS JV squad. A loss here doesn't hurt us too much, as long as we still see Dajon making progress. If he is terrible, then we still have to see what he can do against UAB. After that, if Dajon is bad, you'll see Greer and McNulty get a chance against Southern Miss at home. I still feel like a 7-8 win team is possible, but I also now believe that a 4 win season is possible, too.

So true...like saying that if Todd Dodge had led us to a win over Ohio at Fouts in the rain, then we would have officially turned the corner as a program in 2009--just a slight exaggeration.