untjim1995

In 2013, in a seson where both Rice and UH were bowl participants (i.e., they were both good), the annual Bayou Bucket game was played at Reliant Stadium, a place that fits over 70,000 people, and resides in the SAME TOWN as both universities. The ANNOUNCED CROWD was less than half of capacity, just over 34k. Keep in mind, these two teams play each other every year, had been in the same conference for many, many years, and share the same coverage from the local press, unlike UNT and SMU in every single way. Yet this idiot thinks its says A LOT about both programs (SMU and UNT) that it might not be a sellout at our place. I'd venture a wager that a game at the Cotton Bowl between SMU and UNT would fill the damn place more than half and it seats 92k. I know it was a troll post--and a bad one, since only I have responded to it, but my goodness, even after a long layoff from posting, you still suck at this...

A lot of youth sports are getting played on Satrurday mornings...that won't help the alumni turnout.

I'd take either bowl right now, but the New Mexico Bowl against San Diego State would be a nice matchup and location for us. Albuquerque is a quick flight from Dallas and is also driveable for our fans.

What absolutely amazes me is that SMU went from 1989 to 2008 with one of the worst FBS football programs that existed, yet they still go decent to good media coverage in the DFW Metroplex. They might have about 5000 people at The Cotton Bowl for a game against Tulane, but the local media was there to cover it in full, as if 50,000 people were there instead. ANd when SMU has about 5000 people at Ford Stadium while playing Tulsa, it still gets full video coverage on all the local networks. I don't care if they have SWC legacy or not, that team didn't deserve any more publicity than we got when we sucked. I just think the SMU name and money carries a lot of weight with the local media outlets. But usually, media members hate monied and well-heeled groups, which makes the SMU coverage even more unbelievable. And its not like SMU has a lot of journalists in the DFW media, ceratinly when compared to us. It really doesn't add up.

That will never happen at UNT. The school's history is from education. The citizenry and the administration love being renowed for music and arts. Athletics isn't anywhere close to being high on their agenda or their liking.

I agree with the premise of just how important this game is to the season and especially for recruiting and local media coverage. The only thing I disagree with is the fear that the fans won't get up for this game. Its the home opener, against a team that no one in Denton likes, that no one from UNT likes, and we are always behind them, perception-wise, by the local media and, more improtatntly, by conferences around the country. They will be up for this game. In 2006, when we were just terrible, we still pounded SMU in Denton, when they actually had one of their best teams since the Death Penalty but before June Jones got there. We were so amped up for that game that we pounded them and cost them a bowl berth at the end of the season. In 2007, again, when we were just awful--and they were too--we both played a huge pillow fight of a game in Dallas between teams that won 1 game (SMU) and 2 games (us). I think we will be ready for sure--McCarney knows it, too, that this game resonates with the Mean Green faithful, which is saying something, since he has seen just how little this place has cared about the majority of the teams we have played in his three seasons here. He knows this one will be easy to get up for.

Oh Lord...get the popcorn ready. Either this is an A+ troll or we are about to see internet poster homicide.

RV wasn't anywhere near that election...he laid low before and during that election. The campaign was labeled "stealth" because so few people really knew about it. Sadly, we all know that if we had really promoted this stadium, it would've failed--again. So I stand by that point. UNTFlyer did the heavy lifting on this. Maybe UNTFlyer can come on here and tell us how much influence RV had with him as he spear-headed this effort, but that has never been made public to my knowledge. And, lastly, I don't discount Todd Dodge at all on this. He was an articulate speaker, he made the UNT family feel like he cared about them, and he made no bones about the fact that he was promised a new stadium when he got hired. And it still took Dodge consistently bringing up in the media and having this "stealth" election to get it done. As far as the suite level stuff, that is his job, especially to get high donors on board. That is probably what he has done the best of consistently at UNT. He certainly has your support and the other millionaires that support this place substantially. If Gretchen Bataille said we will never pay more for a head coach than what she makes, RV should have made that clear to everyone that was the payscale and where it came from. He is the perfect AD for this administration and BOR. He does their bidding, he doesn't rock the boat, and he doesn't cost too much. There's a reason he hasn't gone anywhere else. Don't fool yourself into believeing that if the AD at UNT turned everything around here to the degree that you all say he has, that he wouldn't be crawling up the career ladder to go somewhere else. ADs do the same thing that coaches do. Yet, here RV is--as the perpetual AD at this place, with little pressure. To me, that's not comedian material--its pretty damn frustrating. It is very telling, though, that you didn't mention anything about his hires in your post...I'll just assume we agree on that topic.

I, too, think CUSA is a great setup for us right now. We play more in state teams as conference mates in a FBS conference than ever before. We also play La Tech and Southern Miss, both of whom have solid reputations in college football for non-AQ programs. I just go back to TCU. If they could build a winner int he fashion they did, while playing in the MWC, then I am convinced any Texas team could do the same if they hire the right guy and fund the program the right way. Gary Patterson is a great defensive coach and he had Texas HS talent to go up against the teams out west--bingo, you have a team that consistently gets ranked, gets invited to BCS Bowl games, and ends up winning a Rose Bowl to finish #2 in the final poll. I realize TCU has a lot of major advantages ($$$, Ft. Worth support, name recongition) that we don't. But I think, long-term, we need to either be in the MWC or AAC down the road or we aren't going to be moving upward as far as a non-AQ can. The MWC will get back into Texas. Its just a matter of how they will do it. If BYU ever comes back, I see them adding 3 other Texas teams. To me, they go hard after UTEP, UH, and SMU. IF either of the last two won't go, then you go next to Rice, UNT, and UTSA. If we got to go play in the MWC with UTEP and Rice, for example, who wouldn't be in favor of that? You get two teams in Texas, replace La Tech with UNM, and then move up for better football and MUCH better basketball. That is what I think is the dream scenario for UNT in about 5 years or so. We gotta win in both sports to have a chance for this to occur, but its probably the best non-AQ situation we could possibly get.

UNTFlyer got the great new stadium done...they had to keep RV hidden away to make that happen, BTW. The athletic complex is very nice and I do credit him for getting that done. I think its the biggest achievement of his career here at UNT. The hire report card is not good. Like it or not, at UNT especially, the hires in revenue sports are all you need to grade. Football: Grade D Failed to fire Dickey in 2000, extended him and then fired him with two years left on his contract, hired Todd Dodge and allowed him to bring in HS coaches as assistants, kept Dodge for a 4th year after he had won all of 5 games in the first three years, and then finally hired McCarney and got him an extension after he won the HoD Bowl. Mens' Hoops: Grade C Kept Johnny Jones as long as he could until LSU came calling. Hires an assistant coach known for being a great recruiter and had no head coaching experience in Tony Benford. If Benford gets off to a great start at UNT with the best collection of talent we have ever had, he's probably coaching at his alma mater (Texas Tech) right now, meaning we didn't go with a guy who would stay here as a successful coach for any length of time. In the end, it doesn't matter, since he has sucked royally in two years as coach and doesn't look to have a bright future here in his next two years as head coach. Women's Hoops: Grade F Shanice Stephens...enough said. I knew when we lost a preseason game to Texas Womans University, that was all I needed to know about her "coaching". An absolute disaster as a head coach. Replaced with Karen Aston, who showed great promise, but got bought by UT after just one year. Petersen hasn't shown much in his years as coach. The move up to CUSA was solely because SMU left--not because of anyhting we or RV did. We aren't even in CUSA if SMU doesn't leave--which just scares the hell out of me, since we would have been in a WATERED DOWN SBC...that's where you have to ask yourself if FBS is really worht it, if the best you can do is be in a conference with ULM, Texas State, Troy, Georgia State, etc... The APR is something to be proud of, but the hole we dug out of was also under his watch when Dickey was the coach here. His second major achievement was to simply allow tailgating before games--that has galvanized the fans who like to enjoy this activity, even if a lot of them don't go into the game. To me, his grade is a C, at best. He looks much better than any other ADs at UNT, since we simply didn't even try to fund the AD before RV got hired, as well as the fact that the previous ADs didn't allow tailgating (Seriously, who is that stupid?) and scheduled us out in the revenue sports to fund the entire department's budget. But at UNT a C grade in athletics earns you a great job. From the BOR standpoint, RV's greatest achievement is that he does the job just like they want him to, so he has been rewarded with many extensions. At any other major university of our size, there is now way he'd have survived that many bad hires in those revenue sports. That alone would have gotten him fired many, many years ago.

This. Games today against Boise State, Nevada, and Utah State are about 180 degrees from what they were like in the Big West days, when we played in a toilet of a stadium and were brand new to FBS ball after a 12-year demotion to 1-AA purgatory. If anyone thinks that a game in Denton against Air Force, Colorado State, or Fresno State wouldn't get more attention from the DFW public, which still includes most UNT fans and alums, than a home game against most of CUSAs teams, I don't know what to say.

If RV came out and said we have 5 games in Denton in these two seasons because we need the cash to pay the bills and SMU as a road game helps us to at least alleviate some of the pain of our fans not having an extra game at Apogee, I'd accept it, even if I didn't want to hear it. Otherwise, there is no other reason that is acceptable at this point to have only five home games in Denton. I really don't understand why we cannot get a better OOC opponent than SMU or Army scheduled at Apogee, but it is what it is, I guess. I always figured that with Apogee, we could get a decent home-and-home series scheduled with teams from conferences other than the MAC or the AAC. So far, aside from Indiana, we have hosted or will host teams in OOC at Apogee from the AAC (UH and SMU), the MAC (Ball State), Independent (Idaho and Army), or FCS (Texas Southern and Nicholls State). I thought we would see more Indiana-type teams from AQ leagues or a BYU or Boise State every once in a while. IIRC, we were told this new stadium would allow us the opportunity to bring in more recognized teams to Denton.Instead, we have OOC games with teams that Fouts hosted or easily could have hosted, even in its decrepit state. Very disappointing...

The SMU game in Dallas will get sold as a "virtual" home game because its so close...just wait.

+1000000

BYU is a true tweener program. They have a great national following and winning tradition. They have their own network. But their views on social issues, not saying whether they are right or wrong, is where the Pac-12 avoids them like the plague. And, the Big XII would be a great fit for them, but they would just be another school that takes more money away from the other 10 teams, so that seems to be the sticking point now. I still think that they will end up in the Big XII, though, with Cincy, at some point in the next 5 years. The BIg XII is going to have to get back to 12 teams to have conference championship game like the other P5 conferences do, as well as to "soften" their schedules by not playing everyone in the league, just like the other P5 leagues currently do.

Maybe its just me, but the Cotton Bowl doesn't seem like that effective of a place to hold one of the meetings. I am sure I'm wrong about this, and they will get a huge crowd, but Fair Park on a Thursday night doesn't seem like a real inviting venue to a lot of people. Again, I'm sure I'm wrong, but that one seems like the worst of the four spots to hold a Coaches Caravan...

Somebody's got to go to Hawaii from CUSA...not my first, second, third, fourth, or fifth choice, but if it means we go bowling again, I'll take it right now.

You will find as you get older, that this message of being a great value is what the university always sells to the general public at any chance it can. Let's face it--our student body is drawn from the same demographics as UTA and UTD. UTA markets themselves in the Metroplex mostly on their science, engineering, and business schools. UTD markets itself on its excellent academic credentials and its great connetions to technology, engineering, and science. If you ask anyone in the DFW area what we are well-known for, they might be able to point to education and music, but even that is doubtful, because all we ever market is how much of a "value" we are. "Value" is very subjective--yes, it covers cost, but it also should include experience, location, and stellar departments that your school excels in. I'm sorry, but we don't recruit students to Denton on the one huge advantage it has over the Metroplex schools, including SMU and TCU--Denton is a college town, first and foremost. Those types of locations provide a great experience for your college years. In Texas and Oklahoma, only College Station, Lubbock, and Stillwater can provide a similar setting for their schools. We have a football program that competes at FBS. We have an awesome, nationally recognized music program and we have the great history of starting off as a teacher's college, which shows a strong conviction towards helping to provide better education since 1890!! You can have that stuff here in Denton at UNT. Not at UTA, UTD, TWU, TCU, or SMU... But, instead, we go cheap and market toward being cheap. You can commute here from home!! You don't ever have to come back after you graduate!! All of this is what gets conveyed to a lot of people when all you ever do is focus on being a great "value"...

This is where Coach Mac's reputation for building up linemen really helps. He chose us because we run a lot, we build the linemen up thru quality S&C programs, and we coach solid technique. Add in a great coach and you can see how we beat out Nevada, Southern Miss, Wyoming, and Georgia State. NIce find, Coach Mac!!

He would've gotten that job, if for nothing else because they knew we were looking at him. All you can do is tip your hat to SMU for taking the ultimate flier on Larry Brown...high risk/high reward. He can certainly coach and he surrounded himself with a great assistant coaches, especially Jankovich. Now, they are probably set for the next 5 years, bare minimum. Meanwhile, in Denton, we are set for the next five years, as well...just in the opposite direction. I figure it will take two more years of Benford, then 3+ years to rebuild to get us back to where we were in about 2007. Thanks, RV!!

I think this is genius, if it can be implemented. UNT loves the HoD Bowl. UTEP would love the New Mexico Bowl. FAU will host the Boca Raton Bowl. FIU will love the Miami Beach Bowl at Marlins Park. Rice, La Tech, and USM would love the NO Bowl. MUTS, WKU, and UAB would love the St. Petersburg Bowl. No one will like the Bahamas Bowl and a lot of teams will probably pray that they aren't chosen by the Hawaii Bowl. Many of them, especially La Tech, would love the bowl game in Shreveport over either of those other two games, if for no other reason than getting a berth in that game means you probably are facing either a SEC or ACC team, unless the play their cards to avoid playing a lowly CUSA team. The HoD Bowl last year showed just how special it is to have a bowl game in close proximity to your school and its fans. I've seen Motor City Bowl Games with Central Michigan that are sellouts, where as when its involving Buffalo or some other MAC outpost, its not even half full. It would be great if a perk to winning the CUSA Championship is getting to pick your preferred bowl game.

No it isn't--its always been this way. Big programs control the NCAA, since they have all the power in their states and conferences. That has been the case for over 50 years, if not longer. For non-AQs, when the AQs finally break away in whatever form that will be, that's when our non-AQ college football world will fall apart.

Last year, we all were saying the same thing about our DLine...hell, I thought that we would win about 3-4 games because of that small DLine and medicore-at-best QB play. Guess what, I was wrong, and so were most of the posters. The fact that Coach Mac did what he has always done--develop size and technique on his lines, run the ball, have a QB that has learned his system and knows what plays to try and make and to avoid, and get better at special teams--just as he did at Iowa State, so I give him major props for knowing how to build this thing up. He has a system in place, full of kids that are FULLY BOUGHT IN as to what is expected on the field, in the weight room, and in the classroom. He is light years better than anyone we have had on the sidelines as a FBS head coach since Hayden Fry was here. I completely trust that he will have us ready to compete hard with UT in the opener, just as I expect that same thing in Denton against SMU the next week. To me, the QB situation is the most worrisome aspect of this season ahead, assuming injuries aren't a huge issue, but I expect that the DLine will play well this year, especially since Skladany is still the DC.

$$$

I want stuff like this to be printed off in every single publication in this state all the way up until game time...take us lightly, pampered, soft Longhorns. You guys are the best of the best, I mean that's why you were so highly rated out of high school by all these Texas fans, err, I mean journalists, that just happen to make tons of cash of your idiot T-shirt fans that never dreamed of getting accepted by "their" university. Yall are gonna kill us, we could never compete with all of your resources and great tradition, and most of all, You're Texas...little ol' North Texas State is just a simple tuneup for BYU and UCLA, no more than what New Mexico State was last year. Don't worry about the fact that you couldn't stop the run to save your life last year and that UNT's system is all about running the football down your throat...yall got this!!