untjim1995

Mack Brown was a great iconic coach down there, but even he ended up his career just like so many others do...basically getting pushed out. It happened to Darrell Royal, Barry Switzer, Bobby Bowden (who most resembles Mack Brown, coaching wise), Phil Fulmer, and Lloyd Carr, just to name a few... It was probably time for him to go, since they had dropped back quite a bit in the last 5 years, and the Club Med feel down there of entitled kids certainly showed up in both results and now the NFL draft, where the reputation of being soft is now a tagline to the Texas program in the last years of Mack's tenure. I suspect that Mack will look a lot better, just as DKR did after he left, as the years go by. He turned a medicore Texas program into a giant of college football, often finishing in the top ten through 2009. Texas has a lot to fix, now--especially the fact that recruiting has gotten much more difficult with A&M, OU, and Baylor all being perceived as being better programs right now. Obviously, that changes as the wins come and go for all of these programs, but Charlie Strong has a big head wind to face, from changing the mindset down there in Austin and trying to get top rated recruits to come back their way again int he large numbers they've come accustomed to in the last 15 years or so. I don't think this is going to go smoothly at all in the early years of Strong's tenure. And let's face it, he basically has no more than three years--if that--to get this fixed. His opener against us has a very similar feel to Mike Sherman's opening game at A&M when they played--and lost to--Arky State. It also feels like John Blake's first game at Oklahoma, when they played --and lost to--TCU in Norman. Maybe we get pounded down there when we play UT, but I suspect that we have a great chance to compete with them. When you look at the two games I mentioned involving new coaches taking over these big programs and playing a home opener against a non-AQ team, Arky State and TCU just ran the ball down their throat and were the beneficiaries of quite a few turnovers. Texas' QB situation is the worst it has been in decades--and if they haven't bought into Strong's tough approach, as I bet they haven't, you can see where this game could really be an upset in the waiting. Texas may beat us 65-0 again and we will just be glad to collect our check and run up to Denton to get ready for SMU the next week, but something tells me that this time, in Austin, its gonna be a lot tougher for the Horns than it has been against us since 1987.

Record-wise, we switched places with them, but nothing else has really changed. They've always had a better conference, more money, and the DFW media to help them. They used those three things to take a chance on Larry Brown and TIm Jankovich. It has worked big time. Sometimes those chances work, sometimes they don't, but having (or using) $$$ to buyout mistakes is the difference between them and us. It always has been and it probably always will be.

Great thread!! I completely agree with you on all of this. I think UCF is a great model for us to follow, just like the current UH situation is, as well. BIg state schools around a big city in a talent-rich recruiting state...we fit all of that. There are differences, but they are not vast. What I don't see is where any of these teams are ever gonna be P5 schools, but as long as they let the best of the G5 play in a BCS Bowl, then we all have the chance to beat an AQ team in a big bowl. I see that game being a team from the AAC or MWC playing against the Big 12 or the ACC in most years, but the MAC and CUSA certainly have a good chance to get one of those slots, too. And I think we can beat teams from those leagues, just as UCF proved against Baylor.

Texas had recruiting classes from 2009-2011 that were ranked in the top five...they be seeing tons of kids being drafted right now, yet they got zero. A lot of that is because the NFL perceives their program, at least under Mack Brown, to be soft. So the questions that beg to be answered are this: Did Texas get highly ranked kids out of high school and soften them up at "Club Med-Austin" or did the "experts" in this state that make their money off of UT fans buying paid subscriptions to all things UT, including rankings on the state's top 100 recruits, flat out overrate the talent because Texas was recruiting them? My guess is that it was both.

That's great for both schools...SMU should be really good next season and Michigan gets a game down here in an area they want exposure for recruiting and for TV. IOW, I hate this...

I just don't think its as simple as increasing funding for the program. TCU watched their budget soar, but it was because Fran turned them around and they became a big hit over in Ft. Worth after that, especially since Patterson kept them moving forward. Ft. Worth and TCU have always had a special relationship together, as they market TCU as their hometown team. But when TCU was losing in the old SWC days and early WAC days, they weren't even close to funding that program to the level that they did once they started winning. That's when the advantage of being an old SWC school and being the "hometown" team in FW started really pushing them upward. But, even with all of that, TCU got into the Big XII because A&M left and the other Big XII schools in the North wanted another Texas team to play. Even Chris Del Conte, TCU's AD, admits that. DId it help that they had funding? Sure--but they also benefited from being in the Metroplex and having ties to UT, Baylor, and Tech. The winning, the location, and the team that left all played in perfectly for TCU. How long that last is very debatable, since I think the Big XII's life expectancy won't go beyond 2025 when its GOR expires, if not sooner. But until then, they made their way upward in a big way. Utah and Louisville both benefitted from this same sitaution. Utah filled in as a capable addition when the Texoma 4 or 5 didn't follow CU to the Pac-whatever. Their choices for expansion were Utah, BYU (who cannot play on Sundays and their Morman beliefs contradict the liberal Pac schools), Boise State (the new kids on the block, don't fit with the other Pac schools academically), UNLV, or Nevada, both of whom weren't gonna sway anyone in CA, AZ, OR, or WA to bring over for membership. Utah has had a solid basketball program for sometime, their football program had risen dramatically in the last decade, and their facilities got a huge boost from the Winter Olympics in 2002. Louisville, by now a blue blood in basketball, but also a rising college football program, was the perfect addition when Maryland announced they were leaving the ACC. They are a national name, even when their football program started rising upward in the 90s from really nothing, just due to their basketball program. And geographically, they add a nice market to the ACC and fit perfectly for travel for all of their other programs. To me, even if we just poured tons of cash into the program and started winning big, we'd be the next Boise State. Would that be awesome? Of course it would--it would be beyond belief, actually. But the P5 conferences aren't gonna add us for the same reason that Boise State couldn't crack the Pac-12--we aren't a program that is going to make other programs in those conferences want us as members. Teams like Houston, Memphis, Cincinatti, UCF, and USF are in the same boat, even if they don't want to admit it. They are in locations, that while seeming attractive because of enrollment and population, are already full of alums and fans from the big state schools in their states. That the P5 already got rid of one AQ conference (the old Big East) tells you that they aren't going to be adding another one anytime soon. Hell, the old MWC wouldv'e been the perfect addition to the AQ leagues, having accomplished a lot more than the old Big East in football, but even then, the AQs wouldn't let them come over. That ain't changing...too much money and power in the P5. They don't want anyone else getting that pie. And, when its all said and done, that will eventually be a P4 in my opinion, when the Big XII dies off. Then, TCU and Baylor probably will find themselves in lawsuit mode to try and stay at the AQ level. To me, the only non-P5 school that has a great chance to move up is UConn. Either the ACC or the Big Ten will look hard at them whenever the next realm of expansion goes forward. Beyond that, I just don't see anyone else moving upward. If Notre Dame ever becomes a full member of the ACC, then they will need another team to add, which would certainly be UConn. One thing that hurts UConn now with B1G is that they aren't a member of the AAU, which everyone in the Big Ten is, except for recently booted Nebraska, who lost their AAU membership after moving to the Big Ten, which is why many think Kansas will evenutally move to that league in the Midwest and that UConn will either get that other bid or an existing ACC school will get invited over and UConn will replace them. If the Texoma Four go out west, evenutally, that leaves West Virginia to find a place, which could also be the ACC if Notre Dame doesn't become a full football member, to go with UConn, getting them to 16 in football. Then, Kansas State, Iowa State, TCU, and Baylor are left behind. Those schools would be additions to the MWC or AAC, for sure, but they will be back on the outside of the AQ. This assumes a model of having 64-66 teams as AQ, which includes ND and BYU as independents.

I think that's a prevalent thoughtamongst academia, but I am not sure that it is true to the point that they want it to be, especially in Texas and in the South. Look, UTSA knows what that fee is getting them--its a way to gain civic pride for the locals, to get extra "free" media coverage to help recruit future students in the San Antonio area, and it helps retain good coaches and administrators. Academia leaders often want to believe that people attend college to learn as much as possible in their classes. Obviously, becasue of the need of a degree, class does matter greatly...but the "experience" of college is also a very important part of the decision on where to go. This is where your academia leaders often get short-circuited. People, especially guys, like to pick schools on their athletic prowess and for the experience of being a part of something big and great. The 12th Man, the Texas Exes, That Ol' Baylor Line, Boomer Sooner, Rock Chalk Jayhawk, etc...people like to be a part of something. Here at UNT, we have that to offer, as well. Its just in the College of Music--The Green Brigade, The One O'Clock Lab Band, and other well-known musical groups are well-respected in the world of music. Music, as opposed to athletics, is looked upon very fondly by academia, since it is artistic and not barbaric (see football). That's where the athletic fee being capped at $10 comes from, in my opinion. If we changed that fee to Music and Marching Band Fee, there wouldn't be one word of consternation from the administration, faculty, or BOR. And it would get done. But that's the difference between spending the last century striving to be an awesome college for music, arts, and education instead of using athletics as a window that got the correct support from the administration and BOR. There are tons of examples of schools who have seen incredible jumps in funding and enrollments from having a great run in a revenue sport. I remember TCU benefitted greatly with applications just after they won the Rose Bowl a few years back. But TCU and Ft. Worth have a great fondness and history of football down there, which is a huge advantage compared to what we have endured for so long. Its really just apples versus oranges when you look at it that way. To ArkStFan's point, the number of P5 schools will continue to stay right around that 65 number--it could grow some, but it won't be much. Really, the schools who have made the jump up from non-AQ to AQ recently (Utah, Louisville, & TCU) had made their football programs top notch by earning BCS berths--and in the case of Utah and L'ville, had good to awesome basketball teams year-in and year-out. It took TCU 18 years to climb back up the ladder, and the only way they got in was because A&M left the Big XII and the northern Big XII schools wanted another confernece opponent in Texas. I say all this because those three schools have had decades of tradition, recent and historical success, and location on their side for each conference that picked them up. If we ever became a P5 school, it would be in the Big XII. Well, the only way that happens is if the conference lost two or more huge programs. So let's say that happened--let's say Texas, OKlahoma, Okie State, and Tech all go West to make it the Pac-16, and Kansas moves up to either the B1G or the ACC (all of these are heaviily rumored to eventually happen in the future). Then, the Big XII does the old Big East move and just poaches from the conferences below and HOPES it can still satisfy the other big conferences to keep its AQ status (would never happen today). That occurs, and the need arises to replace 5 teams to play WVU, Iowa State, Kansas State, TCU, and Baylor. First call that gets made is to Cincy. Next call goes to USF and UCF. Then UH gets a call. That leaves one spot left--for SMU, Tulane, Memphis, and everyone else to fight over. But let's say we got that spot. We have finally made it up that mountain!! I am telling you that this league would no more get to be called AQ than the curretn AAC or MWC does. Its why the AAC/CUSA/SBC just have it all wrong and the MAC and MWC have it all right about geography alignment for rivalries and travel--almost every school in the G5 have zero chance of ever being an AQ school ever. If Boise State couldn't pull it off after their run, then no one else is going to do it, either. The amount of sustained success and history has to go for decades to even get an AQ look. No one in the G5, except for UConn, has a chance of moving up from the non-AQ. Its just reality of the NCAA today.

I heard that Vic Trilli was seen at a Wal-Mart in Kansas buying a chia-pet, because he likes the way they grow...

We beat Baylor at Fouts in 2003. They were the dregs of the Big XII for many years, until Art Briles and RG III came along. TCU beat OU in Norman in 2005. The Sooners had won the Big XII in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Take that for what it is worth--that win against Baylor at home was my favorite moment ever at Fouts. Its not even close, either. Beating a SWC team at home by 38 points seemed unfathomable for decades, mostly because we sucked or because they wouldn't play us in Denton. But even I recognize that TCU's win over OU in 2005 was about 100x more meaningful to their program and where they went from that point than what we got from beating Baylor 52-14.

I do remember before that OU bloodbath that Galloway had Dodge on his show and how he wanted us to really bring it to Zero-U...and I remember George Riba attending that game for WFAA here in DFW. What I don't remember is any coverage for us after that from the DFW media...funny how that works when we get crushed by name-your-AQ-Power in the opening game of the season, when we play someone that those guys actually care about, only to see that the best news for us from the bodybag game is that we got paid and the check didn't bounce... Georgia was different last year--probably because it was our 4th OOC game, we actually competed a little better. Here's to hoping that Texas will be, too, this year, even though we are playing them in the season opener instead of later in the year.

So could've Rice...who recruits kids that are more likely to attend UNT? OU or Rice? That's the lowpoint, sir...

I watched that entire game and remember that OU had a brand new QB in Rhett Bomar, who looked lost. They committed a lot of turnovers that day and TCU just physically whipped them. What's amazing to me about that TCU team is that if you looked at the SI College Rankings they did that year of all the teams in FBS then, you will find something rather humorous--we were exactly one spot behind TCU in those preseason rankings. TCU went on to finish 11-1, winning their bowl game over Coach Mac's ISU team, and ranked 10 in the final poll. We went on to lose to a team from Oklahoma (Tulsa) at home in a heartbreaker, 54-2...leading to a 2-9 season that basically led to Dickey's demise. How quickly these two programs moved in opposite directions from where the folks at SI thought they would be at the beginning of the year...

That OU game was embarrasing, but its OU--their were the Big XII champs IIRC that year. Them killing us 79-10, albeit awful, wasn't too hard to understand. A year later, going to Houston to play freaking Rice and losing 77-20 with them basically not trying in the entire 4th quarter (knowing they could have easily scored over 100 points) is the lowpoint of this program's FBS history since coming back from the dead in 1995. Its not even close, either...

I truly believe that the hardest part of running an athletic department is knowing when to make a personnel change at the head coach or the AD. It costs alot of money to buy out the contracts of people who are obviously not prepared to be head coaches in college or are just totally inept--or both. Its the final bit of proof to your alumni, students, and fans that you want to win first and foremost. NO doubt, that's a hard pill to swallow a lot of times. But that is the cost of playing poker at this level. If you don't want to pay-- or if you cannot pay-- to play at this level, it usually gets seen by your "university family" fairly quickly, telling them that COST is what matters most, not winning. At UNT, no matter what timeframe you look at, nor what revenue sport you look at, COST has always been the most important aspect to funding athletics. Simply put, its not something we really like to spend lots of money on, if at all possible. Look, I seriously doubt that we can't afford to fire Benford--some big money alums could get together and do it tomorrow, guaranteed. The problem is that you have folks within the university who would rather those alums use their funds to buy pianos, art collections, endowments of scholarships, or new equipment instead of paying for anything athletic. Therefore, its not really that we cannot pay to end this charade, its that we don't want to pay to end it. I suppose in my heart that if I heard RV say that this year, no matter what, we must see significant improvement in the w/l record or changes will be made, that would at least instill in me the idea that Benny has to make it happen by the end of the 2015 season or else. But we don't hear that ever, which means that we are almost forced to believe that we will do what we always do in these situations--wait until we only have to buyout one season of a contract. That is just depressing--especially when our OOC schedule is as pathetic as one can possible be to try and help the AD save face with this abominable hire.

I think a $2k stipend is just the start to convince the lower-level FBS teams and FCS teams considering a jump up to know that its about to cost even more to play at the highest level. The SBC schools and lower-revenue teams in the MAC and CUSA are now being warned of what it will cost. Sure, we can probably pay this, since we have the ability (if we choose) to increase a sports-fee for this. But schools like New Mexico State, ULM, Lamar, South Alabama, etc... that's who is going to get culled first. Maybe not all of them, but you get the idea. This won't affect the AAC or MWC at all. Schools with large enrollments in the MAC, CUSA, and SBC will be ok, at least for now. Eventually, though, the AQs learned their lesson on setting up requirements based on attendance or stadium size--you can get around those fairly easily if you are creative enough. So the best way to get rid of these non-AQ people is to raise the price of poker--literally the ante is now $200k more than it was before. It won't stop there...its actually genius in an evil sort of way. Politically, the current mindset in the country deals alot with inequality of income for the INDIVIDUAL (note, not per school or company). You can get in front of your political base by saying that you are for giving the athlete a stipend to be used as needed because you are in favor of helping the student-athlete get by. Guess what? The AQ media, who gets their audiences from these schools, and the politicians, who have graduated from most of these AQ schools, will gladly trumpet this. Meanwhile, in places like Denton, where athletic spending garners a lot of negative attention and creates tension among the faculty and administration, this will be the perfect excuse to say that we cannot pay that much to play at that level. These schools will just enjoy playing at a lower level again, so as to avoid the costs associated with playing at the top level. FBS football was meant to have no more than 80-90 members, tops...these schools cannot handle the idea that Georgia State has the same amount of VOTING power as Georgia. Paying players is a great way to keep the South Alabama's of the world from ever building up a program that could take any amount of resources and funding from Alabama. Pure greed, but its the way of the world in semi-pro athletics these days.

I wonder what things would be like here right now IF: 1.) We wouldn't have choked away the Ohio game, FAU game, and Army game in his third year (all at home)...I may be foregetting another close loss or two in there as well. Instead of 2-10, he goes 5-7, what happens after that, contract-wise? 2.) What if in Year 4, we don't lose Tune, DT, and Riley as starting QBs within about a month of each other? Would it have mattered? What if we win 3 games instead of 1 in our first 6 games? 3.) After Dodge finally got canned, Chico came in and really galvanized the team. What if we had run the table with Chico as HFC, instead of going 2-3? Would he have gotten the gig? I think the university got off very easy, when they kept Dodge for a 4th year and then he failed miserably (again), leading to his firing. If he had gotten 5 wins (I know, stop laughing so hard!!) somehow that last year, I'm still convinced we would have kept him here--and probably extended him. Think about that for a second...

Man, Marshall has a cush schedule for a non-AQ this year...I wonder if someone bought them off the schedule this season?

McCarney, Coker, and Stockstill are way underrated on this list...

I'm just glad they look SMU. If SMU stays in CUSA, with RIce, Tulane, and Tulsa, the league probably just adds UTSA to replace UH. MUTS was going to replace Memphis, no matter what. One of the F_U twins would've replaced ECU in the new CUSA, as well. Imagine being in the SBC, but it somehow being worse than it already was perceived to be...La Tech would've gone independent before joining the SBC. Basically, you'd have the old SBC, probably have added Texas State, and would see another set of FCS schools move up, such as Charlotte or Georgia Southern. No thanks...

The only way that SMU game isn't close to a sellout is if we get pounded at Texas. We will see a big crowd since its our home opener against a school we hate. A signature win is beating one of the big name programs in your state (Texas or A&M, or beating a ranked team in your state, i.e., a ranked Tech, Baylor, TCU, UH, etc..) or a huge power in college football. It will take a win like that to truly get people in the Metroplex on board. Schools like ours that have seen the benefits of beating huge names over the years include Boise State, Fresno State, NIU, UCF, and TCU back in their MWC days. When you beat a huge name team, its galvanizing to the fanbase. HEck, playing Georgia close for three quarters got us more publicity with our fanbase than beating Ball State, who was damn good last year. I think this about our opener in Austin. Texas has neve been more primed for an upset by a bought opponent than they are this year. Their QB situation is just awful. A new coach will have to work out the kinks with his team against a team that is much better than New Mexico State or some FCS scrub. It wouldn't surprise me if we, at a bare minimum, give them a game. I know that the talent in AUstin is off-the-charts compared to us, but that prima donna mentality that Strong has to turn around is gonna take some time. Could they crush us? Of course--they are at home, they have their refs, and they have way more talent. But I watched Mike Sherman's first Aggie team get run into the ground by Arky State in his opener. I watched Turner Gill take a decent KU program that Mangino left him open up at home against NDSU (before they got to be a FCS power), only to lose without scoring a TD. Its not at all impossible for us to compete with them at a better level than we have EVER competed against an AQ power team in a bodybag game. Obviously, we have to catch a lot of breaks and score some points, but our offense, predicated on controlling the clock, could be the perfect plan against a team like Texas if we were to get a lead. It won't shock me if we walk out of their with a win...anyone who has read my posts over the years knows that I am no homer when it comes to predicting UNT wins or success. I just believe that Coach Mac will have our guys ready. He knows what an opportunity this is and I expect us to be ready to get after them.

The MAC champions almost always are ranked or receiving votes. The Sun Belt champion never gets ranked. Why? Well, the MAC has been around a lot longer, but they also have decent media followings in Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Buffalo. The East Coast and the Upper Midwest still have a ton of people and press that plays a big hand in dictating who is "accepted" in college football and who isn't...hence, the term East Coast Bias, which is the Eastern Time Zone. Down this way, the SBC and CUSA are always going to be way behind in coverage and support against the SEC, Big 12, and , to a much smaller extent, the AAC. Hell, look at the state of Arkansas--you guys can barely even register a blip on the radar in a state with no pro team, all because of the almight Razorbacks and the SEC, even though yall have been a good program for awhile now. But up there in MAC territory, its the Big Ten and Notre Dame almost exclusively, and then the MAC for college media coverage in those areas. The MAC doesn't fight through three layers of conferences above them for coverage--they fight through one. Its why they have had a perception advantage for awhile against the SBC and now CUSA teams. All I know is that a Todd Dodge coached UNT team actually beat a MAC team and should've beaten the other one (Ohio) and he didn't beat really anyone else. And this past year, we beat a pretty salty Ball State team at home and played Ohio to the gun up there. I stand by my belief that the MAC gets more credit than it deserves...

I agree with all you say here, but I also just think of how big time TCU got by winning in a league full of well-respected football programs. If they could do that, I believe we could, too. Now, the best way to go out there is to go with UTEP and UH or UTSA.

FIFY

This. Boise State, Fresno State, Air Force, San Diego State, Nevada, and Hawaii have all been well-known commodities in college football for a long time now. Even Colorado State used to be a staple in the Top25 every year. New Mexico, UNLV, Utah State, and now, SDSU, are solid college hoops programs, too. There is no one in CUSA right now, other than the old USM teams, that can compare with the teams listed above in college football. Western Kentucky might be able to compete with them, but that's about it. CUSA is fine, for now. Its the SBC 2.0 with CUSA leftovers that couldn't move to the AAC. But I don't see it ever being a better league than the MWC or AAC, respect wise. And with SMU in the AAC, we aren't ever going there until they leave, so the other option above us that has some appeal, at least to me, is the MWC. TCU showed us the blueprint to compete with those teams out west. Utah and BYU left, but they got replaced by Boise State and Fresno State, so its still about the same level of competition, in my opinion. I just think we could easily copy TCU if we were in a similar situation and took the same attitude that TCU did in competing with those MWC teams.

You'd have to see SMU leave there first for that to even possibly happen. We sit directly in their TV footprint, which does matter for that far-flung league. I'd love it, too, but its not a possibility at all. Now, if you want to talk MWC, there's your road to pave...if TCU could do it out there, so could we. Seriously...