untjim1995

Can anyone verify that these guys are certain to play here? In other words, have they signed LOIs already, or just given verbals? Seriously, I am wondering if they are here for sure.

Maybe the Southland Conference could make SFA forfeit their game against us? Since we have played several non-Division 1 schools, of whom we have struggled mightily against, maybe they could force SFA to give us that one back, too?

If we were to lose out the rest of the way, there's no way this place is paying off 3 more years of Benford's $390k contract. No way. After next year, its possible, about 50/50 at best. If we fired him then, buying out two years of the contract, the next coach isn't getting paid anywhere close to what Benford has gotten paid, simply because of budget. Just remember, even with the humongous strides we have made in supporting athletics over the last decade, as compared to our history before that, one thing we have never done is to buyout more than two years of a coach's contract in a revenue sport. We have brought back Vic Trilli for a 4th (out of 5 years) year after a disaster that is worse than Benford's short tenure, which got a 4-22 record for his last year. We did the same thing with Todd Dodge in football, which got him a 4th (out of 5 years), and he responded by winning one more game before getting canned in mid-season. We can all hate it--and we all do--but Benford will be here again next season, and probably the year after. When you are 100% completely serious about athletic funding, you build the best facilities (or remodel) them, you hire and pay for good coaching and ADs, and then when the leadership proves to be failing, you make changes--NO MATTER HOW COSTLY THEY ARE!! Western Kentucky--not Kentucky, mind you--gets this. Southern Miss--not Mississippi State--gets this. But those schools have seen what athletic success has meant for their entire university and town. Here in Denton, we haven't seen that fully yet. With football's first taste of legitimate success as a FBS program in 10 years or more, maybe that success will get felt at a huge level in Denton and on campus, enough to cause bigger changes. But, until that happens, basketball costs money...and we are always about value first. Just look at what we promote as a university and you get the idea very quickly.

That's a program that will not be playing FBS football within 10 years.

Orr and Chancellor were my two favorites to watch. Orr was a wrecking ball on defense and you just always felt that Brelan could take it to end zone anytime he touched the ball. They will be very difficult to replace.

He could say it 30 times, and it would still be true. I wish he'd say it 70 times... (Here's to you UNT90)

Its typical SMU fandom talk, but they aren't going to get out of the series for at least the first two years, probably the first four years as well.. They'll need the gate that a home game against UNT will provide in 2015, for sure. Beyond that, as I have said before, I doubt that series makes it too far out into the distant future, unless, of course, we go back to sucking. Over the last 25 years, UNT has wanted to SMU anytime, anywhere. SMU has played us when it was painfully obvious that they needed us on their schedule. Think 1989, 1990, and 1992, when they were a glorified i-aa school and they needed a few home games. We gave them that in a 2 for 1. We didn't play again 2006 and 2007, when SMU was desperately hoping to prop up Phil Bennett and get him a winning record (that was hopeless). We cost them a bowl bid in 2006 and gave them their only win in 2007. They agreed to play this "series" with us when UNT looked like death warmed over and they looked like they were ready to rise up to somehing great under June Jones. BUt Dan McCarney has started to do what Dan McCarney has always done--build up a program thru its strength& conditioning regiment and by developing the lines. June Jones, on the other hand, decided to go after the Arizona State job, only to get shafted in the end, and leaving SMU with a coach that might as well be lame-duck with his players, coaches, and fans. And to top it off, they were stupid enough to extend him!! SMU money will probably save the day if they need it to, but while these two teams do play, we need to remind everyone in the DFW area that SMU is a dead horse. Their SWC media in DFW can try all they want to convince us all otherwise, but that program has been on life support for the better part of the last 25 years. Even after its last resuscitation made SMU look like they had something going again, the doctor who brought the patient back to life, by all intents and purposes, appears to believe himself that this patient cannot be brought back to anything close to what its SWC alumni believe it can be. And, to be honest with you, he's correct. That ol' grey mare ain't what she used to be--even from two years ago. I still won't be surprised at all to see SMU give up scholarship football one day in the near future when the AQs eventually breakaway. It will just be too tough for them to swallow what has finally happened to them. No amount of Doak Walker, Don Meredith, Eric Dickerson, or Craig James highlights will ever bring that program back to national prestige and prominence. That barn burned down decades ago--from the cash that was being illegally spent on their payroll.

Probably, but who cares? I remember when the Aggies hired Mike Sherman to take over for Franchione in 2008. Their first game was a home game against the powerhouse SBC team, Arkansas State. The Red Wolves promptly ran A&M into the ground and beat them. Not saying that's gonna happen, here, but we have just as good a chance of pulling off something similar if UT isn't ready for us and if we can run the football. Their QB situation is still gonna be terrible, IMO, next year in Austin. We'll see... I think we will probably lose big, but I also believe this is our best chance to compete with them since we played them in 2002 and lost 27-0.

OU's offense coordinator that season was none other than Kevin Sumlin, head coach at Texas A&M now.

La Tech got drilled by Okie State, 70-55. That would have been the league's biggest win by far if it had actually happened.

I don't remember anyone thinking Darrell Dickey should have stayed here, but your points are valid...

I thought all year long that our S&C program showed its worth in a great fashion...I've never seen a North Texas team look that much stronger than the competition in the 4th quarter of games, even the teams from the SBC run of the early 00's. To me, this is where you can credit Dan McCarney's expertise for developing linemen--he knows how to coach 'em and he knows how to build 'em up too!!

Dude, this is just plain wrong... They mostly work at Domino's...

Yes, Hutch Black Jersey Night summed up Dickey's last few seasons here perfectly. Its up there on the list of Embarrassing Moments in UNT Football History. Of course, Todd Dodge also didn't run off with any TVs from the athletic department, either, so that MFer had that going for him, too. DIckey was a better head coach than Dodge, obviously, but he was nothing to brag about either. Any coach that got the SBC in its early years with the defensive talent and running game we had would've have duplicated that success, at a minimum. Our OOC games were just brutal during those glory years, except for the Baylor game in FOuts in 2003. McCarney is just such a breath of fresh air compared to anything we have had here since Corky Nelson, and really, since Hayden Fry. A guy who can coach, develop talent, connect with the fanbase, and make strong recruiting in-roads with Texas HS coaches are all attributes that very few around Denton have had since 1979.

Todd Dodge did one great thing for UNT--probably his lasting legacy. He made it public that he was promised a new football stadium when he was hired and he never stopped bringing that to light. It was a great way to keep the BOR and administration honest about this. We aren't playing in any bowl game this year if we are still at Fouts right now, in part because McCarney woul have never agreed to coach here with that toilet as our home field. To be a real player in college football means you have legitimate facilities, coaches, strength and conditioning programs, and funds to pay them with.

He's the worst poster on this site...and its saying something, although GL2Greatness and Froggy Style were right there with him until they disappeared. Just use the ignore function.

Can you imagine how much Brett Vito has enjoyed the ride up the roller coaster this year? The man had to endure Darrell Dickey's last two seasons, then got the Todd Dodge disaster years, followed by two years of McCarney trying desperately to rebuild this thing from the ashes. Its no wonder he told me earlier this year that if UNT cannot make it up the mountain with McCarney, they need to seriously look in the mirror and ask themselves if this is the right level of football for the future. He must feel like he has climbed Mount Everest with the last decade of covering this beat for the DRC.

Use the Cotton Bowl to do a 1 and 1 series with an AQ powerhouse. Get Nebraska or LSU here for a game there or get a team like Clemson or Florida State here. Apogee is great for everyone else we schedule or would schedule us up here. Since Texas, Oklahoma, A&M, and Arkansas already play annual games here, that will be tough to get them here. And since Tech and Baylor play here in the Metroplex every year, that would be tough, too, although Apogee would hold up a crowd for either of those two teams. This doesn't even count the games these teams play here against TCU or SMU. Another team to get after for an opponent for a bigger series is Okie State--get them for a 2 for 2, with one of the games in Denton and one in Dallas, if needed. But they just get a game with TCU every other year, so you could them for the years that TCU goes to Stillwater. I've always felt a Cotton Bowl game during the State Fair that featured us against a Nebraska or Okie State would get a huge crowd. But its a pipedream for now, since our OOC schedule is booked out for so long with the $$$ games we always play on the road and the $$$ games we are now paying FCS and FBS dregs to play at Apogee every year, plus the SMU and Army games.

I certainly think we woke up yesterday, for sure, and it was glorious. But the giant can easily fall back to sleep quickly if we don't follow up this awesome season with another big year in 2014. The crowd yesterday looked awesome--it reminded me of the NO Bowls where we had bigger traveling crowds than we had at Fouts for SBC games. That seems to be the biggest question for UNT going forward--how do you get the people who showed up at the Cotton Bowl in their Green to do the same thing when we play a non-AQ game at Apogee? To me, that's when I know the giant has finally awakened for good, when home games against conferemce mates like MUTS or WKU on a non-Homecoming weekend draws 25k or more. Heck, even against the Texas CUSA teams on one of those weekends, too!! Dan McCarney is a great ambassador to this place--I just hope that an AQ team that needs a new coach doesn't come calling soon. His age and health might keep some folks away, but his enthusiasm and experience and ability to connect with the fanbase would more than overcome those first two concerns. If Art Briles leaves Waco, I could easily see them calling on Coach Mac. If Kansas wins another 2-3 games next fall, they would be the most likely program to go after him. Those are the types of concerns that make you realize that the sleeping giant could be forced back to sleep. But its also why we just have to enjoy this season as much as we possibly can. And we also get to realize that one attitude of North Texas seems to have finally died off--an administration and community that doesn't care a bit about athletics. Because a university that could care less about athletics doesn't come out of the woodwork and just show up like they did yesterday without having thousands of die-hard fans and their friends and family attend a bowl game--that is the biggest difference I see between today's UNT and the late 70's NTSU with Hayden Fry here.

Raise and three more years--today!! Do it, BOR!!

All three of the guys you just listed played HS ball in suburbs...that question will just have to be ignored because of the implied evilness of suburbia.

No matter what the attendance is, just don't let the local media get away with putting us down for not supporting our team enough with attendance smack. Their beloved DFW Private Schools wouldn't get 25k against freaking UNLV on New Years Morning in Fair Park... If an announced crowd of over 35k is what we get, I would feel like this was a huge success. And if we somehow got an actual Butts-in-Seats of over 35k, I will feel so ecstatic about us finally making a dent with the DFW fan.

That game may go down as one of the worst BCS matchups of all time, in terms of attendance and fan interest from outside of their fanbases. The Fiesta Bowl probably hates Oklahoma so much right now for beating Okie State, which forced Baylor on them. Combine that with UCF, who is a good team, but doesn't really resonate with the AQ public, and you see a Fiesta Bowl that will not get any ratings, not have great attendance, nor will it get that great of coverage by the national media.

Tech won't finish higher than 9th in the Big XII. That win for LSU won't help them too much, but a loss would've really hurt. Tech would kill us by about 50, though.

This. Hell, we got more buzz from only losing to Georgia by 24 points than we did for any of our victories, including a Ball State win that should've got more buzz than it ever got. 95% of the College Football Media and Fandom follows AQ powers. If you want their coverage and respect, you have to compete closely with them and beat them every so often. See Boise State, TCU, Fresno State, and the old Southern Miss teams from years ago--those were/are your annual non-AQ darlings almost every year.