untjim1995

They have lots of cash, tradition, and name recognition. Because of Doak Walker and the Death Penalty, SMU is still well known across the country. Heck, there are some media outlets that show "sympathy' for SMU for getting that death penalty because of the damage it inflicted. To me, it was very well-deserved, but you hear this line all the time when another college is in trouble for violations: "The NCAA will NEVER issue the death penalty again after it saw what happened to SMU." SMUs location obviously helps them, too. They have lots of help from the local media in Dallas, esepcially at Belo owned subsidiaries. Add all of this together, and its not hard to see how they have moved upward--and help use their sway to keep other down...

None of these bode well for UNT. If we do stay in the SBC, we really need to talk to La Tech and NMSU in a very serious manner. Both would be good adds to the SBC. If La Tech won't get past ULM being in the conference, then the SBC should then reach out to Texas State and UTSA, which would literally force La Tech and NMSU to either choose to be independent (death wish) or join our league. We have got to kill the WAC before it gets the chance to build itself back up and use its only advantage (its name) to pass up our league again. Going from 10 to 14, but finally getting a division that would be made up of closer teams would be a lot better than what we have now. UNT, TX St, UTSA, La Tech, NMSU, Ark State, and ULL in the SBC West, ULM, USA, WKU, MUTS, FIU, FAU, and Troy in the East.

What was attendance like at Fouts during the 80s and 90s for game days for those drum lines? What is now? Louisiana-Monroe was a conference opponent for us during that entire period. How many people came to that game each year that we played them in Denton? Seriously, the drum line could have been the best of all-time in any part of that timeframe and added more pagenatry to the day than any other band or drumline in the country and I doubt that Fouts or now Apogee would see 20k people dare show up to watch the Indians/Warhawks play the Eagles/Mean Green. I do agree with greenminer a lot in this thread. His point is that this stuff is the icing to the cake. But if the cake is rotten or if the cake is a flavor that very few people like, they will avoid the cake and eat other desserts. You want to know why UNT alums and students are so apathetic? We have given the following conference mates for football in the last 30 years: NE Louisiana/Louisiana-Monroe' Arkansas State Western Kentucky Louisiana-Lafayette Florida Atlantic Florida International South Alabama Troy Stephen F. Austin Southwest Texas State Nicholls State McNeese State Northwestern (La) State Sam Houston State Nevada New Mexico State Boise State--pre big time Boise Utah State Idaho What is even worse that that is that we have had 3 winning seasons since 1995 when we came back from the 1-aa purgatory while playing in two of these conferences. Heck, we have had 6 seasons where we won 5 games or more. All the rest have been bad to god-awful bad. I will say this until I die, but if we cannot get in a conference with teams that people in Texas care about, our product will always be deemed inferior, by the Texas media, by casual area fans, and especially by our UNT community, all of whom want to be associated with some (any?) of the other well-known Texas schools. Its those schools alumni with whom we work and attend church with, with whom we are often related to and get to hear how awesome it was to be at a school where big-time games got played year in and year out. We can get 20-30k every game by playing other Texas schools that are currently FBS. We can't do that against the teams we play now--unless we do something gigantic, like beating a ranked opponent like LSU, KSU, or UH this upcoming season. And, to me, that would be the equivalent of winning a lottery ticket--because it would set us up to move upward and beyond the quagmire we are stuck in now.

Not really a secret source at all, just a good friend who works for a bigger media outlet than the DRC. If he gets any answers, it won't be secret at all...

Great music tradition and pageantry will not get people to come watch UNT play Louisiana-Monroe. If it did, we would have great crowds all of these years. It is impossible to get anyone outside of the 5000 faithful fans that we now seem to have to ever get excited about those schools. Recruiting will always be a tough sell here if we are bound to the SBC. There are just too many other schools with more tradition and support to beat consistently. SMU, Tulsa, Rice, and La Tech all have winning traditions and reputations of success to help with their recruiting pitch. Obviously, TCU and Baylor have the big AQ advantage in the name conference of this state. North Texas has a lot to offer, but I think its tough to beat out these other schools if it just comes down to the football program by itself. If its degree, location, women, or something else, then we can compete all day. Its just now that we can even bring up our football stadium to a recruit without it turning into a disaster. But when it comes to conference affiliation, overall scheduling, lack of success, and the complete lack of attention from media and fans for a school of our size and in its location, we don't stand up very well, IMHO.

I asked a good friend of mine who is a reporter here in town to look into this CUSA/Alliance deal and if UNT is a part of it, and if not, why not. He said its a good question and that he will give CUSA HQ a call about it. Of course, he has lots of other things to cover, but hopefully, we can finally get an answer or two to this from someone who probably carries a bit more credibility in the DFW Metroplex than Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle.

The optimist in me loves your thought on this--and would help me sleep better, too!! The pessimist in me suggests what I posted earlier about not being included. The realist in me says, "This is North Texas. Nothing in terms of conference affiliation or expansion ever goes the way we want or need it to go to build our program upward significantly."

You know, I think this is a great post for several reasons. Everyone keeps saying that everything big in a deal gets settled privately, so its good that we don't ever hear anything from UNT regarding this merger and to let people know that we want to got to CUSA/MWC. But, I like it when an AD comes out and says, "Yeah, we want to move upward and this is why we should be considered. Your conference would be much better off with us." Basically, what SMU did and what La Tech is doing. But here's another thought about us being quiet about it all. Maybe, just maybe, we have been quiet and aren't making a fuss about all of this because of one simple reason: we have already been told that we don't fit in these conference's plans for expansion. Obviously, I think that would be a mistake by those conferences if that has been made clear, but I wonder if that hasn't already been made crystal clear by Craig Thompson and Britton Banowsky. Part of me thinks that if we were going to be in CUSA, not only would there be "smoke" around this story, I would think there would be a full-fledged fire in the Metroplex about it. Someone from CUSA would leak out something to the media or would have been screaming from the rooftop about us being a perfect fit for membership. I am getting more convinced everyday that we are going to be SBC members for a looonnnggg time to come...

The thing about turning around apathy that has grown wild for about 100 years is that it cannot turn around on a dime unless you beat someone people care about beating. Beat Tennessee, not Middle Tennessee. Beat Louisiana State, not Louisiana-Monroe. Hell, just compete with Alabama and lose a close game, don't get blown out and then trumpet your blowout victory over South Alabama. People in this locale have been trained very well not to care a thing about North Texas athletics for a lot of reasons. What they have rarely been given is an opportunity to care about the football team. With the exception of Hayden Fry's teams, there has not been much excitement with the program, with a few exceptions that were very short-lived. Beating non-Texas non-AQ teams won't do it, nor will losing to those old SWC teams help your cause even if you win out over SBC teams. The apathy isn't going to get turned around this year unless we compete/beat LSU, UH, or KSU. The other teams on the schedule provide absolutely nothing from an interest angle, even if Arky State has a fun new coach and a solid team, or Troy bounces back from a terrible year. People here in this area just don't care about those teams. To be honest, they didn't seem to care about those CUSA or MWC teams, either, but you could at least get the casual fan to go watch a game against Southern Miss or the Air Force Academy. To me, the only current hope that North Texas has is for the following to happen: That CUSA and/or MWC will take us in and then we start winning in that league and get to schedule and beat teams in OOC that people care about (i.e., SMU, TCU, Baylor, Tech) which leads us to being ranked. I think if we played in a better conference and finished ranked, after beating someone that people care about, then the apathy would start to go down. But if this scenario doesn't happen, I don't see any way that anything ever changes here, other than we still will have a great place to watch a game for years to come.

In my opinion, the very best thing that can happen for UNT in all of this is for both leagues to just stay separate. It gives our level of football a little more sway than it would if they get combined. Also, it leavs open the very real possibility to gaining admittance into CUSA or MWC, which would be huge for us. So with all that said, considering the luck we have in this stuff, I expect them to combine in some stupid alliance that won't help their cause at all and will cost them lots of money. Meanwhile, we will stay in a reduced SBC and watch somebody else move upward. Its what I am preparing myself for...

It will be very interesting to see which college will take a chance on Leavitt. Eventually, his success will get him another chance. Its just interesting that no college has openly courted him since the USF firing. Maybe he has had lots of offers behind-the-scenes, but I guess that's why I didn't know where he was these days.

Alcohol is legal--marijuana isn't, for the most part. Big difference. If you want the law to change, that's another story and one for the Eagles Nest, most likely.

Its my opinion that a majority of students will only show up for something that is either cool or can give them something for free. Since North Texas (State) has never considered anything athletic as "cool", that probably isn't going to get solved anytime soon--like decades from now, if at all. So, that leaves free. If you go to big time places to watch a game (Austin, Norman, College Station, Baton Rouge, etc..) often times as you LEAVE those stadiums there are giveaways being done of small stuff--soft drinks, toiletries, souvenirs, etc... If you combined something like this with the free books idea and something else like free pizza for a semester or free gas for a month, you might be able to get a few more poor students to stick around for some of this. Keep in mind that I don't think any of this will ever get put into place, but it would get some people to consider going and staying at a game. I would just make it that your student ID has to have been scanned into the system (i.e. at the game before halftime) to get anything from anyone. Or we could just somehow make the other Texas schools like us and want to be affiliated with us in a conference...never mind. Better find the free stuff.

LSU could be as happy as a fox in a henhouse, with absolutely nothing to prove and it would still be an epic beatdown. Preparing for any other option is naive at best. Just keep hoping all those big guarantee checks never bounce...

This sounds awesome--to schools like ours. As soon as something like this ever got forced by the NCAA (HA!!), Texas, OU, LSU, ALabama, etc..would run away from the NCAA and start their own collective grouping in a heartbeat. Hell, they might still do that anyway, if the NCAA ever showed those schools that they have a spine for fairness, not to mention enforcement.

Where is Leavitt these days? Is he coaching in college? Seriously, I hadn't heard what happened to him after USF, except that he was in a lawsuit against them.

Yes--Florida won the SEC that year and everyone else lost that could have trumped a rematch against FSU.

For Dr. Seuss: I do not like this thread, not one little bit In fact, I wish I could just make it q-u-i-t But, since I cannot do that in any way I would like to celebrate Tony Mitchell's unbelievable day I do so like Tony Mitchell but I also like Chris Jones, I do tell So please don't start any more dumb threads Because it makes all of our brains hurt in our heads

I tend to agree, but then I think about how long that takes and how quickly things move in college athletics and it just gets harder and harder to see a time in the future where we are playing a conference game against anyone outside of the SBC and how little those games draw in attendance. I tried to get 4 or 5 friends and family to go with me to the Western Kentucky game earlier this year. All said no because they had no interest in spending time and money to go watch us play the Hilltoppers. When we played Houston and Indiana, it was a different story.

The fact is that a good amount of attendants to North Texas home games come just to wait for the halftime performance and then leave. That is what happens when your school and town have decided for decades to put the main emphasis on using music and arts as the university's window instead of athletics. The Green Brigade is probably awesome--I have never had even one reason to believe otherwise, but I also believe that a band's sole purpose at an athletic event is to play the fight song, the alma mater, and other songs that get the crowd going, which also incorporates the halftime performance. I have never had a reason to ever care about what the band wore or their halftime performance because, get this, I got to a football stadium to watch the football game. The band being there is secondary to that, in my opinion. Same with going to the Super Pit for a hoops game. As a matter of fact, I like the direction the basketball pep band has gone versus when I was in school because they appear to have a lot of fun at games. Now, if there is a big marching performance between UNT and SMU at Apogee someday, I'll want our band to kill theirs--which wouldn't be hard, I'm sure. But I believe we are the only school in this state that has put more into music and arts instead of our athletic programs, so maybe that is why the rest of the state looks at us as if we are some kind of pariah when it comes to being conference members with us. Sure, alums of other schools like their band (A&M, Rice, Texas, and Tech all come to mind), but they really like their football teams much more. That's not how it is here in Denton. I love listening to the bands at the big schools play their fight songs and seeing them dot their i's or whatever the other traditions are, but its because they have great teams or great history at the highest levels of college athletics--we don't. I can promise you that no band uniform, no marching performance, and no other non-football related activity will ever change the fact that until we decide that North Texas Football must be a winner and play better-known competition that other fans care about, the attendance at SBC games and games against Texas Southern will continue to stay about the same--and we call can see how well other conferences think about our school as a potential conference mate. Winning halftime with a performance that would make the Music Department proud is awesome, but we will continue to get to play teams that surround that terrific halftime performance from towns like Troy and Mobile Alabama, Murfreesboro, TN, Jonesboro, AR, and Monroe, LA for decades to come if we don't continue trying to get our team to be relevant in major college football circles. Not trying to hurt the music folks feelings here, but if this was about our band, we would be in the Big XII right now, based on what others tell me how good our Green Brigade is compared to other bands. But having a poorly supported football team gets you the Sun Belt and apparently very little hope of ever getting to move upward, which in the end, costs the entire university and city millions of dollars in opportunities lost.

I think if a western slot opens up, the folks in Logan, Utah are going to get it. There is no presence in that state anymore and the Mountain Network needs that state. I doubt San Jose State will get anymore consideration than we do. The hardest thing to accept about this all to me is that absolutely no one in college football above our level thinks we bring anything to their conference. Location, enrollment, alumni size, improved results, great facilities, etc...I guess it means nothing to CUSA or the MWC folks. The real question here is WHY NOT? Why can't we get anyone to see this all and say that we are a school that should be added? Is it just because of football's poor record during the latter Dickey years and the Dodge era? Because if it is, that seems amazingly short-sighted. As a matter of fact, I don't buy that as an excuse. Anyone with half a brain could look at the attendance bump we have enjoyed since Dodge came here and now with Coach Mac and the new stadium and see that if we got to play teams from a better-known league that we could draw even better. I just don't get it. I will say it again, but the more I look at our situation, the more the reality sets in with me that Apogee Stadium probably saved our football program, but it won't save us from staying at this level of football, whether that continues as FBS in the future or not.

A&M never played at SMU, just at Kyle Field. They bought out the return game in Dallas. However, Tech was a regular with SMU for transfere a while as a home and home. As far as the 5 game home schedule, I would be just fine with it if the home OOC game was a strong opponent (either an AQ school or a team like Boise, BYU or AFA). But having your only home OOC game being against a bad FCS team in Texas Southern, who probably won't bring anyone to Denton--unlike Sam Houston, who will probably win the FCS title this weekend and will have some great momentum to play off of in 2012--just stinks, especially when you also offer the fans a great selection of home games from the well-thought-of SBC. Again, if we average 15k next season in attendance, I will be thrilled. You aren't going to get folks to pay time and money for home games against, Texas Southern, South Alabama, Troy, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Arkansas State. Look at this year, even with a bowl possibility still in play, a Saturday night game against Western Kentucky drew nothing. Its doubtful that this upcoming year will be much different, attendance-wise. And that is why UNT90 is dead-on about this--if this is our 2012 schedule, the AD better have a very good explanantion and it better mean 2013 bring us a nice home schedule.

The more I read this thread, the more I am beginning to realize that we are just always going to be a SBC team for a long time. We run our AD as if we have the perfect conference for a program in the Metroplex, when in fact, we are in the worst possible conference for our location to draw fans out to Apogee. We just schedule poorly and we look at ourselves very lowly. If UTSA can recruit kids (with that future schedule, I would assume they will) that can get results done, they WILL move upward before we do. They have a facility that can hold a lot of fans and a destination city to get teams to visit. And on another program's schedule, I believe that Texas State have a future HOME GAME against Texas Tech? Oh well, we got Texas Southern... whoosh

The opening game between Oregon and LSU was a neutral site game at Jerry World. Yes, starting out against a SEC or Big XII powerhouse is small time. But, hopefully the $750K payout will clear the bank...