MeanGreenGlory

Great home and home!

I see this as being less about SMU and more about how the bar is shifting in D1 football and the DFW Metroplex itself. The bar is being raised, and UNT will need to figure out a way to step up if we want to be competitive.

Agree. Controlling the game with offensive drives and keeping our defense off the field is key.

Great game.

I feel bad for Joe Greene. Imagine breaking barriers at UNT, becoming one of the best defensive players of all time, on one of the best defenses of all time, and then becoming a vocal supporter of your alma mater in retirement, only to watch your alma mater field the worst defense in the country. Put the "mean" back in the green.

I just tried to tune in on ESPN+ and I'm just getting the ESPN+ commercial on loop with a "Your Event Has Ended" scrolling banner. Did I miss it?

Congratulations!

If the AAC gets Army and VCU, I think Aresco has us positioned well when the ACC inevitably explodes. I wrote a thread about it here: If the ACC is able to stay together when the top brands leave and backfill, SMU may block us from the list of invitations which would leave us in a mediocre version of CUSA 3.0. That would suck. However, if Aresco has a healthy media deal to lure the middle-of-the-pack brands to the AAC, he could effectively kill the ACC and leave SMU behind forcing them to join CUSA, Sun Belt, or go independent.

Agree. It’s long been “We don’t have the money. Our fans need to buy season tickets and donate more.” While that statement is true, the notion that we need a team working on securing large donations is also true. Think about the last 20 years of UNT athletics. Now think about what might be different today if our AD made it a point during that time to secure $60M in business donations (approximately $15M every five years). There are plenty of successful businesses in the DFW area, I’m sure some of which are owned or operated by UNT alumni. It’s time we start proactively building relationships with them to ramp up large donations. I’m grateful for everything the Lovelaces and others have done to support our programs, and I hope they continue to do so. But if we want to be competitive in the American and beyond, we have to start sourcing additional big donations. Case and point—the last number I heard we need to begin the Athletic Center expansion is $20M. We’ve been sitting on that project for years now. I guarantee if the AD hired a seasoned fundraiser with pre-existing relationships the DFW area, they could whip that together fairly quickly in the grand scheme of things. Give them a high base salary, a junior staff member for admin work and cold outreach, and hefty bonuses for every $5M donated. Make mission #1 the Athletic Center Expansion funding, and then turn them loose for all other funding needs and keeping previous donors warm for future capital calls. I’ve never run an athletic department before, so there are many aspects of the job(s) that I’m simply unaware of. But at the same time, it’s obvious that the UNT AD has been missing basic business competencies like marketing, sales, fundraising, and customer support/experience for decades now and it’s really hurting us. I sincerely hope JM can build these fundamental business competencies within the department and right the ship.

I’m 100% on board with fundraisers earning commission and/or significant bonuses based on dollar amount milestones. Many large nonprofits and D.C. organizations have these types of compensation mechanisms in place because the organizations need the funds to survive. If you Google “fundraising jobs in D.C.” you’ll see a bunch pop up—many titles replace “fundraising” with “development,” but it’s usually the same or similar. For D1 athletic departments these days, I see this type of corporate and big-money fundraising as a division within the revenue/sales department. One team in the department is responsible for driving ticket sales and small donor donations. Another team is responsible for securing larger donations from businesses and ultra-wealthy individuals/families. Both are provided with goals and bonus milestones based on their generated revenue. If a D1 AD is trying to fund everything off of University dollars and ticket sales, they’re going to struggle to be competitive. These larger donations are more challenging to secure because they’re relationship-driven and can often take 12–48 months to secure, but they’re absolutely necessary in today’s environment.

Yeah, but I think this is why it’s important to go after businesses for these types of donations. I’m no tax expert, so perhaps there’s a CPA on here that can clarify, but my understanding is that if you have enough profit, you can use substantial donations like this to drastically reduce your business taxes. In other words, it can help make donations like this more of a wash for successful, well-managed businesses.

USF just landed a $25M gift from Tampa General Hospital to name part of their new athletic center. I hear a lot of people on here pushing donation responsibility on the average fan. While I agree fans should do their part to support the program, very few individuals can make donations that are above $10–$20M, and those are the level donations that really move the needle in programs. This made me wonder: Does our AD have anyone on staff who’s job it is to source donations from businesses and/or ultra-wealthy individuals? If we don’t start pulling in more of these larger donations, we’ll fall further behind in the AAC, and sourcing these types of donations is strictly on the AD—not the fans.

Hindsight is always 20/20. It’s challenging to fire a coach when they’re playing in the conference championship no matter which way you slice it. Coach Prime looks like he could have been a great fit for UNT now, but at the time he was an FCS coach with some success. At the time, Prime was a bigger gamble than other available candidates. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done well here, I’m just saying it’s easier to draw that conclusion now after seeing what he did week 1 against TCU compared to all the unknowns at the time of (potential) hire last year. I still believe in Morris & Co. and want them to have massive success ASAP here. That said, I can’t help but wonder how we would have showed up against Cal had Herman or Fuente been hired instead. I think we would have been more prepared.

Glad we drew better than SMU. Also, I’m pleasantly surprised we drew better than the Tulane game. The linear exposure will be huge for us with the AAC. As a few small data points, I have family in the Midwest and on the west coast; I received multiple texts from them on Saturday saying, “We can watch North Texas games now!” They could have watched before on Stadium, but flipping through your cable program menu and seeing a team just makes it easier and more “real.” The ESPN deal may help convert casual DFW fans into regular fans if we win enough.

This was my first thought as well.

Don’t we all, Jeff. Don’t we all.

I’ve seen a number of statements in various threads suggesting that Capone has never been a DC before. This is technically false. He was previously a DC at the FCS level. It was at the Division III level, but technically he does have DC experience at the college level. From Wikipedia: “Caponi's next stop was with Washington & Jefferson as their defensive backs coach. After two years as the defensive backs coach, Washington & Jefferson promoted Caponi to be the defensive coordinator.” I’m not suggesting this is the best DC experience of all time. I’m just pointing out that saying he doesn’t have any DC experience is technically false.

I just thought, “Let’s forget about Cal and start looking forward to stomping FIU.” That backfired.

I’m not saying our defense isn’t a problem—it clearly is. I’m just saying that our offense was also bad yesterday and didn’t do our defense any favors.

I mean, the silver lining is that the staff and fans have all quickly aligned on what “atrocious” means.

Just win, Coach O. Don’t misinterpret the frustration and honest reporting as people rooting against you. Every fan in Mean Green Nation is rooting FOR you. We’re cheering on YOUR success. We want nothing more than for you to WIN. So do whatever you need to do to win, and if that’s talk smack to the fanbase that desperately wants YOU to succeed and gets frustrated with a head-coach-proclaimed “atrocious” game, then by all means keep every single receipt like you’re getting ready for tax time. Hell, upload pictures of all of the receipts to TurboTax and keep backups on DropBox so they don’t get lost in a Nike shoebox. But just win.

The defense was bad all around yesterday. There’s no arguing that, and I also question if the scheme is right for North Texas… But to be fair, our offense didn’t do them any favors because our offense didn’t get any first downs in the last 40 MINUTES of the game. In other words, for 2/3rds of the game, our offense was on and off the field in mere minutes, giving our defense no time to recover and make adjustments with in-game feedback. Effectively, our offense allowed Cal’s offense to wear our defense down in the Texas heat the way we all hoped our offense was going to wear Cal’s defense down in the Texas heat. We have to improve all around this week.

Agree. At this point, the risk of taking a high school player is the same as taking a player who has sat on the bench for two years at a top program. The difference is that the transfer player has had two years to develop (physically and mentally) post-high school at a top program and has likely already adjusted to the game speed a bit more as a scout team member. Also, after a play has transferred once, they're less likely to transfer again. This means that you have a better shot at retaining them for 2–3 years assuming they're playing. The same can't be said for a HS player who sees some early success—they're more likely to transfer out. Hit the portal, and hit it hard.