MeanGreenGlory

Great exposure! Let’s get the W!

Not saying as OC. Agree we’re doing well there. Just as support in a system he’s familiar with. He’d bring value even if as an analyst.

Graham and Eric Morris played together at Texas Tech, right? Get him back to Denton.

Just win. Go Mean Green!

I was on board with the AAC going after Air Force and even UNLV. But since they’re staying put, the AAC doesn’t gain much if anything by adding Texas State. Hold tight and bolster funds for when the MWC and ACC media deals/GORs expire and make more strategic moves then with programs that have a longer history of success. This plan backfired for the PAC. If the PAC is essentially the MWC, but leaves behind Air Force and UNLV and brings in Texas State or UTEP with an unknown media deal…did they actually improve their environment? I think not.

Fun Fact #1: Temple has won the AAC football championship more times than USF. Fun Fact #2: Temple is tied with Memphis and Tulane for the most number of AAC football championships out of all current members. Fun Fact #3: Temple, Memphis, and Tulane have won one championship each.

I can understand UNLV wanting to stay west, but I am surprised about Air Force not wanting to join the American.

I noticed and thought this as well.

Yeah, PE in the college athletics world concerns me—primarily because I think the schools are going to get worked into arrangements at the conference level that they aren’t fully informed about and then have to face any negative repercussions that come out of a deal going sour.

This is great to hear. The Mean Green Maniacs initiative seems to be a success so far. I hope both the AD and the Maniacs continue to push the envelope on growing the number of Maniacs that show up and continue implementing new ways to engage them at games (football AND basketball).

Exactly. Why we didn’t hire a former D1 football program builder like Fuentes or a successful Sun Belt head coach this last time around is beyond me.

I don’t think this can apply to UNT anymore. Last I saw, Caponi is the highest paid G5 assistant, and he fielded the WORST D1 defense last year. Make it make sense to me as to how that’s acceptable? Why are we paying an unproven coordinator top dollar to develop? That’s not our job. We pay him, and his job is to win. We keep hiring coaches who haven't done the job before at the D1 level and it keeps coming back to bite us. Sometimes they pan out (e.g., Graham Harrell as OC), but most of the time they flop and then we’re stuck footing the bill while being the laughing stock of college sports. We are no longer a coach “development” spot and can’t see ourselves as such anymore. We have the funds and program that warrant bringing in experienced, veteran coaches who have a resume of success at the D1 level.

Random question: Did Mike Leach every run the 3-3-5? Just curious because Morris seems to constantly reflect on what Leach did and implement that. Surely Leach had some defensive philosophies…I’m just wondering if the 3-3-5 is aligned or unaligned with Leach’s defensive philosophies.

Let Caponi go and bring in a successful “bounce back” DC from P4 or a successful DC from the Sun Belt. Key requirement: someone who has actually done the job before at the D1 level and has shown they can be successful.

This. Just because today isn’t a sellout doesn’t mean the effort was wasted. Keep the campaign going. Double down on making it inclusive as a community effort to build the program, and try again for the remainder of the home games this season.

Yeah, running the 3-3-5 defense well seems to be the exception and not the rule.

In no particular order: General We're a Carnegie-ranked Tier One public research university (only ~3.7% of all degree-granting institutions in the country have achieved this status). We're actively working on becoming an AAU university (currently only 69 universities). We have over 325,000 alumni who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is the fifth largest media market in the country. For reference: SMU has ~65,000 in the DFW metro TCU has ~82,000 in the DFW metro UTSA has ~150,000 worldwide Tulane has ~162,000 worldwide Memphis has ~165,000 worldwide Based on 2022 data, UNT is the 4th largest university in the state of Texas Texas A&M - 74,014 students The University of Texas at Austin - 52,384 University of Houston - 46,700 University of North Texas - 44,767 We currently have ~48,000 students in 2024, so there's a chance we may have surpassed University of Houston in student population or are close to passing them. For reference: 2024 Memphis Student Population: 21,736 2024 UTSA Student Population: 35,900 2024 Colorado State Student Population: 33,648 2024 Boise State Student Population: 22,408 2024 Oregon State Student Population: 32,722 2024 Washington State Student Population: ~30,000 Our campus quality has increased significantly in the past decade and is on par with the bottom half of P4 campuses (Arizona, Arizona State, etc.) with room to grow Our athletic facilities are comfortably on par with the likes of Colorado State, San Diego State, etc., and we have room to expand in a master-planned athletic village. DATCU stadium is a best-in-class stadium with a brand new broadcasting center Our indoor football practice facility is on par with the best out there We recently announced $21.5 MILLION in stadium naming rights for DATCU Stadium UNT first instituted an athletics fee in 2011 at $10 per credit hour. In 2018, students voted for an increase of $6.25 to $16.25. The fee just increased again, effective Fall 2024, from $16.25 to $17.85 per credit hour. We've sold out of premium football suites and basketball seating for over six consecutive years We pay competitive coaching salaries compared to our conference mates Our non-revenue sports are consistently competitive The most recent publicly available data shows that our athletic department operates at a small profit, which is significant given that many schools operate at a loss We have an athletic legacy, including the legends of Abner Haynes, Mean Joe Greene, and Hayden Fry Football Specific: Our football program has 25 conference championships, which ranks us 13th all time out of 135 FBS football programs in terms of number of conference championships won by a team. 1931 (Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association) 1932, 1935, 1936, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1946, 1947 (Lone Star Conference) 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1956 (Gulf Coast Conference) 1958, 1959, 1966, 1967, 1973 (Missouri Valley Conference) 1983, 1994 (Southland Conference) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 (Sun Belt Conference) We've made 13 postseason bowl appearances including 6 in the last decade: 1948 Salad Bowl 1959 Sun Bowl 2001 New Orleans Bowl 2002 New Orleans Bowl 2003 New Orleans Bowl 2004 New Orleans Bowl 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl 2017 New Orleans Bowl 2018 New Mexico Bowl 2020 Myrtle Beach Bowl 2021 Frisco Football Classic 2022 Frisco Bowl 78 NFL draft picks We average around 19,025 attendees per home game on average (6–7 win) seasons Our equipment and facilities are competitive with the top quarter of our conference mates despite coming a decade of significantly lower funding. Mens Basketball Specific: We've made it to the NCAA tournament four times, in 1988, 2007, 2010, and 2021. In 2021, we beat a strong Purdue team to advance to the second round We won the 2023 NIT tournament after beating Alcorn, Sam Houston, Oklahoma St., Wisconsin, and UAB. In 2024, we went to the NIT and beat LSU in the first round. We lost to Seton Hall in the second round, and Seaton Hall went on to win the tournament. We've won 21 conference championships: 1921-22, 1922-23, 1925-26, 1926-27 (Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association) 1937-38, 1941-42, 1942-43, 1947-48 (Lone Star Conference) 1950-51, 1951-52, 1952-53, 1953-54 (Gulf Coast Conference) 1987-88, 1987-88, 1988-89 (Southland Conference) 2006-07, 2009-10, 2009-10 (Sun Belt Conference) 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 (Conference USA) In the 2022-2023 season, UNT set a program record for regular season wins with 24 victories. This surpassed our previous record of 23 regular season wins set in the 2021-2022 season. We average 3,700 attendees per home game. For reference: UTSA: 1,051 avg. Texas St: 1,876 avg. Tulane: 1,188 avg. Florida Atlantic: 2,238 avg. South Florida: 3,142 avg. Are we a top SEC or BIG10 program with these metrics? Absolutely not. Have we punched above our weight as a holistic athletic department compared to the past 30+ years of lackluster conference arrangements and the lousy media money we've received (and still receive in AAC)? 100% yes. So, I will continue to argue that we bring a lot of value to bring to the table. Why? Because we have a much better foundation to build on than the likes of UTSA, Texas State, Tulane, and Rice. And we have a much higher ceiling than the likes of Memphis, Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, SMU, and TCU. There are two distinct reasons we haven't gotten closer to that ceiling yet: Too many years spent in poorly managed conferences like the Sun Belt and CUSA that provided little to no exposure and had very low media revenue sharing deals. This resulted in little to no money to expedite our program growth and no exposure to build our brand during our winning seasons. The wrong head football coaches. From the decline of Dickey, we've some how managed to string together Todd Doge, Dan McCarney, Seth Littrell, and now Eric Morris (TBD). The dodge years set us back a decade. McCarney started to turn things around and then he went downhill fast. Littrell had a great early run and then slipped into mediocrity. Morris inherited a conference championship appearance team, and a team that went toe-to-toe with Boise State under an interim head coach, and then proceeded to roll out the nations WORST defense in his first year. If we had just made even two solid hires that sustained success better than McCarney and Littrell, we'd be in a very different situation right now DESPITE not having received significant funds from our conferences. All this to say... The University of North Texas is still a sleeping giant. I'm confident that in the right conference environment (read: better media $$) with the right string of coaches, there's no reason we can't become a top-tier BIG12 or ACC program in the next decade.

I wouldn't go for San Antonio for the sake of going for San Antonio. I'd look for a program that has a longer string of success than Texas State. Outside of the past two years, they haven't been relevant. Don't let recency bias fog the goggles.

Just curious: was this from external sources or internal UNT sources who have first hand knowledge?

Publicity can help build a brand up faster than you think. Even if the UNT AD and president don’t want to go the the PAC or the move isn’t as likely because Memphis and Tulane aren’t actually going…being in the conversation still matters. This is just one small example of how UTSA is using this opportunity to elevate their brand above ours even if they don’t go to the PAC. By being in the conversation, and having Traylor stir the rumor mill on his coaches show, they’re positioning themselves amongst the top of the AAC. It may seem small, but over time, this is the type of stuff that (along with winning) shapes outside perception. Again, for us to not be publicly interjecting UNT in this conversation even if we don’t end up going is a disservice to our brand.

"To meet NCAA and CFP requirements, the league must reach eight full members, a reason that the Pac-12 — and/or its consulting firm Navigate — is in discussion with three other American Athletic Conference members: South Florida, Tulane and UTSA." Facilities, basketball, and olympic sports are all great...but if you didn't believe it before, this makes it crystal clear that football is the sport driving everything. To see UTSA mentioned as a desireable candidate alongside Memphis, South Florida, and Tulane instead of UNT despite our advantages in most all other areas of university and athletic department is obnoxious.

🤨

If Memphis, Tulane, and UTSA go to the PAC, and we don’t, it’ll be a colossal fumble for our school and AD.

On a related note, I happened to hop onto Amazon this morning, and this was literally the homepage for me: Think about how many eyeballs are seeing this ad across the country right now. If Amazon was the digital streaming partner and they wanted to promote their college games in a similar fashion, even the occasional UNT game ad on the homepage like this would build brand awareness.