MeanGreenGlory

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.

I was hoping Traylor would flop and UTSA would be locked into a floundering program for ten years. That obviously hasn’t happened and Traylor to Baylor is a very real possibility. If this happens, it would be textbook perfect for UTSA. They’d get a massive buyout due to Traylor’s high salary and multi-year contract. They’d have plenty in the bank to go get a solid new coaching staff and keep the momentum rolling. This is what we’ve aspired to do…almost did it with Seth going to K-State…but have never managed to do. All of our HC hires have come on the heels of a firing and buy-out.

Seth said this as well when he brought in the 3-3-5. It’s interesting that both offense-minded HCs brought in the 3-3-5 because it’s “difficult to game plan against.” Yet no other offense we play seems to have trouble picking it apart on game day.

I hear this. However, if we want to be legit AAC championship contenders on a regular basis, we should not be blown out by Cal at home. Full stop. We should be able to beat them or, at worst, keep it close. Can we still finish the season 6-6 or 7-5? Yes. But I think many fans (myself included) are tired of seeing the insane potential in this place only to have season after season of 5–7 wins. It's just not enough anymore—that's why Seth was let go. We need to consistently be winning championships and bowl games. We need to be ranked on a consistent basis. We need to take care of business every game day when it's time to take care of business. In the game against Cal, we didn't even come close to living up to the standard of taking care of business and that's why people are losing their minds. While some of the language used by folks to express that on here and on social is a bit over the top, I think the sentiment is reasonable.

This hurts... But at this moment in time, it's true.

What happened to our run game? We have experienced O-Linemen and running backs. Why aren’t we leaning on them?

Army would be a respectable add. Otherwise, don’t add anyone and wait for the inevitable collapse of the ACC. It would be foolish to add some Sun Belt schools right now and then not have room for someone like Duke if they need a life raft in a few years.

How about those Cal Bears coming to town tomorrow? Looking forward to seeing the Mean Green take care of business.

This is a tangent from the original topic, but just in case anyone from the AD sees this feedback and wants tangible ways to improve it, one of the best resources I've ever encountered on user experience is "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. The book has stood the test of time, and the principles of the book can be applied to most marketing, sales, and all components of customer experience within the department (not just web/mobile user experience).

This is fantastic. We need lots of this. Even if lunch is maxed out at 350 students, the graphic/tweet should make its way to at least 3x that by way of friends texting one another the post with "Should we go get free lunch?" Now, you have ~1,000 (potentially new) student eyeballs on the football program during game week.

I have concerns that our defense hasn't had enough experience to fully execute the 3-3-5 defensive scheme and therefore risk giving up big plays. As a result, as excited as I am for the air raid to return to Denton, I think it's in our best interest (for this game in particular) to focus on our run game and leverage the heat to wear Cal's defense down while simultaneously limiting the playing time of our defense and their offense. If we go full-blown air raid and try to score fast, I think we end up in a high-scoring shoot-out that will be a toss-up as to who wins. If we focus on running the ball, wearing them out, and limiting their offense's time on the field, I think we dominate the game. UNT 38 / CAL 24 After starting the season 1-0, the staff has a stretch of five perfectly beatable teams to fully dial in the air raid offense and 3-3-5 defense so the team is firing on all cylinders for the four-game gauntlet of Tulane, Memphis, UTSA, and SMU. CAL isn't a team where we must come out guns-blazing just because. Play this one smart. Control the clock. Wear them down with our stable of running backs. Get the W.

How many years left do Earl and Rogers have? Do they get the COVID year?

I don’t know who you are, or if you’re even a UNT fan…but this has me laughing.

You are correct.

This guy is throwing out new graphics and conference combinations every few hours… That said, I would love this particular combination.

I think people are underestimating the leverage that Aresco has right now. Let's say that there are indeed four AAC schools who are ready to leave the AAC and go to the PAC, and they give their notice today. The American Athletic Conference bylaws call for a $10 million payment and 27 months notice for a school to withdraw from the conference. Aresco has said he's open to negotiating, but he can just as easily decide NOT to negotiate and say, "Withdrawl notice received. You owe us $10M and cannot leave the conference for 27 months." What does this do? It puts the PAC schools in a situation where their 2024 scheduling is royally screwed. They would have three conference games and probably a few OOC games scheduled, but need to fill the other five to six weekends with non-conference teams. As Jared Mosley recently stated in the podcast with JD, scheduling is challenging and takes time. Can you imagine what schools have open availability to schedule games for next year? Let alone having enough schools with perfect open slots to fill out a full season for four schools? You're looking at throwing scraps together at best. Most FBS teams are fully scheduled for next year so it'd likely be a whole lot of FCS schools, etc. If Stanford scoffs at the idea of playing the likes of Charlotte, UTSA, or ECU, do you think they're going to enjoy having a schedule full of schools like Houston Christian, Central Connecticut, or whoever else they can buy with short notice? So now, let's say you're a media partner and you're excited about carrying a conference with the likes of Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, and Washington State. Are you willing to give them the $20M+ per year those schools want to deliver a lousy schedule of Oregon State vs. Houston Christian for a full season before even having a chance to *potentially* carry a more compelling schedule? I don't think any savvy media partner would pay premium dollars for that type of content. There may be a media partner that say, "We'll partner with you in 2025 IF—and only if—you have X schools in your conference." But if that's best-case scenario, what does the PAC do for media revenue for 2024? Are all four schools willing to forego media revenue for a year and have a season of completely lousy scheduling? Not to mention, given how fast conference realignment is moving now, who's to say that Stanford and/or CAL aren't invited to the BIG10 by 2025 and the schools that make the jump are now left without their crown jewel in the conference? To sum it up, if Aresco just says "No" to withdrawal negotiations and holds firm on the 27-month timeline for exiting the conference, he'll likely hold the leverage needed to convince the PAC to merge with the AAC.

https://x.com/mhver3/status/1691164980337319936?s=46&t=IO-g6IKjsv35TYFbX8rtUA This is the only thing I’ve seen in terms of source…but this guy has been all over the place with his “hearings.”

I put seven (ESPN’s projected six + I think we can take Cal at home in the heat). However, if we are 6-0 going into the gauntlet stretch of Tulane, Memphis, UTSA and SMU, I think we’ll have what it takes to win at least one of those if we’re healthy. Memphis and UTSA didn’t beat us by much last year… All that to say, I think seven is realistic but 8–10 is absolutely doable if Morris and Capponi get the defense rolling and we stay healthy.

To all the Mean Green podcasters and content creators: There’s no such thing as too much North Texas coverage. Keep doing what you’re doing with your own spin. It’s all fun to watch/listen/read, and it also helps shape the public narrative.

A few observations as I read comments on Twitter/X around realignment: 1) The Dodge era set UNT football back decades. Dickey had a solid run, and had we made a better hire after Dickey, we might have gotten out of the Sun Belt sooner, and that success could have had time to compound to make us a P5 no-brainer today. 2) Littrell had two good seasons, and I’m grateful for that, but recency bias is a MASSIVE factor in the public discourse around all of this. There are AAC/MWC/PAC4 fans who aren’t familiar with our program and think UTSA is more valuable than UNT solely because their football team has had success the past two years. Our lack of recent football success is our Achilles heel right now. If we are “left behind” again, it’ll likely be due to the fact that we accepted Dodge’s, McCarney’s, and Littrell’s mediocre results for too long and didn’t make the decision to find a winning coach sooner. 3) Football is truly diving all this. Basketball is an afterthought. Golf, women’s soccer, etc. don’t get any mentions. If you have some time, get on Twitter/X and make some noise about UNT. It’s free to do, and can help shift the public narrative.

I thought it has been established that the nickname came independent of Joe Greene?

I don’t know… SMU has made it *VERY* clear they don’t value the American and are willing to do everything the can to get out—including foregoing conference revenue for up to seven (!) years. SMU has money, but they haven’t done anything impressive with that money recently. They’ve fielded okay football teams and really bad basketball teams. If I’m Aresco, I want the DFW market, and I’m probably annoyed with SMU publicly discrediting my conference recently. I probably see that North Texas has done more with less recently and will bring more eyeballs given the size of the school enrollment and alumni. There’s a chance he sees more potential value in UNT over SMU.