TheFranchise

Tim, that's some fantastic writing. Please keep sharing!

I honestly see us keeping them at arms' length until halftime. Then they slowly pull away late and we lose by a respectable score of 35-21. I would LOVE to be proven wrong as far as whether or not we win, though!

Harry, thanks for reviving this. I'm reading through this thing and rolling. Coach Wintrich's glare once killed a man . . . before he was born.

I would click the green up arrow on this one if I could. This is awesome news!

I saw that! My buddy and I were trying to decipher what we were seeing. Since we were near the south end zone it was hard to tell with the naked eye what was on those cards. So, we started making up labels for what we thought we saw. At one point I yelled "Al Sharpton, taco, battleship, Eva Longoria!"

DirecTV says channel 21, at least on my guide, it does. "North Texas at Georgia." It isn't even named the generic "College Football" like it says for me on ESPN at that same time slot.

I should first state that I'm a current RTVF major and love football (actually, sports in general) and there were some pretty pumped up students around me yesterday throughout the game. Having said that, after Jimmerson's fumble (Emmitt was right, he never saw the field again afterwards) there was a gaggle of students around me that took off. One dude even said, "This sucks! Hey guys, wanna go crush some beers!?" A herd of students then left with him. It's ok though because the loud, rowdy and supportive students stuck around and were rewarded for their efforts. And yes, we did get pretty dang loud towards the end of the third quarter and it stayed that way til the end.

I was giddy seeing us start the game by passing relentlessly on our opening drive. This was certainly a team win but DT stepped up and did what he ha to do. And Chance? That dude is just downright electric. I kept anticipating him busting loose every time he touched the ball. And if course the defense. Yes, they surrendered an early 20 (those if you saying 27 forget the offense gave up 7) but holy crap, they went into lockdown after that. It was a tale of two teams.

You make a good point there. For the record though, I was pointing out that TCU led the nation defensively for a few years. Our defense looked THAT good. But make no mistake. That was North Texas football that I witnessed yesterday and I loved it!

I was there pretty much at field level in the student section and I can attest -- we were hitting with a level of ferociousness and tenacity reminiscent of the early 2000's TCU defenses. And while they still have some room to go before they get to that kind of a level, they did not appear to be simply gunning for anyone's head or maliciously targeting Ball St. players. What I saw was a defense that had allowed a team to quickly march down field in a little over five minutes and they bore down and tried to make up for that by making big hits and jarring the ball loose. It wa also quite hot for a team from Indiana and that took a toll on them late while our guys continued at that same pace. Sometimes you just get eat by the bigger, stronger and more conditioned team. That's what I saw Saturday afternoon. My hats of to Ball St., though. They played a heck of a game and I wish them the best from here on out.

Early start's fine with me! A little heat is nothing a few sodas and some extra water can't cure. Plus, I'll still be home in decent time for dinner with the family, a night-night story for the kiddos while I tuck them into the bed and some quality time with Mrs. Franchise. I love it.

*looks curiously at the crowd with Eli Manning-esque "dumb face" . . . Speaks into the mic . . . "One dollar!"

I can guarantee at least two . . . Me and a buddy that I'm bringing along to try and convert to Mean Green fandom!

In the spirit of my success last week, I played out this game on NCAA Football 14 today and it was awesome. Ohio won the toss and decided to kick. I was fine with that. Using a bruising combination of Brandin Byrd right up the gut and Peagram around the tackles, the Mean Green marched 79 yards on the opening drive to take a 7-0 lead. Carlos Harris made a key diving 12-yard grab over the middle to convert a midfield third down and kept the drive alive. The Bobcats tried to keep the defense off-balance with a hurry-up attack. It failed for most of the first half but a worn-out Mean Green secondary yielded a quick drive late before going to the locker room to knot the score at 10. In the second half, Ohio settled for two field goals while the Mean Green O-line continued to punish the Bobcat front seven and by the end of the third quarter it was 28-16, UNT. The Bobcats marched downfield for another late score and then actually missed an extra point to make it 28-22. On the final Ohio drive, with about 2:00 remaining, Bellazin came up with a huge sack on a midfield play on 2nd and 4 to push the Bobcats back eight yards. This stunned the crowd and the Bobcat offense. Two incomplete passes later, DT was kneeling on the ball to secure a 28-22 Mean Green victory. I'd be happy to see that become a reality tomorrow! Player of the game: Brandin Byrd, 22 carries, 152 yards, 2 TD. Side note -- DT was 12/18 for 205 yards and a TD pass. He did throw an early pick, though.

Hang loose, UTSA.

I just set up the record for the entire series. I also had to do a double-take when I saw the image associated with it on DirecTV -- the putter on the green. It's even labeled as a "golf" program.

I've gotta say, this feels like a low-risk, high-reward game. At the very least, I expect us to hang with Ohio for all four quarters. But there's a big part of me that feels we have a good chance at going up there and beating them. I really like our chances. If we lose, but played a good game I will feel alright about it. But if we win, I'll be on cloud nine. For you financial guys, this game feels like we've bought a call option at a very low premium. If we lose, we're out the premium price, which was not much. But if we win, the profit could be through the roof. -- Stephen

Man, I'm going back and forth on this one. So, in the instances where my head has a chess match with my gut, my gut gets the benefit of the doubt. Give me: Meanie Greenies: 27 RobertCats: 20

No, I meant the Mariners. They've never played in the World Series, we've never played for a National Championship . . . TCU has but it was ages ago, while the Rangers have had some good success lately and actually have played in two World Series still have as much to show to their name as the Mariners do. It's late and I'm towards the end of a work shift, so forgive me if I'm not making sense.

Exactly my point, sir. How good or bad the high school football teams in the area are/were, while it may contribute a tiny bit, has nothing really to do with anything. I mean, they had LaDanian Freaking Tomlinson playing there in the late 90's and still couldn't get butts in the seats. I grew up as a TCU fan and was big-time into them during his years, but he'd score a TD and you could hear crickets at AGCS.

I really don't get you, man. I mean, it's not like this is ponyfans.com or anything like that. In fact, if you'd read around here (I'm surprised you haven't since you seem to be so obsessed with sticking your head in here and trying to p*ss all over us) you might actually see that most North Texas fans actually look up to and respect what's going on over in Fort Worth. Let me put it this way: I know for certain a majority of your purple-blooded buddies over there harbor ill feelings towards the University of Texas because of the way a lot of their fans talk to you guys. Don't become one of those guys. Nobody likes those guys. Most Texas fans I know actually don't like those guys. You've been to a couple of big bowl games lately. Awesome. Wear your "Rose Bowl Champion" t-shirts with pride. But that's really it. It's not like you have an outstanding tradition built on decades of National Championships to hang your hats on. It's like a Rangers fan going in and bullying Mariners fans. In the end, it's really not much to brag about until you've actually reached the top. (I'm actually a Rangers fan, so let's not turn this into a Rangers v. Mariners thing) Just please hear me out and understand that you're going around picking a fight with the little kid that wants to be like you when he's older. In fact, just point your anger at teams that actually play you this season. How about that?

I dunno man. I'm as big of a high school football fan as there is out there, and if my wife would either be cool with me going or was interested in tagging along, I'd catch my Trinity Trojans on Friday night and then the Mean Green on Saturday as well. I know a LOT of D/FW high school football fans like to make it to college and high school games in the same weekend. My love for high school football has never kept me from making it out to a college game that same weekend. In fact, if I had to choose between the two, I'd still take the college game over high school. But maybe that's just me.

Yeah, anyone calling North Texas "One Dimensional" from a passing perspective simply looked at a boxscore from last week and hasn't researched anything else. This guy needs to do a little more homework.

Food for thought: Everyone keeps bringing up TCU's attendance. You might be interested to know that they didn't have regular sell-outs until the Utah game in 2009. At the time, ACS had a capacity of 44,000 and had only gotten about 60-75% full regularly until then. It wasn't until they hosted an undefeated Utah that night, that Fort Worth really recognized what they had on their hands. I mean, for crying out loud, they'd flirted with "busting the BCS" a couple of times already and had put up huge winning seasons. But they still only averaged about 31-34k. My point? Winning a crapload of games and playing a big-time opponent does a lot for attendance. In fact, if I remember correctly, that was about the time that the City of Fort Worth started marketing "purple Fridays" and literally painted the town purple -- even the Trinity River. Marketing the heck out of this thing certainly doesn't hurt. In fact, Emmitt has excellent ideas to do so. But none of that will compare to what playing big-time college football at Apogee would do. That trumps everything. On second thought, I guess it all goes hand-in-hand, really, and is all kind of cyclical. Winning gets the fans/students/alumni fired up --> the fans/students/alumni start showing up at games --> the ever-present and loud crowds fire up the players and athletic dept. --> athletic dept. starts putting more into the program --> bigger opponents start coming to Apogee --> The Mean Green start winning big games --> winning gets the fans/students/alumni fired up . . . wash, rinse, repeat . . . Hopefully that all made sense to someone. -- Stephen